A few facts about Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan

The map above is in the public domain, click on it for a larger view.

The following is from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves

"Iran
Iran has the world's second largest reserves of conventional crude oil at 133 gigabarrels, according to the CIA World Factbook, although it should be noted that both Canada and Venezuela have larger reserves if Non-conventional oil is included. Iran is the second largest oil holder globally with approximately 10% of the world's oil.
Iran averages about 1.5 gigabarrels per year, which is a significant decline from the 6 gigabarrels per year it produced when the Shah of Iran was in power. The United States prohibits imports of oil from Iran, which limits its exposure to an Iranian oil cutoff, but does not reduce the likelihood that an interruption of Iranian oil would cause a spike in world oil prices. American pressure on Iran to renounce Iran's nuclear program makes the possibility of military confrontation quite high, and the political risks of Iranian oil far outweigh any geological ones.

Iraq
Iraq has the third largest reserves of conventional oil in the world at 112 gigabarrels. Despite its vast oil reserves and low costs, production has not recovered since the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. Constant looting, insurgent attacks, and sabotage in the oil fields has limited production to around 0.5 gigabarrels per year at best. Political risk is thus the main constraint on Iraqi oil production and likely to remain so in the near future." (end Wikipedia quote)

Iraq used to be the second largest oil reserve, but since the war it dropped one place. Saudi Arabia is number one, they're friendly. So is Canada which falls in at around fourth place. The top ten world oil reserves is a list worth watching, you might want to know where your sons and daughters will kill or be killed. My older daughter spent months in a Naval hospital in Kuwait patching up American soldiers. She got deployed right after finishing her A-school training. Watch out Venezuela, you may be next.

If anybody you know might have a long term goal of invading Iran, they'd probably want secure military bases on it's borders-- like in Afghanistan and Iraq (see map). Afghanistan is also a really great place to build a pipeline, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline

There's a top ten worst dictators list, but we haven't been real hot to invade those countries. No "prize". North Korea is number one or two, with Kim Jong Il. They don't have oil, but back when their major export was conventional weapons to middle eastern countries (Iraq was one of them) we started seeing news bulletins about a Korean missile that might reach California. Funny how that "threat" just dried up and blew away. The day that I saw the news report on TV, I researched it and discovered that the story was well over a year old and not very credible. Breaking news or propaganda?

On the lighter side you might want to check out the video at:
http://www.glumbert.com/media/irack

I got set off a bit reading our president's remarks about Congress tightening up the purse strings on the war, basically they are trying to get a commitment to end it in the foreseeable future. Sounds like a good idea to me.