RE: Another Iraq coming?
March 7, 2012 at 6:33 pm
(This post was last modified: March 7, 2012 at 6:44 pm by Anomalocaris.)
Any attack on Iran would be a large scale raid followed by a martime sea control operation in the gulf, rather than a land war. So a "war" with Iran would be totally unlike the war in Iraq. The direct cost of military operation against Iran would therefore be negligible compare to the cost of stationing hundreds of thousands of troops in war zone for 9 years.
The indirect cost would be much larger. Oil price would probably spike as Iran would hit out at the oil export capabilities of the other Gulf states, World economic recovery would sustain a significant hit. If the growth rate of just US economy were to reduce by 1% for 2012 as a result of oil price spike from the raid on Iran, that would be equivalent to an indirect war cost of $150 billion dollars. $150 billion substantially exceeds the estimated annual subsidy to health insurance under Obamacare which the GOP so deplore.
If the aggregate growthrate of the world were to decline by 1% this year as a result of oil prices, that would mean the indirect cost of raid on Iran would exceed half a trillion.
But this is a truth far too inconvenient to dwell upon.
As to oil wars, I think the probability of future oil wars in the middleeast is declining. The primary reason is the US is the only outside country with the military capability to actually wage such a war, and the advant of hydraulic frakking and lateral drilling will like increase the production capacity in North America to such an extend that American import from Middleeast would become discretionary and American production can be used to modulate price impact of middle east instability.
But this doesn't mean chances of war in middle east would decline.
Another state in the middleeast going nuclear is just a matter of time, even if Iran is prevented for the time being from doing so. To keep the middle east perpetually in a state where some country might seem like it wants to nuke Israel, while trying all the time to keep those countries from getting a nuclear weapon, is bound to fail some times. When it does, the real show will begin.
The indirect cost would be much larger. Oil price would probably spike as Iran would hit out at the oil export capabilities of the other Gulf states, World economic recovery would sustain a significant hit. If the growth rate of just US economy were to reduce by 1% for 2012 as a result of oil price spike from the raid on Iran, that would be equivalent to an indirect war cost of $150 billion dollars. $150 billion substantially exceeds the estimated annual subsidy to health insurance under Obamacare which the GOP so deplore.
If the aggregate growthrate of the world were to decline by 1% this year as a result of oil prices, that would mean the indirect cost of raid on Iran would exceed half a trillion.
But this is a truth far too inconvenient to dwell upon.
As to oil wars, I think the probability of future oil wars in the middleeast is declining. The primary reason is the US is the only outside country with the military capability to actually wage such a war, and the advant of hydraulic frakking and lateral drilling will like increase the production capacity in North America to such an extend that American import from Middleeast would become discretionary and American production can be used to modulate price impact of middle east instability.
But this doesn't mean chances of war in middle east would decline.
Another state in the middleeast going nuclear is just a matter of time, even if Iran is prevented for the time being from doing so. To keep the middle east perpetually in a state where some country might seem like it wants to nuke Israel, while trying all the time to keep those countries from getting a nuclear weapon, is bound to fail some times. When it does, the real show will begin.
