Well, that’s certainly one way to keep those oil prices high
Gas prices flirting with being <US$3.00/gallon? Tch, tch, that wouldn't be good for the gold-filled swimming pools, would it? Time to crank up the rumor-o-tron and justify large price increases:
The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."
--The Guardian
Suuure he isn't. B*sh isn't going to do anything except listen to whoever wins the little games of palace intrigue and parrot back whatever line they were trying to push on him. And whether or not the USA will be so insanely stupid as to try and attack Iran (and I'm sure that Iran would just sit there and let a parade of tankers waddle up and down the Persian gulf without silkworming one or two, then watching the west fall into a massive depresson when the price of crude oil jumps to US$300/bbl) is pretty much irrelevant here. The most secretive dictatorship in the world just doesn't leak this sort of information unless it will benefit someone in or around the government, and the bloated Jabba the Hutt impersonators who run the major B*sh junta-affiliated oil companies would benefit greatly by the price of oil going up by a factor of 5 or so [moreso if they could arrange it without risking damage to any of their oil tankers or loading facilities.)
It's the B*sh junta. They lie. Their leaks are lies. And if gas prices mysteriously shoot up in the wake of this carefully timed leak, think about just who's going to benefit from that bit of serendipity.