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Kuwait and Saudi Arabia paid around USD$32 billion of the US's $60 billion cost. The Arabs have a tradition of hiring mercenaries to fight their wars. Looks like the `Disrupt-or' - in - Chief is turning things around.
Looks like the `Disrupt-or' - in - Chief plans to continue being Saudi Arabia's bodyguard.
During the first Gulf war I took a lunch in the executive dining room of Texaco which operates and leases oil wells in the desert there. At each table was an Arab in white gown with head dress along with the Texaco staff. I was told that as soon as it looked like an invasion, the wealthy sent their first born males to the US. For protection. And presumably everyone else to Switzerland.
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia paid around USD$32 billion of the US's $60 billion cost. The Arabs have a tradition of hiring mercenaries to fight their wars. Looks like the `Disrupt-or' - in - Chief is turning things around.
Based upon Trump recent statements, failure to go to war blindly over ship seizures and removal of Bolton-a war hawk, from the West Wing, and all that Syria stuff, and his campaign promises, I don't believe Trump is going to step into Hillary's slippers and get us into another war. By turn things around, I meant not the same foreign policy as Bush/Cheney, O'Bama/Hillary who turned the Middle East into chaos. Where's the war no more crowd?
It's a global economy. If prices go up overseas because of a shortage there then oil companies in the US will sell their oil in the higher market. So we have to pay more to counter that and keep the supplies here. And we are not really independent - just not so dependent. But even there taken in the big picture there are strong dependencies. Coastal areas, east and west, are still dependent on oil imports. Oil being produced in Texas, and ND, etc has to be piped to other areas and US pipeline capacity is limited and lagging the rapid growth in oil production since 2009.
There is a brilliant strategy behind this. It's called "trolling the libs".
I don’t think Trump fully thought out his foreign policy with Iran, a few weeks ago he was bragging how great the sanctions were working out and how Iran was going to roll over. Now he’s considering military options, very short sighted.
Who would have thought the easily foreseeable results of unilateral withdrawal from the JPCA would lead to said easily foreseeable results coming to pass?
I don’t think Trump fully thought out his foreign policy with Iran, a few weeks ago he was bragging how great the sanctions were working out and how Iran was going to roll over. Now he’s considering military options, very short sighted.
This is the Shiite-Sunni war that's been going on for 1400 years. Until the 90s, Iraq was the Sunni nation on point fighting Iraq (which is Shiite). Now, with the US having been stupid enough to hand Iraq over to Shiites, it's Saudi Arabia on point.
This war has been going on since shortly after Mohamed's death. On that we agree. However, I don't think the Shi'ites have been reliable allies. Time for the Sunnis, under Israel's tutelage, to control the region.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk
Saudi Arabia has been using the US as its bodyguard since the 1972 Nixon petrodollar agreement. It's time for that to end.
There is no such document as "the 1972 Nixon petrodollar agreement." It doesn't exist. Or else why the October 1973 - March 1974 oil embargo. It's time to return to some form of colonialism. Those people can do little but slaughter each other.
The Houthis are not doing the bidding of Iran. Saudi Arabia has been treating Yemen like their personal outhouse and the Houthi rebels are fighting back. Yes, Iran is helping them, but the rebels have a point.
Should the civilized world be at the mercy of a seventh century vendetta?
This war has been going on since shortly after Mohamed's death. On that we agree. However, I don't think the Shi'ites have been reliable allies. Time for the Sunnis, under Israel's tutelage, to control the region.
I don't think the Bush Administration realized they'd be dealing with Shiites after removing Hussein. Or if they did realize it, they expected the Iraqi Shiites to be "our grateful Shiites" without affinities to the Shiites across the border.
[quite]There is no such document as "the 1972 Nixon petrodollar agreement." It doesn't exist. Or else why the October 1973 - March 1974 oil embargo. [/quote]
I see what you did there. No, there is not a single specific document, but a simple Google of "1972 Nixon petrodollar agreement" brings up loads of historical information on how Nixon's agreement with Saudi Arabia was his hedge against the collapse of the US dollar when he ended the long-standing Bretton-Woods arrangement that had kept gold as the world currency standard.
Quote:
In a series of meetings, the United States — represented by then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger — and the Saudi royal family made an agreement. The United States would offer military protection for Saudi Arabia's oil fields, and in return the Saudis would price their oil sales exclusively in United States dollars (in other words, the Saudis were to refuse all other currencies, except the U.S. dollar, as payment for their oil exports).
By 1975, all of the oil-producing nations of OPEC had agreed to price their oil in dollars and to invest surplus oil proceeds in U.S. government debt securities in exchange for similar offers by the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar_warfare
Quote:
Through this framework of economic cooperation and, more importantly, petrodollar recycling, the U.S. managed to influence Saudi Arabia to persuade the other members of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to standardize the sale of oil in dollars. In return for invoicing oil in dollar denominations, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states secured U.S. influence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict along with U.S. military assistance during an increasingly worrisome political climate that saw the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the fall of the Iranian Shah and the Iran-Iraq War. Out of this mutually beneficial agreement, the petrodollar system was born. https://www.investopedia.com/article...-us-dollar.asp
The Saudis were caught by surprise by the unwavering support of Israel after the 73 Arab-Israeli war, but the petrodollar agreement survived--money talks loudly.
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Even Good News is Bad News - I Guess
