Next Small War

[aktarian]

I am not advocating threatening an insurgent group in Iran - I am advocating supporting them.

That will lead to civil war which woun't be over soon. Unlike Taliban and Saddam Iranian mullahs aren't as hated as those two were. They are unpopular but not hated so much. So they could count on support of parts of population, specially if people see this civil war as orchestrated from outside.

Yes, prices would go up short term. In the medium/long term, Iran cannot afford not to sell. I doubt they have been saving for a rainy day.

It isn't necessary that they wouldn't want to sell, it could be that they couldn't. Iranian oil infrastructure would be damaged. Either in fighting itself or loosing side would destroy as much as they could out of spite. Short term disaster, medium term bad thing and who knows about long term.

I am all for destabilizing the ME with a very few exceptions. It never has been all that stable anyway and the status quo gets a lot of people killed.

And if you destabilise it can you be sure people friendly to you will come on top? Say you topple Saudi regime. Are you sure young, pro-western factions will come on top? It can be that even worse regime will come out.

Or do your eally want shaking up Bahrain so that majority shi'ia gets in power? So that Iranains might get foot in another door?

You know, democracy is good concept but sometimes it brings up somebody you don't like. Just ask Algerians.

There are rooms that simply cannot be cleared. Sometimes you have to throw a grenade in and close the door and move on.

I think that if you want a true change you have to let people do it themselves. Everything that is put in from outside runs the risk of rejection. Oh it works sometimes, but not most of the times. set up conditions for it but then let the people do it themselves.