Who is "we"? Is Jacoby volunteering to join up?
Never happen. Fifty years ago maybe, but not today. We're too skittish about accusations of "American cultural imperialism." Right now, that means giving Big Macs to Greeks and Levis to Parisians. Can you imagine if we started taking over oil fields?
Um, like who?
They won't do it. It would be signing their own death warrant. I suppose Jacoby would have us seize the oil fields at that point. We'd also have to seize the hundreds of miles of pipelines and the ports. It's not nearly as easy as he seems to think.
Of course, every country in the world would condemn us and our facilities around the world would become targets for enraged protestors, not all of whom would be moslems.
Could we do it? Probably. It would turn allies into enemies and forever ruin our credibility in the world. Oh, and it wouldn't change the situation in Saudi Arabia. Everyone there would hate our guts and want to kill us.
And we'd still be paying the same price for oil.
Nothing at all would be accomplished, and much damage to America would be done.
Utter lunacy.
Anyway, Jacoby's on the money with the Saudis. He understands...
And what do the Saudi princes do with their wealth, besides financing luxurious lifestyles for themselves? They spend it to keep themselves in power by buying off their country's Wahhabi religious establishment so that it will keep a lid on the discontent that seethes throughout the kingdom. And the more money they have poured into the Wahhabis' coffers, the more they have undermined world peace and menaced the United States.
Wahhabism - radical fundamentalist Islam - is the established creed of Saudi Arabia. It is intolerant and totalitarian, and its influence is felt across Saudi society. "Anti-Western and Extremist Views Pervade Saudi Schools," read the headline on a New York Times report last fall. And not only schools: Islamic supremacism and loathing of "infidels" permeates the mosques, many government ministries, and much of the media.
Wahhabism - radical fundamentalist Islam - is the established creed of Saudi Arabia. It is intolerant and totalitarian, and its influence is felt across Saudi society. "Anti-Western and Extremist Views Pervade Saudi Schools," read the headline on a New York Times report last fall. And not only schools: Islamic supremacism and loathing of "infidels" permeates the mosques, many government ministries, and much of the media.
Wahhabiism is not the established creed of SA as much as its the established creed of the House of Saud. This is what Jacoby appears to miss. The ruling house set itself up as the Home Team of Mecca and kept its internal critics and opposition at bay by fostering the most complete Theocracy though this muslim branch and now they have to Ride the Dragon for better or worse.
They aren't "buying off" the populace; they are its Theocratic Engine of Western Oil Dollar Exploitation.
Keep our distance and watch political Gravity work.
As John Adams said "Liberty can not be preserved without general knowledge among people." (August 1765)
Here stands its Government, aware of its might but obedient to its conscience. Here it will continue to stand, seeking peace and prosperity, solicitous for the welfare of the wage earner, promoting enterprise, developing waterways and natural resources, attentive to the intuitive counsel of womanhood, encouraging education, desiring the advancement of religion, supporting the cause of justice and honor among the nations. America seeks no earthly empire built on blood and force. No ambition, no temptation, lures her to thought of foreign dominions. ----Calvin Coolidge
How times have changed as the citizens of the new Rome stand in ignorance, thumbs pointed downward, shouting USA, USA. Rabid dogs barking for war.
If Moslems were smart (big if), they would tell the Arabs to go to hell, and ignore their medival form of Islam.