Above is a very brave lady, Madame Tatiana-Mosio Bongonga, who is a lady with a hazardous occupation: A tightrope walker! Madame Bongonga was born in Caen nearly four decades ago. She is well known in France for making death defying public spectaculars of her craft.
We draw your attention Dear Reader to the very dangerous occupation of tightrope walking for Rishi Sunak (following his visit to Israel and his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv) appears to be attempting to perform the political equivalent of what Madame Bongonga does.
That Madame Bongonga is still in the land of the living demonstrates that the lady plans and prepares and trains hard for what she does. Her powers of concentration will be immense.
Rishi Sunak has to be aware and realise that a similar degree of preparation and consideration is required of him and his cabinet. This because this situation in the Middle East could spiral into something very dangerous very quickly. The Middle East has been likened to a tinder box. I would suggest a powder keg is a more relevant analogy.
Many politicians will be receiving criticism for attempting to “sit on the fence” in the wake of the terrorist attack of 7th October 2023. Many political commentators on both sides criticise them. The BG will not. Why?
It is very easy to shout from the sidelines. For old men with health conditions to demand that young men without health conditions should be conscripted to fight and for many die. The ONLY old men with health conditions who have any entitlement whatsoever to make such a call are those who can actually and honestly say: “Been there. Done that!” And for many: “Got the campaign medal” as well.
Your Editor Dear Reader is one of those old men (defined as someone in receipt of the UK state pension) with health conditions have not been there and have not done that.
Notwithstanding this I am clearly aware of the geo-political situation that is presented to all of us – as human beings living on Planet Earth.
Let us face FACTS:
Israel was subjected to a terrorist attack by Hamas of such a barbaric nature that if a member of the Provisional IRA had suggested something similar during what is known as “The Troubles” his or her fellow terrorists would have been appalled and outraged!
Hamas is financed and sponsored by the despotic regime in Iran.
Hezbollah entrenched in Lebanon to the north of Israel has threatened and appears likely to mount a large scale attack against Israel when and if the IDF advances on Gaza.
The actions of Hamas and Hezbollah will have received the tacit sanction of the Iranian despots.
The Iranian despots are busily pursuing the development of nuclear weapons and missiles that can deliver same.
Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian despots have publicly stated that they want to see the State of Israel eliminated.
Some political analysts have concluded that Hamas, Hezbollah and possibly some of the Iranian despots have publicly stated that they not only want to see the State of Israel eliminated but Jewish people eliminated.
The last political leaders that had that aim were the Nazis led by Adolf Hitler.
In fact, the grotesquely savage barbarities suffered by the Israeli victims of this outrage at the hands of the so-called “militants” (as the BBC still insists on referring to them), have managed to place these evil, wicked creatures (in terms of cruel sadism) ahead of the Nazi monsters that manned the death camps!
These are FACTS.
No matter how horrible they are there can be no running away from them. And yet there are many establishment figures across the world who are doing just that. Ostriches burying their heads in the sand.
Prime Minister Sunak and President Biden are urging caution and restraint on Israel. They are right to do so. At the same time both leaders acknowledge that Israel has to do what it has to do.
Seeking to reduce civilian casualties insofar as any military action in Gaza is practically impossible given that it is both a tactic and the strategy of Hamas to maximise civilian casualties where possible. They do that by locating military assets under and in civilian infrastructure giving the IDF an invidious choice: Kill Hamas terrorists and you inevitably kill civilians.
The legal term for civilians forced into such a situation is “human shield” and yes, that is a war crime as defined by the International Criminal Court.
So, what conclusions can we draw from the above FACTS? These:
There is a clearly chain of command/request here. On the ground you have Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are proxies of Iran.
We now have to look for who may be acting in concert with Iran. There is clearly one suspect: President Putin of Russia.
One can see the military logic of the Russian General Staff at work here. Looked at dispassionately – which it how military strategists and tacticians consider and plan military campaigns – we have a situation where Russian’s invasion of Ukraine which was planned as a Blitzkrieg advance to Kiev in less than a week has turned into a war of attrition of over a year.
Over that time Ukraine has received huge amounts of materiel from NATO – with the USA very much the largest supplier. Over that time the USA has run down it’s ordnance reserves. Things have changed since the last time a long drawn out war of attrition was fought on Europe’s soil.
During the Great War and the Second World War ammunition for artillery could be mass produced. Factories that previously turned out cars, tractors and even articles such as nuts and bolts and cookers were repurposed top produce ammunition, guns and aeroplanes. The huge advances on military technology have now made this impossible.
The 4 inch shell which was used by the RN’s 4″/45 (10.2 cm) QF Mark XVI* AA gun was not the best design and tended to very slightly “oscillate” as it was propelled through the barrel! This reduced but did not eliminate it’s accuracy (as defined by the standards at the time). This is definitely NOT the case with the RN’s 114 mm/55 (4.5″) Mark 8 Mod 1!
This vast increase in accuracy has been brought out by a vast reduction in allowable tolerances.
What this means is this: That it is no longer possible to manufacture the huge quantities of ammunition for such as the 114 mm/55 (4.5″) Mark 8 Mod 1 as it used to be for the 4″/45 (10.2 cm) QF Mark XVI*!
So what the Russian General Staff will have sought would be a reduction or best case scenario a cessation of materiel from NATO and the USA in particular. This could be achieved by encouraging and/or sponsoring a war in which materiel destined for Ukraine was redirected to somewhere else. That somewhere else being Israel!
We already have evidence for this as yesterday brought news that the US is planning to send Israel tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells which were previously designated for Ukraine (https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1715086853429166471).
So there you have it! President Putin calls upon Iran’s despots to call upon Hamas to mount a terrible outrage against Israeli civilians and for Hezbollah to launch limited attacks following this in preparation for a much greater number of attacks if and when IDF forces advance into Gaza.
This means that large numbers of Palestinians will be killed in Gaza and possibly Lebanese in Beirut by munitions and ordnance previously destined to kill Russians!
This for President Putin would be “mission accomplished.”
One very worrying outlier is Iran’s nuclear programme. It is commonly accepted that Israel will not allow Iran to deploy a nuclear weapon.
Of course only the Iranian despots know how far “down the road” Iran is in developing and deploying a nuclear weapon. It is to be hoped that the intelligence services of Israel and the USA have a good idea as well. There will come a point when professional intelligence and military strategists will conclude that Iran is dangerously close and they will inform their political masters of this.
It will be a decision for those political masters as what to do about it.
It might be the case that Israel the USA are approaching the point where they will take such a decision.
A military strike against Iran will have very serious consequences. The one thing one could say is this: “Old Chinese proverb: He who sets out to strangle a tiger had better make sure he finishes the job!” In other words, the destruction of Iran’s nuclear potential must be complete.
Iran could retaliate by attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz to oil and gas shipments. The biggest customer of this oil and gas being China. This being the case Iran could well hold off from this course of action.
A problem the USA and Western Europe faces is that these nations now contain large numbers of citizens who are vehemently anti-Semitic. We have seen the demonstrations on our TV screens and have heard the outrageous statements.
I fear that many people are not going to have a happy Christmas.