Am I just getting older, or does the Apocalypse come round more frequently these days? The Third World War was supposed to break out with Iran roughly this time last year, and then on several subsequent occasions. On this anniversary of the attack on the USS Liberty, has Donald Trump's patience with Benjamin Netanyahu finally snapped? Trump will be 80 on Sunday. He has other things to think about.
George Robertson is already 80 and he cannot rely on the council for social care, so he has to pretend that the country that cannot subdue more than a small corner of Ukraine might be capable of attacking Britain, which therefore had to pay even more to the arms companies.
The requirement of three different visas was always going to make this World Cup an administrative nightmare, but the treatment of the Iranian squad ought to preclude the United States from ever again hosting an international sporting tournament, not something that, with the exception of the Olympics, it particularly wanted to do, anyway. It was easier for Jesse Owens to enter Germany for the 1936 Berlin Olympics than it has proved for Iraq's Aymen Hussein to get out of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
Those who were now Trump's cheerleaders in Britain used to want to "keep politics out of sport". Yet Russia was banned from so much as trying its luck because of the invasion of Ukraine in pursuit of an irredentist claim to at least part of it, while Israel could have been there in the midst of the invasion of Lebanon on the same grounds.
As could Armenia. Not that admission to either was at all realistic, but the pro-NATO and pro-EU regime has shored itself up by ceding Artsakh to the Azerbaijan that supplied two thirds of Israel's oil, and which expelled practically the entire population. Yet Russia's 102nd Military Base is still at Gyumri, there are far more Azeris in Iran than in Azerbaijan, and there are enough Armenians to warrant reserved representation in Parliament. Be afraid. Be very, very, very afraid.
Perhaps Nikol Pashinyan is angling for the FIFA Peace Prize? But who should be the FIFA Laureates in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Economic Sciences? And why?
As you know 70-80% of Armenians live outside Armenia but Pashinyan banned them from voting at embassies.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely storming post all round, Mr. L.
You really are too kind. And of course, you are right about Armenia.
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