For the love of cheap gas, shut up, already. Let's stop with this nonsense about us or the Israelis launching a preemptive strike against Iran. Every time Seymour Hersh fires up his typewriter -- warning the world that an invasion of Iran is imminent -- the price of oil inches upward (unleaded gas rose to $4.09 a gallon on Wednesday, a 12 cent spike from the previous month). That is because the price of oil is determined by the perception of future supply and a war with Iran would, presumably, restrict the flow of oil out of the Gulf -- hence prices go up for average consumers.
Although Iran's oil minister said his country would not curb its supply of crude were it to come under attack, the commander of Iran's Rev Guards said over the weekend that if attacked, Tehran would take control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's oil supply passes.
Talk of invading Iran has a familiar boy-cries-wolf ring to it, and one wonders who is benefiting from such macho chest-bumping (hard-line Israelis? Oil execs? Neocons? Hersh, eager to get his Google count up? Or Cheney's biographer, who needs a nice ending to the chapter: "Why Dick and Other Freedom Loving People Hate Iran"?). After all, Hersh warned us of an imminent invasion and stepped-up special ops activity back in November 2006, sourcing, among other neocons, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute named Joshua Muravchik (disclosure: I interned for Josh back in 1997 and, political leanings aside, he's a lovely man). His latest piece in the New Yorker says, well, that that stuff is still going on and, over objections from peaceniks like Robert Gates and Admiral Fallon, U.S. or Israeli forces may try to a) arm ethnic minorities within Iran, which will cause the house of cards in Tehran to come crashing down, b) bomb Iranian nuke facilities at Natanz, or c) invade, causing the world's last Hummer owner to ponder why he's paying $100 for a gallon of gas.
Here's the deal: AEI memos notwithstanding, Iran's ethnic minorities are not ready to rise up and stage a coup anytime soon. The scattered uprisings have mostly been limited to the Baluchi province in southeastern Iran, the Kurdish parts of northwestern Iran, and the Arab parts of southwestern Iran. Their beef with the authorities is not of the Lenin-versus-the-czars variety but rather over a lack of government jobs, religious rights (i.e. no Sunni mosques), and freedom of movement. Azeris, of which the Supreme Leader is one, often gripe that they are poked fun of by the national media. These are legitimate grievances, to be sure, but any attack by an outside power and these groups would rally around the Iranian flag. Nor is Israeli or U.S. funneling of arms and cash to a few Kurdish separatist groups going to bring about regime change in Iran. All it does is fuel this endless talk of an invasion, which in turn raises the price of gas, and ends up padding the pocket of some oil tycoon in Houston or Riyadh. Do you see a pattern here?