September 06, 2010

Bullseye Iran

"Plus ça changeplus c'est la même chose" - wrote French author, critic and journalist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr over a century & a half ago. Translated into your native English - "the more things change, the more they stay the same".

Here we go again. We've seen this movie before - the Producer, Principal actors & Plot-line are all the same, only the Villains have been recast for the current sequel. The key decision that remains is when will the shooting start (more correctly the bombing and annihilation)?

For quite some time now students of middle East history have purposed that the real target was never Iraq - simply an opportunity to open a crack in the doorway to its mountainous neighbour Iran, long viewed as the real danger by Uncle Sam's favourite nephew, Israel. Whether or not they are discovered, expect that the world will be told that evidence of WMD has been 'found' in the aftermath - that 'mistake' won't be repeated this time around. Curious - isn't it, that while one country is forbidden from acquiring WMD under global rules of nuclear non-proliferation, it remains an open secret that a favoured neighbour to the West continues to possess such weaponry - so UN inspectors first for Iraq, then for Iran, but not for the other I-----.? Different strokes for different folks (or perhaps religions?).

Despite all of the hoopla about change, the 2010 resident of the White House will now find it impossible to reseal the Pandora's box opened by its previous tenant by invading Iraq. Either the long-promised withdrawal of 'boots on the ground' will never take place or else there will need to be a return in very short order in support of the required ground invasion. To borrow these words from the popular hit song Hotel California, "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave."

While it is anyone's guess as to when this latest escalation of hostilities will occur, it would not be surprising for it to commence well before the 2012 elections in what should prove to be a vain attempt at resuscitating limbo-like poll numbers for this likely one-term president. The combination of falling markets, economic depression and sky-high disapproval ratings will surely spell disaster for the incumbent and his party. This will open the door for an even greater catastrophe - the ascension to the 'throne' of the ex-governor of the Arctic State!

Riding a by then tsunami-like wave of discontent, Sarah (of Arc), should she become chief resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, may well do so with even more lofty poll numbers than her predecessor. The neocon elements which came to hold such great sway over GWB in the aftermath of 9/11, though having their wings clipped somewhat during his 2nd term (without which an invasion of Iran would already be in the history books), are positioning themselves to play a similar role in the administration of the first Madam President.

Whether or not these scenarios are the precise ones that play out, 2012-16 is anticipated to be a period of great upheavals, for both the Earth and those who are its inhabitants.

No comments:

Post a Comment