It is snowing and so very pretty; I love the snow and especially the first of the winter. I love seeing the fat cardinals perched in our trees staring into our home with tears flowing waiting for t-bone food pellets that, well, never get there so they fly off in disgust. Speaking of disgust ...
The rapidly unraveling powers in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran, is what I call a clash of titans for those nations are centuries old with long standing cultures and wealth and thus networks. This entire ISIL and the other thug groups are at the core Muslim and claim either to be Shia or Sunni. This is a millennial conflict so it will not simply stop.
The division is very real with centuries of drastic killings and bloodshed. Things are terrible with the ripping apart of Syria and all that goes with that. But now with the Saudis and the Iranians breaking of relations one must factor Turkey into this equation as well as, yes, Israel. Turkey, as I have said many, many times, is the strategic balance of the Middle East culturally, geographically and economically.
Having worked and traveled extensively in Western Turkey, I grew to love the Turkish people and their amazing journey began by Ataturk's reform after WWI. With the diplomatic meltdown between Iran, the spiritual temple of Shia and Saudi Arabia, the spiritual temple of Sunni, Bahrain has now, this morning, joined with her huge neighbor Saudi Arabia, in breaking relations with Iran.
Never forget there is a bloody civil war with another SA neighbor, Yemen, that poses as the military triggering mechanism for the entire Middle East to go up in a nuclear cloud; literally. Therefore, that small, uniquely quiet, nuclear nation of Israel as well must be factored to this cataclysmic cauldron of dissent and death. I have long contended that Israel will hit Iran and her nuclear plants and arsenals when the world least expects it for that is what Israel does and does very well. Add to the fact that Israel has more to lose than anyone and you can imagine the strategic planners and diplomats sweating bullets. I further contend that the United States is doing something or a lot to keep Israel away from the military option that one day we will know. The chilly relations spearheaded by Obama is of great concern to me as the backdrop to this paragraph.
It is so very hard for me to not waltz down the trail of the political aspect of all of this but I choose not to make that journey. We are walking on shells of embers long glowing and hot but made hotter with the oxygen generated from the diplomatic falling apart the world must be studying closely. Interestingly, I still wonder where China is in all of this. Too large, too potent and too quiet the Chinese are and that troubles me greatly.
I will close with the fact that I realize I have only stated the blatant obvious but in that stating, my level of concern about America's stepping back from the table of leadership that has historically quelled issues in the volatile Middle Eastern region has gone missing and the US leadership is solely to blame.
The world is facing a morbid and growing fundamentalist reality with the Muslim world and I say that in knowing so many Muslim people I admire deeply. But the fact is, it seems, is that the Islamic world is standing on the sidelines watching the death, destruction and migration patterns of what is a slice of Islam, ISIL and the other radical militants. I very much want to see the religion of Islam get radicalized to stamp out this cancer that is sweeping the world with fear and discontent and lack of trust.
Seeing Europe fundamentally shutdown in fear, places I have been many times with many friends in those nations, has been disheartening to me thus the threat of ISIL has carried the day for fear has caused the EU to shut up and shut down their civilization. That is very, very sad!
We must all watch in the days ahead the Sunni / Shia divide with the break in diplomatic relations but as importantly, never let your view shift too far from Israel and China. I think we now clearly know what the US leadership reaction and response is which is fundamentally nothing. To have allowed this to fester and explode as it has is simply criminal but we have what we have and we are what we are and again, I find that all very sad from the greatest nation the earth has ever known; well at least we once were.
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