Craven. posted by Richard Seymour

Not to go on about the cartoons again, but I think it's just worth mentioning that - of course - the reaction of leaders of Arab states to this event is totally cynical and hypocritical. They, and the more pliable elements of the ulama that they employ (particularly at Al-Azhar) didn't make half as much noise about the invasion of Iraq as it was happening. And it is ironic that this much pressure has been applied, that the Saudi government went so far as to threaten a boycott on Danish dairy produce and yield a threatening reaction from Peter Mandelson, just as the leading Gulf states are totally capitulating to the US/European agenda on Iran. For instance:

OPEC members said they had agreed to maintain their current policy and keep pumping oil at 25-year record levels, rejecting earlier calls from two members, Iran and Venezuela, to pare production.

The conference of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is to begin on Wednesday at the group's headquarters in Vienna, but the decision to maintain production levels had already been widely expected by oil analysts. Prices in New York remain just $2 below last summer's record of $70 a barrel.

The decision, if formally adopted, would mean that OPEC, which accounts for a third of the world's oil production, would keep producing at a level last seen in the early 1980's to help build commercial stocks and keep "ample" supplies on the markets, said Edmund Daukoru, Nigeria's oil minister and the president of OPEC this year.

"We are unanimous in our view of the market," Mr. Daukoru told reporters here. "We are a bit uncomfortable with the price."

There was little mention Monday of a possible cut in production, even in the second quarter, a time of the year when demand typically declines. The idea had been first pushed by Iran last week.

But the proposal, which gained only the backing of Venezuela, was defeated by other producers, led by Saudi Arabia, who believed that prices were too high to consider any cuts in production.

In recent assessments of Bush's State of the Union address, it has been noted that the US imports around a fifth of its oil from the Middle East and only 16% from the Gulf states (no one's given that figure, but I calculate it from the figures provided by the US government to be approximately 16%). The important thing to recognise here is that the US dependency on Middle East oil has been increasing. Oil imports from the Gulf states seems to have peaked, significantly enough, in the period 2002-4, but it remains higher than it has been for a while. The same is true of imports from OPEC as a whole, which includes Venezuela. The fact that these states have simply refused to use the only leverage they have is indicative of just how dependent their regimes are on Western support. Hosni Mubarak, I suggest, wouldn't survive for very long as dictator of Egypt if he didn't receive aid and arms from the United States. The Saudi government relied for years on US troops, and now relies on US mercenaries.

Similarly:

After years of hesitating, Persian Gulf states are joining the call for tougher action on Iran's nuclear efforts, increasingly worried that a nuclear Iran could set off a regional arms race.

In recent weeks, Saudi officials and other gulf leaders have called for Iran to abandon its nuclear research, without demanding that Israel disarm first.

Separating those two demands is a major policy change, and many experts see the shift as a sign that Iran's Arab neighbors may even back United Nations sanctions against Iran.

"For the past couple of years, they have been ambiguous, giving conflicting signals," said Riad Kahwaji, managing director of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai. "Now we're seeing a unified stand."

"If they are asked to vote on this in the U.N.," he added, "they would not vote in favor of Iran."

It is tempting to see the public entreaties of Arab leaders as a hysterical acting out that dramatises their total abasement before Western power. It is also somewhat more than tempting to conclude that there is no 'Muslim world' - the Saudi regime is bitterly hostile to the Iranian one, albeit they both legitimise themselves with reference to some form of Political Islam. For that reason, it is not hard to see how pliant Gulf states are more interested in retaining good relations with the US than defending its embattled neighbour.