@stepawayfromthedarkside Apologies about the delay in responding (been away this weekend).
I fully agree with everything that you said above, BRICS is an excellent counterbalance to the old institutions (UN, ICJ etc.) that are based on imperialist/colonial structures that only serve to hold up the status quo and benefit many of the perpetrators of breaches of International Law.
The problem with BRICS is that it is still in its infancy and some of the current members are IMHO weak links (e.g. India & Brazil who have their feet in both BRICS and the Western Camps hedging their bets). They've failed to fully perceive the predatory and duplicitous nature of the old world order.
Russia, China and now finally Iran now understand that their alliance presents a threat to the status quo (US & Europe) but it may be too late to counter this. BRICS is mostly trade right now and has not formally moved to security alliances (though Russia did offer Iran a security alliance a few months ago that Iran did not agree to).
The report is from 2009 but it should be read with other statements that have been made over the years, and other projects like the "Wolfowitz doctrine" from the 1990s which "refers to a controversial, leaked draft of the 1992 U.S. Defense Planning Guidance, primarily authored by Paul Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and his deputy Scooter Libby. The document outlined a post-Cold War foreign policy strategy that emphasized maintaining U.S. global dominance and preventing the rise of any potential rival power. It advocated for pre-emptive military action and a rejection of multilateralism in favour of unilateral U.S. action to secure its interests."
Also there was this infamous interview from General Wesley Clark from 2003:
[AMY GOODMAN]
Do you see a replay in what happened in the lead-up to the war with Iraq -- the allegations of the weapons of mass destruction, the media leaping onto the bandwagon?
[GEN. WESLEY CLARK]
Well, in a way. But, you know, history doesn’t repeat itself exactly twice. What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn’t be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.
I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”
So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”
As we transition from a Unipolar world to a multipolar world, the former dominant power aka America (and it's vassals) will hit out. America is 37 trillion dollars in debt, it is not producing weapons as fast as China, Russia or Iran and when it does they are often too expensive. Instead of competing America will try to "reign in" any threats hence the Iran action and others advocating for a "pivot to contain China".
These architects always telegraph what they want to do and although it is often delayed, they often end up doing it making the world as a whole less safe.
(The New Atlas on YouTube is a good account to follow about the recent events)
EasternStandard Of course Iran is aware that the US will strike back, not just Israel. Both America and Iran are rational actors. That's why both parties always do this merry dance of informing each other of what they're going to hit and when they're going to hit it.
America has over 40'000 - 50'000 troops in the Middle East (that we know of, not including undercover intelligence etc.). Just like America could destroy Iran and kill several Iranians, Iran could easily target and kill many Americans. You've also got to take into account the American Naval assets, Iran sinks 1 ship and potentially 2000 American's die. Looking at the current polls on the Republican side that are trending anti Israel, whereas after 9/11 there were calls for retaliation, today it's likely Trump would be blamed for being a puppet of Bibi.