By George Friedman
Courtesy of Strategic Forecasting

A possible U.S. attack against Iran has been a hot topic in the news for many months now. In some quarters it has become an article of faith that the Bush administration intends to order such an attack before it leaves office. It remains a mystery whether the administration plans an actual attack or whether it is using the threat of attack to try to intimidate Iran — and thus shape its behavior in Iraq and elsewhere. Unraveling the mystery lies, at least in part, in examining what a U.S. attack would look like, given U.S. goals and resources, as well as in considering the potential Iranian response. Before turning to intentions, it is important to discuss the desired outcomes and capabilities. Unfortunately, those discussions have taken a backseat to speculations about the sheer probability of war.

Let’s begin with goals. What would the United States hope to achieve by attacking Iran? On the broadest strategic level, the answer is actually quite simple. After 9/11, the United States launched counterstrikes in the Islamic world. The goal was to disrupt the al Qaeda core in order to prevent further attacks against the United States. The counterstrikes also were aimed at preventing the emergence of a follow-on threat from the Islamic world that would replace the threat that had been posed by al Qaeda. The disruption of all Islamic centers of power that have the ability and intent to launch terrorist attacks against the United States is a general goal of U.S. strategy. With the decline of Sunni radicalism, Iran has emerged as an alternative Shiite threat. Hence, under this logic, Iran must be dealt with.

I’d never heard of Serj Tankian, nor of the band System of a Down, but I agree with the man’s observation when he was awarded a European MTV Award:

"Thank you very much, but what I really want to say is [that] civilization is over.  Let’s find a way to work through this peacefully with each other all together with love and understanding."

Well, despite his utopian/liberal/silly instincts that all it takes is love to cure things, his observation that "civiliation is over" is a remarkable one for a rock person.

I agree, but I see few solutions except a protracted world war that no one, especially the Demofiends, wants to accept as reality.

Good luck, Hillary.  Do you have a clue?

The Great Hoaxster has played the greatest hoax in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize.  Al Gore is no more worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize than Bart Simpson; actually, he’s less worthy.

This is just another "Get Bush, Embarrass Bush, Redpudiate the 2001 Election" referendum by the Nobel voters, just as was the award’s going to Jimmy Carter.  At least in Carter’s case, he had negotiated the Camp David Peace Accords, but caved into every dictator in the world at the same time.

Let’s see–Al Gore made a fictional movie about a fictional event, global so-called warming, and he wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

Has the world lost its senses?

Wait, don’t answer that.

In Nobel terms, it never had any senses when it comes to the members’ politics.  They’re still longing for the Cold War and the supremacy of the Soviet Union.

Quislings, all.

Let’s see–the man won an Oscar for a movie packed with falsehoods, and now he and his cronies are spreading rumors that he’s up for a Nobel Prize, for greatest hoaxster, I guess.

Front and center, Al Gore.  You’ve managed to fool just about everyone so far except the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. voters, but that was for the prize you really lusted after, wasn’t it?  "My precious!" you were heard to utter all through the presidential recounts in Florida.

Spurned in your naked political ambition, you turned to creating a new identity for yourself: "Mr. Save The World."  However, the world needs neither saving nor you, Mr. Carbon-Transfer-Credits scam man.

At least in Great Britain, common sense and scientific truth still rule the day.

A court in that country recently ruled that Gore’s Oscar-winning diatribe, An Inconvenient Truth, was, unfortunately, mostly a convenient untruth for Mr. Gore and his Nobel-lusting soul.  A school district (doesn’t this sound so painfully familiar to our school districts in the U.S.?) was using Gore’s fictional film as gospel in the classroom, and a wise parent challenged it in court.

The court ruled that, even with its warts, the movie could be shown so long as it was explained that the film had at least nine convenient untruths and unproven assertions in it.

This, of course, is fodder for the Nobel committee.  After all, they awarded Jimmy Carter, the most embarrassingly incompetent president we’ve had in modern times, the Nobel Prize for Peace–solely to embarrass George Bush.

Does the Nobel Prize any longer mean anything?  Maybe in science in medicine, but not in the categories in which politicians compete.  The committee’s red stripe is painfully obvious.

As the British departed Yorktown at the end of the Revolutionary War, the band played a little ditty called "The World Turned Upside Down."

That title aptly describes our cvilization for the past 70 years or so, dating to the first election of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Today, values are inverted:  Idleness and complaint are rewarded while independence and initiative are castigated.  An overly broad generalization, admittedly, but you get the point.  Our world has been turned upside down, and one look at the shows on television will tell you immediately what’s celebrated and what’s officially ridiculed in society.

Which brings up the point of this posting:  This week marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, a book that clearly shows how society turns values upside down.

I wonder if there is any school district or public university in this nation that uses Ms. Rand’s masterpiece, and if it does, whether it does so objectively or just for ridicule.

I probably don’t need to think too long about the answer to that.