Embrace chaos in the Middle East??

[Zebo]

Ignoring the human cost, which I don't think you can stop until the ME lines are redrawn to their satisfaction making regional war inevitable followed by a reconciliation, speaking strictly financial and militarily I've explained several times how a huge regional conflict would be the best thing that could happen for the west and Infidels despite the professionals, the same ones that said Iraq would be peaceful, who seem all in agreement that it would be a terrible thing and therefore we just can't withdrawal. Here we see only one of my predictions in it's early stages as gas gets cheaper because Al-Saud Sunni's have declared economic war on Shi'a Iran. If they start shooting each other I suspect oil will hit rock bottom like in the 80's which almost broke OPECs back as they have a war to fight...

Saudis waging an oil-price war on Iran.

ANALYSIS
By Robert Windrem
Investigative producer
NBC News
Updated: 12:03 p.m. PT Jan 23, 2007


Robert Windrem
Investigative producer
? E-mail

Oil traders and others believe that the Saudi decision to let the price of oil tumble has more to do with Iran than economics.

Their belief has been reinforced in recent days as the Saudi oil minister has steadfastly refused calls for a special meeting of OPEC and announced that the nation is going to increase its production, which will send the price down even farther.
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Saudi Oil Minister Ibrahim al-Naimi even said during a recent trip to India that oil prices are headed in the "right direction."

Not for the Iranians.

Moreover, the traders believe the Saudis are not doing this alone, that the other Sunni-dominated oil producing countries and the U.S. are working together, believing it will hurt majority-Shiite Iran economically and create a domestic crisis for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose popularity at home is on the wane. The traders also believe (with good reason) that the U.S. is trying to tighten the screws on Iran financially at the same time the Saudis are reducing the Islamic Republic?s oil revenues.

For the Saudis, who fear Iran?s religious, geopolitical and nuclear aspirations, the decision to lower the price of oil has a number of benefits, the biggest being to deprive Iran of hard currency. It also may create unrest in a country that is its rival on a number of levels and permits the Saudis to show the U.S. that military action may not be necessary.

The Saudis firmly and publicly deny this, saying it?s all about economics. Not everyone believes them.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16772560/

 

[magomago]

Why do we want to hurt and cripple Iran? The stronger Iran gets economically - I would think the weaker the Mullahs become simply because people will be too busy to give a rats arse about what the leaders say. They already despise them, and unemployment is already a problem for Iran to the point where Iran has its own natural brain drain NOT because people truly desire to live elsewhere...but because they want JOBS.

Of course this in NO way means that Iran shouldn't be kept in check militarily (although they would never start a direct way - they rely on proxy battles like Iraq...so I don't see how we need to directly threaten them) or atleast its desire to influence the region around it (then again - we have our own desire to do the same...), but I think that this simply hurts Iran in a bad way and doesn't allow the country to develop

btw:

Zebo - why do you feel that it is better to keep the Mid East in Chaos? It seems to have brought us nothing but PROBLEMS....if we want to talk about forging links - this isn't necessary the best way to help nurture a mid east that would be "Free"...all we really would do is empower random warlord/sheiks/clans to rise in the chaos and create even MORE problems - clearly chaos in Iraq isn't doing us any good, so I don't see how chaos everywhere in the Mideast will help us.

 

[Drift3r]

The more people and Bush saber rattle the more patriotic Iranians become and the more we lessen the forces of change in Iran. Don't think for one second that Iranians are not willing to fight for their country in order to prevent the same mess they see in Iraq being unleashed onto their nation. This is especially true for Iranians who are considered the moderates in Iran.

 

[sandorski]

The WoT is now the WfT.

 

[Zebo]

Hey magomago it's late but I have to reply to you. USA and Sunni want to cripple them to overthrow their radical mullahs. As you know Sunni don't even consider them Muslim and will never let Shi'a lord over the ME. I'm not sure which will work honestly, either the people are doing better as you imply and dump mullahs or the people do worse and dump them that is'nt my point really... I believe only out of chaos can they join the modern world though self-relization that it's better to be amiable. With their brothers, with the west with israel etc.

 

[Aimster]

On paper , Arabs do not get along with their neighbors when it comes to different religious beliefs ...

Israel - Arab relations suck
Persian - Arab relations suck

Why? The core is religion.

The Saudi govt. has been trying to destabilize Iran since the Iranian regime took power. They gave billions to Iraq during their war with Iran. They also shot down an Iranian aircraft (however it was flown by a U.S pilot). They tricked the Iranians into a dog fight and the Iranians chased the Saudi jets back to Saudi Arabia and what do you know, a Saudi F-15 was waiting for the F-4. Which shows that the U.S involvement in the region has been going on for a long time in trying to take out Iran's regime.

In return Iran has been trying to support the Palestinians to win Arab support. Iran cannot win against 200M Arabs. As long as Iran supports the Palestinians, they have a SMALL support from the Arab community. Reality is that Arabs hate Persians and even look down on their own (Palestinians).

The conflict is so heated that the Arabs are calling the Persian Gulf the Arab Gulf. They have banned businesses from dealing with them if they did not call it the Arab Gulf. They also claim all the islands that Iran owns in the Persian Gulf.

 

[techs]

If the article is true than the recent 70-80 dollar a barrel oil was the result of the Saudis manipulating the market.
Explain to me again how the Saudis are our friends?

 

[zephyrprime]

I agree with you on some point zebo. A lot of the issues in the middle east are historically only settled by big wars that rearrange the whole order of the world. However, I disagree that oil would be cheap if such a war broke out. If the fighting got fierce, oil pipelines would be disrupted or bombed. That's currently not happening in Saudi Arabia because there isn't any fighting there yet outside of the odd suicide bomber but in a full scale war, it could happen.

 

[yllus]

Hell, I have to agree too. Nothing in the Middle East will be solved until they all extract their pound of flesh.

Sucks for us because it's an energy producing region we need to keep rollin', but if one thing's been proven over the first half of this decade, it's that you can force peace upon people who aren't ready for it.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Zebo
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16772560/

The whole article simply shows that religion is the smoke screen for the ME wars (Iraq etc).

It's all about the oil.

 

[Tom]

Kind of a related thought..I think one of the mistakes we are making in Iraq, which is like Vietnam, is thinking that we can control the outcome of events if we just have the right strategy. And assumin dire consequences if we fail.

I don't believe either is true. We will never resolve the issues that are causing the Iraqi civil war, no matter what we do. And it's also unlikely the Iraqis will accept Al Keada, or a Taliban like regime as their leaders, and if they do, we can always wipe them out like we did Saddam's regime, or the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The problem is we should have left a lot sooner, or even better not have gone in. But what we are doing isn't solving anything any faster than it would be solved if we left.

 

[crownjules]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Zebo
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16772560/

The whole article simply shows that religion is the smoke screen for the ME wars (Iraq etc).

It's all about the oil.

I don't think you read the same article that was posted.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Zebo
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16772560/

The whole article simply shows that religion is the smoke screen for the ME wars (Iraq etc).

It's all about the oil.

WTF Dave...which is it...religion or oil?

Anyway...there really hasnt been "peace" in the ME in thousands of years, what makes us think there even CAN be? It's alll about religion (at least if you dont make your own opinion and read history)