Oil Is Our Weapon, Too
(this section of Card’s article reprinted from http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2006-10-29-1.html)
Iran’s ace-in-the-hole is not its nuclear weapon — in their rational moments, even the most rabid of the ayatollahs must understand that if they ever used (or allowed someone else to use) a nuclear weapon, we would destroy them, period. That nuke is meant only as a deterrent — it can’t be used any other way — and while there’s a remote chance that Iran might allow their nukes to be put into the hands of some terrorist group, it would have to be a group they control absolutely. In other words, it would not be Al-Qaeda. (Though Hezbollah would be bad enough.)
The real threat from Iran is their ability to shut down the Persian Gulf and cut off the world’s supply of oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf nations.
That would not really bother the United States — gas prices would shoot up on the open market, of course, but we can get by on oil provided by non-Gulf sources.
Not so for the rest of the world, though. And Iran is poised, with small boats and thousands of missiles, to shut down all oil production and transportation in the Persian Gulf.
What few seem to realize (according to the article in Commentary) is that Iran is far more dependent on oil revenues than we are on getting their oil. When President Bush determines that he has given the Iranians ample chance to demonstrate to the few rational statesmen left in Europe that there is no possibility of meaningful negotiations with the tyrants of Tehran, his obvious course of action is to shut down Iranian power in the gulf and seize their oil assets.
If we strike first, we can eliminate their ability to do mischief in the gulf quite readily. Their forces, however numerous, are pathetically vulnerable. Unlike their dispersed and shielded nuclear development capability, their military forces in the gulf are in obvious and accessible positions.
So are their own oil assets. They are as dependent on the Gulf to reach the world oil market as any of their neighbors. If we seize their oil platforms, destroy their shipping, and impose an absolute blockade on Iranian shipping in the Gulf — while eliminating their ability to damage anybody else’s shipping — how long do you think the tyranny would remain in power?
Here’s a hint: They’d run out of money very, very quickly.
Here’s another hint: Their military is already refusing to obey their most outrageous orders. When the military finds themselves saddled with a government that has brought the destruction of most of their oil revenues, all because of their insane determination to take on the United States, how long before the ayatollahs are arrested and sent home? Or else made irrelevant by placing a “committee of public safety” above them, to veto their decisions and make peace with the West?
Maybe it wouldn’t turn out that way. But it’s our best chance — and that’s the chance that Bush is obviously preparing for. He has made no attempt to prepare the American people for an invasion of Iran. But he has made it crystal clear that Iranian misbehavior will not be tolerated — and that regime change is the desired outcome.
If Iran’s ayatollahs were toppled, how long would Syria continue to misbehave? Answer: About fifteen minutes. Syria is a poor country. They are only able to make trouble because they have Iran’s support.
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Card’s entire article is here.
He mischaracterizes some historical examples (tman square was not that big a deal in china), leans on some dubious assertions and relies on his own sci-fi theories of human behavior way more than anyone should. Worst, he gets lots of facts right and displays a fair amount of knowledge and then picks the wrong enemy. The enemy isn’t Iran, the enemy is instability and rogue-statism. Hanging in there to screw the Ayatollahs doesn’t do us any good if they’re replaced by civil war or a dictatorship.
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He does have a lot of good points though and I agree with him that we can’t leave yet. Those who want to leave completely are begging to have a genocide on their hands, with Iranian and/or Syrian invasion of big chunks of Iraq for “self defense” to boot. Being mad at Bush for getting us into this mess in the first place is no reason to stop thinking now.
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Lastly, he completely misses the point that another 10 years of fiscal and domestic mismanagement like we’ve seen recently absolutely dwarfs the damage in lives and treasure that 20 Bin Ladens could do. Congress needs to be Democratic because we couldn’t trust the republicans.
First of all, if we blockaded Iran’s oil exports global oil prices would skyrocket. Our economy would almost certainly fall into a deep recession as it did during the Arab oil embargo in the 70’s. Even any serious hint that we might attack Iran would disrupt our economy.
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Also, it’s really doubtful that this kind of economic pressure would work. It didn’t work in Iraq and it hasn’t worked in North Korea or Cuba. The leaders of these countries never suffer and the people tend to rally around their governments when attacked. We’d be more likely to radicalize a large part of the country’s population than to turn them against their leaders.
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So I have no trouble understanding why this article hasn’t been widely read. The guy’s a nut.
Plus we can’t just blockade them, Iran isn’t that far from Russia or China and pipelines can be built, they’re probably in the works now.
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The path to shutting down oil tyrants is through green energy. We can export the technology worldwide, make a bundle and put our enemies in the poor house all at once.
Sorry, but I don’t find anything redeeming about this guy, especially his choice in terminology.
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To me, the stalest thing about the national discussion about Iraq is wrapping it (and just about everything else BushCo touches) in the rubric of the “war on terror.” Why the DC Dems, especially people like Russ Feingold, accept this rubric is beyond me.
It is old. 19th Century old. As in, “The Great Game.” This is not RISK, where we try to conquer territories.
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We may not need Persian Gulf oil but China and Japan do–and China has been lending us lots and lots of money the past six years. If we screw up their economies, ours will be screwed up, too. Stability is the goal here.
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“When the military finds themselves saddled with a government that has brought the destruction of most of their oil revenues, all because of their insane determination to take on the United States, how long before the ayatollahs are arrested and sent home? Or else made irrelevant by placing a “committee of public safety” above them, to veto their decisions and make peace with the West?”
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What an idiot! When their military finds America has attacked Iran, the military and Iranian public will rally to the ayatollahs, just as liberals supported Bush after 9/11. That’s how nationalism works.
Maybe the debate about the Iraq War has grown very stale, but that is not a reason to entertain wishful thinking from a sci-fi author. The Iraq War boils down to a few simple points:
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1. Bush has screwed up any chance of building a stable democratic Iraq.
2. The longer our forces stay there, the more the Iraqis will want them to go.
3. The longer our forces stay there, the more casualties the US suffers.
4. Bush wants to our forces stay there until January 20, 2009.
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Congress either pressures him to draw down our forces (thereby lowering casualties) or Congress lets more soldiers get thrown into the meatgrinder.
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That’s what we have for the next two years. And no fresh ideas are going to save this one.
Almost no situation in real life ever boils down to multiple choice. When we see our options that way, that is when we are in trouble. It is amazing what a new idea can do to change a seemingly limited situation. As one example off the top of my head — just one — consider Hannibal defeating the Romans by bringing elephants across the Alps in the winter. Say it’s irrelevant if you want, but it’s not; the point is in the refusal to limit your options with self-imposed assumptions.
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I can shoot holes in the article as well as anyone. But it is new thinking on a debate that should not be brought down to multiple-choice. I’m glad you poked holes in some of it, but part of our thinking about Iraq needs to be to bring in new ideas.