Only two years left and Bush is turning up the heat on Iran. Major forces are assembled in the Persian and Oman Gulfs and Iraq troops will be redeployed opposite these shores as they draw down from Iraq.
For 100 years Persian leaders have been manipulated by Britain, Russia and later America. The Reza Pahlavi (Shah I and II) years are clearly the most socially constructive ever witnessed by modern day Iran. The struggle to nationalize oil revenues lies at the very root of the Iranian tragedy. As the Cold War fought its first battles in Iran for access to warm southerly waters the British and ally powers maintained Iran in a semi-comma state to facilitate strategic geography and resource access during WWI and WWII. In fact the country was occupied in both wars.
In 1979 through manipulation, primarily by international oil cartels and secondarily by world powers, the Qajar Dynasty and its Tudeh communist affiliates succeeded in ousting Reza Pahlavi Shah II, son of the Great Reza Pahlavi Shah I. Incidentally, Shah I was forced to give power to his son by Russia and Britain. He was exiled and died soon there after.
The Iran Petroleum Act of 1957 (not fully realized until 1973) is the beginning of oil cartel manipulation. America having made deals with Saudi Arabia for 50/50 split drove the Iranians to mirror this approach. The earliest signs of oil cartel manipulation can be found in the alleged assassination of Enrico Mattei.
So, here we go again. Now it is over a much harsher substance than oil. Plutonium, enriched that is. We fear Iran, yet we armed its neighbors. We maintain the largest nuclear arsenal in the world yet we deny that same protection to others, without outwardly demonstrating the destruction of our own arsenal.
So what gives America? Are you for war in Iran? I got news, its coming. I hope the Iraqi withdrawal is not just a measure to remove our ground troops from the Iranian war theatre, as demonstrated by the Shehab 3 missile. I hope our 5 major naval battle groups assembling in the Persian Gulf are just sight seeing.
The next two years will see more non-cooperation than any years before it. The Whitehouse has an Iranian agenda and it is coming to a news show near you.
George, since you are such a nation builder, bring back the Shah.