Hilllary Clinton and others are outraged about the suppression of protests, yet when Saudi troops arrived in Bahrain what happened? Nothing. Could it be that the USA believes change is less necessary in Saudi Arabia than Libya?

Prince Saud Al-Faisal promised to ‘cut off the fingers of those who try to interfere in our internal matters’ and explained protests in the kingdom are unnecessary; there is conjecture that the reason there aren’t mass protests yet – in Saudi Arabia – is because the monarchy enforces its position with the help of torture, mutilation and execution. Why are the USA and the UK so emamoured of the Saudis? Could it be oil access or export licences granted by the UK government for arms sales to the kingdom (4 times as much as in 2003)?

The Brown government was so determined to preserve its special relationship with the Saudis, it derailed British justice, by forcing the Serious Fraud Office to drop its inquiry into corruption in the Al Yamamah deals.

But is it just weapons or is there more at stake? Is the distinct likelihood of unrest in Saudi Arabia pushing oil to $200 a barrel when the world went into meltdown at just under $150 a barrel? The reality is that most governments in power regardless of left or right are likely to survive the economic dislocation that a sustained price of $200 would deliver. But even if the regime remains, it’s not clear that it can keep delivering, as Wikileaks cables showed American diplomats questioning the kingdom’s ability to keep raising production.

The big problem with all oil producing countries is overstated reserves and with the Saudies its said to be 40%; production quotas assigned to OPEC states are a function of the size of their stated reserves, so all members of the cartel have an incentive to exaggerate them. Saudi Arabia posts the same figure as it did in 1988.
Western governments rely on production forecasts from the International Energy Agency, which has been proven to have no real idea; recently backing away from forecasts of future supply and on its aggorant dismissal of those who have warned that global oil output might one day peak. In 2006 the IEA predicted that world oil supply would rise from 82 million barrels a day to 116 million in 2030, only to reduce the forecast to 106m in 2009; a 105m in 2010 and 96m by 2035.

Given that the IEA’s new prediction relies on an assumption that Saudi output will rise from 9m barrels to 14.6m in 2035, every country dependant on oil has reason to be concerned. Dr Sadad al-Husseini (former head of Exploration and Production at Saudi Aramco) said ‘sustaining 12 million barrels/day output will only be possible for a limited period of time, and even then, only with a massive investment program; and then a slow but steady output decline will ensue and no amount of effort will be able to stop it’. When this information was released, he claimed not to have said it, dspite the figures in the report being detailed and precise.

Now, as Japan needs more energy than ever before to rebuild and access non-nuclear fuel for energy, things are going to get a lot tougher …. Peak Oil has passed and we all will suffer; those that plan the least, will suffer the most.

He cited negligence of disarmament by the nuclear states during an address to a two-week gathering on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Treaty and repeated violations of NPT regulations by certain Western powers.

The ambassador said, according to the article six of the treaty, Western countries were committed to uphold disarmament, yet they have not only failed to fulfil their commitments, they are involved in stockpiling arsenals more than before.

He stressed that there was no logical or legal justification for existence of nuclear weapons while the US, Britain and France have based their military doctrines on nuclear weapons; Washington was the pioneer of violating the NPT regulations by developing its own nuclear arsenal and providing Israel with technical and engineering expertise to go ahead with its weapons program.

His address and request was ignored by Geneva, the United Nations and not published in any ‘western’ media outlet.

From NATO’s expansion plans in the former Soviet Union to Washington’s proposals for a bigger defence budget and a missile shield in central Europe, the US was deliberately quashing hopes for permanent peace with Russia, Mr Gorbachev said.

‘We had 10 years after the Cold War to build a new world order and yet we squandered them, the United States cannot tolerate anyone acting independently.’

Yet if Washington blames Mr Putin’s self-aggrandising rhetoric for the worst crisis in East-West relations since the Cold War, for Mr Gorbachev the blame lies entirely with the administration of President George W Bush.

Gorbachev said ‘I sometimes have a feeling that the United States is going to wage war against the entire world’, no doubt to comments by Robert Gates (the US defence secretary), who told a congressional committee that America needed to boost military spending to counter myriad threats including the ‘uncertain paths of China and Russia’.

Those comments caused uproar in Russia, with pro-Kremlin newspapers claiming they heralded the start of a new Cold War.

Tensions have already been heightened by a US proposal to build a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic to counter a nuclear strike by Iran.

Mr Gorbachev said ‘it is a very dangerous step; the Americans promised that NATO wouldn’t move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted; erecting elements of missile defence is taking the arms race to the next level’.

Relations have further deteriorated after NATO promised eventual membership to Georgia and Ukraine, a move interpreted as an attempt to extend America’s sphere of influence into Russia’s backyard.

For a man hailed as one of the heroes of the 20th century, Mr Gorbachev, now 77, often sounded like the ageing hardliners he struggled against in the Kremlin during the 1980s.