The Dick obfuscates

Gee whiz, our venerable VP is in Saudi Arabia, on a mission to fix everything that's wrong with the economy by beseeching the Saudis to pump more oil. Dick's on the case; relax, soon our troubles will be over.

Cheney seeks Saudi oil increase

The US government wants Saudi Arabia to increase oil production

US Vice-President Dick Cheney is in Saudi Arabia for talks with King Abdullah which will focus on security and the global energy market.

Mr Cheney's national security adviser said they would discuss "a co-operative way forward" to stabilise oil prices, which have hit record highs.

Awright, Dick, you got it right. [Notice he ain't holding the King's hand, the way Mr. W does.] As his Administration might say in other circumstances, it is the free market that sets prices. So what is he asking the King to do? Pump more oil? OPEC already said, a couple of months ago, that its members will not pump more crude because the high price of crude is the product of specualtors, one, and of, two, American economic mismanagement.

Mr Cheney is staying the night at King Abdullah's al-Jenadriya horse farm, where he was given a warm welcome. "Mr vice-president, we've been friends a long time," the king said.

Of course he was welcomed warmly; he's a potentate, too. The king rules Saudis, the VP ruled Halliburton.

Oil prices have risen in recent weeks to record highs above $100 as investors have purchased commodities as the value of the dollar has fallen. Mr Hannah [Cheney's national security adviser] said the two leaders would build on the discussions begun by President George W Bush on his visit to Saudi Arabia in January, when he called on Opec to increase oil exports and warned high energy prices were hurting US consumers. At the time, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi insisted the kingdom would boost production only if the market justified it.

This is all obfuscation. Saudi Arabia isn't going to pump more oil. A barrel of crude is going for a hundred bucks; why would it want to see the price drop substantially? If it pumps another half a million barrels a day -- which two months ago its Oil Minister said it wouldn't do -- the price wouldn't change much. The high price of oil is due to financial speculation and to strong demand from, among other sources, India and China.

Before his deputy's visit on Friday, Mr Bush said he hoped King Abdullah would "listen very carefully" to US concerns, while White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the president hoped to "see an increase in production".

The first part of the statement is what intrigues me: I wonder what they really talked about. This stuff about oil price and higher production is nonsense. That isn't the substance of their conversations.

In Baghdad on Monday, Mr Cheney called on Saudi Arabia and other US allies in the region to establish a diplomatic presence in the Iraqi capital.

There's a curiosity: five years on, the Saudis and other Arab states have not done a blessed thing to help the US and its Army, er, the Coalition Forces. Not a blessed thing. Diplomatic presence? Not a chance. The Saudis would not risk such a thing. This is a country that bans Bibles, punishes people for being Christian (let alone Jewish), and Cheney calls it an ally? It has nothing to do with any thing other than oil.