The Pope's Political Science, Why The Iran Nuclear Deal Will Mean War

The Pope’s Political Science

[As a disclaimer, I am heavily influenced by the book "The Chilling Stars" and highly recommend it if you are interested in the topic  The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change by Nigel Calder — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists]

[Secondly, this article only focuses on the "global warming" part of the presentation, but we believe his upcoming speech will delve into aspects of how to make it happen through the UN]

It’s hard to criticize the pope. It is like criticizing your mom. She means well, probably. But that doesn’t mean she’s not wrong sometimes.

He has been urging governments around the world to enact taxes and impose draconian new regulations on energy use (such as a pending law in CA that will require a 50 percent reduction in petroleum use by 2030, to be achieved penalizing motorists who “use too much” gas or “drive too often”) in order to  address what he styles “the urgency of climate change” and the need for “sustainable” development.

The problem is that while “climate change” – the new catch-all euphemism for catastrophic alterations in the world’s weather patterns – is conjecture, the taxes and regulatory restrictions advocated by this clergyman are very real indeed.

Specifically, the effect such will have on the world’s poor – for whom affordable electricity, warmth in winter and food are very real concerns.

This is an odd thing, when you stop to think about it a little. Pope Francis is a spiritualleader, a man who has spent his life studying the Bible, not chemistry, or atmospheric science. For him to pontificate about “climate change” is as inappropriate – as silly – as a politician pontificating about eschatology.

This is not just a “pope problem,” either

Many of the people urging radical steps to deal with purported “climate change” are, like the pope, not scientific experts in the relevant field. Many are layman. Often, laymen with political power – like President Obama.

It is telling that the language had to be altered to suit the inconvenient truths. It was not all that long ago these “experts” were sounding the alarm bells about an impending ice age and “global cooling.”

A planetary deep freeze.

A heat wave during the ’90s made this idea seem preposterous.

Enter “global warming.”

But then the same problem arose – only in reverse. The weather began to moderate. Cold winters returned with a vengeance to much of North America, for instance. It became hard to sell global warming when much of the country was experiencing a deep freeze, as during the winters of 2013 and 2014.

A new – more flexible – catchphrase was urgently needed.

Enter “climate change.”

We are dealing with a political thing, not a scientific thing.

As Orwell observed, “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful… and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Normal fluctuations of temperature, a heat wave, a tough winter – can now be characterized as ominously abnormal – something that requires a solution – on the foundation of the bizarre idea that the climate is not supposed to change.

That a static, unchanging climate is – somehow – normal.

This is as dangerous an idea as it is bizarre.

The climate is and always has been in flux. It will continue to change, regardless of the pope or the activity of the seven billion people on this earth.

For instance: Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide were much higher than they are today 250 million years ago – well before the age of industrial activity. How much higher? Five times higher than current levels, according to the National Academy of Sciences(not the Republican Party or the Koch brothers). This was the era of the dinosaurs. The Earth was much warmer and more humid than now and the high C02 levels spurred the growth of vegetation, which fed the great plant-eating dinosaurs such as Diplodocus – who in tun fed giant meat-eaters like Tyrannosaurus.

Conversely, the era preceding the current warmer era was much cooler – the so-called LIttle Ice Age, which began in the mid 1300s and lasted until the mid-1800s. Winters grew longer and much harsher.

For example, the much-touted shriveling of the polar ice caps. It’s true the Arctic (north pole) caps have retreated somewhat; but at the same time, the Antarctic ice (south pole) has increased. Cumulatively, polar ice has not declined at all, according to NASA (see here).

The deeper you dig, the more you find. Keep in mind the stakes, too. It’s easy enough for affluent Westerners – this includes the pope -to glibly talk about “sustainable” development, because they will not pay the price. Millions of lesser humans will – and they deserve more from the spiritual leader of the world’s largest Christian denomination.

It is certainly possible that industrial activity plays some role in the weather. It is probablythe case. But attributing all change – and imputing catastrophic and looming change that requires people stop driving cars and using electricity to light and heat their homes is political science– not science.

Pope Francis may mean well – and probably does. But he is not a scientist.

And should stop trying to be a politician.

Why the Iran Nuclear Deal Will Mean War

Like a snake oil salesman trying to move a gallon of lies by promising that it’s either buy the bottle or die, Obama sold the Iran deal as the only alternative to war. In fact the deal is a certain road to war.

Or as Churchill said, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” Before long, the British and French were facing Czech tanks redesignated as Panzers that had been seized as part of the Nazi spoils of appeasement.

When Obama claimed that the Iran nuclear deal was the only alternative to war, he was lying in more ways than one. The United States has already been dragged into Iran’s war for control of Iraq. That war was one of the levers that Iran exploited to get its way on its nuclear program. Iran also came close to dragging us into its war in Syria and we are hovering on the edge of being dragged into Yemen.

Iran and ISIS have done a thorough job of carving up entire countries into Shiite and Sunni blocs. And there’s no sign that this Islamic realignment of the Sykes Picot borders is going to stop. If the process continues, the scale and scope of the war will expand and transform the region away from nation states.

Everyone will have a choice between backing a Sunni ISIS or a Shiite ISIS. Obama chose the Shiite ISIS.

This would be happening even without the deal, but Iran’s victory and Obama’s appeasement will speed up the process. Russia is blatantly joining the Shiite military coalition as part of Tehran’s victory celebration. And the Russians aren’t there just to protect Assad, but to push America out of the region. As areas of operations overlap, there will be incidents. And Obama will back off once again.

But it’s not just about Syria. Iran promised its Russian and Chinese backers that they will benefit from a major regional realignment. Nations allied with the US will be overthrown or suppressed. And once that process really gets underway and will begin to threaten oil supplies, even a Democrat won’t be able to stay out. But by then America will have little credibility, few allies and major strategic disadvantages.

The real test won’t be in Syria. It has already come and gone in Yemen. It will probably come in Bahrain. Bahrain has a majority Shiite population and is the home of the Fifth Fleet. During the Arab Spring the Saudis put down Iran’s “civilian” uprising in Bahrain using tanks. The next time, it won’t be that easy for the House of Khalifa or the House of Saud. If there’s one thing that Iran knows it’s how to arm and train insurgencies and this time around its bid for a takeover of Bahrain will have Russian backing.

Iran’s Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain played a significant role in the Arab Spring protests under the umbrella of political Islam and human rights organizations. Iran’s ideal game plan would be for its front groups to win Western political backing for a takeover the way that the Muslim Brotherhood did in Egypt. Turning over Bahrain to admirers of the Iranian Revolution would seem insane, but so was turning over Iran to Khomeini or Egypt to Al Qaeda’s parent Muslim Brotherhood organization. 

The Saudis have had to consider the possibility that Obama, Hillary or Biden would back Iran over the Saudis in Bahrain as they did in Iraq and Yemen. And they have been making their own plans.

Some months after Iran’s Ahmadinejad visited Cairo and met with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi, the Saudis reversed the Qatari-Obama coup that had put the Muslim Brotherhood in power. As the deadline for last year’s negotiations with Iran approached, the Saudis began dumping oil to hurt Russia and Iran. A similar Saudi move against Iran had helped bring on the Islamic Revolution. The Saudis probably don’t expect to undo that disaster, but they were hoping to offset any Obama-backed Iranian recovery.

Instead of fighting to keep sanctions in place, the Saudis were instead poisoning the well.

Whether he understood it or not, by signing off on Iran’s Shiite bomb, Obama was also signing off on an Egyptian-Saudi Sunni bomb. Israel’s nuclear capability was tacitly understood as a defensive weapon of last resort that would not trigger a regional arms race. Genocidal military invasions of Israel came to an end and any weapons remained under wraps.