Submitted by Sean, Feb 21, 2007 10:25

The great political strategist and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said, "oil is far to important a resource to be left in the hands of the Arabs."

Many people watching the Iraq occupation unfold are convinced that it is a "fiasco." Nothing could be further from the truth. The goal isn't democracy, it is destruction and destabilization. It has worked beautifully. Anyone who believes that the goal was to bring "democracy" and "freedom" to the Iraqis needs his head examined. I'm not so sure it would be wise to bring "democracy" and "freedom" to America for that matter -- at least not to the unwashed masses. Iraq has been the greatest of successes. It is an example to those who would resist US power -- your entire male line down to your grandsons will be extinguished and your country rendered a heap of smoking rubble. No more eloquent persuasion can be made to other world leaders who would resist US power.

The Middle East and Central Asia contain perhaps 2/3 of the world's real energy supplies. Who controls this area controls the world. If we can control which politicians are "elected" and which have accidents or are voted out of office, we can in turn control who gets energy and what they pay for it. It is a counterbalance to the growing power of the European Union which now has a larger population than the United States and significant wealth. In Iraq, for example, the US can and does send commandos into the offices of elected politicians who don't do what they are told and arrests them and makes them disappear. That leaves the Iraqi people the right to vote someone else into power, but you can imagine that the new elected official will understand that once in office, the real risk is being killed or jailed if he resists US power. And it's hard to even get on the ballot without US approval because we control the country -- we can do as we please with massive force wherever we like -- we have closed newspapers down as well as the entire offices of elected politicians. That is real power.

Any strong Arab country can resist US power. God forbid two or more relatively strong Arab countries form an alliance to resist US power. The goal is to find the strongest of these countries and to destroy it -- render it a heaping pile of rubble with destroyed infrastructure, piles of dead bodies, lack of clean water, schools, even basic police services. And then move on to the next one. Here, that was clearly Iraq and Iran.

Iraq was the easier of the two to destroy because it had been under sanctions for more than twelve years and was militarily weak ensuring few US casualties and little real resistance -- it would be like the United States Army invading the Falkland Islands -- there would be some armed resistance, but hardly of a military quality.

Even the Iraq Iran War was part of this strategy. The idea from times immemorial is to bait your enemies into fighting each other for as long as possible and only then to step in and finish off the bloodied, tired combatants. This worked magically and cost the two most powerful countries in the Middle East perhaps one million lives and incalculable lost treasure. All for pennies of US treasure.

Iraq is now rendered a wasteland with no possibility of becoming a regional power, or even a functioning country for perhaps a generation, but more likely at least two. Iran is another story.

The problem, of course, is that the hoi polloi are starting to resist this "war on terror" ploy. While a brilliant and necessary replacement for the "Cold War," the temporary setback of not finding "weapons of mass destruction" has set the common man to distraction. Even "weapons of mass destruction" was a really brilliant PR move -- to be attacking a ridiculously weak country like Iraq with more bomb tonnage than was used in all of World War II under the pretext of ridding the country of "weapons of mass destruction" was delicious.

The only way to secure the necessary support for bombing Iran -- and to avoid politically untenable US casualties, almost certainly a bombing that will require small nuclear devices to yield the greatest possible destruction with only air power -- is to make the American people afraid again. Someone is going to have to do that again very soon. It is the only way to secure acquiescence from the unwashed who certainly don't understand what's at stake. America's destiny hangs in the balance.

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