Middle East Miscellany

Did the Saudis actually say "yes" to Bush when he went hat in hand asking for more oil to flow, but need to be seen as saying "no"? Just a few weeks ago, the press the world over reported gleefully that the Saudis "rebuffed" the leader of the free world. Not so fast. More here. Like I said, Bush seems to like letting his detractors ooch out further on the limb before he saws it off. Also, it says something about Bush that he was satisfied to accept the perception of defeat on the media while achieving his aims in reality.

On another note, the blogosphere is making a little hay over Iran's annoucement that it will build a bunch of new refineries to alleviate its gasoline shortage. Well, let me throw a little cold water on the hype. Iran annouces all sorts of stuff like this all the time, but the reality is that these projects, like many others in Iran, may never come to fruition. To put it mildly, financing is hard to get for projects in Iran - and hopefully we will really turn up the heat on financial institutions that want to finance these refineries. Secondly, the Iranians bungle alot of stuff. They have to provide jobs to people so they require alot of work to be done by state-owned companies, which typically employ alot of boneheads. You can pretty much count on any big, complex project like this Iran coming in overbudget and behind schedule. They say 2012. Realistically, think 2014. These refineries won't be a factor in the Cold War we need to wage - that I hope we are waging - with Iran to satisfactorily arrest their drive to acquire nuclear weapons.