The next 9-11: a war with Iran?

Bismillah al rahman al rahim, (-: that is just to make Andriusha - who thinks of me as a convert to Islam - happy, all others please ignore this Islamic-style opening :-)

It is rather amazing how Iraq-centered the US media has been for the past years. Even Afghanistan has really become a minor newsitem. At best, the corporate media is talking about a possible aggression against Iran. What is lost in all this are the huge strategic losses the USA has suffered in crucial regions of the world. Let's take a look at what has really happened.

Iraq: I do not suppose that anyone will still deny that the USA has been totally defeated over there so I will skip this one.

Afghanistan: Karzad is now called the "Mayor of Kabul", the drug production is at historic highs, Pakistan openly says that the war there is lost, NATO is at about 75% of the minimally needed forces to operate there, senior Republicans are seriously suggesting that some Talibans should be allowed to join the government in Kabul, all key positions of the Karzai administration are held by Tadjiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras (all allies of Iran and Russia) and the provinces are under the total control of warlords.

South/Central America: this entire continent has elected anti-US leaders including Chavez, Morales and, even more humiliatingly, Ortega. Former anti-US guerillas are in power in Argentina and Chile. ALL South American countries have now rejected US-mandated SOFAs (Status of Forces Agreements) which say that US military personnel cannot be prosecuted under local laws and, after some posturing, the US had to roll over and accept this (to my knowledge, this is a first world-wide). The only remaining US allies (Guatemala and Colombia) are totally isolated from the rest of the continent by their opposition to Venezuela's bid to the UNSC while Chavez is sending oil to the American poor. In total defiance of the USA the Non-Aligned movement elects Fidel Castro as its President while Hugo Chavez' Venezuela replaces the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as the number one loan source for South American countries. Hugo Chavez, whom the USA tried to overthrow in 2002, is triumphantly reelected with the highest margin ever.

Middle-East: the two big "experiments in democracy" of Lebanon and Palestine have turned against their creators. Fatah thugs are now trained by CIA/DIA teams to fight against the democratically elected Hamas government and the Hezbollah/Aoun (who fought a war with Syria) can bring 2 million people in the streets (that is half the country!) to demand the resignation of Sinora's government put in power by a US backed color-coded "revolution"(for more details on these events see here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15869.htm). Inept attempts to blame Hezbollah for the killing of the fascist leader Gemayel backfire and the Lebanese public opinion openly asks the obvious question: who would benefit from this? Israel, lead by possibly the only world leader even dumber than Dubya, has been totally defeated by a Hezbollah force of about 1500 fighters and was even unable after 31 days of combat to take control of a small village 1,5 miles from the Israeli border (Bint Jbeil now often referred to as "Nasrallahgrad" by the Lebanese. Details about this battle here: http://www.debianhelp.org/node/1383). Even the "elite" Golani Brigade had to withdraw and lick its wounds. As a result, nobody in the Middle-East fears Israel anymore.

Asia: not only India and Pakistan go nuclear (nukleer) but the DPRK now openly threatens key US allies such as Japan, Taiwan or South Korea. Pakistan's ruler, Musharraf, openly admits that he was threatened with total war by the US while China takes over a increasing number of key energy contracts in the region. China, BTW, is exchanging a large amount of its foreign currency reserves from dollars into Euros while Iran has just opened a oil trade exchange in also Euros. These are extremely dangerous signs for the dollar.

Europe: even British politicians call for the complete elimination of what Amnesty International has referred to as the "American Gulag" (secret CIA prisons, Guantanamo, Military Commissions Act, etc.), all former US allies are now out of power (except Blair that is) and even Central European nations like Poland or the Ukraine are taking their distances with the American policies.

All in all, this is a disaster of unmatched magnitude in the history of the USA. Unlike the corporate media, the White House is aware of this and there still is a very real risk of an aggression against Iran before the next Presidential Election (my personal hypothesis of how it might be conducted is posted here: http://www.debianhelp.org/node/1545).

The French have an interesting expression "la fuite en avant" which means "flight forward". This is what happens when a person facing a disaster actually accelerates/increases the behavior which brought about the disaster in the first place (one can, for example, think of Galtieri's invasion of the Malvinas). Bush's puppeteers know that there is a risk of real anger in the US public opinion against both factions of the "Republicrat Business Party" if things do not improve soon but get worse. Thus, some 9-11 rallying around the flag is now much needed to maintain the status quo in the USA itself.

How could all this be happening without millions of people in the streets of Washington protesting these disasters? Thanks to the US corporate media propaganda machine which truly would have made Goebbels blue with envy. That corporate media is now increasingly threatened by the emerging independent media (democracynow.org, indymedia.org, truthdig.com, informationclearinghouse.info, counterpunch.org, antiwar.com, commondreams.org, etc.) and for the first time in US history the influence of the Zionist lobby in the USA is increasingly being discussed. The writing is on the wall (which itself is full of cracks).

I expect the regime in Washington to lash out. There is no chance in hell that the ruling American Nomenklatura will let go of power. In the extreme case, it will do exactly as the Soviet ruling Nomenklatura did: overthrow *itself* (as was the case in the 1991 coup in which the Party/KGB basically turned into pseudo-nationalist pseudo-democrats and split up the country into various "independent" nations all ruled by former Nomenklatura members). But we are not there yet. My personal guess is that a war with Iran is simply too obviously dangerous for the USA (and Israel!) to let Dubya & Co. do it. Another 9-11 is the much safer option. As to what the target would be next time is anyone's guess.

Any ideas?

VS