MILITARY actions do not operate in a vacuum.
Or so that’s the point United States President Donald Trump seems to have driven in his last two actions that have deeply impacted the world.
First is his kidnapping of Venezuela leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia in early January. Barely two months after, the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with a number of top Iranian officials, in a massive missile attack of Iran.
It would appear that the main context of the cited events is the existing geopolitical divide between the United States and its ilk on the one hand, and China-Russia and their own allies on the other.
Such is doubtlessly political.
But somebody who has had enough exposure to Marxism would not neglect the basic tenet that “economic power begets political power, political power serves economic power.”
And that’s what has immediately surfaced in both the kidnapping of Maduro and the killing of Khamenei.
In the Maduro case, Trump’s immediate pronouncement after the criminal abduction was that he was taking over control of Venezuela’s oil, the reserve of which is reputed to be the largest in the world. On the strength of that Trump edict, the United States Navy thereafter confiscated in the Caribbean a tanker loaded with Venezuelan oil bound for China.
To repeat with concrete illustration: “political power (the military kidnapping of Maduro) serves economic power (the prerogative to seize control of Venezuelan oil).”
In the case of the missile attacks on Iran that resulted in the killing of the Ayatollah and other top Iranian officials, it would similarly seem that the bone of contention was political. However, when Iran retaliated with deadly and destructive barrages of its own missiles on Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East hosting US military bases, it was exposed that what the United States wanted to get was the Middle Eastern oil. To do so, the United States must course it through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran totally controls.
So, as in the Maduro kidnapping, US military action on Iran is primarily motivated by the need to control oil.
In fact, while it is true that what Iran is hitting across the Middle East are countries hosting US military bases, it is also true that most of those targets are oil-producing countries: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq.
Military power is just a necessity for enjoying the blessings of oil.
And as the United States’ covetousness of world oil is insatiable, there appears no way for its war designs to stop except through war against it — and war of US’ own magnitude.
In this respect, Iran deserves all support. It is matching US war efforts tit-for-tat.
For the missile barrages of the United States, Iran counters with its own, nay, even with the brag: “What you got are old stockpiles of Iran’s missiles. Wait till you get [to] the top of the line.”
Such a line is displayed in a video: brand-new missiles and drones concealed in underground bunkers incapable of being detected even by US high-end satellite methodology but ready for firing against any target across the Middle East.
The question is raised: Why not against the United States directly?
The answer given is that those hosting US military bases must learn to get out of the ambit of America’s dying system, or they die with it.
That should prove true, too, for the Philippines. In circumvention of the killing by the Philippine Senate in 1991 of the resolution extending the lifetime of the Military Bases Agreement of 1947, the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) of 2016 was concluded granting America sites inside camps of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Originally, five such sites were given to America: Antonio Bautista Airbase in Palawan, Basa Air Base in Pampanga, Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base in Cebu and Lumia Airbase in Cagayan de Oro.
Those sites are veritably the same US military bases that were dismantled in 1991, with this difference: unlike under the MBA in which use of the bases had corresponding rentals — which the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. even made sure to increase every five years — EDCA sites were given to America gratis et amore. When no longer needed by America, structures and facilities erected in those sites will even have to be paid for by the Philippine government.
What has particularly alarmed China is the additional four EDCA sites given to the United States by the Marcos administration. These are the Camp Melchor de la Cruz in Gamu Isabela, the Lalo Airport and Camilo Osias Naval Base in Lalo, Cagayan, all three being directly fronting China less than 200 kilometers away, and on Balabac Island in Palawan, in direct confrontation with Chinese forward military bases in the South China Sea.
What has taken place between the United States (through its mouthpieces personified by Philippine Coast Guard spokesman for the West Philippine Sea Jay Tarriela) and China over this issue is just word war, intense that it is. But nevertheless, it betrays a strategic intent to develop those sites in preparation for eventual use when the need arises.
In the Middle East, such a need has just begun. In the South China Sea region, China’s action is crucial.
What such action will be is indicated by the fact that China is the only foreign country given by Iran free access to the Strait of Hormuz, the only route for the passage of 20 percent of the world’s oil. Without such Iran permission, no other country is safe to use the strait for its oil transport.
Recently, a Marshall Island-flagged defiant oil tanker was hit by Iran’s exploding drone boat called an uncrewed surface vessel, killing one of the tanker’s crew.
For China, passing the Hormuz Strait is an undiminished privilege.
Indications are that Iran’s vision of the world is in harmony with China’s view of a world community of shared future. This is quite in contrast to the United States’ America First policy, meaning, as worded by Trump, “Nothing is good if it ain’t good for America.”
Quite clearly then, Iran’s manifest grit at persevering in its do-or-die entanglement with the United States ”ain’t good for America.”
While Trump wouldn’t let go of a possible peaceful settlement with Iran, Motajba Khamenei, son of the slain Ayatollah and the designated New Supreme Leader of Iran, has already dismissed such possibility.
Iran is resolved to push the fight to the right finish.
According to one analyst, Iran has set to full throttle what is termed as an asymmetric warfare — using missiles, drones, cyberattacks, regional allies, targeting supply lines, bases and shipping routes.
In a space of less than a week, Iran has embarked on such ventures — with amazing results.
US military facilities across the Middle East have suffered heavy damage.
An oil refinery in Saudi Arabia has been largely devastated.
So are the desalination plants in Israel, the largest in the world, and which supply 40 percent of the country’s fresh water needs, largely destroyed.
In the kind of warfare Iran is bent on persevering in, the idea is, in contrast to instantaneous mutual annihilation of protagonists, to deplete the enemy’s resources up to the extent that the cost of war is no longer practical.
According to Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, just one week from its attack on Iran code-named Operation Epic Fury, the United States has already incurred a war cost of $5 billion and counting.
Rather desperately, President Trump has asked for additional $50 billion from the US Congress to fund the war with Iran.
The Iran strategy has been successfully working all over the various fronts of the war.
Victory is at hand.
The new Supreme leader has rejected a ceasefire.
Why settle for less than a US defeat?
