The New Cold War in the Middle East
The first mildly convincing argument for being in Iraq I heard tonight. This gentleman argued that, were we not in Iraq, China would swoop in and wrestle for control. If this were the case, would not the Administration have used this as a talking point?
I have seen the argument that we are able to keep Beijing under our thumb by controlling the energy supply, and I suppose we could extrapolate that China may attempt to fill a vacuum in Iraq for the same purpose were we not there, but I see no overt statements online to that effect (quickie google).
Could it be that this police action is little more than a forceful, preemptive signal to Russia and China, a more dramatic statement than the game we played with the USSR in Afghanistan? I thought that was why we have nukes.
I have seen the argument that we are able to keep Beijing under our thumb by controlling the energy supply, and I suppose we could extrapolate that China may attempt to fill a vacuum in Iraq for the same purpose were we not there, but I see no overt statements online to that effect (quickie google).
Could it be that this police action is little more than a forceful, preemptive signal to Russia and China, a more dramatic statement than the game we played with the USSR in Afghanistan? I thought that was why we have nukes.
posted by Scribbler de Stebbing | 1/13/2007 07:37:00 PM
Did this gentleman think that China would actually put boots on the ground in the Middle East? Seems unlikely.
I must admit, this Iraq prattle was over a tankard of Vanilla Royale (someone must have raided my liquor cabinet: Vanilla Royale was the only thing in there). China would be hard-pressed to scramble the man-power, I would guess, but for a chance to show us up and control the energy source, who knows?
Again, the threat of China comes closer to raising my hairs than does the urgency of enforcing democracy, and rings slightly more true than does an argument that we're luring all the terrorists to Iraq to bloody them there rather than here. Even so, I'm not sold on that argument.
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