Spengler's faux article: Why the West will attack Iran

[donsu]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA24Ak01.html

Why did French President Jacques Chirac last week threaten to use non-conventional - that is, nuclear - weapons against terrorist states? And why did Iran announce that it would shift foreign-exchange reserves out of European banks (although it has since retracted this warning)? The answer lies in the nature of Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Iran needs nuclear weapons, I believe, not to attack Israel, but to support imperial expansion by conventional military means.

(hogwash)

Iran's oil exports will shrink to zero in 20 years, just at the demographic inflection point when the costs of maintaining an aged population will crush its state finances, as I reported in Demographics and Iran's imperial design (September 13, 2005). Just outside Iran's present frontiers lie the oil resources of Iraq, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and not far away are the oil concentrations of eastern Saudi Arabia. Its neighbors are quite as alarmed as Washington about the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, and privately quite happy for Washington to wipe out this capability.

(everyone's oil exports will shrink)

It is remarkable how quickly an international consensus has emerged for the eventual use of force against Iran. Chirac's indirect reference to the French nuclear capability was a warning to Tehran. Mohamed ElBaradei, whose Nobel Peace Prize last year was awarded to rap the knuckles of the United States, told Newsweek that in the extreme case, force might be required to stop Iran's acquiring a nuclear capability. German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag that the military option could not be abandoned, although diplomatic efforts should be tried first. Bild, Germany's largest-circulation daily, ran Iranian President Mahmud Ahmedinejad's picture next to Adolf Hitler's, with the headline, "Will Iran plunge the world into the abyss?"

(I never thought Chirac was referring to Iran)

The same Europeans who excoriated the United States for invading Iraq with insufficient proof of the presence of weapons of mass destruction already have signed on to a military campaign against Iran, in advance of Iran's gaining WMD. There are a number of reasons for this sudden lack of squeamishness, and all of them lead back to oil.

(agree it's all about oil and gas and Iran's desire to own their own oil and gas)
-snip-
----------------------------------

at one point in the article Spengler says that at some time the bushmilhousegang will leave Iraq - yeah sure that's why they are building the largest embassy in the world and permanent military bases.

who is paying this Spengler person?

and catch this:

"Given Israel's possession of a large arsenal of fission weapons as well as thermonuclear capability, it is extremely unlikely that Iran would attack the Jewish state unless pressed to the wall."

Spengler ends by say the bushmilhousegang doesn't really want to attack Iran but in the end will be forced too. gotta get that oil and gas.