Iran

Watched Condoleeza Rice's press conference on TV last night. She wants to bring Iran up before the U.N. in a process which could terminate with the imposition of sanctions.

Excuse me, but if you tell countries they can't trade with Iran any more doesn't that also mean Iran can't sell it's oil to them either ? Who is that going to hurt more ? Iran ? Or the rest of the natural gas and petrol hungry world ?

Time will tell; but, that can't look like anything anybody really wants.

The only place in the world where there is a genuine will against Iran going nuclear must be Israel - and perhaps to a lesser extent the Gulf Arab states. Fancy that! Israel and Arabs on the same side of an argument, for a change!

Of course, I haven't heard any official statements emanating from any Arab nation; but, I'm sure "consultations" are happening between the U.S. and Arab governments, as Condi had intimated in the press conference. I'm sure, the "consultations" will be largely one-way (guess which way) and result in Arab states agreeing to increase oil production to support prices in the event of some kind of military action. So, it's "be nice to Saudi Arabia" time, again.

All of this would be just such a golden Al Qaeda planning opportunity to disrupt oil supply lines out of the Middle East; but, perhaps I'm just getting carried away in my speculations.

Time will tell.

So I don't think this is going to be solved in the U.N.; but, most likely by some kind of Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.