You can thank Ben Bernanke and the Fed for the destruction of the “petrodollar,” and nothing else
If Saddam, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, and others had their way, it would have happened a whole lot sooner.
Imagine the housing bubble imploding upon the externally directed implosion of the dollar.
Things would likely have been much worse, much sooner.
As it is, it's bad enough: Consider what would have happened if Adolph Hitler had been in power with a ramped-up military industrial complex - in 1928/29. Seems to me that's about where we are.