I find it interesting that oil prices have started to come down in the wake of the Saudi visit to Crawford. Maybe holding hands wasn't such a bad idea?

One other factor in the oil price time line has been ignored; Europe is rapidly approaching the endpoint of their "negotiations" with the Iranians regarding their nuclear program. Some feel that by liberating Iraq and freeing the Shiites, the Sunnis, with the Saudis as their champions, might be more amenable to US influence, since they feel their power in the Arab world is threatened.

The Saudis are fearful of a nuclear Iran and the exercise of Shiite hegemony in the Persian Gulf (otherwise know as the Arab Gulf) by the Saudis and other Sunnis. The Iranians have always held the scarcity of oil as their trump card when confronting Europe and America. Could the Saudis be flooding the market to show the Iranians they are not as strong as they may think and thus are they helping American efforts to constrain the Iranian nuclear program? Food for thought.

Ed Lasky   5 01 05