521–530 of 750 posts
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> In the Middle East, there appears to be a pattern of electorates voting for / staging a revolution in favour of Islamists, which either leads to a terrible Islamist regime, or leads to an elite coup, which of course destroys the democracy in the process. that pattern is hardly unique to middle east/islamists though. look at central/south america. guatemala, chile, brazil etc all had democracies overthrown by "elite…
That seems rather Whataboutist to me. I never claimed this only ever happens in the Middle East. We are, however, talking about the Middle East, so local examples would seem apposite. You seem to desire to make this conversation so abstract that it becomes about nothing. > resistance to the US-led order magically seems to invite instability Or perhaps 'resistance' is an awfully popular rallying cry for demagogues who…
you said
> Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists.
whereas my claim is that governments (democracies or not) that run afoul of their local hegemon tend to have a short shelf life. this is not unique to US hegemony.
see: Brezhnev doctrine (USSR), or the canonical example of Athens and Melos from Peloponnesian war
> Rise up for El Generalissimo! Enlist your sons in the blood struggle, that will definitely improve things!" /s Much sexier to be a revolutionary fighting shadowy foreign forces than to actually fix any of your own problems. No, no, tomorrow's problems will be America's fault too.
I'm sorry, you seem triggered by this discussion, it doesn't seem productive to continue on my end.
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This is, respectfully, corporate propaganda. Consumers buy the vehicles that are available and advertised. It's in the best interest of manufacturers to convince/compel consumers to buy larger, more expensive vehicles with higher margins, and that's exactly what they're doing.
How can that be if they all offer extensive lines of small and efficient cars that a good number of people drive? Besides, collusion doesn't seem likely given the amount of foreign competition. The majority of Americans have made it clear that they want bigger autos, at least with the usual gas prices. Sorry if that's corp propaganda. Separately I've heard emissions laws blamed for large sedans losing to small SUVs a…
You can see this if you go to https://shop.ford.com/showroom/ and select sedan or hatchback in the left filters. No results.
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Best of luck! These proxy wars have existed since the days of Assyria. 3000 years and running. Kind of depressing thought actually.
> Kind of depressing thought actually I gotchu: https://youtu.be/-evIyrrjTTY ("This Land is Mine", 3 min)
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> What civilian infrastructure was deliberately attacked? Its clear you have only been getting your information from a certain set of sources. a lot of civilian infrastructure has been destroyed in Iran. One of Israel's goals is to cripple the economy of Iran. "Israeli leaders, including Defense Minister Israel Katz, have ordered the military to carry out strikes on targets that cause economic blows to the Iranian re…
and let's not forget the boming of a literal school for girls
Context: (1) “The United Arab Emirates,” today “made a shock request of [Pakistan] — repay $3.5bn immediately” [1]. (2) Saudi-Emirati relations were at an all-time low before the Iran War [2]. (Saudi Arabia just bailed Pakistan out of its Emirati loan. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan agreed a mutual-defence treaty last year [3].) Put together, we’re seeing an Emirati-Israeli axis emerging to balance Saudi hegemony in the G…
Shouldn’t UAE be upset their entire economy has absolutely rammed by the war started by Israel? At least the Saudis have pipelines - UAE is fucked
It's pretty convoluted logic to blame Israel for Iran attacking the UAE.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Iran%E2%80%93Israel_confl...
That’s 2024, you said the proxies started it in 2023?
https://israel-alma.org/special-report-for-years-iran-planne...
There was extensive planning for a multi front attack including Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The story of this war is the previous idea in Israel that you could work out with an extremely religious enemy at the border as underneath their claiming to want to destroy you, they are rational.
After Hamas decided to go on a national suicide for no achievement except for a single day of an orgy of violence and the complete destruction of gaza, that view has changed.
This puts Hezbollah similar to Hamas, and their patron Iran ballistic and nuclear weapon program in a different light, and makes preemptive strikes and the complete destruction of the Iranian Axis (largely successful) as an important goal for Israel
My guess is that is this because UAE has ports on the other side of Hormuz and doesn't want to be restricted in their usage by OPEC? Does this mean UAE thinks Hormuz will be a problem for a long time? And what does it mean for oil prices long term?
The UAE has the ADCOP (Abu Dhabi Cross Oil Pipeline) to move oil to beyond the Strait. It has a capacity of ~1.8Mbpd (million barrels per day) so is only a fraction of the UAE's total oil exports and a tiny fraction of the oil exports impacted by the Strait being closed. It's also being used already. I don't know how these particular oil exports have been impacted. They are beyond the Strait but not by that much. Ira…
Isn’t it 30-50%ish depending on how you count it? Calling it “a fraction” makes it sound much smaller in conventional English.
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That seems rather Whataboutist to me. I never claimed this only ever happens in the Middle East. We are, however, talking about the Middle East, so local examples would seem apposite. You seem to desire to make this conversation so abstract that it becomes about nothing. > resistance to the US-led order magically seems to invite instability Or perhaps 'resistance' is an awfully popular rallying cry for demagogues who…
> I never claimed this only ever happens in the Middle East. you said > Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists. whereas my claim is that governments (democracies or not) that run afoul of their local hegemon tend to have a short shelf life. this is not unique to US hegemony. see: Brezhnev doctrine (USSR), or the canonical example of Athens and Melos from Peloponnesian war > Rise up for El Gen…