This will be my last message on this thread, and my last today (I've blown all my quotas, folks, sorry, but it is fun being back).
Who are "they"? Who are "These people"? Oil company executives? Yes, they would like to get back into the Middle East more than they have been since the nationalizations several decades ago. But they were heading in that direction already until this stupid war screwed the works and alienated the hell out of everybody in the region. The biggest oil companies have been deep in bed with the Saudis through ARAMCO for decades, and they are perfectly happy with them. Maybe the companies will eventually get into Iraq. But they've a wait to go.
Bush? The Bush family has such a history of being deep in bed with the Saudis that it is not funny. It was because of King Fahd that Bush Senior held back from overthrowing Saddam in Gulf War I. Recent reports suggest that the current Bush is in awe of Crown Prince Abdullah, apparently the only Middle East leader, aside from Sharon, for whom he has any respect whatsoever.
I agree that there are some folks who would like to marginalize the Saudis, most of them neocons in Woflie's basement in the Pentagon. Certainly these people are currently very influential. But the ones really running the show made their deals with the Saudis long ago and are not interested in messing with it.
For further info on how long this has been going on, see my old paper in the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Spring 1981, "The Emergence of the Megacorpstate and the Acceleration of Global Inflation," vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 429-439. Barkley Rosser ----- Original Message ----- From: "Willy Greenfields" <filthydirtyunwashed at yahoo.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 4:01 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Guardian Retracts Wolfowitz Oil Story
>
> > The US already effectively controls the Saudi oil
> > reserves. That was what Gulf War I was all about.
> > In 1973 King Faisal dared to impose an export
> > embargo against the US. Those days are long gone.
>
> Maybe, but that's not what they want. These people
> have a hard-on for the Saudis, and they want them
> marginalized completely. Pricing and production
> volumes are tertiary concerns. They want the kingdom
> squalid and its rulers impotent.
>
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