Higher fuel costs with Bush win?
LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices fell sharply on Monday on speculation that a U.S. election win for Senator John Kerry could ease the geopolitical friction that has helped fuel this year's record-breaking rally.

"Under a Kerry administration we'd likely have a much more interventionist SPR policy," said Jamal Qureshi, market analyst at PFC Energy in Washington.

"And when you look out a bit further, Bush is more likely to be aggressive in the Middle East, particularly in Iran."

The Bush administration continues to add crude to the SPR, the national strategic petroleum reserve, despite high prices.

Kerry says he would stop filling the reserve at current prices to keep more crude on the market. That difference is important for a world oil market suffering a shortage of light, sweet crude, which makes up about 40 percent of the SPR.

"A Bush status quo results in somewhat higher oil prices both in the short and the longer term, in my view," said Tim Evans, senior analyst at IFR Energy Services.

Predictions:

Hmmm...wonder why Bush isn't concerned about souring oil costs? Last I heard Saudi Arabia had an $80 billion budget surplus. Any connection there? That's in contrast to our 7 billion dollar debt, by the way.

Note the reference to Iran. On the 17th of Nov. things are going to come to a head over Iran's nuclear program, where a decision about sanctions may be made. Cheney I hear doesn't think much of sanctions, in particular the ones on Iran, the ones that prevent Halliburton from doing business there.

Maybe, the Bush administration after 4 years, finally comes up with a policy regarding Iran?

Maybe, whether he gets elected or not, the neocons finally win the argument and we attack Iran?

If W gets elected we declare victory after the Iraqi "elections" and move on to Iran. (Real men still want to go to Tehran}

No doubt, Wolfowitz and Co. will convince Bush if we only stop Iranian meddling in Iraq everything will be alright, and naturally Israel will be happy. (By then Netanyahu will probably be running things anyway.)

(Newt will become the Secretary of State, so there'll be no more negative nabobism from that quarter.)

If he doesn't get elected he'll invade out of desperation and leave Kerry with a much bigger mess than Daddy did in Somalia.

Iran is next on the list, I have no doubt. We'll clobber them with air power and shock and awe for a while and by then the draft will be rolling so man-power won't be such a big issue.

Bush and the pentagon make a lot out of the volunteer army's value of being full of motivated highly skilled soldiers but the evidence so far is that they treat them like cannon fodder, just like the drafted army of the Vietnam era.

The U.S. army is on the verge of collapse, the only way to keep it viable at this point is the draft.