Just Call Me Cassandra

You might as well start calling me Cassandra with as much good as this blog post is going to do but I am writing it anyway. I am currently reading Lawrence Wright's excellent book The Looming Tower and also this week we got Seymour Hersh's new article on the Bush Administrations push for war with Iran. Taken together it has gotten me thinking about what might happen if we did indeed begin a bombing campaign.

For the sake of arguement, let's not discuss IF we are going to attack Iran, but concentrate on what the ramifications of such an attack might be. If we accept Hersh's reporting that the planning now is moving towards a more "surgical" strike against Republican Guard targets (many of which are in the urban area of Tehran), what would the Iranian response be?

I think we can safely assume that Iran would use their numerous missles to attack the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq training camps inside Iraq that we are protecting with American military forces. Iran could simply make the arguement that they are protecting their national security interests based upon America making the exact same arguement for invading Iraq in the first place.

Remember also that Mahmoud Ahmandinejad has said on numerous occasions that he feels that oil is being sold way too cheap. If he indeed believes this to be true, wouldn't an attack on his soil provide a great justification for driving up the price of oil? I can hear some of you ask, "How could he substantially drive up the price of oil?" Pretty easily. Take a look at the map below.



The Strait of Hormuz is the only path in and out of the Persian Gulf and if you look closely at the map you will see that Iran controls at least 75% of the land surronding the strait. Sink one or two supertankers and the next thing you know oil is trading at $200 a barrel. That would make the price of gas at the pump to be about $6 to $8 a gallon. Remember as gas rises, so does EVERYTHING else. America today is completely dependent upon cheap gasoline. Approximately 50% to 75% of the cost of food at the grocery store is based upon the cost of transporting that food.

I had an anthropology teacher that told us that UK did a study and found that without regular shipments arriving by truck, Lexington would have enough food to feed its citizens for 72 hours. If new shipments couldn't come in, there would be no more food. Don't believe it? Next time you are at the store look at the shelves. Imagine if you wanted to buy enough of any particular good to last you for several months and how much of it you would buy. Now imagine what happens if everyone in the store also wanted to buy the same amount of that same good. Modern grocery stores don't have a back stock room. What you see on the shelves is all they have.

I will let you decide for yourself what that does to the American economy.

We haven't even gotten to the worst. Remember that Hezbollah is financed and primarilly controlled by Iran. They are considered the most organized and dangerous terrorist organization in the world. We know for a fact that they have 1000s of cells in Europe and Asia, and it is believed that they have numerous cells in America. If Iran unleashes Hezbollah in Europe, Asia and America, the economies that have already taken a big hit, get hit even harder.

So, at present we have gas prices double or triple current levels, the economy is collapsing, people can barely feed their families, huge unemployment, people losing their homes due to spiraling credit card debt and mortgages they can no longer afford and a strong possibility of major terrorist attacks on US soil. I don't think it is too far a stretch to assume that there will be some pretty substantial civil unrest.

Given the above possibilities, let us not forget that the Bush Administration has gotten rid of Posse Comitatus, the prohibition of US military forces to police American citizens, given Halliburton subsidary KBR contracts to build detention camps in America, and steps have been taken to allow the imposition of martial law in America.

Do I think that everything above is going to happen? No, I do not. But the fact that it is possible is terrifying. The Bush administration keeps stating that prefer diplomay with Iran over military action, but how can you have diplomacy when you refuse to talk with someone.