The word is not “paranoid” but just plain stone age S-T-U-P-D! All that oil wealth hasn’t bought them an ounce of education, wisdom or wit. All they have is sand (and oil) up their rear ends...
You know I had the same idea.
These people, Wealthy Arabs Sheiks, build nothing, invent nothing, learn nothing, in short take the vast oil money they get from the West and they basically spend it. But where is the safest place to spend it? The West.
So in essence our money comes back to us. And if they spend the money investing in China, China loans it back to us.
I think this is the key thought behind why we are so slow to become energy independent. Until recently, Saudi oil was cheap. In fact, it should be cheaper. The world is bathed in oil.
Better for us to use our natural resources sparingly, and with this wealth go nuclear for our inland energy needs.