On the current crisis in the Middle-East ...

... and believe me, it is a crisis. And perhaps one that precedes the beginning of the middle-chapters of this sad story. I would also point to my June 29th Post, as an indication of my prescience on the matter. So please pay attention ...

What we are in fact witnessing is a resolution of the 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 Wars in the region. The collapse of the Bi-Polar World 15 years ago made this inevitable. The existence (and not the rise ... for in fact the USA has been on the wane for 20 years now) of the USA as the only remaining hegemon virtually ensured the current state of events.

(Pearson's Liberals, of course, took the short-view and contributed mightily to the stasis that would lead to many more Wars in the region and bring the West into the matter much more bloodily - and most recently. For this, they gave him the Nobel Prize for Peace. Ironic, eh?)

The Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars were contained only be the existence of bi-polar tension and the necessity of Kennan's Containment Theory of the Cold War.

The biggest mistake the Islamists could have made, was the capture and murder of Russian diplomats in Iraq, for this ensured that the only possible, credible, and unpredictable force of containment - Putin's Russia - is now disinterested in countering the West in The Lebanon and Gaza. In fact, Russia is now actively interested in bringing the Islamists to justice for their crimes. Will Russian Troops now be far behind?

And this in and of itself, ensures that the US and its proxy - Israel - will seek to remake the region into one that is, if not secure, at least stable and neutered. But that eventuality is far from guaranteed, and we are looking at many more months (perhaps years) of incursions, bloodshed, reprisals, and terror.

In the end, the Islamists will lose. But they will lose and be punished severely not because they are evil - but rather more because they are unsophisticated in geo-politics; and that is because they have isolated themselves - spiritually, politically, philosophically, and economically - for too long from world opinion and indeed, the mass of humanity.

The (literally) ignorant always lose in the end.

As it Ever was, and Ever shall be.