In various US military operations in Iraq, there have been myriad military goals, few of which ever got achieved. With reports of an imminent US military operation in Iraq, targeting Shi’ite militias, analysts are looking over possible US goals for that.
The obvious goal for attacking Shi’ite militias is to kill Shi’ites, and as the US treats them as Iranian proxies, this boils down to a proxy war with Iran. The military has acknowledged this in warning that the operation could quickly snowball into a direct war with Iran, which the US troops in Iraq are not ready for.
Such a fight would be in keeping with the US ‘maximum pressure’ policy against Iran, and that would please administration hawks even if it does get out of hand. Others see the price of oil as a big factor in its own right.
The coronavirus pandemic has driven the price of crude oil to multi-year lows, and that is doing a lot of damage to major US oil companies with high-cost production. The idea is that a new war in the Middle East would necessarily raise oil prices, and that might help US companies.
US wars have rarely been about raising the price of oil, but since that’s often an unforeseen consequence, it is one of the most achievable goals the US could have.
Higher oil prices benefit Russia and Saudi Arabia as well. Not sure how they benefit the average American. Seems to me in times past we would measure how rich we were by how inexpensive stuff was compared to our wages.
Like, when most Americans had a wage to spend on stuff…
More Military Madnes!!! More debt & division. More idle hands at the behest of Devils work. Let the plague rage and make more enemies. There is always a payday for such folly. How many more can America Afford…..?????!!!!!!!! Where will all the worthless paper go….????
When it is all over China will be in disaster communism and we will be in disaster capitalism but like a large banana republic. Naomi Klein in her book “The Shock Doctrine. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” has described for us what will happen first: an attempt at total destruction of our social network: social security, medicare, medicaid, food help, social housing, everything from FDR to Obama. If you ask me what you should do I recommend: become a US oligarch.
dieter, Actually what you should do is, or have been, buying some guns and much ammunition and other tactical items, and a supply of food and medical supplies, because when the SHTF, those items will be all that will matter, and all with a brain can smell a faint odor, getting stronger all the time, of much sh#t!
Don’t forget toilet paper.
wars, and don’t you forget your stash!! LOL! I was thinking about you yesterday and thought that you were having a good time getting wasted,,..WTH. 🙂
Jay, one builds up a tolerance after 47 years. Just a mild euphoric buzz. 🙂
I’m so glad I don’t live in the US where people think guns and ammunition are the solution to their problems.
1943, Tell that to the Jews in Germany during WW-2, or the Cambodians under pol Pot,,,etc………
President Trump has called the virus “the enemy” and himself a “war president”. Here is the reality. The world’s most expensive, most powerful armed forces have not prevented this enemy from invading our country and threatening ever resident with death. Our nuclear arsenal is useless. Furthermore these same armed forces will not win that war. The front lines are manned and womaned by medical doctors, nurses, cleaners, EMC divers and personnel. Yet our president is still militarily diking with Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and to a somewhat lesser extent with China. That is insanity.
The front lines are also truckers, grocery store clerks and minimum wage delivery drivers, without whom there would be an unspeakable disaster.
bill,,Ain’t that the fu##ing truth!
dieter, That is all very true, thus I call for a purge of the DC GHOULS, and that is what 90% of all the people working there are! Everyone in the USA, with any semblance of a brain, should finally see clearly what the truth and reality of the situation is, and has been for many decades. 🙁
It already was insanity.
COVID-19 panic just make opposition all the more difficult.
Yup, we need to flatten the curve on insanity.
Got to get those gas prices up while everybody is out of work. Kicks in the face when down is the American Way, isn’t it?
Lily, that is unchecked capitalism,,and the DC GHOULS way, not everyone’s. The PURGE may be coming……………………:)
I wish I had a huge ass tank. The ones for storage not the war toy.
You store stuff in tanks?
Sure. Where do you think gas is stored?
“US wars have rarely been about raising the price of oil, but since that’s often an unforeseen consequence…”
LOL I think you meant that line to read “has rarely PUBLICLY been about raising the price of oil”
It was proven that prior to the invasion of Iraq, the oil companies were ticked off that Saddam Hussein was monkeying with the OPEC price. The first order Bush issued after the invasion was concluded was to force Iraq to adhere to OPEC prices.
Read Greg Palast’s articles on that subject at his blog, such as these:
Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq’s Oil
https://www.gregpalast.com/secret-us-plans-for-iraqs-oil/
It’s STILL The Oil
Secret Condi Meeting on Oil Before Invasion https://www.gregpalast.com/its-still-the-oilsecret-condi-meeting-on-oil-before-invasion
The US has been at war with Iraq since 2003. Billions if not trillions have been funneled to the military-industrial complex. They’re laughing all the way to the bank.
COVID-19 was a useful deception. If the U.S. is forced by the neocon globalists into war, the gas will be cheap, at least for a short time, and the economic shock damage of war seems already done by a forced and unnecessary economic lockdown.
However, that opportunity for war is an illusion. The Euro globalists continue to withhold money from their own and the American market, and continue to try and force economic shutdown, preventing The Peoples to fill the economic void with new production.
However, the ME war that was impossible when times were normal, becomes ludicrous with the U.S. and world economy imploding. It does not follow, that war can happen with the U.S. economically collapsed when it could not happen with the economy normal.
Even WWII, happened after the U.S. had began a strong recovery from the Great Depression. WWII did not end the Great Depression, just redirected and redistributed the recovery.
https://mises.org/library/world-war-ii-did-not-end-great-depression
WWII ended with Europe in ruins and the U.S. cashing in. A ME war will end with the U.S. in ruins and Europe cashing in, or at least their financial aristocracies. They were the original losers of the Eurasian century, a mere rump of Eurasia. They need U.S. geography, but Americans live there, majority owners of American finance and industry..
Trump never really wanted war, nor can the U.S. afford one with the Eurasian century unperturbed by COVID-19 hybrid hoax.
China and Russia are undefeated and undeterred.
https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/china-locked-in-hybrid-war-with-us/
The Eurasian Century continues. That’s possibly, in fact likely, not what all this chaos is about.
Someone’s forcing rearrangement of the deck chairs of the doomed plague ship of Western Imperialism. Who owns rules, who owns the money, rules everything. The U.S. dollar is a natural world reserve currency.
This economic assault against the U.S., much self-inflicted by economic war traitors under the pretext of COVID-19 is the strongest attack yet against the U.S. dollar. Yet neither Russia nor China waits in the wings to replace the petrodollar, nor does gold. A European based super currency, like IMF Special Drawing Rights, could take over.
Resolving the question of U.S. hegemony, requires a diplomatic-economic resolution. There is no military one, and Trump has always understood that.
The only question remaining to be settled, is who’s in charge of the West in the Eurasian century; Brussels as chief bankster, or Washington as natural Western hegemon, sitting atop the second Mackinderan World heartland that is North America.
Going broke in an Asian war, ends the U.S. as a self-owned world giant.
Translation…the marketing boys at Langley are rolling out their spring advertising campaign.