Why would a war with Iran be much harder for the US military than the Iraq War?
George Bush Jnr actually considered military action against his axis-of-evil-designate-Iran back in 2006, when Iran was mulling to launch an oil bourse priced in Euros. He hesitated to launch an invasion of Iran for fear of a blockade in the Hormuz Straits by Iran.[1]The United States controls seaborne crude oil trade emanating from the Straits of Hormuz , and Iraq is almost landlocked if not for a small opening to the straits of Hormuz, therefore the US does not fear an oil crisis happening from crude oil tankers unable to traverse out of the Hormuz Straits during the invasion of Iraq.Iran, however has its entire Southern coastline franking the Hormuz Straits, and is armed with enough anti-ship missiles to seal off the Hormuz Straits in the event of an emergency, which will cause an unprecedented global oil shock. Furthermore, Iran has the implicit support from Russia and China, and will most likely be inducted into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) come June 2018 during the annual SCO meeting at Qingdao[2] . Once Iran becomes an SCO member, it will have security guarantee from both Russia and China, and will become next to impossible to subjugate, regime-change or dismember.Footnotes[1] Revisiting the 'Axis of Evil' 15 years after George W. Bush coined the term[2] Could the SCO Expand Into the Middle East?
What do people in other countries think about Donald Trump?
CanadaWe’re concerned for our poor neighbours to the south, while simultaneously amazed at this unbelievable spectacle:UpdateI was astounded and dismayed, but not really surprised, when I read the Calgary Sun (a right-wing and very conservative news daily). They had published a poll taken of their readers to find out which presidential candidate people supported. The poll showed 48% support for Trump, 27% support for Hillary and 25% undecided.These sad numbers should not be surprising because this is an oil-producing province and Trump, a climate change denier, said that he would give his blessing to a huge pipeline project to send Alberta oil (most of it from our Athabasca “tar-sands”, a very polluting and expensive source) to the US Gulf Coast.A presidential endorsement of this “Keystone XL Pipeline” (Barack Obama already said, “No”) is something that Alberta oil barons would dearly love to see and so Trump is their man; environment and world peace be damned I suppose, as long as the oil companies keep making money. :^(Trump’s approval rating will be much lower and Hillary’s much higher in more liberal-minded parts of Canada, such as British Columbia and Ontario (maybe in Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia too). Saskatchewan and Manitoba, prairie-land in the middle of Canada, are a mystery to me.