It Begins and Ends with Oil

By John Kass

October 18, 2023

As President Joe Biden arrives in Israel in the hopes of resurrecting his stumbling re-election prospects and grab a photo op or two, some White House aide might feel the temptation to whisper into his ear:

“All glory is fleeting…all glory is fleeting.”

It comes from the old movie “Patton,” and is said to have been repeated by many generals and Caesars over the years.

But Biden is no Caesar.  He’s old and weak, and unsure on his feet. Even his dog doesn’t respect him. He has foolishly visited Israel selfishly to boost his own politics but is now drawn into the blame game between Israeli Defense Forces and Iran’s public relations media battalions with hundreds of civilians killed in a missile strike at a hospital in Gaza City.

Hamas claims it is Israel’s fault, but I think it was a misfired Hamas missile. Bombing a hospital wouldn’t serve Israel’s politics, but the left hates Israel and American journalism has been captured by the left. The media doesn’t have time to wait before it blurts out conclusions. The news is a battlefield too. Israel presented evidence that it is innocent of the genocidal crime, including time-stamped video.

Biden’s presence there only adds to the confusion and delays Israel’s counter attack from the Oct. 7 massacre of Israeli children. What does Biden think he will accomplish? Tell his old boring falsehoods like Commander McBrag, in which he’s always the bloody hero? Iran spins him like a top.

Most Democrats believe Biden is too old for the job and wish there were another candidate. He’s no fan of Israel’s conservative government and the feeling is mutual. He’s handed Iran billions of dollars.

Yet he is deathly afraid of Iran, which sent its murderous proxy terrorists from Hamas into Gaza to slaughter innocent Israeli children. And now the president babbles that he’s not quite certain that Iran is not at fault, though his intelligence agencies say otherwise. More confusion.

And even with all the confusion and the fog of war and propaganda battles, even with an anti-Israeli United Nations sniping at Israel’s legitimate efforts to protect itself, some clear-headed Biden aides might dare tell the old man the truth.

They might lean forward and whisper into the old man’s ear.

“It all begins and ends with oil.”

Because it does.

That is the long and short of it, the motivation and the greed that has carved up the Middle East again and again, from the cynical British and French diplomats to the American neo-conservatives today, discredited in Iraq and Afghanistan hoping for rebirth in Gaza. It’s always oil and profit and the use of other lives to resurrect their careers.

The King of Jordan and the leader of the Palestinian authority cancelled their scheduled meetings on Wednesday. His political adventure has already become a disaster. The only thing missing is Biden wearing curly toed boots, playing a lyre like the jester he has become.

If those sands and deserts held only blood and tears and scorpions and centipedes, then we wouldn’t feel the urgency. We would care about the massacres of Israeli civilians the way we cared about civilian massacres in Africa.

But the Middle East is different because of this:

The world lives on oil. China lives on it. The U.S. lives on it. Whether the petulant Bolshevik children of “The Squad” like it or not, the world wants oil.

It all begins and ends with oil.

Wasn’t it only yesterday that the United States under President Donald Trump was an energy independent nation?

Yes.

But then Biden was elected and immediately open the Southern border of the U.S. and killed the Keystone Pipeline and declared an end to energy independence.

He joined with the hard Bolshevik left of Bernie Sanders to wage war on fossil fuels, especially oil and gas.

But Russia didn’t stop drilling. Russia didn’t stop producing. And the additional billions they picked up selling oil to China funded Russia’s War on Ukraine, that Biden himself tacitly approved.

Most have forgotten. But I haven’t forgotten.

As the left-leaning site Politico reported the other day, “Crude oil exports from Iran have risen on Biden’s watch despite U.S. sanctions aimed at punishing Tehran for its nuclear ambitions, military aggression and support for terrorism. Now, last weekend’s violence by the Iranian-allied Palestinian group is fueling new calls for the U.S. to choke off that revenue stream, which Republican lawmakers have lambasted as an ill-fated attempt at “appeasement.”

Iran has pulled in billons upon billions of dollars—much of it illicit—in oil payments. Biden just promised to provide billions of dollars more to Iran, and Iran uses oil revenues to fund terrorism, including the Iran proxy terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

Iran funds Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran trains and feeds world terrorism and the rockets and the death.

Wasn’t it only yesterday that the United States under President Donald Trump was an energy independent nation?

Yes.

We were energy independent. But Biden demanded Americans to buy electric vehicles, which Americans don’t want. And he went to war on American oil. And by doing so, he aided Russia in Ukraine–Russia had the money to fund its wars–and he helped Iran and Hamas slice at Israel. These are Biden’s war fronts.

Remember that it was Biden who brought Rob Malley into the White House as his U.S. envoy to Iran.

Malley was one of the architects of the notorious Obama-Biden nuclear deal with Iran. He has now been stripped of his security clearance for suspected misuse of American secrets pertaining to intelligence involving Iran.

This has been an exercise in cynicism and media manipulation and the Washington Democrat Media Complex had been so hypnotized by the Obama-Biden operatives that they were helpless.

Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, bragged about media manipulation to The New York Times, saying the media was full of inexperienced know-nothings who were helpless before him and were eager to be mesmerized.

“We created an echo chamber,” Rhodes was quoted as saying. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”

“They literally know nothing,” Rhodes was quoted as saying. “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old… They literally know nothing.”

And still the American media loved Obama, slurped nourishment from his own hand.

And now Biden is out in Gaza, avoiding the realities on the ground, avoiding the realities that are understood by all:

It begins and ends with oil.

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Comments 36

  2. Thank you John for telling the truth. It is all about Oil and Greed and our Country is becoming a third World Country and that is the goal of so many so called American Politicians while they use our tax dollars for their free health care, and fat pensions. We have lost the best Country on Earth due to allowing the enemy to enter and flourish and trust me we will have another 911 soon. Hamas is here folks wake up and smell the coffee. So sad what is happening to the American dream that we came to built and today they come in and get free everything while we suckers work to pay for the mistakes of the Government.
    How can anyone Vote for Biden or any of this cronies. Not that the Republicans are any better. McConnell and Schumer must go and so many of them that live of our hard earned pay checks. TERM LIMITS IS WHAT WE NEED AND THROW THE BUMS OUT. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORD JOHN AND ALWAYS BE HONORABLE.

    1. Except we have the tool for term limits – and we don’t use it. It is called the Ballot Box, and how often do we, like sheep, keep voting either for a name we “know” or the person we’re told to vote for. Having some ‘different’ name on the ballot does not make them any more honest, any more willing to represent us and who we are. If the lazy electorate really cared about that, we’d have someone other than Durbin as our senior Senator, and someone other than Duckworth as our junior Senator.

      A fascinating exercise is to listen to friends, neighbors or acquaintences talk about a national issue (or at least talk around the edges of the issue) and register their level of concern. When you remind them that Rep. XYZ, who they elected to Congress, holds that self-same position, the look of amazed dismay is something to behold. Pitifully few of our voters connect their choice at the ballot box to the decisions being made by those who are supposedly “representing” us in Congress.

      Another fun one? Friends and neighbors who have campaign signs in their yard, bumper stickers on their car or whatever – supporting Mr. or Ms. Blank for office are often woefully unaware of what that campaigner’s position is on issues of concern. One neighbor voted for our current Congressman (about whom I could write a separate treatise!) because his kid goes to school with my granddaughter, and she’s a very nice girl. Got it. Term limits will not fix that.

      1. The ‘ballot box’ doesn’t work as a term limit, because both parties have rigged the game.

        It starts with creating districts (in the House) that are considered safe for one party. Then the incumbent spends most of his or her time raising money to run again. It is rare for someone to beat the incumbent in the primary, often there is token opposition or no primary opponent.

        The concept of a ‘citizen legislator’ that the founding fathers envisioned didn’t survive the 19th century. They thought people would serve for a few years then go back to their businesses, farms or law practices. Most of our elected representatives and senators have done little else other than work in government or as lobbyists. As a result, not only are they professional legislators, they haven’t got a clue what happens in a real business, how to create and market a product, how to meet a payroll, and especially how to deal with the myriad government rules and regulations that they helped build as legislators.

        1. Everything you say is true. But at least our clueless legislators are (in principle) answerable to the people. Who are the bureaucrats in our vast administrative state answerable to? If you insist on representative term limits, you will have acceded what little representation “we the people” now have to the unelected, unaccountable, interminable, bureaucratic professional “public servant.” Given recent history, particularly during the pandemic, how’d that all work out?

  3. John, as usual, you’re spot on and well said. Funny how the oil and fossil fuel crap is easily forgotten. Yet we live in a messed up country with too many fools believing all the rhetoric and voting for the same types of fools they themselves are.

    I was never a big fan of term limits. There are a few (very few nowadays) good ones you’d like to keep around. Yet I think Helen is right and the time has come to put limits on these characters. The only problem is the fools who vote and I’m not so sure voting in another moron chosen by these fool single issue voters is gonna help right now.

    Why would brain dead Joe head to an area ripe with bullets and bombs and don’t much like him or his policies? Kinda like me riding the L to Englewood. Not very smart. Evil of me to say this but have Joe’s handlers set him up as a potential target ? Stranger things have happened, no ?

    3. About your comment, “The only problem is the fools who vote ….”, its the Abortion-Free America Republicans like Lindsey Graham who are driving the women voters who don’t like to read or don’t have time to read, (like my wife) and who are constantly fed by campaign propaganda media news in their family rooms that are voting these so called liberal democrats. And I would certainly rescind their voting rights!
      -Nambi

    4. Ken…Stranger Things? If Joe should “accidentally” get shot down, blown up, choke oa a blintz, or have some kind of unforseen accident….well that would solve a major problem for the Dems. Joe wouldn’t be able to run for president. But…he would become a martyr, a hero, a blazing symbol for the Left to rally the troops, around…as well as the gullible media. A new, more inspiring candidate, a “savior” could carry the Democratic Banner for the Left in the next election. A lot of Dems would be thrilled…a pebble in their shoe removed. Better keep an eye on the CIA.

  4. Oil is the fuel for the fire but evil, blind hatred is the spark. These are people who are taught from a very young age to hate and kill those who aren’t like them. They don’t want a two state solution. They want a one state solution with Israel eliminated. And if they get it, from the river to the sea, no Jews, do you think they’ll suddenly be content and stop there? I don’t. Lest we forget, in their eyes, we’re infidels too. It’s very hard to fight that kind of evil. But we could minimize their fuel supply. If only there were some way to make the United States energy independent and stop paying Iran for oil. Oh wait….

  5. Term limits for federal office, however desirable, probably require a constitutional amendment just as was the case with the two term limit for the presidency. That is a very high bar to climb over since congressional super majorities are required to place the amendment before the states for ratification. That’s like asking turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving.

    1. We have term limits. They’re called elections. We need only for people to pay attention, ask hard questions (since our “news” media does not), think independently, and VOTE! For example, Vallas would be mayor now if more citizens did this…instead we get another Brandon with 17% support of eligible voters. We were given a republic…can we keep it?

      2. Vallas would have been another tool for the system, just maybe not as obviously lead around by the nose or another less mentionable part of his anatomy.

  6. 100% it’s all about oil. The naive “leaders” in the US, Europe, and the world need to understand, accept, and plan for a long (decades) long transition from carbon fuels to green, renewable energy, but even then oil will be in the mix. People need food on their table, the ability to move, etc. at a reasonable, non-inflationary price and that’s oil today. Putting the oil companies out of business in the here & now as advocated by these naive & manipulative politicians is dangerous on so many levels, especially the international relations of Iran, Russia, Middle East, etc. as mentioned in the article. We’re so busy fighting ourselves in the US that we’re incoherent on international relations.
    Perhaps we can get practical, responsible bi-partisan leadership in DC some day…

  8. Repeat after me “FOLLOW THE MONEY!” Oil makes the world go around and always will. Saw a meme yesterday of a loaded coal train entitled electric car food. I agree, The majority of 27 year olds do not have a clue. They have no concept of critical thinking. They were fed the radical left message in their college and needed safe spaces. They fret over pronouns and what sex they think they should be. (Hmm biology?) They know very little history, again taught by folks with revisionist references. SMDH

  9. So, are things bad enough now (the status-quo of funding petrol-terrorist) that we’ll push for nuclear power?
    – US Navy has been doing this successfully for decades.
    – France has been doing this successfully for decades.
    – The world has fought numerous wars (WW2 and others) over oil since forever.

    Or is everyone happy with continuing to be their b*tch?

  10. Thank you for putting these events in a timely perspective.
    Oil is the 100% cause of inflation and international strife.
    You have come back as solid and concise as ever.

  11. Right on!

    And how many stories will the left leaning media be released today concerning more “evidence” of catastrophic climate change that can only be reversed by eliminating the use of fossil fuels ASAP?

  13. America wins with abundance. Abundance of energy is one way to win. Nixon wanted to go nuclear and he was cut off. We should be building tens of thousands of nuclear plants all over America.
    Nuclear fusion will come. Until then, oil. Drill baby drill.

  14. Yianni,
    For centuries now, oil has powered virtually every economy on earth, be it a capitalist, socialist or communist. It is the single common denominator of all commerce across the globe. Oil powers ships, trucks, planes, autos, generating stations, and our homes. EV technology isn’t going to be around long, thanks to new hydrogen fuel cell development. Yet, the minute uncle Joe took office, the world’s economies began to unravel. What started all those “supply shortages?” Yup, oil prices through the roof. Won’t get better any time soon. And now, with more wars looming on the horizon, our strategic oil reserve is at an all time low, thanks to Joe’s shortsightedness and idiocy. If we can’t import enough oil because of confligrations overseas, what will happen? Joe won’t allow more drilling, so, probably a civil war on our own shores as people fight to obtain food, clothing, transportation, medical care, etc. Won’t be pretty, but I fear it’s not too far away. God help us all….

  15. Morning news just finished airing Bidens stumbling, bumbling, rambling speech in Israel. Now that I’ve finished laughing I’ve composed myself to comment on your excellent article. Since I was a kid there was always some old timer that used the phrase “..the whole worlds gone to shit.” As a younger person you usually rolled your eyes and wrote it off as words of an old grouch. Thanks to Joe Biden and his Democrat party, its now official. THE WHOLE WORLDS GONE TO SHIT. Hyper inflation. Wars. Shortages. Identity politics run amok. Democrats have stated they want to tear everything down and rebuild it in their own image. Republicans just want to hold on to whats left of our own civil society. The Democrats are now making noise about letting Palestinian refugees into the country. Nothing like letting people into your country who want to kill you. Strangely enough none of the Arabic countries have offered to take in any refugees. They know better. They’ll end up having to deal with these terrorists themselves in a few years. Americans? We aren’t that smart. We’ve let in millions of criminals in the last three years. Why not add some terrorists to the mix. Times have changed, and not for the better. I wish we could return to the old days. That phrase used to mean the 50’s, 60’s, or 70’s. Now it means more like three years ago.

  16. The disgusting pro-Hamas demonstrations in the colleges and liberal enclaves, joined with the recent news on ACT and SAT testing record low scores, highlights the voting mistakes plaguing our national survival. Ben Rhodes observations on the mental acuity of the press reveals the contempt and intent toward the consumers of the propaganda. The ignorance of public school attendees is a feature and not a bug of the Marxist disdain of America.

  17. John Kass sez: “What does Biden think he will accomplish? Tell his old boring falsehoods like Commander McBrag, in which he’s always the bloody hero? ”

    Quite.

  18. I lived in Texas for several years and keep in touch there. Rick Perry used all his power to push for renewables, and, if he hadn’t been successful, Texas would have been in deep freeze during the winter energy catastrophe and melted this past summer. I eschew car ownership so live my values about our over dependence on oil. Are you aware the fracking in Texas alone uses trillions of gallons of water — our MOST VALUABLE COMMODITY? Read the novel WATER KNIFE for an idea of this oil love affair’s future.

  21. Thank you John Kass for your words. God bless you.
    Having witnessed these last few days, it appears to me that OBiden and Blinken, together, could not organize a two car funeral. We have NO diplomacy and our state department is in tatters with filtering of people who are in the arms of Iran at state department, now on leave, and the DOD….I guess if you are in love with DEI and being woke, this is your dream…but, it is our nightmare today and in the future until Jan 20, 2025.
    God save us all.
    Tom

  22. President #46 is back from his”second war-zone” ( note – Both war-zones sprang up on his watch, not to mention the disaster in Afghanistan) and tonight this meat-bag in Florsheim’s will babble to the nation about how he is saving lives in Gaza and tempering Israel’s resolve.

    I can not wait to vote again for Donald Trump.

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