A Bush Solution to Global Warming: War with Iran (Hey, at least he's finally
doing something)
By Dave Lindorff
Created Sep 24 2006 - 12:51pm
Having just written a piece in The Nation [1] exposing evidence of the Bush
administration's plans for war against Iran, let me suggest here why this
might not be such a bad idea.

I'll grant that the ruthless cynicism of starting yet a third war when the
first two he instigated are both still going on (and badly at that for
American forces), and especially of doing it on the eve of a national
election, is simply staggering. These guys don't just wrap themselves in the
flag; they lie down on the flag stiffly, have someone role them up tight,
and then try to hide inside it.

I'll grant too that from a political perspective this is a disaster, since a
quick air assault by US cruise missiles against Iranian nuclear targets
would probably be wildly popular among the yahoo set in America, who would
not look past the initial glorious victory to Iran's obvious response, which
predictably will be to unleash the Shite militias in Iraq against American
troops.

That's the downside: Two more years of bloody warfare, one-party government
and no impeachment of a criminal president.

But there is a real silver lining. Indeed it may far outweigh the bad news
of an Iran War. That is the impact of an Iran War on the looming crisis of
global warming--a disaster-in-the-making that heretofore this president has
denied and totally ignored.

Despite our "see-no-evil" president's willful ignorance on the subject, we
know that man-made greenhouse gases, mostly from power plants and
automobiles, and mostly from the United States, followed by Europe, China
and India, are melting the polar icecaps and heating the oceans, with
predictably dire consequences for climate and even for life on earth.

Like Bush himself, the ruling elite doesn't care about this stuff. They just
want wealth and power and can't see beyond their noses. Besides, with all
their wealth, they figure (like the deluded Roman elite before them) thay'll
just buy their way of what ever mess they've made. General Motors and Ford
aren't going to make fuel-efficient cars when consumers are willing to pay
top dollar for gas-guzzling SUVs, and consumers aren't going to stop buying
those cars. Nor will they stop buying giant unheatable houses which they
will then massively overheat and overcool, until the rising ocean is lapping
at their doorsteps.

The only thing that will make this energy besotted society stop its march to
self-destruction, and destruction of most of the species living on Earth, is
significantly higher prices for energy.

Yet governments, and the US government in particular, are loath to let
energy prices rise, much less actively make fuel more expensive by
deliberate policy, for fear of a citizen backlash. As a result, there has
been little or nothing done about cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and the
earth just keeps getting warmer.

That's where war with Iran comes in.

By some accounts, if the U.S. pops off a bunch of missiles at Iran, and
ignites another major war in the Middle East, the result will be the
effective shutdown not just of Iran, the world's second biggest producer of
oil, but probably also of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, by far the largest oil
producers in the world. This is because, as many military strategists have
pointed out, Iran's response vwill be to incite the Shites who live in
countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to go after American interests--and
there is no bigger American interest than oil. Wells and pipelines are
infinitely easier to destroy than to protect.

Some analysts are projecting that oil prices could shoot past $150/barrel to
as high as $200/barrel if an American-Iranian War breaks out in the Gulf.
That might even be conservative thinking.

At such prices, Americans would surely start car-pooling, and might even
take up bicycling (which would also solve the nation's obesity epidemic).
SUVs, trucks and vans would quickly end up in scrapyards, or mouldering in
back yards like those depression-era pickups behind old barns. Air
conditioners would vanish and home insulation would become a hot item, along
with long underwear, sweaters and wool socks.

An added benefit of war with Iran is that it would so drain the U.S.
treasury that either the dollar would collapse, taking the U.S. economy
along with it, as the government was forced to crank up interest rates, or
else taxes would be raised to such a level as to crush consumer spending,
with the same end result. Either way, the U.S. economy would end up in the
tank-further reducing energy demand.

I certainly have no desire to see anyone killed, American or Iranian, and
consider that any attack on Iran by the U.S, besides being stupid, would be
a war crime--a so-called "Crime Against Peace" under the Nuremburg Charter.
That said, while Bush should be impeached, dragged before the Senate,
removed from office and then indicted for war crimes if he launches yet
another unprovoked war of aggression, at least we'll have the satisfaction
of seeing a significant slowdown in global warming.

Maybe then, with that brief respite, and with Bush and the Republican
Congress mercifully out of the way, we can start figuring out how to live at
peace, not just with one another, but with the earth itself.
_______

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson