Quickhits - Snapshots on Oil

This is perhaps the greatest failure of the Bush administration, a collection of articles around oil from the last couple of days. I hate to do it this way, but if you look at all of these in total, you really begin to get an idea of just how poorly this administration has run their foreign policy.

One of the intents of the PNAC theories was to establish American dominance through the control of oil. Whether the failure was in the design or execution, this policy has produced resistance among oil suppliers, left the US perilously overextended, and strengthened the positions of major rivals. (The last two articles are on the strengthening of Russia and China.)

LATimes: WASHINGTON — Gasoline prices will remain high for years to come and will be largely unaffected by a new White House plan to bring them down, Bush administration officials said Sunday.

Reuters: Nigerian unrest has cut production by 25%, and Oil climbed a dollar on a refinery fire in Italy.

AP: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - With oil prices above $70 a barrel fouling the world economy, dismay is focusing on Iraq, whose exports have slipped to their lowest levels since the 2003 invasion. ''Iraq could be making a tremendous difference,'' said Dalton Garis

AP: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The Iranian deputy oil minister said Sunday he did not believe the United Nations would impose sanctions on Iran because that would boost oil prices even higher.

Reuters: After over a decade when the relationship between Moscow and Washington was nearly always upbeat, the mood in the two capitals has turned "sour," according to one Western diplomat..... The attitude is: "It is not us that need the rest of the world, it is them that need us," Lukyanov said.

And Finally, AFP: BEIJING (AFP) - In one week in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Kenya, Chinese President Hu Jintao mounted all-out and unabashed "petroleum diplomacy" aimed at quenching his nation's growing thirst for oil.

Flush with the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, Hu reaffirmed that those who help China acquire the black gold needed to drive his country's booming economy would be rewarded both politically and commercially.

One more note: I was watching Bush speak the other day(I don't know why,) and he made the comment that when he took office, oil was in the $20/barrel region.