Iran??!! Stirling Newberry and Resource Wars

The march of Iran to deterrent state status are prompting "use it or lose it" pressures for preventative - that is aggressive - strikes against Iran and its atomic weapons program, as Iran declares that it has a right to enrich Uranium on its own soil. The Ukraine-Russia gas stand off escalates as Russia accuses Ukraine of stealing Natural gas. In Iraq insurgent threats keep a major refinery shut down in Iraq.

On this, the first working day of the New Year, we are already getting a good stiff taste of the running theme of 2006. If 2004 and 2005 saw resource inflation, 2006 is the year when resource rich countries begin using those resources as weapons, and resource poor countries begin taking aggressive steps to secure resources. The current world market approach to energy is going to break down, as more and more nations are forced to jostle for position.

Somewhere in the next two years it will dawn on the American public that we live in the pre-war, not post-war, era, and that Iraq was a foreshock.

The US strategy on Iran is to play good cop/bad cop with Europe. Europe offers deals for giving up Uranium enrichment, the US prepares airstrikes and hopes that our attack on Iraq gives them credibility. Right now, they don't have credibility, largely because the US is entangled in Iraq, and thus has vulnerable assets for Iran to strike back at should the US engage in air strikes.

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But simply because air strikes aren't advisable, doesn't mean that Bush won't use them. Creating a war footing with Iran would hammer the US economy, because a reduction in oil supplies would send oil back to $70/barrel and keep it there - but the executive might well calculate that he needs this to halt impeachment and investigation. Trading domestic advantage by foreign policy blunder is a Bush trait. More over the whole stance of air strikes and threatening Iran, at the present, is counterproductive. Iran is going to be a player in the new Iraq for a long time, and attempts to get short term advantage now are going to be paid for in the decades to come - and you are right in pointing out that increasing political tensions and animosity in Iraq among Shia is one of those costs.