I’m no expert on global economy neither about oil prices, but the way I see it, oil prices control can be classified as terrorism.
Generally speaking (and there should be a disclaimer here) it doesn’t get more expensive to produces oil, definitely not at the same increase factors that oil prices are taking, so prices going up are all speculative of future supply and demand. Most of the world’s oil reserves are in OPEC countries, and the vast majority of that is in Arab countries.
Why oil prices are going up? OPEC decides how much oil to produce. They keep the production level at where they want the prices to be. If they produce more, there’s most supply, and prices will go down. If they cut production, or not increase it to satisfy demand, prices are going up. This is of course a simplification of the situation, but that’s how it works.
The bulk of the money flows directly into the Arab countries in OPEN – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, UAE (and the other OPEC members – Venezuela and the rest that are tiny in comparison – Indonesia, Angola, Libya, Qatar, etc…).
How much of this money is going to financing terror? I’m sure that a lot. Iran is financing terror in undisclosed huge sums that flow through Syria and Lebanon to terrorist groups in Lebanon and the occupied territories in Israel (west bank, Gaza strip), terror training facilities in other Arab countries, weapons that are supplied to terrorist organizations, money to worldwide terror organizations and terror cells that are developed….
The irony of course, is that we all pay premium gas prices to finance fanatical extremes that want to destroy us. And they do, don’t deceive yourself otherwise. I’m not doing any generalization about Muslims or Arabs, there are great people among them, but there are also many extremist, who brainwash and are being brainwashed to hate the western world in sake of imposing Islam, in envy of western success, and in irrational hate toward Jews, Americans and everything that is associated with them. Terrorism by itself is a whole separate discussion, for a separate post….
I approach every situation trying to resolve it with common sense and in a peaceful way. With the oil problem, it’s all about energy, which I posted about in the past. Switching the main energy sources to atomic energy will take time (better start ASAP though…), and oil prices will keep being pushed up by the Arab countries (why not, they make more and more money). Short term solution, which is combined with the world’s safety, will be reorganizing Iran. If your approach to life is militant or not, Iran is developing nuclear weapons, and in the hands of an unreliable/crazy/fanatic/western hating/irrational/bold/power hungry leader who is trying to even rewrite history (Jewish Holocaust never happened he claims…), Iran is a threat to the whole world, and is among the largest suppliers of oil in the world (forth after Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the US). It is a safety and economical threat. The economical threat should be handled by economic sanctions (although Iran’s leaders don’t really care if their people will be starving so that diffuses that…).
The safety factor gives all the reason in the world to take down the current leadership before it is too late. Iraq attacked Israel with dozens of missiles during the gulf war, luckily they had only old missiles with conventional weapon heads. Iran on the other hand, even with “dirty” nuclear weapons and better missiles, and definitely with nuclear weapons, has the option of doing damage that cannot be left to chance, and if anyone will say that maybe we can reason with Ahmadinejad is either making a joke or has no clue.
And again – long term solution to the oil prices/economical situation is in replacing the main source of energy from oil to an alternative, where the only alternative with current technology is nuclear power, which should be translated to as many applications possible. Not only it will solve the cost of energy, it will also diffuse the power of the hostile Arab countries, and cut the resources of global Islamic terror.
L.
