Monday, March 14, 2005



Map of Middle East Gulf oil: A couple of maps showing the the great lakes of oil stretching from the United Arab Emirates up through Saudi Arabia to north of Mosul in Iraq. This totals at least 60% of the world's known recoverable reserves.

A few interesting features: there is practically nothing west of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is all stacked close to the Persian Gulf. If you draw an elongated ellipse stretching from the Gulf through Mesopotamia you practically capture it all. There is next to nothing in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel/Palestine, Egypt, or south in Oman. Iran's share is all concentrated in the extreme south and east of the country, bordering Iraq and the Gulf.

The corrupt puppet emirates of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Emirates etc are already dominated by the US. If necessary (for example in the event of the collapse of the Saudi regime) it would be a simple matter to occupy the oilfields, effectively abandoning the western side of the Arabian peninsula, including the holy sites of Mecca and Medina. But the Persian Gulf, ie Iran, a hostile power (in addition to containing significant underwater reserves) strategically dominates the whole area.

One can see the great temptation that is in front of the US Imperialists/neoconservatives. If the Iranian regime could be overthrown, the US would directly dominate the entirety of Middle East Gulf reserves. The US has the military power, and if it does not act soon, Iran is likely to develop a nuclear deterrent. In spite of the great risks of war and of uncontrollable and spreading insurgency, how can they resist the temptation to act, now or never? It is a decisive moment, or will be in about June, according to accounts. That's when the Iranian reactor is scheduled to be completed, and an attack after that time could spread radiation everywhere.

If the US could succeed in dominating the Persian Gulf, it would have the economies of the industrialised (Europe, Japan) and industrialising (China, India) countries at its mercy, particularly as oil depletes and the magnitude of the energy and economic crisis begins to hit home to the world's population. Thus Iran is a 'frontline state' in a new cold war of containment against an expansionist superpower, the US. Europe, Russia, India, China - in fact practically the entire world - can be expected to attempt to block or stop the US attack on Iran. A great crisis is brewing in the northern summer this year, just as coincidentally the world peak of oil production arrives.

If the US does act, it will have to act decisively. It wont be enough to bomb some nuclear sites - that's unlikely to achieve anything. The US will have to stop at nothing less than regime overthrow and installation of a client state in Iran. An Israeli/US attack on Iran therefore should be interpreted not as a goal in itself, but the beginning of a sequence of events which might include of necessity conscription, Homeland dictatorship, and invasion.

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