Some Days

[Daveparts still]

Some Days
By David Glenn Cox (author)


Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. These days make you wonder why Barack Obama or anyone in their right mind would want to be President. According to news reports we're all lining up, getting ready to scrap over in the Middle East again.

Leon Panetta, head of the CIA, said on Sunday that Iran had enough low grade uranium to make two, count 'em, two nuclear bombs. Well now, the CIA, there's a credible news source for you. As with most of the foreign policy fiascoes this one has its roots in the Bush administration.

The Congress has funded and the CIA has planned and fought a secret war in Iran. They've funded opposition groups while Washington think tanks put out a white paper a week about the dangers of Iran. Like Iraq the policy makers won't tell the true story about rivals that don't like each other, so instead they tell a fantasy about Iranian ambitions to nuke Israel off the face of the Earth.

First, Panetta's hobgoblin smacks of Donald Rumsfeld's “We know where the weapons are.” Low grade uranium isn't going to make atomic bombs any more than the crude floating in the Gulf could go straight into your Honda tank. It is no secret that Iran is processing uranium; until the latest round of sanctions they told international inspectors, “Come watch.”

USA Today had a Cal Thomas editorial where he said Americans were tied at the hip with Israel and that their war was our war. I don't know, my Irish momma used to say, “If the other kids wanted to jump off a cliff, would you jump, too?” So while it is pretty ridiculous and self serving to claim that Israel's war is our war, the real narrative is that we are joined at the hip with Saudi Arabia, but try selling that program to the American people.

Israel and Iran have no territorial disputes and they have no trade disputes; they have disputes only over the Palestinian issue. The US media trumpets every Iranian anti-Israel comment and ignores every anti-Iran comment coming out of Israel. Israel has attacked both her neighbors and ships at sea while Iran has attacked no one.

The adversaries here are Saudi Arabia and Iran. If you are Saudi Arabia there is only one country in arm's reach that can give you any trouble. The Saudis are Sunnis and the Iranians are Shiites. The Iranian ambassador disappeared on his way back from a diplomatic mission and the Iranian's addressed pointed questions to the Saudi government. The Saudis are America's allies so every move by the Saudis is viewed with suspicion by Tehran.

The Iranians are surrounded by nuclear powers and by hostile powers on all sides. Any desire to develop a nuclear weapon is only to prevent being blackmailed. Since the end of WW2 no one has used a nuclear weapon and their primary purpose these days is intimidation.

No hostile Arab government in its right mind dreams of overrunning Tel Aviv as long as Israel has its nuclear arsenal. So Israel is sensitive to Iranian nuclear ambitions because it fears the loss of its nuclear hegemony. For the US it's reached a now-or-never point. We have successfully surrounded the gulf oil states and made them our own. Iran is the lone holdout and if Iran develops a bomb then Iran can say to the United States, one false move and Riyadh gets it. Then Iran can tell the Chinese, get your troops off our border or they won't be there tomorrow.

But who wants to fight a war to protect the Saudis and allow Israel to keep her monopoly on Middle Eastern nukes? It's eleven o'clock Eastern time on a Sunday and nothing has happened yet, but what worries me is the timing.

If you're Barack Obama you are six months out from bi-year elections, and if you strike and all goes well then good times can be expected at the ballot box. It's the long pass down field right before half-time. If it goes wrong then six months is enough time to bury it in the news cycle, not that the Obama administration actually cares what the public thinks. But a big story like this could take the oil disaster off the front page; it could take the Kagan hearings off the front page and it could take the lousy economic numbers off the front page.

Now, if you're Israel your diplomatic relations are already at ebb tide so you don't have much to lose. If it goes well then the Israeli army can reclaim their mantle as the toughest bantam weight on the planet. If it goes badly, like the flotilla raid, they can do what they always do and blame the US and Barack Obama, and that's a full time job in the Israeli press. They make Fox News look like Code Pink.

The news in the Gulf of Mexico is becoming more ominous because if BP has cracked the rock formation with pressures up to 10,000 PSI then capping the well will cause the structure to erode and new fissures will open up. The drilling rigs are equipped to handle 1,000 PSI. That could explain why they had to pump drilling mud in three times before the well blew up. It means that the only way to stop the blowout is to let it empty itself until the pressure drops.

In the meantime, if a hurricane takes that toxic water inland it threatens to make the coastal towns an environmental wasteland and make hurricane Katrina look like a thunderstorm. Imagine a coastal town inundated with thousands of barrels of raw crude. In the streets and in the water supply, in the storm sewers and in the houses and that makes it a damn good time for a distraction.

The economic numbers are slipping; the Dow is almost half-way back to 2007 lows. Unemployment is rising as the Republicans defeated a bill to supply a million Americans with continued unemployment benefits. The census which was lauded as adding jobs is beginning to wind down and lay workers off. The President is talking about cutting deficits with the G-8 leaders while Americans are wondering how they are going to eat and that makes it a wonderful time for a distraction.

What makes this the worst idea since deep water drilling is that Iran is not stupid. She will take it on the chin and wait to pick her spot. She does not need to sink a super tanker in the Straits of Hormuz, only to threaten to sink one. Oil tanker insurance doesn't cover going into war zones and the US military might stand on the top of the Empire State Building like Superman and promise that it's going to be all right but to the folks at the shipping companies, that don't mean doodly squat.

Iran has also had years to prepare for this; it's hardly a surprise. A missile launched at 700 mph across twenty miles of the Straits of Hormuz would have a flight time of 28 seconds. So you'd better be as good as you think you are, Batman. Because here is where it gets sticky. The Saudis and the Israelis and the US have to win while Iran has only to not lose.

I truly hope that this is all Barnum's hoodoo, posturing and saber rattling and that nothing will come of it because the American people are tired of war and tired of promises and tired of government that has a thousand other agendas besides helping its own citizens.

[Demeter]

1. Start Another War to Distract From the Oil Slick? And 2 Losing Wars, Too, No Doubt

What kind of madness is that?

Stop the world, I'm getting off here.

[pscot]

2. Of course it's all Barnum ballyhoo

but that doesn't mean people won't get killed or bombed over it.