Mentors and Proteges
The powerful have always had their proteges, those whom they protect even though they are loathsome, troublesome and prone to making even their mentors embarrassed by their stupidity. Their unctuous deference to those who protect them despite their personal pitiful state of incapacity ensures their longevity as long as that protection continues to be reliably anticipated.It surely does defy logic why those in power who generally are capable of a good measure of reasoned judgement cleave to their role of protector of the clearly undeserving.
Russia and Iran, for example, have had a long relationship. Latterly it has been a mutually beneficial relationship, with Iran's crude oil product ensuring Russia's attention to the Islamist Republic's requests. Oil does count for a great deal in this energy-hungry and -conscious world. Psychologically, there must be a great deal more to the issues involved than merely seeking energy-sufficiency through a questionable alliance with a deranged national administration.
But there it is: Russia is prepared to sell to a clearly militant and aggressively and violently-engaged theocracy advanced weaponry, even while it is clear to the entire world that Iran has a virulently vicious agenda of aspiring to regional dominance. Let alone its stated intention to destroy another country existing in the Middle East. With which country Russia also has relations, problematic and confrontational and conflicted at times.
Russia has been agreeable, in exchange for the energy resources it craves, to assisting the Islamic Republic of Iran with technical expertise in building nuclear installations. Just as the Kremlin has been agreeable to selling Iran new-and-advanced-technology weapons systems. Which Moscow is well aware is meant to be used for truly disturbing purposes.
Russia is engaged in its own violent struggle against neighbouring Islamist countries and the terror groups they spawn.
Yet Russia does not seem to relate those who oppose its sovereignty and threaten its security with the situation that relates to Iran's intention to impose itself upon the Middle East as the supreme arbiter of Islamism, nor does Iran's support for and relationship with terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas concern the Kremlin unduly, despite its own ongoing worries about attacks from very similar terror groups.
And then there is China, that immense conglomeration of geography and populations, and its own very unsavoury relations with countries like Myanmar, Sudan and North Korea and Iran. China favours countries within its hemisphere which are, like itself, inclined to reclusiveness, secrecy, domination, and incidentally which can supply it with a reliable source of fossil fuels. South Korea is not as needily attractive to China as North Korea appears, unsurprisingly.
Politics and ideology are the obvious touchstones there. So China urges level-headedness on South Korea; that it is incumbent on that country to simply absorb yet another virtual act of war from its belligerent neighbour, rather than to react as any other country might, in defence of its territory and its people. As one of a handful of mediators between the two countries, China is concerned with smooth sailing, clash avoidance.
North Korea's military may unleash upon its neighbour a deadly missile to sink a naval vessel at the loss of 46 South Korean sailors, but "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il has the affection of China, who will look askance at any violent reaction from South Korea to the deadly attack by North Korea. This truly is power politics.
The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council find unanimity difficult to achieve.
Little wonder that Iran and North Korea bedevil the world community's sense of global security. The nuclear cat is out of the bag and in the possession of demented national leaders. Whose activities are protected, if not outright spurred on by their mentors. This represents an obviously increasingly unstable world community.
And the solution?
Labels: Political Realities, Technology, Troublespots, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Monday, June 14, 2010
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