Iran's New Found Pricing Power - Capitalism Perverted

It puzzled me for a while wondering what exactly could Iran be thinking in their pursuit of nuclear weapons. The timing seemed terrible given we're already next door and the current White House Administration probably has the least patience and least tolerance for these types of shenanigans. It puzzled me until I started to think about some pin action off this endeavor.

First let me state that I am a firm believer that Iran will indeed get a nuclear weapon sooner or later. We will not invade Iran more than to clog their television airspace with messages from Condi at the white house about how we're unhappy. I think they got that message already, but why not repeat it a couple hundred more times - it worked for Kim Jong Il right?

Aha! A calculated bet by Iran that we won't invade based on our past actions with India and Pakistan and more recently North Korea. So why build a nuke other than to be able to say you have one? And no, they're not going to use it against Israel.

The answer: Iran can then use the nuke as a deterrence to invasion by the US while they simulataneously spout rhetoric that lifts up the price of a barrel of oil. As I mentioned in a previous post - the long term price of oil will always tend to move back to $57/barrel as long as OPEC can meet demand. Now this long term price says nothing about short term spikes which allow low cost oil producers to maximize profits while still leaving a little worry in the market for the long term price stability of oil - enough to keep alternative energy sources from being invested in heavily.

This past year I'm sure OPEC has noticed the bump up in their coffers due to natural threats to the oil supply - namely hurricanes. However hurricanes are neither repeatable nor controllable as a threat. But waving your nuke around is. Its perfect extortion and it will work.

Given the affect on prices Irans quest for a nuke has had, do you think the other oil producers are going to stand up help us stop Iran? Nope, not a chance.

Here comes the worst part - I don't blame Iran for trying. A nuke for them would ensure the current regime will remain in place, shut up our sanction threats, and provide a higher price for the nations only natural resource.