Author: Bryant

Here’s a conjunction of stories that bears investigation. Both Chevron and Exxon are bidding for a stake in YukosSibneft. YukosSibneft is the biggest oil company in Russia, and one of the biggest in the world. Meanwhile, the US and Russia are discussing Russian oil contracts in Iraq.

The obvious question is whether or not we’re seeing some quid pro quo here. Would the Kremlin speed up the Yukos/Sibneft merger and expedite the purchase by either Chevron or Exxon if the US agreed to honor Russia’s oil contracts? Would the US find it more worthwhile to make that deal if Chevron was getting a chunk of the revenues via a Russian company?

Well, there might be a quid pro quo, but YukosSibneft is not among the Russian companies with Iraqi oil interests. So, sure, there’s probably a dealinvolving Security Council votes and oil contracts, but the US doesn’t seem to have much of a stake in the YukosSibneft negotiations. Advantage: “there’s no conspiracy here, citizen.”

Juan Cole has more to say about the second order effects of getting too close to Pakistan. It’s unclear to me that Pakistan is that close to fundamentalist destabilization, but the effects of such destabilization would be pretty serious, so it behooves us to keep being careful.

Partial credit for this one.

“There’s no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaida ties…. We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11 attacks.”
— George Bush

Well, 50% accuracy on those particular facts is a step up for him. But what’s that imply about his determination to go after Iraq as soon as possible post-9/11? And isn’t it clear that Pakistan had much stronger Al Qaeda ties? So why Iraq first?

More saber-rattling for the benefit of Syria the last few days. The timing is impeccable; nothing will tell Syria we’re serious like making threats at the same time we’re telling Iran to shape up. Cause we’ve got all those available troops sitting around doing nothing.

In related news, the White House slip of the day comes from Press Secretary Scott McClellan:

David Kaye, who’s leading the Iraq survey group, which is — they’re interviewing people, they’re talking to Iraqis, they’re gathering all the intelligence to pull together a complete picture of Iran — of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program and their weapons of mass destruction.

And what about North Korea?

Hey, wasn’t Ann Coulter gonna start keeping a blog?

The date on that first post in the archives, by the way, is a lie. That sucker’s been there since late June, when they first claimed Ann was about to start blogging.