Lindorff: Oil, Israel, Iran, America and the High Cost of a Single War-Like Remark

[babylonsister]

Oil, Israel, Iran, America and the High Cost of a Single War-Like Remark
Submitted by dlindorff on Sat, 2008-06-07 16:01.

By Dave Lindorff



One remark by a minor Israeli cabinet officer hinting at a possible US or Israeli attack on Iran has sent oil prices up by a record $11/barrel to a record $139 per barrel Friday. That should tell us what would happen if the Bush administration were crazy enough to attack Iran, or to let its vassal state of Israel do it.

Most analysts say an actual attack on Iran would send oil almost immediately to past $300 per barrel—a level that would strangle economies worldwide and send the world into an economic collapse not since the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs kicked off the Great Depression.
The repercussions of that would be staggering.

America, which runs on oil, would grind to a halt. Gasoline and home heating oil would double or triple in price, leading to desperation in the coming winter for those living north of the Mason-Dixon line, and to a mass exodus of the elderly from Florida and Arizona, where air-conditioning would no longer be affordable.

In China, an economy almost wholly dependent upon the manufacture of goods for sale to American consumers, hundreds of millions of workers would suddenly find themselves unemployed. With their remittances to their peasant relatives halted, half the country would be kicked back to the pre-capitalist era, only without guaranteed wages, homes, food and healthcare. It is likely that unrest unprecedented since the Cultural Revolution would erupt.

The Middle East would explode.

more...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/33949

[annabanana]

1. Well then... Let's see to it that they DON'T...

We only have to sit on them for

0.622 years or
8.08 months or
32.32 weeks or
226.27 days or
5,430.6 hours or
325,835.0 minutes or
19,550,103 seconds

[enough]

2. Yikes, pretty hair-raising stuff.

another snip from the article>

It makes you wonder what is going on in the higher reaches of the US bureaucracy. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has in the past intimated that he’s no fan of war with Iran, just sacked the two top men in the Airforce—the most gung-ho of the service branches in terms of Iran war mongering. The unprecedent surprise firing of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and the Air Force’s top officer, Gen. T Michael “Buzz” Moseley, was officially blamed on their poor handling of the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal, in the wake of last year’s unauthorized and improper removal from storage and cross-country aerial transfer of six nuclear-armed cruise missiles in launch position on a B-52 Stratofortress, and the discovery this year of an earlier “inadvertent” shipment of ICBM missile warhead nuclear triggers to Taiwan. While it is possible that those two incidents were the cause of the firings, there remain serious unanswered questions about both incidents, and particularly about the cruise missile flight.

As I reported earlier on this site and in Counterpunch magazine and American Conservative magazine, there were a half dozen unexplained deaths of US airmen, including two suicides, which occurred just before and after that flight last August 30, none of which were investigated at least publicly by the Pentagon or the FBI according to local prosecutors and medical examiners contacted. A number of experts in nuclear weapons handling have said that it would be “impossible” for the six warheads to have been removed from guarded bunkers at Minot AFB in North Dakota, mounted on cruise missiles, loaded onto launch pylons under the wing of a B-52, and flown to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, all as a “mistake.”

This leads inexorably to the question: What was being planned for those warheads, if they were not being removed from storage by mistake, and if they were being moved without the knowledge of the top brass, including Gates, at the Pentagon? Recall that the only reason anyone learned about the incident was that it was reported outside the military chain of command to a reporter at Military Times newspaper by several Air Force whistle-blowers upset by what they were seeing.

snip>

[WWolf]

3. This is just bad logic

One remark made by one cabinet member is not what caused oil prices to go up.

[babylonsister]

4. And you know that how? nt

[kimmerspixelated]

5. Well?

What then? What has caused the oil prices to rise, and what's really going on in the Pentagon?

[WWolf]

6. Its just common sense

I believe you are committing the fallacy of mistaking cause and correlation. Please, explain how he could influence the price. I'm sure it would be enlightening.

[babylonsister]

7. No dear, prove why it's not conceivable; that's how it works around here.

Links are acceptable from other sources, idle speculation isn't, especially when you're doing the challenging. I'll make it easy; tell us why prices escalated so drastically on the same day.

[WWolf]

8. Well for one thing

The article printed by the associated press is pure fiction. Oil was priced at 110 dollars a barrel a couple of weeks ago when i was watching SENATE discuss prices on LIVE television.

[babylonsister]

9. Now I know you don't know what you're talking about. You should really

learn to google:

June 8, 2008
Surge in oil prices leaves economy facing stagflationary shock
David Smith and Dominic O’Connell

THE surge in oil prices to a record level of more than $139 a barrel on Friday has left the economy facing a severe “stagflationary” shock, economists say, with a rising risk of recession alongside high inflation.

A record, two-day surge in oil prices of $16 a barrel last week followed analysts’ predictions that the price will soon hit $150 and could go as high as $200. While others say that the sharply rising price is indicative of a speculative bubble that will soon burst, few investors have so far been prepared to bet against it.

Sushil Wadhwani, a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee who now runs Wadhwani Asset Management, said he was very gloomy about the economic outlook.

more...

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article4087314.ece

[WWolf]

10. Sorry, my mistake

The way the sentence was phrased made me think they were claiming oil was selling at 11 dollars a barrel. Still, aren't oil prices determined by a large number of people from all over the world? There are a million other reasons why this could have happened, many of which would only be known to a select group of people. Maybe a particular area dried up. Maybe there was some sort of unforeseen difficulty in the chain of distribution.

Maybe the reason oil keeps going up is because we are running out. I know thats not what many people say, (My economics teacher often claimed we have a 20 year supply) but it is kind of foolish to suppose we have an UNLIMITED supply, isn't it?

[babylonsister]

12. More...

Crude Leaps Nearly $11,In Fresh Hit to Economy
By NEIL KING JR.
June 7, 2008; Page A1

Crude oil notched its largest price jump ever on Friday, leaping nearly $11 to more than $138 a barrel, on news of a weakening dollar and continued jitters over the reliability of world supplies.

The surge, coming just as many analysts thought oil prices were set to fall, sent stocks plunging amid fears that the U.S. economy could be in for a combined bout of inflation and slow growth. The skyrocketing price of oil, now up more than 44% so far this year, is battering the airline and auto industries and causing consumers to cut back on driving and nonessential spending.

Oil's dramatic rise helped whip up a day of turmoil for the broader financial and commodities markets. U.S. benchmark crude settled up by a record-setting $10.75, to close at $138.54 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That jolt is reinvigorating worries that crude prices could ratchet still higher, putting a severe squeeze on many economies around the world and deepening the growing tension between the world's big oil exporters and consuming countries.

Friday's jump -- which was equivalent to the entire price of a barrel of oil in late 1998 -- was fueled in large part by the dollar's sharp fall, with investors snapping up oil as a hedge against the currency's eroding value. Reflecting those inflation fears, other key commodities also resumed rising Friday. Gold, a classic inflation hedge, soared 2.7% to close at $895.40 an ounce, while other metals like copper, which had been slumping, shot up.

But crude's big jump was also driven by other irritants, including a sudden rise in political tempers in the oil-rich Middle East. A senior Israeli official told a prominent Israeli daily Friday that an Israeli attack against Iran was "unavoidable" if Tehran continued to push forward on its controversial nuclear program. Some observers said that single comment, from Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, may have given oil prices a greater shot of adrenaline than anything else.

more...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121279421263753561.html?mod=special_coverage

[central scrutinizer]

11. Dick Cheney responds, "So?"

What's your fucking point?