Brewing Up a Fool's War In The Gulf

The United States and Iran are playing an increasingly dangerous game of chicken in the Gulf. Threats and counter-threats are flying fast and furious. War could be only an accidental ship collision or aircraft intrusion away.

Nations often blunder into war due to miscalculation, arrogance, or wrong intelligence. One need only recall August, 1914, when joyous throngs of French or Germans cried out, "on to Berlin!" and "On to Paris!" and "Home for Christmas."

The current confrontation between the US/Israel on one side and Iran on the other is about more than Tehran’s UN-inspected nuclear power program that some claim is a front for developing nuclear weapons.

With Iraq defanged and Syria in turmoil, Iran is the last major Mideast state that refuses to be part of the US sphere of influence – what I call the American Raj.

As Iran’s noisy defiance grows, Washington fears its influence and prestige will suffer unless it brings the annoying mullahs to heel. The so-called "Arab spring" has a confused Washington ready to lash out, as Libya showed. A crisis in the Gulf could derail US plans to reassert its influence over the Mideast.

Iran’s nuclear program has become the symbol of that nation’s fiery nationalism. Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insists the West is determined to keep the Muslim world technologically backward. Iran’s nuclear program is a great technological leap forward for all Muslims, asserts the ayatollah.

Embarrassingly for Washington’s hawks, two recent US national intelligence estimates so far support the ayatollah’s assertions that Iran’s nuclear program is strictly for power generation.

However, US allies on the UN’s Atomic Energy Agency continue to raise questions as to the intent of the Iranian program, without producing any hard proof of warlike intent.

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