[Biggirl]

.....And we are friends of this country in question?

[markomalley]

I guess I’d never plan to visit...if a couple of Emerites men were deported for being too much competition for the locals, I’d probably be shot on site.

(Kidding)

[cunning_fish]

[Zhang Fei]

.....And we are friends of this country in question?

You know how OPEC is over 50% Arab, albeit spread out over a dozen countries? Imagine if those Arab countries were a single country, a unitary empire as in antiquity. That's why we're friends with these countries - to have an excuse to intervene if any one of them decides to become a modern Saladin. If we hadn't done Desert Storm, Saddam might have unified the Arab world. Think about what that would have done to oil prices. Apart from oil-related repercussions, here's a historical footnote - the last time Arabia was unified, Arab armies got within 200 miles of Paris.

There's also the fact that Desert Storm is the first war in which 2/3 of our expenses were covered by the Saudis and Kuwaitis, who handed to us $40b. As allies go, the Saudi and Kuwaiti royals have been pretty staunch, although they've had to make allowances for a populace that is pretty anti-American. It's unfortunate that this is the case, but short of the deportations of their entire populations to Mars, we won't get friendlier governments in place than the rulers already there.