I think it was Caesar who said "Easy to conquer, hard to control". That wisdom is plainly evident today in Iraq. In our time, whenever the U.S. , as the sole superpower, invades a foreign country (for whatever reason) it is immediately protrayed by liberal media as an imperialistic power/asset grab. Of course, the media conveniently ingnores the fact that the US and its legal territories has not increased by 1 square inch in our lifetimes. Better than using a military exercise to separate the Islams from the oil wealth (source of power), why not just refuse to buy the oil? The tech currently exists to convert coal to gasoline. And of course, no one has to use heating oil (use nat gas heat, electric heat). Nuke power is virtually limitless. The environmentalists would say that these are all "dirty" fuels. Well, how "dirty" would it be if one or more of these Islamic oil exporters starts launching Nukes? I think I'll take my chances with the Greenhouse effect.
I think the environmentalists for the first time ever are starting to "warm up" to the reality that very few on the planet are going to just put on their Berkshire earth shoes and walk or ride bicycles and grow bean sprouts in their own self-made organic condo sand boxes. Times are a changin' and its about time. Ultra safe Nuclear design has come a huge way over the years. Old design concepts that the US developed decades ago are being "stolen" and planned for by China and other countries. Nuclear is clearly the way the globe is going and I think the US will finally wake up to that reality soon. Apart from fuel/energy issues we WILL have electrical power shortages in this country soon if we do not greatly being to increase energy infrastructure of any type and FAST. No one seems to get it - the world is growing and expanding geometrically and conservation and minor 2-5% changes in efficiency are not going to cut it anymore. The growth curve (highly correlated with population birth rates) is very steep and can not be slowed without a large natural calamity or through traditional man man means of war. In essence humanity is a victim of its own ability to limit war and maintain relative global peace for a few decades. Wait till Africa starts coming on line like BRIC countries are doing with a real industrial revolution of its own in 30-40 years and then see where the planet is going next ... Being an advocate of a healthy environment I am ALL FOR HIGH OIL PRICES. Sustained high costs of oil are exactly what the world needs to FORCE us/it to get off of it once and for all. Oil's time in the sun has come and needs to go fast. Its a transition energy and we now MUST get to something different. But it will take time to transition. The globe now needs a energy transition period and oil will have to be leveraged more effectively as a transitioning source of energy. More in a moment about that. To a lessor degree we can also use a mix of wind, solar, bio, synfuels and coal gasification. It's clear to me also that we have squeezed out about all the efficiency we can expect to get out of conventional gasoline car engines. The basic internal combustion engine thermodynamic cycle we use is all played out and at the "knee of the curve" for marginal gains in efficiency. Very very little unburnt fuel escapes out the exhaust now (at max .5-1% in a poorly tuned engine). But hybrid is a con game and will NEVER be cost effective since by definition its using less than optimum technology for both motive alternatives. It can't scale and compounds the technical problems. However the much much superior thermodynamic efficiency of the diesel cycle will guarantee that diesel becomes the new bridge technology for the common man for the next 20-30 years. Let's face it - if we wanted to get an immediate 30% reduction in transportation costs everyone would just go out and buy a conventional gasoline motorcycle. But the truth is we are too domesticated and 95% of us will not take make that social/lifestyle change. Voluntary change only happens when it is convenient to do so or when there are no alternatives. Diesel, with all the stunning new improvements in emissions control and amazing new auto performance (new power and high acceleration profiles, low maintenance etc.) is rapidly taking the world by storm. This is a mega trend that I suspect only about 1% of the planet is even tuned into. Watch Mercedes and other European auto manufactures take the world by storm. In 3 years I think most Americans will be dumbfounded to wake up to see that diesel has become the standard offering in all major car manufacturers. Those auto manufacturer's that do not go down this diesel path will be out of business by then if they have no offerings. Diesel will be the new swing/transition technology to get us to the next 20-30 years. After that I suspect that personal transportation will be considered a luxury and society will migrate toward mass transit systems. The only way personal transportation will be possible in the future is if a radical new non-carbon based technology is developed (ultra high efficiency electrical with fuel cells, efficient battery or central electrical grid directly driven). But I think energy distribution must go to a large economy of scale networked utility grid concept using a mix of nuclear, coal, gas etc. feeding metered electrical transportation networks. Small scale personal auto power generation will never be able to compete with the economy of scale of large regional power and economics will drive it all to this model. Expect social change and profit by the trend. But to tie it into the OP topic it all becomes mute if we do not put an end to the lunacy in the middle east or they continue to act as children and all refuse to grown up and insist on pushing humanity back 1000 years. TS
Nukes are an extreme defensive weapon. I don't think Iran or any other regime there can even threaten using them in any other situation than desperate self-defense. So I don't see an Inranian nuke as an offensive threat to anyone. But if the Israelis feel threatened, they surely are able to do all the necessary preventive air strikes themselves, no need for the US to get involved.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women." Homer Simpson Sugar = oil and Iran controls the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman and others which oil flows through. They could sink ships, mine sea routes or bomb oil platforms. This affects the world and most notably Russia and China (the latter being responsible for propping up our economy currently) get oil from Iran and have been pretty clear about their intentions, however misguided. Do you remember the war games Iran was âplayingâ last year? They lined up 150k soldiers along the iraq border. Iran doesnât have to fight a war in Iran â they would simply go and kill all our US soldiers in Iraq. Iran is not a chickenshit country like Iraq and attacking Iran will incite even more Shia Muslims against the US . Iran has over 150,000 targets (U.S. soldiers) in Iraq and Afghanistan and has made it clear they will not hesitate to attack these if provoked. In addition, Iran has threatened to terrorize the world wide if such a scenario plays out (through hezbollah and any of the many other wack job cells it has employed world wide)... Nobody knows the exact numbers but Iran has say a million strong military force - employing 10% of it to go over and kill US soldiers in Iraq would be a pretty easy move... Politically, georgey has no political capital to pull this off anyway- or funding or friends. I don;t see an attack - just more noise which is all Bush does now anyway - make useless noise...
Agree 100 percent. Iran knows we dont have a lot of power unless we get a very broad coalition. Marc Faber has it right. High commodity prices bread instability. Right now the markets are booming, but the US is certainly losing clout and prestige around the world.
Umm crazy people don't know the difference between offense and defense. Planes aren't supposed to be used as wrecking balls either. A few quotes from Iran's fearless leader President Ahmadinejad. See if these sound defensive. "The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land" "There is no doubt that the new wave in Palestine will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot from the face of the Islamic world. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map." "The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world." "If the West does not support Israel, this regime will be toppled. As it has lost its raison d' tre, Israel will be annihilated" "Israel is a tyrannical regime that will one day will be destroyed" "Israel is a rotten, dried tree that will be annihilated in one storm" "Remove Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations" "The Islamic umma (community) will not allow its historic enemy to live in its heartland" "Anyone who signs a treaty which recognises the entity of Israel means he has signed the surrender of the Muslim world" "Any leaders in the Islamic umma who recognise Israel face the wrath of their own people"
I think your use of a Homer Simpson analogy demonstrates your naivety about the military options that Iran has and the over stated vulnerability the US has to Iran - which is very minimal. Iran has no substantial air power and little armor. It has a slight naval capability but nothing that would be hard to shut down in 72 hours. All they have is fanatical mass and artillery. That is easy to stop without mobility. The worst Iran could do militarily is put a few missiles into some tankers (which are very hard to sink btw). Iran has NEVER "controlled" the Gulf in modern times. If Iran misbehaved and attacked shipping or mined the area - they would get spanked - terminally. The US would immediately deny them an oil weapon and immediately inflame all their ports and oil exports as we attacked every vulnerable oil pipe out of the country. If Iran attempted another suicide ground attack like they did against Saddam with a million youths (many without weapons who died in mountains of flesh) and flooded across the border the US would simply cut them off logistically. In this manner they would be left to fast for Allah without water and food in the dessert and wasteland and get to enter paradise to meet their 72 virgins. If they somehow managed to advance artillery to get within 10 miles of US forces (totally implausible) we would simply send in wave after wave of A10'a and do an complete area denial and cut them down where they stood. We would also use mobility and firepower to push them into pretargeted killing zones to use very cost effective and cheap indirect fire and obliterate any significant concentration of forces in place. It would be a hamburger pile. Iran is a paper tiger and all mouth with no substance. The only serious damage they can do at this time is the high speed medium surface to surface missiles they could fire into Israel. If it came to that Israel would nuke Tehran. And that would be the end of this regime and Iran would be balkanized into various states by the weak and warring war lords like they have always been. Moderate Sunni Arabs have already decided that they can not live with a radical Shia country and hostile government trying to export their contempt and counter religious views in the region. Such are secretly working against them with the US and west at large to insure they do not expand. Iran's only option is to attempt to unify to warring factions of Islam (Shia and Sunni) by provoking an incident with Israel. But most of the wealthy Kings, paid off Mullahs, and Princes and businessmen see exactly what is going on and are not going to let that happen. Besides, Arabs HATE Persians and are fearful of them. Bottom Line Iran is becoming isolated and has ZERO future and the clock ticks against them. The only question is who trips the trip wire first or if somone goes in preemptively to spank them. My bet is we let them shoot themselves in the foot by provoking them to go on offense - then its over fast. TS
A paper tiger indeed. Trying to conceal their weakness with angry words. The only trouble they can cause is by sponsoring Hezbollah and other terrorists. But that is relatively little. Now that would be interesting... a western provocation. What could that possibly be? My imagination is not enough.