Iran learns from Russia
0 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Thursday, August 21 at Thursday, August 21, 2008.
Are you a big, militarised nation pissed of at a small, overconfident neighbour that acts like it can stand up to you because of implicit US backing? Fear not! As Russia has shown, that US backing probably won't convert into much to be too worried about.
So Iran's timing in starting a small, seemingly unimportant fight with the UAE is interesting. Especially when they start busting out rhetoric like this from the Iranian foreign ministry:
- Nobody wants to pick an actual fight with Russia, for both practical and strategic reasons. Plenty of countries would love to send a few thousand-pound bombs into Tehran, and are itching for the excuse to do it.
- Iran and the UAE are very closely connected - as one of the only places they can still do business, there is a ton of Iranian money invested in Dubai, and a shitload of Iranaian trade goes via the UAE.
- Iran is not stupid. Just as clearly would not start a nuclear war that would lead to its annihilation, it seems crazy to think that it would start a pointless war with a Gulf state that would lead to bad consequences (big economic problems, further isolation, no more pilgrims to Mecca etc).
- Although the committment of its largely expatriate armed forces is questionable, the UAE is the third-largest importer of American weapons, and would certainly do some damage to Iran.
But none of these points really undercuts the basic realisation that big, armed up countries are having post-Georgia: discount the real hard power of "Western" backing, remind your blustering smaller neighbours who the real daddy is.
So Iran's timing in starting a small, seemingly unimportant fight with the UAE is interesting. Especially when they start busting out rhetoric like this from the Iranian foreign ministry:
“The next crisis predicted to cover mainly the Persian Gulf is the crisis of legitimacy of the monarchies and traditional systems which, considering current circumstances, cannot go on living.”Zing. It should be said, there are some pretty important differences between the Russia-Georgia situation and the Iran-Gulf one:
- Nobody wants to pick an actual fight with Russia, for both practical and strategic reasons. Plenty of countries would love to send a few thousand-pound bombs into Tehran, and are itching for the excuse to do it.
- Iran and the UAE are very closely connected - as one of the only places they can still do business, there is a ton of Iranian money invested in Dubai, and a shitload of Iranaian trade goes via the UAE.
- Iran is not stupid. Just as clearly would not start a nuclear war that would lead to its annihilation, it seems crazy to think that it would start a pointless war with a Gulf state that would lead to bad consequences (big economic problems, further isolation, no more pilgrims to Mecca etc).
- Although the committment of its largely expatriate armed forces is questionable, the UAE is the third-largest importer of American weapons, and would certainly do some damage to Iran.
But none of these points really undercuts the basic realisation that big, armed up countries are having post-Georgia: discount the real hard power of "Western" backing, remind your blustering smaller neighbours who the real daddy is.
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