Since the 1973 Arab oil embargo, successive US administrations have equated national security with access to, and control of, oil – particularly in the Persian Gulf, which holds two-thirds of global oil reserves. In other words, as long as we need oil, we need the Persian Gulf.
Faced with this unpleasant [...]

So seven years later it will come down to this weekend.  Whether President Obama can withdraw all American combat troops from Iraq by August will be decided by the Iraqi elections this weekend.
If the election passes off peacefully, American soldiers will probably go home on schedule. But if there is a repeat of the sectarian [...]

Change may only happen in small steps, but slowly and surely the geo-politics of oil are changing.
The dynamics of Middle Eastern oil are in transition. Anyone who argued that the war in the Gulf was a war about oil should sit up and take notice.  And anyone concerned about the climate should also be worried. [...]

Sometimes a story grows legs, other times it hits the dust.
But yesterday’s front page story in the Independent about negotiations to end oil trading in dollars seems to have hit a raw nerve and sent shock-waves through the currency markets.
In response to the story, gold is now trading at record levels and the dollar is [...]

The dollar is sliding on the currency markets this morning after reports by the Independent newspaper that Arab states are in secret talks with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading.
The move – if it happens – would be the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, [...]