Can the world take four more years of this???

I've speculated for a while that either Iran or Syria was next on the Bush administration's "hit list". Ever since Hussein's government in Baghdad fell, the US has been "warning" both Iran and Syria about various aspects of their behaviour.

Lately, the focus seems to have become Iran. This surprises me a little bit, as I think Iran will be a much tougher target to take down than Iraq was. The news lately has been filled with stories of Iran's "malfeasance" in the world community:

1. They're developing nuclear arms capability.
2. There might be links between Iran and 9/11. (Oh really?)
   
3. Iran is helping North Korea test missiles.
4. Iran is further developing their own weapons. (Duh? This is news to whom?)
   

And so the list goes on. Most of these are individual "so-what" items. In fact, I would almost go as far as to suggest that they wouldn't even appear in the news unless there was a political agenda being played up.

Then this little gem appeared on CNN this morning. I had wondered just where the US was going to find the additional troops to run another invasion. Here's the answer.

With Iraq on the verge of degenerating into civil war, it seems foolish for the US to be launching another war, yet Bush and his band of egomaniacs seem hell-bent on starting one. I had initially suspected that the sabre rattling in Iran's direction these past few months was more of an electioneering ploy than a statement of intent. However, with the US announcing a "major realignment" of troops I wonder. Only time will tell, but I'd put pretty good odds that a major fraction of those realigned troops will wind up in the Mediterranean or Middle East.

If one postulates that going after Iraq was a matter of securing an oil supply, it appears that much of Iran's oil reserves are concentrated along the Persian Gulf. If the US was to "annex" those lands, that might prove to be a controllable region. Much of it appears to be on the Gulf side of a major mountain range, which the US could use as a shield, once the lands were captured.

Unlike Iraq, Iran has not been restricted in its activities on the world stage these past ten years. Trade has flourished for them; the government has had much time to work on building up its military resources. Geographically, it is a very large country, which would make occupying it even more complex than Iraq has proven to be. (I would argue that the occupation of Iraq has hardly been a stellar success - various insurgent groups keep blowing things up, and generally making life difficult for the American forces) Occupying Iran would be orders of magnitude more complex.

If the Bush administration ( in particular the Pentagon advisors ) have their sight set on Iran, the world is truly in for a very nasty, messy period of time. Aggression towards Iran would solidify the Arab world against anything "Western", and likely would provoke various groups into carrying out far more direct attacks against "Western Interests", whether on US soil or not.

We can hope that the American voters, when they go to the polls this fall, choose to dispose of Bush Jr. I'm not sure I like Kerry any better really, but on the other hand, I'm not sure the world can take another four years of Bush and his simplistic, pugilistic style of government.