"Most of you would have to start riding a bike."
Good for the health. Besides Not True.
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4) The United States and other consumers need Gulf oil much more than the Gulf countries need the money paid for the oil. Wrong. Most of the Gulf countries have become very dependent on their oil income, which provides almost all their foreign currency. The oil-consuming countries get less than a quarter of their oil from the Gulf and have stockpiles of oil that could replace Gulf supply for six months or more.
Twenty years ago, oil gave Saudi Arabia a per capita income of $20,000 and huge financial reserves, while the rapid growth of income made it easy for the government to afford a boycott or other temporary reduction in oil sales. Today Saudi per capita income is down to $6,000, the huge financial reserves have been replaced by a large national debt, and much of the country is dependent on government agencies' having a regular flow of cash.
It used to be thought that if oil from other regions, or unconventional oil, threatened the dominance of the Gulf producers, then the Saudis and other Gulf countries would blow away the competition by taking advantage of their low production cost to force the price down below the competitors' production cost. Even if that were true in the past, it is not true today. No Arab regime has the stomach--or the funds--to endure very low prices for an extended time, if at all. And almost all of the non-Gulf producers make a profit even if the price is as low as $15 a barrel, and many are profitable at even lower prices.
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THE MAIN CONCLUSION that American policymakers have been drawing from these myths--or outdated ideas--about oil is that the United States had better be deferential to Saudi Arabia because it has the power to ruin our economy. The United States pays more deference to the Saudis than to any other government in the world. If any other government imposes restrictions on American diplomats in their country, the United States applies the same restrictions to that country's diplomats in the United States. The only exception is Saudi Arabia--which, for example, pays no price for denying American women with diplomatic passports the right to drive in the kingdom. Recently there have been a number of stories about how American mothers have suffered as a result of U.S. deference to Saudi Arabia when their children were kidnapped by their fathers and taken to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi policy toward the United States is based on their perception of our fear of their oil power. That is why Crown Prince Abdullah felt free to patronize President Bush in Crawford, Texas, less than a year after 15 Saudi citizens attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That is why they have felt safe enough to allow more than $50 billion of Saudi oil money to be exported to stir up hatred of the United States in the last 20 years.
When the American political community realizes that the world economy is not in Saudi hands as much as the Saudi economy is in the hands of Western oil buyers, Washington can stop being afraid of the Saudis. Then the Saudi government will understand that it must respond to the United States very differently than it has in the past.
The Saudis' belief in their oil power doesn't come from their economic analysis of the oil market, it comes from their recognition of our fear of them, our belief that we are vulnerable to what they can do to us. If we understand that the facts have changed, and we do not have to accept aggressive use of an "oil weapon" against us, then they will not risk their fate on the basis of any calculation of the balance of oil power. In practice they may test us, and we have the capacity to pass their test.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/content/public/articles/000/000/002/977mwkuu.asp?pg=2
"Do you want to give them democracy ? They would choose Osama."
How do you know since they are not free to say? Besides the standard is freedom not democracy.
Me: As to our not being able to invade or occupy SA, why not?
You: Because loses would be huge.
Is this a joke? We went in to protect them from Saddam in 1992. Now they are too strong for us? We built all their military infrastructure and supply most of their weapons. Corruption is endemic. They are weaker than Iraq was and less populous. They lack the manpower of Iran. They have non-nationals (5-7 million)doing all their work, running the country. What would happen there under war conditions? In Kuwait the non-nationals (Palestinians) turned on the Kuwaitis who booted them out en masse after Gulf 1.