Greg Palast: Baker's proxy war for oil

Greg Palast has an interesting take on the Baker commission report. He notes that the Saudis are already funding the Sunni insurgents, and if we leave they will step that up further, while Iran funds the Shites. In such a proxy war, it's clear which side the Consiglieri of the House of Bush is on.

The full article is here.

Follow me over the fold for the money quotes.

Behind the fratricidal fracas in Iraq is something even more dangerous than bullets in Baghdad: a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia to control Iraq's place in OPEC, the oil cartel. What is painted by Baker's Iraq Study Group as an ancient local clash between Shia and Sunni over the Kingdom of God, is, in fact, a remote control proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia over the Kingdom of Oil.

As Michael Moore and others have pointed out, the Saudis bought and paid for the Bush clan long ago. Less well known is that even Vernon Jordon's firm represents the Saudi Royals.

Saudi Arabia is the elephant in the room (camel in the tent?) that can't be acknowledged -- and the reason Baker is so desperately anxious to sell America on keeping half our soldiers in harm's way.

James III wants to seduce or bully Iran into stopping their funding of the murderous Shia militias. But the Shias only shifted into mass killing mode in response to the murder spree by Sunni "insurgents."

Where do the Sunnis get their money for mayhem? According to a seething memo by the National Security Agency (November 8, 2006), the Saudis control the, "public or private funding provided to the insurgents or death squads." Nice.

Palast is contemputous of the actual plan advanced by Baker, saying it won't work -- and isn't expected to, even by its authors -- even if W. would implement it. Rather, it's an  attempt to delay our exit, and continue our support for the Saudi side in this proxy war for oil.

The Bush family team may be reduced to throwing W. to the wolves, but there is no way they'll abandon their goals. Hence this misdirection.

Next question: how will they seek to manage the 2008 election, and get, if not a Republican, at least a Democrat who will continue this policy?

•  It's difficult

  to figure out what kind of drugs the Bush team was smoking... until you think about this proxy war idea.

  Bushco plays favorites with the Saudis and they're decisive about putting the Iranians up as "The Evildoers", but how does that narrative fit taking out Saddam and replacing him with a Shiite government? It only makes sense if you were actually looking to get a proxy war started between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Maybe that was the point all along? It's just the kind of "let them destroy each other" strategery that you would expect from certain of the neocons.

  by tiggers thotful spot on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 06:45:35 PM PDT

•  Sounds pretty astute to me.

  All along I've been assuming the ISG was another excuse to buy time for staying the course.  I see each "phase" of this war as one attempt after another to buy another 6 months or so.

  NB: The Saudis have always had a good Air Force but not much else, and has relied on US assurances for its security.  But now that Iran is moving toward a nuclear capacity, the Sauds want us to stop them - because doing it themselves would be far too costly and make for very bad press, and because the US is stupid enough to go ahead and do it.

  Thanks for bringing this up.  Palast has been very sharp on a number of other topics, starting with the 2000 elections.  Glad he's still at it.

  by Bob Love on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 06:52:27 PM PDT

•  LA Times Op Ed makes oil point too

  It's still about oil in Iraq
  A centerpiece of the Iraq Study Group's report is its advocacy for securing foreign companies' long-term access to Iraqi oil fields.
  By Antonia Juhasz, ANTONIA JUHASZ is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time."
  December 8, 2006
  http://www.latimes.com/...
  WHILE THE Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence.

  Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq's importance to its region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder: "It has the world's second-largest known oil reserves." The group then proceeds to give very specific and radical recommendations as to what the United States should do to secure those reserves. If the proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.

  The report makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room: that we are fighting, killing and dying in a war for oil. It states in plain language that the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met.

  It's spelled out in Recommendation No. 63, which calls on the U.S. to "assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise" and to "encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies." This recommendation would turn Iraq's nationalized oil industry into a commercial entity that could be partly or fully privatized by foreign firms....

  Baker is about oil and nuthin' but oil. He's got his foot in Jr.'s ass only because Jr.'s losing Iraqi oil. Baker's plan is to grab the oil and to hell with the rest. That's the Baker plan. He doesn't want to bring the troops home. He wants to fix it so the troops are protecting the oil and the nationalized oil is sold off to the massive corporations that Baker represents.
  http://www.bakerinstitute.org/...

  Read the rest of the LA Times piece here.

  by skywriter on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 07:10:58 PM PDT

  •  If You Follow Greg Palast

    You'd learn it's not about stealing Iraq's oil - it's about maintaining control of that oil so it can be dribbled onto the market at a rate comfortable for Saudi Arabia.

    As ever, all roads lead back to the Saudis.

    This makes Cheney's recent visit to the Kingdom more interesting.  He wasn't there to take a scolding, he was there to coordinate plans (take orders?) for drawing Iran into a trap.

    by Near Vanna on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 07:42:41 PM PDT

    •  See this occams hatchet version, with maps

      http://www.dailykos.com/...

      by Creosote on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 08:13:52 PM PDT

      •  It is about stealing the oil

        The biggest saudi field has peaked.

        by FishOutofWater on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 08:15:58 PM PDT

        •  It's all about CONTROL

          ..and Cheney's paying the bill with other people's children.

          by skywriter on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 09:33:02 PM PDT

•  They'll Steal It!

  I think Dems won midterms because Pugs miscalculated how many votes Diebold et al would have to steal, and when they put the patches into the voting machines it was just not enough to do the trick.

  It's tougher stealing dozens of races; in a preznitential election, the country's sufficiently divided that you just have to steal, or win, two of OH, PA, and FL.

  Also, while they're no doubt displeased that Dems will have subpoena power, Carl Levin and Nancy Pelosi are mega-AIPAC friendly, and having Dems in control of Congress isn't so bad as long as Rahm Emanuel picked a lot of pro-war Dems to make up the new majority, which he did.

  So, having Dems in there who will keep troops in Iraq and be co-responsible for the coming economic downturn isn't so bad, in the Pug point of view.

  The White HOuse, of course, is another matter.

  The Clintons are badly compromised -- well-meaning, sort of, but corrupt as all get-out -- and Obama will be seen by many as lacking sufficient experience and, oh, he's "colored."  To me, Al Gore is the best possibility, although certainly I find Obama appealing in many respects, and if Gore won't run, I think Wes Clark earned a LOT of props for his hard work for Dems in the recent campaign.  And, oh, he's a brilliant, compelling figure, and has good views on most things, too.

  However, I'd be pretty shocked to see a Dem of any kind in the White House in 2009.  John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are two of the most cynical, sold-their-souls-to-the-devil motherfuckers on the planet, and I think Jeb Bush is an outside possibility, too.  He is, of course, smarter than his brother, although he has Crohn's disease and has made so much money in drug-dealing and real-estate scams that I don't know that he wants the spotlight.  Jeb's more about money than about power, anyway.

  I think the Pugs will keep the White House By Any Means Necessary -- vote-rigging, having the Dem candidate assassinated, you name it.  I think democracy went down for the count when John F. Kennedy took SEVERAL bullets, and chewed the moose when Scalia and friends elevated Scumbaggio in 2000, the "New Pearl Harbor" was made, or allowed, to happen (Arabs with boxcutters?  bite me) and Congress put its legs up in the air and passed the Patriot Act, the Torture and Fascism Act of 2006, and wrote W a blank check for wars of aggression.

  There's still a facade, of sort, to be sure, but I think old Frank Zappa got it right.  We just don't want to admit that we're looking at the brick wall.

  Could I be wrong?  I sure hope so!

  by Oatmeal Porridge on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 07:14:31 PM PDT

•  get Hillary in!

  She will continue in Iraq! She is a prisoner of the AIPAC lobby, and Bill and Hill are good friends of the Saudis. Why not?  

  Palast always goes a bit further looking for the truth, and like Michael Moore he is branded as a traitor a freak and loony!  His latest  book explains the Jihad is not for religion, Osama want all the oil in the middle east, using religion as usual!  Worth a read! He is always shocking, but rarely if ever wrong!

  by GUGA on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 07:14:35 PM PDT

  •  Plus, very important

    She'll need Biden for veep.

    Has to have a veep with "gravitas" - y'know?

    by willb48 on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 07:16:29 PM PDT

•  First time I have gotten a security shut-down

  Trying to move off of Palast's site.
  Interesting.

  by illyia on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 07:15:26 PM PDT

•  The audit trail arrives at the truth...

  ... and it's always the economy. This neatly encompasses money and power (energy and political). We built this civilization on cheap oil and we're appear poised to destroy it with it, too.

  In the words of Major T. J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens) in "Dr. Strangelove" as he bull-rides an unintended nuke down to strike the USSR, "Yee haw!"

  You gotta get smarter and wise up. You gotta suspend skepticism before the con can turn you into a mark. Never blink.

  by David Sternfeld on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 07:22:40 PM PDT

•  Proxy War is a Solid Obs

  You should check out Occams Hatchet's recent diaries. This adds the Saudis to the picture.  

  by FishOutofWater on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 07:32:08 PM PDT

  •  Its as if people didn't bleed

    as if people didn't die. Oil should be red.

    by ohcanada on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 11:37:34 PM PDT

•  BULLSEYE!!!!

  Thanks for the excellent diary.  This whole ISG farce is a pretext to delay, delay, delay any serious withdrawal until Dumbya's successor is in place for the Iran attack.

  Fucking Bushite scum!  They never rest!

  by Near Vanna on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 07:35:47 PM PDT

•  "Winning" the war by dissolving it in

  a larger conflict. That's what the ISG plan is actually advising, and that's what the Administration is already doing.

  What do you when the Sunni resistance thwarts your plans for the vassalization of Iraq? You push Shiites against the Sunnis, and if that's not enough, you scheme to turn the Sunni-Shiite violence into a general Mideast War. You keep your own troops hunkered down on bases, waiting to see whether Sunnis or Shiites finally prevail. Whichever survives becomes your new puppet.

  So while Bush courts Maliki and Shiite leaders, Cheney flies to Riyadh for secret talks with the Saudis. Not a word has been uttered as to the subject of these talks.

  by LanceBoyle on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 07:58:58 PM PDT

•  The ISG charges the Saudis with funding the Sunni

  They are playing an interesting interference pattern here for their Saudi buddies with the recent press reports.  My guess is that Baker and the ISG are trying to "take control" of the issue, so that they can primarily place the blame on "private Saudi citizens" for the Sunni financing while we're still there, while at the same time neglecting the history of powerful "private Saudi citizens" with extremely close ties to the monarchy taking a lead role in clandestine financing and arming militant groups (often in concert with our factions of our own government and other interested parties).  

  by fortherecord235 on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 08:01:53 PM PDT

•  And to guarantee the war continues to expand

  the Masters make sure the 2008 election is between candidates firmly committed to the Great Game: McCain for the Republicans, Hillary Clinton for the Democrats.

  by LanceBoyle on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 08:03:30 PM PDT

  •  Clinton and McCain Are The Continuation

    Of every evil (yes, evil is a fair and accurate word) that exists in the early 21st century.

    Many, many people are going to die in Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Indonesia, the Phillipines, Congo, China, Korea, Colombia, Uganda, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and many other countries.

    They are going to die not only from war, but from climate change which is fueling war.  They are also going to die from starvation, lack of clean water, desertification and poverty, AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections (much from rape) the drug wars the U.S. is continuing as blindly as the GWOT, and from unresponsive governments in face of floods, typhoons, mudslides and earthquakes.

    They already are.

    Clinton and McCain are a step back to 2000 if not 1992, IF NOT THE VIETNAM WAR.

    I don't care if Billary was a good presidency, I believe in innovation, not clinging to the past.  The past is bitter and antiquated.  I don't want to excite a bunch of old people into arguing about things that are from 15 or 30 years ago.

    People are dying. End of argument.

    by Nulwee on Sun Dec 10, 2006 at 11:27:40 AM PDT

•  Tinfoil: Bush I Stopped the 2006 Vote Flip

  to let dems contain Jr. They'll have a suitable candidate and flip it in 2008.

  Best indicator: resistance and foot-dragging on voting machine reform. If most of the machines are still in place a year from now, the 2008 vote is toast.

  by Gooserock on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 09:25:31 PM PDT

  •  Gooserock: Massive numbers need to show up

    If massive numbers of people show up to vote, the machines can't credibly steal enough votes......

    I like your "tinfoil" thoughts, though.

    I'm keeping an eye on Mark Crispin Miller. He's on top of the voting issues.

    And now, to ponder:

    What if? What if we walk away from the politics and the fighting over oil?

    Then what happens?

    by LNK on Sun Dec 10, 2006 at 12:19:41 AM PDT