and nothing will happen to them at all due to oil. They could kill 100 journalists on live TV and nothing will change. They don’t give a damn what anyone thinks. Gotta keep that oil price low! Maybe if the US did not import oil things might change, BTW most people don’t know the largest source of imported oil to the US is from Canada.
That’s not really news. Nor is the fact that powerful sovereign states can do what they wish even including apparently genocide.
What would you recommend be done?
The U.S. is actually a net petroleum exporter, although it is still a net crude oil importer. Still, the fact that the U.S. imports oil isn’t the issue. Oil exists in a highly (though not entirely) globalized market. Saudi Arabia is a “swing” producer and has outsized influence on global oil prices; even if the U.S. didn’t import a drop of Saudi oil, SA would still have a lot of influence on oil prices in the U.S., and maybe more importantly, prices for key U.S. allies and trade partners like Japan.
Beyond that, Saudi Arabia is also in a key strategic position. It’s wealthy, a giant relative to other Gulf Arab states, right across a narrow gulf from Iran, next door to Iraq, with Syria, Israel, Egypt (and the Suez Canal), and the Horn of Africa all quite nearby. Not to mention being the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques” (in Mecca and Medina).
It’s also (relatively) stable and (relatively) friendly to the U.S., in a highly unstable region with a lot of regimes and populations that don’t like the U.S. very much, to put it mildly.
None of this is to say that the U.S. should treat the Saudis with kid gloves. I personally think the U.S. long-term relationship with the House of Saud has on balance been more costly than it’s been worth even in terms of realpolitik, and it’s been downright disastrous morally. It’s just that there’s a little more to the U.S. often turning a blind eye to their excesses and crimes than oil imports.
It is news, however, that the US has officially implicated a member of the royal family in the murder. This will come, most likely, with Mohammed bin Salman losing his diplomatic status here. You’re right in that there will be no “real” consequences. But, a nation officially calling out another on a murder, is a big deal for the relationship of those two countries.
Biden already said nothing will happen. He will keep licking their boots and bowing and scraping Just like all previous presidents. I guess Syria is sorry they don’t have oil
Iraq and Libya had oil. That didn’t do Saddam Hussein or Mu’ammar al-Qadhdhafi much good in the end. Iran has oil, which helped the Shah, but doesn’t seem to have done much for the Islamic Republic’s relationship with the U.S. And Syria actually does have oil.
Oil is definitely a key factor in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, but it really, truly, isn’t the be-all, end-all. And just “having oil” definitely does not automatically make U.S. presidents “bow and scrape” and “lick the boots” of rulers in the region.
Reminds me that a while back a Saudi was at Duke Hospital for surgery and they rented 10 rooms for 1 guy. And they parked their big Mercedes with diplomatic plates right by the front door in the no parking zone. I saw the cars . Bowing and scraping was probably going on.
Iraq and Libya were no longer friendly to the US so the US went in and installed new people.
Iraq, yes. Although that has not worked out particularly well for the U.S. (pro-Iranian factions remain powerful). Libya, not so much. The U.S. didn’t install anyone after Qadhdhafi was killed. Libya might be better off if it had. Instead, Libya’s been mired in a seemingly endless multi-sided civil war for the last decade, with the U.S. mostly washing its hands of the whole mess and not intervening, much less getting that sweet, sweet oil.
Not really. More like as long as the Saudi’s keep buying our weapons we’ll look the other way on their less savory moves."
MBS is a SOB but he’s our SOB
For now.
Until he’s not, and funds a terrorist attack against us. That’s often how these things work out.
15 of 19 9/11 hijackers were from SA. and OBL was Saudi. I wonder where they got their money?
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were from the Great Plains. Does that mean that they were funded by Warren Buffett?
I mean, I didn’t think that before, but now you’ve put it out there… is there a Rule 34 for conspiracy theories?
Wasn’t this murder a terrorist act?
McVeigh was from NY and Nichols from Michigan. Don’t think they are great plains states
Well, you’ve got me there. Clearly McVeigh was receiving funding from the Rockefellers and Nichols from the Ford family.
Given the sheer size of the Saudi royal family, it’s pretty much a statistical certainty that al-Qaeda received some funding from some Saudi royal. What’s the evidence that Muhammad bin Salman funded the 9/11 attacks?
Naah. Just by ordinary Texans.
Yes, there is evidence that mid-level Saudi officials had ties to al-Qaeda, and may have been involved in preparations for the 9/11 attacks. The Saudi government probably had higher level involvement in the 80s and 90s with al-Qaeda or at least Usama bin Ladin and elements of the Afghan mujahideen that would later become al-Qaeda. But so did the U.S. government.
What’s the evidence for direct involvement of Muhammad bin Salman, or official involvement by the Saudi government, in the 9/11 attacks?