zazen

But the bottom line is that they’re against imperialism and injustice - even if they use it for their own narrative / justification. Apartheid South Africa and Israel are literally committing injustices - but SA is far away and wasn’t an existential threat to Iran in the same way Israel is within the same region - especially after having seen country after country get taken down. Agree with the rhetoric being inflammatory - but it’s something most of the ME and now most of the world seem to fell even if they don’t say it. And it’s not directed at the people or Western nation states per se - but the Empire state that’s allowed corporations to hollow out the nation state and its people also. Hence even Westerners themselves highly critical of it - beyond the injustice it’s causing globally.

I think I view it like this: there’s an objective reality that’s materially surface level. We have a conciousness of depth beyond the surface and have constructed language in order to coordinate enough to survive. We labeled one part of that reality Woman-Man. We are the subjects with enough soul to be aware of the objective part of reality - and that we are more than it. Is a apple a apple objectively?

@Breakingthewall No doubt they use it for legitimacy. But doesn’t erase the material reality of a security dilemma being there (between Israel/Iran) - and an imperial hegemon with its junior partner wanting to contain you. Just like how Venezuela or Cuba pose no threat to America yet their being strangled too. Iran was also against apartheid South Africa - even though apartheid South Africa wasn’t threatening Iran in any way - but countries can still have certain stands simply if seen as the right thing to do, independent of power games or security issues.

Usually you don’t want to war if your on the receiving end of the pain though, unless your literally occupied or invaded hence Ukraine fought back with determination. The threat of Iran has been amplified to such a degree even though they negotiated the JCPOA which Trump tore up. They were negotiating and conceding even more on nukes this year before they got attacked again. They only retaliated after being hit first by Israel - the first time they staged a retaliatory strike with coordination and warning simply to establish deterrance and no lives lost. Even though they’ve had constant decapitation hits on scientists or general soleimani for example.They’ve been under crippling sanctions as well. Considering all that they’ve been restrained up till now - and now don’t want a simple ceasefire without changing the balance of power in the region as to not have constant mowing of the lawn type repeats year after year. Beyond nukes - the other two issues are proxies and missiles. The proxies emerged from Israel’s own occupation of Palestinians - Hamas internal and Hezbollah to the North. Of course Iran would support them to gain an asymmetric advantage through strategic depth around the adversary who wants you destroyed - because that’s all it has as deterrence - totally rational from a survival aspect. Being asked to drop those two would be suicide. The proxy network less so and is probably reasonable to demand - but the missiles is a red line as that’s really all they have as a deterrance - they’d be sitting ducks without it and barely have a airforce of their own. The gulf countries didn’t have a choice but to give up some sovereignty for protection because they have vulnerable geographies and small populations / armies. So they made the bargain - be under US security umbrella and give up autonomy due to lack of hard power. They’ve just tried using financial leverage to influence the US as much as possible - and they still got suckered into their patrons geopolitics and are suffering for it. Iran is different due to its strengths - population size, geography like a fortress, military etc. so they don’t want to submit to the US system on unfavourable terms - they have the aged power to say no and the history of empires suffocating them to want a end to that. There’s actually a divide amongst Muslims and people in general on Iran/GCC. Some view Iran as expansionist and bad, others as heroics. People view GCC as either peaceful pragmatic nation builders or sell outs to the West. But the truth is their postures are downstream from their position - whether they’re inside the system (GCC) or outside it trying to get sucked in as subordinate (Iran). And GCC didn’t have much choice so shouldn’t be judged to that degree. It’s simply real politik and trying to survive based on the cards you got. Much of this stems from Israel’s initial sin of occupying and dominating Palestinians - and wanting to secure itself in maximalist terms by fracturing the region including the last defiant state (Iran). That lead to resistant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which is literally a militia within Lebanon rivalling its own army. US aligns with Israels ME interests for its own reasons of empire (petro dollar / critical trade corridor). All this cluster fuck is because one traumatised group of people persecuted by Westerners, wanted a safe homeland and went to all lengths to get it, displacing native people on that land - and now needing to dominate them till this day in order to maintain it. That caused a spillover effect onto an angered region. Jews who are already highly sensitive to threats due to past trauma - based their sense of security on domination that only entrenches more insecurity. And because the same empire that enabled Zioland also wants control of the strategic heartland of Eurasia - they both imperially mess up the region.

@Raze disgusting. it’s crazy how most of Israeli society are pro this war whilst the population of thejr main backers are against it - poetic really. https://en.idi.org.il/articles/63704 The world is going to be even more enraged with Israel if the perception remains that they were the sole cause of this war - and the world has to suffer in recession, inflation etc for it. The gulf are angry - though UAE seems to be pushing itself as a frontline state against Iran - a bit like a Taiwan or Ukraine but on a way smaller scale. Apparently extra troops get to ME tomorrow so if there is to be some ground invasion it could be this weekend or in the next week possibly. Maybe they’ll try something else (air campaign heavy bombing) before committing to that. This guys been shared before but this new podcast was very good;

He’s engaging because he has multi domain knowledge and strings things together very well - which is new for a lot of people. But he then makes some simplistic takes and overreaches in places too - specifically the notion of secret societies acting towards creating a Pax Judaica empire and subsuming the American empire - Middle East bases as its own. A highly influential semi-dependant node / forward base (Israel) in a wider imperial system (US) - can’t itself become an empire. A nation of 10 million on a small strip of land, which is itself divided and has its own issues with the Palestinians it occupies, next to a power like Turkey, next to a gulf region increasingly angered / suspicious of it, trying to dominate Iran as we speak which seems to be failing - doesn’t have the scale or fundamentals to be a empire. Half truths are a bitch and overweighting one logic (eschatological) as bound to win is overreach.

It’s sloppy analysis if you equate a stateless people fighting for their right to a state that is denied by their occupiers - with an expansionist Nazi regime wanting to dominate other states continentally beyond its own. Of course Palestinians are going to lash out violently at times and resist in asymmetric ways that use terrorist tactics if other avenues are denied to them or Israel demand concessions that would make their “state” not a proper one with full sovereignty.

From Claude: “Security as a motive is universal and morally neutral. Every state in that analysis is acting from something it calls security. Iran calls its proxy network security. The US calls its military bases security. The Gulf calls its arms purchases security. If security justifies everything, it justifies nothing — it becomes a password that unlocks unlimited violence. The question isn’t whether Israel is acting from security. It’s what kind of security doctrine it has chosen, and what that doctrine requires as a permanent operating condition. A normal security doctrine says: we need defensible borders, deterrence capacity, and a stable equilibrium with neighbors. It has a logical endpoint — a point at which the security need is satisfied. Israel’s doctrine has no such endpoint — because it is not purely a security doctrine. It is a demographic and territorial project wearing security language. The project requires: ∙ Continued control over Palestinian land and population ∙ Suppression of any political entity that confers legitimacy on Palestinian resistance ∙ Prevention of any regional power achieving the capacity to impose costs on that control ∙ And therefore — permanent regional destabilization as a feature, not a bug That last point is the tell. A state genuinely seeking security seeks stability. Israel’s strategic behavior consistently produces instability — the destruction of the Lebanese state, the de-development of Gaza, the fragmentation of the Palestinian political body, the pressure on the US to confront Iran. These aren’t regrettable side effects. They are the mechanism. A fragmented, weakened, externally dependent Arab and Persian world is the condition under which the territorial project can continue without a coherent force capable of stopping it. So the distinction you’re drawing is exactly right: Security seeks an equilibrium. Domination requires the permanent incapacity of the other. A state that has satisfied its security needs doesn’t continue expanding settlements. Doesn’t level civilian infrastructure repeatedly. Doesn’t work to ensure its neighbors never develop coherent state capacity. Doesn’t require its patron to sanction, threaten, and periodically bomb every regional power that arms a group capable of hitting back. The maximalism is the evidence. Not evidence of greater insecurity — evidence that security was never the terminal goal. Security is the frame inside which a project of permanent demographic and territorial control is prosecuted. And because the project can never be completed without generating resistance, and resistance is then used to justify the next round of force, the doctrine becomes self-perpetuating. The tragedy is that this produces real insecurity for ordinary Israelis — because a population sitting on top of an unresolved dispossession, surrounded by people with legitimate grievances, actually is in danger. The maximalist doctrine generates the very threat environment it claims to be responding to. But acknowledging that would require acknowledging the project itself — which the political architecture of the state is designed to prevent.” If we just had to Birds Eye view the region it’s basically a security dilemma / power competition between Israel, Iran and to a degree even Saudi Arabia/GCC - all within a US hegemonic order that wants a defiant country (Iran) submitted. But each country has different risk appetites and demands ie maximalist or not. US/Israel seem to be maximalist (dominate the region). Saudi/GCC seem to be balanced because they are more vulnerable / weaker. They benefit from the status quo / folded into the US order - but also want stability with Iran to prevent chaos in the region that Israel seems to be more tolerant of or prefer (divide and rule) But at the same time it’s not like GCC would want Iran to become a hegemon if fully normalised / sanctions lifted. Iran has way stronger fundamentals that would make it so (90m population, highly educated, geography / resources, deep culture etc). So they occupy a narrow band / box - they want stability but Iran defanged to a degree as to not feel threatened. Irans foreign policy has caused bloodshed and angered Sunni Muslims massively. Supporting Assad in Syria, Hezbollah, Yemen etc. But from a cold geopolitical lens - they felt the need to gain strategic depth against an empire wanting to destroy it. We can see how after Assad fell Israel then struck Iran - weaker air defence over Syria creating an air bridge to Iran - whilst also disrupting the land route to supply Hezbollah. All these countries in between Iran-Israel have run into trouble due to this - hence both are hated to a degree by many. But at the same time many can see much of the root cause is this rivalry - and that Iran has simply had the strength to resist subordination to the larger imperial order of the US including its regional junior partner Israel. Dune 3 came out early in reality:

@Elliott lol remember we were discussing how US can only hope for a short shock and awe campaign. Now they’re stuck in operation quagmire depleting interceptors and getting desperate. Up against these people who apparently barely flinch and march on even with bombs going off: Good listen: And FIFA - fuck Israel fuck America (empires, not people)

It’s clearly because of Israel being a US forward base for regional domination of an important trade corridor - as we’ve seen how the strait of Hormuz is now being leveraged. Even without Palestine - the geopolitical rivalry and strategic containment of Iran still exists which would be used as narrative to fuel resistance - against that empire. The Middle East needs an inclusive security architecture to resolve the security dilemma (largely between Israel-Iran) but also to include the other states to prevent any Shia-Sunni tensions spilling into chaos. The same sort of security architecture needed to be there between Europe-Russia but wasn’t - hence resulting in red lines being crossed and Ukraine.

Maybe having a superpower like the US on Israel side has been a major problem in its own way - because both states interests align in dominating the region and US provides a level of impunity to Israel that allow it to dominate and be maximalist. Israel has a toxic combination of impunity from a superpower, and a high sensitive to any threat due to historic trauma (post Holocaust) and a religion that is easy to distort towards entitlement (chosen people framing) meaning less likely to compromise and easily tilted towards supremacist attitude. The world being angry at Israel only intensifies that mentality (us vs the world that’s anti-Semitic). Even now after this Iran war being started - much of the West (US which Israel relies on) is seen as Israel’s doing. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg4g66r3z40o Joe Kent Top US counterterrorism official resigns from Trump Admin ”After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” Read his whole letter: https://x.com/joekent16jan19/status/2033897242986209689?s=46&t=DuLUbFRQFGpB8oo7PwRglQ Strong words against Israel’s role.

@Elliott This comment:

@Elliott what do you think about Shahid Bolsens theory around this war - commented above replying to Jodi. As your from US? Do you think the state is captured to that degree where it’s the biggest money dictating its foreign policy ie the financial elites who want a stable investable Middle East - that this war is just a operational purge of hardliners in the way of that plan.

Why were they concerned about apartheid South Africa? SA isn’t Shia, Muslim or Arab. Theres also definitely a geopolitical angle ie wanting to have strategic depth against Israel who view Iran as the enemy, including its backer the US/West who has long vied Iran as such.

I think it’s all of the above but to varying degrees - with Jiang weighting ideology as a driver being the weakest, Israel’s influence being mid, US strategic dominance being the heaviest driver. Israel is a highly influential node in a larger US imperial system - it can nudge actions at the margins or set the pace or timing of events, but never control the empire to do the events in the first place. US-Israel interests converge in wanting regional domination. US for grand strategy / control of important choke point, dollar dominance, and an important trade corridor on the largest landmass on earth - Eurasia - which connects to its two rivals (China-Russia). Israel security and gulf stability to protect oil flows is also important as the global economy runs on it - including petro dollar. But much of the insecurity comes from zero sum thinking around how to go about security which is neoconesque - domination and submission of any defiant / autonomous actors. They want Iran to capitulate and it won’t because it has a history of dealing with Western imperialism it doesn’t want to repeat - and feels it has the cards not to ie its geographic WMD the strait of Hormuz which their using as we speak to impose costs on the empire. I’d guess it’s 50% US empire, 30% Israeli influence, 10% domestic politics (Trump / Bibi) , 5% ideaology (Christian Zionism / eschatology), 5% capital interests (MIC, big oil) Covers what you were asking too.