Strategic Thinker, part III

Posted by lex, on March 20, 2007

Continuing yesterday’s discussion (if anybody is still paying attention):

Per Barnett, Iran cannot be marginalized – developing China and India need their oil too much to allow the international community to attach real consequences to their nuclearization program. Not entirely sure I agree – after all the world oil market is a single, integrated market: The PRC doesn’t buy “Iranian” oil so much as it buys oil from a common pool to which Iran has contributed. Certainly an embargo on Iranian exports including oil would bid up the spot market cost, although I would argue that, with prices fluctuating between $57-$70 per barrel over the last year the market has already tested the boundaries of this type of supply disruption. Too, our friends in the House of Saud have a vested interest in stymieing the larger Persian bid towards regional dominance.

Credo

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me."

— John Paul Jones

"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature"

— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."

— Edmund Burke

"Μολὼν λαβέ"

— Leonidas

"Blogito Ergo Sum"

— Neptunus Lex