With all the excitement in the news—whatever story floats your particular navy—one little item seems to be overlooked by most American news stories and frankly, it ought to be way more covered than Miley Cyrus cutting her hair short.

And remember that the guy emptying wastebaskets at some Qom nuclear facility, who just wants to finish up and go home to his family, isn’t going to care how this affects the Obama election.

You may not be aware of it, but an Israeli attack on Iran is imminent. Now to be fair, we do not mean by the time you read this, but within months. Certainly, our sometimes reliable sources tell us, before our elections in November.

Regardless of your political leaning, this is bad news. There will be a loss of lives, make no mistake. And, in all probability, they will likely be Iranian lives, although Iran is just tough enough to make life hell for Israelis. Understand that a good portion of the Iranian victims will probably have nothing to do with the insane regime that defiles the great Persian tradition; they’ll be ordinary folks forced by madmen to work in strange conditions, unaware that an Israeli bombardment is due to come there way.

Whether President Obama should have done something or should have tried something else is already irrelevant; the blame for all these future deaths rests solely on the evil men who rule Iran. Let us be clear about that.

The effects will be felt far and wide. The entire region could become intensely unstable; although Americans buy very little oil from Iran, other countries do—and due to the ripple effect of so many interrelated markets, the price of oil will necessarily shoot up for everybody. Gasoline prices will jump up considerably. And when gas prices go up, food prices do, too. Likewise, most items that are shipped by truck, train, or boat will see their transportation costs go up, meaning that all prices feel the effect.

Needless to say, a spike in gas and food prices right before the election will be a bad blow to the Obama campaign—and for no other reason, you can understand why his State Department has been working feverishly to delay such a strike. Probably, the Obama administration feels that an Israeli attack on Iran is inevitable, but if could just wait until after the election, well…it would definitely help him in the polls, whereas a horrific global price destablilization would cost him dearly against the Republicans.

Conservatives can roll their eyes at this, but let us be honest—a President McCain, whether he would have let Iran get this far or not, would also want to delay a war right before an election; hell, any President would, of any party. First and foremost because of the awfulness of war, but because any kind of economic haymaker like an Iran-Israel war weeks before a critical election would be crippling at the polls, especially when the campaign is already teetering.

Liberals can roll their eyes at this, too, but let us continue to be honest—President Obama had a perfect opportunity to prevent this war and change history with the Green Revolution. We forget, in the wake of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and now Syria that the so-called Arab Spring started with Persians, not Arabs, long before Spring in the Summer of 2009. The President, as he pretended to do with later events, elected to do nothing. This was his choice; but Iran was one he could have clinched, and he isn’t going to get another shot at it. He could have changed history, but decided to stay out of it.

He knows it, too: his secret involvement in Egypt and Syria as well as his overt involvement in Libya seems to be some attempt to make it up; but Iran was the brass ring. Had it gone to the pro-American and pro-British protest forces as it seemed about to, Iran would be a markedly different country by now. And the Arab Spring would have been triggered shortly thereafter, and undoubtedly influenced less by groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

No matter; it didn’t happen. So we are left with a catastrophically runaway Iran—in many ways much worse than the 1979 version Americans came to loathe—and an Israel surrounded by a burning Syria, a maniacal Lebanon, an increasingly violent Egypt, and an eschatologically genocidal Iran.

Things will be bad, if Israel strikes. The Obama administration, for obvious reasons, is asking it not to strike yet. But when Israel asks why not, we don’t have an answer. We used those up a long time ago. So brace yourselves. Israel is.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.