Iran is the problem.

a) Russian population ~145M but with autocracy, missiles and oil, a world power.
b) Iran + Iraq + Syria + Lebanon + Yemen = ~150M. But with autocracy, missiles and oil a world power.

Iran is recreating the persian empire under arab rather than persian culture as the ottoman declined. Just as Russia created its empire by conquest of the mongolian empire as it declined.

The purpose of Vietnam was proxy for war with China, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of communist china during the second world war.

The purpose of the cold war was a proxy for war with russia, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of communist russia during the second world war.

The purpose of syria is a proxy for the war with Iran, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of islamism during the gulf wars.

The question is only whether the USA has the economic and cultural reserves itself to survive the defeat of iran.

My expectation is that the arabs are sufficiently inferior as a genetic, cultural, and institutional system, and that the Persians have been sufficiently decimated, that the transformation of Iran will not follow the pattern of the more advanced civilizations of russia and china.

Semitic Abrahamism’s ‘communism’ was economic and ideological, where the combination of french abrahamic postmodernism and arab abrahamic islamism are purely religious systems that do not need to provide empirical results.

Since these strategies do not ask for direct redistribution from the middle and upper classes, but slowly appropriate culture and institutions, it is hard to see how they will not succeed in conquest by immigration.

So it’s not a question of whether syria will become another vietnam, but whether it is worth it or not to take the battle home to Iran before she becomes another Russia or China and we cannot fight her except by proxy.

Unlike previous ‘battles of modernization’ in which the west has tried to drag primitive cultures into modernity (consumer capitalism), it is not clear that americans will take the battle to Iran until the discussion is put in such clear terms: that this is just the continuation of the battle against Abrahamism in byzantine/syrian-christian, jewish-communist, and islamic forms. And that we have been fighting this battle for over 2000 years. And that until 1800 we were losing that battle.

Worse, while Russia – as a low trust polity – is Iran’s ally, it appears irrational for russia to advance Iran’s interests given that so much of Russia’s resources are in muslim regions of the former soviet empire. And that russia would have a very hard time competing against a restored and expansionist Iranian Empire on her southern border.

Strategically Russia’s intersets are with Germany, not with Iran or China. But Americans lost that opportunity. So perhaps it is in the west’s interest to allow the rise of iran, and withdraw the USA from continental affairs, so that russia’s only option is to ally with europe.

The alternative for Russia is incremental conquest and conversion.

There is no economic or strategic value to west, russia, or east of the islamic peoples.

For all intents and purposes, once the oil is gone the middle east is just a hostile and alien sub-saharan africa.

That’s my analysis and I’m pretty sure around the globe, in every general staff, that this is the same thought OTHER than Russians, who are still a little bit ‘off’ in their desire for a restoration.

It takes 500M people to be a world power in economics. The anglos have about that many. The europeans about that many. The muslims like the chinese have more than a billion, and no concern for economics. the chinese have more than a billion totally homogenous and do care about economics. The west cares most about economics -too much, but is no longer homogenous.

That last paragraph is worth pondering for a few years.

https://www.quora.com/Can-Syria-become-another-Vietnam-for-the-US-and-Russia