China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

[GRG55]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

How about guerilla warfare? China can supply missile tech and equipment to Iran and Hezbollah.

China does supply such technologies to Iran.

As the USA/UK/France et al supplies it to Israel, a number of Arab nations including Saudi and Qatar, Pakistan, more recently India, and on and on.

A time honoured tradition in global geopolitics...

[GRG55]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

China's ability to project military strength is limited to its adjacent land areas - Tibet, Vietnam, Korea, Russia, etc. It would take everything China has to cross the Taiwan Straits and that's without US interference. Only whatever is left of the old SU nuclear capacity is a military detriment to US force projection and even that's in question. During the Shock Capitalism phase of the dismantling of the Soviet State the US was deeply involved in decommissioning Russia's nuclear arsenal. Reflating the Cold War may be its cardinal value to the Pentagon.

Exactly.

China's "Dragon at home, Panda abroad" situation...

[touchring]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

China does supply such technologies to Iran.

As the USA/UK/France et al supplies it to Israel, a number of Arab nations including Saudi and Qatar, Pakistan, more recently India, and on and on.

A time honoured tradition in global geopolitics...

Actually, I don't think Iran is that important to China. If China wants oil, they can buy it, there's plenty of dollars anyway.

[metalman]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

from one of the comments on ZeroHedge:

zerocred strikes again... i miss the old zerohedge that reported real stuff.

[davidstvz]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

From one of the first comments on that thread:

"For those who are not familiar with General Zhang, he is not a serious military figure but a TV personaility. Because of his many wrong predictions during the 2nd Iraq war, he became a laughing stock, a Chinese version of Baghdad Bob. Party bosses let Zhang run his mouth to please the ego of conservative audience and give Chinese government a macho apperance. He is a tool and a clown, nothing more."

[Bundi]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

China's ability to project military strength is limited to its adjacent land areas - Tibet, Vietnam, Korea, Russia, etc. It would take everything China has to cross the Taiwan Straits and that's without US interference. Only whatever is left of the old SU nuclear capacity is a military detriment to US force projection and even that's in question. During the Shock Capitalism phase of the dismantling of the Soviet State the US was deeply involved in decommissioning Russia's nuclear arsenal. Reflating the Cold War may be its cardinal value to the Pentagon.

I am certainly no expert but I bet China views Iran as strategically important, if not as a source of oil, then as a meaningful geopolitical domino. That said, China clearly can't offer up much conventional military resistance but could turn some screws in other ways. North Korea starts lobbing some bombs again or more likely if things got dicey, via Cyber fronts. I don't know what their capability is with respect to Cyber but given all the IT they steal, I bet it doesn't suck.

[ASH]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

china has nukes, right? I'm not suggesting they would use them, but could some be deployed in Syria or Iran?
Could this be Cuban Missile Crises part II? It would be an interesting test of nerves for Mr. Nobama wouldn't it?

No. China has nukes, but it's way too much of an escalation without any commensurate benefit. (Also, difficult to protect the launchers.)

I can't express in a polite way how unserious I think this thread is. The basic idea is completely misaligned with China's strategic interests and capabilities, and the cost-to-benefit ratio is completely out of whack. It's like we are talking about whether China would spend $500B to send their flying unicorn corps to steel $75 in groceries from the Piggly-Wiggly.

See NCR85's and davidstvz's posts about General Zhang.

Folks -- we're not even talking about various great powers "seizing" oil fields in the style of imperial eras past. Remember that oil is basically fungible, so at best, we're talking about great powers competing to see which national oil companies get development contracts in which countries -- and who buys whose military equipment. The prize isn't that big, and if you're a power like China that lacks any serious expeditionary capability, the prize of an oil well far outside your borders is basically useless if you provoke confrontation with a power capable of interdicting your access to the well. The economic fruits of gaining access for one's national oil companies is enough of a motive to make it a foreign policy objective to pursue with soft power, and even to engage in small wars with third and fourth rate powers when the stakes are high enough and none of your peers complain too loudly; it isn't enough of a motive to provoke confrontation with peers, much less with a superpower... or effectively the entire developed world. That's why China will provide Iran, Syria, and similar countries diplomatic cover at the UN, and sell them technology and equipment -- but it isn't going to take warlike actions for their sake.

For another thing, all this talk about China confronting the US militarily, today, misses the strategic picture. China's economic and military power are growing rapidly; America's economic and military power are still dominant, but flagging in relative terms. Why pick a fight with a stronger opponent if, just by waiting, you will one day be the stronger? And China is growing based upon an export model. Therefore, China needs a stable world in which to trade, and good access and trading relations with as many markets as possible. Provoking confrontation with the US and its allies, and/or otherwise destabilizing the world would be shooting themselves in the foot. Right now, China is "winning" -- they want to ride this elevator as far as it will go. Sure, China is pushing back against the US at its borders, and it will continue to do so as its capacity develops. But global military confrontation isn't in the cards.

[ASH]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

Actually, I don't think Iran is that important to China. If China wants oil, they can buy it, there's plenty of dollars anyway.

+1

[Bundi]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

No. I can't express in a polite way how unserious I think this thread is. The idea is completely misaligned with China's strategic interests and capabilities, and the cost-to-benefit ratio is completely out of whack. It's like we are talking about whether China would spend $500B to send their flying unicorn corps to steel $75 in groceries from the Piggly-Wiggly.

See NCR85's and davidstvz's posts below.

Folks -- we're not even talking about various great powers "seizing" oil fields. Remember that oil is basically fungible, so at best, we're talking about great powers competing to see which national oil companies get development contracts in which countries -- and who buys whose military equipment. The prize isn't that big, and if you're a power like China that lacks any serious expeditionary capability, the prize of an oil well far outside your borders is basically useless if you provoke confrontation with a power capable of interdicting your access to the well. The economic fruits of gaining access for one's national oil companies is enough of a motive to make it a foreign policy objective to pursue with soft power, and even to engage in small wars with third and fourth rate powers when the stakes are high enough and none of your peers complain too loudly; it isn't enough of a motive to provoke confrontation with peers, much less with a superpower... or effectively the entire developed world.

I agree that priority number one for China (assuming they are behaving rationally) is to maximize the cash flow stream(s) from export. I don't understand how the PBoC works exactly but I suspect these export driven revenues provide a source of value to drive internal lending. Any actions that jeapordize this would seem counterintuitive to Chinese interests.

That said, I doubt they and the Russians are comfortable with the notion of a hands off approach to the evolution of longer term characteristics of the Middle East, especially at a point in history when regimes are being turned over somewhat regularly. Wouldn't China fear the long term implicatoins of a Western puppet regime in Iran? There is a big difference between WW3 over this issue and aggressive yet discrete pushback. In fact I don't see the viability (primarily from an economic perspective) of aggresive overt US action against Iran either, at least not within the current circumstances.

[c1ue]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

ZeroCred indeed.

The notion of a US approved, or even tolerated attack on Iran is ludicrous.

While there is no doubt that the US can destroy most of Iran's infrastructure, Iran can just as easily destroy the US' way of life via missile assisted oil transshipment embargo.

As for China - any support China would give to Iran is, as noted by many previously, already being given.

If the US cannot make 'it' work in Iraq and Afghanistan, how exactly would 'it' work with Iran which has more people than both put together?

As for Israel, should they attack Busheyr openly, at that point I suspect we'll discover just how well the vaunted IDF can do without overt US backup.

The very first deal laid on the table will be non-interference with oil tankers in the Hormuz in return for cutting off support for Israel - plus a promise to not genocide.

Israel will still exist but its myth of being able to withstand the entire rest of the ME and North Africa will be destroyed.

[ASH]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

That said, I doubt they and the Russians are comfortable with the notion of a hands off approach to the evolution of longer term characteristics of the Middle East, especially at a point in history when regimes are being turned over somewhat regularly. Wouldn't China fear the long term implicatoins of a Western puppet regime in Iran? There is a big difference between WW3 over this issue and aggressive yet discrete pushback. In fact I don't see the viability (primarily from an economic perspective) of aggresive overt US action against Iran either, at least not within the current circumstances.

I agree. The push-back has been primarily diplomatic (blocking resolutions at the UN; trading cooperation on Iran for American concessions in other areas) and through trade/technology/military hardware.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

Not on topic with China - Iran, but somewhat related to conflict with China.
The last few days the US is suddenly interested repairing relations with Myanmar (Burma)

[Prazak]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

Not on topic with China - Iran, but somewhat related to conflict with China.
The last few days the US is suddenly interested repairing relations with Myanmar (Burma)

And establishing a new forward base in Australia, and deepening security cooperation with Japan, and strengthening a regional trade grouping that excludes China, and toughening the message regarding CNY valuation, etc, etc. It does seem that U.S. is becoming a bit more vigorous lately in its competition with China.

[don]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

or has it begun (in an age of never-declared-wars)

The Australian Reports Of Second Explosion In Iranian City Of Isfahan

While this story has not been caught by any of the major wires, The Australian's Jerusalem correspondent Sheera Frankel reports something quite disturbing: "All eyes on Israel after second Iranian blast. CLOUDS of smoke billowed above the city of Isfahan - evidence that the latest strike against Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program had hit its target." We will report more if this story is confirmed by any other news agencies because if true it means that at this point things behind the scenes are no longer happening in the shadows.

As a reminder, from Monday: Satellite Image Confirms Iranian Missile Base Was Destroyed

Today's curious news report posted by Iran's semi-official news agency Fars, which was promptly muted, only to be republished by Israel's Haaretz, of a major explosion near the Iranian city of Isfahan, has left many scratching their heads. As Haaretz reports: "Speaking with Fars news agency, Isfahan’s deputy mayor confirmed the reports and said the authorities are investigating the matter. However, after the incident was reported in Israel, the report was taken off the Fars website." Which led many to wonder: is this a real event or merely a provocation designed to make Iranians believe they were attacked? Further complicating matters is the just released news from Washington Post which shows satellite images of the aftermath of another explosion in Iran, this time from two weeks ago at an Iranian missile base.

"The image of the compound, near the city of Malard, doesn’t provide any clues as to what caused the Nov. 12 explosion, which Iranian authorities described as an “accident” involving the transport of ammunition. But it does make clear that the facility has been effectively destroyed. Paul Brannan, a senior analyst for the Institute for Science and International Security, which specializes in the study of nuclear weapons programs, said it’s impossible to tell from the image whether the blast was caused by sabotage, as has has been speculated in this explosion and others at transport facilities, oil refineries and military bases in Iran. Brannan said ISIS had recently learned from “knowledgable officials” that the blast had occurred just as Iran had achieved a milestone in the development of a new missile and may have been performing a “volatile procedure involving a missile engine at the site.” So the question stands: is Iran being systematically attacked with the news being covered up for fear that it can not retaliate and thus seem week; is it being sabbotaged on a weekly basis, or is everything just one big media disinformation campaign designed to provoke Iran to lash out? We will probably know very soon, today's "oversold" and now completely disconnected from reality rally notwithstanding.

Before satellite image:



And After:



http://www.zerohedge.com/news/austra...n-city-isfahan

[don]

Re: China WILL NOT HESITATE TO PROTECT IRAN...... (Red Alert !!!!)

all part and parcel of playing the China Card solution?


The China “Threat” Rises Again

by FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY

When the Cold War ended in 1991, the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex (MICC) was left high and dry, floundering like a beached whale, because there was no superpower threat to sustain its bloated existence. But the MICC is a self-organizing adaptable cultural organism, and when one looks back on the 1990s, it becomes clear that the early 1990s became years of experimentation in the MICC’s struggle to evolve a new threat (what the Pentagon lovingly calls a peer competitor) or a combination of threats (in Pentagonese, ‘near-peer’ competitors) to justify a continuation of high budgets and hi-tech business as usual.

The initial focus in the early 1990s was to build up China as a peer competitor, but that could not stand even casual scrutiny, and the China threat quickly petered out. It turned out that the Wars of the Yugoslavian Succession, especially Kosovo, provided the decisive pivot by establishing and legitimating the illegal warfighting theories of Humanitarian Intervention and Regime Change. These models solved the ’threat problem’ by establishing the paramountcy of perpetual small wars, or the threat of small wars, as the planning and budget justification models for the post-cold-war MICC, as I explained in greater detail last January (here).

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, which were not an act of war but a horrendous crime perpetrated by a stateless gang of fundamentalist ideologues, provided the the MICC with an excuse to lock in the Kosovo planning model. The MICC, spearheaded by the neocons, succeeded in transforming what should have been an international law enforcement operation into an open-ended global war on terror. The hype surrounding this so-called war resulted in a continuing succession of relatively small ‘hot’ wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yeman, Somalia, Libya).

Unfortunately for the MICC, the hot wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down, and the two most likely new wars to continue the sequence of perpetual war — hot wars in Syria and/or Iran — are beginning to take on the appearance of a ‘bridge too far’ for either the humanitarian intervention or regime change paradigms. Moreover, public opinion polls indicate that a substantial majority of the American public is now tired of perpetual war and want their government to turn inward to solve economic problems at home.

To make matters worse for the MICC, the Super Committee, as many predicted, just collapsed, and the automatic across-the-board spending cuts of the sequester are now scheduled to commence in 2013. Under the constraints of the sequester, the Pentagon’s budget would revert to the level that existed in 2007, before growing thereafter. According to an analysis of the Congressional Budget office’s August update of the federal government’s baseline budget, a sequester would reduce future growth in the Defense budget between 2012 and 2021 from 26% to 16%. Nevertheless, this reduction in future increases of the defense budget has the MICC terrified.

The Pentagon, led by Defense Secretary Panetta, for example, has been predicting a doomsday scenario if the sequester takes effect, alleging that the looming defense cuts would create a hollow military and 1.5 million people would lose their jobs, thereby increasing the national unemployment rate by one percent. Former Defense Secretary Bill Cohen, a former Republican senator, recently penned an op-ed in the 21 November issue of New York times parroting the Pentagon’s estimates of the carnage to force structure that would occur under a sequestration.

Yet only one day after Cohen’s op-ed, Elizabeth Bumiller of NYT reported on 22 November that the Pentagon has refused to make any contingency plans to deal with the sequester. That means the hysteria promoted by Secretary Panetta and Cohen and the generals/admirals Cohen so obediently parroted, is baseless hype and no one in the Pentagon has a clue about what could be done to mitigate the ‘damage’ caused by these potential ‘cutbacks’ described above.

Of course, the Pentagons cluelessness is understandable and predictable. As I explained in my last statement to Congress (June 2002), the accounting system and the program planning system underpinning the Pentagon’s management information system is an unauditable shambles. Decision makers at the top don’t have, and based on their refusal to fix this problem over the last 29 years, clearly don’t want^⁠1 to have, the information they need to link their strategic policy choices and force structure outputs to budgetary levels. There is a solution to this problem, as I went to great lengths to explain in the 2002 statement: The solution is to synthesize a new management information/decision-making system built around the central idea of contingency planning.

Had this proposal (or something like it) been implemented, it would be easy for Panetta, Cohen, and the generals and admirals to make a rationale assessment of how to mitigate the ‘damage’ caused by a sequester, but of course, it would be apostasy for the MICC’s leadership to entertain the possibility that it might be possible for the Pentagon survive with less.

Bringing this together: The people are sick and tired of perpetually fighting small hot wars; Syria and Iran are two small and not so small wars ‘too far;’ and there is a real threat of marginal budget reductions is in the offing, but the Pentagon refuses to do rational contingency planning. So what is the MICC to do?

There is only one answer: Find a peer competitor and start a new Cold War. That would generate the requisite amount of fear to unleash the purse strings, but at the same time, Pentagon could pump more modernization money to defense contractors (the industrial wing of the MICC) without having to pump up the operations budget (which mushrooms in hot wars). But what nation fits the bill?

Only China — and it looks like President Obama has swallowed the MICC’s bait. As Michael Klare skillfully lays out, Obama has chosen to commence a buildup aimed at isolating China. The Pentagon will deploy 2500 Marines to northern Australia on the Timor Sea, expand the Naval presence in the South China Sea (which is on top of major oil and gas deposits), and strengthen its alliances with Indonesia and the Philippines on China’s Pacific periphery. It is virtually certain that these moves will be perceived by China as a dangerous encirclement, and the will, therefore, trigger some kind of countermoves by China.

Voilà! With any luck, the MICC will be off to a new cold war arms race, the sequester will be quashed, and increased spending as usual will continue unabated.

That, dear reader, is how the bookkeeping shambles, threat inflation, and the politics of fear are the MICCs budget multipliers that will trump Social Security and Medicare in the coming budget debate.

Franklin “Chuck” Spinney is a former military analyst for the Pentagon and a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press. He be reached atchuck_spinney@mac.com

Notes.
¹ It is not as if this is a new problem in the Pentagon. I described the program planning aspect of bookkeeping shambles in testimony to joint hearing of the Senate Budget Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 1983. That testimony was described in a cover story of Time Magazine that appeared on 7 March 1983.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/...t-rises-again/