Americans May Pay at the Pump for McCain’s Crude Jokes

[Joanne98]

With all the headlines about Iranians testing medium range missiles, we've had two days of US reactions to how provocatively the Iranians are behaving. Only a few stories explained Iran might be reacting to what it perceives to be threats to attack Iran.

The Iranians recently saw the Israelis practice long-range air strikes. This week the US conducted naval exercises near the Straits of Hormuz, and Secretary Rice was telling Europe that we need to build a missile shield in Eastern Europe to protect them against Iranian missiles, and the US is pushing allies to impose tougher sanctions.

Of course, Iran's President is a blustering, provocative fellow whose statements can't be ignored, but he doesn't control the country. We have George "bring it on" Bush and Dick "dark side" Cheney who invaded and occupy Iraq probably to secure favored access to its oil. With Bush's hoped for successor, John McCain, singing "bomb, bomb, bomb, . . . bomb bomb Iran" and joking about killing Iranians with cancer, the US is not in the best position to claim it has a more mature, less belligerent leadership than the Iranians (Admiral Mullens and Secretary Gates notwithstanding).

The US has leaned hard on foreign companies to cease investing in Iran as a way to pressure the Iranians to stop their nuclear program. Yesterday, this pressure convinced Total, France's huge energy firm, to withdraw from plans to help Iran develop its huge natural gas fields.


Total’s withdrawal from the country, including a planned huge gas project in the South Pars gas field, makes it the last major Western oil company to give up on Iran amid pressure from Washington to stop doing business with Tehran.

So what will that mean for oil and gasoline prices, now at record levels, and the price of natural gas, also near record levels?

The Iranians claim they are developing nuclear technology not to acquire nuclear weapons but to supply nuclear electric power plants. They want to do that for the same reason France did decades ago; if they have lots of nuclear plants, they don't have to burn as much natural gas and oil to produce electricity.

Iran could then tap its vast oil/gas reserves -- larger than the US reserves Bush/McCain want to tap off our shores -- and sell these valuable fuels on world markets to support economic development at home. As a national energy strategy, it makes good sense (far more sense than US energy strategy), and it doesn't hurt the rest of the world.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/07/11/americans-may-pay-at-the-pump-for-mccains-jokes/

[Ganja Ninja]

1. Iranians are people not bugs!

The author is right on. These little "jokes" aren't helpful and wars cost lives as well as money. All this points up just how unfit McCain and pretty much every Republican is to lead this country.