The Middle East Explodes...

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 10:46 am

mean liar wrote:Civil war might come to pass, but that's not an indicator that Hezbollah isn't populist or a heavyweight in their coalition, that's an indicator that a significant minority is willing to fight a war to combat Iranian and Syrian influence (and assassinations) in Lebanon.

Hezbollah's popularity is volatile. As much as they do nice things for people, the current wave of popularity came on the back of the conflict with Israel in 2006.

The Lebanese actually seem to like being Lebanese, and I think that if Hezbollah claims too much power that their popularity will turn. I don't think even the Shiites want to be Iran's puppet.

mean liar wrote:Right now the March 14 coalition is spending a lot of effort trying to box in Miqati on the STL and Hezbollah weapons before announcing they quit (for reals this time).

March 14? Yeah, they're being whiny because they don't want to be Hezbollah's bitch, but it's March 8 - specifically Hezbollah - that's grumpy because Miqati said he wanted a Lebanese consensus to look over the treaty with the UN. March 8 is determined to kill the tribunal.

And Hezbollah was the party that walked out. I don't think they'll have any qualms about doing it again. If they keep it up, I'm figuring that the blame for the political situation will be placed at their feet by the Lebanese.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 3:55 pm

The best explanation I've seen of the 2006 Lebanon-Israel conflict was Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations.

Also, it looks like the Muslim Brotherhood might end up having a hugely disproportionate influence in Egypt, because they have things like organization, leaders, and spokespeoplemen.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 7:45 pm

As my dad has pointed out, in this sort of thing the revolution goes pretty well and a moderate government gets installed, and then a while later Rob S. Pierre gets power and decides to execute all the noblemen or something.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:41 pm

If only Robespierre had only executed Noblemen.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:14 pm

Yeah, that would have been better.

On a different note, I heard on the radio just an hour ago that Alexandria is apparently disrupted enough food is not coming into the city and hasn't been for a good chunk of the crisis. If it doesn't get resolved fast an awful lot of people are going to starve.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 9:16 am

Back on the world food prices thing. The reason that world food prices are high (though not as high as during the 2008 World Food Crisis), is that supplies are low:

You can look at several other estimates of supply and demand for agricultural products at the USDA. They have an excel table on Cotton too (which had the largest cost increase of any tracked commodity this last year). Did you know the American military uses 3.6 million bales of cotton a year? Wacky stuff.

Bottom line: the relative prices of commodities are driven by supply and demand. Not by the availability of loans. Bernanke doesn't make the price of wheat rise. Heat waves in Russia and population growth make the price of wheat rise.

-Username17

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 1:41 pm

That's the problem with Egypt. No water independence (really shaky unilateral treaties gives them most of the Nile's water, but they only keep it with the threat of war) no food independence, a persistent trade deficit and a growing population ... when the oil/gas runs out they will be just another African shithole completely dependent on food aid.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 2:31 pm

Frank wrote:(which had the largest cost increase of any tracked commodity this last year)

Sugar is way up there, too.

MfA wrote:when the oil/gas runs out they will be just another African shithole completely dependent on food aid.

Egypt has one very significant thing that a lot of other places in Africa don't have: Antiquities.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 7:34 pm

You can't eat those.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 11:55 pm

MfA wrote:You can't eat those.

Didn't prevent Europeans from eating mummies.

Calibron · Post by **Calibron** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 2:36 am

A little mummy dust in a tincture of mercury and colloidal silver makes you immortal, didn't you know that?

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:14 am

Calibron wrote:A little mummy dust in a tincture of mercury and colloidal silver makes you immortal, didn't you know that?

Funfact: People are still using colloidal silver as a medicine.

Someone educate me if I'm wrong, but breathing in colloidal silver sounds like a idiotic idea.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:19 am

Juton wrote:
Calibron wrote:A little mummy dust in a tincture of mercury and colloidal silver makes you immortal, didn't you know that?
Funfact: People are still using colloidal silver as a medicine.

Someone educate me if I'm wrong, but breathing in colloidal silver sounds like a idiotic idea.

It does have certain side effects:

-Username17

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:48 am

FrankTrollman wrote:It does have certain totally awesome side effects

Fixed.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 1:50 pm

MfA wrote:You can't eat those.

Weird remedies from your mummy aside, antiquities promote tourism and education. Both of which provide money with which a country can buy food.

The only problem is that Egypt has to stay calm for that to succeed.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 2:53 pm

Juton wrote:
Calibron wrote:A little mummy dust in a tincture of mercury and colloidal silver makes you immortal, didn't you know that?
Funfact: People are still using colloidal silver as a medicine.

Someone educate me if I'm wrong, but breathing in colloidal silver sounds like a idiotic idea.

I'm so glad I never jumped on that bandwagon. When I was in highschool, my dad got a jar of it from his cousin and he was going on and on about the benefits. Being a kid, I believed every word of it.

I'm just glad he never got more than that one jar. I should ask him if he still believes that or not.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:19 am

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/afric ... tml?hpt=T1

They still have a long way to go. Fuck, I live in a country that's still figuring out how democracy works twenty-five years after our own little revolution.

But for this one day at least...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzs9tD2yYK8

I'm playing this song.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 3:34 am

Yeah, I was at lunch when the news broke. We'll have to see how it turns out. They got what they wanted, but they don't have any unified leadership right now. Hopefully it's not a case of "out of the frying pan and into the fire".

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 3:37 am

Nice to see Mubarak decided to become the first third-world dictator pretty much ever to go "Yeah, my situation doesn't end well if I try to hang on. Lemme bow out before the torch-and-pitchfork crowd tosses me off the battlements or out a window or something."

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 4:18 am

Maxus wrote:Nice to see Mubarak decided to become the first third-world dictator pretty much ever to go "Yeah, my situation doesn't end well if I try to hang on. Lemme bow out before the torch-and-pitchfork crowd tosses me off the battlements or out a window or something."

Not too surprising considering what happened to Sadat...

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 4:22 am

I'm really interested in what the elections will look like, if they happen. The Vice President is running the country for now, every news story I've read was quick to attribute something or other negative to him.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:18 am

My sources indicate that Suleiman isn't in power - Tantawi, the defense minister, is.

After reading about what happened, I feel like Mubarak's resignation was very carefully orchestrated with the help of the military, who basically stood aside while protesters marched on various government buildings, including the presidential palaces.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 5:38 am

Yemen continues to riot, Bahrain and Iran get added to the pile.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 6:28 am

Hillary said that the Iranian protesters had the right to demand the same things that were demanded in Egypt, and condemned the Iranian government for hypocrisy over supporting Egyptian protesters while firing on their own.

I'm not really sure what the US can do to support revolution in Iran at this point, but the fact that our secretary of state is telling the news clearly and directly that we would like to do that is a pretty interesting development.

-Username17

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:00 pm

Given our history in Iran, the US has to walk a seriously thin line when dealing with supporting Revolution in Iran.