Will the Iran conflict draw in other nations? It's beginning to look likely...

 

We've heard rumors that Kurds in other Middle Eastern nations - Iraq, Syria and even possibly Turkey - may support Iranian Kurds if they stage an uprising to make their enclave independent of Iran.  Some fear that's a pipe dream that will never materialize (see, for example, this article from the Daily Telegraph).  Others think there's more to it.  In particular, Larry Lambert (who blogs at Virtual Mirage) has been to Iraqi Kurdistan recently, and is an adviser to its leaders (see his detailed background article for more information).  In a comment to a recent article by Lawdog, he had this to say.

I've been to Kurdistan, spoken with the Barzanis within the year, and worked there, so there is credibility to the extent that my observations are valid. I didn't travel to Iran to meet with the Iranian Kurds. As you point out, all of the Kurdish regions in Syria, Turkey, Barzani and Talibani in Iraq, and the Kurds in Iran have different political bents and different tribal affiliations. Some are hardcore opium growers and marketers, some have more oil, and in all cases, they are "Assyrians" culturally, which separates them from Arabs and Persians. Israel gets along with the Kurds more than just in an enemy of my enemy framework.

I'm certain that the Trump Administration promised the Kurds their "freedom" in exchange for "boots on the ground." Having run with them recently, that is the promise that would turn the trick. The US forces recently withdrawn from Syria were redeployed to Erbil to backfill for the Peshmerga who had deployed. The huge base in Erbil rarely makes the news, but it is significant, and the just-opened US Consulate in Erbil is the largest in the world.

. . .

... an open US recognition of a Kurdish state as free and independent will drop a turd in the punch.

There's more at the link.

So, it appears to be more than a remote possibility that Iranian Kurds, probably supported to a certain extent by Kurds from across the Middle East, may indeed rise up against the Iranian government.  What makes this even more likely are developments in Azerbaijan, on Iran's northern border.  The BBC reports:

Azerbaijan has said it is pulling its diplomatic staff out of Iran after it accused Iran of launching four drones across the border into the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan ... Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev condemned the "act of terror", demanding an explanation and apology from Tehran.

On Friday he went further, announcing the withdrawal of staff from Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran and consulate in Tabriz "for their own safety", and state media said the military had been placed on maximum combat readiness.

Aliyev also touched on Iran's ethnic Azerbaijani population on Thursday - a sensitive subject for Tehran ... his anger went beyond words, saying that "independent Azerbaijan is a place of hope for Azerbaijanis living in Iran".

Baku has long avoided this line because of how sensitive it is for Tehran.

Iran is home to an estimated 20-25 million ethnic Azeris, who make up its largest minority group and are concentrated in the north-west along the Azerbaijan border.

The Islamic Republic has consistently regarded their identity and political affiliations as issues of utmost sensitivity. Tehran views any notion of Azerbaijani identity extending beyond its borders as a potential challenge to internal unity.

Aliyev has rarely spoken about Iranian Azeris in such explicitly aspirational terms and doing so now appears to be a calculated move.

. . .

[Iranian Azeris] are also a politically significant community. This week the exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, has been urging Iranian Azerbaijanis, among other ethnic minorities, to rise up against the regime.

. . .

Despite their shared Shia Muslim identity, Iran and Azerbaijan have grown apart politically, and tensions worsened after Azerbaijan's military victories in the 2020 and 2023 Karabakh wars, which were helped by Turkish and Israeli-made weapons.

Iran views Baku's close defence partnership with Israel as a serious threat.

Iranian officials and media have repeatedly accused Azerbaijan of helping Israeli intelligence operate along Iran's northern frontier - claims Azerbaijan denies.

Azerbaijan's ties with Israel extend beyond security. Israel relies heavily on Azerbaijani oil, and the two countries maintain close political and intelligence co-operation.

For Tehran, this collaboration is at the centre of its suspicion.

Azerbaijan, for its part, has long resented Iran's political and military support for neighbouring Armenia, seeing it as direct interference in a conflict central to its own security.

That history of mistrust is an important backdrop to Thursday's escalation, shaping how Baku interprets every move coming from Tehran.

. . .

Aliyev's decision to talk openly of Azerbaijan being a "place of hope" for Iranian Azeris introduces a new and potentially unpredictable element.

Aliyev has pointed out to Tehran that he was the sole foreign leader to visit any Iranian embassy to express condolences following the killing of Khamenei, and that he personally responded to a request to help evacuate Iranian embassy staff from Lebanon.

Now, he says, Iran has repaid those gestures with drone strikes on Azerbaijani territory, something he views as a deep betrayal.

Again, more at the link.

The Associated Press added more details.

President Ilham Aliyev accused Iran of carrying out “a groundless act of terror and aggression,” and said his military has been told to prepare and implement retaliatory measures. The Caspian Sea nation halted truck traffic across the nearly 700-kilometer (over 400-mile) border with Iran.

. . .

[Aliyev] said Azerbaijan’s military has been instructed “to prepare and implement retaliatory measures.”

The Defense Ministry vowed that Iran’s “attacks will not go unanswered,” adding it was preparing the “necessary response” to protect “the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our country, ensure the safety of civilians and civilian infrastructure.” It didn’t elaborate.

Aliyev stressed that Azerbaijan “is not participating in operations against Iran -– neither previously nor this time -– and will not do so.”

He added: “We have neither interest in conducting any operations against neighboring countries, nor does our policy allow it.”

More at the link.

I need hardly point out that "not participating in operations against Iran" doesn't exactly square with the Azerbaijani military's being "instructed to prepare and implement retaliatory measures".  Cognitive dissonance, much?

Furthermore, if Iranian Kurds rise up against the government, consider what Iranian Azeris might do.  After all, many of their ethnic leaders have been oppressed by the Iranian government, including imprisonment, harassment, censorship and other measures.  Regardless of what the Azerbaijan government does, perhaps some Iranian Azeris might be inspired by a Kurdish uprising to launch one of their own;  and if they do, can Azerbaijan - which regards itself as the homeland and leader of all Azeris - stand idly by and do nothing, thereby potentially threatening its self-proclaimed ethnic leadership?

Finally, note that US Vice-President Vance is currently visiting both Armenia and Azerbaijan, two nations that recently fought a war with each other and are still at daggers drawn.  If the threat of renewed hostilities between them can be negotiated away, or at least reduced, that will allow Azerbaijan to focus its attention - and its military - elsewhere . . . towards Iran, perhaps?  Might Vice-President Vance be discussing that matter in suitably diplomatic language?

So, the US appears to be encouraging an uprising by Iran's Kurds, and Azerbaijan is making nice with Israel and the USA - both allied with each other against Iran - in the face of Iranian terrorism and suppression of its large Azeri population.  If both subsets of Iran's people were to rise up and support each other, probably - almost certainly - with military support from the USA and Israel, what would this mean to Iran?  It would become a three-sided onslaught against that nation.  Could the current regime there survive that?

I'm speculating, of course:  but if one looks at the news articles and commentary above, and reads between the lines, and puts two and two together, the picture that emerges is one that should make the Iranian government very worried indeed.  At least, that's the way I see it.

Peter

A very useful cost-saver that works for everyone

 

For all the doom-and-gloom prophecies about what artificial intelligence (AI) will do to the job market and the business sector, AI does have some very useful applications for the average American.  Here's one.

Last summer, a man’s brother-in-law suffered a fatal heart attack. The hospital bill for four hours of emergency care: $195,628.

The man’s sister-in-law was ready to pay it. He asked her to wait. He requested an itemized bill with CPT codes, the universal billing codes hospitals use, and fed the whole thing into Claude, an AI chatbot.

Within minutes, Claude found duplicate charges, services billed as "inpatient" even though the patient was never admitted, supply costs inflated by 500% to 2,300% above Medicare rates and charges for procedures that never happened. He cross-checked with ChatGPT. Both AIs agreed. He wrote a six-page letter citing every violation by name.

The hospital dropped the bill to $33,000. An 83% reduction. Zero medical training. A $20 app.

There's more at the link.  Highly recommended reading for anyone expecting or receiving big medical bills.

I've used this myself over the past year or so.  As regular readers will know, I've been dealing with multiple medical issues for some time, including the removal of a kidney and forthcoming major spinal surgery for which extensive (and intensive) preliminary examinations and tests have been required.  I've had to spend over $30,000 in doing so.  However, once I started analyzing what I was being charged by using online AI tools, I was able to secure some dramatic reductions in the billing.  I reckon I've saved five figures worth of money already, and expect to save a lot more by doing the same thing in future.

I recommend that any reader expecting (or paying) large medical bills should read the whole article referenced above, then try its recommendations for yourself.  You may be very pleasantly surprised by how much you save.

Peter

Very useful information on long-term emergency food storage

 

Commander Zero, whom we've met in these pages on several occasions, recently wrote an article asking his readers for feedback on cold weather food storage.  His exact question was:  "If you were going to store foods in a location that was going to be subject to freeze/thaw cycles, what foods would be best choices?"

Many of his readers responded - 44 of them, as I write these words.  They've provided a great deal of information that's useful for anyone considering food storage, even if not in a cold-weather environment.  I highly recommend clicking over to his place to read his question and explanation, and their responses.

Peter

A potential terrorist threat from Iran

 

I'm sure that by now, most of the readers of this blog are aware that Iran has been sending coded signals to unknown persons.

Iran sent out a possible “operational trigger” to activate “sleeper assets” abroad after the war with America and Israel began, according to an encrypted message intercepted by the US.

The coded signal was sent out following the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28, with the message appearing to hold instructions for “covert operatives or sleeper assets,” ABC News reported, citing a federal alert sent to law enforcement agencies.

The message could “be intended to activate or provide instructions to prepositioned sleeper assets operating outside the originating country,” the alert warned.

. . .

“If ever there’s going to be a Hezbollah cell or a Hamas cell act in the United States in a violent way, it’s now,” Chris Swecker, a former assistant FBI director, told Fox News after the war began.

There's more at the link.

Anybody with any knowledge of international terrorism has been aware of the security risk posed by allowing millions of illegal aliens to cross our borders during the previous administration, with minimal or no security and background checks.  I shall be highly surprised if several hundred - possibly several thousand - terrorists and their supporters did not take advantage of that opportunity.  It was a gilt-edged invitation to set up terrorist, espionage and sabotage cells within the US in a virtually untraceable, unidentifiable fashion, and I'm sure our enemies did precisely that.  Individual terrorists would have done likewise.

We don't know how many such cells or individuals did that, but we've already seen examples of illegal aliens committing such crimes.  I would expect increased acts of terrorism in the short term, and possibly one or two attempts to commit some really big atrocity such as the World Trade Center attacks of 2001.  I'm sure law enforcement and security agencies and staff have already been briefed about that, and are on a higher state of alert to spot and prevent them.  However, most individual Americans are not security-conscious at all, and most are not armed and ready to defend themselves and others.  That would apply particularly to "blue" states, where anti-gun and anti-self-defense messages dominate, but it's not restricted to them.  Even here in Texas, generally regarded as a very pro-Second-Amendment state, there are urban pockets where liberal/progressive ideas and policies dominate.  (Plano, I'm looking at you.)

I can only suggest that readers arm themselves to the extent legally possible, and be prepared to defend themselves and their loved ones if necessary.  I'd also suggest remembering and applying John Farnam's sage advice:

The best way to handle any potentially injurious encounter is: Don’t be there. Arrange to be somewhere else. Don’t go to stupid places. Don’t associate with stupid people. Don’t do stupid things.

Sometimes we can't avoid having to be in or near such places or people.  If so, plan to get out of there as quickly as possible, and keep your head on a swivel while you're there.  Forewarned is forearmed.

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  It's started, at least among sympathizers.  See this link for more.

Is the AI threat to jobs also a threat to pensions, IRA's and 401(k)'s?

 

Last week we looked at how artificial intelligence (AI) was affecting the job market.  I've been trying to read more widely on the subject, in an effort to understand its implications for all of us over the next few years.  Jonathan Turley, well-known lawyer and legal scholar, offers these thoughts.

We are looking at one of the greatest job losses in history.

In a free-market system, such technological changes tend to offset losses with new jobs in emerging industries. And there will be such growth with the AI and robotic revolutions. But it is also likely that we are looking at a static class of unemployed and practically unemployable citizens as this new revolution unfolds.

. . .

The impact of AI is not confined to factory workers and truck drivers.

The danger is that politicians will react predictably and try to subsidize jobs that are no longer viable and industries that are being dramatically downsized. At the same time, they are likely to expand model programs in Democratic cities for universal basic or guaranteed income.

Democrats have moved forward with more than 60 bills creating such programs, and this week, Cook County, Ill. (the second-largest county in the U.S.) made permanent the universal basic income program it had originally launched with federal COVID-19 relief funds.

The problem is the creation of what I call a “kept citizenship” in a republic designed for people who are economically and politically independent from the government. That system is seriously undermined by a large percentage of citizens living off the government dole.

The solution cannot be an “arts-and-crafts” population kept entertained by government programs to learn glassblowing and pottery-making. A different type of citizen would emerge that is unlikely to be sufficiently free of the government to counter its excesses or failures.

. . .

All governments will face this existential crisis in the 21st Century. It will create growing instability globally. Although AI and robotics will make goods cheaper and more widely available, they are also likely to have a dramatic effect on populations. For example, as production costs drop with the new technology, there will be less advantage to moving factories to other countries with cheaper labor forces, such as China and Mexico.

Companies may choose to build near consumer markets to save on transportation costs while utilizing higher-skilled worker populations to maintain robotic and AI systems. That could produce massive unemployment in certain countries with low-educated, low-income populations. That in turn could destabilize governments and increase the chances of war in countries with large populations of unemployed young men.

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading.

Mr. Turley outlines a very real constitutional issue for the United States.  Our federal government is specifically restricted by the constitution in what, and how much, it can do - even if much of those provisions are today observed more in the breach than in the observance.  Nevertheless, I think it's a valid argument that our system of government, and how we vote for it, are designed for citizens who are not dependent on that government.  They are able to vote as free men and women because they are not dependents.  The moment they cease being free - the moment they become financially dependent on the same government they're helping to elect - the greater becomes the danger that they will vote for their own financial advantage, rather than the good of the country.  As the Roman poet Juvenal satirically pointed out almost two millennia ago, people will vote for "bread and circuses" rather than what their country needs to remain viable.  The fall of Rome not too long afterwards tends to bear out his point.

So . . . if AI leads to increased unemployment (as appears likely at present), what will the newly unemployed do?  Can they, on their own initiative, figure out new ways to make a living and rebuild their society?  Or will they listen to the siren song of politicians who promise them all sorts of freebies and benefits in return for their vote?  (For that matter, any politician who promises to set up government programs to do the hard work for people, so that they don't have to think and work for themselves, is almost guaranteed electoral success.  See the universal basic income (UBI) scheme being pioneered by Chicago, and look for something similar in New York and other "blue" cities.)

The biggest threat posed by AI job replacement is one that Mr. Turley has not mentioned at all.  It's simply this:  if government is to provide a basic guaranteed income to every citizen, it can argue that private pension schemes, IRA's and 401(k)'s are now obsolete and unnecessary.  After all, if the state will provide our needs, why do we need to make provision for them ourselves?  That leads directly to the next and larger problem:  what if the state decides it can confiscate or "nationalize" our pensions, because with UBI we no longer need them?  There are many trillions of dollars saved by Americans in such pension systems, and a left-wing government will be frothing at the mouth over the temptation to seize them all.  It would wipe out a huge chunk of our national deficit (at least until such governments spend it all again!), and can be "sold" to the underfunded portion of the electorate as a "tax on the rich" who want to "hold on to money they don't need any more".  The massive population of "blue" cities and states can be expected to vote for it en masse, overwhelming the more conservative vote of those who've worked for their future income and want to keep it for themselves.

That will, in turn, beget a whole new series of arguments and confrontations over how much UBI should be, and whether "richer" people whose private pension funds were "nationalized" are entitled to a higher UBI payment as compensation, and a whole range of related issues.  What if housing were folded into the UBI arrangement, so that anyone receiving UBI was also guaranteed a place to live?  What quality of place?  In what sort of suburb?  Will everyone be forced into Cabrini-Green style housing, or will there be any freedom of choice?

I have no idea what may emerge from the current state of affairs, but I can foresee far more problems for society than are presently being discussed.  In days past, laissez-faire economists used to claim that "What's good for the banks is good for the country".  Well, AI may be good for business, but it may very well be "double-plus-ungood" for our jobs and for our society.  Right now, we just don't know . . . and that uncertainty is dangerous in itself.

Your thoughts, dear readers?

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 302

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Today let's enjoy a duo who've delighted thousands with their instrumental crossover guitar pieces.  I'm speaking of Rodrigo y Gabriela, who started performing in the early 1990's and have never looked back.  I've picked a couple of old favorites, plus an extended session with Metallica's bass player Robert Trujillo.

First, here's "Hanuman".

Next, we have "Tamacun".

Finally, from Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheater in 2014, they're joined by Robert Trujillo for an extended jam session.

Sounds like a lot of fun was had by all concerned.  You'll find lots more music from Rodrigo y Gabriela on YouTube.

Peter