When three men who happened to be Iranians who like Thai women
(doesn't everyone?) and who aren't very good around bombs set off
three explosions in Bangkok, it was not just an isolated
incident.
In the context of the history of geopolitical and economic
conflicts, it is but the most recent flare-up in the ''great game''
that the West and the East have played since before the Battle of
Marathon in 490BC, before there was Christianity, Islam or Zionism,
although there was already Judaism.
The great game - empires love to play it.
The Greek city states and the Achaemenid Persians played it. The
Romans and the Carthaginians played it. The Romans and the Parthian
Persians played it. The Byzantines and the Sassanid Persians played
it. The Europeans and the Ottomans and the Arabs played it. They
all played for the prizes of Mediterranean political and trade
dominance, and control of the silk route from India and China.
The British and the Russian empires played it. The prize was
central Asia in general and Afghanistan in particular in the
interests of creating a buffer to protect British-India from any
other colonial power that wasn't familiar with the words to Rule,
Britannia.
When the Portuguese decided to sail around Africa to reach China
and India, they did so because those Arabs, Turks and Persians were
too stubborn to be dislodged from sitting on lucrative trade
routes. When Christopher Columbus sailed west he had a similar
motivation, but he found something entirely different. More
recently, the Americans and the Soviets played it. The prize was
geopolitical and economic dominance worldwide.
One thing we can take from this is that the great game has been
played for as long as there have been empires. Another thing we can
take from this is that if you live on a lucrative trade route
and/or a geopolitically strategic region, somebody will be messing
with you, always _ with special condolences to Afghanistan.
One more thing we can take from this is that Persia, now Iran, has
appeared on the list more than once. This is because historically
they are empire builders who throughout the past have stood at the
gateway between the West and the East, which makes them, in the
eyes of the West, always in the way.
In the modern West-versus-East context, let's
define the West as the US, Israel and their allies and the East as
the Muslim world of the Middle East and North Africa, with Russia
and China watching carefully from the
sidelines.
The West and the East don't fight
because one is Christian and the other is Muslim.
They fight because they have conflicting
geopolitical and economic interests and they are in each other's
way.
Looking at the map of today's world, it is not surprising that Iran
finds itself sandwiched between Iraq and Afghanistan, two countries
that were recently introduced to freedom and democracy the hard
way.
Iraq is smack in the middle of the Middle Eastern world, which it
benefits the West to keep off balance, never to be united by a
common language and faith so that it can become a powerful
geopolitical and economic force.
It is also a strategic location to provide a check on an
ever-growing Turkey.
Afghanistan lies in the underbelly of a resurging Russia. It can
also check Pakistan and India, as well as watch over the various
former Soviet satellites in Central Asia who inherited fancy
weapons that make everyone else uncomfortable.
China is sandwiched between Afghanistan on one side and staunch
Western allies South Korea, Taiwan and Japan on the other, with the
US fleet floating nearby, policing the surrounding sea.
You may want to read George Friedman's The Next 100 Years for a
better understanding of the geopolitical map of the world, and to
make sure I'm not just making this stuff up.
Looking at the map of the world,
whether by accident or design or a bit of both, this round, bumpy
thing called Earth
is dominated by a Western hegemony through and through,
politically, militarily, culturally and economically, to one degree
or another.
China may one day challenge this hegemony, but
that day is not today, especially not in terms of political influence
and military might. Korean pop might one day replace Western pop,
but not while Lady Gaga still lives and breathes.
This doesn't make the West the hero or the villain in this story,
just the winning team, while everyone else either plays catch up or
accepts the reality and makes the best of it.
As the West sits on top of the global pyramid,
there are naturally nations that might want to be in that
seat. This
doesn't make those nations heros or villains either. Everyone wants
to be on the winning team. The
task then is for the West to maintain the geopolitical and economic
structure that keeps it at the top of the food
chain.
In maintaining the current geopolitical and economic structure,
national interests inevitably come into conflict and hence minor
wars are engaged in this great game.
The benefit of having a dominant hegemony is that wars often are
minor, as opposed to the devastation of the world wars in the last
century where several nations of more or less equal power forged
alliances and contested to defend and expand their national
interests.
Wars are fought because both sides believe they can be victorious;
that belief, however, doesn't necessarily have to be based on
logic. If one of the two conflicting nations doesn't believe it can
win, it would likely seek terms and peace would be restored.
In the current hegemony the West's military might is undisputed,
with the Iraq war illustrating that fact clearly. With no chance of
even fantasising about winning a conventional war, what has been
called ''terrorism'' has become the only available method to wage
war against the West. The logic is simple: You don't have to beat
your foe down to the ground; you just have to hurt him enough until
he decides the fight and the prize is not worth it. (See the
Vietnam war.)
This method of warfare has given rise to the underrated 21st
century debate: Is one man's terrorist another man's freedom
fighter? Meanwhile simpler minds focus on the ''fanatic'' Muslims,
''evil'' Christians and ''conniving'' Jews debate. This is because
their handicapped intellectual capacity is bogged down by
propaganda that prevents them from understanding the true cause of
conflicts: self-interest.
No matter how wars are fought, the nature of the conflict is the
same. In the great game of geopolitical and economic dominance,
nations simply behave to defend and expand their national
interests, which inevitably bring nations into conflict.
Why expand and not just defend? There are many reasons, but most
importantly, as the old martial art adage would have it, ''the best
defence is a good offence'', which helps justify Western military
might ''defending'' its national interests in some remote desert on
the other side of the world.
Surrounded by hostile elements, Israel's national interest is to
maintain its independence and sovereignty under the threat of
destruction.
Being isolated and marginalised as part of what former US president
George Bush called the axis of evil, Iran's national interest is to
strengthen itself to maintain its independence and sovereignty.
The US and its western European allies are interested in staying on
top. Hence, they have to interfere in regional/local political
affairs that threaten to upset the current global structure.
What we saw in Bangkok this past week is some 2,500 years of the
ongoing geopolitical and economic rivalry between the West and the
East coming to a country that has enough problems of its own.
The Thai authorities have so far refrained from blaming anyone.
This is because this is not our fight and the last thing we would
want to do is make extremists on either side angry _ we have enough
problems of our own.
Be that as it may, security experts have warned us that we won't be
able to escape the fight. The modern world is a globalised one. The
current great game isn't just played in the confines of the
Mediterranean world. Over two millennia of technological
advancements have widened the scale and scope of all conflicts to
ensure that everyone suffers their share.
Thailand is but another theatre, albeit a tiny one, in this great
game that the big boys with destructive toys play.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/280523/great-game-hits-town