From its inception the Bush administration has been driven by one goal -- to secure U.S. access to foreign oil. That was laid out plainly in 2001, in a document called Strategic Energy Policy: Challenges for the 21st Century. U.S. conservatives believe the United States not only has a right but a duty to use its military might to secure its conventional energy supply.
Also, there's a line of thinking in Washington that says you can't pacify Iraq or Afghanistan without tackling Iran, because Iran covertly supports insurgencies in both countries.
Neither Bush nor Vice-President Dick Cheney is running again. They may feel they have little to lose in launching a conflict that fulfils their ideological mission and, once begun, will be very difficult for the next president to stop.
This dangerous situation should come as no surprise to anyone since Georgie has made his intentions clear right from the get-go. As a matter of fact, that's one of the few positive things that can be said about this administration, they have been outright honest in what they want.
To put a little "Perspective" on the situation I would like to quote from an editorial in the local paper by Michael Den Tandt:
Then there was the bombshell dropped last November by the U.S. intelligence community.And that's the name of that tune Bunky!
In a paper entitled Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities (you can find it with Google), the agency that oversees all U.S. intelligence gathering said: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."
You might have assumed that would be the end of that. Given the unfolding disaster in Iraq, not even Bush could excuse or rationalize war with Iran. The Iraq war has already cost $500 billion US.
The U.S. economy is in recession. And the price of crude oil has shot to a staggering $110 a barrel. Iran produces an estimated 3.8 million barrels of oil a day, accounting for 5% of global supply.
No one denies that a military attack on Iran would push crude far higher, with disastrous impact on global growth. And the economic consequences are the least of it. A U.S. attack on Iran easily could lead to a corresponding attack by Iran on Israel, which then could ignite the wider Middle Eastern war that so many have feared since 9/11.
Here's what makes this a real concern. Bush and many of the people around him believe that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear capacity at all costs.
Their stated reason is that the Shia mullahs who control Iran are insane Islamofascists, and therefore cannot be trusted to withhold use of the bomb out of a desire for self-preservation, as the Soviet Union did during the Cold War.
Subjected to even a little scrutiny, this rationale doesn't hold up.
Saddam Hussein truly was insane, and even he didn't dare use chemical weapons of mass destruction against the Americans, when he had them, back in 1991.
The deeper motivation likely is far colder. Iran is acknowledged as the rising power in the Middle East and it sits on one of the world's last remaining large pools of cheaply accessible crude.
(On a side note here, Canada has nearly as much oil in the Alberta Tar Sands as Saudi Arabia has so maybe that fence they wanted to put up between Canada and the States isn't such a bad idea after all!")
Your "News from the Front" scribe;
Allan W Janssen
Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com
Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com
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