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Wow!  What a week!  Let me tell you, I haven’t been this busy in quite some time.  Just to give you a feel for it, I’ll tell you that when I finally sat down on Wednesday morning to give myself a little break so that I could do some background reading for this week’s column, I caught myself power-reading out of habit.  And what was worse, after I took a moment to calm down and relax, I realized, “No.  I actually NEED to power-read because I need to get through this stuff, and this is the only chance I’m going to have to get it done.”  So instead of having my typical once-weekly relaxing train ride into work, I instead forced myself back into work mode and swallowed this week’s Newsweek in one large gulp. 

In a way I guess it’s good that they’ve been putting in more filler lately, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth.  Yuck! 

If you’re wondering, I typically read both Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal just because I like to keep up with what’s going on in the world, but with an increasing workload at my job, a recently heavy review load for this column, and the always active writing schedule I try to keep, I realized when I sat down to plan this week’s column that I had no idea what was happening.  And since this is a break-from-comics-week, that meant I didn’t have anything to write about! 

I know it’s hard to believe.  I couldn’t believe it at first either.

But the world goes on, and as it turns out, the problem was nothing that a dedicated hour of study couldn’t solve.  And so, without further ado, here’s this week’s Stray Voltage, presented for you this week without any comic-talk whatsoever.  Er... well, maybe just a little.  But not much.  I promise.

A Few Words About Foreign Policy

If you didn’t notice, those pesky Iranians are at it again.  This week—well, really two weeks ago—they seized fifteen British sailors in the midst of an anti-smuggling operation just inside Iraqi territorial waters.  And so it seems that Iran has become a kind of serial kidnapper.  This is the second time in recent memory that they’ve kidnapped British sailors and perhaps the upteenth time that they’ve been involved in some sort of kidnapping or hostage taking, either officially or unofficially through sponsored terrorist cells, that targets the media Western audience.  The most blatant was, of course, the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, but other examples abound from the 1980’s as any who ca remember that period will no doubt attest.

I’ve read several different interpretations of this most recent incident, but the one that makes the most sense to me is the explanation that says that this latest was a tit-for-tat kidnapping made in retaliation for the allegedly US-sponsored abduction of a key Iranian intelligence operative working in Iraq a few weeks ago.  Although no official pronouncement has been made about that incident, the widely believed speculation is that the operative in question is a general in the Revolutionary Guards and that he was taken by an elite Iraqi Army unit, presumably at the behest of the US and perhaps while working under the direct command of US soldiers or intelligence operatives. 

But to really understand this story, one has to understand the larger politics of the area, and with that in mind, let’s start with the US perspective.  Right now the US has three primary issues with the government in Tehran.  First and probably foremost is the fact that Iran has a formally declared nuclear technology program.  They say that they need this technology for power, and that may very well be true, but it doesn’t change the fact that it scares the Hell out of a lot of people.  It scares the US because:

    · It threatens to shift the balance of power in the Middle East.

    · Iran is a state sponsor of terror, so that if they have a nuclear weapon—or even simple, fissile material, then it is MUCH more likely that a nuclear weapon will get into the hands of any number of terrorist organizations.

    · If Iran has nuclear weapons, then that will virtually eliminate US military options at any future point when and if the US needs to contain or curtail future Iranian activities.

When you consider that Iran is also heavily interested in Iraq—though often at cross-purposes with the US—and that Iran has the world’s second largest proven reserves of crude oil... well, you begin to see why this is a sticky situation. 

The credible rumor mill has it that the hardliners in the Bush Administration wanted to take military action against the Iranian nuclear program weeks ago but that the military reality on the ground in Iraq was such that even the most blockheaded of that faction realized that, at least for right now, a limited war against Iran is likely not winnable.  You may recall me saying as much three or four weeks ago.  At any rate, without any credible military course of action with which to solve the problem, the minds in Washington were forced to fall back on a policy of worldwide containment and collaboration.  Not surprisingly, nearly every person on the planet who ISN’T in the Bush administration thought this was remarkably good news, and we consequently saw both a drop in the price of oil and a resulting vote in the UN Security Council in which even China and Russia supported economic measures aimed squarely at the elites within Iranian society.

All of that was good, and it seems to have been working.  But it also boxed a certain element of the Iranian leadership into the kind of corner that any bully might find himself in when faced by the combined might of all of the other kids in the neighborhood.  Thus the question is now: How can they get out now without looking weak?

Apparently at least part of the regime thought that a likely answer was via kidnapping.

But this being the Middle East, there’s more to the story.  In this case, that more is from Saudi Arabia.  The Saudi’s have long been amongst the staunchest US allies amongst the Arab states, but lately they’ve stopped toeing the line.  In fact, in recent weeks King Faud has gone on record in English saying that the US occupation of Iraq is illegal along with several other hoice anit-American statements.  This is most likely because the invasion of Iraq has done a number on regional stability, especially amongst Sunnis.  Saudi Arabia is and always has been the most economically powerful of the Sunni states, and if one buys into the idea that they’ve successfully co-opted the US military to ensure their territorial integrity, then they are and probably have been the most powerful military nation in the region for a goodly while as well.  And as such, they are natural rivals to the government in Tehran, which is both Shiite and Persian.  And expansionist.  So the invasion of Iraq has made life more than slightly difficult for the Saudis in that it has severely weakened the buffer state between them and the Iranians—Iraq—and it has weakened their mass-market powerbase as Sunni Muslim cultural leaders by tainting their regime with Western collaboration at a time when others, such as Al Quada and the Iranians, are trying with at least some success to make the case for a cultural conflict against the US over Iraq and general regional independence.

One could therefore make the argument that the Saudis have had no choice but to double-cross their allies in the US, and maybe that’s true.  But on the other side, they have no choice but to support US action against Iran as well since an Iranian nuclear weapon would be a Saudi national nightmare even more than it would be an American one.  In case you didn’t notice, there’s quite a little Sunni/Shiite struggle brewing in Iraq right now, and I’m quite sure that the Saudis are afraid of getting drawn into it, especially at a time when it seems likely that American military power will not be there to protect the regime as it has in the past.  After all, America can always bring its troops home, but the Saudis have to actually live there.  A cultural death-struggle with ascendant Shiite powers is definitely NOT in the Saudi national interest.

And so here again you have a reason for the Iranian kidnapping.  The elements in Iran that want a bomb also want a confrontation with the West.  Why?  Because that’s part of how they push the agenda in Iraq, which is in turn a part of how they push their larger agenda in the region as a whole.  The violence in Iraq is something that they can at least partially control, and it upsets the balance of power.  And that’s good if you’re the side trying to gain power.  It’s only bad if you’re standing for the status quo—as the Saudis are.  And to make matters worse, the Iranian hardliners know that now is their time.  With American military power tied up in Iraq, the Iranians can buy themselves time and freedom of maneuver in a regional power play by fighting a holding action to keep America engaged in Iraq.  While the US is focused on Iraq, it cannot be truly focused on Iran.  This aim is furthered by the kidnappings because it escalates the situation.  Iranian hardliners likely believe that if they can escalate the situation, it’ll make some of the currently united powers of the Security Council nervous, which in turn will alleviate sanctions and allow even more freedom of maneuver for the future while at the same time provoking American and British anger.  The aim is therefore to isolate the US and Britain just as US and Britain are trying to isolate Iran.

The danger for the Iranians, of course, is that there will be some kind of world backlash.  For example, while it’s true that the US is bogged down in Iraq, the same cannot be said for the combined forces of NATO.  A united NATO front would certainly have the power to strike successfully and end Iran’s nuclear ambitions for the duration of the foreseeable future.  And as of early this week, it seemed as though the public relations battle was going against the kidnappers, especially once White Hall started trying to actively tone down the rhetoric. 

I’ve no idea what will happen next, but whoever held that Iranian Revolutionary Guards general released him this week, and a number of Iranian officials have lately been talking about “rogue elements” within their government that may have executed the kidnapping without authorization.  To me, that stuff seems like the basis for a negotiated settlement[1].  But the basis for a new Cold War in the Middle East also seems in place, and to be honest with you, perhaps that’s to be hoped for.  At least then we’ll know what we’ve got, and more to the point, we’ll have avoided more an open war as well.

Containment is a strategy without an endpoint, but it’s also a strategy that allows for evolution and change.  If you’d told me in 1985 that the Berlin Wall was going to come down in four years, I’d never have believed it.  But I didn’t know the unknowable.  I didn’t know what would change.  And somehow things managed to work out.  Today I can therefore hope for an end to the fighting in Iraq and in the Middle East and for an extended period of intense dirty looks and shadow wars instead.  Because at least then we’ll have the cards out on the table and we’ll be allowing for the possibility of evolutionary change and eventual reconciliation.  Maybe that’s all we can hope for.

It’s the Economy, Stupid

With the price of oil in flux due to the thing with Iran, these past few weeks have been a confusing time for the markets.  The problem is that the financial markets hate uncertainty, but right now there is a considerable case to be made for both economic expansion and recession.  The negative factors include the price of oil, as we mentioned, as well as uncertainty about the housing market and interest rates.  Those two are tied together.  When interest rates go up, housing prices tend to come down.  And right now, there’s still enough possibility for inflation that the Federal Reserve Board is holding short-term rates steady and allowing for a reasonable possibility of more short-term rate hikes in the future.  But the real problem is that long-term rates haven’t moved at all despite the rise in short term rates, which means that right now we’ve got what’s known as an inverted yield curve.  I’ll spare you that definition.  But you’ll have to take it on faith that these things typically predict economic slowdowns for reasons that are intuitively obvious but lengthy in explanation.  So bottom line, either the economy will likely slow, and then short-term rates will fall and everything will get back to normal, or the economy won’t slow until things get really wonky, at which point rates will shoot up as though shot from a cannon.  And then all Hell will break loose.

But that’s not all.  In fact, that’s really only the pessimistic view.  In fact, it’s more than reasonably likely that everything is fine, that global financial markets will cushion the impact of this whole rate thing, and that we’ll therefore see two or three more years of good, solid growth, and after that who the Hell knows what will happen?  Beyond maybe a year or so, this stuff is legitimately hard to forecast.

Thus the real problem is that while there’s money to be made in either case, the ways of making that money are radically different depending on what happens going forward.  If the economy is sinking, it makes sense to invest one way.  But if it’s growing, you want to do something completely different.  And so we’ve been in a kind of pessimistic holding pattern for the past two or three months.  Stock prices fell after the thing in China, but they’ve held steady ever since, and personally, I made money on the whole deal.  So I don’t really know what to tell you, but I will offer at least this: it’s almost always a good idea to pay off your credit card debts.  And if there’s a recession, then it’s a REALLY good idea. 

Beyond that, you’re on your own.

Stray Voltage

Tony’s Rant

If you missed it, my friend and fellow columnist Tony Laplume fired off a scathing rant in my general direction earlier this week that actually succeeded in making me feel like a complete fucking asshole.  Tony’s column is usually a good read, and this week was no exception if for no other reason than because he bashed my bashing of superhero comics.  So go read that and enjoy it, and then feel free to send Tony some hate mail on my behalf.  I’m sure he’ll appreciate the thought.

COMMERCIAL FREELANCE WRITING

I’ve been thinking lately, and I’ve about decided to start up my own little commercial freelance writing business.  I’ve done a lot of commercial writing in my career but not a lot of freelance commercial writing, but it seems like an interesting field.  Honestly, the idea springs more from my love of small business marketing than from anything else, and it offers a way in which I can use my education in new and different ways that I think will be enjoyable and rewarding. 

And, oh yeah, it might also make me a little money, too.  That doesn’t suck.

If you want to see what I have in mind, check out the working draft of my website by clicking here.  Then send me some feedback.  I’ve never been great at promoting myself, and I want to make sure that I get a site that’s effective before I go live with it.

ASJ-41: The Brian Wood Memorial Webisode

If you haven’t stopped by the Awesome Storm Justice 41 site lately, you should.  We’ve gotten back on track with our publication schedule so that the by-now long-awaited Webisode 22, a.k.a. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre or The Brian Woods Memorial Episode, is now coming up next.  It should be out early next week, and trust me when I tell you that’s it’s not one you’ll want to miss.

I was so happy to finally get ahead of my review pile last week, I can’t even tell you about it.  But then I got a HUGE pile of comics from Arcana over the weekend and a notice from Rosen Graphic Non-Fiction that more is on the way.  All of that stuff looks terrific, and honestly I can’t wait to read it all, but it also means I’ll likely be buried again by this time next week.  Huzzah!

And with that, let me close it up.  Have a good week and stay safe.

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Dan Head is a utilities analyst and commercial freelance writer.  He’d love to help you build your small business.  Visit his website and find out how.

If you’d like to get your comic reviewed here, you can email Dan to find out how. 

To learn more about Dan and his work, find him on ComicSpace or visit his hosted forum, DannoE’s Den of Dastardly Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap).