The politics of the Middle East is very complicated and centers on three different components, religion, ethnicity and oil.
The religious angle is always played up because it is the easiest (for Westerners) to understand but usually detracts from the real issues involved. Ethnicity is very important, as the tribal bonds are tighter than the religious bonds, although most tribes are united by a common religious belief. What is easily attributed as sectarian violence often stems from the tribal instinct to keep the other tribes off your property, so you can secure natural resources for your own tribe. This ethnic fighting has occurred since before history in Africa and the Middle East. In Africa we say it is “tribal” in nature, in the Middle East we call it sectarian in nature, but it really is the same.
That leaves oil. Oil and natural gas is the lifeblood of that region. Saudi Arabia has sunk the most money into their infrastructure and relied on private companies to keep costs down, it costs SA just over $3 for every barrel they produce, the rest is profit. It costs Iran about $25 a barrel to produce oil. Iran has been using their more meager profits to modernize their military and infrastructure while trying to build nuclear power plants. Iran has not be investing in it’s petroleum industry and has such draconian profit sharing plans for companies that drill in Iran that they are having trouble getting anyone to help modernize their drilling equipment. Italy is in and India just announced they will be operating platforms, but Total (France) and Shell (Netherlands) have been holdouts for better development contracts (more money). Iran needs nukes in a big way, but not necessarily for weapons, they have the second largest oil reserves and the largest natural gas reserves and they have to import both in order to meet their own domestic needs.
The real reason Iran wants OPEC to lower production quotas has less to do with them wanting the price to go up… which they do desperately… it is because their drilling and petroleum infrastructure has been neglected which has led to the high cost of production as well as reduced production. Iran is unable to meet its production quota. By reducing the quota to below their current level they will be able to take some of the profits from the higher priced oil to modernize or offer incentives to their drilling partners.
The main stumbling blocks in Iran’s desire to control OPEC has been SA, Kuwait and UAE, with SA acting as the ringleader. Iran has attempted to sow the seeds of dissent in SA and SA’s defense forces are occupied infiltrating and eliminating home grown terror cells. They have successfully recruited people to act outside SA, such as the 9/11 hijackers and the fighters in Iraq. The SA terrorists won’t do much except voice opposition to the Royal Family, and not just because SA takes a hard line in dealing with dissenters, but because the tribal bonds that are there.
Since the US provides security for SA, they are free to do other things with their vast oil petroleum wealth. As long as the US is there they don’t fear a direct assault from the Iranian army and the US already disarmed the Iraqi army, so they face no threats. But in order to pay back the US SA keeps oil production up to keep the prices low enough to keep Iran on the ropes. The countries aligned with SA are keeping oil prices low so Iran cannot wage war. Their funding for Hezbollah has decreased, they are barely able to pump enough petroleum to keep themselves solvent, their military is large but under funded and under equipped. They can do just so much with the limited income they have.
So they kick out the UN inspectors hoping that will force an embargo or other sanctions so they can garner sympathy from their remaining allies. The US is not pressing for sanctions knowing that will be the result, but the US has been keeping pressure up along the Iran/Iraq border depriving Iraqi insurgents with much needed equipment and money.
Bush (with the help of the Arab members of OPEC) is essentially doing the same to Iran as Reagan did to the USSR, without the Cold War. Iran is less able to fund Hezbollah because they are funding the Iraqi terror cells. Iran cannot develop it’s petroleum or energy infrastructures because they are funding a nuclear weapons program. In the meantime the Iranian citizens are angry about lack of services and oil profit sharing like their Arab neighbors. Now the Iranian clerics are seeing the light and are beginning to remind Ahmadinejan he is not the supreme ruler of the country and are tempering his anti-American rhetoric.
For all the rest of his faults Ahmadinejan is smart enough to know that to deal with a determined opponent such as Bush Jr. you have to maintain your course and not deviate or capitulate. But he should remember the revolution that saw him rise to power was not based on politics, but was lead by the hard line clerics. Crossing Bush is one thing, but he should ask the Shah about the undoing of the monarchy, the clerics run Iran, not the politicians.
(And for those who missed it, I maintain that the Saudis and the rest of the Arab petroleum producers have united with the US against Iran from before the beginning of the liberation of Iraq, not on the battlefield, but on the economic front lines.)
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