The enemy of my enemy is ... Red Rum
Figuring out who’s on whose side
Wanna bet?
In his exposé of how the gambling industry conquered Britain,1 Rob Davies sets out his case, and allies to it the question: Why didn’t the government of the time (Tony Blair’s) not realise from the outset that the gambling industry would seek to act exactly like any other industry—to maximise its profits at the expense of its customers? I think that Davies asks the wrong question, in a way. Instead he should ask why it is that governments don’t realise from the outset that every other industry will seek to act exactly like the gambling industry.
At the shop where I work, they play BBC Radio 2 all day long and there are regular pushes for the National Lottery. Each time, the lottery is mentioned in terms as if it were the Royal Opera House, Dame Judi Dench or the Grand National: some kind of national treasure, rather than a sinkhole for the general populace’s hard-earned cash. Treasure is certainly what it is, especially to its organisers, and whether the Grand National offers better or worse odds than the lottery, one thing is for sure: they, as well as many things in life, are a gamble. Which is why I invite you to place a bet: who’s going to win the war? And who will come second? (That’s called a bet to place.)
If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, what is the ally of the enemy of a friend whose friendship is at best ambivalent who is allied to a friend who is the enemy of my other friend? In short: is the friend of my enemy also my enemy? I suppose it depends on how you define friendship. Or is it more about how you define enmity?
If your approval rating of Donald Trump is somewhere in the region of the 62 or so per cent of Americans who disapprove of his administration, does that make him your enemy? What if you add in the fact that 80 per cent of Californian strawberries are impregnated with PFAS forever chemicals, intended to make them red, juicy, tempting and—sooner or later—potentially lethal? Does that make America your enemy? What if you like holidaying at Disneyland—does that make America your friend?
Kyiv would like a ceasefire for Easter, and Russia has responded by attacking Ukraine with 300 or so Shahed drones. Shaheds are made in Iran, or sometimes made under licence in Russia. If ever a message boiled down to up yours in international diplomatic language, 300 Shaheds are it. Here in Europe, Ukraine is of course a friend. We want Ukraine in the European Union. And, if we can wangle it and it doesn’t turn out too badly for us, we might also want Ukraine in NATO, but not if it meant Vladimir Putin reclaiming Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania (at least not now Latvia’s money-laundering banks have been cleaned up). In fact, Ukraine could perhaps end up taking the seat vacated by the United States at this rate. So, on the whole, Ukraine is our friend. Laskavo prosymo, druzhe! But, is America? F***in’ A-h***s, m*n!
There was a time when the unequivocal answer to that latter question was, of course, of course. Britain and America enjoyed a special relationship, and Britain’s king still thinks they do. Special is a very special word, because marriage is a special relationship, but slavery is as well. When the Nazis sent undesirables like gays, Romanys and Jews to the gas chambers, they described it as Sonderbehandlung—special treatment. That worked for a while to assuage the fears of those being transported to the wide blue yonder. “Ach, doch sind wir die Glücklichen! Wir kriegen die Sonderbehandlung!” People learned pretty fast. Nobody is especially clinging to the idea of a special British/American relationship nowadays, except perhaps the incurably optimistic, and the incurable Liz Truss.
Let’s work this through: Iran is Israel’s and the US’s enemy. Israel’s war aims are:
to beat Iran, which, as Gaza would show, means making Iran look like Gaza; if anyone thinks this is an exaggeration, then, I’d be glad to hear at what point prior to Iran being rendered like Gaza Israel would cease trying to make the former look like the latter. I’m not sure whether Israel has any other war aim, at the present time.
America’s war aims are whatever Mr Trump says they are, and space doesn’t permit me to list them all, but it’s fairly likely that building golf courses there is still a low priority at this stage. When Trump was once in conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president protested to him that Ukraine couldn’t hold elections at a time when it was at war. Mr Trump’s ears pricked up: You don’t say! he said, as a lightbulb illuminated above the orange bowl. Now, I’m not sure if Trump is looking to extend this conflict till November, but let’s just say watch this space, because when Trump achieves his aims, he soon finds another one to replace them, resourceful chap as he is. That said, it might not be necessary for Trump himself to draw this conflict out until the mid-terms: the Iranians might well do that for him, so that he no longer needs to declare a putative emergency in order to manipulate elections, because he’ll have a real one on his hands in any case.
Iran’s war aims, finally, are:
survival;
to evict the US from its protectorates in the Persian Gulf;
to bring about the collapse of the petrodollar;
to exercise hegemony over the Strait of Hormuz, just as Panama exercises hegemony over the Panama Canal (which is another discussion) and Egypt exercises it over Suez;
to prevent Israel from ever attacking it again, by whatever means are necessary to achieve that.
These might appear like maximalist aims but, at the moment, they actually look more realistically feasible than either Israel’s or the US’s. Ain’t that a fact?
So, this isn’t just a bet on the Grand National, where a horse wins a race and that’s that and everyone goes home, with or without any winnings.2 No, this is a development that won’t just affect Iran and Israel, but could have far-reaching economic and military repercussions on the global US, Russia, China, Taiwan, the European Union, NATO, the United Kingdom, and (lest we forget) Greenland and Cuba. It is by deciding up front who your friends are, and what friendship means that you can ultimately work out who your enemy is. That can have surprising consequences. Because if you think that the Iranians are honourable and have negotiated in good faith, under the command of the fatwa not to develop nuclear weapons, then you must be anti-Israeli and anti-US (or at least anti-Trump administration). But you can’t be anti-Israel without being antisemitic, and because Iran is anti-Israel, being pro-Iran also makes you antisemitic whether you want to be or not.
But, if you’re anti-Trump, are you then anti-US military forces? Iran says it won’t end the war (and it’s widely accepted that Iran holds the whip hand in this conflict) until enough American soldiers have died. Sixty thousand was the figure in Vietnam before America threw in that towel. Out of a total of between 1.5 and 3.5 million on all sides. We know until now of 13 dead American service personnel. If Iran holds the whip hand and America has only lost 13 soldiers, this conflict is set to continue for some considerable time yet.
Can you have a friend who does something that you disapprove of, but they’re still your friend? Can you have an enemy who does something you approve of, but they’re still your enemy?
I can understand why Trump would send soldiers to the Persian Gulf, but I can’t understand why they’re going, given the patently unlawful nature of the conflict. I can understand why Iran is showering Gulf States with drone attacks, but I can’t really understand why Ukraine is sending troops to the Persian Gulf before it has reached a settlement in its own war against Russia. It vaunts its ability to deal tactically with drones, and then wails plaintively when it gets attacked … with drones … whilst its drone specialists are off in the Persian Gulf. I think Mr Putin has a sense of humour: a warped one, but, still, a sense of humour.
Here’s a list of countries. You decide for yourself who is your friend, and who is your enemy, and which of them is your friend because they’re your enemy’s enemy and which is your enemy because they’re your friend’s enemy. If you’re a pacifist, then you have an additional task: to decide whether you can have an enemy and still be a pacifist; otherwise you can fill in “friend” for them all.
If you leave any square blank because you don’t know, ask yourself whether they do.
Jackpot—How Gambling Conquered Britain by Rob Davies (ISBN 978-1-7833-5224-1).
Just to explain, Red Rum is the name of the winner of the Grand National in 1973, 1974 and 1977. In 1975 and 1976, he only came second.