Why the United States will attack Iran in 2006

oil through the Persian Gulf ? Again, that could work to the advantage of the U.S., as I will explain below. In the meantime, who would benefit from reduced global oil supplies? Oil companies. As oil has gone up in price during the last few years, the profits of oil companies have skyrocketed into the tens of billions of dollars per year, for each company. We also witnessed this administration look the other way when energy companies rapaciously exploited California’s nascent “deregulated” electricity market, so we know where its allegiance lies.

Another “rational” argument against attacking Iran is that the U.S., by virtue of its constrained manpower, can only feasibly attack Iran by air, which would not be very effective if limited to “military” targets. This is true, but it misses the point. The initial air assault against Iran would be merely the first step in what the U.S. probably hopes will become a larger war. Why? Because the only way the United States can successfully neutralize Iran is by dropping a couple of nuclear bombs on its civilian population, forcing Iran to surrender unconditionally.

Even the U.S. will not dare to unilaterally break sixty years of nuclear taboo and drop a nuclear bomb on an Iranian city. However, it probably can get away with using “tactical nuclear bunker buster” bombs against ostensibly military targets. The world will be outraged, of course. But after a few months of media spin, the U.S. will probably quell the opprobrium.

In the meantime, Iran will foment Shiite insurrection in Iraq, resulting in a dramatic increase in casualties among American soldiers. Iran can also sink a few U.S. warships and oil tankers in the Persian Gulf , and indeed slow or stop the flow of oil through the gulf. Of course, the U.S. will spin this Iranian retaliation as a reckless and fanatical escalation of the war. Americans, angry at seeing their soldiers killed and their warships sunk, will rally even more fervently around their president. The U.S. Government will point to the world’s growing economic problems ensuing from the shortage of oil as evidence that Iran needs to be stopped, whatever the cost. The world’s industrialized nations that are so dependent on oil will publicly renounce taking harsher action against Iran while privately hoping that the U.S. does whatever it takes to get the oil flowing again.

Then, without warning, the U.S. will drop a couple of nuclear bombs on a couple of medium sized cities in Iran, just like it did in Japan sixty years ago. The justifications will be the same as before: to bring a speedy end to the war. Of course, the world will be outraged, but its reaction will be muted because the U.S. will have already broken the nuclear taboo when it used the “bunker busters,” and besides, what can the world really do about it? Iran will surrender, and the U.S. will be fully in control of the Middle East and two of its most important sources of oil: Iraq and Iran .

The U.S. can then withdraw its soldiers in Iraq into its new massive, city-sized military bases and wait out the civil war, while keeping a close eye on the oil. The U.S. will be a pariah nation, but so what. It will control the bulk of the world’s oil.

Dave Eriqat

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