The Middle East has been a meat grinder for well over 5,000 years. Once in, the grinder processes you. Often very fast. Oblivious, The Center of Everything (“China” translated) has jumped in, trying to broker a détente between 1,400-year enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia. A disaster for The Center and its leader Xi Jinping.
You don’t have to study the ancients through to Aukland’s Folly in Afghanistan in 1842 or the collapse of Ottomans in 1922. Just look at how the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 lead to the Soviet collapse of 1989 which, in turn, lead directly to the current Russian disaster in Ukraine. Or the madness of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 which, regardless of its $1.1T cost and hundreds of thousands of deaths, has given us not even the tiniest reward. If anything, it has been a massive setback. Then there is Afghanistan …
So, what was Xi thinking? If he missed something this obvious, he can’t have been thinking. Or he suffers from the Dumb Don Disorder: he can’t think.
His delusion likely stems from the name of his country, The Center of Everything, and his desperation to re-establish it as the center of everything. He has staked his entire third term as the center of The Center on achieving this and made his goals very public.
Xi’s oriental orientation—that the center is there and nowhere else—has blinded him to the harsh realities of global conflicts. He just thinks that everyone will turn to The Center and bow, showing that they know their place.
But he is uneducated in the ways of the world and so shouldn’t be messing with The Meat Grinder. He can only lose. He is quickly weakening The Center at no cost to us.
The numbers tell the story. Beginning 5,500 years ago, the Ebla of modern-day Syria and Turkey predate the Center’s Xia dynasty by a millennium and a half. The Meat Grinder was operating long before The Center came into existence. And, as we all know, it grinds everything that touches it to this day.
It is very hard to see any American strategic interest in The Middle East. Our exposure there is utterly pointless. Xi thinks he can step into the pointless and make a point?
Xi is being ground.
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