NPR finally gets it – does this signal an end to the polar bear as poster bear for global warming?

Watts Up With That? ^ | February 4, 2013 | Anthony Watts

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Ernest.

As OPEC budget surpluses start to dry up, the cash currently used to buy off US politicians in and out of gov’t will flow, increasingly, toward places like, oh, Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Mali — any Islamofascist hell-hole currently in panic mode but which lacks significant oil revenue.

This is actually part of the plan of Zero et al — because, after all, there can be only one The One. Bringing and keeping US politicians under his control will be his lifelong project, including after he leaves office. Making politicians beholden to a domestic dictator through taxpayer and debt-funded largesse, rather than foreign despots, is a must-win battle for him, and he will win it.

Venezuela’s recent devaluation of its currency is not dissimilar to China’s long six-abreast march into the sea, because it has been done for the same reason, namely, to keep the US buying from them while suppressing both imports and (in the case of Venezuela) buying power. With or without Chavez, his regime will endure for now.

A year from now the supply of crude will continue to be artificially constrained by OPEC to maintain the price per bbl, but the cartel will be bleeding unauthorized oil to try to take advantage of the temporary price bubble. Iran will be the main beneficiary of this practice of black marketeering.

The House of Saud remains dominant in OPEC, and as it tries horizontal integration among OPEC members, it needs to maintain high crude prices. Victory in Syria over its archrival Iran would set the stage for the next act — defeat of the Iranian proxies in, and partition of, Iraq. Despite its own production decline, Russia also benefits from continued high prices on crude, and that has more than a little to do with Russia’s continued support of Assad. Once Assad goes, and the Saudis defeat Iran in Lebanon, Iran’s finances will have to be cratered, and to do that, the Saudis will merely turn on the oil spigot.