Setting Up The Long Game

Conditions: Cold.

Positioning

And what, historically, is the best way to get out of a recession? Jobs? Tax Cuts? No. Selling weapons, of course. And how better to sell weapons, than by talking up threats, and making people scared. Making people scared is big business.

A nuclear-powered Iran, so the argument goes, is a danger to all of these mostly affluent Arab countries, plus nuclear-armed Israel.

But either directly or indirectly, the Iranian threat also has a hidden agenda because it is being implicitly viewed as good for business: the lucrative arms business.

The Western world is unloading some of its most sophisticated weapons - including state-of-the-art fighter planes and anti-missile defence systems - in the Gulf region, clinching multi-billion-dollar arms deals.

According to an analysis by Forecast International Inc. (FI), a leading U.S. defence market research firm, the GCC countries will account for about 60 percent of all defence spending in the region in 2010.

The prediction is that all six Gulf countries will invest over 63 billion dollars toward their armed forces and security this year, with two-thirds of the total coming from Saudi Arabia.

"The GCC members continue to cast a wary eye across the Gulf at Iran," says Dan Darling, FI's military markets analyst for Europe and the Middle East.

Under the perception that Iranian hegemonic ambitions constitute their principal and most immediate strategic threat, these countries have been focusing on air, missile defence and naval equipment, he added.

"The result of these ambitions has been an annual level of defence spending by GCC members that is disproportionate to the relatively small size of their militaries," Darling told IPS.

But hark, what possible development on yonder horizon could render all the lucrative sabre-rattling unnecessary?

At a summit meeting of three heads of state last week, Ahmadinejad struck a deal with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to ship roughly half of Iran's nuclear fuel to Turkey, thereby declaring his country's intentions not to develop nuclear weapons.

Although the deal was expected to undermine U.S. plans to move a fourth Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, the administration of President Barack Obama said Tuesday it will go ahead with the resolution, apparently with the backing of Russia and China.

If the resolution is adopted by the Security Council later next month, it will further strengthen the Western argument that Iran is on the verge of going nuclear, reinforcing existing fears in the Middle East.

Well that's strange, or rather, not strange at all. The last thing we want, really, is for Ahmadinejad to "back down". And the second last thing we want is for people to start wondering how peace will result from more people waving more guns around. That kind of wondering can also lead to the logical progression that goes along the lines of "Well, if everyone else is bringing a knife to the fight, then..."

Wezeman of SIPRI told IPS that decision makers in countries in the region and in the arms supplying countries will have to consider carefully how a large flow of conventional arms will actually provide protection against any presumed aggressive intentions by Iran.

They will have to consider how their high levels of armament, combined with the major presence of U.S. military in the region, are needed to deter Iran, and to which extent further arms procurement may fuel Iranian fears about the intentions of its neighbours, he pointed out.

This in turn, Wezeman said, could fuel an Iranian assessment that its conventional arsenal is inadequate to defend against overwhelming conventional forces of potential opponents.

- truthout.org/

And we wouldn't want that, would we? Well wait, wouldn't we? Do we or do we not want that? Frankly, at this point I'm getting a little confused at exactly what we actually want.


Film Review: Robin Hood

There is an awful lot of familiarity with the latest Robin Hood movie, starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott. Not only is the Robin Hood story fairly familiar and well-known, but having these two guys in charge also brings a "Gladiator 2" feel to it. The problem with all that is the immense feeling of "seen it before" that pervades this film. The battle scenes, the village of Nottingham. The indolent King. The French revolutionaries. There's a significant portion of this film that really suffers from over-familiarity.

Which is a shame, as it's still a pretty good film. Russell Crowe effortlessly portrays Robin Hood as an ex-soldier who ends up pretending to be a nobleman, and will lead his people to defy stupid laws and taxes, resist the French, and stand up to the King. He is matched by a cool and feisty Cate Blanchett as Marion, and there is a certain chemistry between the two. We could have spent more time with them in the forest along with Will, Little John and Friar Tuck, but this is a film that wants to tell a bigger story about unfair taxation and French invasions, so we must spend time with the pouty king and his advisers, including another evil Mark Strong performance, and William Hurt.

I realize that it's important to have that part of the plot so that Robin Hood has something to be Robin Hood about, but ultimately this isn't really a movie about stealing from the rich to give to the poor, which is odd. It's really an origin story about Robin and his merry men, and how they helped to save an ungrateful king and country. Having an origin story in Robin Hood is perfectly normal, but I don't think anyone really expected the whole film to be origin story. And as origin stories go, this one feels a little plodding and drawn out, skipping over good scenes for more stuff with the King and his court, and finishing with a big battle that really feels like it comes out of nowhere. Three Arrows out of Five.


- Peace out