Of course the Neocons would love to control Iran's oil, but look at facts

[Bucky]

Iran has little to fear from Bush and his babysitters, despite their guns and their recklessness and despite Iran's genuine support for terrorist groups in Lebanon.

http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/forecast/cswasia/images/plotaxislength+400+psdef+.gif <-- seasonal temperatures (I like maps)

The US took out the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and the Iraqi Baathists. These were Iran's biggest regional enemies and now, thanks to the blood of dead Americans and other dead non-Iranians, they no longer rule their countries. Caveat here: thanks to Donald Rumsfeld's brains, the Taliban are starting to rebuild, but that's a different history lesson.

How did the US come to saving Iran from Iran's enemies? In the case of Afghanistan our troops were largely so successful about rounding up the Taliban and their al-Qaeda guests because Iranian intelligence agencies were supplying the US military on where to find them. Iran wanted their Wahhabist-Salafist enemies gone and the US did the work for them.

Imagine how stunned Iran's ruling Council of Experts must've been when, the following January, the Americans whom they just helped avenge the 9/11 attacks added Iran to the list of the Axis of Evil.

In the case of Iraq, the facts are murkier. Here's what we know--the case driving the US invasion was the WMDs Iraq supposedly had. Saddam maintained and subtlely promoted the fiction of WMDs because he believed it would deter invasion from his two biggest enemies--the US and Iran. The case for Iraq having WMDs came from Defense Department idiots getting almost all of their intelligence (such as it was) from Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi con artist with extensive ties to Iran. Chalabi's personal cheif of security has been revealed already as an Iranian agent.

Later Chalabi took American military secrets that he was given by the White House (don't buy the "low ranking official accidently let it slip out" cover story) and turned it over to the Iranians. His organization continues to work with Iran and Chalabi continues to indirectly control the Iraqi oil ministry, which is openly cutting export and refinement deals with Iran.

My conspiracy-loving friends often tell me, when I'm not rudely laughing in their faces at them, that the first question you always should ask is "who benefits"? Who is making the profits from America's militarism in soutwest Asia? Iran. Who does the source of America's bad intel on Iraq work for? Iran. Who is safer because of all those dead American troops? Iran. Who will most of the region's surviving "collaterals" turn to for stability and recovery? Iran.

Was the Iraq war an Iranian set up? Well, I don't think anyone can orchestrate world events from behind the curtain quite so easily as a direct "puppet master" theory might suggest. But Iran has been making out like a bandit due to Mr Bush's blunderations. And Iran had every reason in the world to goad us (and possibly fool Chalabi into fooling us) into confronting Iraq--just like they had every reason in the world for helping us wipe out the Taliban and bin Ladin's groupies in 2001.

It's probably not in their schemes to have America militarily occupying their bookend neighbors as we are (while both degenerate into ugly society-wide violence and despair). But unpleasant, unintended consequences from playing global power games are not an exclusive curse on Americans. Iran is in a pickle too and would be foolish to not prepare as big and as nasty an arsenal as they can muster to deter American adventurism.

But the truth is that even their current arsenal is an adequate deterrent. As long as they stay on their game, they are at zero risk of invasion and less than 1% risk of missile strikes by the US or Israel. The business in southern Lebanon this summer wasn't exactly a dress rehearsal--Hezbollah's missiles are little more than Iran's table scraps--but it should give you a hint of what Iran's military could do to all the Persian Gulf infrastructure that they don't like.

I don't think dead American troops bother Messrs Cheney, Rumsfeld, & Bush very much. I'm certain they don't lose sleep over little brown collaterals. But they would cry themselves a river if their precious precious crude petroleum profits were to be lost in vain. And Iran is poised to kick 'em where it hurts the most, right in their little Exxons. That my friends is a deterrent that works.

Can things still spin out of control between us and Iran? Of course. In many ways things are already a little out of control--Hezbollah's belligerence toward Israel showed us that. But for once in their spoiled little lives, the Bushies have a reason to keep an eye on the road. When their own asses are in the sling, Republicans can prove remarkably... well, conservative.

[lcordero2]

1. one man's "terrorist" is another man's freedom fighter

The BOTTOM LINE is that we are on their land and the landowner is ALWAYS right.