Real cowards go to Tehran

[xchrom]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NB22Ak04.html

Imagine the classic United States neo-conservative wet dream; staring at Iran on a map and salivating about the crossroads between Europe and Asia, between the Arab world and the Indian subcontinent, between the Arabian Sea and Central Asia, with 10% of the world's proven oil reserves (over 150 billion barrels) and 15% of proven gas reserves - an energy complex bigger than Saudi Arabia and arbiter of the energy routes from the Persian Gulf to the West and Asia via the Strait of Hormuz.

It's like a pudgy armchair action man mesmerized by a nimble lap dancer. I'm gonna make you mine, honey. It's regime change time, gotta snuff out the owner of this joint. Otherwise, people will



start talking; what kind of chicken global hegemon is this?

So the neo-cons got their New Year's Eve Barack Obama administration's Iran sanctions/embargo package, duly replicated by the European poodle parade. But it was not supposed to be like this. The lap dancer leapt from the stage and applied a neck scissors on the armchair action man; he's suffocating, not her. The whole thing is ... misfiring! Just like the latest neo-con Big Idea - the invasion, occupation and inevitable defeat in Iraq, to the tune of more than US$1 trillion.

Baby, sanction me one more time

Let's review some of the latest evidence. Tehran has just sent two of its warships through the Suez Canal towards the Mediterranean; they docked at the Syrian port of Tartus - no less. Not so long ago, disgraced dictator and close House of Saud pal Hosni Mubarak would have probably bombed them.

Tehran cut off oil exports to the top European war poodles, Britain and France. That's only 1% of British imports and 4% of France's imports - but the message was clear; if the depressed Club Med countries insist on following Anglo-French warmongering, they're next.

[tabatha]

1. The ships are returning to Iran. Apparently, they are old rusty buckets.

[yurbud]

2. this deserve a rec for first paragraph alone: that our media and most politicians

can't say this anywhere anyone will hear shows how corrupt our democracy has become: if you don't tell people the real reasons you are doing things, they cannot give informed consent, and therefore, they cannot participate in democratic decision-making even if they think they are doing so.

[AverageJoe90]

3. No doubt in my mind that the Iranians are trying to start something.

But I sure as hell don't want a pre-emptive strike, either......