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"as a way to weather the storm for as long as it takes to take control of the Hormuz Straits."

Which will take about as long as it's taking to pacify Iraq no doubt.


keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Tue Apr 4th, 2006 at 09:09:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]
pretty much, yeah.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Apr 4th, 2006 at 09:20:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
There is no way on Earth that the US can reliably control Hormuz for any length of time. The only way to guarantee control would be an army of occupation and a regime change in Iran. And that's not likely to happen.

Don't forget that Iran has medium range missiles, and would be perfectly capable of doing remote damage to US land and sea forces in Iraq, Turkey and other areas in the Middle East if it decides to get defensive. It would take an incredibly successful and coordinated initial barrage from the US to remove that capability. And that's not likely to happen either.

I think it's more likely that this whole pantomime is yet another cynical move to drive up prices. Bush probably doesn't much care that it will ruin the US as long as his Texas and Saudi buddies are getting richer. He really does seem to be that stupid, disconnected and cynical.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Apr 4th, 2006 at 09:39:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I actually think regime change is likely: the current supreme leader is a moderate as I understand it. They do have extremists as well.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Apr 4th, 2006 at 09:47:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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