Political risk in the Middle East has increased significantly with war between Iran and Israel almost inevitable, and precious metals and equities investments offer some safety, Swiss money manager and long-term bear Marc Faber said on Tuesday. "Political risk was high six months ago and is higher now. I think sooner or later, the U.S. or Israel will strike Iranâit's almost inevitable," Faber, who publishes the widely read Gloom Boom and Doom Report, told Reuters on the sidelines of an investment conference. "Say war breaks out in the Middle East or anywhere else, (U.S. Federal Reserve chairman ) Mr. Bernanke will just print even more moneyâthey have no option... they haven't got the money to finance a war," said Faber. "You have to be in precious metals and equities... most wars and most social unrest haven't destroyed corporationsâthey usually survive," he said. He said that Middle East markets had largely bottomed out, though regime changes from the Arab Spring revolutions were unlikely to be investor-friendly. Faber said that in uncertain times, investors had to reconcile themselves to volatility. "If you can't live with volatility, stay in bed," he said, pointing out that even cash. The 66 year-old, who has earned the moniker "Dr Doom", earlier told the conference that the likelihood of war in the Middle East was boosted by Western powers' imperatives of keeping China in check, given its dependence on Middle Eastern oil. "The Americans and the western powers know very well they cannot contain China economically... but one way to contain China is to switch on and switch off the oil tap from the Middle East," he said. "I happen to think the Middle East will go up in flames," he said. http://www.cnbc.com/id/46637485
The latest sanction have teeth and should be given time to have an effect on the population. Its the Iranian population who will topple the theocratic regime. I doubt the US is going to attack Iran. Obama is too intent to be reelected to attack Iran no matter what the consequences. Israel is harder to predict. They have satellites that can detect enriched fuel and if they detect weapons grade uranium they will attack Iran. An attack would be in the form of thousands of air sorties over several weeks and the Russians have just upgraded the air defense radars around Iran so it could be a tough row to hoe. An attack by Israel may have the undesireable effect of uniting the Iranians and the citizens may support their government. I don't think there would be any ground war. Hamas and Hezbollah would probably launch thousands of small missiles into Israel. Israel would respond at first with aircraft but at some point they might reoccupy Gaza and possible roll tanks into southern Lebanon. The West Bank will likely remain calm. Obama is in a tight spot here. He can't just vote "Present". He is going to have to make some actual decisions, not exactly his strength.
As a libertarian I don't get this insistence on non-nuclear proliferation. Sooner or later you have to come to terms with the fact that the genie isn't going back into the bottle. I don't trust the soviets, china, pakistan, or north korea with the bomb either.
Those countries haven't threatened to wipe any countries off of the map. Well, NK has threatened South Korea but they need the food and fuel aid supplied by South Korea so it isn't likely. Iran is ruled by no-kidding crazy Islamofascists and has threated to wipe Israel off of the map and they also support terrorism via Hama and Hezbollah. Letting them develop nuclear weapons is madness.
Unfortunately they really don't need our permission and what's worse is the soviets are helping them.
The Russians threatened to "bury us" and they had tens of thousands of nukes. Any reason why we didn't attack them? Please give me the MAD response so I can then ask you if it's only ok for us to attack small wimpy countries that we deem a threat to us, and yet the same countries can't feed or provide fuel to its citizens.
Iran has directly and indirectly killed hundreds, perhaps thousands of Americans. They are directly linked to the Beirut Marine bombing, the Khobar Towers bombing and other smaller attacks. There is strong evidence of them building IEDs and supplying them to Iraqi insurgents and training those insurgents to use them. They've been shouting "Death to America" in the streets for 33 years. At the time Kruschev said that the USSR would "bury" America it was understood by most that he was talking about economics, "I once said, 'We will bury you,' and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you" which is a reference to the Marxist saying, "The proletariat is the undertaker of capitalism". At that time the USSR hadn't killed a single American in anger outside of the espionage world. The USSR did not hold any apocalyptic religious beliefs and otherwise behaved quite rationally.
What about the 700 or so killed in the 1953 coup de etat staged by the CIA in Iran? And the hundreds of thousands killed under the American installed puppet over the 26 years that followed? How much blood on its hands does America have for this?