If you are friendly with SA you can put pressure on them to improve. If you declare them an evil enemy would the outcome be better?
There is a path to walk and it is not easy to find the right one when you have to deal with reality not just idealism. The natural resources in the middle east are important to the world and it is not so simple as an 'us vs. them' because there are many entirely separate interests in the region and we play them off each other.
Maybe it would be better to do a Star Trek style prime directive of completely cutting off countries until they have a certain level of social development, but you would have to come to terms with knowing bad things were happening and actively deciding to do nothing.
> There is a path to walk and it is not easy to find the right one when you have to deal with reality not just idealism. The natural resources in the middle east are important to the world and it is not so simple as an 'us vs. them' because there are many entirely separate interests in the region and we play them off each other.
> Maybe it would be better to do a Star Trek style prime directive of completely cutting off countries until they have a certain level of social development, but you would have to come to terms with knowing bad things were happening and actively deciding to do nothing.
If the US was friendly to all countries in order to exert pressure on them this might make sense, but in light of actual US foreign policy with respect to North Korea, Iran, etc. it's completely absurd to pretend that the US is being friendly to SA as a means to effect change.
Agreed. Also, where's the change? It feels like I've been hearing the same thing about SA since I was a kid.
I lament the position of these women. I lament the position of a lot of men and women in the Kingdom. But the best I can do for them is to vote for politicians who won't support bloodthirsty tyrants like MBS. That's all that most Americans can do for those people. We're not a bad people, we're just ruled over by elites with no conscious. There's a difference.
People said the exact same thing with China 40 years ago. Nobody is pressuring on them to do anything and they couldn't care less.
Why do you think the royal family constantly panders to religious extremists? they are actively spreading the most orthodox version of Islam in every charity and mosque they finance.
They (the royal family) couldn't care less what the "west" thinks, they know western leaders are as corrupt as they are.
hm? china went from the deaths of the cultural revolution to a working society which is now, in certain regards, miles ahead of others. the massive advance of this society is due in no small part to countries such as the US (trade) and the UK (HK).
At some point after “peak oil” SA seems likely to experience extreme social upheaval - perhaps even revolution or civil war. One hopes that this could serve as a catalyst to build a more tolerant and inclusive society.
This is true.
"US policy makers seem to view them as a necessary evil until we transition to renewable energy."
This is false. There is nothing at all necessary nor evil, relative to the United States. We use the middle east to establish a protection racket on oil flows to the rest of the world.
The United States gets zero, or near zero, oil from Saudi Arabia. The same is true for the UK which gets oil, almost exclusively, from the North Sea. We don't need Saudi Arabia for anything - certainly not as a "bridge to a renewable future".
We choose to hold the rest of the world (particularly Europe and Asia) at gunpoint with a "nice flow of cheap energy you have there ... sure would be a shame if anything happened to it ..."
"At some point after “peak oil” SA seems likely to experience extreme social upheaval ..."
Obligatory:
A reduction in Saudi production increases prices everywhere.
There is also the Israel question which makes the US position pretty complex.
Yes. The world would be a better place if people did the right thing. It's not complicated, really. In this particular case: see a regime that dismembers journalists and hunts women who "run away"? Don't deal with that regime, or anything that is related to it.
To point out the obvious, invading other countries, bombing "terrorists" without due process, meddling in affairs of people across the globe, increasing oil production and doing nothing about the upcoming climate catastrophe should all be considered as "NOT the right thing to do".
Of course, with a statement like that, there will always be plenty of butsayers. "But..." [and here goes a list of various muddy reasons why everything is relative].
I'll start off by saying that in a world without Saudi oil, the world economy will collapse, and the economic prosperity implicitly assumed by our modern progressive values will evaporate, leaving us with a Stone Age economy and the Medieval values that come with it.
Funny :-) This is 1) untrue, the world can do very well without Saudi oil, and in fact our future would be better without it given the upcoming climate catastrophe, and 2) exactly the kind of muddy scaremongering reasons I expected.
Just do the right thing. In the long term, we'll always be better off.
False dichotomy, one could simply maintain distance. We do declare Iran to be an evil enemy despite the fact that Iran has considerably more in common with the US than SA does: it's quasi-democratic with an established religion, has considerably greater social and economic diversity, occupies a superior strategic position, and rests on a vastly more solid historical foundation.
Let's fix that. X-Prizes for not using oil, but something else renewable.
Or generally doing any number of the malicious and horrendous things we do here in the U.S.
Well, the West went and took down the regime in Iraq, but some think that didn't go so well, either. SA is ruled by a clan and king, so it's not a full theocracy at least. If you go and perturb things, there is also room to make the situation worse.
Also, it's clear that sanctions are a much more powerful weapon than invasion. Western sanctions (or embargo) on SA oil would certainly put them in a tight(er) spot.
No excuses!!!
Of course, it COULD be bad. Real bad. Hand-waving away such concerns is irresponsible. Having a major oil source friendly to an often hostile nation could have real, even deadly drawbacks.
But so too does always turning a blind eye. If we had gotten into this relationship and worked to reduce the threat (such as investing in other energy sources) we'd be in a better position, we could be at a point to change the relationship at reduced risk. We didn't, and we need to face the concrete realities we're supporting out of fear of hypotheticals.
Because now we may be safer, but we're supporting what we proclaim to be against. When we wield moral superiority, it's undercut. When we tell our children to be patriotic, we know the legacy we're leaving them.
Since the start of the cold war middle eastern states have balanced/played off against each other between the US (and the west) and Russia (previously USSR) when it comes to weapons and lots of other things.
I mean the Egyptians had soviet supplied fighters flown by actual soviet pilots fighting against the Isreali's in American and French supplied air craft.[1]
The US sold Israel better fighters, the soviets sold their potential enemies better SAM's.
Or Are you not aware that the monarchy is already Islamic, of the kind least tolerant towards personal freedoms?
What's your point?
Some of them turned around and treated people who didn't fit in with them even worse than they themselves had been treated when in Europe. I can think of a couple groups who, in retrospect, the natives should have killed on day 1.
The Ruler is now not at fault, because God told, and used, the Ruler to do the deed. The Ruler is absolved of responsibility - God's Will.
...do you see and understand the difference?
Also, "unwavering ally" and "we'll remove their state and let the country fall into civil war" aren't the only options on the table.
Of course it’s possible Iraq would’ve gone different without the Coalition Provisional Authority’s early orders.
If the last several dictators ousted from nations in the middle east teaches us anything it's that we do not want the hydra. It cost trillions of dollars and thousands of lives to dump all the crap out of the Iraq vacuum. Egypt was teetering on the edge for quite awhile after the arab spring. Libya is still in ruins. Syria speaks for itself. Afghanistan is slipping back into Taliban control. Every time we touch it it gets worse.
While I think we can all agree that totalitarian rulers are not the global maximum they seem to be a pretty clear local maximum in the middle east. The situations that develop in their absence are so much worse on a "suffering per time" basis that it's basically impossible to justify trying to oust them.
I believe you're right on the money with your point about a local maximum.
Even a bad ruler is better than anomie, especially for local minorities. The yazidis may not have been happy with Assad or Saddam, but I'm pretty sure they preferred them to ISIS and similar groups.
there are many undesirable countries to do business with, so what is the distinction to be made? To be honest businesses that work in either should be challenged both at investor meetings and online.
It sounds better to say you're invading a country to bring freedom to its people then to say you're invading to take their oil.