Do They Think Cheney Makes a Better Supplicant Than Bush?

So they’re shipping Dick off to Saudi Arabia to beg King Abdullah to let loose the oil so the economy doesn’t nosedive under Bush’s Cheney’s watch.

Q Will he repeat the request to the Saudis to ask OPEC to raise oil production, a request which was made by the President and turned down by our friends, the Saudis?

MS. PERINO: I’ll refer you to the Vice President’s office for exactly what he will bring up. But certainly the position of the United States and the President is that we believe that more supplies should be out there on the market. And the President does want OPEC to take into consideration that its biggest customer, the United States, that our economy is weakened, and part of the reason is because of higher oil prices; we think that more supply would help. And I don’t anticipate that the Vice President would have any other message than that one.

Q So he will, obviously, then, have that message.

MS. PERINO: I’m not — I can’t tell you exactly what the Vice President is going to say and I’m not going to — I’ll let him have his meetings and then they can read them for you while you guys are on the road.

It seems like it was just two months ago that Bush tried to beg for more oil, only to have Abdullah blow off the request.

I’m curious precisely what kind of leverage Dick Cheney might have over the Saudis that Bush doesn’t have? Does the fact that our economy has gotten worse and people are beginning to talk about a Citibank failure change things for the Saudis? Or is Dick just going to beg again because Bush suddenly realized that we’re getting close to $4/gallon gasoline? 

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67 replies
  1. PetePierce says:

    When Cheney assures Arab states they can remain sitting on their ass in the wake of the Iraq fiasco, they listen. Bush–not so much.

  2. ForrestPrince says:

    Total republican party meltdown? Desperation, clutching at any straw to resuscitate the GOP’s November prospects? Last-ditch effort to deflect attention away from the fact that our economic situation is the direct effect of “conservative” government?

    Just thinkin’…

    • prostratedragon says:

      It does not seem that the emirs want to prop up any more U.S. banks at the moment. Those last Citi infusions have not gone well, and they’ve turned down other “opportunities” since for which they were sought out.

      Furthermore, despite what looks like a big move by the Fed today (and Adm. Fallon8( ), they’ve probably looked at the horizon on U.S. banking assets for the next couple of years, and decided that it was not good. We will get to the $200 barrel, but not soon enough for the Bush/Cheney mob I’ll bet.

      (I’ve actually sat in classes in dynamic programming-like math with members of some of those families. The upper crust as a whole might deserve its reputation for indolence, but there are some smart guys over there.)

  3. phred says:

    I think they are hoping Cheney’s threats (do you really want us to go into Iran) will be more effective than Bush’s snivelling obsequiousness.

  4. BayStateLibrul says:

    You bet Cheney has one helluva hidden agenda

    Meanwhile, manipulating oil prices is “hard work”

    The White House says that soaring oil prices are ”not going to be solved overnight” and that ”it would be wrong” of President Bush to promise otherwise. Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said Tuesday on Air Force One that ”there are some things we cannot do.” Her comments came as oil prices rose above $109 a barrel for the first time. They are up from $87 a barrel in January. She said that the White House is concerned about the impact on consumers and small businesses. But she said, ”It would be wrong of the president to provide false hope to people to think that we are going to be able to have an immediate impact to reduce gas prices. This is something that we’re all going to have to work through.”

  5. Quebecois says:

    I don’t think Cheney is going there to hold hands with the royal family. Maybe to tell them of the big october surprise…

  6. perris says:

    It seems like it was just two months ago that Bush tried to beg for more oil, only to have Abdullah blow off the request.

    the entire premise is a deek

    oil prices are high because they don’t want our dollars anymre, oil prices are high because we have somehow allowed our own petro to be sold on the open market where they don’t want our dollars

    this all revolves around the war, printing paper and the m3 index, which you can no longer read

  7. Unrepentantliberal says:

    Maybe Dick is going as the “bad-cop”. Maybe Dubya been watching the movies again.

      • phred says:

        I don’t think you can make the argument that Dick has no clout. He has thus far proven himself to be nearly unstoppable in his agenda. He has the advantage of being nuts enough to genuinely threaten to drop nukes on other countries. Darth remains a serious threat to the rest of the planet, thanks to Congress. I can guarantee you that ME countries will listen much more closely to him than Chimpy. They may have a strong enough hand to call his bluff, but they will absolutely listen.

            • phred says:

              Hmm, I shouldn’t have been so terse. I do not see how Cheney is “beholden to the Saudis” in any manner. That is not to say that the Saudis are beholden to him either. However, if Cheney goes over to threaten the Saudis in some fashion to get them on board with the WH desire for more oil, he is more likely to be taken seriously than Chimpy.

      • BooRadley says:

        I think that’s too strong. The Saudi royal family has a lot of enemies throughout the ME. Some of the most lethal are their own relatives. My guess is that in certain scenarios they could be isolated, militarily, pretty quickly.

        OT, for anyone who missed Mary’s 100 proof snark, from 1973 Maria Muldaur – Midnight At The Oasis

  8. Mary says:

    If it doesn’t work, I guess there may be a revival of Bush and the Loyal Bushies Busharoos after all.

    Bush can don his harem pants and render his falsetto version of Midnight at the Oasis (send your Saudi to bed, derricks squirting out sweet crude, in the mood, a meter at the head … ‘Dullah you don’t have to answer, just let the oil flow speak, I’ll be your belly crawler, detainee mauler, and you can be my sheik…)

    You know he can hardly wait. Poor King Abdullah – there are things that make Cheney look good by comparison.

  9. biffdiggerence says:

    King Abdullah:

    “My dear Mr. Vice President, we are not Communists. I regret to say that we are willing to allow the market to determine our price. Now, give us a smooch and go home.”

  10. Peterr says:

    All the tinfoil about oil prices, failing banks, and invading Iran! Did it ever occur to you folks that perhaps Cheney is just going on a friendly hunting trip with a couple Saudi friends?

  11. alank says:

    I expect he’s going to go there to rejoice in the fat piles of manna that has been issuing from the wells of late, and to find out what’s in it for him.

    Cheney: Cause and effect, who gives a smeg.

  12. kevinp says:

    He’s going to remind them of a that good work that the republicans have been doing in keeping ‘merica addicted to oil and downplaying that silly global warmin’ crap. Just need a temporary lowering of prices after all, just ’til after the elections.

  13. Neil says:

    The weak dollar policy is coming back to bite us in the ass. Combine it with our soaring debt and trade deficit and we’re in for a rough ride on the stagflation front. If you are not the one who does the grocery shopping, go have a look at how fast prices are rising. If you are not the one who buys home heating oil, spend a moment to look at how those prices have climbed steadily. Look at your electric bill over the last twelve months. We are in a bad way. Bush is not getting enough credit for what he’s done to this economy.

  14. Mary says:

    17 – you can ship canned quail hunts anywhere you want. Portable manhood.

    He could be scoping out a new branch office for Halliburton, after their big digs relocation to UAE.

    Even more likely, he’s there to do patchup and strategerizing for Carlyle and its embarassing realty group that is fighting those margin call battles. Bush wouldn’t be a good bet to send on that kind of trip, bc by the time someone truly explains the difference between margin call and more gin call to Bush, so that he can speak coherently, new generations will have been born and glaciers will have melted.

  15. Ishmael says:

    I think Cheney’s visit should be observed in the context of what the Fed and the other world central banks are doing right now – the Fed is making $200 billion dollars available to the banks this month, on 30 day terms and not overnight, and taking collateral from Big Shitpile – and other banks are getting skin in the game as well, from the Bank of Canada to the European Central Bank, and it would appear that Cheney is going to the Saudis to ask them to accept the equivalent of a debt-for-equity swap in Wall Street. And this is the sort of thing that could be happening every month from now on, as the debt to the Fed rolls over. This is the equivalent of the United States going to the IMF for a bailout – except of course that the IMF would punish the supplicant country severely (well, the people of the supplicant country anyway) in exchange for this “help”, and would require “corrections” to take place in government policy, aka The Shock Doctrine for those who believe this is a conscious plan. Needless to say, no substantive reforms or even penalties will be asked of the banks, apparently good capitalists do not need this type of lesson, only DFH communists in Latin America. The shareholders in the banks are going to take a hit when the stock market catches on, but that seems to be about it. Krugman, as usual, nails it, when he reports that the Fed has now become known on the Street as “the pawnbroker of last resort”!

    • Ishmael says:

      Adding, the IMF funds that were provided to Argentina, Brazil, etc., in the first international debt crisis were applied first to the o/s foreign debt of the country, and the IMF required that domestic program spending be slashed to allow for repayment to the IMF over time. Just like World Bank loans inevitably are spent mostly in the West on large equipment and infratructure projects in the Third World.

  16. Loo Hoo. says:

    I find it interesting that Cheney is hippity-hopping over there. There used to be a time when the US could summon others to come here.

  17. Hugh says:

    What’s happening in oil markets is not about supply and demand but pure speculation. The degree to which the Saudis could or would increase production is consistently overstated. It is not in their interests to do so. They are making a ton of money as it is. A ramp up could not be sustained. It would damage some of their facilities. It would be paid for in dollars that are rapidly losing their value. It would weaken their position in oil markets by exposing the fact they no longer possess the endless spigot and seemingly bottomless reserves. The long term forecast (subtracting out recessions and such) for oil is for the price to go up not down. So why would the Saudis do it, especially for a President and Administration, seen to be greatly weakened, on its way out, and already irrelevant?

    Cheney can’t offer them anything. As for threats, well the only one they have to take seriously is the one about him eating their children.

  18. rapt says:

    From BayState @5: “Her comments came as oil prices rose above $109 a barrel for the first time. They are up from $87 a barrel in January.”

    Speaking simply here; that looks to me like 130% annual inflation of our proud dollar. OK sure there’s some Saudi greed in there too, and maybe some depletion insurance, but however one slices it the dollar ends up being worth less. Much less. Whether that is caused by higher oil price or causes higher oil price I can’t determine at the moment and maybe it doesn’t matter. Dollar devalued in any case.

    Another take could be that Dick is helping with that task. Lets face it, dollar devaluation has to be one of this administration’s knarly objectives.

    • Neil says:

      Lets face it, dollar devaluation has to be one of this administration’s knarly objectives.

      Is there a any question this is a deliberate policy? Who wins and who loses? When is a cheap dollar cheap enough?

      • Hugh says:

        Is there a any question this is a deliberate policy? Who wins and who loses? When is a cheap dollar cheap enough?

        It is a natural outgrowth of this Administration’s economic policies. It has taken a spend and borrow and spend and print money approach to its budget. Its push to outsource jobs and investment and its warmongering have led to large deficits in the balance of trade. Its fostering of dimwitted subprime mortgage bubble. All these things have produced a fall in the dollar.

        Put simply everything they do turns to shit. With regard to things like torture and illegal spying they are trying to hide what they did and indemnify themselves. As for other issues like Iraq and the economy, they have been trying to kick them down the road to the next Administration. None of the Treasury or Fed policies has yet to address the current mortgage/credit crunch. It has all been stopgap. The problem is that the economy seems to be the one thing that is not waiting for January 2009 to go south.

  19. BayStateLibrul says:

    The other factor is the Fed Rate…
    How low can that sucker fall…
    I’m thinking by late summer to zero, then what will the B man
    do… call Greenspan?

    • prostratedragon says:

      The other factor is the Fed Rate…
      How low can that sucker fall…
      I’m thinking by late summer to zero, then what will the B man
      do… call Greenspan?

      Actually I think Ben&Co have had that looming zero rate in mind for sometime. The first big hint (there’ve been previous vague suggestions) was the speech last week that I went around praising, where he urged bankers to accept the fact that they have created losses, and so they should start to write down those losses (and reduce the principal on the loans that produced them accordingly) so we all, including the central bank, can proceed with the rest of our lives.

      While that message sinks in among the banking community, this new facility announced Tue, along with the TAF, are designed to enable some kind of monetary policy, or at least Federal Reserve credit policy, to continue even if rates scrape the zero barrier. Krugman, whose ear to the ground is awfully reliable, pointed this out Tue also. He refs a gbs of a paper by Ben and two other Fed economists that is worth a bookmark and a look: it has a one-page nontechnical summary at the beginning.

      The abstract:

      The success over the years in reducing inflation and, consequently, the average level of nominal interest rates has increased the likelihood that the nominal policy interest rate may become constrained by the zero lower bound. When that happens, a central bank can no longer stimulate aggregate demand by further interest-rate reductions and must rely on “non-standard” policy alternatives. To assess the potential effectiveness of such policies, we analyze the behavior of selected asset prices over short periods surrounding central bank statements or other types of financial or economic news and estimate “no-arbitrage” models of the term structure for the United States and Japan. There is some evidence that central bank communications can help to shape public expectations of future policy actions and that asset purchases in large volume by a central bank would be able to affect the price or yield of the targeted asset.

  20. bmaz says:

    I wonder how much that this stuff isn’t about the dollar, or OPEC oil, so much as it is really about American oil? Cheney, Bush, Hunt and their friends own and control probably the majority of American oil fields. American oil fields don’t pump what they once did, and you have to drill deeper, extract it from shale etc., all of which makes American oil much more expensive to produce. At the lower prices, it was not wildly profitable to extract/produce American oil; but at over a $100/barrel, maybe it is. This is just a thought/theory, could it have any truth?

    • Ishmael says:

      Definitely true – there are many oil wells in Alberta that are marginal, producing only dozens or hundreds of barrels of day that are now profitable, as the only cost is the operation of the pump. Also, oil companies are using technology involving gas injection to bring more oil to the surface – essentially, scraping the bottom of the barrel (pardon the pun!)is now profitable.

  21. BoxTurtle says:

    Why would they listen to Cheney and not Bush? Because the Saudi’s believe that Cheney calls the shots, not Bush. They’ve also determined that Bush is an idiot who can’t be trusted to keep his word.

    Will they deal with Cheney? Probably not. Unless Cheney tries personal blackmail (which I do not put past him), the Saudi’s hold all the cards. It’s possible that the federal wiretapping has found stuff that the Saudi’s haven’t made public, so blackmail remains a possibility.

    It’s also possible that the subject of discussion will be Iran, not oil.

    Boxturtle (I still think the Bushies want to hit Iran before his term is up)

    • PetePierce says:

      I agree with you. They want to. But the problem is they don’t have any intelligence on value targets; they don’t have any armed forces with which to hit Iran because they badly decimated them with the Iraq fiasco, and as dumb as Condi and Cheney are, they know that this would put US foreign relations deeper into the toilet, and most importantly, it will not help McCain beat Obama in November.

    • FrankProbst says:

      Will they deal with Cheney? Probably not. Unless Cheney tries personal blackmail (which I do not put past him), the Saudi’s hold all the cards. It’s possible that the federal wiretapping has found stuff that the Saudi’s haven’t made public, so blackmail remains a possibility.

      I can’t really think of much that they could be blackmailed with. Cheney could have footage of Abdullah snorting coke of the ass of a dead male hooker, and Abdullah could still just shrug and say, “It’s good to be the king!”

  22. klynn says:

    The Price Band Overview History…from DOE…a fun read…

    OPEC PRICE BAND
    OPEC collects price data on a “basket” of crude oils, and uses average prices for these oil streams to develop an OPEC reference price to monitor world oil market conditions. From January 1, 1987 to June 15, 2005, OPEC calculated an arithmetic average of seven crude oil streams, including: Algeria’s Saharan Blend, Indonesia Minas, Nigeria Bonny Light, Saudi Arabia Arab Light, Dubai Fateh, Venezuela Tia Juana and Mexico Isthmus (a non-OPEC oil) to estimate the OPEC basket price. This OPEC basket price averaged $50.71 per barrel in 2005, $36.05 per barrel in 2004, $28.10 per barrel in 2003, $24.36 per barrel in 2002, $23.12 per barrel in 2001, and $27.60 per barrel in 2000.’

    At its 136th meeting to review oil markets on June 15, 2005, OPEC decided to change both the composition of the basket, and the way that it is calculated. According to OPEC, the changes were made to better reflect the average quality of crude oil in OPEC Member Countries. Effective June 16, OPEC’s reference basket now consists of eleven crude streams representing the main export crudes of all member countries, weighted according to production and exports to the main markets. The crude oil streams in the basket are: Saharan Blend (Algeria), Minas (Indonesia), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Qatar Marine (Qatar), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and BCF 17 (Venezuela). According to OPEC, the API gravity for the new Basket is heavier, at 32.7º compared to 34.6 º for the previous basket of seven crudes. In addition, the sulphur content of the new Reference Basket is more sour at 1.77%, compared to the previous basket of 1.44%. OPEC calculated that on June 15 (the last day that the old reference basket was calcuated), the new basket would have averaged $50.03 barrel, over $2 per barrel less than the old basket price of $52.26 per barrel.

    In addition to the OPEC Basket, several other crude oil prices are used to follow world oil market conditions. Because the U.S. benchmark, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil, is a very light, sweet (low sulfur content) crude, it is generally more expensive than the OPEC basket, which is an average of light sweet crude oils such as Algeria’s Saharan Blend and heavier sour crudes (with high sulfur content) such as Dubai’s Fateh. Brent is also lighter, sweeter, and more expensive than the OPEC basket, although less so than WTI.

    At its March 2000 meeting, OPEC set up a price band mechanism, triggered by the OPEC basket price, to respond to changes in world oil market conditions. According to the price band mechanism, OPEC basket prices above $28 per barrel for 20 consecutive trading days or below $22 per barrel for 10 consecutive trading days would result in production adjustments. This adjustment was originally automatic, but OPEC members changed this so that they could fine-tune production adjustments at their discretion. Since its inception, the informal price band mechanism has been activated only once. On October 31, 2000, OPEC activated the mechanism to increase aggregate OPEC production quotas by 500,000 barrels per day. At its January 30, 2005 meeting, OPEC decided that market changes had rendered the band unrealistic, and decided to temporarily suspend the price band mechanism.

    On September 1, 2005, the OPEC basket price rose to $61.37 per barrel, its highest price since the price band mechanism was established. From December 2, 2003, when the basket price last crossed the $28 per barrel threshold, the OPEC basket price has traded above the $28 per barrel level for 585 consecutive trading days through March 7, 2006.

    And now OPEC flys around regarding holding to the price band and enjoys their regulatory status.

  23. klynn says:

    Cheney did not learn he’s “kissing” the wrong person or is he?…

    According to the NYT’s:

    helping to engineer the spectacular rise in oil prices over the last year, fellow members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have rewarded him with the group’s presidency.

    Now Ali Rodriguez Araque, Venezuela’s minister of energy, faces the daunting task of stabilizing prices at a level that both producers and consumers will find acceptable.

    Mr. Rodriguez’s sudden emergence as OPEC’s public face is just one sign of the higher profile in international energy affairs that Venezuela is vigorously seeking. Since President Hugo Chavez took office 14 months ago, this nation of 23 million people, the largest exporter of oil outside the Middle East and the leading supplier to the United States in recent years, has gone from lamb to lion on oil matters.

    ”Under this government, Venezuela has been tremendously assertive, showing that we have our own identity and our own way of doing things,” said Alan J. Viergutz, a former president of the Venezuelan Oil Chamber, the main industry group here. ”That stands in complete contrast to the previous government, which if not anti-OPEC did not believe in OPEC solidarity.’

    ( 2006)

    Some of the Oil Daily headlines are worth looking at too:

    Canadian Contractors Eye US Drilling Market
    The number of onshore drilling rigs operating in the US remained relatively flat in the fourth quarter of 2007, but there is mounting evidence that the stagnant drilling market in Western Canada could push Canadian drilling contractors to shift more of their business to the US. That is the key conclusion of a report released Monday by analysts at Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. (Tuesday, March 11, 2008)

    Ecuador Contract Talks Enter Final Phase
    Ecuador has concluded talks with foreign oil companies about its plans to boost state control of the energy sector, according to the leader of the government’s negotiating team, Jose Sanchez. However, several companies say they are still working out the details of their new contracts. (Tuesday, March 11, 2008)

    And the world spins… like the Financial Times writes…

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/9d391f…..fd2ac.html

  24. klynn says:

    EIA (Energy Information Agency) is a fun website with LOTS of great pretty graphs!

    http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/opec.html

    Today’s report (released today) from EIA begins…

    The slowing economy combined with high petroleum prices is expected to constrain growth in U.S. consumption of liquid fuels and other petroleum products to just 40,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2008. After accounting for increased ethanol use, U.S. petroleum consumption falls by 90,000 bbl/d. U.S. real gross domestic product is expected to decline slightly in the first half of the year and then start growing again, with growth for 2008 as a whole at 1.3 percent, the slowest annual rate since 2001.

    Whole report download here:

    http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/contents.html

    • PetePierce says:

      I think that bill would have a rocky road, but it one is much needed. State Secrets has deteriorated appellate review in a number of cases because panels have bought into it heavily, and the Supreme Court has denied cert. in at least two cases I know about where the lower court upheld the State Secrets defense.

  25. Hugh says:

    A) Development of any US sources would take years. Some like shale have severe environmental downsides and are based on technologies that remain unproven.

    B) More standard oil sources offshore, redevelopment of old fields, etc. simply won’t produce the quantities of energy we need.

    So the short answer to: Will development of US fossil resources be enough to achieve energy independence or even meet most of those needs? is no.

  26. Ishmael says:

    Thanks for the link – when speaking of energy independence, I don’t think anyone is saying that oil is not a very useful and valuable commodity, and that to the extent that ”globalization” is synonymous with the economic concepts of a) comparative and b) competitive advantage, yes, there is an argument that we should be buying certain commodities from those who can produce them most cheaply and efficiently. However, I think the author overstates the difficulty of disentangling from oil, and understates the advantages of a local, environmentally benign energy source. Yes, all the cars and trucks on the road now are gas powered, and gas stations are the dominant delivery system, but the car fleet must turn over every 10 years or so, meaning that substantial reductions towards an electric car fleet or greater use of trains to deliver goods (extremely efficient) can be done in a few decades – only a Bush would make the argument that reduced dependance on oil means that we are all going to be walking tomorrow (remember how Bush 41 mocked Gore for pointing out the evils of the internal combustion engine?) The larger problem is that many communities are premised on long commutes from areas where real estate is cheap and jobs are scarce, to areas where real estate is expensive and jobs are more available. These communities cannot be abandoned, so there will have to be more jobs made available closer to where people live, and more reliable transportation between these places. As both Hillary and Obama, and Gore of course, point out, green energy technology has many advantages that can address both of these problems in a way that imported oil cannot. Solar and wind plants could provide an environmentally benign source of energy, that cannot easily be outsourced to China, and could attract energy -dependent industries that would not find it profitable to leave just because of cheap labour costs in other jurisdictions.

  27. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Shrub’s visit was just the appetizer (however unappealing that sounds). The Saudis knew the US didn’t mean whatever Shrub had to say until Dick Cheney said it himself. They know the difference between a mule and an Arabian.

  28. earlofhuntingdon says:

    No one here has lost sight of the fact that oil has nearly quadrupled in price since Bush took office, crippling many family budgets, but making Dick and George and their friends even more fabulously wealthy. They have no interest in dropping the price of oil. They do have an interest in bailing out Citibank and a horde of other once-sound financial institutions, and only the Saudis and Chinese have the money and willingness (maybe) to make that happen.

  29. RickMassimo says:

    MS. PERINO: I’m not — I can’t tell you exactly what the Vice President is going to say and I’m not going to — I’ll let him have his meetings and then they can read them for you while you guys are on the road.

    In other words, “Guys, he’s Dick freaking Cheney. You think ANYBODY knows what he’s going to say? You think he operates under any restraints or rules whatsoever?”

  30. rkilowatt says:

    Kingdom of Saudi Arabia welcomes its guarantor of Royal Stability…

    Dick: We must hit Iran.
    Abdullah: You are crazy.
    D: Do not worry. We continue to honor our guarantee. Our Armed Forces will handle any threat to KSA. You can plainly see our naval fleet on-station.
    A: Your guarantee has become weak in the face of modern weapons. We observed your Naval war-games. Your navy concluded that the old guarantee is no longer operable.
    D: I tell you it is!
    A: You risk shutdown of 30% of world crude[oil] supply.
    D: We and our allies have over 30 days SPR [Strategic Petroleum Reserve]
    A: Any blockage of [Gulf of Hormez] shipping will likely be way over 30 days. And any resumption of shipping will not return to former volumes or tanker terms.
    D: Bullshit. I guarantee it or else!
    A: What if the Royal Family is forced to abdicate? Then what?
    D: Our Marines will hold KSA and and the oil fields until a new government is stabilized.
    A: Is that the real reason your Navy is on alert? It is not about Iran?
    D: Of course not. You can trust me. It is just in case.
    A: Your “just in case” is after the fact of Korea, VietNam, Afghanistan, Iraq, America is now a desperate importer of oil and, worst of all, the world is now in a bidding-war for crude. Your guarantee and my presence on the Royal Throne are equally in doubt. America has made too many enemies. The KSA must not make too many enemies.
    D: You question our guarantee?
    A: We agree that world crude production is not sustainable, is falling and will fall faster each year from now on. You know supergiant Ghawar [5.5 million bbl/day] is tired. As an old friend of America, I repeat what I have said for years. The bidding war will not stop until America cuts per capita consumption and raises gasoline prices to match Europe. Only then can nations cooperate to develop sustainable energy sources. KSA will act responsibly and in concert with others to force consumption to match dwindling production. Thank you for your visit. Farewell old friend.

  31. maryo2 says:

    Cheney is offering something in return for nine more months of oil. He is buying time for himself, not negotiating for oil in the US’ best interest. So what is he offering them? air planes? missiles that will reach Iran? something he worked out with Musharraf regarding the use of yet-to-be built pipelines or sea ports? a base in Pakistan?

    Will Congress even think to ask what Cheney offered or will we never know? I bet we never know.

  32. Dismayed says:

    I’m not sure it matters what he offers. My latest readings indicate that the Sauds have kept actual reserve figures really close to the vest over the last few years. Most likely, because they were fudging the numbers to maintain influence.

    If so they may not be able to increase production without damaging long term productivity.

    My best guess is that they are at peak oil, and likely the world is as well. Sure am glad, I’m not making payments on any gas guzzlers.

  33. prostratedragon says:

    Mary: Compliments on the Midnight at the Oasis! It seems that vibrations into the specrrum of the absurd occur at a quickening frequency. Dick done did it to me tonight, as I returned to quasi-consciousness …

    The VP’s mission, he being a rather [ahem] different personality than our faux louche President, summoned up something like Fitzcarraldo Cheney: The Consummate Idiocy of Obsessive Secrecy When the Entire World Already Knows Enough to Sink Your Ass.

    Someboy should write it one day. The first canto could establish the setting, in which the government of a mythical kingdom has just been persuaded to shelve a plan to stop the heralds from declaiming the latest sour mash price in every public square by the appearance outside the royal offices of 2 million subjects all banging their empty tin flasks [if only!].

    The futility of Vice-King Fitzcarraldo Cheney’s mission to his kingodm’s rich, happy, but putatively slow-witted financial backers would be illustrated by, e.g., these statements from one of the kingdom’s more optimistic seers:

    “The question is whether [2008] will be disappointing or horrible; our forecast is disappointing.”

    and

    “In the past 10 years, the U.S. economy has had two locomotives,” Leamer said. One was the high-tech stock bubble of the late 1990s, the next was the run-up in housing.

    “Looking to the future, there isn’t another locomotive. There is still not a reason for great optimism,” he said.

    The kingdom’s sour mash gap has become so obvious that it figures in the set of examples on division by zero that were responsible for the blacklisting of all of the second-grade teachers in one of the kingdom’s few remaining public school systems. (Somewhere, a first grader who was assigned a counting task with the number of available soldiers in the kingdom’s army to be used as reference still stands in a darkened classroom, mute, because his mother told him never to tell a fib. The phrase “I would prefer not to” had not occured to him.)

    Nevertheless, Fitzcarraldo Cheney is a doughty man (especially when other people are doing the pulling), and will not be dissuaded from his mission by something so trivial as impossiblity. …

  34. DefendOurConstitution says:

    Cheney is looking for a new moniker – Jawbone Dick. It sounds kind of dirty, doesn’t it?

  35. kspena says:

    cheney could also be seeking help in keeping the ‘Awaking Councils” together in Iraq,

    ‘These councils include tens of thousands of tribal Sunni fighters who the U.S. has created, armed and financed…More than 100,000 tribesmen have joined the Sunni militia ranks and are reported to have helped in reinstating security in formerly restive areas….But according to Thamer al-Tamimi, one of these councils’ top leaders, the Sunni militia groups are under threat due to an upsurge in violence directed at their leaders and offices.’

    http://www.azzaman.com/english…..fname=news2008-02-28kurd.htm

    and help to counter China’s growing influence in Iraq.

    China to develop Iraqi oil field following assurances of security
    ‘China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has agreed to start developing the Ahdab oil field (Kut area) with proven reserves estimated at 1.4 billion barrels, Governor of Wasit Province said.’

    http://www.azzaman.com/english…..fname=news2008-03-06kurd.htm

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