Why a war on Iran profits everyone Part 3

An attack on Iran will send the stock markets on a joyful ride!

Many are those who fear a financial frenzy if an attack has to occur against Iran, and without doubt the physical destruction which Iran would endure is nothing faced by the economic cataclysm a war would engender, mainly due to the speculations surrounding oil supply through the Hormuz Strait. Well, a quick glimpse at the 1929 economic crisis can give us a simple lesson in the politics of economy: the best way to go about standing out from a recession is to go for critical conditions and social alert suitable for the justification of austerity measures and fruitful for the emergence of the dirty business of war profiteering.

A war on Iran will include the deployment of tremendous amounts of weapons, ammunitions and war vehicles necessary to match the might and endurance of the endless stocks of missiles the Ayatollahs hold. It goes without saying that such intensive usage of military arsenal will lead to an increase in demand and thus revival of war supplies. Who manufactures weapons and manages the networks of supply chains: The same industries who are suffering a downfall in their host country’s economic performance. One should not underestimate the assets such market holds, and multi-billions contracts are a common trend in the military-industrial complex in times of war and post-destruction.

The mighty 1.5 trillion $ weapon and arms market, pioneered by some corporations such as Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems, can indeed pull a whole state economy out of recession with a couple of successful contracts. Reconstruction projects follow the same path as privileged reconstruction tycoons always end up sealing multi-billion contracts with countries affected by war, and in a Iranian military conflict, several are those who’ll end up receiving a couple of Shehab missiles in their backyard.

Finally, what matters most is not only the dirty business of war, but the state of fear a military conflict engenders. Politicians are usually clever in exploiting these critical conditions, finding as they always do an opportunity in every issue, an opportunity both marketable and prosperous for immoral practice. A war on Iran would lay the foundations for a world state of fear which will give ample excuses for world economies to impose austerity measures and other mechanisms violating civic rights for the sake of pumping life back into state industries and financial establishment. Now imagine how easy it would be to increase gas prices in your neighboring station with the justification of a shortage in oil supplies due to the Iranian conflict. Would the public opinion protest in difficult times where the citizen ought to be obedient and patriotic? The only piece of the puzzle state officials won’t provide you with is the nature of the benefactors of the war expenditures. 

While the state could propagate for the official story of justified increase in gasoline and the implementation of austerity measures due to war costs, the identity of those who paid the bill would remain a matter of national security.

As in the case of the Iraqi war, a similar story can be unearthed. Those who bear the expenditures of the gulf war are not the valorous navy seals who run for the rescue of an Arab state, nor the US treasury and the Federal reserve, all expenses have been generously covered by the wealthy sheikhs of Arabia who didn’t mind over pumping oil for the sake of stabilizing oil prices and paying adequately the US efforts to push Saddam back. Moreover, the generous hospitality of the sheiks goes as far as providing money for the rescuers beyond what the war has cost.  Everyone is happy, the oil reserves are secured, the bills have been paid and the corporations are making the necessary contracts arrangement: a business where everyone finds his joy.

Now that the Sunni population of the gulf is endangered by a far more terrible Shia threat than the squads of Baghdad, imagine how much petro-dollars the emirs and kings of the Arab peninsula are ready to dig into their pockets in order to end up once and for all with the intimidating ayatollahs stronghold influence in the Arab and Muslim world, and with the remaining territorial disputes which involve Iran and its Emirati neighbor.

Moral

Not that a war on Iran needs much of a justification as the US media and Co already vilified the nation as the 21^st century Nazi Germany , yet looking at a more objective outlook of the benefits of striking Teheran, it becomes certain that the benefit of the world, besides the counter-proliferation and international security aspects it would enjoy, is confronted with the inevitable choice of making the move, a move dictated by the financial establishment, as well as by the prerogatives of the geopolitical Realpolitik. 

Mohamed Amine Belarbi