Peace in the Middle East?

[nomadpete]

Meanwhile the US blockade of the strait is going bigly....

 

"

The Boat Called HUGE

 

While the spam tin emperor was on Truth Social on Friday composing love letters to his own competence, an Iranian VLCC supertanker called HUGE, that is the actual name, capital letters and all, loaded 1.9 million barrels of crude worth nearly 220 million bucks, switched off its transponder, hugged the coasts of Pakistan and India, drifted past Sri Lanka, threaded the Lombok Strait, and is now steaming for China with its destination port already on the manifest.

This happened during what the Trump administration has repeatedly called the most successful naval blockade since the Cuban Missile Crisis. 21 warships. 3 carrier strike groups. Over 100 aircraft. 10,000 personnel. The largest US naval deployment since 2003."

Edited May 3 by nomadpete
Pic for proof

[nomadpete]

2 minutes ago, old man emu said:

Trump will go down in history as the creator af a new World Order.

Damn. A bitter pill to swallow. To think the tangerine todder gets credit for doing something good, even though he didn't mean to.

 

[nomadpete]

US vs Iran.

 

So much winning!

 

[old man emu]

What exactly is Iran's ideology? Nobody seems to have laid it out for examination. Sure, it's dominated by a theology. How much impact have the actions of the Isrealis and the USA over the past 78 years influenced that ideology?

[onetrack]

The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations always produces informative outlines of other countries systems of Govts and political problems. The article below is a CFR article from 2008, and it has been archived because of more recent events in Iran, but it gives good information about how Khomeini was a hardline Islamic Fundamentalist who wrote a book stating that Iranian government must only operate under "velayat-e faqih" (guardianship of the Islamic jurist), which is deeply intertwined with Mahdist beliefs. 

 

Mahdist beliefs center on the messianic concept of the Mahdi (the "Right-Guided One"), an eschatological figure in Islam who will appear at the end of times to vanquish evil, restore universal justice, and enforce the true teachings of the (Islamic) faith.

 

The Mahdi is known in Islam as "the Hidden One". Believed to be the twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, he is said to have entered a state of divine concealment (Occultation) in 941 CE, and will return at the end of time to restore justice.

This Islamic belief is identical to the Christian belief that Jesus Christ will reveal himself in the flesh, and return to the Earth to rule it, at the future time known as "the Second Coming".

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Islamics believe that Jesus Christ will return with the Mahdi - but the Mahdi will be the prominent divine figure, and Jesus Christ will only be a returning prophet.

 

The basis of all Mahdi beliefs is that the West and Christianity is corrupt and evil, and the repository of Satan (the Evil One) - and therefore, only true Islam, in the form of Mahdism, can produce peace and justice worldwide.

The bottom line is Khomeini sought sole domineering control of Iran and its people, under a very repressive, undemocratic Islamic system that places religion, politics and everyday life into one tightly-bound structure, with Imams controlling every single action involving rule of the people, and with very little personal freedom - especially anything to do with ruling clique protests, or complaints against Imams, or trying to worship other religions.

 

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/religion-and-politics-iran

 

Edited 4 hours ago by onetrack

[facthunter]

Be an atheist, and then you can use the Brain God gave you to think with and question things.  Evil is as Evil does. Funny how Women don't count for Much in most religions. The Pentecostal Cult Religion was INVENTED to justify Greed and Capitalism.  Nev