FROM OUR PRINTED DEC. 2024 EDITION
2040 v. 2030
by Len Abram
Boston Broadside Columnist
A weather forecasting website reports that a seven-day forecast is dependable 80 percent, and a five-day forecast accurate around 90 percent. However, a 10-day—or longer—forecast is right about half the time, 50 percent.
Imagine looking at the next decade or two, predicting the political, economic, or military future of the world of eight or nine billion people, with events like COVID possible, if not probable. Futurists, whose profession is explaining what will be, are also cautious. Before World War II, so goes the story, a man was sure that conflicts between Japan, Germany and America were inevitable. He wanted to find a safe place while the world went to war. He chose an out of way location in the South Seas, Guadalcanal.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are adversaries over the future of their region, and each has chosen a date to achieve milestones, with websites publishing plans. Iran chose 2040, the Saudis 2030. Their proposals indicate whether they want to cooperate with their neighbors, including America and the West, or dominate and control the region and beyond.
There is a religious component to their antagonism, Iran as a Shia branch of Islam, while the Saudis are Sunni. But more critical is how each views the future, one revolutionary, ambitious to bring the region under the control of its ideology. The other looking to cooperate as the way to preserve its regime and continue the prosperity for its people.
Since its revolution in 1979, Iran’s goal is to spread theocratic rule and Sharia law across the region, and to undermine American influence, the only superpower capable of stopping the new caliphate. The war with Israel is both tactical and strategic: Israel is the proxy for American power in the region. Destroy Israel, the symbol of American and Western influence, and the region submits to Iranian hegemony.
Iran’s control over a restive population is shaky; another revolution might overthrow them; yet Iran is determined to weaken and destroy Israel to affirm its hold on power. And it will spend billions to do so. As Israel uncovers Lebanese tunnels up to its border, the IDF finds Hezbollah’s first-rate military equipment from Iran – from Kornet missiles with a range of five miles, to Draganov sniper rifles at $3K each, and tons of small arms, explosives, night goggles, helmets, ballistic vests, rockets and drones, for a regular army and not a guerrilla force. Iran also pays the salaries to train and support thousands of Hezbollah fighters.
In downtown Tehran, a clock is counting down to 2040 – the date for the destruction of Israel. The mullahs in Iran are patient in the war of attrition against the Jewish state. That’s the 2040 plan: Israel, weakened by repeated war inside and outside its borders, wear the Jewish state down until it simply stops functioning, or its remaining population is too weak and defenseless.
The Saudis have chosen a 2030 plan. By that time the Saudi economy that depends almost exclusively on its oil riches hopes to develop its human resources, the talents of its young population. For years the Saudis have sent students abroad and imported talent within to teach its citizens and princes how to prosper in a world economy based upon intelligence and technology to solve problems.
The Saudis can see the day, not that far in the future, in which the world will not need as much or perhaps any of the sea of oil under its deserts and seas. At this rate of consumption, oil reserves can power the world economy another 50 years – but what if countries, let alone the climate activists, find other sources of energy? As the Arthur Miller character said, the only thing you got in life is what you can sell.
The Saudis want to build an economy to sell things other than a barrel of oil, to manufacture products they can offer the world when oil is the old economy. “Made In Saudi Arabia” will be a statement of excellence, they hope. For this to happen, the Saudis need the technology of the West. As one Saudi explains it, Israel, along with its companies and experts, is a lot closer than Silicon Valley.
Recently, in Tehran, there was a power outage. The 2040 clock stopped. ♦
Check out Len’s new novel KILLERS APP on Amazon, which one critic called “a masterpiece of observation and slow-burn tension.”
