Middle East

Brian,

The illusion was that the regional political structure was fundamentally stable in the first place. Had it been there would be no need for repressive regimes. When we talk of stable what we mean is one that suits us. Our fantasy team of terrorists will expand exponentially as we see the results of this "democracy' and we manoeuvre to reverse it. Even as I write, I surmise that, our highly trained teams of think-tank strategists, spooks and assorted uniforms (given their inability to predict any of this they are actually just ill-informed pragmatists) are discussing the requisite actions, military coups and suitable despots that'll be required to protect and preserve our strategic and economic interests. We're probably going to hear a lot about Sovereignty while the Saudis, Emiratis and Kuwaitis kick the shit out of their democrats and lock them up. What we do if the Saudis open fire on their population or roll tanks down the causeway into Bahrain will be interesting - probably nothing. The theoretical threat from Iran will no doubt reach screaming pitch.

It is always important not to believe anything that comes out of these events - babies ripped from incubators or bombing your own civilians. From what I can extrapolate the Kaddafi regime has so far bombed their own military stores to prevent them falling into the other side's hands - understandable, the odd collateral civilian death not withstanding. What we're seeing is tribal warfare. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for Kaddafi his tribal bit doesn't have the oil. Which is why we appear to be a bit schizo about the goings on there - the outcome in his bit doesn't matter. The Brits et al will all be heading to Bengasi. BP is particularly vulnerable to the outcome in Libya - especially since the Russians changed the rules and messed up their return on investment there. And we're expected to believe that the Blair government rapprochement with Kaddafi wasn't a cynical oil driven deal. Can anyone explain to me how Blair is now supposed to bring peace to the middle-east?

While we thought bailing out the banks would solve the global problems and return us to the status quo - boy were we wrong. We're now broke, ineffectual and confused and everyone else is unhappy and on the streets - which is possibly where we should be too.

Best,