Oil Traders Fear US Attack on Iran: Maybe We Should Too

[marmar]

from Dave Lindorff at ThisCantBeHappening.net:


Oil Traders Fear US Attack on Iran: Maybe We Should Too

Okay, now I’m worried.

There have been several rounds of reports that the war-obsessed Bush administration was getting ready to attack Iran—first last September, then in December, and more recently in January and February.

The one thing that kept me thinking that a catastrophic war with Iran might not be in the offing was oil prices, which didn’t seem to be acting as one would expect them to if there were a major war looming in the Persian Gulf. Oil prices, in fact, have been drifting slowly downward since September 2006, when they hit $68.85. Yet if there were going to be a hot war between the U.S. and Iran, one would expect much higher prices. After all, most of the combat would be occurring along Iran’s heavily armed coastline and in the Gulf, through which some 40 percent of all the world’s oil passes. In the event of such a conflict, oil shipments would shut down from that region as underwriters jacked the price of insuring oil tankers in the Gulf to astronomical levels. Estimates of how expensive oil could become in the event of a US attack on Iran, the world’s second largest oil producing nation, have ranged as high as $200/barrel—a level that would bring the global economy to a screeching halt.

Well, there are new reports circulating now that an attack by US air and naval forces could come in early April, and this time, the oil traders are taking them seriously. On Tuesday, oil futures shot up $5/barrel to hit $68/barrel—quite a jump, and the highest price for oil since last September.

Reports say that traders were responding to rumors—unsubstantiated—that Iran had fired on an American ship in the Gulf, and no doubt also to the ongoing tensions over Iran’s capture and detention of 15 British sailors, whom it claims had illegally entered Iranian territorial waters.
...snip...

Back in the U.S., the Bush administration succeeded in getting Congress to back off of attempts to include legislation barring the White House from attacking Iran without prior Congressional approval. Bush has already claimed that Iran is a terrorist nation and that he thus has the authority to attack that country at will because of the 2001 Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force which was actually an authorization for the US attack on the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

It all would seem to point to the real possibility of an attack on Iran—a move that would be a war crime, that would be a disaster for the U.S., that would spark a global recession, and that would inflame the entire Middle East for years to come........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/

[soothsayer]

1. were supposed to be ready april 7, but the indian ocean tsunami

hit the supply lines in diego garcia, so now we won't be ready to go until april 17th. we've got 233 targets in iran we want to strike. china will not be amused if we hit the pipelines that supply them. could get really ugly really quickly.

[Zynx]

7. Indian Ocean Tsunami?? WTF is this stuff?

[baldguy]

2. If Big Oil doesn't want Bush to attack, then he won't attack.

[snappyturtle]

4. I don't want you to think that I'm picking a fight with you about

your response HOWEVER, I just have one little question: Why would Big Oil not want Bush to attack? It seems to me that an attack would reap huge profits for them.

[azurnoir]

5. but they will use any excuse to rachet up prices n/t

[baldguy]

6. Maybe this story is a little bit of disinformation.

My point is that Bush is going to do exactly as his corporate masters wish and use his power for their benefit.

[snappyturtle]

3. I K&R'd this post because for the second time (already!) this

morning I've seen posts about Iran and war possibilities. I am so-o afraid of another war and this one would be the grand-daddy of *'s wars in that what you mentioned: the inflammation of the entire ME for years to come.

[reprobate]

8. I think it will be worse than we imagine. Worse than we CAN imagine.

I believe that it was Seymour Hersch who said that if we attack Iran with nukes, we should pick at least one American city that we want to lose, because you can be assured that the Islamists will have the resources to acquire at least one nuclear weapon. Remember that Pakistan's intelligence service is practically run by the Talliban, and Pakistan has nukes.

The only question is which city we want to lose - New York, Chicago, Miami, LA? How about DC? Or would that be an actual gain, if we lost DC? Just so the administration was there at the time.

Our borders make swiss cheese look like steel reinforced concrete. A terrorist that couldn't get a device thru one of our ports or across the southern border needs to go back to terrorist school.

And that brings up another question: If the United States of America is the Great Satan of Al-Ciada, their most hated rival, and they are the world dominant terror organization we are told they are, why then was their last attack on us almost six years ago? What? They don't have enough volunteers? They aren't that good at planning? Our counter-terrorism is too good for them?

I think the answer to that is to look at just who started and funded the original organization known as the Mujahadeen, which became the Talliban, which evolved into Al-'CIA'da. Of course if I follow that line of reasoning much farther I'll be accused of being a Conspiracy Theorist (which I won't deny).