America and the Middle East

[What'sinaname]

Life will be better when Mid East oil is no longer needed.

-so you do believe in climate change?

No, Islam ideals don't mix with the ideals of the West and they are diverging at an increasing rate.

[pietillidie]

[David]

[pietillidie]

^Just quickly, no, Russia is a case in point of what I'm saying. Like the US they can't do much except creep over one of their borders and bomb far off lands no one (shamefully) cares about; it's not like they're invading Romania or Belgium. They're basically grabbing what they can now precisely for the reasons outlined: war is too much trouble even for the superpower, while major war is out of the question, so keeping just tolerably below the threshold is the right ploy for Russia's level of distant theft, and using the interconnected economy to rattle markets and polities is ample weaponry.

Just look at how the GOP dimwits have fallen for it, such that getting funding for defending Ukraine from violent invasion is like getting blood from a stone in Congress.

Nutterayhoo is doing exactly the same thing; the US is too divided for Biden to sort the SOB out good and proper, because Trumpists will suddenly pretend they care about Israel. They don't, but the politics is so dumb they will take up absolutely any contrary position and flip 180 degrees the next day if need be. And like Putin, Nutteryahoo knows it.

This is what these parasites like Trump, Bolsonaro and Orban do, trained by the king parasite, Putin. He started pressuring fossil fuels just after the pandemic supply shock to rattle people and make them turn away from his thuggery, and once that started losing effect he went for wheat and food prices as a second act. (Too bad if the inflation suffering extended all the way down to Africa and the war costs his own people at the same time, effing psychopath).

I don't know what you're seeing (perhaps in the rest of your post which i'll read later), but exactly the same dynamics explain Putin's strategy. Egg-blooody-zactly! Putin is the master of using leverage because while he can't afford long wars, he knows we have even less tolerance for them.

[Magpietothemax]

Look, I never said that the middle east and it's oil production doesn't have strategic significance for a number of countries, the USA in particular, which is exactly why they cosy up to the Saudis and Iraq.

But the US won't be fighting any wars in the region to take control of oil production, they clearly don't need to. 20 years ago it was a different matter, if the middle east turned off the oil the USA was fvcked but now they only get 10% of their oil from there and that's more about retaining strategic relationships than "need".

As Ptiddy mentioned, there's a bloody big difference between maintaining a strategic relationship and influencing then seeking to actually control.

Until such time as renewable energy really takes over, which is likely decades away, it's in everyone's best interest to ensure that middle eastern oil is in the hands of people who are sane and able to be reasoned and negotiated with, not a bunch of mad Mullah's.

Your comment reeks of Islamophobia. You would prefer Middle Eastern oil to be in the hands of US imperialism and its various client regimes (such as Saudi Arabia, where people are publicly executed for adultery, critical journalists are murdered and cut up into pieces, and the economy is sustained by the slave labour of immigrants who are denied all human rights.) They are the "people we can negotiate with" according to you.

Have you been asleep for the last 25 years? For the past quarter of century and more, the US has been involved in an unending series of wars.

David is absolutely correct. The question of US domestic oil production is a total red herring. Domination of the Middle East is a geostrategic imperative for the US as it fights to maintain itself against the rise of China and other rivals such as Germany.

[Magpietothemax]

Life will be better when Mid East oil is no longer needed.

-so you do believe in climate change?

No, Islam ideals don't mix with the ideals of the West and they are diverging at an increasing rate.

The ideals of Islam don't always conflict with the "West".
Saudi Arabia is a very close ally of the US.
The US and its NATO allies have armed and trained Islamic fundamentalist forces to carry out the war against Assad in Syria.
"Islamic values" only conflict with "Western values" when the Islamic governments, military forces etc oppose the interests of the US. When they toe the line of the US, they are best of friends.

[pietillidie]

[What'sinaname]

various client regimes (such as Saudi Arabia, where people are publicly executed for adultery, critical journalists are murdered and cut up into pieces, and the economy is sustained by the slave labour of immigrants who are denied all human rights.)

Despite being an ally, these are not Western ideals

[Magpietothemax]

US just vetoed yet again another UN resolution for an immediate, sustained ceasefire. Yet according to some here, the US is not the main force of destruction in the Middle East.

[pietillidie]

^The Security Council has five members with veto power, even going back to a period of overwhelming US dominance in the 1960s. And we all know the rest often hide behind the US veto, letting the US wear the ignominy.

But at least you've gone from the term 'control' to the US being 'the main force'. As amply explained, being the superpower ipso facto means being the main force, but being the main force on a multipolar planet means far less than being the main force among devastated post-war nations and a peasant third world, something that started falling apart in the 1990s.

Everything has changed, and the two lost wars this century were the last hurrah for the kind of dominance you so desperately wish to defend. As further explained, only extreme dominance gives you anything like 'control' in a world of rival blocs and WMDs. And those days are well and truly done.

You're like the inverse of Trumpists: they too can't let fantasies of American control go, but for very different reasons. It's as if you mourn for the good old days when there was only one Great Satan. With your head trapped in the past, it would only be fitting for you to pick up where your education left off, i.e., when outdated Marxian thought rightly started being deconstructed.

You don't have to buy into poststructuralism to take something from its critique, which deals with the subtle way over-claims like 'control' distort and reinforce power. Whether you frame it like Chomsky as somerthing you've always known, and therefore a truism, is up to you. Here's a book written by an old lecturer of mine:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.cttts7zc

Again, not my genre and not the way I'd make the point, but a valid point and necessary excursion nonetheless.

You can't claim authority in the area of business, capital, economics and social theory if you've never studied classical economics, never engaged in business (and met payroll), never led an organisation, and never considered major alternative critiques to your pet theories, FFS. That's where I part ways with the old left; as much as I agree with a lot of its sentiment, it is ridiculously world ignorant and grossly over-claims accordingly.

[Magpietothemax]

^l

Who is supplying all of Israel's weaponry at the moment? (You are correct if you guessed: the US)
If the US stopped funding israel's genocide machine tomorrow, the Netahanyu regime would have to agree to a cease fire within a week.
You dont have to have a phd in classical economics, nor experience as a CEO of a blue chip corporation, to comprehend that simple reality.

[pietillidie]

^But you've just jumped from generic control of the planet to the funding of its most famously close ally. And ironically, all of the talk in America is about it being led by the nose by that ally and its fruitbat leader.

And if you bothered to read any poststructuralism, you'd know that's exactly what it predicts: i.e., that the discourse becomes all-encompassing and dictates the options. So, the old idea that 'Israel is our closest ally that must be supported' just can't be overcome, even though everyone knows Nutteryahoo is a fruitcake and doesn't represent 'Israel' as a whole.

The discourse controls the acceptable idea space, which in turn controls the action space.

Of course, this is significantly because Trump will simply pretend he cares about Israel and use it as a wedge and fund-raising tool, but that's part of my argument: it takes overwhelming control to have control, and that no longer exists in a multipolar world. Completely contrary to your view, the US is actually being held in checkmate on this.

And that's exactly what I've been saying: they can't control a tiny ally, can't protect their borders, can't fend off the worst effects of financial crises and pandemics, and can't do all kinds of things. Because the world has changed, if indeed America ever had as much control as we used to imagine (Vietnam, anyone?).

These kinds of contradictions - not the old-school Marxian capital accumulation contradictions you refuse to let go - are precisely why people started moving away from grand Marxian theory.

You can keep imagining what you believed as a teenager ought to suffice once for all time, or you can upgrade your thinking like most adults.

[David]

[pietillidie]

^That's not what the polling shows, as far as I can tell. The constants are fear of and contempt for Hamas, followed by contempt for Netanyahu. Naturally, people want security, so under duress they're going to tolerate overkill (literally, in this case) if it secures their immediate safety. But very little of that is translating into support for Nutteryahoo beyond hardline vote, which only ever seems to be about a third of the country.

[Culprit]

^^The Hardliners are having more children than the moderates so the situation is only going to get worse in years to come. Genocide is the hardliner's goal and taking over Gazza is the first step. Palestinian hardliners have more children than the moderates so there's an increase in Hamas numbers. There will never be peace in the Middle East whilst hardliners are in charge of both sides.