Reply #34: I guess I have a different perspective, is all. I see the string pullers as not [View All]

BushCo--they're just thugs around the table. The string pullers here are the House of Saud. They rented an army, and they want value for their petrodollar.

What they have to lose should Shi'a hegemony take hold is nothing short of ENORMOUS. It's why Cheney was summoned over there, and got an asswhipping not too long ago because US troops were not FAVORING the Sunnis in Iraq; it's why the King decided, "Naaaah, I don't want to attend that state dinner they've been planning for me for over a YEAR!" That was a tremendous face-slap to the US, only the people over here are so obtuse that they didn't get it, or even, really, NOTICE it...but the rest of the world did.

If we go into Iran (and by that I mean fly over it and bomb it, not do the grunt work), it's not because 'BushCo' had designs on their oil--it's because the guys who run OPEC, who control that jawbone-worthy spigot, who are first amongst OPEC equals, the guys in the rich thobes with the soft hands, have the power, and the ability to make a sitting VP cancel meetings, change his schedule at a moment's notice, drop everything, turn on a dime, and hop on a plane and fly all night to go over to a desert nation to kiss ass. They tell the government of the Oil Junkies to jump--and BushCo says "How high?"

The House of Saud is pulling our string, and pulling our chain. Now sure, we could go tell them to fuck off, and we'd be paying what the Europeans pay for gas in very short order. That difference between the US "discount price at the pump" and the European price is the cost of renting a Superpower Army.

Add to this mess the Chinese and the Russkies, who get friendlier with Iran by the day, and who also have energy needs. We might have gone beyond the assertions postulated in that hubris-laden "The End of History" thesis, all the way to "Those Who Forget Their History ARE Condemned to Repeat It--Middle Eastern Edition."

A proxy throwdown could result, with the divisions purely along good old "Holy War" lines--Shi'as on one side, Sunnis on the other, supplied and guided by the Big Boys who play it like a dangerous chess game.

Chaldean Catholics, Druze, Yazidis, Zoaroastrians, oddlot Islamic and Islamic-lite sects that fall in the middle will make loads of money playing both sides against the middle.

If you look at recent arms sales, all of the "Sunni Bunch" who are friendly to the House of Saud have been buying, hand over fist. Money is no object, my friend!!! Jordan's big army is getting bigger. Same deal with the armies of the smaller states. They're actually TRAINING, too. If there are boots on the ground in Iran, they won't be American boots this time.

We'll be the crowd shipping in the advice and the weaponry. For as long as the guys in the thobes tell us to, and even longer if/when the shi'a crowd gets backing of their own, because that's when the powderkeg gets lit off, potentially. Turkey will get their chance to be a Big Cheese, if they want to stick their beak in.

From a BushCo perspective, this is good for the economy--you just can't end a war and not have all the people producing goods for that war lose their jobs, now!! Heaven forbid that these companies actually diversify and go with the market... For them, this is a 'perfect' solution--keep those folks employed, and let the Democrats take the blame if or when they refuse to play ball with the status quo in the ME, and DARE to resort to diplomacy. All those people working in the arms and military support sectors lose their jobs, The House of Saud jacks up their oil price if we stop playing ball, and many Americans are cold in the winter. I can see them rubbing their hands together in glee already...The D's get the blame, and they do some sweet profit-taking in the interim.