Nov. 1, 2008 -- A beaten-down dollar means that spending in one place will mean less money somewhere else. Up until now, Americans have been able to spend in one area, and borrow to finance another one. If [presumed] president Obama doesn't end the war, monies that are needed at home will not materialize.

From www.atimes.com
Excerpt: ...We will hear stories about how the everyday American can't afford basic health care while we are still fighting in Iraq.

The popularity Obama has enjoyed as a candidate will soon turn to hostility if the average American family had to suffer because he didn't keep his promise to end the war. His decision will be due to economic reality -- but it will have very dangerous political, military, and national security implications. Most of all, George W Bush's entire legacy will be wiped away.

Don't you think the Bush administration is pondering this possibility?

A president is definitely most powerful when he is a lame duck who is ceding power to an opposing party. If you are the outgoing president, or a member of the outgoing administration, you are thinking one thing: if Obama wins, November and December would be ideal time to attack Iran.

Consider this:

• Bush is a lame duck. He won't be around to have to deal with any fallout from such a move.
• Obama will never attack Iran. Four years from now, we will not be able to stop Iran from completing work on their bomb. Bush has always had a big sense of destiny in his leadership. If he believes that he is the only one who can save the world, he may decide to do it.
• Obama can fix the damage. The Arab world loves Obama. They view him as a fellow Muslim. After Bush protects the nations of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Dubai, Qatar and half of Europe from nuclear disaster, and these nations openly proclaim their hatred for him, Obama can come to power and spend his first 100 days in office "apologizing" for Bush's "mistakes". The US will literally get a "free pass" for this in the eyes of the world.
• When oil was at $147 a barrel, there was no way the Bush administration was going to risk spiking it to $250 -- especially with a presidential election coming up. Come November, oil will be trading at $70 per barrel. A strike on Iran may raise the price temporarily to its 52-week high of $150 per barrel. The election will be over and politically, the Bush administration will have nothing to lose.
• An attack on Iran will force the American military to stay in Iraq for a longer period of time. The immediate Iranian response to an American attack will be to escalate the war. They will "green light" Shi'ite groups in Southern Iraq to go back to war with American forces. They will finance and encourage terrorist groups around the world to hit America wherever and whenever. They will broaden the war in the region by inciting Syria, Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon to attack Israel -- assuming they don't fire on Israel themselves. America will have to stay at least an extra 2-3 years until things "quiet down" again. This new situation will also insure that the national security infrastructure created after September 11, and nurtured throughout the Bush administration, will not lose any of its powers during the new administration.
• Members of the Bush administration, who left their jobs in the private sector, will soon be returning to the private sector. They all came from the oil industry and they want to make sure that they will be taken care of. Those 433,000 stock options in Halliburton outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney put in a trust before he assumed office -- he gets them back January 20. It would be in his best interests if the shares of these companies were trading higher. That goes for the rest of the Bush administration -- they will all want to make sure that the heads of the oil industry -- their next employers -- are happy. Obama has promised to tax the oil industry next year. An attack on Iran will drive oil prices up so that the additional revenue generated by these companies will, at a least, make up for any new tax obligations.
• The aftershocks of the US attack will keep oil prices in triple digits and reinitiate the debate about drilling for offshore oil. A higher price will give big oil new political clout in developing oil fields in areas considered environmentally unsound. A heightened global tension means that the next administration will be forced to maintain current government outlays to the defense industry.

The final three points will force Obama to continue the core policies of the Bush administration whether he likes it or not. If you are viewing the world from the point of view of the Bush administration, you see a lot of very big arguments for attacking Iran now.

From this we can come to a very simple conclusion: America will either attack Iran in the next two and a half months, or it never will.

* * * * *

David Fink is the editor-in-chief of the daily investment newsletter www.realwealthrecon.com. He wrote the above (excerpted from a longer article) for The Asia Times' column Speaking Freely.

This article is distributed within Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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