Tuesday, December 03, 2019

Patient Zero

Iran is the source of--or contributor to--a lot of problems in the Middle East:

Over the past eight months, the Taliban has intensified attacks in Afghanistan, Turkey invaded northeast Syria, the Islamic State has threatened to resurge, and Yemen continues to be the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. But Iran is the one common thread undermining regional stability through direct attacks on its neighbors, supporting disruptive proxies such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and increasingly penetrating Iraq and Syria.

When you have a common thread like that, it is often futile to try to untangle them all.

But historical legend suggests a way to think outside that particular box.

UPDATE: How lucky are we?

And how determined to support the mullahs in the face of opposition are the Europeans?

So it’s puzzling that America’s European allies chose last weekend to announce that six more countries are joining a bartering system, known as Instex, designed to evade the U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil. Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden announced Saturday they were joining France, Germany and the U.K..

Amazing.