July 27, 2008 journal, Israel and America better think twice before attacking Iran for sure. I quote from the article by Stephen Yates Ph.D. in The Times Examiner newspaper of this week warning not to attack Iran and what will happen if we or Israel were to attack Iran. Gasoline would go to $10 per gallon overnight because Saudi Arabia oil would be cut off. There would be chaos in this country, insurrection, marshal law with a civil war & death. Obama spoke to over 200,000 people at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin Germany and he was well received while copycat John McCain visited a German restaurant in Columbus Ohio criticizing Obama for making an international speech even though he himself travel to Canada and London making his rounds politically. I have predicted that McCain would not make it until the convention, now a national press is questioning if McCain will make it to the election. McCain is B*us*hed and losing credibility everyday even Republicans. 40 % of America's corn crop goes to make ethanol fuel supplying only 4% of America's needs and consumption of fuel. No telling how many subsidies the U.S. government pays the farmer. Ethanol has been one big disaster and is certainly not the answer to high oil. "We are entering the final months of the disastrous B**h II regime-and therefore entering a dangerous period. Our Decider & Commander in Chief of 2 foreign wars so far, or his handlers, might decide that John McCain electability may be greatly enhanced by an attack upon Iran. The rationalization will be to put a stop to Iran's nuclear ambitions and newly released initial missile capabilities. Neocons have been salivating at the mouth for over 2 years at the prospect of coerced regime change in Iran. They would have liked to see an Iran brought back under the Western control their ilk enjoyed during the Shah's reign. My supposition is, they have been thinking twice, because of all the dangerous ramifications. Otherwise, we might have seen an attack by now. They had better go on thinking twice. Iran is not Iraq. It is much larger, much more traditional, and did not sustain the periodic barrages of U.S. air strikes that had rendered Saddam Hussein regime helpless against the assault of March 2003. Iran has a functioning military. The Iranians are capable defending themselves and retaliating against aggressors in the worst possible way-economic. More-over, Iran now has a powerful ally: Russia. Russia may have overthrown Bolshevism but don't mean they are now our bosom buddies. And what ever uncertainties surround Iran's nuclear capacities and motivations, no one doubts that Russia has nukes. Iran and Russia have begun cooperating especially on energy. The 2 nations just signed a memorandum of understanding of corporation in the oil and gas sphere "Interaction between Iran & Russia in all spheres and especially in the energy sphere is very wide. "We expect we will further broaden this corporation in the near future", said Hossein Noghrehkar, Iran's Ministry of Petroleum. Iran ranks fourth in terms of known crude oil reserves, after Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait. Iran's known natural-gas reserves totaling more than 28 trillion cubit meters. An attack on Iran by either Israel or the U.S. (or both) would be viewed as an immediate threat to Russia's vital interest in a world where energy costs are going up. This month B*us*h told the Israeli government that he now may be prepared to green light an Israeli military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Iran over their program breakdown. According to a Pentagon official. B*us*h has already given the Israelis an amber light. "Amber means, get on with your preparations, stand by for an immediate attack and tell us when you're ready". The Israelis have been told that the American forces will not join them, and that they will not be allowed to use U.S. military bases in Iraq. The bottom line: There is no hard evidence that Iran has hostile intentions toward the west-yet. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once threatened Israel but not the USA. Of course, if the Israelis should act unilaterally, virtually everyone will assume that they acted with U.S. approval. The leading Neo-Conns of course are all J-e-ws after all, and part of Washington DC's most powerful lobby. The 2 nations are joined at the hip, like it or not. Scenario planning, developing what if strategies. is something Pentagon officials do on a regular basis. Think-tank denizens and bloggers have been doing the same. There were plenty of warning that an invasion of Iraq would be a bad idea, but the B*us*h people did not listen. Pentagon officials are again conducting war training exercises. Both they and others are looking at strategies & plausible consequences of an attack on Iran. If the Iraq war was merely a bad idea, assaulting Iran is a much worse idea. The effects are not just militarily but on the U.S. economy would be immediate and disastrous; in fact, once we look at the alliance that exist in the region coupled with our own energy dependences and vulnerabilities, it is hard to imagine even neocons doing something this stupid but time will tell. An assault on Iran would almost certainly be from the air. Iraq war veteran, former U.S. Army counterintelligence special agent, and author David Debatto recently wrote for our Global Research; "If we invade Iran this year it will be done using hundreds of sorties by carrier based aircraft already stationed in the Persian Gulf and from land-based aircraft located in Iraq and Qatar. They will strike the known nuclear facilities located in / around Tehran and the rest of the country as well as bases contained majority unit of the Iranian military,( but much of it is under ground) anti-aircraft installations in Revolutionary Guard a separate and potent Iranian paramilitary organization. "This will probably not wipe out Iran's entire nuclear capacity as there is credible evidence that some of their most sensitive facilities are underground-as are ours. While the Iranians would suffer massive casualties from air strikes, they would not be put out of commission as was Iraq. "Not even close", says DeBatto. And then there is Iran's ability to retaliate. The battle continues, "If the United States attacks Iran either this summer or this fall, the American people had better be prepared for a shock that may perhaps be even greater to the nation's psyche (and economy ) than 9*1*1". That is probably putting it mildly. Iran as we have noted, has a functioning military Army, Navy, Air Force with missile-launch capabilities. American casualties would quickly mount, as the Iranians targeted our ships and possibly even our aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. That would just be the beginning. There would be little to prevent Iran from torpedoing oil tankers then mining the Strait of Hormuz, sealing off the Persian Gulf from the rest of the world. Minesweepers, which would also be targets, would not be able to clear the area in time to prevent a massive disruption in the flow of oil to the West. The price of oil, fed by frantic speculation and the interruption in supply, would jump to between 200 and 300 dollars a barrel, writes DeBatto. Gas prices would go into the atmosphere. Imagine a sudden national average not of $4 a gallon but of 8 to $10 a gallon perhaps even higher. Were this to happen, the U.S. economy would collapse in a matter of weeks if not days. Once those complacent American suburbanites would no longer be able to afford their long commutes to work. Some would demand an immediate cost of living increases to compensate for gas prices. Employers, being in the same boat as their employees, couldn't comply if they wanted to. With all employers own expenses suddenly off the meter, we would see the most massive wave of layoffs in U.S.A. history. Truck drivers would park their rigs. They would then collapse a crucial component of our economic infrastructure-being its transportation system". Continued in tomorrows journal.