Next up: Iran. It's time to get even for the hostages.

The Bush Administration began test-marketing a war against Iran by naming it as a charter member of the Axis of EvilTM. For the moment, however, electioneering to an alert-jittery electorate has forced the Bushies to place their neofascist tendencies in a lockbox. Bush and Cheney are deploying hoary Republican rhetorical ploys; referring to John Kerry as a flipflopping limousine liberal may harken to such classic GOP candidacies as Dole '96 and Reagan '80, but the war criminals of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib are playing the role of traditional Republicans only to close the deal on a gullible electorate. Whether the Bushian neofascists win the election or opt for another end run around democracy, planning for a second-term war against Iran is already under way.

Last week's column described the Bushies' lame attempts to link Iran to 9/11. My prediction that they would float new rationales for war after Iran-Al Qaeda failed to catch on has already come to pass. Now Administration gofer Colin Powell is accusing Iran of--you guessed it--trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. The Bushies claim Iran's nuclear power plants could easily be converted into facilities for manufacturing weapons. "It is our judgment that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and a nuclear weapons program, and we'll all have to take note of this," Powell said on July 29.

They're using the same lies on Iran that they used for Iraq.

Iran, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11. It continues to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to examine its facilities. Though imperfect, Iran is a vibrant though nascent democracy that requires only the passage of time to liberate its people. But as we've seen in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush's wars have little to do with 9/11, WMDs or spreading democracy.

With nine percent of proven oil reserves, Iran was already the world's fifth largest producer. July 14 brought an announcement that a new oil field second in scale only to Saudi Arabia's legendary Ghawar facility had been discovered there. "Iran possesses far larger oil reserves than previously thought," writes Hooman Peimani in the Asia Times. (The Bushies floated their Iran-Al Qaeda story a few days after news broke about the Iranian oil strike.) Iran's newfound oil wealth, its strategic control of the Persian Gulf and its ideal placement for a gas and oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea--long considered the sane alternative to the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline--have mouths watering at Halliburton and the White House it controls.

But, unlike Iraq, we won't have the chance to botch the occupation of Iran. We won't get that far.

Iran's military could keep us bogged down indefinitely, à la Vietnam. It has a combined active-duty troop strength of 600,000; reserves bring the total to a million. They have a respectable navy, and least 300 fighter jets. A vast nation the size of Texas, California and Montana combined, Iran is nearly four times the size of Iraq with twice its population, living on mountainous, harsh terrain. Iranians fighting a U.S.-backed Iraqi invasion during the '80s fought ferociously, which suggests that an American expeditionary force would be met by similarly passionate resistance.

The American military, already stretched thin and forced to "call back" reservists to fight in Iraq, would probably have to go ahead with contingency plans to bring back a large-scale draft next year. At least a half-million conscripts would be needed for a fight that would likely drag on for years. Hundreds of billions of dollars would be spent on hardware and weaponry, not to mention lining the pockets of Administration-connected war profiteers. War against Iran could easily push us into the abyss of economic and moral bankruptcy. The draft would prompt tens of thousands of young American men to flee. It would push out of the community of nations once and for all.

And that's if Iran doesn't have nukes by then.

Iranian leaders, feeling the pressure of American occupation troops on their borders with Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the east, are well aware of the fact that Bush would like to add them to their portfolio of oil-rich Muslim puppet states. The crisis ratcheted up a notch when Israel--which doesn't make a move without U.S. approval--threatened to bomb Iranian nuke plants. "The United States is showing off by threatening to use its wild dog, Israel [to attack Iran]," said Iranian spokesman Seyed Masood Jazayeri. "[But our] reaction will be so harsh that Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth and U.S. interests will be easily damaged."

We would be wise to pay attention.

Copyright 2004 Ted Rall

The liberation of Iraq alone will cause the fall of the despots in Iran.

The average Iranian, upon seeing the new prosperity coming to Iraq, will say aloud, "Why not us?" and that will be the end of the turbaned tyrants of Iran.

One by one, these sandboxes dictatorships will be flash burned by the wildfire of freedom, until the tyrants have no choice but to surrender or be destroyed.

Oh, yes, the Iranians are just so envious of the murder, torture, rape and other amenties of "freedom" that the U.S. has wrought, to say nothing of the gracious haliburton contracts that will bring their

economy to its knee.

Please, Mr. Wy-not, get a clue. Learn about people in the Middle East and what they are really about, not through your white american, limited point of view. Unlike the clones in this country, many people in the middle east., with the exception of our Saudi Arabian/9-11 hijacker "allies" in the region, could give a shit about becoming rich capitalists. First of all, its counter to Islam, which people take more seriously there on a spiritual level than the pseudo-christians in this nation or the pseudo muslims in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait whose only notion of religion is plated in gold and material wealth for the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Fallwells.

Oh, yes, the Iranians are just so envious of the murder, torture, rape and other amenties of "freedom" that the U.S. has wrought,

---Obviously you're clueless about what life was like in Iraw pre-invasion and what life is life is stil like in Iran NOW. Especially for women.

Please, Mr. Wy-not, get a clue. Learn about people in the Middle East and what they are really about, not through your white american, limited point of view. Unlike the clones in this country, many people in the middle east., with the exception of our Saudi Arabian/9-11 hijacker "allies" in the region, could give a shit about becoming rich capitalists.

---I don't need to absorb every nuance of other cultures to know the obvious truths. No one wants to live in fear of their government, and presently, most Middle Easterners (and Chinese) do.

---There is not a people on earth that doesn't want to become more prosperous, be it by buying a few more chickens all the way to building a skyscraper.

---Another universal truth is that all people want to see their children do better than they did.

---Now there are some aspects of Islamic culture that definitley don't jibe with the West. They presumably don't like alcohol and loose women, etc. We've got similar types here, call ed Mormons, but the Mormons aren't slitting anyone's throats, are they?

---The numbers show the Muslims will take over by sheer population growth in 50 years or so. Muslims may believe their religion with more zeal than Xtianity, and it really is a shame, since Islam is a savage, undeveloped "kill the infidels" moon-worshipping cult while Xtianity has grown up over the centuries and still has love and forgiveness at its core.

---Bear in mind, that your idiot counterculture buddies on the left have taken great pains to destroy the history, faith and religion of the West.

---You are shaping the future so you and your children will end up bowing to mecca at gunpoint.

Any empire which threatens its neighbors invites hostility.

I like the eugenic theme about Islam and the 'problem' of their over population considering we as a consumer driven society ( now to the point of wasteful consumption in the form of military production ) have a much more huge footprint on this ecosphere.

And as to the fall of this nation, the riechwing maggots have pretty well eaten this society out. If we could shine the light on them and chase them out of the centers of their webs into the day, so all could see the crimes they have manufactured, we could put them in their intensive care for the criminally insane cells and the world would be a paradise. Don't get me started...