STOCK MARKET FALLS AFTER THREATS BY ISRAEL AGAINST IRAN

Any guess on why the stock market suffered a broad decline today? There was a report early on this morning that Israel said that Iran was making great progress in developing a nuclear weapon and that would be "unacceptable." Hearing that the stock market tanked.

Here's the story as reported by Mark Drajem and Janine Zacharia for Bloomberg:

"Iran is driving toward a ``major breakthrough'' in its nuclear development effort that poses an ``unacceptable'' danger, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz told a Washington audience today.

"Iran with a nuclear weapon is ``an existential threat,'' Mofaz said at a forum on Iran at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ``We have to make sure we are prepared for every option. All the options are on the table.'' "

First of all, there is no credible evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons or wants to develop them. To the contrary, Iran's supreme ayatollah has denied more than once that Iran wants nuclear weapons. And why would it want to have them? Lobbing a nuclear bomb at Israel would cause a catastrophic world war and Iran would be devastated. Remember what Hillary Clinton said about her reaction to such an event. It was obscene, that Iran would be annihilated.

Second. Iran has the right, as does every other signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes. India, not a signatory, is being pressed by Bush and the United States, to accept highly sophisticated nuclear technology. But the Bush people are castigating Iran for doing what it is permitted under the NPT.

According to Faiz Shakir of Thinkprogress.org, Seymour Hersh recently described a meeting in Dick Cheney's office not long ago where participants discussed drawing Iran into a fight, by dressing Navy Seals as if Iranian sailors and have them stage a mock attack on a U.S. warship.

Writes Shakir:

"During the journalism conference event, I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected . . ."

The whole idea of luring Iran into a fight shows the desperation of the Bush people as well as the anti-Iranian war mongers in the Israeli government led by Ehud Olmert.

If the stock market fell today on mere reports of Israeli threats, what would it do if there were an actual attack either by the U.S. or Israel?

But the stock market is the least consequential of all possible effects. There would be enmity between Islam and the West for the next 500 years. The whole Middle East would remain in turmoil and conflagration. If you think that the level of "terrorism" is excessive today, it would be raised to the tenth power, maybe even to the hundredth. Bush's predilection for "endless war" would certainly become reality. And the whole world would suffer the consequences because of the war mongering of Cheney, Bush and Olmert.