Monday, July 12, 2010

Executive Summary

• A war with Iran seems likely before the US elections in November.
• The US has committed an act of war in deciding to embargo Iranian fuel shipments and international financial activities.
• The "urgency for dealing with Iran" is driven more by oil competition than military crisis.
• The US militarily occupies or diplomatically controls every strategically-located oil producer in the Middle East except for Iran.
• The most probable explanation for the sudden concern about Iran is likely centered over energy and the 'requirement' of growth that our economic and financial systems demand.
• Seeking militarily-secured access to oil halfway around the world is a weak strategy.
• An Iranian war has the potential to severely disrupt developed economies due to another wild oil-price spike.

These days I am troubled by the renewed beating of the Iranian war drums by the West and Israel.  Troubled, in part, because the world economy needs a war with Iran right now like it needs a hole in the head.  Or perhaps I should say a hole in the barrel, because the most likely immediate outcome of an Iranian war would be a diminution of oil traversing out of the Persian Gulf and a gigantic leap in the price of oil.

Both would add terrible stresses to the global financial system at this particular moment.

The last time I wrote about the urgent beating of the Iranian war drums was in December of 2009.  Then, too, we saw a near-perfect coordination of the media in breathlessly "reporting" whatever the US and Israeli military elements wanted communicated.  Basically it boiled down to something like this:  "THE US MUST IMMEDIATELY DEAL WITH THIS URGENT THREAT RIGHT NOW - NO WAITING - IT IS THAT SERIOUS!!!"  Sorry for shouting there, but that's how it came across to me before it all, oddly and quietly, slipped off of the headlines and out of our collective consciousness, until just recently.