Heads UP - Serious Chatter

I believe Iran at best is rated fourth largest exporter of crude oil. As for your comments on the Russians. No problem whatsoever. One thing we have to consider is not all the OPEC countries will like what Iran is up to. The Saudis, and the other countries on the Arabian peninsula as well as Canada are not going to screw the US. Same goes for the African countries.
Will Malaysia, Indonesia, and others in the Pacific go along with Iran.
Iran is one of some fifty plus countries that drill and export crud oil. And this will not be the first time the US dollar fluctuates. It has many times before and recovered.
Our Economy is not dependent on Iranian crude, nor what the Iranians do with their money. They are a little fish in the world economy.
I do not see how Iran is going to break the back of the US econonmy. We continue exporting huge amounts of raw materials and finished goods world wide, as well as using things we grow, build and design, manufacture internally.
Iran if anything is a very fragil country. They have little to offer other then their oil/gas, rugs, specialty fruit/nuts.
We can break them long before they can break us.
However. If. All the countries you mention as well as a number more where to go along with their demand, then yes, we will see the dollar drop. I have no problem with that. But again. This has happened many times before within other senarios. And the US economy did not cave in, only weaken to yet again gain strength. To many variables are not being considered in this equation. Iran is but one element in how US dollars are used around the world.

1) "They would be willing to create a global bloodbath to achieve their aims. They might not be willing to provoke a bloodbath that would result in the eradication of Islam with the US left standing at the end."

2) "I'm assuming at least some rationality in the sense of them wanting to achieve their objective, rather than victory-less suicide"

1)

If the scenario of the currency change comes to pass, there will be parts, numerous smallish enclaves, of America that survive - perhaps in my estimate one third of the population might get by but sink to virtual hunter gatherer levels. Internal territorial squabbles over food supplies, raids against each other would bring us back to the time of the pilgrims and the Wild Wild West.

We would be too busy killing each other over food or possessions, somewhat per the gang warfare among Crips and Bloods or mindless, senseless intergang rivalry we read about today. And barely fathom or feel.

The USA would not survive in the terms you envisage, nor would the Islamic countries spread around the world perish the way you portray or infer.

Most of these are at third world level and have a much greater agricultural rather than agro-Industrial profile, certainly not industrial. Like Ahmadi-Nejad and his tea, cheese and daily stew, they will get by with their chickens and ducks. Much as they do now. (Just to encapsulate).

They are far more likely to survive in large numbers than the USA and European populations. Even if their countries sink into chaos and robber barons and tribal chieftains exact tolls and rule certain areas like times of old.

2)

You mis-state their objectives, which are not rational - nor were in the past even to revolution founder Ayatollah Khomeini,who banned the Hojatieh sect that now rules Iran through Ahmadi-Nejad and his mentor Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.

Their sole objective is the return of their Messiah the 12th Imam. To achieve this they must destroy everything they can - THEMSELVES included - to create enough misery and suffering to get the attention of the 12th Imam and make it worthwile (in their fanatical minds) for him to bother with the world and return to redeem it.

NOTE: His return saves Islam and spreads it across the planet, so even if the USA were to survive, as you suggest, he would take care of that when he descends and turn everyone into Moslems. So why would that not be a TOTAL victory in their "unusual" minds?

You describe an objective that has logic and common sense as the basis. They have neither in their mix.

Remember, martyrdom is an honor and a sure path to eternal salvation in paradise. So why worry about being destroyed? Or in context care about destroying their fellow countrymen for the sake of their salvation? Voluntary or involuntary does not enter their minds. They are on a mission for Allah.

What makes you pause to even think they care? Because Ahmadi-Nejad does not rant and rave while foaming at the mouth on TV? He is not THAT kind of insane. He is the "cold-blooded", determined zealot, type of insane.

This is all so far removed from our culture, mind sets and beliefs that we fail to have a slightest concept of what goes on inside their heads. You have to have met them and lived among them. Or among similar ones. Usually small sects in distant parts of the world.

The closest you and most of us can come is to consider cults and our surface knowledge of them. But even then we do so at a distance, as spectators, never able to fathom their deepest thoughts and motivations.

You cannot do so using your Western mind - unless you can perform a wrenching shift from normal human patterns to those of an unfamiliar type of zealot you have never encountered and whom, until August 2005, you had no chance to observe, nor ever even heard about.

Anyone reading this has to shift mental gears when trying to assess what we face. For most of us it is beyond the range of our radar.

Valiant response but too many flaws. Some responses to your assumptions:

Once again it is NOT oil but currency that can/will sink us. This shift will crash the dollar and in very short time crash every other currency in the world. So who will buy our goods - as you state?

Every Arab country, on the Peninsula or not, even with the best intentions, cannot oppose a nuclear Iran. The risk of being attacked, even with conventional weapons by an almost one million man military and paramilitary force available to Iran with enough fairly decent equipment and armor, gives all the Persian Gulf countries pause, let alone if they suddenly have a nuclear aggressor.

Yes, the Asian countries, generally Moslem or with huge Moslem sectors in their populations will definitely back Iran's position - not the USA - specially if we back down in Iraq and the region as per the Baker proposals.

You are confusing a dollar "fluctuation" with a total and irreversible dollar crash. A probable drop in the region of 40% (according to far more knowledgeable economists than I could ever be) in a matter of weeks or at best months. That size of "fluctuation" is like a nose dive of an aircraft from which it cannot pull out.

Again, you miss the point. This has nothing to do with Iran's participation in our economy, nor even within the world at large. It is what the little fish can do to the dollar - and it only takes a little fish to ruin it - which will do the damage as described.

You mention "We continue exporting huge amounts of raw materials and finished goods world wide, as well as using things we grow, build and design, manufacture internally."

Some of the "Internal" part will help one third of our nation survive. Forget the export part. NO other country will have money to buy our exports or import anything from anywhere - not too long after a dollar crash. And the consequent crash of their own money.

It does not take all or many other countries for this to occur. Do read the "Oil Story Revisited" on http://www.antimullah.com by going there and clicking on the Archive Details link in the left hand column to find the Permalink. More details are given there, so I do not wish to reinvent the wheel.

And no, this has NEVER happened before, so that's a false element in your view of things and Iran does not have to be anything more than the little fish it is - as you describe it - wreak the havoc described.

Somewhat like the tiny, transparent box jellyfish, less than a half inch across, found in Australia, whose tiny tentacle venom can kill a human quite easily. Or cause excrutiating pain for quite a long period of time if it fails to terminate you.

That's Iran's role in this scenario. It's all it takes.

Project your mind and visualize. You'll see it.

Oh, please. For as long as the world has been in existence, there have been worry warts (sp?) who could not seem to go a day without predicting some sort of inevitable doom. Of course, if you are consistent and predict gloom and doom constantly, then eventually you may be partially right.

When I hear all this, it sounds so familiar to the same crud I have heard all my life. First thing I remember was the fear of a nuclear war with Russia. Then it moved into deficits and debt.Then terrorism. Now it is currency. It is always going to be something. And eventually, sure, something at some time will cause some economic catastrophe.

You say there are experts much smarter than you that agree with you. But I contend that there are plenty of experts much smarter than you that disagree, No one can predict the future. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.

Are you telling me that the Soviets were not a threat? Their nukes were not poised at us? Ever?

These threats failed to happen because some people changed the path sufficiently to dodge the bullet. Like Reagan and the Soviets. (The Soviets were logical compared to today's Islamic Iran, so don't equate the threats).

The Soviets falsely appear to have had greater destructive power because of their huge nuclear capability. The currency threat was not even on the horizon until the suicidal Islamic groups, in the form of suicidal countries like Islamic Iran, instead of individual suicide bombers, came into power. Hamas and Hezbollah verge on this "me too, martyrdom" scene too.

Had Carter won a second term, the deficits you mention with disdain would have happened the way the "gloomers" stated. Luckily someone else won. Happened to be Reagan, who also deflected the nukes events from the Soviets.

You and I have had the good fortune, sporadically, to have had some people in power who took action against these "doom and gloom scenarios" and made them go away or alleviated them.

Kennedy and Cuban missiles for instance. Or was that, too, just crying wolf? It wasn't and would have had dire consequences.

This does not mean the doom and gloom, like the warning I am shouting out as loudly as I can, is invalid. It needs action to remove it.

What's horrific now is that we have the most insane finger on the "destroy the world" button since Hitler, facing not Reagan but the most absolutely anti-American, appeasist group of Dems ever, like Pelosi, Leahy etc., who will self-destruct the USA to get Bush.

Like burning down your barn to get the rats. (Pun in there somewhere?)

You, like so many of us, have lived through good and bad times, where the bad has been "softened" to where it has been bearable. Only just in the 1930's. So you argue optimistically, based on good luck and some power plays by men like Bush - like going into Iraq and preventing oil disconnecting from the dollar to some other form of payment. Doesn't matter what that is as long as it is no longer the Dollar.

For the first time in my fairly long life, given the prevailing factors, I no longer believe we can achieve this with the givens we face.

Which we have NEVER had to face before. And around which we totally fail to wrap our minds.

Your optimism is laudable and a brave positive aspect of America but there is a time and place where whistling in the dark no longer suffices and we are not walking past a cemetary but past a bunch of lunatic murderers ready, willing and sadly now able to pounce and slit our throats.

Right now the only viable option, horrible as it may appear to be, is to do whatis outlined in "Iran, Final Justified Solution" on http://www.antimullah.com (check View Archive Details for exact link).

But first we have to realize the extent of what we face - with only Hitler as a "prior" and long forgotten indicator and dig deep to find the reolve to do what needs to be done.

The world is currently in a similar state to a patient with fairly advanced cancer, which the doctors either failed to spot or have avoided badly needed surgery. Now they can have second, third and thousandth opinions to avoid doing what MUST be done.

The result? Eventually send the patient home to die as the cancer will no longer be operable or thepatient dies due to their indecision and neglect.

You and I and every other American - and millions of other nationals around the world - are the patient.

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