[Buckeye McFrog]

Just want to point out that Spengler was the same guy who wrote in 2008 that Barack Obama could not possibly be elected President.

[BenLurkin]

[proxy_user]

Well, what is a sixth-century monarchy to do? They don’t seem to have any options except to load up the camels and return to the desert.

[ZULU]

Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of damn rats.

[PGR88]

The US has made a deal with the devil

We don’t really need their oil, but we do need OPEC and the Saudis to continue to use the US Dollar as their medium of exchange. In the meantime, the guardians of Mecca promote austere, political Islam in the West, for their own long-term advantage. America does their bidding to protect the Saudi kleptocracy and to continue our financial arrangement, but spilling American blood in places like Iraq, Somalia and Syria.

[onedoug]

Ah, the fruit of islam....

[GOPJ]

Saudi Arabia finds itself isolated, abandoned by its longstanding American ally, at odds with China, and pressured by Russia's sudden preeminence in the region. The Saudi-backed Army of Conquest in Syria seems to be crumbling under Russian attack. The Saudi intervention in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels has gone poorly. And its Turkish ally-of-convenience is consumed by a low-level civil war. Nothing has gone right for Riyadh.

Without oil money to pay off their goons the House of Saud is toast... The LAST thing any country in the ME wants is to be known as is 'weak'... and that's what the Sauds are... weak... weakened... gone.

How can they pay off American congressmen when we're watching them like hawks during an election year? Bush might lose, Hillary will lose... McCain's not running, Lindsey's out of the race... "Woe is me" say the Sauds...

[Cicero]

It’s a mess. If the House of Saud collapses, it will cause epic confusion and fighting all over the region and the Islamic world. We need the House of Saud for stability. At the same time, a series of weak, idiotic, or bribed Presidents has permitted the House of Saud of move further and further into support of Islamic terrorism. At this point, I’m not sure if there is an answer.

Needless to say, Obama has no wish to do anything to help fix the situation.

[Billthedrill]

Always fun to read Spengler's analyses. The notion of Saudi Arabia running short of cash is something I never thought I'd see in my lifetime, but a combination of low oil prices, poor planning, and over-expenditure in the pursuit of proxy warfare - this is not necessarily the royal family's fault directly, but it is where the oil money is going to support the fifth pillar of Islam, "charity" - has proven a perfect storm. Iran is affected by the same set of challenges, to be sure, as well as a ruinously expensive nuclear program. The problem is that their proxies are too closely engaged at the moment to pull their fingers from the fire.

The Russians should know all about the expense of exporting warfare and appear to be relearning those lessons. The U.S. is still making payments. So the question is: who runs out of money first?

Had the Saudis managed to move their economy toward banking and international finance as they've been talking about for decades, they might not be quite so much in extremis. 700 billion is a lot of cash reserve by the standards of countries their size; by the standards of Cold War proxy warfare expenditure it's not really so much. Our grandchildren will be making payments on our own efforts in that arena; theirs will be extremely lucky to make it that far.

[Southack]

Meh...some article.

Here’s the deal: everything Obama touches turns to crap, and every friend of Obama he betrays.

Obama’s “Arab Spring” has been a disaster that has enflamed an already volatile Middle-East. ISIS boasts its own government in Libya. Egypt had to have a counter-revolution to kick out Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood. Yemen’s pro-USA President was ousted due to Obama’s meddling there.

...and in Syria, a nation so war-ravaged that millions of refugees have fled to Europe et al, the Sauds bought into Obama’s plan for “bringing democracy” to yet another country.

Oh, but the plot thickens. You see, Iran’s Hezbollah is fighting against the Sauds...fighting against Obama’s “moderate rebels” in Syria...against Assad (who despite his many flaws was an actual moderate for the region, and somewhat stable prior to Obama’s meddling).

Now, the above might have been manageable on its own, but...

Obama betrayed the Sauds by cutting a nuclear deal with Iran.

So the Sauds, fresh off their own emir dying and an internal balance of power being already delicate, have to contend with Obama getting a pro-Saudi, pro-USA President kicked out of Yemen next door, as well as are also stuck in a losing war against Assad in neighboring Syria.

In this mix, Obama discounted Saudi help in Syria+Yemen by giving Iran a sanctioned nuclear program.

But wait, it gets worse for the Sauds!

Fellow oil-exporter Russia is allied with Assad *and* is pissed off at Obama...so Russia is exerting some of its power next door to Saudi Arabia.

Now the above is really bad for the Sauds, but that’s not necessarily the worst of it...as the Sauds started their own oil war by opening the taps to maximum oil exports.

The oil war against American frackers hasn’t gone as planned, either. Contrary to their professional estimates, the USA oil production has increased even though the as planned bankruptcies of many USA oil frackers did happen.

The fracked wells, it turns out, have kept producing oil for the new owners or for the old bankrupt owners.

In fact, it turns out that fracked wells can be re-fracked again and again to boost any sagging oil production.

The Sauds are now approaching 14 months of cash reserves remaining, barely longer than their supposed ally Obama will be in Office.

The Sauds can’t get the Russians to cooperate, as the Russians are deeply suspicious of them at the moment, and compete directly against them in oil exports.

The Chinese have their own economic problems (major stock market meltdowns), but do appreciate cheap oil. That’s hardly good news for the Sauds.

Thus, true to form, everyone who sides with Obama gets screwed.