Why oil is $130/barrel: fears of a strike against Iran
Posted by Charles II on May 28, 2008
Muhammad Cohen, Asia Times:
The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.
Two key US senators [Feinstein&Lugar] briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.
The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC’s elite Quds force.
In addition to the usual stuff we hear Iran might do,
The Islamic world could also react strongly against a US attack against a third predominantly Muslim nation. Pakistan, which also shares a border with Iran, could face additional pressure from Islamic parties to end its cooperation with the US to fight al-Qaeda and hunt for Osama bin Laden. Turkey, another key ally, could be pushed further off its secular base. American companies, diplomatic installations and other US interests could face retaliation from governments or mobs in Muslim-majority states from Indonesia to Morocco.
Let’s see if Feinstein and Lugar emerge from the Bermuda Triangle that the Senate seems to have disappeared into.
7 Responses to “Why oil is $130/barrel: fears of a strike against Iran”
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Stormcrow said
Jeeze, I am so thick sometimes. It took me the better part of a year to connect the dots. I didn’t see it until just a few moments ago.
We’ve been hearing rumors of an “upcoming” attack on Iran for the last year. Hasn’t happened yet. But the rumors persist. They’re always leaked by an “anonymous but highly placed source”, whose identity never comes to light.
Right at this moment, I’d guess that these “anonymous sources” are people within the Bush regime who are (i) either oil futures speculators themselves, or (ii) are in the pockets of same.
Charles II said
That’s certainly possible, Stormcrow. But there’s also substance behind the rumors. The US has been funding acts of war on Iranian soil including assassinations, sabotage, and incitement to overthrow the government. It has overflown Iran. And there are the games in the Gulf. Finally, they have threatened violence using the same language used in the buildup to Iraq.
I would say that aggression against Iran has always been on, but that the Busheviks and their buddies in the Oil Patch have characteristically seen an opportunity to profit from the misery of others.
Stormcrow said
Charles II, I think that if the aggression were really “on”, it would have happened already. I certainly don’t believe that the holdup has anything to do with anybody’s “good intentions”.
I do suspect that somebody, or several somebodys, at a high enough level to matter within the Bush regime, may have made some very elementary calculations.
Said calculations would spell out the following cause-and-effect chain of events.
(1) Bush orders a large scale strike in Iran.
(2) Iraq goes from “cut that won’t stop bleeding” to “severed artery” status within days, when just about everybody on the Shia side of the aisle, from al Sadr’s Mahdi Army to the rebaptized Badr Brigades, declares Open Season on American soldiers.
(3) The United States military machine stops being able to get effective quantities of supplies in to, or large numbers of people out of, Iraq.
(4) The US military Iraq KIA count goes up by an order of magnitude or more within two to three months, max. Sure, they kill maybe 10 or 20 times as many Iraqis during this process. But from the Iraqi standpoint, this is an acceptable exchange ratio, and from ours, it isn’t. Not when we’re losing thousands every month.
(5) The Secret Service people’s jobs go from “challenging” to “impossible” over that same time span.
At this juncture, W may be forced into an involuntary retirement in Paraguay a lot quicker than he planned on. If that happens, he’d just better hope and pray that his buddies over there do decide to throw him under the bus. Because Paraguay does have an extradition treaty with the US.
This has seemed to me like the most probable chain of events following a strike against Iran, ever since Gilly rather bluntly pointed it out. You don’t have to be a genius to figure this out. Which tells me that it’s probable that this is common knowledge within the Bush machine as well, by this time.
It also seems to me that a “phony war” scenario vis-a-vis Iran is the most probable course Bush regime policy will follow if you assume that ideology means far less to these people than the ability to plunder America without let or hindrance. The last several years’ events have forced me to make this assumption, because it’s the only one in which their actions make any sense.
MEC said
Stormcrow, your step-by-step scenario is reality-based.
Remember, however, that the Bush regime is not reality-based. They genuinely did believe that the Iraqis would greet their American liberators with bouquets of flowers. Which means they very likely genuinely believe an American attack on Iran would work out they way they want it to.
John Shreffler said
The Senators have denied their end of this report, according to Raw Story and to Laura Rozen.
Stormcrow said
Thanks for the Laura Rozen quote, John.
So we come back to (sustained drumroll …)
Any and every time we read those two little words, “speaking anonymously”, about the source of an “insider” DC political story, media manipulation by planted leak must be considered as one of the possible explanations.
That’s been going on for longer than I’ve been alive.
MEC, IMHO, by this time, the reality the Bush regime is tuned to is not the military reality, but rather the reality of plunder. Their fantasy failed to materialize half a decade ago. Conspicuously.
All they have left is sack and pillage. This always seems to be the endgame for ideologues who are in over their heads.
They’re good at that. It’s probably the only thing in the world that they are good at.
Charles II said
Thanks, John. There was something about Feinstein and Lugar being briefed that didn’t ring right. Maybe that Lugar is not enough of a lockstep follower to be trusted with actual information.
And you may be right, Stormcrow. You and Gilly certainly are right about how disastrous a war with Iran would be. And we also agree that by spreading rumors of war, they get the oil profits they desire without the hassle of a real war. Hence the title of the post.
But in judging whether the rumors are likely or not to have substance, I recall that Bush is not up for re-election. His goal, as he sees it, is to mire the next US president in the region. Having lots of angry brown people shooting at our troops will prove that he was right to invade. Also, as I mentioned, we are really already at war with Iran.
So far it’s just rumors, a war of nerves rather than of ordnance. Hersh has not weighed in, which makes it hard to judge. He’s one of the few reporters who can get intelligence/military sources to talk. What makes me lean toward believing the rumor is more of a hunch than a fact: if the Bush Administration can do something smart or something stupid, it seems to always choose stupid.