Obiviously the Iraq War is the biggest strategic screw-up ever and there really is no nice simple scenario that would magically save Iraq from it's current level of chaos. Several concurrent events make me think that Bush is "going Long" in ways that are fearful to even fathom. Several events all point to one thing: adding Admiral Fallon, a naval airman, to call the shots on a ground war, stationing an additional carrier group to the Gulf, taking on the al-Sadr gang and pissing off all the Iraqi Shiites, and attempting to pour more troops into Iraq for a yet to be determined task makes me think one thing: Bush is going to kick the perverbial hornet's nest and strike at Iran. But this diary isn't about the obvious stupidity in such an endeavour, we know Bush is going to do whatever he damned well pleases, this diary is what the aftermath of such a decision will bring the US. Follow me across the nome de plume for what I hope might be the one thing that will actually benefit us in the long run....
Picture Bush thinking about this always recalls the scene in DeadZone where Christopher Walken touches the insane politician played my Martin Sheen and gets the vision of Sheen as President walking out of the Oval Office saying "The missles are flying, Hallelujah..."
Before anybody jumps on me for appearing to approve an Iran invasion, let me tell you I think it would be the stupidist fucking military, political, and humantiarian decision ever. Something that will cement his pole position for the race towards worst world leader ever who hasn't actually eaten his constituency.
There has been plenty of diaries here at dKos playing out scenarios and matching up Sunburns vs. Aegis defenses and what not, but not much has focused on what else Iran would do in retaliation. The obvious things such as Iranian forces closing the Straits of Hormuz and inciting trouble in the Shiite provinces of Iraq are commonly mentioned, but I'm betting the Iranians really know where to hit us where it hurts, in our gas tanks. What is going to stop a pissed off Iran from using missles to strike the Saudi oilfileds, from inciting Shia uprising in all the oil producing Arab States, and basically bringing the biggest petrol junkie on the planet to it's knees. It's possible the fomenting of this Shia v. Sunni fighting might be part of the Neocon grand plan to somehow get the US control of the oil fields, but like all neocon planning so far, it's heavy on Kool-Aid and light on reality, and all it's going to do is guarantee that we will have even less oil than before.
Our current petrol based economy and infrastructure couldn't handle it, and my hope is maybe that's exactly what we need, no gentle weaning off of oil, but a full blown withdrawl with all the joys of shaking a heroin addiction. It's like the frog in the pot of water paradigm....if we wait for oil to slowly get too expensive, we'll never react like we need to, but if one day we just can't get any more access to it, we're going to figure out real quick that we need to do something and start really investing in alternate energy sources and energy conservation.
Bush is a fucking madman and he wants to go down in histroy as the guy who brought change to the Middle East and made the US the sole superpower, but he's going to fuck this one up too, but maybe he'll inadvertantly do one good thing and get us off our oil habit and a brutally quick way....