Hi quehubo; Re: "Saudia Arabia withheld exports and was able to return supply as required when their political point was made. They also raised prices substantially during the 1970's."
Your claim is that we will take military action to extract oil from Saudi Arabia, if SA ever quits pumping (for whatever reason). The above reference is not any evidence for this. What it is evidence for is that SA might again withhold exports or raise prices substantially in the future. I agree completely that SA might again withhold exports and or raise prices substantially in the future. Where I disagree with you is on the question of whether we will respond militarily. You've shown no evidence that we would.
Saudi Arabia has a population about the same size as Iraq's. There are differences between Saudi Arabia and Iraq, but those differences pretty much cancel each other. For example, Saudi Arabia is less secular, and therefore more inclined to fight a Christian invader. Iraq had more small weapons, and a larger percentage of its population has had miliary training. Saudi Arabia has high tech weapons systems provided by the US. Iraq had a large minority of people who either welcomed us with open arms (Kurds), or were very happy to see Hussein gone (Shiites), while Saudi Arabia has neither of these. Overall, my guess is that the two countries are approximately equal in their resistance to pacification by US forces. An invasion and occupation of Saudi Arabia would, therefore, require about the same size as the force we sent into Iraq. If the Administration wanted to get ready for that sort of operation, they'd already be bringing back the draft because there is nowhere near enough US forces to pull off an invasion of Saudi Arabia now.
Re: "Did I say I provided an article predicting what I said? This is a common response from you. Do you see any history of nations fighting when their economic interests are severally threatened?"
By this I see that you admit that the article provided no evidence that the US would start any military action, LOL, but that all you can come up with is the platitude that nations fight when their economic interests are "severally" threatened.
You claim that we would invade Saudi Arabia and steal their oil. There are few examples of this being successfully done in history. The Germans and Japanese did it in WW2, but they did not suffer from the weaknesses of being Democratic powers devoted to the rule of law. For that matter, it was possible for Germany and Japan to invade, occupy and pacify little countries like Iraq back then, but it is not possible for the US to pacify Iraq.
Re: "There is no correlation between Iraq today and high oil prices."
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! LOL!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
-- Carl
P.S. It's impossible to say what the price of oil would now be if Bush hadn't invaded Iraq. But there is no denying that Iraqi resistance attacks have reduced Iraqi oil production. This is a simple fact. Maybe you want to argue that the Iraqi resistance would have shown up anyway, but you have no evidence for this. There is also no denying the fact that Al Qaeda's attacks against Saudi oil facilities and infrastructure have already increased the price of oil. Again, you can argue that these would have happened anyway.
But the historical fact is that many of the people who were warning against the invasion of Iraq did so partly on the basis of the prediction that it would result in an increase in the price of oil, while many of the people arguing for the war predicted that the price of oil would drop (due to Iraqi production suddenly increasing). The historical fact is that the predictions of the people who said that the war would result in higher oil prices has been borne out by the historical trend in oil prices. For example:
After an Attack on Iraq: The Economic Consequences
CSIS, November 2002
...
Average 2004 oil prices (per barrel)
(no war) $18
benign war: $22
intermediate case: $30
worst case: $40
...
csis.org
Your arugment that this is not connected will fall on deaf ears as far as the swing voters in the American public is concerned. Bush has hung himself. |
