Thursday, June 22, 2006

Baeriana: a chat with Robert Baer

* ken interviews bob baer:
"But Baer does not advocate military force against Iran. “We can't afford it,” he said. “It would require one million soldiers on the ground. It's a large country with a large army and there's an ongoing revolution. It would be like hitting a hornet's nest.” Air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities are hugely problematic because “Iran could retaliate in multiple ways, from sabotage in Iraq to targeting Persian Gulf oil facilities. If that happens, we could be seeing oil prices go to $300 a barrel.”
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Like other analysts, Baer says Iran has been by far the biggest winner of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which has also increased Teheran's standing in other parts of the Middle East, especially where there are large Shiite populations. Meanwhile, the Saudis and other Gulf states “lost their shield against Iran, which was Saddam Hussein.”
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“The Perles and the Rumsfelds didn't intend to benefit Iran,” said Baer. “But that's what happened.”"
I'm not at all familiar with baer's work - including not having seen syriana. it's kinda odd that he singles out Perle - and also kinda odd that he notes that their intention wasnt to benefit iran.

3 comments:

Don said...

“The Perles and the Rumsfelds didn't intend to benefit Iran,”

From Iraq to Afghanistan to H5N1 scare stories, these assholes don't to anything 'intending' to benefit anyone except themselves and their 'elite' buddies, regardless of cost to anyone else. $300/barrell oil would do wonderful things for their stock portfolios and Big Oil retirement packages...

Track said...

I read both of Baer's nonfiction books. Both were very good reads. Clooney's role in Syriana was based loosely on Baer. It's always interesting when someone like Baer or Richard Clarke writes a fiction book (Baer's is Blow the House Down)...ie...you wonder if they might reveal some more truth by way of fiction.

The "Iran was the winner" conclusion goes to back to Luke's interview with Alexandrovna...it does seem to be some sick form of chess but it's hard to believe that Iran "won" because Bush Co. are bad chess players. Did they truly play to win? Is their definition of winning the same as everyone elses? I don't even know whose side Bush Co. is on.

Here's an interesting transcript (link) of a recent interview with Baer on the Thom Hartmann show.

lukery said...

don - couldnt agree with you more - but still, that's kinda why it was an odd thing to point out...

leading into.... Noise: wilson/larisa *almost* seemed to indicate that the purpose was to suggest that the outcome wasnt a surprise - and was perhaps even a part of the plan. that's why i was fascinated with that interchange - (including long before the interview with larisa)

given that we've got chalabi who is apparently an iranian spy, and we've got ghorbanifar on the payroll, and we've got plame's network exposed and, and, and....