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The Basement
running commentary on middle east policy and news.
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<blockquote data-quote="John Roberts" data-source="post: 48928" data-attributes="member: 126"><p>Re: running commentary on middle east policy and news.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Just to be precise, I don't claim that cultural issues are nothing... Our soldiers are trained and generally bend over backwards to not offend conservative religious groups where they are. I am just saying the dominant factors influencing international relations involve the "realpolitik" factors of power over ideology. </p><p></p><p>Iran, and our efforts to constrain Iran have nothing to do with their culture (persian). They are a well educated and relatively wealthy population. The population of Iran is actually more friendly toward the west than their leadership, who are desperately trying to hold onto power by painting us as the evil common enemy of their people, and we play into that story with the sanctions, not to mention recent statements coming out of DC. (if your have been following the meetings in DC with top Israeli's political and military leaders). The timing of these meetings in DC with the first Iran elections since the chaotic 2009 election that resulted in mass protests and killings is hard to ignore. World politics is often chess more than checkers, but both games figuratively defeat the other team's players. </p><p></p><p>A measure to watch about the Iran election is turnout more than who they vote for. A high turnout suggests faith in the government being an honest actor. A low turnout the lack of same. Iran severely restricts news flow and direct reportage by western reporters about this election so it may take time for the real story to develop and leak out. </p><p></p><p>A lot of elections this year, interesting times....</p><p></p><p>JR</p><p></p><p>PS: Any businessman operating on a global playing field must be sensitive to different cultures. When japanese businessmen say yes, it doesn't mean they agree, only that they understand what you are saying. While it is very American to think everybody around the world is just like us, in my travels I experienced nobody just like us. We aren't even just like us (after living in several different regions of this great nation). This is, or should be pretty much common knowledge for anybody operating globally. I read a book on the Chinese culture before my first visit to China, to not be another "ugly American", Oz was a pretty easy adjustment, they are kind of wild and crazy like us.. maybe a little more. Europe more different that one would expect, and GB separated from us by a common language...<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile :-)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="John Roberts, post: 48928, member: 126"] Re: running commentary on middle east policy and news. Just to be precise, I don't claim that cultural issues are nothing... Our soldiers are trained and generally bend over backwards to not offend conservative religious groups where they are. I am just saying the dominant factors influencing international relations involve the "realpolitik" factors of power over ideology. Iran, and our efforts to constrain Iran have nothing to do with their culture (persian). They are a well educated and relatively wealthy population. The population of Iran is actually more friendly toward the west than their leadership, who are desperately trying to hold onto power by painting us as the evil common enemy of their people, and we play into that story with the sanctions, not to mention recent statements coming out of DC. (if your have been following the meetings in DC with top Israeli's political and military leaders). The timing of these meetings in DC with the first Iran elections since the chaotic 2009 election that resulted in mass protests and killings is hard to ignore. World politics is often chess more than checkers, but both games figuratively defeat the other team's players. A measure to watch about the Iran election is turnout more than who they vote for. A high turnout suggests faith in the government being an honest actor. A low turnout the lack of same. Iran severely restricts news flow and direct reportage by western reporters about this election so it may take time for the real story to develop and leak out. A lot of elections this year, interesting times.... JR PS: Any businessman operating on a global playing field must be sensitive to different cultures. When japanese businessmen say yes, it doesn't mean they agree, only that they understand what you are saying. While it is very American to think everybody around the world is just like us, in my travels I experienced nobody just like us. We aren't even just like us (after living in several different regions of this great nation). This is, or should be pretty much common knowledge for anybody operating globally. I read a book on the Chinese culture before my first visit to China, to not be another "ugly American", Oz was a pretty easy adjustment, they are kind of wild and crazy like us.. maybe a little more. Europe more different that one would expect, and GB separated from us by a common language...:-) [/QUOTE]
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