Strike against Iran seen by some as inevitable

[JohnyCanuck]

Global Eye

Duck Soup

By Chris Floyd
Moscow Times
Published: August 19, 2005

<snip>

The fountainhead of his trouble, of course, is the murderous quagmire he has created in Iraq. Some say he has no exit strategy, no way to escape the corrosive effects of this gargantuan disaster, which is draining his support and destroying the aura of the all-conquering "war leader" that he used to impose his radical right-wing agenda on the country. The tide has turned against him at last, some say; he's a lame duck crashing to the ground.

<snip>

For months, the Bush Faction has been conducting a low-key PR campaign to put Iran in the crosshairs for a military strike. Last week, Bush himself upped the wattage with a public declaration that "all options are on the table" for slapping down Tehran, Agence France Presse reports. He even alluded to the invasion of Iraq as an example of the kind of action he has in mind. Bush scarcely bothered to hide his disdain for peaceful solutions to the row with Iran. After mouthing the usual pious lies about "working feverishly on the diplomatic route," he immediately dismissed such efforts with a sneer: "As you know, I'm skeptical."

<snip>

Still, a lack of sense and credibility in a casus belli has never hindered the Bush Faction before. And it won't now. The plain fact is that Bush doesn't want "diplomacy to work" against Iran. He wants the situation to reach a crisis point that will "justify" military action. It's the only form of politics he knows: You foment (or invent) a crisis, then use deceit, fear and brute force to impose your radical agenda. And the takedown of Iran is a long-held ambition of the corporate militarists behind the Bush Faction's relentless quest for "full spectrum dominance" over world affairs.

The "high" Bush got from his Iraq assault is now wearing off, politically and personally. He needs another hit of blood and destruction. And don't think he's worried about the prospect of a much wider conflagration arising from a bombing strike against Iran. After all, chaos and instability only mean more money for his war-profiteering family and cronies -- and greater authority for "war leaders" seeking to "secure the Homeland."

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/19/120.html
(I noticed the link seems to time out sometimes before connecting. However the URL is corect)

And to help further put this in context read William Clark's piece "Petrodollar Warfare" (also the title of a new book from Clark) posted at Media Monitors.(Clark is also a DUer who has posted on DU under the handle Petrodollar Warfare).

Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse
by William R. Clark
(Friday August 05 2005)

Contemporary warfare has traditionally involved underlying conflicts regarding economics and resources. Today these intertwined conflicts also involve international currencies, and thus increased complexity. Current geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran extend beyond the publicly stated concerns regarding Iran's nuclear intentions, and likely include a proposed Iranian "petroeuro" system for oil trade. Similar to the Iraq war, military operations against Iran relate to the macroeconomics of 'petrodollar recycling' and the unpublicized but real challenge to U.S. dollar supremacy from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency.

<snip>

In 2003 the global community witnessed a combination of petrodollar warfare and oil depletion warfare. The majority of the world's governments – especially the E.U., Russia and China – were not amused – and neither are the U.S. soldiers who are currently stationed inside a hostile Iraq. In 2002 I wrote an award-winning online essay that asserted Saddam Hussein sealed his fate when he announced on September 2000 that Iraq was no longer going to accept dollars for oil being sold under the UN's Oil-for-Food program, and decided to switch to the euro as Iraq's oil export currency.<4> Indeed, my original pre-war hypothesis was validated in a Financial Times article dated June 5, 2003, which confirmed Iraqi oil sales returning to the international markets were once again denominated in U.S. dollars – not euros.

<snip>

Concerning Iran, recent articles have revealed active Pentagon planning for operations against its suspected nuclear facilities. While the publicly stated reasons for any such overt action will be premised as a consequence of Iran's nuclear ambitions, there are again unspoken macroeconomic drivers underlying the second stage of petrodollar warfare – Iran's upcoming oil bourse. (The word bourse refers to a stock exchange for securities trading, and is derived from the French stock exchange in Paris, the Federation Internationale des Bourses de Valeurs.)

In essence, Iran is about to commit a far greater "offense" than Saddam Hussein's conversion to the euro for Iraq's oil exports in the fall of 2000. Beginning in March 2006, the Tehran government has plans to begin competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE with respect to international oil trades – using a euro-based international oil-trading mechanism.<7> The proposed Iranian oil bourse signifies that without some sort of US intervention, the euro is going to establish a firm foothold in the international oil trade. Given U.S. debt levels and the stated neoconservative project of U.S. global domination, Tehran's objective constitutes an obvious encroachment on dollar supremacy in the crucial international oil market.

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/17450

William R. Clark has received two Project Censored awards for his research on oil currency conflict, and has recently published a book, Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar (New Society Publishers, 2005). He is an Information Security Analyst, and holds a Master of Business Administration and Master of Science in Information and Telecommunication Systems from Johns Hopkins University. He contributed this article to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from Maryland, USA.

Here is the link to his book "Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the future of the dollar" at Amazon.com
http://tinyurl.com/aqsbv

[cascadiance]

1. We have to make clear to Dem congress critters that any support...

for an attack on Iran will be suicidal for them.

The only way I could see this being justified, is if there is clear and unquestionable evidence that they are ready to deploy nuclear weapons or other WMD's in that area. Then perhaps an Israeli style strategic air strike to take out such facilities might be in order. But stop it there.

Ever since the new Ayatollahs have taken over, there is a new breeding ground for support for our country there. A majority of people there that were younger than college age at the times of the embassy takeover are looking for more western influence in their country and form the basis of what could be a potential ally in the future if the current Ayatollahs' government can be replaced. They have grown up in an environment where, unlike many other Middle Eastern countries over there, they have no excuse to blame their current problems there on the U.S., since we've not really had any relationship with their country since that time. Therefore, unlike other countries, the U.S. at some point might have a decent chance at forming a good relationship with that generation.

One of my best friends from college, who I still carry on a friendship with is a naturalized American citizen from Iran. He told me that one real interesting statistic is that near the time of the Shah's overthrow, the literacy rate in that country was somewhere around 10-20%, with the rural communities being very illiterate and dependent on their local Mullah's for news and info.

With the current government in power, the process of restricting access to the media, the internet, and anything but religious books has increased heavily their literacy rate to be around 90% now, since reading in effect became mandatory, even if it was supposed to be only religious texts. And in the process of many of them picking up reading prowesses, they've found a way around censorship activities and picked up their own books and browsed the internet through loopholes, etc. so that the citizenry is a helluva lot more informed now than they were then, not really by the current government's design, but as a side effect of their policies. We don't want to make these people our enemies. Let's try and get them as our friends.

Any invasion into Iran would throw away all of this great potential and immediately alienate this new generation towards us, and would be a HUGE mistake! And I'm not even mentioning the cost and logistics of our own military trying to launch such a strike and occupy their country.

[Hubert Flottz]

3. They're all on vacation.

Not saying much of anything, about anything.

[wli]

2. interesting addiction analogy

But I don't really believe they have any personal feelings about it, nor the slightest regard for the electorate who are thoroughly disenfranchised by Diebold anyway. It's oil, euros, and drugs, and everything else is a PR concoction to avoid the expense of declaring war on the American people outright (i.e. martial law).

[getmeouttahere]

4. Well, then that means WWIII is inevitable...

let's see, BushCo is a born-again Christian, and as such believes in the second coming, armageddon, etc. And since BushCo is the major cause of the vast majority of pain and suffering in this world, maybe one very good thing would come out of armageddon. He and his kind would be removed from this earth, according to their beliefs, and as such, the majority of society's pain and suffering would be removed with them. We could then start over without them. Again, I emphasize that is the ONLY good thing to come out of armageddon.

[MercutioATC]

5. At least I'll get to put on my new bumper sticker...

"We're Making Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them"

[JohnyCanuck]

6. kick n/t