It seems, to me, and I would hope that someone can disabuse me of this thought, but it seems to me that an Iranian domestic nuclear energy program is an immediate and daunting threat to the American Oilogarchy. If Iran becomes capable of producing a reasonable percentage of their domestic energy from heavily armored nuclear reactors, they are more free to do wacky stuff like stop oil production or at least sales. This means they can hold hostages again – not western citizens, but economies.
A little fantasy scenario: It’s 2008, The Clash of Civilizations is in full swing as Syria and Lebanon are now occupied by US/British/Israeli/Turkish Coalition forces (UN peacekeepers driven out easily by ‘terrorist’ bombings). Construction of Anglo-American controlled oil pipelines from Iraq to the Mediterranean (via Syria and Lebanon) and from the Caspian to the Indian Ocean has begun in earnest. For some reason construction has begun on a Anglo-American pipeline from the Caspian Southward, towards Tehran. Construction everywhere is under constant terrorist attack.
The Coalition has entirely lost the ‘Arab Street’ and most other populaces, including their own are horrified and what now has obviously been a resource grab from the start. Iran is all but claiming responsibility but the Coalition is too mired in attempting to stabilize it’s occupied territories and cannot fight Eastward into Iran at even partial strength. Both China and Russia are beginning to shed their Western-looking stances more and more. Russia’s oil pipelines out of the Caspian are all but destroyed by ‘terrorists’, but US involvement is suspected. India is a shaky ally who feels very much hemmed in by our aggressive policies, but forced into the Coalition because of their rivalries with Pakistan and China.
Recognizing the ‘Coalition’ forces intentions to take Western Iran and Tehran as well, the Iranian government stops all oil sales and begins stockpiling produced oil, with nasty effect on global markets. They pay off Armenia to reject proposed pipeline routes through their country (Here come the Turks again!) and destabilize Georgia to prevent re-construction of Russian lines there. They foment and support more and more intense resistance to Coalition Occupation of Syria and Lebanon and Iraq. They are growing more threatened, yet more powerful daily as oil prices soar because of their control over their own reserves and the chaos to the West of them.
Soon the economies of the West may lie shattered beneath the cost of transportation and their own investment in making war over converting to renewable energy sources when they had the chance.
All of this without a real nuclear weapon program. No wonder Bush ponders nuking them even now, ‘neverminding’ if they are actually building nukes or not.
If the Bush Doctrine continues to be applied, (“All you need is an imagination and a military to start a war”), we might as well dust off those old ‘F- You, Iran!’ t-shirts from the Reagan era:
http://www.informatik.fh-kl.de/~brackly/download/Bilder/mickey-finger.jpg
Fact is, I could make up a dire threat scenario like this for almost all nations on earth, so if you are trying to start up a war, you can retain me by sending $500 and a SASE to 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Joilet, Illinois.
