{"id":34599,"date":"2018-05-30T05:30:31","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T10:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=34599"},"modified":"2018-05-30T05:30:31","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T10:30:31","slug":"iran-diary-bracing-for-all-out-economic-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=34599","title":{"rendered":"Iran diary: bracing for all-out economic war"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"headline\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.atimes.com\/article\/iran-diary-bracing-for-all-out-economic-war\/\">Iran diary: bracing for all-out economic war<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"underline\"><strong>While the dogs of war bark, the Ancient \u2013 and New \u2013 Silk Road goes on forever and a civilization with a long and proud history gets on with life<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy attachment-9columns size-9columns wp-post-image\" title=\"Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad day\" src=\"http:\/\/static.atimes.com\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Imam-Reza-shrine-in-Mashhad-day-960x576.jpg\" alt=\"Dawn comes to Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad. Photo: Asia Times\/Pepe Escobar\" width=\"960\" height=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"caption\">Dawn comes to Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad. Photo: Asia Times\/Pepe Escobar<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content  sticky-sidebar-relative\">\n<div class=\"content-read-more\">\n<p>The minute you set foot in the streets of Mashhad, the air smelling of saffron, a fine breeze oozing from the mountains, it hits you; you\u2019re in the heart of the Ancient Silk Road and the New Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).<\/p>\n<p>To the east, the Afghan border is only three hours away on an excellent highway. To the north, the Turkmenistan border is less than four hours away. To the northwest is the Caspian Sea. To the south is the Indian Ocean and the port of Chabahar, the entry point for the Indian version of the Silk Roads. The Tehran-Mashhad railway is being built by the Chinese.<\/p>\n<p>A group of us \u2013 including American friends, whose visas were approved at the highest levels of the Iranian government \u2013 have gathered in Mashhad for the New Horizon Conference of independent thinkers. Right after a storm, I\u2019m in a van on the way to the spectacular Imam Reza shrine with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.geopolitica.ru\/en\/article\/introduction-aims-and-tasks-noomakhia\">Alexander Dugin<\/a>, which the usual suspects love to describe as \u201cthe world\u2019s most dangerous philosopher,\u201d or Putin\u2019s Rasputin.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Debating and discussion time<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re deep in debate not over geopolitics but \u2026 bossa nova. Exit Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, enter Tom Jobim and Joao Gilberto.<\/p>\n<p>Persia traditionally has been a land of serious intellectual discussion. At the conference, after a lunch break, a few of us decide to start our own geopolitical debate, no cameras rolling, no microphones on. Dugin expands on what multipolarity could be; no universality; pluriversal; a realm of pluralistic anthropology; all poles sovereign. We discuss the pitfalls of Eurasian identity, Islamic identity, sub-poles, India, Europe and Africa.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iran diary: bracing for all-out economic war While the dogs of war bark, the Ancient \u2013 and New \u2013 Silk Road goes on forever and a civilization with a long and proud history gets on with life Dawn comes to Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad. Photo: Asia Times\/Pepe Escobar The minute you set foot in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[15907,1997,441,4076,2632,827,862],"class_list":["post-34599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-geopolitics","tag-asia-times","tag-economic-sanctions","tag-iran","tag-pepe-escobar","tag-silk-road","tag-united-states","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34600,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34599\/revisions\/34600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}