Likelihood of Iran Attack Gains Credence

Keep watching those oil prices. If they start really bumping up from their current level, hold on to your Constitution--and get the hell out of dollars--because they're both going down.



http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff11202007.html


November 20, 2007

Rumors of (More) War
Likelihood of Iran Attack Gains Credence
By DAVE LINDORFF

As someone who has been writing about this crazed administration's plans to launch an attack on Iran now for over a year, I have always noted that the real sign that it might happen would be when oil industry analysts started to worry about it.

That's because the oil industry is probably more plugged into the inner sanctum of the Bush administration than any other entity. If the analysts, who have their fingers on the pulse of the oil industry, start worrying that an attack could happen--with the resulting shutdown of oil shipments through the Persian Gulf, from which the world gets roughly a third of its oil--then we need to take the threat very seriously.

While we haven't seen the kind of spike in oil futures prices that we would expect should that mad war begin--which would see oil soaring well above $200 a barrel--we are seeing oil rise to a record high of around $100 a barrel.

Now comes word from the respected newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor, that analysts are starting to factor a US attack on Iran into their thinking. As the newspaper put it in an article published today reporting on the recently concluded meeting of the leaders of OPEC nations:

The 13-nation cartel once controlled prices often by just talking about pumping more or less oil. But now its leaders say booming world demand--largely from India and China--and concern over a possible US attack on Iran are driving prices.

The article also quotes an oil industry analyst, Mustafa Alani, of the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, UAE, who says, " ... there's very little they can do if there's an attack on Iran or something of that nature. In that case, prices will double, perhaps go to $300 a barrel."

It may be that Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his generals, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and the leaders of many of America's Fortune 500 companies are opposed to an attack on Iran, knowing that it will be a military disaster and that it would cause a global economic collapse, but the US today is being led by two insane and desperate men, who may not care what any of those people think. With their domestic and international policies in ruins and their legacy a disaster, they may have decided to double up on their bet and just throw everything in with an air assault on Iran.

Keep watching those oil prices. If they start really bumping up from their current level, hold on to your Constitution--and get the hell out of dollars--because they're both going down.

will collapse Western civilization.

Everyone from Cheney to Halliburton to Poppy and family, James Baker, et al and on from there win too. BIG TIME!

Big OIL and the Neo-CONs are very nervous bedfellows. A collapse of economies could wipe out quite a number of paper billionaires. There is a subtle case of the fidgets in and around Dallas these days when Iran is brought up. Yes, the potential for the most obcene profits in mankids history is there, but only if Big OIL and the Saudis/Sheiks can maintain control of production. Given the instabolity within Saudi Arabia, VEnezuela and Indonesia(pretty much the big 3 of production) there is risk, and Dallas does not like risk.

There is a very dangerous tendency amongst the populace and media to equate the military complex i.e. Halliburton, Northrup etc with Big OIL...they are VERY different species, with VERY different goals and agendas. If the Halliburton group via Cheney achieved their goals, then Big OIL would lose badly. It's a highly complex mess and then you have to add in the World Banking Financial groups who most assuredly do not want any further erosion of the global economy...and they are important because ultimately they are the 21st century Rothchilds to the other guys King Philip IV.

We serfs and trogs, are in peril with absolutely no means for protecting ourselves...the game will play out and some will survive intact, others will not.

Now isn't THAT a rosy goddam picture?

From Harper's Weekly today:

At the third OPEC summit in 47 years, held in Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that
the price of crude oil could reach $200 a barrel. "The
basis of all aggression," said Chavez, "is oil." During a
private meeting that was accidentally televised, the oil
minister of Venezuela suggested to the oil minister of
Iran that OPEC stop using the crippled dollar for pricing;
the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia countered that public
discussion of the weak dollar would cause U.S. currency to
lose value. "Kill the cable!" shouted a security guard as
he ran into the meeting room, "Kill the cable!" An
economist with financial services firm UBS AG put the odds
of a U.S. recession at 45 percent.

I didn't see a link in the counterpunch article, this must be it:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1119/p01s01-wogn.html

OPEC's lost sway over oil prices
This weekend's summit focused mostly on poor nations, climate change, and the euro vs. the dollar.
By Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the November 19, 2007 edition

<snip>

But the organization that was created in 1960 to stabilize prices, today wields less clout than it once did over the cost of crude. The 13-nation cartel once controlled prices often by just talking about pumping more or less oil. But now its leaders say booming world demand – largely from India and China – and concern over a possible US attack on Iran are driving prices.

<snip>

"What's going to happen now is the leaders will do everything they can to maintain supply. But there's very little they can do if there's an attack on Iran or something of that nature. In that case, prices will double, perhaps go to $300 a barrel."

<snip>