Generational Dynamics World View News

[John]

** 25-Feb-2019 Indian airstrikes on Pakistani side in Kashmir

Reports that Indian warplanes are striking targets on the Pakistani
side of the line of control (LoC) in Kashmir. Might be serious.

[John]

** 25-Feb-2019 Update: Indian airstrikes on Pakistani side in Kashmir

https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/pakista ... 1149047465

Pakistan says Indian aircraft crossed Kashmir frontier

Pakistan says Indian aircraft 'released a payload' before 'escaping';
no casualties

Published: February 26, 2019 06:40 Reuters

Islamabad: Pakistan’s military said on Wednesday Indian military
aircraft crossed the line of control frontier in the disputed Kashmir
region and “released a payload” after Pakistan scrambled its own jets,
but there was no casualties or damage.

“Indian aircrafts intruded from Muzafarabad sector,” Pakistani
military spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said on Twitter early on
Wednesday, referring to an area in the Pakistan-administered part of
Kashmir.

He said “facing timely and effective response from Pakistan Air
Force”, the Indian aircraft “released payload in haste while escaping
which fell near Balakot. No casualties or damage.”

Note: This is a Reuters story published in Gulf News, which is a
pro-Pakistan Arab media source. -- JJX

[Guest]

** 25-Feb-2019 Iran's Foreign Minister Zarif resigns in anger

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif unexpectedly announced
his resignation on Monday, Feb 25. He gave no reason for the
resignation, but posted the following on Instagram (the only major
social media network not banned in Iran):

"Many thanks for the generosity of the dear and brave people of
Iran and its authorities over the past 67 months. I sincerely
apologize for the inability to continue the service and for all
the shortcomings during the service. Be happy and worthy."

Zarif has been highly visible for the past five years as he worked
closely with America's Secretary of State John Kerry to get
international agreement on the JCPOA, the international nuclear
agreement.

This was hailed as a massive diplomatic victory for both Zarif and
Kerry, and there was talk of giving them the Nobel Peace Prize. It
also meant the lifting of sanctions, giving Iran tens of billions of
dollars to spend as it wished.

However, Donald Trump came into office and withdrew America from
the JCPOA, reinstating some sanctions, making it illegal for any
entity doing business in the United States to do business with Iran.
Since almost every major international bank does business in the
United States, this shut down much of Iran's international trade.

So when Zarif apologized for "all the shortcomings" in his
resignation post, he may have been referring to effective collapse
of the JCPOA.

At last week's Munich Security Conference, he said that the US was
"driven by pathological obsession." Zarif spoke in a manner that was
undiplomatically furious, especially because the Europeans were unable
or unwilling to break the sanctions, despite giving lip service to a
desire to do so. A BBC reporter (Lyse Doucet) who has interviewed
Zarif many times over the years said that she had never seen him so
angry. So presumably that speech was related to Monday's resignation.

A pro-Iran analyst on the BBC today blamed Trump for the failure of
the JCPOA, saying that everything would have worked out fine if Trump
hadn't been elected president.

That's an interesting claim, but it's more likely that the JCPOA
would have been a disaster for Iran even if Hillary Clinton had
become president.

To understand this, we have to remember that Iran is in a generational
Awakening era, with a big political split between the generations of
hardline aging geezers who fought in the 1979 Revolution and the
younger generations of Iranian growing up after the 1979 civil war.
Starting in 1999, college students in Iran were holding
anti-government protests, and Iran's leadership ordered
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)
thugs to go out and beat, torture, rape, jail, and execute peaceful
protesters.

This slowed the protests down, but they continued. There were
huge protests in December 2017, a month before Trump took office.

In an article that I wrote at the time, I tracked the slogans as they
morphed. The original protests were about the economy and government
corruption:

• Bread, work, freedom
• The nation is destitute while the leader is acting like God
• Young people are unemployed, and mullahs have all the positions
• Execute the economically corrupt
• If you stop one case of embezzlement,
  our problem will be solved

The next day, they had morphed into general anti-government and
anti-regime protests:

• Seyed Ali [Khamenei] shame on you let go of our country
• Dignified Iranians, join your people
• We don’t want an Islamic Republic
• Dignified Iranians, support us, support us
• Death to the Dictator
• Death to Rouhani
• Don’t be afraid, we are all united
• Political prisoners should be freed
• Shame on you
• Death or freedom

Anti-war protests zeroed in on Iran's enormous expenditures on war
efforts for Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Yemen:

• Leave Syria, think about us
• Guns and tanks! The mullahs must be killed
• Death to Hezbollah
• Leave Syria alone, think about us instead
• Forget about Gaza and Lebanon; I’ll sacrifice my life for Iran
• Never mind Palestine, think about us

All of these protests were occurring BEFORE Trump took office, and
certainly before Trump withdrew from JCPOA.

With regard to the JCPOA, young people in Iran were particularly
furious at how the money from lifting the sanctions had been
squandered. Instead of spending it to help the average Iranian, it
was spent on corruption among the Shia clerics, corruption in the
IRGC, and in military misadventures throughout the region, in Yemen,
Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza.

It's a rule of life that receiving a big pile of money can end up
being a curse, because you can use the money to do evil or to make
unsustainable commitments. We see this today in Venezuela, where a
huge gusher of money turned the country from one of the richest in the
world into the disaster you see today.

That's the path Iran was on before Trump reimposed the sanctions.
If anything, Trump did Iran a big favor.

When I heard of Zarif's resignation, and particularly the angry
bitterness of his Instagram post, the thing that popped into my mind
was the resignation of President Lyndon Johnson in 1968. There's a
great deal of similarity between the two. Both resignations occurred
during a generational Awakening era, when their policies were opposed
by the younger generations. Johnson's resignation followed the
massive and heartbreaking protests by teens and students in the 1967
Summer of Love.

Zarif has given no reason why he is resigning. One possibility is
that, like Lyndon Johnson, he was heartbroken that he'd given his life
to a cause that was massively opposed by the younger generations.
What was the point of doing it, if everyone you love hates it?

Does Zarif's resignation signal regime change? Probably not. If we
use the Lyndon Johnson resignation as an example, it signaled a change
of mood that led to "regime change," but the actual regime change
didn't occur for six years, until Richard Nixon was forced to resign.


--- Iran / Mohammad Javad Zarif / Zarif resigned
http://www.irna.ir/fa/News/83222670
(IRNA - Iran)
https://translate.google.com/translate? ... 2F83222670
(Translation)

--- Mohammad Javad Zarif: Iran's foreign minister announces resignation
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-47362962
(BBC)

--- Why Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif may have resigned
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opin ... e-resigned
(Washington Examiner)

--- Related:

** 2-Jan-18 World View -- Escalating violence in Iran protests brings calls for Iran-Israel friendship
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e180102


** 30-Dec-17 World View -- Anti-government, anti-war and economic protests spread across Iran
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e171230


** Boomers commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love.
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... m#e070612b

This is extremely bold and brave analysis. This site has never been afraid to go out on a limb. Excellent.

[Guest]

I heard on French TV that the Iranian FM resigned because Bashser al-asad visited Iran without is advanced knowledge. Sounds like he was public snubbed by his own government. Maybe they forced him out?

[John]

> I heard on French TV that the Iranian FM resigned because Bashser
> al-asad visited Iran without is advanced knowledge. Sounds like he
> was public snubbed by his own government. Maybe they forced him
> out?

I've heard this on the BBC as well. However, there's an alternate
explanation -- he wasn't invited because he had already told people
that he was going to resign.

[John]

> This is extremely bold and brave analysis. This site has never
> been afraid to go out on a limb. Excellent.

Thanks for the compliment, but it turns out that bold and brave
analyses don't make you popular. (See Cassandra curse)

[Auguestus]

> This is extremely bold and brave analysis. This site has never
> been afraid to go out on a limb. Excellent.

Thanks for the compliment, but it turns out that bold and brave
analyses don't make you popular. (See Cassandra curse)

Bold and brave certainly wouldn't get you a job at Stratfor, that's for sure.

[John]

> This is extremely bold and brave analysis. This site has never
> been afraid to go out on a limb. Excellent.

Thanks for the compliment, but it turns out that bold and brave
analyses don't make you popular. (See Cassandra curse)

Bold and brave certainly wouldn't get you a job at Stratfor, that's for sure.

Or anywhere else.

[Auguestus]

Thanks for the compliment, but it turns out that bold and brave
analyses don't make you popular. (See Cassandra curse)

Bold and brave certainly wouldn't get you a job at Stratfor, that's for sure.

Or anywhere else.

The key to success is today's job market is to express and parrot lots of opinions and extrapolate trends indefinitely.

[John]

** 26-Feb-2019 Pakistan-India governments in confusion over airstrikes

For the time being, Kashmir is the most dangerous place in
the world, and the most likely to trigger a larger war.

As we reported last night, Indian warplanes bombed tarkets in
Pakistan, across the line of control (LoC) in Kashmir. India says
that it bombed a JeM training camp on the Pakistani side, killing many
terrorists and commanders.

Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) is the Pakistani terrorist group that claimed
credit for the worst terror attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir
in decades, occurring on February 14. Over 40 Indian
security forces were killed.

On Tuesday, India responded by conducting the first warplane
airstrikes on Pakistani soil since the massive 1971 war between
India and Pakistan.

India says that dozens of JeM militants were killed. Pakistan says
that the attacks are "reckless and fictitious," and that nobody was
killed, and that India had to drop its bombs on open fields and flee,
in order to avoid being shot down by Pakistani warplanes. Pakistan
says that if hundreds of people had been killed, then there would be
lots of funerals, but there aren't any.

Pakistan says that it will retaliate at a place and time of
its choosing.

India says that if there are more terror attacks, then it will strike
on Pakistani soil again.


--- India 'air strikes' send Pakistan tensions surging
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/in ... ar-BBU5wJg
(AFP)


--- Pakistan / The Latest: Khan says India's claim on bombing
'fictitious'
https://www.koin.com/news/the-latest-in ... 1810962341
(AP)

--- India-Pakistan tensions escalate with airstrikes across Kashmir border
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... shmir-bomb
(Guardian, London)

--- Pakistan defense analyst - Analysis of Indian airstrike in Kashmir
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/ispr-pre ... 134/page-2
(Pakistan Defense Ministry)


--- Related:

*** 19-Feb-2019 India-Pakistan tensions again escalate after Kashmir gunfight
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... 125#p44125

*** 14-Feb-2019 Biggest terror attack in years in India-controlled Kashmir
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... 044#p44044