Iraq is part of the larger war on... Iran

Jim Kunstler is my favorite curmudgeon. I used to check his column every Monday morning, until I bought a house and realized I didn't want to think about the imminent collapse of modern civilization every week. But sometimes, you just want to hear it straight- and Jim don't hold back.

It seems to me you can call the situation in Iraq a lot of things, but it's not a war. Not at this point, anyway. Call it an unsuccessful nation-building project, a failed occupation, a botched policing job, a monkey-in-the-middle clusterfuck. All the US political factions, from left to right, do the public a disservice by calling it a war, because it misrepresents what we're doing there.

Yes! Speak on brother with forcefulness of what is really the fuck happening. Gimme some more of that.

We're involved in Iraq because we don't want to begin thinking about modifying our behavior at home. We are desperate to preserve our access to Middle East oil because that is the only way we can keep running our society the way we're used to running it.

Exactly. Behavior at home must change because it is simply unsustainable. Our habitual behavior is hardened into repetition of patterns we picked up over the past couple of centuries of fossil fuel abundance. We’re born and bred to be energy hogs, sucking up whatever we can to make life as cushy as can be. It’s no surprise, it’s what man has always done- at least for the past few millennia there is hard evidence for. The only difference is now we have the abundance to go over the top- and we’ve gotten used to it.

He slams me directly:

All the Priuses in the world will not avail to save the Drive-In Utopia. The public will learn painfully what Iraq is all about...

...Across the political spectrum, from the far left to the far right, elected officials are now clamoring to "stop the war in Iraq." By this they mean get US troops out. What cracks me up is their juvenile belief that being there is somehow optional for us, that we can keep on running Wal Mart and Walt Disney World without paying any price for it in the costs of policing the Middle East.

Yeah, I love my Prius alright, and I thought I knew what Iraq is about. I assumed it was blood for oil in some manner of speaking. Control of resources, generally. What I hadn’t thought about, particularly, was that Iran is the real foe all along. They have a real army, Iraq doesn’t. They can gobble up the oil fields quite easily. Saddam wasn’t sufficiently trusted because we fucked with him in the first Gulf War and he hated our guts. We had to get dug in where we could stop Iran.

If we don't maintain a military presence in Iraq, it is perfectly plain what will happen: Iran will instantly gain control of the southern Iraq oil fields. Iraq doesn't have an army anymore. It is incapable of preventing Iran from acquiring control of its territory. From that vantage, Iran would also effectively threaten the sovereign existence of Kuwait. Then there is the question of how much instability Iran could generate next door in the Shia-dominated Persian Gulf shoreline region of Saudi Arabia, where most of that nation's oil lies. (Meanwhile, there will be plenty more Iran-inspired mayhem in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.)

And here's the wrap...

The air waves and internet sites are full of blather now about ending the "war" and bringing the troops home. The presidential candidates are agonizing over their various positions on the Iraq adventure. I'd like to hear one of them tell me how Atlanta is going to function without Middle Eastern oil, or how Wal Mart will move its merchandise from San Pedro to Lansing without a "warehouse on wheels," or how the thousands of yellow school bus fleets will carry on next September.

Actually, instead, I'd like to hear talk about drastically reforming our zoning laws to discourage any more suburban development or a pitch to allow some of our tax money to fund a US passenger rail revival. I'd like to see a candidate refuse to attend a Nascar race on the grounds that it's an unconscionably stupid fucking waste of energy resources. I'm waiting for one of these birds to tell the American people the truth: you can't have it both ways. you can't get our military out of the Middle East without changing the way we live.

This is what has to be said, and just about nobody but Kunstler will say it. He seems happy to throw it in our faces, all the while realizing he’s throwing it in his own as well. Seen in this light, all the talk about the supplemental with the controversial timetables, and the democratic leadership’s failure to stand up to Bush and End This War seems so absurd since it’s so far from the real issue.  I shouldn’t say nobody is saying these things. Gore is, Lovins is, KSR is...Dawkins is. But they’re not being heard by enough...yet.

Looking forward to Live Earth. Glad Roger Waters is playing. The tide is turning?

Cross posted to New Worlds