OCmike wrote:
Prepare for the war against Iran?
Seems to be Hillary and McCains platform, eh?
Since we have so much extra money laying about to do so.
Newsflash -- Iran is a failing country, thanks to the Ayatollah and his lap dog I'manidiotman.
The reason their current regime hasn't been steamrolled by the Iranian people is because they've been bought. Last I eard, Iranians were paying about $0.36 a gollon for gas. Here's the catch -- the cheap gas is subsidized by the Iranian government. Here's te other catch -- the Iranian government pays about the same for gas as you and I.
See the problem?
Yup, a traditional giant in the oil business chose to spend its cash on hooking their disenfranchised people up with ceap gas, rather than repairing their pipelines and refineries. What's been a titan of the oil industry now can't even keep up with their own country of ~50,000,000's gasoline demand. And they've created a ruse that nuclear power is their long-term solution to long-term energy needs in a developing country... which on the surface makes sense, since Iran has decent uranium reserves. But they've sold out teir short-term survival to sell a pipe-dream of future energy autonomy to their people. And the only sales pitch they have is "just look at the cheap gas... we've got you taken care of."
But Iranians are slowly seeing the ruse, despite Ahmadenajad's veil over it. The're selling out Iranians long-term future, their short-term future, and the present to hang on to their tenuous grip on power, and that only grip is the cheap energy they offer their people. But it isn't free, and they invest essentially all of their financial resources keeping that cheap energy flowing to stay in good graces, rather than rebuilding their national infrastructure.
At some point, that house of cards is going to collapse. I recently saw a financial analyst speculate that the breaking point is less than 5 years away.
The best strategy to employ aainst Iran's current regime is to do nothing. And it's cheap, too. The Persians are a strong, proud people, traditionally. Its unlikely they're going to sit back and let the Ayatollah and his minions continue to run willy-nilly after they bankrupt a bigtime oil-producing nation.
And cross your fingers that the next government is profit-oriented like UAE, rather than Muslim-nutso like Syria and present-day Iran.
Since every intelligence agency in the world, including the USA says that Iran isn't developing nuke bombs, and has confirmed they abandon the weapons program in 2003, where's the problem? If they do try and arm a weapon, they cease to exist. If they supply another country with weaons-grade uranium, it's tracable, and the'll cease to exist. They're a hop skip and a jump from Russia, who is watching their enrichment facility like a awk, and has an even greater vested interest in them not blowing stuff up than we do.
For once, maybe we should let Russia foot the bill, and we get to sit back a reap te benefits without a huge outlay of cash.
For this reason alone, McCain and Hillary are unacceptable candidates. Sorry, I can't e behind being billed for an Oil Wa, only to have the oil companies who benefitted from it charge me extra.
The definition of "insanity" is repeating the same thin over and over and expecting different results each time. Oil wars don't work -- so don't bill me for another one.