Iran

Oil prices limped higher overnight in their ubiquitous carry-driven way, only to tumble quickly this morning as the reality that, as Goldman says "at record levels, this production freeze doesn't help at all") and clear indications from the meetings in Tehran that Iran will do 'whatever it takes' to increase its production to pre-sanctions levels. WTI is back below $30.

As Bloomberg notes,

Any output-freeze agreement among key oil producers is being dismissed out of hand by oil bears.

 

Last night when previewing today's main event, the "secret" meeting between the Saudi and Russian oil ministers, we explicitly said this deal would not "lead to a cut in production", and sure enough just two hours ago the meeting between the two oil superpowers concluded and as expected the two failed to agree to any production cut; instead what they did agree on was to "freeze" production at January's already record levels, and furthermore make the agreement contingent on other OPEC members complying, something Iran has al

Back in October, we asked the following: “Did Obama Just Set Off A Global Nuclear Arms Race By Signing The Iran Deal?”

On the surface that seems like an oxymoronic headline. After all, the nuclear accord is supposed to be about curbing nuclear proliferation, not setting off an arms race.

In case you haven’t noticed, Iran is on a roll.

Much to the chagrin of Israel and any number of GOP lawmakers in the US, the nuclear accord is a done deal and creates a $100 billion windfall for Tehran.

And that’s just the beginning of the story.

Nine months ago, things weren’t look good for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

Four years into his country’s bloody civil war, he found himself fighting a multi-front war against a long list of largely Sunni extremist elements and the government’s forces were stretched thin. The rebels enjoyed the support not only of the US, but of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. That meant that their resources were essentially unlimited.