Kunstler: Inflection

February 27, 2006,

As the bombing of the Golden Dome in Samarra last week resolves into the Iraq civil war that everyone has feared, expect a more widespread uproar against western interests generally through the Islamic world, with Iran doing everything possible behind the scenes to incite the main actors: underemployed young men from Algiers to Jakarta.

The west and Islam have reached an inflection point. American influence in the eastern hemisphere may be the main object of Islam's wrath, but Europe can no longer pretend to be a disinterested bystander. The big issues are the perceived weakness of the west, the steady draining of the Islamic world's most precious resource, oil, and the hateful presence of western persons and culture in the Islamic ummah.

Iran's wish to inflame, in effect, a world war may be based on equal parts delusion and realpolitik, but the wish itself is more powerful than any sense of consequence. Iran sees the opportunity to run America out of the Middle East and to seize leadership of the Islamic world from the corrupt sheiks who have been sucking up to the west for decades and trading Islam's chief resource for whoring sprees in Monte Carlo and Las Vegas. The religious split in Islam between Sunni and Shi'a works to Iran's advantage because Shi'a are motivated by an additional sense of grievance, and as the dominant force in Iraq can bring that country into its orbit even while Iraq is occupied by American troops -- only emphasizing America's weakness.

Meanwhile, Iran can work in the background to stimulate mob violence against western embassies and interests in Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and will directly fund the Palestinian Hamas government dedicated to wiping Israel off the map. The recent cartoon riots in many places were just a preview of coming attractions.
Many readers and correspondents have sent me anxious emails about the opening of Iran's Euro-denominated oil bourse in March. I don't share their conviction that this bourse will destroy the US dollar's advantage as the world's reserve currency. But I do imagine it will irritate an already dangerous situation. Its other objective would seem to be an effort to drive a wedge between Europe and America.

However, Europe is also addicted to Middle East oil. The attitudes of France and Germany might change drastically if their main supply point, through the Suez Canal, happened to be choked off for some reason. Another dose of civil disorder, like the riots that rocked France last fall, would also clarify their shared position vis-�-vis Islam. Europe will certainly not benefit from an Iran armed with nuclear bombs and missile delivery systems.

Iran seems to be in one of those moods that nations fall into where delusions of grandeur converge with a sense of grievance and with the appearance of opportunity to prompt extremely reckless behavior. Hitler's Germany was in that mood in 1938. The US could get run out of Iraq by sheer anarchy, and the unwillingness of the US public to endure more deaths and expenditures, and that is probably the big opportunity that Iran perceives. But somewhere further down the line Iran might have to contend with the inconvenience of American long-range tactical air power, and with the ultimate option (unthinkable as it may seem) of turning Teheran into an ashtray. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems to calculate that it is a risk worth taking.

The perceived weakness of Europe is also probably overestimated. The memory of the two world wars has made France and Germany hypersensitive about international quarreling, but they may not be able to stay on the sidelines much longer. Along with Britain, Italy, and Spain, they represent an economy and population base equal to America's, with a formidable capacity to mobilize in an emergency, especially with air power. The Islamic world has an old beef with Europe, and at the very least will enjoy watching them suffer.

What has kept the big quarrel contained so far is the sheer geographical fact that most of the world's oil comes out of this likely battleground. America and Europe cannot risk the destruction of those wells, terminals, refineries, and pipelines, and none of the parties on the Islamic side are especially keen to trash all that stuff, either, since they have little besides figs and tangerines to fall back on.

The current scandal in the US about the Dubai-based company being invited to run US port facilities only underscores America's weakness, our feckless pretense that there is no fundamental conflict between Islam and the west, that we are so generous, open-minded, good-willed, and self-confident that even the boundaries of political common sense have dissolved.

Of course, some Americans may be wondering why we can't find any American company to run American ports. But the American press is too stupid to even ask that question.

from www.kunstler.com