If militants started assassinating usurious bankers, do you really think they'd let up? What happened to "Millions for defense, not a penny for tribute!"? Wouldn't they just hire bodyguards, travel in armored vehicles, fortify their premises etc?

What do you think about neocon threats re Syria and Iran, and which do you think is a more likely target? Syria would be an easy conquest, but a war against Syria would be too obviously a Zionist war. An Iran war could be sold on the basis of "Avenge 1979" [the Iran Hostage Crisis], but would involve an
enemy far more formidable than Iraq.

Yes, the rich always try to protect themselves with bodyguards, but bodyguards sometimes turn — as Indira Gandhi found out. In a rich country, very few people are willing to die to defend people they despise, especially when the retribution those despicable people risk is a natural and foreseeable consequence of their own abusive acts. Bodyguards are effective, if at all, only against individuals. They don't stand a chance against organized military or paramilitary action, as a great many Iraqis have found to their dismay (if they survived to experience dismay).
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As for a war against Iran, Dubya's puppetmasters have reversed themselves of late, perhaps because the Pentagon told them that there is no way to destroy Iran's deeply buried installations except a ground invasion and that would be hugely dangerous, since Iran is much larger, much stronger, much richer, much more unified, much more fanatical, and somewhat more likely to be defended by allies than Iraq. For instance, Russia might be extremely chary of U.S. occupation of a country that abuts both the former Caucasus republics of the USSR and former Soviet Central Asia. Russia would start to feel itself encircled again, with NATO to its West and occupied Iran to its south, sites for U.S. military bases. Especially would Russia be concerned if it felt that the neocons who dominate the present Administration still hate Russia, and their recent noises about Russian "democracy" are setting up U.S. public opinion for a concerted and sustained U.S. effort to destabilize Russia and even break it up more, as by breaking out Chechnya and other 'republics'.
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Nor would Russia, a major oil exporter, want the U.S. to control the oil resources of both Iraq and Iran. Moreover, either Syria or especially Iran might prove one "domino" too much not just for Russia but also for the entire Moslem world, not just the Arab world. The Arab world in particular would see themselves as next in line for devastation and occupation. Arabs have been astonishingly feckless in dealing with Zionist-motivated U.S. militarism, in part from the feeling that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". But when they see the U.S. taking over the entire region, they will all have to hang together or surrender to Zionism. Sadness and anger in places like France's suburban ghettos could turn to frantic violence, or at least dangerous internal political disruption, impelling France and other European countries with significant Moslem minorities to denounce U.S. actions.
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I hope the Arab world doesn't simply roll over and play dead, but the Arabs are so internally split, backward, and weak that they may indeed surrender and 'make peace' with Israel to save themselves from massive destruction of their infrastructure, vast death, and military occupation by 'crusaders' and Jews (the U.S. has been astoundingly insensitive in assigning Jewish reporters and soldiers to Mideast duty). This is a very unhappy time.
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Not just the Pentagon but also Europe is pushing the U.S. to accept nonmilitary means of taming Iran's nuclear ambitions. Since the neocons want European aid in pulling their fat out of the Iraqi fire, being afraid that another several years of piddling losses of life of "our boys" will eventually become untenable politically at home, they are willing to go along to get along, especially inasmuch as the Pentagon has presumably warned them that a war against Iran would be multiply as difficult and costly as the conquest of Iraq, as might force the Republicans to raise taxes even on the rich at home, which would severely weaken their domestic position.
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In short, I have no doubt that the neocons and their Israeli overlord would LOVE to invade both Syria and Iran, or at least nuke the latter after invading the former, to defend their beloved Israel, but they may feel that it is 'a bridge too far', and that to pursue that extreme goal could produce a massive and unpredictable domestic revolt, the collapse of our alliance system, the rise of new Russian resistance, Chinese intransigence, an Arab oil embargo of the United States alone, etc., etc., as would make Israel more endangered, not less.

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:35 PM