Common wisdom enunciates that without US support, active or passive, Israel cannot effect a raid that will cripple the Iranian nuclear facilities. It is incumbent upon the planners of the forthcoming raid to think of the day after,

The US will accept a nuclear Iran, though this means the demise of Israel. So goes conventional wisdom.

when the Straits of Hormuz will be shut down to maritime traffic, bringing the oil exports from the Persian Gulf to a halt. This will drive the price of oil up, up and away, crippling the US economy. Thus, for purely economic reasons, the US will accept a nuclear Iran, though this means the demise of Israel. So goes conventional wisdom.


Likely enough, this wisdom is indeed accepted by the Pentagon, the State Department, the oil companies and Barack Hussein Obama, according to whom Israel is an "open sore." However, long-term economic considerations militate for the closure of the Straits and, with it, the lock-down of the vast majority of Arab and Iranian oil production.


a) The major exporter of oil to the US is not Saudi Arabia, as some may think, but Canada. A lock-down on Gulf oil will hurt, but not cripple, the US economy.


b) The major loser due to oil inaccessibility will be China, the major US competitor and military headache in the Pacific.


c) The US has not even begun to tap its tremendous coal liquification capacities. A sharp rise in oil prices will force the US to make the effort to bridge the gap.


d) Nor has the US begun to tap its dinosaur-juice savings capacities. Following the 1973 oil embargo, the US decreased its consumption by 20% or more without crippling the economy.


e) The one factor that will end America's dependence on the Gulf is a sustained rise in oil prices. Disengagement from the Gulf oil and petrodollars is the only way to limit the power of the oil-and-arms lobby, which is generally dead-set against Israel.


f) The only event that will curtail emissions and greenhouse gases is an irreversible spike in oil prices. That is the only impetus that will drive the US industrial-academic giant to bring alternative energy sources on-line. This endeavor will replace the US in the leadership position of the Free World.


Israel faces a simple dilemma. Give up on self-defense and wait for atomic holocaust, or demolish Iran's nuclear facilities and weather the consequent conventional and chemical bombardment that will issue from Iran, as well as from Iran's proxies in Lebanon and Gaza. This bombardment will target the major population centers of the coastal region. Secular and religious, right-wing or rabid left-wingers - all will flee the devastated cities to the hills, Samaria and Judea, to face the lesser enemy, the Arab invaders. Thus, necessity will replace foresight, and the hills will be captured and settled, by the power of the Shihab.


Senator John McCain, now candidate for president of the United States, said something of extreme simplicity. There is only one thing worse than a war against Iran - a nuclear Iran.


Israel has the choice. Suffer or die. Scale the hills or die on the coast. The scriptures admonish us to choose life.