Shift
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
The US keeps troops in the Middle East to prop up the governments of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates so we can buy their oil at favorable prices. All the sudden, Saudi Arabia and the UAE won’t take our calls?
Might be time to think about redeploying US troops elsewhere. Those Yemeni Houthi rebels we’ve been keeping off your backs? Have fun with that.
Joe Doakes
March 16th, 2022 at 6:26 am
Well, this is true, JD, but maybe then snuggling up to the Iranians wan’t so smart. I mean, offering via the Russians to finance the Iranian nuclear weapons program, sort of indirectly, kinda sorta, by letting them sell oil on the open market (aka to us) maybe has consequences. Last I heard, the only group the Saudis hate more than Houthis are Iranians – who coincidentally aid the Houthis. Militarily.
Also, the reason that we’re friends with the Saudis – shit, the reason the Israelis are friends with the Saudis – is Trump. But that friendship kinda faded because there’s a new sheriff in town and Trump’s policies delenda est.
I’m sure that Joey Softserve and his team of foreign policy experts (experts, I tell you) are playing 4D chess and soon the pieces are going start to fall into place. Mostly likely on the floor, but well, they meant to do that.
PS Trump was also the reason we got along better with India, but India now is aligning itself with Russia. But if Trump cared about the 2nd largest country population-wise in the world, then Joey Softserve doesn’t.
Odd how personal and (domestic) political animosities begin to take center stage when Democrats are in charge.
March 16th, 2022 at 8:46 am
I posted this threadjack on the other thread but it is very much on topic here, thank you JD!
In the meantime, more winning by brilliant Diplomat™ and adults in the WH™ (emphasis mine):
Saudi and Chinese officials are in talks to price some of the Gulf nation’s oil sales in yuan rather than dollars or euros, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The two nations have intermittently discussed the matter for six years, but talks have reportedly stepped up in 2022, with Riyadh disgruntled over the United States’ nuclear negotiations with Iran and its lack of backing for Saudi Arabia’s military operation in neighboring Yemen. Nearly 80 percent of global oil sales are priced in dollars, and since the mid-1970s the Saudis have exclusively used the dollar for oil trading as part of a security agreement
Petro-dollar to petro-yuan? Guess what that will do the value of the dollar? Bueller? Bueller?