In defiance of medical advice to eschew the Internet, I am briefly out of my coma and attempting to catch up on world affairs. I see Operation Epic Fury has evolved into Operation Economic Outcast, as the US sanctions first imposed on Iran in, oh, November 1979 are apparently starting to bite.
So how's Operation Economic Outcast going? The picture at right is from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's summit this week in Bishkek. I doubt many readers have heard of Bishkek, possibly because until 1926 it was known as Pishpek. But I gather it's the capital of some no-name stan in the murky territory marked on official State Department maps as the "Rest of the World": here be dragons. I doubt many more readers have heard of the "Shanghai Cooperation Organisation", but its member nations represent over forty per cent of the world's population spread over two-thirds of Eurasia. And lookee here: that's the President of Iran standing on stage with Chairman Xi, Tsar Putin and Sultan Erdogan among those on his left, and on his immediate right Prime Minister Modi of India. Notwithstanding Secretary Bessent's sanctions-rattling, none of the A-listers suggested moving the global pariah to the back row. If the Iranian bloke were to get any more outcast, he'd be unanimously acclaimed UN Secretary-General.
Aside from the souvenir snap, there was also a communiqué, which almost en passant reprised "the SCO's previously stated position condemning military strikes on the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran... Such actions violate the principles and norms of international law and the UN Charter and create serious risks to international peace, security and stability." That's just boilerplate compared to the blunter message conveyed by the group shot, but the Indian press found it a notable development given Delhi's close relations with America and Israel.
As longtime readers may recall, I have argued for the usual couple of sod-bollocking decades, including in a bestselling book and even on the impeccably respectable C-SPAN, the following thesis:
I'm trying to frame it the way the rest of the world sees it. The French intellectual class thinks that a two-century Anglo-American dominance is coming to an end - in other words, a particular view of the world that began - not to intrude on personal grief with the French - but began at the Battle of Trafalgar and has continued for basically two centuries since.
The Chinese take a broader view and think that half-a-millennium of European dominance is coming to an end and the world is reverting to a natural Asiatic view of things.
That was me on telly in February 2012. And so it has proved. The grandees assembled in Hoogivsastan are the steering committee of a post-American world. I understand that for the next two months all US media focus will be on the home front and who's two points up in Iowa (oddly enough, per the Real Clear Politics Battle for the Senate sidebar, Iowa is the one Senate race where the Dems aren't two points up. Boy, did I call it or what?) One appreciates what a loss it would be if the Congress that has so zealously enacted the Trump agenda into law these last two years were to have its stupendous energy suddenly grind to a halt.
Nevertheless, the parochialism of the wider public discourse is rather puzzling. I read my old comrade Victor Davis Hanson very attentively, even on issues where I disagree with him (such as the Iran war). So I was interested to see this week's column on "The Elephant in the Canadian Room" - an evocation, conscious or otherwise, of Pierre Trudeau's observation that the Canuck-Yank relationship was that of a mouse in bed with an elephant. As Victor sees it; the root cause of Ottawa's woes is that in its public-policy inclinations it behaves like an honorary member of the European Union.
That may be true. Indeed, let us stipulate that it is true. But so what? America picking a fight with the maple-dripping wimps over whether they're too like the Euro-weenies is like a street tough getting into a brawl with the assistant choreographer of La Cage aux Folles and a trainee hair stylist from What Not to Wear - and without noticing that the indentation in the ground they're slugging it out on is Godzilla's footprint and he's headed back this way.
Canada and the European Union don't matter. Once upon a time, they did: in 1945 the Royal Canadian Navy had the third-largest surface fleet in the world. But that Canada is dead, and what's replaced it is a mincing poseur. Which is why it would be such a good fit in the EU. So the US Secretary of War openly mocks his pathetically feminised neighbour, which would be pretty funny if he didn't head a department that accounts for over forty per cent of global military spending and can't win nuthin' 'gainst nobody. Now we're all out of ammo, his cabinet colleague is shooting from the hip more metaphorically:
Let me be clear: any entity that facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran will be removed from the U.S. dollar system. The clock is ticking.
Do the chaps schmoozing the Iranian president at Bishkek look like they're scared of being "removed from the US dollar system"? No, they're too busy building their own alternative to it. After all, Washington's accumulation of forty trillion in debt was only possible because of the dollar's status as the global reserve currency. Take that away and even the soi-disant fifty-first state north of Lake America may be eying up what's left of the lower forty-eight as its eleventh province.
The Iran war (or, more officially, non-war) was lost on its first day in part because interested parties such as China and Russia decided they were not prepared to let Washington win it. This was entirely predictable: after all, America and its Euro-vassals have been waging a proxy war on the Kremlin for four years; why wouldn't Moscow want to return the compliment? Six months on, what's more interesting is the calculation of the other attendees at the Bishkek beano. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has, officially, ten members - China, Russia, India, Iran, Belarus, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and host Kyrgyzstan. But also present were the leaders of various "partner" states such as Turkey, one of our Nato "allies". Also "partnering" with the SCO are Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE. These "allies" are all home to American military bases. Or they were, until Iran rendered them unusable in the early days of the war. At least one base (Bahrain) is being abandoned for good. All these countries bet on the US security umbrella: Ask them how that's working out.
