Political Philosophy: The Strait of Hormuz between Allah and Mammon

The Ayatollahs: Allah, Petrol and the Great Satan

The last weeks brought a seemingly incoherent actions by the Iranian dictators. First they threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, next they invite international inspectors to play the game of cat and mouse with the Iranian nuclear program and its suspected military aspects.

What could be the reason for such inconsistent behavior. Either stick it up to the man (the USA, the Western world and the world public opinion) or meekly accept their superiority and do as they say. It would be difficult to divine supernatural causes because I would expect an omnipotent and omniscient God to inspire consistency. So if it is not Allah it must be the Great Satan who can be blamed for the wavering of the faithful.

That has certain logic behind it. The United States have hurt the international transactions of Iranian banks by imposing sanctions on them and have paraded an aircraft carrier near the narrow straight which is so important for international oil trade although not affecting particularly US oil imports which come mainly from other sources.

So if not God or the Great Satan who can be the culprit? The last suspect is Mammon. The Ayatollahs are not so worried about things divine or they would have defied the Great Satan but more about things pecuniary. That is why it is easy for them to continue with the military posturing – they know that the US is no position politically, military or financially to sustain another war (and Iran is a much more dangerous adversary than Saddam's Iraq or Afghanistan) and on the other hand the rulers of Tehran wouldn't risk their earthly positions in a war with the USA too because the fate of Saddam, Milosevic and Gaddafi is not something to be desired. On the other hand it turns out that petrol has become the US main export. So both countries US and Iran (actually even Russia) will benefit from a rise in the price of petrol and certain military posturing won't hurt (especially bearing in mind that the US military are facing painful cuts and need an excuse to boost the perception that the bloated defense budget is still needed).

Nuclear weapons are something else althogether. The USA has demonstrated with Saddam that this pretext can be used easily for an intervention that is why the Ayatollahs invite international monitors to preempt such a possibility.

That makes them quite clever and decisive and not inconsistent at all. They need a foreign enemy to scare the ignorant part of their subjects into submission (the Arab spring was preceded by the demonstrations against voting irregularities in Persia, now Russia has the same problems but more about that later).

Unfortunately it looks like it's not Allah or other high ethical principle or enlightened idea that motivates them and the Americans but petty business interest which could be not bad if it leads to good results but higher price of petrol is a good result only for those who trade in it and for the rest of us remains the hope to manage to save enough for an electric car to be able to travel further than the natural limitations of a bicycle.

There could be one good consequence of all this – expensive gas leading to less pollution.

Links:

Political Philosophy

Sunday, January 01, 2012

The Strait of Hormuz between Allah and Mammon

U.S., EU Rebuff Iran's Hormuz Passing Threat | New Middle East News

Iran plans missile tests near Strait of Hormuz | World | DAWN.COM

Iranian missile spin closes Hormuz for five hours | MELCHIZEDEK ...

Iran backs off threat to close oil strait | News24

Iran Delays Missile Test & Suggests Talks - War On Terror News

THE BIBLE BLOG | Blog | Strait talking: Iran gets tough as US fleet ...

Iran - Press TV

Britannia Radio

BBC News -Iran denies test-firing long-range missiles in Gulf

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