It must seem to the President that every time he gets one thing settled and back to “normal”(whatever that would be in the White House)another crisis appears. Of course, that has likely been the case for every President since Teddy Roosevelt or maybe since George Washington. But Joe Biden has put great effort into dealing with the economy and other domestic/”political” issues lately only to have new crises appear abroad, some predictable, some not.

We may, for now anyway, dismiss the balloon issue. Biden obviously did right with the first one, ordering it eliminated after it was out of American air space or at least in a location where it was very unlikely to threaten people or property in the US. The next three will likely never be explained and perhaps need not be. They appear to have been of very low level threat status if of any at all.

But other, more serious things are bubbling out there when it comes to national security/foreign policy. As he deals with the banking issue, he also has had, suddenly and unpredictably, a very potentially serious matter with the Russians over a drone they harassed(if you can harass an unmanned vehicle, anyway) and which was later downed, apparently by the US and is now missing.

But there were at least three possible serious foreign policy issues to deal with before that and as you have likely guessed I am going to comment on them and what they mean or may portend. The issues involved are the apparent rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the current political mess in Israel and the looming possibility of some kind of conflict, possibly military, bewteen the US and China over Taiwan. There are some connections here.

The Iran-Saudi deal seems to have taken a number of peope by surprise, ranging, perhaps, from the supreme knowledge of British Intelligence to the lofty analysts of CNN. I’m guessing, of course, at these two, I just picked two of the more reliable of information gathering agencies in the world. But it appears almost no one “saw this coming,”

Though both Saudi Arabia(SA) and Iran are Moslem states and both growing economic and military powers, they are quite different. They represent almost, if not quite, the only significant groups within Islam. The Sunnis are represented by SA and the shiites by Iran. Historically(and this quarrel began about 1500 years ago, or three times as long ago as the Christian Reformation)Sunnis have dominated, representing about 85% of the Moslems in the world and the Sh’ites about 15%. The basic beliefs are largely the same, but the Shi’ites have usually exhibited more of what seem to Jews and Christians the more bizarre elements of the faith.

There was a time when I thought–and, I confess, occasionally told students–that the Shi’ite were slightly the more fanatical of the two. But the rise to dominance of Al Queda and ISIS, both Sunni organizations, changed my mind on that. Both sides have some passably reasonable leaders. Both sides have some fanatics. Neither is palatable to all of the Western and/or Judeo-Christian view of the world, but deal with them we must if there is to be peace of any reasonable kind.

But now we have the SA-Iran bromance brewing and, being an ex-history teacher, I quickly looked for historical precedents. There is one, an easy one to find for anyone familiar with 20th century Europe. That would be the notorious Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939. Nazism and Communism were both totalitarian forms of government and were remarkably similar in learning to crush dissent and oppress dissenters. But they were, in theory at least, deadly enemies. Communism was a form of Marxism which I think would have been nearly unrecognizable to Karl Marx.

But they at least used his attacks on capitalism and on religion, which he saw as a support for it, as their starting point. Since Marxism was traceable to 1848 and the “Communist Manifesto” they were working with something nearly a century out of date, but that did not matter to Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin who went their own way, proclaiming themselves the inheritors of Marx, while establishing a police state based upon the writings of the man who predicted that after the “revolution” the state would “wither away.”

They also pushed Marx’s philosophical materialism. That is, they recognized no reality other than what could be seen, touched or heard, things that could be seen in everyday life by most people or that could be established by a scientific laboratory. Anything else such as speculation, faith, curiosity, or an interest in the possibility of a non-material reality was forbidden and dismissed as stupid and impossible. The fascists, Nazis included, knew perfectly well that the first thing they needed to do was to provide jobs and economic security. But they also realized that most people desire something beyond mere material comfort and they provided it with a bizarre form of emotional patriotism and racism. Emphasizing the emotional as much as the material, they exploited Romanticism in its most debauched form and married it to totalitarian efficiency. This worked for-well, awhile.

The hatred between the two was often quite real and for years through the 30’s it seems likely that some of the more fanatical on each side wished for a war. But in 1939 Hitler wanted to invade Western Europe and not have to worry about Stalin and the Russians hitting him from behind, thereby thrusting on him a two front war. At the same time, Stalin likely wouldn’t have done this for awhile because of weaknesses in the Red Army, mostly caused by his “purges” of a few years earlier. Stalin wanted some time to get his military back to full strength. So each side had a motive for wanting “peace” of a sort with the other for at least a short time. When they agreed to the pact in August, 1939 many believed it was bound to be violated sooner or later. They were right. It lasted until 1941 when it no long suited Hitler’s purpose.

SA and Iran similarly have been enemies for years, more than a decade and one might argue a good deal more. Part of this is caused by the above mentioned religious differences, the Sunni-Shi’ite thing. But there is also this–when it comes to economic power, military power and, well, power in general these two are serious rivals and one could see them as being on a collision course. The are the two leading military and economic powers of southwest Asia and each is determined to be number one. Neither one is willing to give a whole lot, though apparently more now than, oh, say, a few weeks ago.

There is a very good Reuters story on this you can find on line dated today, Mar 16. According to Reuters, this deal is more an agreement not to make war than it is a lot of specifics. China is said to have been chosen to help broker the deal(which they did–in China)as Iran mistrusts the US. One could argue that Iran has good reason to mistrust the US and the US has even better reasons to mistrust them, but the idea makes sense for these negotiations.

Reuters stated that an Iranian official, not identified, said the subjects covered by the talks included security, economic and political issues. This is not really big news(what else would they start with?)but it does indicate on each side there are people are willing to deal seriously or at least wish to be taken for doing so.

It appears that both nations intend to work for Persian Gulf Security and a guaranteed oil flow, which might have good results for the West, as well as helping their own economies. Each country is pledging, though apparently not on paper yet, that neither will be a source of insecurity for the other. One Iranian indicated that future difficulties between the two would be handled in what he described as a “controlled” manner.

The US is in a delicate diplomatic position here. Iran is an implacable foe of nearly a half century standing. SA is a difficult and sometimes embarrassing ally. China is likely going to replace Russia someday, after Ukraine, as our main antagonist. Seeing China intervene in Africa(which she has been doing) and now southwest Asia/Middle East is not comforting. Nonetheless the US has been muted so far in its response to the Chinese/Iran/SA confab and perhaps this is the right response. For one thing, we have enough on our plate right now without getting involved directly in this issue. For another, it doesn’t do for a Great power to dither in public, which is about all we could do considering the combination of foreign and domestic issues before us. It may be best to maintain a discreet silence, at least for the present. But there is potential trouble as well as some hope in this and the President and the Secretary of State will have to listen carefully and tread carefully if they’re not to create more problems than they solve. And remember, folks, what happened to that 1941 agreement. We hope, for the good of the world and the Mideast, that this agreement has good results, not just hopeful promises. But it could go the way of the USSR-Nazi agreement, too.

I still want to deal with the Israeli political situation and the Chinese, the US and Taiwan, but not right now–like Sec Blinken we have enough on our plates for tthe moment. I’ll try to be back soon with the rest.