What is the output of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi and the various other Gulf States that are in range of Iranian missle and aircraft. This not only includes wells but piplines, shipping and terminals.

Take this amount off the table as it is vunerable.

Oil production in the Region doesn't even need to cease, but merely be threatened. Any threat of disruption such as war would send oil prices through the roof.

GW Bush has been playing a dangerous game with the futher welfare of the USA.

I don't know what to call it...but it sure seem like there has been some kind of intervention on him.

tabbie, are you still worried about oil and whether it's gonna impact driving your 911S? Come one, man...just get a big-asssed tank and have it buried in the trailer park. Fill er up with your go juice and let the ME implode. :eek:

Merry Christmas and may bountiful buffets abound. :)

I too think that we must not start anything with Iran. There simply is no need.

But I must ask in all seriousness...just how are we supposed to stop the government from doing so? Talk all you like about preventing them from doing so but in reality, short of armed uprising in the streets just what do you suggest we do to control this government?

and don't waste my time with suggestions like voting or refusing to pay my taxes. I also have my doubts about how effective an armed uprising would be. In fact that may well bring about the end of this country.

Iran seeking nukes and repeatedly threatening to wipe Israel off the map as soon as they have them is "Bush playing a dangerous game?"

Bush is clearly not a great leader, but blaming him because Ahmadinejad is a freakin' nut seems unfair to me.

Canada actually has more Oil than the ME, it is just currently uneconomical to extract.

So in reality, we do have a longterm hedge. And a very good one.

We also just found a massive supply off the coast of La within the last year, a find that equates to many times more oil than has been used in the entire history of man to date. Ufortunately, that is also politically difficult to get at too. But it IS there.

Of course a civil war in the US would bring about the end of this country.

Of course IMO, an insurgency in the US would be utterly impossible to stop. The Gov't would get it's clock cleaned.

Compared to a guerilla war in the US, Iraq isn't even pocket lint.

But we as a people should avoid that if at all humanly possible. Those who wish for it have NO IDEA at all of the kind of bloodshed and destruction here at home they are asking for. None whatsoever.

Agreed. More like Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah Khomeni are BOTH nuckin' futs and Bush's being an idiot doesn't help matters, since he's so easily exploited.

I seriously hope whoever takes over in 2008 has more than a lot of cowboy talk and empty threats in their international policy bag-o-tricks, but I won't hold my breath.

I'm voting for Rammstien. I figure if nothing else, i'll get to hang with him and get laid by some high class Capital Hill sluts in the Lincoln Bedroom.

Muwahahahahahaha. ;)

Now that's sound judgement folks. :D

I've told you before, little eric, you don't have what it takes to recognize that you don't have what it takes.

Simple, really.

Bushs Dangerous game was his Iraqi adventure...It was ill thought out and and ill planned, the consquences of which have had National Security implications far greater than was orginally thought possible.

As I said Bush abruptly stopped his saber rattling rhetoric in June and has more or less been silent on the issue since.

True political power in Iran rests with the Mullahs and not with the governmental officers. Irans population is generally pro western and pro modernism. Of any of the Central Asian States Iran could sustain a Democracy. So the problem is hw to wrest control from the Mullahs to the populace that is generally prowestern. Invasion is sure to raise a Nationalistic spirit among the people to defend their country.

Americas problem has been that the Bush Admin has been so heavy handed with it foreign policy. The Conservatives have finally had their chanch at running Foreign Policy their way. Which in a nutshell in unilateralism, and the message to other nations is, its my way or hit the highway, America doesn't need U.

There isn't a single leader of a muslim nation that does not wish ill upon the european nation in their midst, Israel. If you do not know that, you should.

I would categorically state that the left is equally clueless wrt matters of international affairs.

It was Clinton and Co. that let things get so damned out of control on their watch to begin with IMO.

We need a viable third party, because the two we have blow chunks.

You say that, yet you're a strong supporter of the entity that empowers politicians more than any other, the war machine.

War is the Health of the State - Randolph Bourne

This is not a valid reason for stating you wish to wipe an entire nation and it's people off the face of the Earth (let alone trying). Besides, the Jews have a penchant for making Arabs deeply regret their delusions of Imperial glory anyway. Israel was the UK's creation at any rate, not ours.

Some times a good war is better then a bad peace.

Sure, but oil would still be >>$100/bbl.

Iran's buddies in Iraq would take that country's oil offline too.

That's mythology. The only time war is justified is to combat someone trying to force restrictions on your rights.

paste, I will make you a deal....if all of the changes which you advocate do not take place by the time you are dead, I can come to your funeral and say "I told you so" to your casket.

If they do come to pass by the time I am dead, then I give you permission to do the same at my funeral.

You guys are killing me!

Don't you know in 2012 we are going to get hit by an ELE (extinction level event) in the form of an asteroid, nuclear winter, world choas, despair and death?

In the interim, I would be proud to put my "NUKE IRAN" bumper sticker back on the car.....

carry on.................

BR