Terrific interview, Dave -- thank you!

I am especially interested to get Klare's take on the possibilty of China and the US entering into direct conflict.  As I suspected, the big energy consumers will want to avoid direct military confrontation as much as possible.

Such a confrontation would not live anyone in any kind of shape to claim "victory" I think.

The potential for escalations seems very great, though.  If the US does attack Iran, I see the possibility for such escalation as being very great.

And it does seem that geopolitics affect immediate supply more than geography, at the moment.  But is that because the geographical realities are a long-term trend that does not register as starkly?  If supply was easy diverse, and abundant then the geopolitics would matter less.  With supply so tight, the geopolitics related to oil are brought to the forefront of our attention...?

Just noted that Dave's header to this interview is dated today Jan 27 2006 but all of the responses are dated Nov 06 2006.

Thought this might be a date stamp error in Drupal but then found Leanan was speaking of the "elections tomorrow" which confirms the November 2006 date.

Just posting this against the first comment to determine what time stamp comes up.