If War Breaks Out with Iran, It Won’t Be an Accident

• America is now the #1 oil producing nation. Cui Bono from war in the Middle East?
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  Another Record for U.S. Crude Oil Production: 12 Million Barrels Per Day in April! , 1 July 2019
  Two recent reports confirmed the preeminence of the United States in its production of crude oil and its related derivative, natural gas. Earlier this month British Petroleum (BP) released its “Statistical Review of World Energy” for 2019 in which it reported that the United States extended its lead as the world’s top oil producer to a record 15.3 million bpd (barrels per day): 11 million bpd of crude and 4.3 million bpd of natural gas liquids (NGL) in April.
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  BP added that the United States led all global oil producers by increasing its production by more than two million bpd in 2018, 98 percent of the total new global production.
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  Friday’s report from the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) overshadowed that from BP, noting that in April the United States produced 12 million bpd, with estimates that that number will approach 20 million bpd in five years or less.
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• If War Breaks Out with Iran, It Won’t Be an Accident
  by Phyllis Bennis, https://www.commondreams.org/
  A range of U.S. policies have been deliberately designed to provoke an Iranian response.
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  Some things are still unclear about Trump’s recent decision to bomb Iran — and his rapid-fire follow-up decision not to. We still don’t know what he or his bomb-Iran cheerleaders — National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — thought the bombing would actually accomplish. We also don’t know why Trump decided to recall the bombers. (Trump claimed it’s because a general told him 150 people would die in the attack. But given Trump’s indifference to civilian casualties in Yemen and elsewhere, I’m willing to bet the store that had little to do with it.)
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  But some things are pretty clear. One is that while Trump pulled back on starting a shooting war, the administration is directly attacking millions of Iranians already. Three sets of new sanctions, imposed in recent months, are crippling much of Iran’s economy. They’re killing Iranians, as the health care system strains to survive shortages of medicine and medical equipment. “Sanctions [are] the first problem in our country and in our system. We can’t transfer the money and make the preparations for surgery. It’s a big problem for us,” says Dr. Mohammad Hassan Bani Asad, managing director of the Gandhi Hotel Hospital in Tehran. “We have the procedures, but we don’t have the instruments. It is very difficult for patients and maybe leads to death of some patients.”
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  A set of sanctions fourth was added just last week, ostensibly aimed at Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khameini. Those are likely to have less immediate impact on the public than the earlier ones, but the political impact is huge, with Iran subsequently threatening to cut off diplomatic channels altogether.
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  Sanctions are simply war by other means. Under the terms of the United Nations Charter, in fact, the unilateral imposition of economic sanctions may constitute an internationally prohibited act of aggression. Meanwhile the risk of armed conflict still remains on the table.
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  In recent weeks, Trump sent a U.S. aircraft carrier group with 7,500 or so troops, a squadron of nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, plus another 2,500 U.S. troops to the already over-armed and over-occupied Middle East.
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  Meanwhile Trump administration officials blame Iran for the mine attacks on U.S.-allied oil tankers in the waters surrounding Iran — a possible pretext for an attack. These are serious escalations. Even more serious were the cyber-attacksthe U.S. launched against Iran shortly afterward.
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  These are all actions designed to provoke Iranian responses, deliberately edging us closer to a direct military exchange that could easily lead to a full-fledged regional war. Such a confrontation doesn’t have to start with a direct U.S. military strike on Iran, although Bolton and Pompeo have certainly been pushing for that.
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  read more.

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