Unraveling the Complex (and Simple) Geopolitics Behind the United States' New War in Iran

Call me a skeptic. The U.S. has plunged into yet another mad war in the Middle East, this time in Iran, and the stated official reasons, from "pre-emptive war" to "regime change" are complete dodges meant to mislead the American public. There are plenty of real reasons out there. Trump had massed up the U.S. military in the waters around Iran in very much the same way that Russia massed up along the borders of Ukraine prior to electing a soul-sucking four year campaign that sunk into the Ukranian mud and threatens to bleed both countries dry. Secret campaigns and overt wars for "regime change" litter American martial history like a fleet of deuce-and-a-half blown apart by desert improvised explosive devices. Now bring the war.

Trump says the war will last a couple weeks. Good luck with that. History begs to differ. The United States is a war-like nation and we are a war-like people. It must be so because it always has been. Never in my life, which began in 1961, has the United States NOT been at war in some fashion or another. And it clearly resides most strongly in the Republican DNA. If you want a war of choice, of regime change, to change the subject at home, to gain control of natural resources for your corporate donors... the shortest path is to elect a Republican. The Great War Hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower, at the dawn of the Cold War, did much the same as Trump did this week, when he called on a popular uprising (1956 Hungary) to overthrow the Soviet-backed government only to have the rebellion, left hanging by Americans fearing a wider global conflict, crushed pitifully by Russian tanks. Nixon expanded (and lost) the Vietnam War. Reagan secretly sold weapons to Iran (despite Iran being an enemy state under a U.S. arms embargo) to raise secret money to illegally fund Nicaraguan rebels. The Bush family, notable old American oil money, entered not one, but two wars in support of oil resources in the Middle East, with Bush Jr. inventing the ideas of "pre-emptive war" and the false notion of "weapons of mass destruction" and literally fought terrorism with terrorism of its own (see black sites, Abu-Ghraib, Gitmo). These anti-communist and anti-terrorist moves clearly went exceedingly well, with one cluster-fuck leading to the next. Behind each of them was also an economic imperative, a regime change imperative, and also a fear that the conflict could spiral out of control. Iran has recently organized what amounts to a pogrom against its own people, with estimates of deaths reaching as high as 30,000 or more. Into this fray leaps Trump, calling on the people to rise up. For the love of God, have we learned nothing?

Into this realpolitik we must add a decidedly Russian flavor. From 1979 to 1989 Russia entered a war against the mujahideen, a loose group of U.S. armed and funded Islamist fighters that included one Osama bin Laden. The Russian backed government eventually fell and many historians point to the Afghan War as a key in the downfall of the Soviet Union. Afghanistan has been a bed of roses ever since, and that war is instructive today. Russian and Iranian banking and energy sectors have been heavily sanctioned by the west, making them interdependent in a trade aimed at getting around the dollar system. With Russia stuck in the quagmire of its Ukraine War and the fall of the Russian-backed Assad in Syria, it might be a case of now or never in Iran for the U.S. war machine. That is, a war in Iran might cripple Russia. At the very least, the fear of the New Iranian War leading to a nuclear catastrophe is diminished. I mean... Clearly other catastrophes could ensue, but a radioactive catastrophe is less likely. And man, that light, sweet Iranian crude has been cocaine to the West since Mossadegh in 1953. Mossadegh, the last democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, was overthrown by the U.S. "Operation Ajax" because he had the nerve to nationalize his oil supply so that it would benefit his own people. Crazy right? Mossadegh was called a communist for this stunt and in a domino theory for the ages, the U.S. installed dictator, the Shah of Iran, was overthrown in 1979 and replaced by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini, of course, established Sharia Law and declared Iran an Islamist state, becoming the face of "terrorism" in the west for a generation. Of course, these were the very "terrorists" that Ronald Reagan sold arms to in order to fund his dirty war in Nicaragua. The Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez, who came into power at the turn of this decidedly awful century, also had the temerity to try to nationalize his country's vast oil wealth. He also built relationships with Cuba, Iran and Russia, leading a left-leaning thrust in South American politics. For all of this, he was labeled a terrorist as well, and you can see today that the U.S. president is telling the world how WE, the United States, are gonna take that oil back. Oil. It causes nothing but problems. I mean, nobody goes to war over sunshine or wind. And at the heart of this problem lies the vast and corrupt pile of oil wealth that is Saudi Arabia, who just happens to be Iran's chief opponent to geopolitical power in the region. The Saudis have wisely courted Trump. Middle Eastern oil bribery has flowed freely into the Trump family coffers to the tune of many billions of dollars of personal wealth. That a U.S. led attack on Iran would follow was criminally certain. I think it is a clear sign that Trump has literally sold the U.S. military to Middle Eastern sheiks. It is a level of corruption that is wholly evil, and I don't use terms like that very often. Israel will clearly benefit, having embarked on its own ethnic cleansing in Palestine, teamed up with the big oil money and uprooted Iran, Bibi Netanyahu will finish exterminating Palestinians and he and Trump will develop their "Gazan Riviera" and peace will ring out across the land. Sure it will. In the words of John Cena's immortal Peacemaker: "I cherish peace with all my heart. I don't care how many men, women and children I need to kill to get it." The winners here are always the military-industrial complex and big oil. The winners in the U.S. are not US. You and I are not going to see any benefit at all. The seed of all this corruption and power is the greed associated with oil wealth. Until our country turns officailly toward solar and wind and other forms of renewable energy, nothing is going to change. Your electric bill is going to continue to spiral higher and higher and you're going to tithe 10 percent of your earnings to oil companies in one form or another.

At the end of the day, too, at least you'll be talking about something besides Jeffrey Epstein. War has always been used to change the subject domestically, hasn't it? Oh, the old tricks are still the best ones. It might be that one of the best reasons for a New War in Iran is that Trump is pulling the old "war card" in hopes of avoiding the complete blow-out of Republicans in the mid-term elections. Maybe, at the end of the day, it's just Trump trying to stay one step ahead of being held responsible for all the graft, corruption and crimes he's committed. Maybe it's just that war is much easier for Trump than being found out to be more than a well connected friend to an international child trafficking ring. Maybe a war is more convenient than being found out to be something much, much darker. A Democratic house and senate are not small things. And impeachment for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth times is the least of Donald Trump's worries. His worry is this: When the world finds out the real truth, the real moral rot at the center of this brutish, ugly man, the people are going to rip him to pieces.