I have recently read in the news that an attack on Iran is planned sometime after the Olympics in Beijing. Here's a bit of background to it:
When Irans fledgling democracy was overthrown with support of CIA the Shah of Iran was giving Israel free oil thru a pipeline that still runs thru Saudi Arabia to a refinery in the Israeli city of Haifa. They have since stopped dealing with Israel denounced the Zionist regime and have funneled money from their huge oil profits to arm Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel on it's on soil.
Isreali army conducted massive military exercises last month in the Mediterranean with Nato member Greece. Russians warn not to attack Iran. They have sold the Iranians their S-300 air defense system. It's hard to imagine that US will make the same mistake as they did in the previous invasion of Irak and withdraw from the region without finishing up all their business there. An attack on Iran looks like a real possbility..
The China-US relationship is especially interesting. The People's Bank of China is the largest single foreign holder of American currency - close to 2 trillion by the end of this year. Recent of news of a delegation of senior Federal Reserve officials going over to China to talk about it is the indication that US administraion is concerned about it. Dumping dollars unto the open market by the Chinese of their dollar reserves could bring the dollar and the US economic model to its knees. In fact the real reason for the war in Irak and the threat of war with Iran is precisely that the position the greenback holds as the worlds reserve currency. It was threatened by Saddam Hussein when he switched trading Irak's oil from dollars to Euros. Prior to US and Israel's threat to attack Iran (nuclear threat from Iran is just the smoke screen) Iran has done exactly the same - switched from dollar to Euro in it's oil transactions. Here's a UK TV station's doc on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFU-_PqGVRs
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEpp9E6aJGw
The real reason for all wars has always been money and human greed.
Disareements in ideology can be overlooked as long as everyone is making money. US criticizies China over human rights while American businesses rush to China to save $$$ on labor. How many plants have been closed in your area in the recent 15-20 years and were moved offshore to China, Vietnam, Malaysia, India, Indonesia or Philippines. Even Mexico has felt this same drain in investment, they can't compete with the Chinese. When was the last time you bought anything labeled "made in USA" (Canada, UK, France, Australia etc.) that didn't have a cheaper Chinese import on the shelf next to it?
It's unlikely the Russians or the Chinese will come to Iran's defense if it is subjected to the same bombing of it's infrustructure that Serbia was subjected to by the NATO forces in the nineties. They might not have to at all. All they have to do is dump the their dollar reserves on the open market. In fact most American analysts already predicting the collapse of the dollar and the US economy in the near future. The US is the only country in the world that doesn't have a Central Bank with gold reserves. To put it plainly - the dollar is basically worthless peace of paper with ink on it.
Here's what one analyst says about the future of America and it's currency:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed4sv6ND5Qo&feature=related
Iran has a long-term oil supply agreement with China and is a good client for the Russia's military industrial complex. As I see it, the Russia-China military block is the new and last king of the North. Russians would gladly enter NATO if their own arms dealers were not in danger of losing their business to the Americans and the Europeans. Also the expansion of NATO next to it's borders and the planned US anti-missile radar in Poland and the Czech republic prompted the former Russian president Putin say that Russian nuclear-armed missiles will be pointed at Europe again.
Brrr, is it cold in here, or what?
Enough to see how the Russia-China tandem vote in the UN's Security Council on key issues as compared to the Anglo-American alliance and it's pretty clear - the Cold war is in full swing, it never stopped. It's a quiet economic war of technical standards,tariff barriers, protectionis measures etc.
Are you scared shitless yet? :)
P.S. It's been 33 years since 1975. We all know who lived that long.