[Shermy]

Wilson with the peaceniks? IMO, these Saudi and French backed orgs are front groups for their economic interests. As it evolved, the sanctions regime, or "containment", served Saudi and Iran to depress competitive Iraqi Oil production. If Iraq were allowed to produce more, for example, at a rate within OPEC quotas commensurate with their reserves, Saudi would especially lose out since Saudi usurped a lot of the quota allocation that Iraq previously held.

These "peace" groups were doing the bidding for OPEC and those invested with Saddam. One key way to identify them these days is their complaint that the US is "grabbing" Iraqi oil. I think they're innocent, just dupes and useful idiots who don't understand the energy economy.

[marron]

The Saudis need a regime change in Washington in the worst way. I am expecting them to throw a lot of money into this upcoming election, and calling on all of their assets, everything but the kitchen sink.

Wilson is one of those assets. He's just another ex-diplomat who is attached to yet another Saudi-funded think tank.

Expect to see the various candidates jockeying to position themselves for under-the-radar Saudi money. So far Dean is the most transparent, with Clark making his play for Kingdom support. Most Jewish voters are Democrats, so you would expect during an election year to see all of the candidates lining up to swear their devotion to Israel, that is what usually happens. This time is different, you see the candidates "triangulating", trying to cut the distance between themselves and the arabs. This could be a play to peel the arab vote away from Bush, but that hardly seems necessary, it is more likely value given for value received. Or for future value hoped for.