Who Benefits from a US-Iran War?

Writes Professor Michael Rozeff at the lew Rockwell Blog

Which state, the U.S. or Iran, more likely wants a war with the other? It's the side that thinks it benefits from such a war. That side is the U.S. If this war begins, it will be entirely because the U.S. wants it and has decided that the time is right to instigate it or elicit actions from Iran that provide excuses for instigating it. Any U.S.-Iran war will be entirely the doing of the U.S.

Here's how we know this. Iran has nothing to gain because it will lose such a war, its power being so much less than the U.S. This is why Iran has tolerated, so far and to a remarkable degree, the intrusions of U.S. subversions and covert activities in Iran, the assassinations of scientists, the computer disruptions, the embargos, the sanctions, the U.S. warships, the U.S. threats, and the U.S. troops being placed nearby. By contrast, the U.S., in the view of the neoconservatives who are running foreign policy, stands to gain quite a lot, namely, undisputed hegemony over the Middle East, control of a country perched on central Asia, control of oil, support for Israel, and a rise in global dominance more generally. Therefore, when and if such a war starts, no matter by what incidents it is triggered, we can be 100% certain that the U.S. has caused and precipitated this war because it, not Iran, is the state that foresees the benefits of such a war.

There are costs, however, and these are restraining the U.S. from instigating this war at this time. These include war costs of several kinds, since Iran is not a pushover. Iran, if pushed into a war by the U.S., can respond in nearby regions, such as Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Saudia Arabia, and the Persian Gulf. It can conceivably draw Russia into the war, or perhaps Pakistan. The U.S. will win a war with Iran, but it does not expect an easy win. If it did, it would already have started the war. The war on Libya was a recent warm-up exercise that shows what air power can do in this day and age, but Iran's forces are more formidable.

Like the Iraq war, developments won’t turn out as planned (e.g. Iraq war was thought to be short) and there could be unintended consequences such as more terror activities.

And so when might war break out between the U.S. and Iran? It depends on this balance of costs that the U.S. bears and that depends on actions by Iran. But this is all assuming rationality in the war-making process. It is possible at any time that a leader in Washington or in Israel will cast aside rational calculation and decide that now is the time or the time has come, or make a decision based on some trivial detail or happenstance or incident whose significance he or she mis-estimates. Similarly, it is possible that Iran's leadership will miscalculate or perceive themselves as being backed into a corner where war is the only way out.

The U.S. keeps raising the ante, and that dashes hopes for an eventual peaceful resolution. There is no way that Iran can appease the U.S. If it gives in on one thing, the U.S. will simply demand more and then more and more. The U.S. behavior toward Gaddafi shows what happens when a weak state attempts to cooperate with the U.S. Iran will not do likewise. Its leaders are on record as recognizing U.S. behavior going back for decades. They will not back down. The only hope for a continued standoff is, ironically, that Iran make itself strong enough to deter the U.S. and Israel.

I may add that a war with Iran benefits the US politicians by diverting people’s attention from the problems spawned by present interventionist policies, by rallying people to patriotism in order to get elected, justify the imposition of domestic fascist policies by expanding control over economy, rationalize higher taxation and protectionism, and most importantly, justify inflationary policies for the benefit of both the welfare-warfare state and their cronies.

The seeds to the war on Iran have already been sown. The economic sanctions imposed by Europe, possibly as part of the bailout package with the US, have provoked retaliatory economic policy response from Iran. And upping the ante may just be a trigger away (Middle East version of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident) from unleashing of a full scale war.