> Quoth Marvin:
>
> "(Hoagland's) tactic of choice is to threaten "market access denial" to
> European banks and other international lenders which do business with
> Iran, and I'd be looking for those telltale signs if some patchwork
> settlement short of war and brokered by the West Europeans,"
>
> Ain't this a bit risky just as the latest pulse of globalisation begins to
> look fragile? Start a shit-storm within a pretty globalised finance
> fraternity, induce avenging protectionist tit-for-tattism, put the WTO in
> invidious position etc ... it all smells a bit like deploying soft power
> long -- and I mean long -- before you got it back - perhaps even
> recession-inducing ... Any thoughts?
>
=======================
Sure, I agree it's fraught with risk - like any confrontation. But an
attempt to take out Iran's nuclear facilities would pose even greater ones,
as has been widely reported. In general, I think the US economy weighs more
heavily on world politics than does US military power - whose limitations as
a mechanism for enforcing imperial control (except as a last resort) have
again been exposed in Iraq as previously in Vietnam - and, despite the fears
surrounding a USD collapse and resulting global financial crisis and
depression, the US continues to be the main source of investment capital and
the major export market for the rest of the world. Consequently, the US's
allies and even its rivals and enemies have to take its dominant economy
into account in developing their foreign policies, and I very much doubt the
Europeans would threaten to close off their markets to the US in response to
threats of US sanctions against those of their firms which supply Iran with
goods and capital. They'd throw Iran to the wolves long before that.
For myself, the question is really how important the Iranians regard their developing relations with the Europeans, Russians and Chinese and the possibility of restoring some semblance of a relationship with the US. I'm not as convinced as others that their legitimate desire to acquire nuclear weapons in self-defence will trump these interests in the end, and inevitably lead to war.