While the Saudis don’t like the Persians, they also have reasons to believe America intends to destroy them. Regardless of what Palast thinks, Saudi Arabia can be bullied into doing what America wants.

Non OPEC countries as a whole produce more oil than the members of OPEC. Russia is effectively doing more to lower prices than anyone else.

Palast also said that Iran won’t be attacked since James Baker, who he insists is running everything, is opposed to it. Does anyone believe that Pharaoh isn’t planning to attack Iran?

The Saudis appear to be rediscovering that painfully high energy prices take a profound toll on the global economy, which in turn reduces demand for their oil. But other motives seem to be at work, too, including the Saudis’ desire to restrain Iran’s ambitions in the region.

OPEC is irrelevant. Russia is producing more oil than Saudi Arabia and has ignored OPEC demands to cut production. Good luck invading and occupying Russia!

The high oil prices are inadvertent. The only way that most Americans will judge the success of the crusades is gas prices and body count, both of which are pointing in the wrong direction. It’s asinine to believe that America is purposely destroying itself in order to make Russia, Iran, Venezuela, etc much wealthier. They used to be able to control Yeltsin by throwing a few billion dollars at him each year, but now Russia is making that every week on oil sales. They clearly don’t want a wealthy and independent Russia selling anti-aircraft missiles to Syria and Iran, but there’s not a thing they can do about it.

I’d be doubtful about the Saudis heavily funding the Sunni guerrillas if they’re as Islamist as the media insist. An Islamist Iraq would be as hostile to them as an Iranian controlled Iraq, which is presumably why they don’t want the crusaders to leave.

I also don’t see a war in Washington between different factions. You have Pharaoh, the delusional cretin, surrounded by sycophants telling him whatever he wants to hear on one side, and reasonably sane people who don’t want to see him kill the goose that lays golden eggs on the other side. The latter appear to have very little influence over the former, which is probably quite a shock to them.

Overall this was the first person Scott interviewed that I didn’t think was worth listening to.

At this OPEC struggle level however there is both conflict and cooperation between the Saudis and the Iranians. Despite their struggle over OPEC pricing policy both have a shared interest in keeping Iraqi oil off the market. So using Iraq as their proxy battlefield suits both sides.

To make matters worse there is another ring around this layer. US politics. In general the most powerful political faction in the US, the old establishment financial – energy sector is in de facto alliance with the Saudis. This is because the petro-kingdoms have long established relations with the largest multinational oil companies and thanks to the process once called “petro-dollar recycling”, the parking of petrokingdom fiscal reserves and investments in major US banks and blue chip investments, the US financial sector. These US interests underlie the CFR and the US foreign policy establishment, a relationship that has been built up over 50 years. This is why Palast says Cheney has been given orders to keep US forces in Iraq by the Saudis. They don’t want the US to walk out and the Iraqi ‘democratic’ government, dominated by pro-Iranians, to upset the local power balance.

There is conflict at this layer as well. In particular the conflict between the establishment and the neocons. The establishment doesn’t want a US pullout of Iraq but they will support US forces walling themselves off from the insurgency conflict but from behind their sandbags the US would still be the kingmaker in Iraqi politics and prevent a wholesale defection of Iraq to the Iranian camp.

This is what US troops are risking their lives for.

That’s how I interpret the Palast interview. Do you guys read it like that too?

Think of the current post-Saddam Iraq War as a series of concentric circles. At the centre is an ethno-religious conflict between Iraqi Sunni and Iraqi Shi’ites with the US Army attempting to keep both sides from killing each other. Outside this inner ring are the regional sponsors, Saudi Arabia and Iran. They are essentially continuing the struggle that really dates back to the Iran-Iraq War in which Saudi and Persian Gulf oil states underwrote Saddam Hussein in his war with the Iranians. The sponsors are now underwriting factions composed of their co-religionists in Iraq.

The motivation of the sponsors also reflect an economic struggle within OPEC about oil pricing policy. Think of this economic struggle being a third ring in the circle. The Saudis and the Persian Gulf petro-kingdoms have small populations and large oil reserves. The Iranians have (comparatively) large populations and large oil reserves. In the short run, the Iranians need the revenue more than the petro-kingdoms, as they have large public revenue demand and dependence on oil. So they favour a high price OPEC oil pricing strategy all the time. The petro-kingdoms have greater fiscal and investment reserves so can ride out short run oil price fluctuations, however in the long run they are more dependent, as they have been unsuccessful in diversifying their economies from oil export revenue dependency. Long run high prices are a threat to them as oil consumers have shown an ability to switch to non-Persian Gulf energy sources. Periods of low oil prices suit the petro-kingdoms in the short run as it makes the process of developing competitor energy sources risky. The Iranians with their higher population and revenue demands don’t have the same short term luxury to worry about long term adaptation to higher oil prices, and at the same time, their more diversified economy is in a better position

I saved the broadcast file and sent it to a bunch of my friends and associates. I am hoping that it will stir outrage that our young troops are being used as pawns on a grand chessboard by foreign leaders acting thru their American proxies. One lady I know has been the GOP municipal chair in my town for a decade, a former Bush supporter (even invited to the White House) and she is outraged at the stuff I have been sending her. On a negative note, a good friend told me not to send him this stuff anymore. I guess he couldn’t handle it even though he thinks Bush is an idiot.