Ron Unz

RON UNZ—Although Iran definitely seems to be winning the war, the continuing conflict does pose major risks to everyone in the world. This certainly includes China, which has carefully avoided any direct involvement.

The Chinese have allowed the Iranians to use their satellite positioning system and have also probably provided some important intelligence and reconnaissance information, crucial contributions that help to explain the excellent targeting of the Iranian missiles. But I believe that it is very much in China’s interests to do far more than this, and bring the conflict to a speedy conclusion, involving what amounts to an American surrender.

If the war goes on, there’s a good chance that the cycle of attacks and retaliations will destroy much of the energy infrastructure of the Gulf, leading to long-term losses of supply, hurting the Chinese along with everyone else. Probably China would suffer relatively less than Europe, Japan, or most other parts of the world, but it could hardly escape very substantial economic damage, as well as the loss of markets as most of its customers became impoverished.

Even more importantly, I’m deeply concerned over the possibility that Iran’s continuing success might result in either America or more likely Israel taking the conflict nuclear, with incalculable dangers for everyone in the world, including China.

RON UNZ—Some of Carlson’s recent shows had been quite critical of Mike Huckabee, a conservative Republican political figure and Christian Zionist pastor, whom Trump had appointed as our ambassador to Israel.

Carlson had known and been friendly with Huckabee for decades, and after the two of them clashed on Twitter, he had agreed to travel to Israel and interview Huckabee on political issues and also on his religious doctrines, with that long video airing a couple of days ago.

Video Link

Some of the circumstances of Carlson’s short visit to Israel for the Huckabee interview were so unusual that he found it necessary to describe them at length in a prologue to the interview itself.

Over the last couple of years, Carlson’s outspokenness had led to a ferocious campaign of vilification by prominent pro-Israel American Jews, and at the beginning of January Carlson was named “Antisemite of the Year” by the organization StopAntisemitism. Some of those pro-Israel activists had gone so far as to denounce him as “a Nazi” and members of the Israeli government had said the same thing.

So as Carlson attempted to make arrangements for his trip, he became concerned by the very peculiar behavior of the Israeli officials whom he had contacted. Israeli airspace is heavily militarized, but they seemed strangely uninterested in the flight plan of the private plane that he had been forced to charter, and he was also informed that his security arrangements on the ground would be handled by a government official who had previously denounced him as “a Nazi.” Over the last couple of years, the Israeli government had killed around 200 journalists, some of them extremely prominent ones and American citizens, so even rather trusting individuals might become alarmed at this situation. According to Carlson, he shared his text exchanges with highly experienced foreign correspondents and he was told that they had never heard of a government behaving in such a strange and suspicious manner.

RON UNZ—Over the last couple of weeks, I have repeatedly pointed out that if Trump can declare a blockade of the independent country of Venezuela based upon no legal justification, China can certainly claim that it has an equal right to do so with regard to an island that the U.S. government and nearly the entire world have long recognized as an inalienable part of a single, unified China. Not only can China cite the undeniable legal precedent of Venezuela, but that precedent is drastically skewed in China’s own favor.

China could impose that temporary air and sea blockade to enforce certain strong but very reasonable demands. It could require that Taiwan’s government agree to immediately cancel the huge arms deal that it had recently signed with America and that it also make a solemn commitment against ever seeking independence from China. Perhaps the Taiwanese might also be required to disgorge themselves of some of the more powerful weaponry they had previously received under the first Trump and the Biden Administrations.

RON UNZ—In one of his most recent videos, he explained that Trump had attacked Venezuela without making any serious effort to justify his action by invoking higher principles of morality or human rights or international law as previous American governments had always done, and numerous other analysts have cogently emphasized that same point.

Other American presidents had camouflaged the motives for their military attacks by falsely invoking all sorts of deceptive excuses, but Trump had been refreshingly honest in explaining his reasoning. He wanted control of Venezuela’s oil and since America was much more powerful, he had just gone ahead and taken it.

RON UNZ—Crooke suggested that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been targeted for death as well, but unlike so many other senior Iranian officials they had been fortunate enough to survive. Indeed, not long afterward, President Trump repeatedly threatened to assassinate Ayatollah Khamenei unless he completely acceded to America’s demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Offhand, I can’t remember the last time a world leader has publicly threatened to assassinate one of his foreign counterparts in such fashion.