12-Feb-11 News -- Mubarak resigns, tension grows in Sinai

[John]

12-Feb-11 News -- As Egypt's president Mubarak resigns, tension grows in the Sinai

Updating the Conflict Risk Graphic for the Mideast

** 12-Feb-11 News -- As Egypt's president Mubarak resigns, tension grows in the Sinai
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 12#e110212

Contents:
"As Egypt's president Mubarak resigns, tension grows in the Sinai"
"Updating the Conflict Risk Graphic for the Mideast"
"Already starving, North Korea admits to foot-and-mouth disease"

[OLD1953]

Given that Israel tends to be a paranoid state (not judging or saying they should or should not be, they simply are what they are) it is entirely possible they will perform a preemptive strike into Egypt to prove they can't be messed with. In a country undergoing such vast upheavals, this would have immediate and serious consequences, as each of the people vying for power would try to prove they were more serious about border security than the next one. IFF Israel shows restraint on the border, and confines any operations to their side of the border only, they will remain in a state of peace with Egypt. Otherwise, war will be almost certain.

Assuming nobody gives a massive amount of food to North Korea, I expect war by late summer at the latest. I really expect it to happen in June, when the first crop forecasts come in. If things don't look totally rosy, and the hoof and mouth disease epidemic makes that even more impossible than it was a few weeks ago, then the choices are to starve or to fight. And if you are going to fight, then it's best to do it before you are fighting with a starving army. What politician can stand to be seen as "giving food to our enemies" when food prices are skyrocketing at home? Who wants to volunteer for that tarbrush?

Side note, I sent my wife out last week to buy a side of beef at the local butcher. She also got about 20 lbs of slab bacon ordered. When it came in, the butcher told her "you just slid under the wire with this delivery yesterday". She asked why, he told her that slab bacon went up two dollars per pound that day, from his distributor. Imagine that, a two dollar price increase in sowbelly "with the buttons on" in a single day. Eventually, the US will have to return to the old "feed the USA first" program, where US food prices are controlled and a surplus stored before ANY food is allowed overseas. (Started during WWII, even though it had lower farm prices, even farmers supported it because they'd seen the results of high food prices during the depression.) And that will cause even more finger pointing at the "greedy USA getting fat while the world starves".