actually strategic victory in the middle east would be created by collapsed oil prices. why?
all the gulf arabs need at least 80@barrel to pay for their government goodies. I’ve heard the saudis say they can scratch by at 60@ barrel. maybe.
at 30-40@ barrel all these countries start to dip into their strategic capital reserves. let them do that for a decade and they’re flat broke.
guess what happens when they’re flat broke.
they can’t fund all the madresses around the middle east that act as the top of the funnel for the jihadists.
For example pakistan had a total of 10 madrasses in 1980. Today there are about 10,000 madrasses. They generally don’t teach anything useful. they just teach islamic claptrap and serve as recruiting grounds for the jihadists.
they’re all funded by the gulf arabs. but take take away the gulf arabs money—and these maddrasses will wither up and die.
no more new jihadists can come into play.
This may sound odd and wierd strategic plan to most here. But the cold war with russia was also fought in the same way. This was called the containment policy. the policy was devised in 1948 and the fruits of the policy came in 1990 with the fall of the soviet union. The whole point of the containment policy was just to keep the soviet empire from expanding. The policy’s formulator, George Kennon simply belived that communism was a bogus economic system. That it would eventually collapse of its own weight—if and only if—it were prevented from expanding.
So that’s what the USA did for 50 years. Kept the Soviet Union from expanding further. Finally it collapsed. Just as kennon said it would.
Same goes for the Jihad war in the middle east. Strategic victory will be achieved by collapsing the cost of oil.
I agree. Most of the Arab countries have to buy off their people and mercenaries. I don’t think that Iraq is going to dump oil on the market to help us. There is a number they have in mind for how much they want for their oil. They’d rather get that money by selling less oil at a higher price. That’s why our new oil fields are so important. They don’t have the transportation costs that the Arabs do.
Liberated Iraq calls on Arab states to use oil as ‘weapon’ against U.S.
A top Iraqi diplomat urged Arab states to “use the weapon of oil” against the United States because of its alliance with Israel, raising more questions about the Middle Eastern nation’s allegiance to the country that freed it from a ruthless dictatorship.
The shocking statement from a democratic government in power only after the U.S. and allies ousted murderous dictator Saddam Hussein in a costly and bloody war laid bare the Middle Eastern nation’s true allegiance.
“Iraq will invite (Arab) ministers to use the weapon of oil, with the aim of asserting real pressure on the United States and whoever stands with Israel,” Qais al-Azzawy told reporters in Cairo on Friday.
“Iraq will invite (Arab) ministers to use the weapon of oil, with the aim of asserting real pressure on the United States and whoever stands with Israel.”
- Iraqi diplomat
“The economic weapon is the strongest one to be put into effect now, to assure of standing by the Palestinian people, in light of there being no military power that can stand in the face of Israel at the present time,” he added.
Iraq and Iran form alliance within Opec
Iran and Iraq are forming a strengthening alliance inside Opec, raising concerns among moderate Arab Gulf producers like Saudi Arabia and increasing the potential for discord in the oil producers’ group.
With the EU sovereign debt crisis worsening and growing fears for the global economy, the deep divisions within Opec risk undermining the organisation’s ability to do its job of effectively managing oil supply and preventing violent price swings.
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A person familiar with the matter said Opec’s meeting in Vienna on Thursday was overshadowed by “strong disagreements” over issues ranging from the acceptable price of oil, to the global supply-demand balance, to who should replace the current secretary general of the organisation.
A particular bone of contention was a proposal by Venezuela – backed by other Opec hardliners like Iran, Iraq and Algeria – that the group should protest against the EU sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme. The move was rebuffed by Saudi Arabia and other moderates including Nigeria, Libya and Kuwait, who argued that such protests were the preserve of foreign ministers, not oil ministers.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6a54ea10-b706-11e1-bd0e-00144feabdc0.html
If they all want a war against the US we should shut the straits ourselves, permanently. Never trust koranimals.