Bush Foreign Policy Now Threatens American Oil Supplies

By James Donahue

While the rest of the world looks on in disbelief, American President George W. Bush and his sidekick Vice-President Dick Cheney continue to rattle sabers in obvious support of an Israeli demand for a military strike on Iran.

Some outspoken members of the legislature, and even some of the media commentators are so alarmed by what they are seeing and hearing, they are beginning to question the mental state of both Bush and Cheney. But how can the two top leaders of a nation be stumbling into insanity at the same time? What is going on in Washington? Why isn't Congress taking steps to stop this nutty behavior before we start something worse than the Iraq war, and get ourselves into a conflict we are not equipped with soldiers, material and finance to fight.

Iran alone is a much more powerful foe than perhaps Mr. Bush realizes. At last count, the Iranian Army has some 350,000 men, including independent armored, infantry and commando brigades and army aviation units. There are an estimated 5000 full-time regulars in a Special Forces Division, considered one of the most professional units in the Middle East. That nation's maritime service has another 38,000 men, including two brigade marine forces and a 2,000-man aviation force. And then there is the Iranian Air Force with some 52,000 men and over 300 combat aircraft. There are over 1,600 battle tanks and a growing number of missiles and missile launchers, now obviously aimed at the sky as that nation prepares to defend itself against threats of invasion.

Sending the tired and battle-weary U.S. military over the border from the Iraqi battlefield, where our soldiers have been caught in a civil war quagmire now for four long years, into a new fight against the Iranian military, would be almost suicidal by itself. But consider the fact that both China and Russia have business interests in Iran. Both nations want contracts to buy the vast resources of sweet crude and natural gas that lie just under the ground.

China has already threatened to defend Iran if the U.S. attacks. Is the U.S. prepared for that? Does Congress dare allow Bush to retain the power to push the button that would launch such a disaster?

Adding to the growing war threat is a plan by Turkey to send military forces into Northern Iraq in a new conflict against Kurdish forces. A Russian report noted this week that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked Iran to provide "urgent" military help in this new conflict, and that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cut short his state visit to Armenia and returned to Tehran to deal with this issue.

Israeli news sources are reporting that Syria also is preparing for war following a recent Israeli bombing attack on that country. Israel reportedly struck an alleged site where Syria was developing nuclear weapons capabilities, although that has never been confirmed.

One Internet news site said that Turkey shares the Syrian anger against Israel for training the Kurdish Rebels and creating all of the fervor at the Turkish border. Turkey has issued "strong warnings" against Israel's "continued interference with its sovereign territory," the story said.

So what is causing the Bush Administration to keep our forces locked in endless combat in that deadly region of the world, and risking the possibility of thrusting the United States in global nuclear war?

The answer is oil. It has always been oil. And rather than doing legal business with Iraq and Iran, and buying our share of the last remaining supplies of the oil that exists there, the American leadership appears to have chosen to try to seize and control it. What is happening, however, is that the Bush doctrine has put the United States in a terrible dilemma even as the world realizes that the long and dreaded peak oil supply has been reached. From here on, oil supplies will be dwindling.

The German based Energy Watch Group has just issued a report that global oil production peaked in 2006, much sooner than most experts had predicted, and that production will drop to about half of what is being produced now by 2030. This news sparked an immediate increase in the price of oil to as high as $90 a barrel. It will probably go even higher.

The Russian report noted that America's third largest oil supplier is Mexico, where President Felipe Calderon just issued a "grim message. The largest oil producer in Latin America is running out of crude." Calderon said the Mexican oil reserves have been consistently failing and the decline is severely threatening government finances.

The Bush Administration also has been maintaining unfriendly terms with Venezuela because that nation's president, Hugo Chavez, is promoting a socialist revolution in the region. That is unfortunate because the US has been buying a lot of its oil supply from Venezuela. But Chavez has just signed a multi-billion dollar agreement to sell oil to China, and that is expected to further erode the American supply of oil needed to kep its military machinery running.

Are world oil suppliers ganging up on us? Why wouldn't they? Bush and his friends have been acting like world bullies for far too long.

Congress needs to start impeachment proceedings immediately, and get someone in office who is willing and capable of reaching out to these key world leaders with a gesture of friendship and cooperation, instead of threats of shock and awe.

Why won't House Speaker Nancy Pelosi act on such a critical issue? Is it her Jewish ancestry? Even though her family hails from Argentina, is the Israeli movement keeping her in check? She was put in that high office because everybody knew critical change was needed in Washington. So far, she has failed to deliver much of anything.