Michael Pascoe writes:

Oil finished back under US$76 a barrel this
morning
as Wall Street punts on a diplomatic
solution to Israel v Lebanon. After the flurry of “international tension” trading, the reality
is sinking in that Israel would have to strike a lot further away and harder to disrupt oil
supplies.

But if you want to scare yourself, check
what Israeli commentator Hirsh Goodman was telling PM last night. Hirsh’s title is senior research associate at Tel Aviv University’s
Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies. By
the sound of his argument, that’s “strategic” as in weapons.

The Goodman view is that the current
conflict is all part of “a war of Islam against the West” and Israel
can take its attacks much further:

HIRSH GOODMAN: I think Syria is definitely a
probable target for this because they are the conduit of weapons to Hezbollah,
and Hezbollah is the direct agent of Iran. And
I do not think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that Iran could be the next
target……we’ve got to understand that if Iran was
a nuclear power right now, the whole world game would be very, very different.
So maybe it’s better to nip the problem in the bud…… You have no leverage with Iran. The
people are great. They have a totally fanatical, ideological government that is
living in the middle ages, and I think the only way to deal with them is to
whack them on the head.

MARK COLVIN: But you can’t whack a country that large and that powerful on the
head.

HIRSH GOODMAN: There are strategic targets, like their oil, like their oil
supply which keeps them alive, which can be hit with no human cost at all and
which would hurt them greatly. That is a government that has to be removed.
They are fanatics. They are as bad as the Nazis were.

MARK COLVIN: So where would Israel be if the war actually did now spread into Syria and into Iran?

HIRSH GOODMAN: Israel is in a very good position. Israel is
able to defend itself. Israel has powerful allies, both the United States and in Europe. Israel is
a totally democratic country that’s in the camp of the West, and I think it’s
in a very good situation to protect itself.

If Goodman’s thinking is indicative of an
Israeli mindset, strategically speaking, there could be a lot of appeal in
trying to involve the US in “whacking” Iran now,
when both countries are run by radical leaders
of dubious intelligence. Yep, scary. And then oil at $76 would look cheap.