NATO´s Middle East Chess Game

Every good chess player knows that before striking the opponent you want to carefully position your pieces on the board and when ready then unleash hell.
NATO is playing the same game in North Africa and Middle East, toppling down every dictator and replacing it with a military junta as in Egypt with no clear leader and easy to be controlled and replaced if the case, they also get a democratic branding from the support of western countries together with a generous support package to keep things calm among the population.
The choice of countries is not casual, all of them have a strategic relevance either in oil production or logistics, as you can see below Egypt and Yemen are vital to oil supplies, Bahrain is vital to both oil production and logistics and Libya is a perfect replacement for oil from the Middle East should an Iranian blockade take place in Strait of Ormuz, the oil chockpoint where 50% of the world´s seaborne oil transits daily.

Libya has some of the biggest and most proven oil reserves -- 43.6 billion barrels -- outside Saudi Arabia, and some of the best drilling prospects. Libya's oil is unusually "sweet" and "light," fundamentally is high-quality crude oil providing a better value than Saudi one should supplies from the Arabian region be disrupted at any stage. And furthermore Libya is close to Europe making easier to transit oil to the European and American markets while avoiding any possible disruption when the situation in the Middle East will escalate.
No doubt that once that Libyan oil fields will be under NATO control and production will be re-established  a new front of the New Resource War we entered into will be opened most probably directly on the Iranian borders.
Iran is well aware of this and since many years its government has been counteracting to the siege that is being undertaken on its borders. After all Iraq on the western border and Afghanistan on the eastern border are under US control, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States on his southern border are close US Allies and hosting major military bases. Pakistan on his south eastern border is without leadership and in lack of control while allowing the CIA to do whatever they want on its territory included staging a farsical attack to Osama Bin Laden on the outskirts of their capital. The Iranian northern borders are with Turkey a close US ally and not a good friend of Iran and the Caucasus republics of Russia which aside from Azerbaijan are normally hostile to Iran, the only friendly border at least for now is the one with Turkmenistan which is also vital for Iranian exports to China and Central Asia.
When the tension with Iran will mount and if a full scale war will explode the first victim will be the economy, The Strait of Ormuz will be shut down immediately and oil prices will explode to historical heights, a new great depression will start and as a consequence demand destruction will allow to make up for the shortfalls in production. If NATO plans will succeed Middle East will become a large battlefield for the core resources we covet and we cannot live without. Strange world where you have to wish that a dictator like Gaddafi will live another day.

Libya oil output

Out of the 1.7 million bpd, Europe is the Libya’s top crude customer with 11 countries importing about 1.1 million bpd, according to The Economist (See Chart).

Italian immigration crisis solved (at least officialy)

In my recent post on the Italian Immigration crisis I criticized the Italian prime minister Berlusconi for being too busy with his many trials to deal with the dramatic immigration problem of Lampedusa.Well I stand corrected, today the Italian Prime Minister has practically guaranteed to solve the problem in 60 hours, for all those politicians who aspire to have the same decisive qualities of Mr. Berlusconi below is the recipe for a 60 hours fix of the immigration issue:





During a lightning visit to Lampedusa, Berlusconi told cheering locals the following:

He will offer tax breaks to island's resident. He will empty the island of immigrants within 60 hours with six ferries to pick up the remaining 6000 migrants.
He will nominate locals for a Nobel peace prize (to award their patience).
He will buy a holiday home there (perfect setting for his bunga bunga parties).
He will push for the construction of a casino and a golf course.
He is buying fishing boats from smugglers so they cannot be used for immigration crossings adding and I quote: "That way when I am out of politics I will use them to set up a fresh fish business."
He will use his private TV channels to promote the relaunch of tourism in Lampedusa, while surfing the internet before his visit, he added, he had purchased a beach house on Lampedusa, which he visited before leaving the island.
He also asked the mayor to plant a few more trees on the island and paint the houses with brighter colours.


So far this year 18,000 north African migrants have sailed to the island, which has only 5,000 native inhabitants.
Berlusconi is now seeking to convince Italy's regional governors to put up the migrants he will bring from Lampedusa to the Italian mainland for the cheering of not only the people of Lampedusa but also for the immigrants who can save hitch a ride to their next destination.
Over 3,000 who have already escaped from the mainland makeshift camps have travelled to Ventimiglia seeking to cross into France, where many have relatives.
In order to repatriate them as stated by Interior Minister Maroni, Italy will need to identify each migrant (they will not have any documents on them) and serve an expulsion order, which can be appealed against ( an appeal in Italy can take years and they will not be able to be expelled until a verdict is reached).
Maroni has warned that the Tunisians may be just a warm up for 50,000 migrants fleeing the war in Libya.