• US has deployed B-52 Bombers to the Middle East, the Lincoln Strike Group.
• The deployment is in response to indications of heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against US forces.
Image: FILE
"Many have spoken over this spring, but they were gone in the twinkling of an eye. We conquered the world with bravery and might, but we did not take it with us to the grave," said emperor Babur in his autobiography The Baburnama.
The reason Babur came to mind was because the historian William Dalrymple has taken himself off to Akshikent Babur's childhood home which is situated above the Sirdarya and has been tweeting from there. There are many mythical tales about Babur but my favourite is the story of Humayun.
In 1530 Humayun, Babur’s beloved eldest son and heir-apparent, was stricken by a fever. Despite the best efforts of the royal physicians, his condition steadily worsened.Driven to despair, Babur consulted a man of religion who told him that the remedy "was to give in alms the most valuable thing one had and to seek cure from God."Babur is said to have replied thus: "I am the most valuable thing that Humayun possesses; than me he has no better thing; I shall make myself a sacrifice for him. May God the Creator accept it."
Humayun possessed a priceless diamond, they said, which could be sold and the proceeds given to the poor... Babur would not hear of it. "What value has worldly wealth?" Babur is quoted to have said. "And how can it be a redemption for Humayun? I myself shall be his sacrifice."
He walked three times around Humayun’s bed, praying: "O God! If a life may be exchanged for a life, I who am Babur, I give my life and my being for a Humayun." A few minutes later, he cried: "We have borne it away, we have borne it away."And sure enough, from that moment Babur began to sicken, while Humayun grew slowly well. Babur died near Agra on December 21, 1530.
He left orders for his body to be buried in Kabul. I have digressed but William Dalrymple then tweets ''Exactly- what Iranian threats?''
US has deployed B-52 Bombers to the Middle East, the Lincoln Strike Group and The Pentagon announced Friday that it is deploying an amphibious assault ship and a Patriot missile battery to the Middle East to bolster an aircraft carrier force sent to counter alleged threats from Iran.
USS Arlington, which transports marines, amphibious vehicles, conventional landing craft and rotary aircraft, and the Patriot air defense system will join the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a B-52 bomber task force headed toward the Gulf after intelligence reports suggested Iran was planning some sort of attack in the region.
The deployment is "in response to indications of heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against US forces and our interests," the Pentagon said in a statement. Iran has not been able to sell a single barrel of oil since the beginning of May as not a single ship has been seen leaving Iran's oil terminals so far this month [HelenCRobertson].
They once sold 2.5m bpd which equated to $100m a day. Since the beginning of May, their daily income has been $0.00 from oil sales. This level of financial and coercive sanction warfare is simply unprecedented. President Trump has been a big proponent of coercive, financial and sanction warfare and its expression vis a vis Iran is its apogee.
Marwan Bishara wrote, "These [US] demands basically constitute total Iranian surrender, not only to the US but also to Israel and Saudi Arabia ''MK BhadraKumar writes, ''If there can be a lethal game of Russian roulette in international politics, this is it''.
Russian roulette is a game of chance where players spin the cylinder of a revolver with a single bullet in turns, put the muzzle against their head and pull the trigger.The player has 16.6 per cent chances of firing a bullet into his head if there is one bullet in the 6-chamber revolver.
Each player starts by spinning the cylinder, thus each player has an equal chance of being killed by the bullet. Quite obviously, it’s an insane game that US President Trump started on May 8 last year. A big question can be put whether Trump himself wants another Middle Eastern war.
The price of oil has surged 34.1% in 2019 and in big part because of the ratcheting higher of tensions with Iran. No number of Trump tweets will dampen the price. Iranians will surely manage to shutter the straits of Hormuz even if after an asymmetric fashion.
What we know is this: Iran is at the Hunter S. Thompson[Ian] edge. "There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over, if the US thinks that Tehran will just roll over, which appears to be the case, then they are exhibiting the same deluded ideas that they exhibited a day before the peacock Throne got plucked. Iran is a geopolitical bleeding edge.