Some calculating Guyanese must be hopping about excitedly. Oil at US$200 a pop generates dreams of riches out of this world. Move over Elon Musk. Take a walk, Jack Ma. Mama Mia! Oil at US$200 a head! It’s enough to drive into frenzies of hallucinations. What is the PPP, now in almost full control of Guyana and all that oil money, going to do? With itself? With Guyanese? If it has showed itself a wastrel with five billion American, then a Ouija board isn’t needed to know what the fate of US$10 big ones will be. Carnival and Christmas daily. Mash and July 4th blended sweetly into one.
Okay, ok, everybody please settle down. This is serious stuff -oil at US$200 a cask. The Americans and Israelis declared war with aerial bombardments, naval assaults, and a tank flotilla assembled peacefully around Iran borders. The coalition of the willing and the calculating (all that Middle East oil), fighting one kind of war. Theirs, the only type they know. Iran, all alone and on its own, fighting a different kind of war. While the US-Israel Axis unleashed its fleet of fearsome Tomahawks to scalp the Iranians, the descendants of Xerxes and Artaxerxes unveiled their own brand of fighting against the odds, their new way of waging war. If they can’t be defeated, then take solace in crippling tormentors. Let the pain rain everywhere.
Thus, the Persians, long given to persecution and martyrdom syndromes, announced to an astonished and suddenly frightened world, its book of sanctions. In Guyanese: knack gat knack bak. Sanction fuh sang-shun. This is a reincarnation straight out of Middle East culture, where vengeance is the name of the game. Pain for pain. Jesus who commanded the world to give up ‘an eye for an eye’ and replace that with ‘love of enemy’ must be having a nightmare. And, he may not be thinking of economic warfare, and the bludgeoning certainty of its reaching tentacles, the deep, piercing bite of its fangs. But that is just what Iran promised the world. All who want to play Mr. Innocent and Dr. Neutral, and Ms. Goody Two Shoes, deal with that baby that is an intentionally undisguised cannonball. No baby clothes on that one, US$200 a bottle.
Incidentally, all the PPP greedy who dance on their head in anticipation of oil at US$200 (or anywhere close) and loads of deposits in the National Oil Fund (NUFF), followed by huge withdrawals, I have some sad news for them. At US$200 (or US$150, or even US$125) acute backpain starts to kick in: no one is buying. The prosperous in the PPP Govt would call that dwindling demand. The IMF loan department would be sure to come in for some extra business, more than its float can handle, but in the meantime, the world stops thinking of economic distress, and puts on a new hat. Economic depression. Like a weather system of the same last name, nothing is moving, no one is stirring, since all the discretionary spending and buying power got slammed in the stones by the Persians. Whoever picks a fight with Teheran had better come loaded with more than guns and Star Wars and Fox News to sell the good and bad news. People who live on easy street can’t tek tuh much squeezing.
Iranians know sacrifice. In fact, they have come to love it. From 70 years ago and Mossadegh to 2026 and Mojtaba, Iranians have grown accustomed to American pain. Though proxies, naturally. And now that the US and Israel harbor grand plans about taking over the whole country, and running it like Venezuela (and soon enough Cuba), the descendants of Ali decided to take a stand. It may or may not be like Custer’s Last Stand at the Little Bighorn. Regardless, a trail of tragedy all over. To the Americans, the Iranians are saying: fight your war your way. Get ready for war being fought another way. Iranian civilians battered. Global children punished in return. Must find a Persian poem for that situation. My own suffices: pain begets more pain. People who have a history of self-flagellation (mutilation) can absorb much more pain than normal people.
A closing note to wrap-up. I recall how benevolent Chinese, like Zhou en Lai, used to rail about “bandits” and reckless imperialist adventurers. Laughter followed. Sobriety and understanding come late to a slow learner. Oil approaching US$200 leads to such shaking.
