Showing posts with label Saudi Arabia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saudi Arabia. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Wednesday, March 5, 1924. An attempted caliphate.


Following the Turkish Assemblies abolishment of the caliphate, Hussein bin Ali, King of the Hejaz and Sharif of Mecca, was proclaimed the Caliph of all Muslims by Muslim leaders in Mesopotamia and Transjordania.  Global Muslim reaction was mostly negative and it didn't take.    This date is somewhat disputed, and it could have taken place a couple of days earlier, or later.

Last prior:

Tuesday, March 4, 1924. Waltzing Matilda.

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Wednesday, January 9, 1974. Oil.

OPEC voted to freeze oil prices for three months.  Saudi Arabia had been willing to reduce them, but Algeria, Iraq, and Iran, had not been.

Ronald and Nancy Reagan upon Reagan's 1966 Gubernatorial victory, and one decade away from his first run for the GOP Presidential ticket.

Actor turned politician Ronald Reagan delivered California's State of the State address, noting the oil crisis but asserting it was an opportunity to develop resources, freeing the US from foreign petroleum.

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Thursday, November 22, 1973. Oily shifting sands and tides.

Japan, which had not yet come under the Arab oil embargo, dropped its support for Israel and joined the United Nations in calling for a separate Palestinian state.  In doing so, it was seeking to avoid the oil sanction.


Saudi Arabia warned the US that it would reduce oil production by 80% if the US did not stop supporting Israel, and that the country would destroy its oil wells if attacked.

Friday, October 20, 2023

Saturday, October 20, 1973. The Saturday Night Massacre, Sydney Opera House, and Arab Oil Embargo.

Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox was dismissed by the Administration, and attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and deputy attorney General William B. Ruckelshaus resigned.  Cox was dismissed by Robert Bork, who later became an unsuccessful Supreme Court nominee, but who nonetheless was influential in the philosophy of the current Supreme Court.

The Sydney Opera House was inaugurated and opened by Queen Elizabeth II.




Saudi Arabia and Algeria halted petroleum exports to the U.S., the embargo now becoming a full-blown disaster.

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Thursday, October 18, 1973. Creeping embargo and I go Pogo.

The IDF recrossing the Suez Canal.  The artillery pieces are M107's, a heavy US artillery piece much loved by the IDF. Amos1947, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Saudi Arabia cut its oil production by 10% and threatened to halt all of its oil shipments to the United States unless the US halt aid to Israel.  The United Arab Emirates completely stopped shipments to the U.S.

The Chilean Army's Caravan of Death, led by General Sergio Arellano, arrived in Antofagasta and summarily executed 56 left wing prisoners.  Military Governor of Antofagasta, General Joaquin Lagos, resigned in disgust, which actually brought to an end the Caravan.

Walt Kelly, cartoonist who started his career with Disney and the created Pogo, died of a cerebral thrombosis.

Pogo often dealt with serious themes and famously coined the phrase "we have met the enemy and he is us", a phrase truer now than ever.  "I go Pogo" was a bogus election phrases making fun of Eisenhower's "I like Ike" that also was associated with the cartoon.

Saturday, October 14, 2023

The Palestinian Problem and its Wilsonian Solution.

Lex Anteinternet: Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part X, Declarations

October 15, 2023

Hamas v. Israel

Egypt has completed a concrete barrier to block Palestinian entrants from Gaza.  Their border is very small, so they will be able to enforce it.

Qatar has refused to take Palestinian refugees.

Why have I linked this in, well to demonstrate part of the problem.

Bernie "I knew Lenin when he was just a baby" Sanders has called Gaza an "open air prison".

It isn't, but if it is, the guards aren't just Israeli, they're also Egyptian, and quite frankly, the Arabs in general.  

Nobody wants the Palestinians, as by this point, to put it charitably, they're acclimated to living off the dole and are inclined to violence. They're like the residents of Northern Ireland at one time, on spades.

We went into the complicated history of what is now Israel the other day, but to unfairly summarize it, the problem was created by this.

Ottoman Palestine.

Jewish immigrants legally started migrating to the region when it was an Ottoman province, and then when it was a British League of Nations Mandate.  When the Jewish population became noticeable, in a region we might note that not only had an Arab population, but an Armenian population and a Greek population, the Palestinians began to worry and demanded that it stop.  They turned to violence in the 1930s/

Prior to this time, it isn't as if it was an independent country and indeed, as the map above shows, is borders weren't really what they are now.  Israel had been an independent kingdom in ancient times, but it had been conquered by numerous ancient empires and kingdoms during its history.  Rome put an end to Israel, as we discussed the other day, until 1948.  Like much of the pre World War One Arabic Middle East, it was ruled under Ottoman rule by various tribal families.  

The period after the Great War was transformational due to the high levels of Jewish immigration, and World War Two made a push towards a restoration of Jewish Israel inevitable.  After over a millennium of being murdered for no reason whatsoever, the Jewish people wanted a homeland of their own. And, by that time, they had the population base in Palestine to demand it.

The Palestinian Arabs simply couldn't accommodate themselves to the thought, and the non-Palestinian Arabs couldn't either. They made a bad bet.  Had the Palestinians imply gone along with it, quite frankly, by now the demographic impact of their higher birth rate would mean that Israel would have a majority Palestinian population. But they didn't, and in becoming refugees they became wards of the world.

Today, inside the Palestinian Authority, they suffer high unemployment, particularly in Gaza, which is an unnatural economic unit. The Arabs, and Iran, support them, but they've largely gotten over Israel by now and they don't want the Palestinians in their country. They'd rather back them economically than let them in.

But, if there's a solution to this, they probably need to.

Following World War One, largely due to Woodrow Wilson's view of how the world should work, everything pushed towards nation states.  Due to the Great War, Germany and Russia were pushed out of Poland. Finland, the Baltics States, and the various Slavic states that hadn't been independent, became independent.  Ireland became independent.  Colonialism started to become a dirty word.

The Ottoman Empire collapsed and Middle Eastern kingdoms, imperfectly drawn, sprang up. 

And populations were somewhat moved.  

After World War Two, this was very much the case again, although mostly due to the Soviet Union seeking to redraw is territory on ethnic grounds.

None of this is pleasant, but the solution to this may be here.

Israel isn't going to go away, and is not going to let itself become an Arab dominated state.

The Palestinians aren't going away either, but their territory, and they aren't getting Palestine back, isn't viable.  They've never, moreover, really had any sort of independent state in the first place.

They are also a Mediterranean people, which means that they are largely a Sunni Muslim (some are Christians, but they're disappearing as a demographic as Islam is hostile to them and for that matter the Israelis aren't keen on them either) Arab coastal people.

Qatar is a coastal, Sunni Bedouin Arab nation.  So is Saudi Arabia. So is Kuwait.  So is Dubai.

All of these countries have a labor shortage.

A solution, and perhaps the only one, is to resettle the Palestinians in those countries.  Not in one country, which will create all kinds of problems, but across them.  

They will not mix in immediately, but they would in fairly short order.  

Jews whose ancestors emigrated from Ukraine, Poland, etc., 75 years ago do not look back and wish romantically that they could reclaim lost occupations and lands. Frankly, in 75 years, if this was done, Palestinians wouldn't either.  For that matter, in a fairly short period, they'd be fairly mixed with the local Arab population in any event, their identify less of a thing, and their futures better.

Of course, nobody is proposing this, even though many are secretly thinking about it.  Simply pushing the Palestinians out of Gaza has come up as an Israeli solution before.  The Egyptians fear a lot of Palestinians heading their way, and they cannot accommodate them.  That Qatar would reject their entry at this point shows that a lot of Arab states have this on their minds.

And the Palestinians, clinging to a pipe dream, probably wouldn't want to do it either.

Related threads:

Hamas v. Israel. Some observations, and How did we get here?






Sunday, January 8, 2023

Churches of the West: Holy Days of Obligation.

Churches of the West: Holy Days of Obligation.

Holy Days of Obligation.

At one time, I assumed that the entire globe had the same Catholic Holy Days of Obligation, but this is not true.  No, not at all.

The United States has the following:

  • Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
  • Ascension of the Lord
  • Assumption of the Virgin Mary
  • All Saints' Day
  • Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary
  • Christmas
In contrast, our immediate neighbor to the north, Canada, has the following:

  • Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
  • Christmas
What the heck?  This seems rather light.

Mexico has the following:
  • Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
  • The Body and Blood of Christ
  • Christmas
  • Our Lady of Guadalupe
Mexico is, of course, a Catholic country, but it has a history of anti-Catholic revolution, so that may explain it.  We share two of its four, one of which we also share with Canada.

I think frankly Canada should receive a couple of more.  Canada had its only sort of civil anti-Catholic revolution, quietly, which has made Quebec a mess, and perhaps an added Holy Day might be in order.

Having said that, Australia and New Zealand, which like Canada has a strong English history, also has only two.  The United Kingdom, however, has more than that.

Likewise, which devolved a strong Lutheran influence after at first having a very lukewarm one (Scandinavians have forgotten that the Reformation wasn't really that keenly received there at first, and then foisted upon them by a Swedish King who probably didn't believe at all), has only two.

But them, Sweden has the following:
  • Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
  • Epiphany
  • Feast of the Ascension
  • Feast of Saints Peter and Paul
  • Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
  • All Saints' Day
  • Christmas
That's more than the U.S.  And Qatar has the following:
  • Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
  • Thomas the Apostle
  • Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
  • Birth of our Lady
  • Christmas
And even Saudi Arabia has the following:
  • Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
  • Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
  • Christmas
Serbia has only two, but it's mostly Orthodox.  So is Ukraine, but it has the following:
  • Epiphany
  • Presentation of the Lord
  • Annunciation of the Holy Virgin Mary
  • Feast of the Ascension
  • Transfiguration of the Lord
  • Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
  • Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
  • Exaltation of the Holy Cross
  • Presentation of Mary
  • Christmas
Ukraine, however, has a strong Eastern Rite Catholic tradition in its west, minority population though it is.  Its Catholic population persevered through Communism, even though its adherents were compelled to attend Orthodox services, which they did, before going to secret Catholic ones later.

Venezuela, in contrast, has a Catholic heritage, but like Canada, has only two Holy Days of Obligation.

The total possible Holy Days of Obligation are, currently:

Placed in the order of the liturgical calendar, the ten days (apart from Sundays) that this canon mentions are:
  • 8 December: Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
  • 25 December: Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord (Christmas)
  • 1 January: Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God
  • 6 January: Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord
  • 19 March: Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
  • Thursday of the sixth week of Eastertide: Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
  • Thursday after Trinity Sunday: Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Feast of Corpus Christi)
  • 29 June: Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles
  • 15 August: Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
  • 1 November: Solemnity of All Saints
That's ten.

Prior to 1911, the total possible was thirty-six.   Then, as now, Bishops could reduce the number.  Today, only Vatican City and the Swiss Diocese of Lugano observe all ten, although some Dioceses have added Holy Days not on it, such as Ireland, which as St. Patrick's Day, and Germany and Hungary which have Saint Stephen's Day on 26 December, Easter Monday, and Pentecost Monday.

Now the country has fewer than two.

And two seems too few to me.

The Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church, I'd note, has the following:
  • The Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord (Christmas)
  • The Epiphany
  • The Ascension
  • The Holy Apostles Peter and Paul
  • The Dormition of Holy Mary, the Mother of God
Note, however, the situation in Ukraine.  The Orthodox have a duty of worship on the following days, although what that means is not clear to me:
  • The Nativity of Our Lord, December 25
  • The Circumcision of Christ, January 1
  • Ascension Day, 40 Days after Pascha (Easter)
  • The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 15
  • All Saints Day, November 1
  • The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, December 8
In noting all of this, I feel a little bad and whiny about Holy Days, as I've often felt it a burden to get to Mass on them.  But, in my defense, I've often not grasped why no noon Mass was offered for them in my Tri Parish locality.  All in all, looking at it, I think we should add a couple to that six, and that the other country of which I am a citizen, ought to double the number of theirs.

Yes, it's a bit of a burden, and yes you stand out. But perhaps that's part of it.

Friday, December 2, 2022

Saturday, December 2, 1922. Kuwait gets axed.


The Uqair Protocol was signed on this day in 1922, setting the boundaries between Iraq, the Sultanate of Nejd, and the Sheikdom of Kuwait.

Basically, the British High Commissioner to Iraq imposed it as a response to Bedouin raiders from Nejd loyal to Ibn Saud being a problem.

Kuwait lost 2/3s of its territory in the deal, setting is modern boundaries.  It had no say in the arrangement, resulting in anti-British feelings in Kuwait.  It did establish a Saudi Kuwait neutral zone of 2,230 square miles which existed until 1970 and a Saudi Iraqi neutral zone that existed until 1982.

Country Gentleman had a winter theme, but the Saturday Evening Post and Judge were already in the Christmas spirit, even though this was still the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in 1922.


Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Wednesday November 2, 1921. Rise of the House of Saud

The Emirate of Jabal Shammar, whose territory would comprise at least 30% of modern Saudi Arabia at its height, surrendered to the British backed House of Saud and was incorporated into the Saudi kingdom, which was not yet referred to by that name.   The rise of the Rashidi state had resulted in the elimination of the Second Saudi State, which comprised over 40% of the current country.  It's defeat on this date in 1921 brought the Sauds very close to controlling the entire Arabian peninsula, although their borders did not yet include territories that are now within them.

Emir Abudull-azia muteb Al Rasheed who died in battle against the Saudis in 1906.

The story is complicated and long-running. The Rashidi Emirate was established in 1836 and had feuded with the Saud's from the onset, exiling them to Kuwait.  Constant strife between the ruling family and the Sauds was a permanent feature of its existence, and the emirate had begun to lose ground to the Sauds starting in 1902 as they fought to regain their territory.  The emirates position was both strengthened and imperiled by its decision to ally itself with the Turks, who were unpopular on the Arabian Peninsula, where as the British backed the Sauds for nearly inexplicable reasons. To make matters worse, the  House of Rashidi was incredibly unstable, with no established means of succession.

Following the sitting emir's death in battle in 1906, Mutail bin 'Abulazia succeeded is father but was assassinated by Sultan bin Hammud within a year. That figure then became emir but was unsuccessful in turning back the Saudis and was killed by his brothers in 1907.   Saʿūd bin Hammūd then became emir and lasted until 1910 when he was killed by relatives.  That lead to Saud bin Abdulaziz who ruled for ten years, from age ten until twenty, when he was assassinated by a cousin.  Only twenty at the time, he already had multiple wives.

Following his death,  ʿAbdullah bin Mutʿib ruled for a year as the 7th emir, surrendered to Ibn Saud on this date in 1921.  He, too, was only twenty years old at the time.

The story plays out violently, as we might suppose.  Upon the surrender the wife of one of the grandsons of the original emir, the grandson being Muhammad bin Talāl and his wife being Nura bin Sabhan married Prince Musa'id bin Abdulaziz Al Saud while  Talāl  was imprisoned.  The Prince was the twelth son of Ibn Saud.  The Prince and his wife became the parents of Prince Faisal bin Musa'id who murdered King Faisal of Saudi Arabia in 1975.  So in essence the murderer of King Faisal represented a union between the House of Saud and the Rasheeds.  The reasons for the Ameican educated Prince's actions have never been satisfactorily explained.

Monday, May 18, 2020

May 18, 1920. Future Popes, Equine Events, and Middle Eastern Wars.

Karol Józef Wojtyła, was born to Emilia and Karol Wojtyla in Wadlowice, Poland.

St. Pope John Paul II's parents at the time of their wedding.  They are both presently candidates for sainthood.

He'd become St. John Paul II the Great, the most influential Pope of the second half of the 20th Century.

His early life was hard, in a country where life itself was hard.  His mother, who was a school teacher, died when he was 8 years old.  His deeply religious father was first an NCO, prior to his birth, in the Austro Hungarian Army and then a Captain in the Polish Army.   Upon his wife's death he worked close to home so that he could care for his young child.

His father died of a heart attack Polish in 1941.  His eldest brother, with whom he was close, died of scarlet fever after attended to scarlet fever victims in the early 1930s.   Upon his father's death he was the only immediately surviving member of the family.  

He entered the seminary secretly during World War Two, the Germans had closed them in Poland, and was ordained in Soviet occupied Poland in 1946.

He ultimately rose to become Pope in 1978, and occupied that position until his death in 2005.  Since that time he has had two successors, with the first perhaps ironically being German, thereby creating the odd situation of a Pope who lived under German occupation during World War Two being succeeded by one who had briefly been in the German armed forces (anti aircraft gun crewman) as a very young man at the end of the war.

The National Horse Show was going on in Washington D.C.

General Pershing's personal mounts Entered in the National Capitol Horse Show which opened today. On the left is Col. John G. Quekemeyer with "Jeff" and on the Right Lt. W.J. Cunningham with "John Bunny".

Col. John G. Quekemeyer and Lt. James H. Cunningham taking the jumps on Princess and Dandy, at the National Capitol Horse Show. These two hunters were presented by the English Government to General Pershings Staff and are entered with the string of A.E.F. Horses.

And Man O War, who had not run in the Kentucky Derby, won the Preakness.


Another event involving a lot of horses was the Battle of Hamdh, which occurred on this day in 1920. The battle pitted the Ikhwan, the putative National Guard of Saudi Arabia, against Kuwaiti forces. The distribution of manpower was lopsided in favor of the Saudis.  It was part of the Kuwait-Najd War.

The event was part of the Saudi effort to annex Kuwait and impose a strict religious regime upon them.  The Kuwaitis lost the battle after six days, but ultimately the British would intervene and end the war.  Kuwait was a British protectorate at the time.  Prior to that the Saudis attempted to dictate a peace requiring the eviction of Shias, adoption of Wahhabism, declare the Turks to be heretics, ban smoking, ban prostitution, and destroy the American missionary hospital in Kuwait.  The peace was imposed by the British in 1922 and it did not include those provisions, but Kuwait, which was not allowed to participate in the discussions, lost more than 2/3s of its territory.

Friday, March 20, 2020

And the hits keep on coming. . .

to the local economy, that is.

It seems selfish to lament the state of the economy in  your own state in the midst of a global pandemic, but this is simply extraordinary. 

1.  The Pandemic

First, that pandemic, we just published something on it here: Lex Anteinternet: Governor Gordon and State Health Officer issue sta...:

That more fully stated:

Governor Gordon and State Health Officer issue statewide closure order for public spaces


Governor Gordon and State Health Officer issue statewide closure order for public spaces

CHEYENNE, Wyo. –  Governor Mark Gordon has endorsed a decision by the Wyoming State Health Officer to close public places for a two-week period to help slow the community spread of coronavirus (COVID-19).
The closure order extends through April 3 and includes schools, theaters, bars, nightclubs, coffee shops, employee cafeterias, self-serve buffets, salad bars, unpackaged self-serve food services, gyms, conference rooms and museums. 
“This Governor has never been inclined to overstep local authority, but these are unprecedented times. It is critical that there is uniformity across the state in how social distancing measures are implemented,” Governor Mark Gordon said.
“Wyoming, like all Americans, must commit to reducing the strain on our healthcare system. These are hard measures and they will be difficult for employees and businesses alike, but they are warranted.”
Restaurants will be closed to dine-in food service, but may remain open for curbside take-out or drive-through food service. Under the order, childcare centers will be closed except for those serving essential personnel. 
Dr. Alexia Harrist, state health officer and state epidemiologist with the Wyoming Department of Health, said “We realize this action will be very difficult for many of our residents. But it is an important step to help them avoid becoming ill and to help them avoid spreading COVID-19 to those who are most vulnerable. We should all work together to help keep our friends and neighbors safe.”
Wyoming currently has 18 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and the Wyoming Public Health laboratory has completed nearly 300 tests, as of March 19, 2020. Additional testing is occurring at commercial laboratories.  A nationwide shortage of testing supplies is impacting Wyoming, like all states. Social distancing measures are the most effective means of slowing the spread of COVID-19, according to Dr. Harrist. 
 While most individuals will likely not experience serious illness related to COVID-19, older residents and people with certain health conditions put them at higher risk of developing a serious or life-threatening illness.

Before anyone thinks "oh, it's just a few days, remember that a lot of people who work in "bars, nightclubs, coffee ships. . . " and the like make their money on tips, not so much on their wages.

Indeed, it's a long debated but firmly entrenched aspect of the American economy that the food and beverage industry is exempt from the hourly wage laws, and so people really make up their money in their tips.  A person can argue for and against that. . . you won't be getting any rude disinterested French waiters for example, but it is hard on them in various ways.  When they aren't working, even if their employer keeps paying them (and most won't get paid as their employers won't be able to pay them while their not working, and they can't 'work from home') they're really in a bad way.

So are their employers, I'd note.  In lots of industries people can actually work from home.  Indeed, while I'll take it up in another post, my prediction is that this epidemic provides a push in a technological direction, the longer it goes on, that we'll never come back from. There are already entire industries where almost all of their employees work from home.  Insurance adjusters often do, for example. But right now, a lot of lawyers and their staffs are also.  Once people become acclimated to that, a lot of businesses are going to ponder if they need a central office any bigger than a closet big enough to house a server.

Anyhow, right now a lot of tavern owners and restaurateurs are going to be really hurting.  For that matter, a lot of other small businesses will as well.  While a person can argue that if we'd had a more distributist economy (and I'll do that in some other post) we might not be i this situation now, we're in it, and smaller businesses have less to fall back on in many instances.

2.  Oil is in the dumper

As if that isn't bad enough, yesterday oil was at $22.00/bbl.

Nobody on earth can make money on oil at that price.  It's absurd.  But it's really going to be hard on the U.S. Petroleum industry if it keeps up much longer.  Layoffs are already happening in Texas, I'm told.

3.  Coal layoffs

One of the mines laid off 60 people last Wednesday, the Tribune reports.

So the economy in Gillette, which is part of Wyoming's overall economy, must be reeling.  Low oil, coal layoffs, and Covid-19. 

And of course coal layoffs come due to low production, and that means that funding the schools, which of course are closed right now, becomes all the harder.  When those schools open back up, I have to wonder how many parents are pondering their next move, literally.

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Oil closes under $30.00 bbl


Yesterday, that is.

The last time oil was that low was December, 2003.  And in real terms, it's lower now than it was then.

Indeed, the actual last time oil was as low as it currently is was in 1999.

Now, in the 1990s and the 2000s, when oil reached its current low mark, it didn't stay there.  In fact, it shortly thereafter rocketed skyward.  In the late 90s price crash the price went up to $40.00 bbl, which is more then than now, fairly quickly.  In the 2003 crash it soon recovered and over time went up to $151.00 bbl, a price that's unlikely to be the rebounding price here.

And there is likely to be a rebound.  Saudi Arabia, which is depressing the price, actually can't meet its expenditures if the price is lower than $80 bbl.  Nobody knows how low Russia can go, but the Saudis are betting that it can't stay this low long.  They may be right.

The Russians seem to be betting that they can, and there's additional speculation that they may be aiming to damage the American oil industry, which needs prices to be $50 bbl.  The US is the world's largest oil producer and is an energy exporter once again, but if we need $50, and the Russians can stay well below that, it'll result in a lot of American production being shut in and the Russians may gain the market.

Which leads to an additional theory, although one I'd discount, which is that the Russians hope to be low enough to hurt the Saudis and get part of their share while not so low as to hurt the American market, which would boost the OPEC share.

We'll see.

Anyway you look at it,a prolonged oil war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, an Oligarchy v a Monarchy, isn't good for American oil production and its really bad for the state.

Of course war, which this is only by analogy, is also bad for those who engage in them, and the outcomes are never predictable.  The US is never good at waging sustained war, as recent events once again have demonstrated, as people tire of them and in a democratic society they vote them out, basically.

Despotic countries are better at keeping wars running, but not necessarily winning them. Nazi Germany kept World War Two running well past the point of no return for the state.  Imperial Japan had lost the war prior to Iwo Jima.  Imperial Germany kept the war running right up to the point of internal revolution which in turn destroyed it.

The current head of Saudi Arabia is jailing family opposition to his rule and we know that Putin doesn't tolerate very much dissent.  But there are a lot of Sauds who depend on oil checks to evade working and there's plenty of Russians whose dachas depend on petrobucks.  At the current prices, they'll be hurting.  And nobody knows where that leads.

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Aramco IPO

That's today.

The Saudi Arabian Oil Company, formerly the Arab American Oil Company, makes its initial public offering today.  It is calculated to be the largest IPO in history.

Bids become fixed today, so the IPO process has actually been going on for about a month.  It takes place, however, today.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Syria. Leaving but not leaving, and it's all about the oil.

President Trump, in his recent abandonment of the Kurds, proclaimed that this was being done in order to fulfill a campaign promise of getting us out of foreign wars.  In essence, this appeal to the a very old conservative concept of isolationism was his reason for acting, he declared.

And it may have been. The concept that the United States should stay out of foreign wars and stay inside its own borders has been a very old one.  It dates back as a popular idea to the very founding of the country.  And it was a particularly popular idea in the pre World War Two Republican Party.  It lost the support of most people, including most Republicans, during that war, and indeed American isolationism is sometimes cited as a causal factor giving rise to the war.  I.e., by staying out of foreign affairs we stood by and allowed crises to develop until they came to visit us.

Trump seems to have always had the desire to pull out of Syria and was talked out of doing that last year. This year he did it.  If he was going to do it, it could have been done more gracefully, to be sure.  We won't go back over all of that as we've addressed it here earlier.

But what is remarkable is that we now learn that American troops are in fact not leaving Syria. They're just leaving this part of Syria. 

As earlier noted, I don't think we should have gotten into Syria in the first place, but now that we're in, I don't think we should have abandoned the Kurds. The Kurds, by the way, pelted departing American troops with tomatoes in a village the other day in order to express their contempt.  Those tomatoes can be regarded as landing on the entire nation, and deservedly so, if not deservedly so on the troops, who had nothing to do with the decision.

In informing the country that some Americans will remain, for the second time Trump linked all of this to oil.  The troops, he stated, remaining in Syria will "protect the oil".

Various U.S. administrations have been careful ever since first becoming involved in the Middle East not to link our presence there overtly to oil. Clearly, the reason the region is in the eye of any outsider has in part, and a very large part, to do with petroleum.  Without petroleum, much of the region would go unnoticed.

Which is not to say that everything is about the oil.  The American support for Israel has occasionally hurt the country fairly badly in terms of oil producing nations and Israel does not produce any oil, as a British government once pointed out to us.  And the rise of the radical Islam has caused us to take policy positions related solely to that. So it isn't all about the oil.

But President Trump has twice stated something suggesting that this is how he views it over the past couple of weeks.  I.e., he's an isolationist but sees our intervention as excused, at least in part, if it relates to oil.

And that view is emphasized by the fact that the United States is sending air defense troops to Saudi Arabia, a region which can darn well take care of its own air defense and doesn't need us to do it.  If withdrawing from the Kurds in Syria can be viewed as isolationist, putting troops into Saudi Arabia certainly is not.

All of this, of course, has made headlines, but perhaps Trump is just exceptionally open about how he views all of this.  He's opposed to Americans being in foreign wars no matter what their nature, it would appear, unless its directly tied to our economic well being.

That isn't how most people view it, however, including quite a few in the GOP.  We can't say by any means that people's reactions and views on this are uniformly consistent in how they were reached, but the recent moves here have not been popular, including with Republicans.

None of this seems to be having an immediate impact on the President, however.  Indeed, there's some suggestion that at this point in his administration the restraints that were present earlier have loosened to the point of disappearing.  That was a trend that has been developing for some time, but now seems fully here.  What that means we don't know.  Not even for the Kurds.

Monday, October 14, 2019

Betrayal and Duplicity

Over the weekend the news came that the Kurds, in control of northern Syria but under assault from Turkey, were close to making a deal with Syria such that their enemies the Syrians, whom they have been in rebellion against, will protect that region against the Turks.  This is apparently with Russian support.

It's hard to see this coming out well.

One thing that didn't come out well was the escape of a large number of ISIL prisoners from a Kurdish compound.  This was widely feared as a probable result of the Turkish assault and now it has happened.

And the United States is pulling all of its troops out of northern Syria.

It would be hard to find a worst set of news here.

This puts the Syrian government back in some sort of ultimate control of northern Syria, with all that means.  I think it unlikely that Damascus will tolerate Kurdish independence any more than the Turks are willing to.  And it elevates Russia, which is a second rate power that is a menace mostly because its big and it has nuclear arms, back towards the position of being world power.

It also makes the United States look foolish and cowardly.

And it raises questions about Donald Trump that you'd think he'd want buried.  Once again, in a matter where it didn't have to occur, the Russians have come out on top with there being no good explanation. The only acceptable explanation is a return of the US to a pre 1941 sort of isolationism, but at the same time we're pulling out of northern Syria we're getting into Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is perfectly capable of defending itself and in no way shape or form needs the US to do it.

Indeed, the fact that we're now going into Saudi Arabia demonstrates that the entire "not getting into" logic is at best pretty unevenly applied.  The only good explanation for going in there, to protect a nation that's capable of protecting itself against Iran, is that "it's about the oil", something that American administrations try not to encourage a belief in.

Indeed, in terms of friends, the Kurds are a lot more western and democratic than the Saudis, which are neither in any fashion.

And if it is to protect Saudi oil, why? The United States is now an energy exporting nation.  Not only can the Saudis protect their oil facilities themselves but, if they can't, perhaps those who depend on them can. That isn't us.

So, we betrayed somebody we armed, while going into protect somebody whose values are completely the opposite of our own, while causing our former field ally to make common cause with an enemy, and which also results in enemies escaping.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

The Secondary Waves of the Great War.

World War Two, for obvious reasons, looms large in our imagination as the biggest event of the 20th Century.  The biggest, and the most significant.

But are we wrong?  

It seems lately that the echos of World War One are resounding pretty loudly.

World War One smashed the old order and demolished the borders of centuries.  The interbellum tried to reconstruct them, but did so in a metastasized and imperfect form, giving rise to new malignant orders that sought to fill the voids left by the death of the old imperial ones.  World War Two pitted three forces against each other, fascism, communism, and democracy, with democracy and communism ultimately siding with each other against fascism. After the war, the results of the Second World War gave rise to a contest between the two victors, communism and democracy, against each other until the vitality of free societies and free markets drove the rigidness of communism to and beyond the breaking point.

And now that communism is dead and gone, buried alongside its evil cousin fascism, the old unsolved questions of the Great War are back.  The rights of small nations, including those with out countries, against the possessions of older larger ones.  The demise of great empires giving rise to smaller ones.  Nationalism of all stripes against everything else.

It's 1919 all over again.

Turkey didn't sign the Treaty of Sevres.

Indeed, rather than do that, it fought it out.

It can't be blamed.  The Greeks had a quasi legitimate claim to Smyrna, but only quasi. A lot of ethnic Greeks lived there, which is no surprise as Anatolia had been Greek. The Ottoman's were invaders to the region, finally taking it in the 1450s.  But it had a large Ottoman population that they were bloodily brutal towards and they engaged in conquest, with the help of their Western allies, in Anatolia proper, seeking in a way to reverse what was lost centuries prior.

The Italian claim, moreover, to islands off of Turkey was absurd.

But the Armenian claims to their lands weren't.

The region sought of Armenia marked for a plebiscite is Kurdistan.  The Syria that ran to the sea and down to Palestine was an Ottoman province carved away from the Empire.  So was the Mesopotamia, i.e., Iraq, that appears on the map.

In 1990, the United States intervened in the Middle East to force Iraq, the British post World War One creation, out of Kuwait, a desert province that the British had protected during their stay in the Middle East, launching operations, with the assistance of others, from that region of Arabia named for the Sauds, that Arabian family that spent the Great War and the immediate interbellum consolidating power at the ultimate expense of the Hashemites, that Arabian noble family who had made war on the Turks.  The British dolled out kingdoms to that family as consolation prizes, with the Hashemites taking Iraq and the Transjordan.  The French got to administer Syria, a region that it claimed an historical affinity to, with the British taking administration of Palestine and Egypt, both of the latter having been Ottoman provinces although Egypt was long administered by the British in an arrangement that nobody can possibly grasp.

And so now, the old fights, and the interbellum struggles, reappear.  The peoples not accorded nations would like to have them. The old empires would like to keep their domains.  Borders drawn by European nations, with the help of Woodrow Wilson, are treated as real, when perhaps they were never correct.

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Pax Americana and the Middle East

Royal Saudi Air Force F3 Tornado.

As it becomes increasingly more likely that Iran had a role in this past week's drone strikes on Saudi Arabian oil production facilities which resulted in a 5% reduction in the world's oil supply (albeit at a time in which that doesn't matter much) the question has increasingly become, what will the U.S. do about that?

Note that it doesn't seem to be the case that people are debating whether or not the US should do nothing at all.

There are, of course, a lot of reasons for that.  A primary ones is that a strike by a rogue nation that has a long history of crossing the line in participating in wars and quasi wars outside of its own borders is hard to ignore.  Iran does more than aid its allies, including irregular allies, in the region, it directly participates in the struggles in those countries and invariably through a lens that's filtered through a very Shiia view, even if Iran's people aren't necessarily on board with such actions.  Perhaps a larger reason, however, is that a strike in this fashion on 5% of a critical resource used around the globe is impossible to ignore.

Having said that, however, there seems to be a simple assumption that the US should and will do something about this.

We're less dependent upon Saudi oil than most European nations are and than Asian nations are.  As American oil production increases, we're now a net energy (not oil) exporter.  The 5% reduction in the global supply wouldn't really hurt us if the supply was tight, which it isn't.

And Saudi Arabia is a nation which shares no values with the US whatsoever.  Iran is an Islamic republic, which is a term that has debatable meaning but which means, in its case, that Shiia clerics have a sort of an extra governmental role in the country and that it's not a real democracy.  But Saudi Arabia is a Sunni monarchy.  It's not democratic either.

Of course, Iran has had an expansive view of itself in which it has had sort of a missionary zeal, now much reduced among its population, to spread a certain sort of Islam wherever it can, and by whatever means, including violent ones, that it has.  Saudi Arabia never had that, with its founding family's alliance with a certain conservative brand of Sunnism at least somewhat for convenience.  It's goals were local, and it ceased being expansive in the 1920s.  That does make it distinctly different.

Be that as it may, it has a military and that military has an air force.  And that air force is a good one.

The Saudi army is a tiny one and real questions exist about its ability to do anything much in the case of a real war.  It never has had to fight one on its own, and it's likely not accidental that its army is small.  A standing army is a threat to a monarch.  Iran's standing army did nothing to aid the Shah when he fell, basically taking the Hindenburg/Ludendorf option when that time came.  Egypt's standing army deposed its monarch and still basically runs the country over 60 years later.

But Iran's army isn't all that great either and at this point, frankly, there are likely real questions about its loyalty.  And Iran and Saudi Arabia do not share a border.  Iran can make trouble for Saudi Arabia with terrorist forces, which Saudi Arabia no doubt knows and which is likely part of the reason that the desert monarchy is taking a role in the Yemeni civil war.  So while Iran can make things worse for Saudi Arabia, it's not holding back all that much now.

And Iran doesn't really have much of an air force. It's had a hard time getting modern aircraft since the Islamic Revolution and therefore while it has military aircraft, it's really frozen in time with them and has a hard time maintaining the aircraft it has.

The long and the short of that is that Saudi Arabia can undoubtedly hit Iran from the air and there's not all that much Iran can do about it.

But due to the Pax Americana, it won't, and we likely will do something.

Saudi Arabia is not, contrary to what pundits will claim, our "ally", at least in a formal sense.  There are unspoken arrangements, to be sure, however.  And since 1945, or perhaps really since 1941, we've decided that there are certain things that our allies shouldn't do, or our clients shouldn't do, or that we'd rather other countries not do, so we do them ourselves.  We're not the world's policeman, to be sure, but perhaps more the world's ranger, or sheriff, or something.  Maybe just the local bodyguard in other ways.

Anyhow, as part of that, it's interesting to see that everyone is so acclimated to the concept that the question isn't, "will Saudi Arabia strike back?", but will we?

_________________________________________________________________________________

September 19, 2019

A couple of interesting developments in this story today.

The first links back to something I mentioned above, more or less. The New York Times has an editorial headlined We Are Not The Saudi's Mercenaries.  In other words, it's up to the Saudis to do something about this situation, not the U.S.

Other headlines keep noting that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that the attacks were an "act of war".  He did, but the way he said it gives rise to how the press can be accused of inaccurate reporting, at least in headlines.  Pompeo actually said it was an act of war upon Saudi Arabia, and specifically noted that the Iranian backed strikes was upon that country.  That strongly suggests that the US was noting the strikes as an act of war, which if Iran launched them directly, it definitely is.  But his further remarks suggested an effort to push Saudi Arabia to act or at least that the US regarded the strikes as an act of war upon a friendly nation.

That may very well be a predictor on how this will play out.  Something will happen, but it may not be obvious to us what it is.  Saudi Arabia has been strongly opposed to Iran for decades, but it has never shown an inclination get into a war with Iran, or any major Middle Eastern power, and it's unlikely to do so now.  By noting that it was an act of war upon Iran, the US may be indicating that it will support what Saudi Arabia does, but that shouldn't be taken as a signal that the US will necessarily be the country that takes action.  Indeed, President Trump, while he has talked tough on Iran, has been pretty openly reluctant to take military action against it where prior Presidents of both parties might have been.

_______________________________________________________________________________

September 20, 2019

Iran's foreign minister declared yesterday that if the United States or Saudi Arabia strike its territory there will be "all out war".

If any more proof was needed that Iran's self isolation has reduced some of its government to being dangerously deluded in a "we only listen to ourselves" sort of way, this would be it.  You can't really launch an air strike, by any means, including by proxy, and not be aware that this is itself an act of war.

It seems increasingly likely that Saudi Arabia will be taking the lead in a response and that there will be one.  Iran's action seem to bizarrely be done in the belief that by attacking Saudi Arabia people will be convinced to deal with it as its a dangerously armed nation having a temper tantrum.  It's sort of like a drunk trying to get admission to the bar by smashing a window.

_________________________________________________________________________________

September 24, 2019

Germany, the United Kingdom and France yesterday proclaimed their certainty that Iran is behind the recent drone strikes on Saudi oil production.  Iran dismissed the charge claiming that if it had been, the destruction would have been much more complete.

At this point there seems little doubt that Iran's behind the action in one fashion or another. The question therefore has become what shall be done, and who shall do it.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Weaponized Drones and Wyoming Oil

In the Clancy book Red Storm Rising an Islamic terrorist in Russia starts the globe off towards World War Three by sabotaging the oil terminal in which he works.

In 1941, the Japanese, cut off from American oil, launched attacks that brought the United States (and Japan) into World War Two.

In 1973 the OPEC nations, upset over American support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, embargoed the shipment of oil, making a weakened American economy spiral into inflation and wrecking the economy for half a decade.

Of course, the first item noted is fiction, but well studied fiction. The second two are history and, to add to it, the 1941 event boosted oil production in Wyoming, which was already being boosted by the September 1939 event, the German invasion of Poland which started the Second World War in Europe. The 1973 event resulted in a massive boom in Wyoming.

This past weekend an attack was launched on Saudi oil process facilities. They were carried out by ten drones.  They were so effective that they'd destroyed, on a no doubt temporary basis, 5% of the world's oil output.

What does that mean?

Well, maybe, indeed probably, less than we might suppose.

To start off with, let's just look at the impact. The attacks pushed the price up, but not because they'll result in an oil shortage. There's an oil glut right now and American production remains so high that the real economic impact is at best muted.  It pushed the price of oil up to $63.00/bbl, which is over the Wyoming economic viability line, but still only barely.  Oil back a couple of decades ago was well over $100 bbl.  In 2008 at one point it spiked up to $145 bbl. We're a long ways from that.

And because of the oil glut, we probably won't be seeing a massive rise in price any time soon.

Now for the second part.  And that may impact things. Who is responsible for this Middle Eastern drone Pearl Harbor?

Well, it's still being debated.

Saudi Arabia is fighting in the Yemeni civil war, along with the UAE, against Houthi rebels. The rebels took responsibility for the attacks and at a bare minimum, my guess is that the Houthi were at least made aware of it at some point, perhaps after it occurred, and at a bare minimum were happy to take responsibility. 

The war in Yemen hasn't gotten much press here, as nothing that happens in Yemen does.  Yemen is a backwards state on the Arabian peninsula that has oddly been prey to the twists and turns of global movements in various ways.    It was divided into two states following the British departure in which South Yemen, which the British had controlled, becoming a Communist state, showing the influence of the Cold War in the third world at the time.  North Yemen became a monarchy. The two countries did not get along and fought, but in 1990 they united in a troubled republic that has more or less been in a civil war since that time.

The war is along tribal and religious lines, with the Houthis controlling most of what had been the former kingdom in the north.  Most of them are members of a branch of the shiia sect of Islam.

Which is why the Saudi's likely don't want them to win and are backing the government.  Iran is backing the Shiia's, not surprisingly.

The Houthi's, as noted, claim responsibility. But the flight path would be 1,000 kms. That's a lot for rebels that are fighting with a lower level of military technology.  It's not impossible, and it could be accomplished with a fair amount if Iranian help, of course.  And they have used Iranian built drones before.

Or perhaps the Iranians pulled it off themselves, which is what the U.S. is claiming.

The Saudi's aren't claiming that.  Perhaps that's because they're not sure. And perhaps because that does seem extraordinarily risky, even for Iran. A drone strike is a clear act of war that can't be ignored.  If its the Houthi's, the Saudis are already fighting in that war and a dramatic air response will be likely. 

If its the Iranians, the Saudi's might choose to view it as the Houthi's, particularly if the strike was launched from Yemeni territory.  Iran taking a direct role in regional wars from inside the territory of the warring nations isn't anything new at all, and even though this would be a dramatic escalation of it, it would have a precedent and therefore the response would as well.

If, on the other hand, if the drones were launched from Iran, that's another matter.

My guess is that they were launched from Yemen with a lot of Iranian technical assistance.  That will mean that some Houthi positions are going to get completely blasted off the face of the earth.  It might mean that the Saudis will simply invade the Houthi region, which they are perfectly capable of doing, and then turn it over the to government, after which a lot of Houthi rebels will never be heard from again.

But that's not the only possible outcome, and some possible ones would have a big impact on the price of oil.

It's interesting to note, in all of this, that John Bolton is now gone.  His absence probably helps to prevent one of those other options from becoming immediately in the forefront.