It's A Wonderful World

Boy oh boy, is good news just popping up all over. It's almost like the lyrics from the old song by Devo, "It's A Wonderful World".

Iran's wacky, wacky President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced to the world that his country had successfully enriched a small amount of low grade uranium, but still this was another unsettling milestone in what will likely be one of the most serious future crisises ever.

Some cooler heads within the Pentagon, likely leaked some more unsettling news to New York Times writer, Seymour Hersch, the other day about possible plans for the Bush Administration to authorize the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons known as Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator(RNEP) "bunker buster" bombs against Iran's nuclaer research program to head off the possibility of iran building nuclear bombs.

But the most dangerous of Iran's nuclear research sites at Natanz, is buried 75 underground. Even the U.S. military conventional weapon, Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28), a 5,000 pound "bunker buster" with a 4,400 pound warhead will only penetrate 20-25 of concrete. A 75 foot deep bunker is way beyond the reach of such powerful "bunker buster" bombs and leaves American military options with fewer and fewer good choices.

Iran didn't want their nuclear research sites targeted the same way as the successful 1981 Israeli air force strike on the Iraqi Osirak reactor. So Iran dug in their most important nuclear research sites such as Natanz, deep, very deep.

If all of this nuclear weapons talk doesn't raise a few hairs standing straight on your back, then oil, is quickly reflecting this heightened level of a possible big time terror. A huge economy like China, that by no means wants their economy slowed with any military action by the U.S. or Israel towards Iran, and China's huge growing economy is a prime source of oil commodities being bidded up to nearly $69 a barrel. By comparison at the height of the 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, oil only peaked at $25 a barrel. World commodity traders recognized the far lower threat from Saddam Hussein, compared to the far more serious threat with growing talk of nuclear war between the U.S and Iran. It is the job of commodity traders to be just a few weeks ahead of the news.

And it doesn't end there. Venezuela, with the proCastro President, Hugo Chavez, has sold 2 million barrels of oil to India this month, and is seeking ways to break oil shipments to the U.S. If not for the 3,000 Citgo gas stations under previous ownership in Venezuela, of which President Chavez has recently nationalized, this very antiAmerican South American leader would have cut out exports of oil to the U.S. long ago. And Chavez is spending this money on Russian arms rather than solving all of the staggering poverty problems in his nation. This South American nation is undergoing a massive military buildup to add submarines, jet fighters, navy ships, and other major arms that are few and far between in South America.

And uncertainty in Nigeria, adds more uncertainty to a stable world oil supply problems from Africa as well.

Large economies such as the U.S. and China absolutely do not want any oil supply disruptions. Such is the dangerous catalyst of war. Japan waged war on the U.S. at Pearl Harbor because FDR cut off scrap steel supplies that Japan was using to oppress the populations of Asian nations such as China in early WWII.

To borrow an old phrase inspired from the Bible, "The Hand Writing Is On The Wall". The world is likely standing right on the edge of a dangerous new episode and possible violence that will rate as some of the worst in human history. And I didn't even mention the growing sectarian violence that is spreading all through the Muslim world, touching not only Iraq, but today Pakistan, as Sunni Muslims were celebrating the birthday of Muhammed and killed by a suicide bomber.

Indeed, in the words of wisdom of Devo, "It's A Wonderful World".