Paying for War at the Pump (Scheer)

By Robert Scheer

... McCain's strategy is clearly that of distracting attention from the calamitous economy by sounding the demagogue's alarm about enemies at the gate. This week, McCain again blasted Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on the grounds that he underestimated the threat from Iran while ignoring the vast increase in Iran's power -- an increase actually resulting from Bush eliminating Iran's only effective enemy, Saddam Hussein. The other winners in this folly have been the oil kingdoms that Hussein periodically threatened, led by the Saudi royal family. Seizing upon the opportunity presented by the 9/11 attacks, Bush knocked off not the Saudis, who had produced Osama bin Laden and 15 of his hijacker minions, but rather the royal family's sworn enemy in Iraq, who had absolutely nothing do with 9/11.

And how did the Saudis thank us? Just check the price of oil, which has increased more than sixfold since 9/11. On Friday, Bush went to dine at Saudi King Abdullah's bizarrely opulent horse farm and pleaded for an increase in oil production, but to no avail. Bush received the same rebuff in April 2005, when oil was selling for $54 a barrel. On Tuesday, it sold for $129, and the price rise is a good measure of Saudi gratitude for the Bush family's unwavering support over past decades. Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, couldn't have been more condescending when he turned down Bush's request with the observation that "presidents and kings have every right, every privilege, to comment or ask or say whatever they want." He added at a press conference, "How much does Saudi Arabia need to do to satisfy people who are questioning our oil practices and policies?"

Enough to get the price back down to where it was when we saved your sorry oil-well excuse for a country, you ingrate, Bush might have retorted. But our bold leader was too polite for anything like that. "He didn't punch any tables or shout at anybody," said Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal. "I think he was satisfied." Why? Instead of pointing out that the Saudis could easily open their spigots in gratitude for our keeping them in power, the president threatened the Saudi king not with an invasion but with a U.S. recession. "My point to His Majesty," Bush warned in an interview with The New York Times before encountering the great man himself, "is going to be, when consumers have less purchasing power because of high prices of gasoline -- in other words, when it affects their families, it could cause this economy to slow down. If the economy slows down, there will be less barrels of oil purchased."

He'll show them -- we'll have a recession, our families will suffer and, boy, will the Saudis be sorry ...

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/86109/

and not the devaluation of the dollar, rampant, unregulated market speculation and the Decider himself (by way of every single stupid thing he's done since 2001), the OP describes the NOW and not how we got here. Currently, I don't believe the Saudis would piss on Shrub if he were on fire.

The Boy King had a plan - developed during the Regan/Bush I years by the same neocons who are/were again employed by the current administration - for the conquest of Iraq and Iran. Well, their oil, anyway. Not only was * not listening to the voice of reason here at home, he wasn't listening to "our friends" in Saudi Arabia when they asked him to back off, slow down and think about what he was doing or how he was intending to go about it.

Now the Saudi's national security is shot to hell, the entire region is in turmoil and at risk and it's payback time. Even if they could do anything to prop up Incurious George's legacy by pumping more oil, his threat toward Iran and the resulting, further destabilization of the region can only be dissuaded at this late date by crippling him - and U.S. - further by making yet another war too expensive to contemplate.

Of course, I could be wrong.