Dick Cheney: The Most Dangerous Man in the World
by Cenk Uygur

Seymour Hersh is reporting in The New Yorker that Dick Cheney is in the middle of advocating a military strike on Iran. This could start a war with no foreseeable end. The US versus the whole Muslim world. Is there anything more dangerous in the world? Osama bin Laden would love to start a war like this, but he doesn't have the capacity.

Cheney does.

As Hersh and others point out, this is not a done deal. There are other forces inside the White House who are battling the Vice President over the tiny battleground that is George Bush's mind. But the fact that Cheney is waging this fight and would attack Iran if he had his way clearly makes him the most dangerous man on earth.

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the leader of Iran has no intention of attacking the United States. It would be suicide and he has showing nothing to indicate that he would take this step. But we are considering attacking him. If you thought the Iraq War went poorly, wait till you get a load of how badly the Iran War will go.

Dick Cheney is not only a danger to the world, but he is also a tremendous danger to his own party. If we attack Iran without any provocation (or more likely with a flimsy, contrived provocation), we will set the world on fire. Not only will there be disastrous consequences for our troops in Iraq, for our citizens across the world, for the state of our military and our defenses at home, but there will also be enormous economic and political consequences.

Oil prices will go through the roof. If you think oil is expensive now, try to imagine how much it would cost when Iran has trouble producing oil, stops the flow of oil out of Iraq and mines the Strait of Hormuz. Now what do you think that would do to the global economy?

With oil prices skyrocketing, the global and American economies teetering on the edge and yet another unwinnable war in the Middle East and the whole Muslim world inflamed against us, what do you think American voters would conclude about the party in charge? Do you think they would look favorably upon the Republican Party that started this whole mess?

I think there is a chance that the Republican Party would never recover. That is not a hyperbole. The damage from starting a war with Iran would be so grave that it would set back the Republican Party for the foreseeable future.

Who in their right mind would elect another Republican after the Bush administration started two unwarranted, cataclysmic, wars of choice in the Middle East? They might get the can't-wait-for-Armageddon vote, but that's about it. Voters are already seething at the Republican Party and they haven't even begun to destroy the economy yet (though some might argue that they have already begun, but not on the level I'm talking about here).

Imagine how angry they would be if on top of everything, the Republican Party sunk the economy and brought the price of gas to over $5 a gallon? If you thought 2006 was electoral tidal wave, wait till you get a load of 2008 if the Republicans attack Iran.

Dick Cheney is a danger to himself and all around him. He is a cancer on the White House. Whether he succeeds or not in starting the horrific wars he champions, it is a startling fact that he is even trying. The fact that he has any chance at all to succeed and is the second most powerful man in the country easily makes him the most dangerous man in the world.