You Just Can’t Keep The Price Of Oil Down
From CNNMoney: Oil jumps $2 on Iran, storm
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Oil prices rebounded strongly Monday, following the largest four-day slide in trading history, as investors focused on a break down of negotiations with Iran, as well as Tropical Storm Dolly, which is making its way into the Gulf of Mexico.
Light, sweet crude oil for August delivery settled up $2.16 to $131.04 a barrel.
There was no break down in the talks, Iranian representatives have to talk to the Supreme Leader to see where he wants to go. Rice is running around screaming that the Iranians weren’t negotiating because they refused to cave in to US demands. Things don’t happen overnight in the real world unless the real leaders are talking face to face. If Ms Rice organizes a meeting between the Shrubbery and the Ayatollah, then decisions could be immediate.
The tropical storm just illustrates the problem of off shore drilling in hurricane areas. Mexico’s most productive field is shut down again, and some US rigs will probably follow suit.
5 comments
Ah, but remember the mantra that’s going around….”there were no oil spills during Rita and Katrina!”
Ha! Yeah, right….Pinochio’s got nothing on these folks in office.
Anything and everything to help the multinational oil companies.
The only quibble I would have with all that you have written is that, generally, in the arena of world diplomacy it is not generally accepted protocol for the head of a nation to negotiate directly with the equivalent counter-part of another nation without there first being some successful diplomatic efforts at lower levels to reach agreement or at least narrow the issues between the two nations. There have been very rare exceptions, but not many.
I mention this not to quarrel with Barack Obama’s stated willingness to meet with our adversaries; it isn’t inconsistent because he has said much the same thing. Rather, the point is that the Bush administration’s diplomacy has been unproductive up and down the diplomatic ladder for reasons that are directly traceable to the Executive office. So little effort, so lately expended, has been put by the Bush/Cheney administration into pre-meeting negotiations using skilled professional diplomats that Condoleeza Rice’s public statements amount to nothing more than theater. Worse, they only further poison the well of misunderstanding.
May god or Krishna or whatever save this Republic long enough that we reach January 20, 2009.
Not to forget that Bushco got rid of most of the actually *skilled* diplomats and have put so many restrictions of the *or else* kind on the rest, or scared them (thanks mainly to the Wilson payback debacle) so they won’t say boo unless the order is signed by Bushmoron/Darth-cheney in triplicate, that they can’t do anything anyway. Then they hire ass-kissing ignoramuses like Rice…
All anyone can expect is the mess we have.
First off, the two can never meet because they are both surrounded by professional paranoids. The Supreme Leader doesn’t leave Qom and the Revolutionary Guard would never let armed foreigners into the city.
As an ayatollah, all decisions are made after consulting the texts for guidance, and that takes a long time. He is more of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court than an executive, ensuring that decisions conform to established teaching and norms.
Rice actually has relevant experience for dealing with the Shi’ia ayatollahs because the hierarchy has a lot in common with a university and the power centers tend to be hawzas, like Najaf and Qom rather than capital cities.
The failure to understand the structure of the Iranian government and the power centers really makes any type of negotiations nearly impossible. Westerners are thinking in the wrong type of politics. Jesuit lawyers would be better choices to negotiate with Iran than diplomats. If something is “forbidden” there is no way of making it “acceptable”.
About half the time the “carrots” offered by the West are “forbidden” and have no value. Iranian leaders have to live their religion, not just talk about it.