Tuesday 5 February 2008

Bush's recent visit to the Middle East

Here's an interesting article from Information Clearinghouse about the (real) reasons for Bush's recent visit the several Middle Eastern states, seems plausible to me;

So, what was the real purpose of Bush's trip?
....
Bush went to the trouble of traveling half-way around the world to tell the Saudis and their friends in the Gulf States that they were going to continue linking their oil to the dollar or they were going to “sleep with the fishes”. For the last two months, various sheiks and finance ministers have been groaning about the falling dollar---threatening to break from the so-called “dollar-peg” and covert to a basket of currencies. Bush's trip appears to have rekindled the spirit of brotherly cooperation. The grumbling has ceased and everyone is back "on board". The regional leaders now seem considerably less bothered by the fact that inflation is gobbling up their economies and driving labor, food, energy and housing through the roof. Reuters summed it up like this: