Iran, Syria, and the second coming of Christ

Thanks to the fickle nature of our news providers we can never be sure whether armageddon is just around the corner or not.

Just when you think the threat is real, that the Iranians are days away from that nuke that they will then drop on the chosen people, the whole thing is swept off the front page by the return of Sidney Crosby or the Eagles' playoff chances or Justin Bieber's latest haircut.

Which makes things difficult for would-be war-profiteers like me. I'm trying to get the timing right on those oil future options. When we whack Iran (and it is a matter of when, not if) my thinking is that oil will spike to two hundred dollars a barrel overnight. Pepe Escobar, probably the best informed writer pondering this stuff today, has mentioned three to four hundred. But you get the timing wrong, and you can kiss your money good-bye.

Get the timing right, however, and every nickel turns into a hundred dollar bill. That's why it's so important to get a good read on the extent to which the agenda is being driven by religious nutters who truly believe that we are living in the end times.

We don't know to what extent the turmoil in Syria is being instigated by Western mischief-making. To quote Donald Rumsfeld, a guy who should be sitting in a cell in the Netherlands by the way, this is an unknown unknown, at least to we the people. What we can surmise is that there are plenty of people in the corridors of power who see Syria as a lever with which to curtail Iran's influence in the region.

The question is, do these people think they are doing God's work? If it's all realpolitik and business as usual, maybe we'll be OK. If decisions are being made by people following a divine plan, we are on the cusp of a great darkness.

Haaretz informs me today that Iran has three new submarines capable of firing missiles. That's a bit disingenuous. Jacques Cousteau had the last submarine that wasn't capable of firing missiles. But when Haaretz, normally a voice of secular reason, resorts to fear-mongering, we have a clear indication that the end-of-days mentality is becoming contagious.

What's interesting about the story is that the Iranians build their own submarines. Israel buys hers from, of all places, Germany. Iran obviously has a very capable industrial infrastructure. We've been shaking our fists at them since 1979. If they are reasonably intelligent people they will have been using that industrial infrastructure to prepare themselves for the day when we stop shaking our fists and start bombing.

Which leads me to believe that the Straits of Hormuz will be shut quicker and longer than we think.

 Four hundred dollars a barrel might be low.