years primarily to guarantee a stable oil supply. The doesn't mean to
take the oil - just to make sure it's flowing and available for
purchase; markets hate uncertainty.
Consider what happened in the first 2 weeks of August 2004: 10 record
high oil prices in the 11 day run up to the Venezuelan referendum on
Hugo Chavez. And Venezuela is a relatively minor player in the global
oil market.
Now switch to Al Queda - why would Mr. Bin Laden suddenly attack the
US when just 10 years ago he referred to the US as "our friends who
helped us fight the godless imperialists (Russians)"?
Because Mr. Bin Laden wants something we have - Saudi Arabia. Being a
Muslim, Mr. Bin Laden would like a new government in the country that
contains the 2 most holy cities in Islam, Mecca and Medina.
Saudi Arabia is a Kingdom, however, which doesn't allow voting or any
real political process. The next choice is, therefore, revolution. To
accomplish that Mr. Bin Laden must convince a critical mass of Saudis
to engage in an overthrow. He's mostly got that.
There's a problem though: Mr. Bin Laden knows that if his
revolutionaries were to overthrow Saudi Arabia, the US would do the
same thing they did when Kuwait was invaded - stop it.
That means that as long as the US maintains a presence in Saudi
Arabia, Mr. Bin Laden has no chance of revolution.
So Mr. Bin Laden came up with plan - use terrorism to drive the US out
of Saudi Arabia and then overthrow it. Step 1 in this plan was various
bombings including the first World Trade center attack. That wasn't
really working, though, and he needed something big. That was 9/11.
Now switch to Iraq. The US knows that the cause of 9/11 is our
presence in the Middle East and, specifically, Saudi Arabia. The US
can't leave however because if we do we give up control of the only
country in the world that has additional oil capacity. Not to mention
the world's largest known oil supply.
So what do we do? We invade Iraq. Why? Because it's second best thing.
Mr. Hussein is a bad man to be sure, but more importantly he's a Saudi
neighbor. By invading Iraq the US can exit Saudi Arabia but still
secure global oil supplies.
Which is why this happened:
BBC News World Edition
Tuesday 29 April 2003
"The United States has said that virtually all its troops, except some
training personnel, are to be pulled out of Saudi Arabia. The decision
was confirmed by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during a joint
news conference with Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan."
It was a bone to throw Mr. Bin Laden: "see, we left Saudi Arabia. Now
stop attacking us."
Despite all the testosterone laden President-speak, we basically
tucked tail and ran because, in the end, all we really care about is
the oil.
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