Saudi Arabia Ok's Israeli strike on Iran

[Freshgeardude]

plausible deniability. I love it

 

[Lemon law]

plausible deniability. I love it

Ah but you miss the point FreshGearDude, its plausible deniability about something that never happened. Meaning there is nothing to deny.

Its no crime for someone to think about robbing the first national bank in the Walter Mitty sense, but the crime only occurs when that someone robs the first national bank at gunpoint.

Nor is there anything wrong with the US military and every military in the world having vague contingency plans to attack every country in the world including the Vatican in event of need.

 

[Red Dawn]

now you are stalking me to make dumb ass comments? wasn't getting pummeled in the other thread good enough for one day?

you are an asshole... nothing i typed has even the least hint of my like or dislike for any given conflict... my comment was relating to the topic of how and what kind of war this may be.

you are a stupid fuck who posts totally off topic personal attacks because you were my bitch (with ducatimoinster getting sloppy seconds) in the other thread...

and now you can give me a vacation when i call you out as a fuckhead mod who doesn't even follow the rules you purport to enforce... your post is totally irrelevant to the topic and a personal attack. fuck you you shit for brains...

Poor soul, you were just too high strung.

It would appear that the strain was more than he could bear.

 

[Darwin333]

We'd be fools to support naked Israeli aggression, regardless of her own paranoid delusions and the fantasies of AIPAC fanbois.

Even if we don't initially support it we are in a real tight spot if they do it anyway. If Iran blocks Saudi Arabian oil exports the US will lose 1,100,000 bbls a day and regardless of what people think there isn't another country that is both willing and able to replace that supply so we would lose at the very least 5% of the oil we use daily and thats JUST from SA, haven't looked into all the oil we get that flows through the Persian Gulf. They export approximately 8M bbls per day total of which 65-75% moves through the Gulf. Worldwide oil prices would surely skyrocket if the Gulf is shutdown but even worse will be availability. Not only can we not replace what they wouldn't be sending us anymore, they provide approx. 25% of India's oil, and the send roughly the same amount of oil to China as they do the US. Then add in the 1/2 million bbls a day that Iran exports to China, Japan, India, etc.. assuming that their ability to export oil would be targeted as well should things get that ugly.

So even if there was some magical excess supply somewhere (that isn't already contracted out) that magically had the proper infrastructure to get it to us the competition for it would be insanely fierce. You think China will loan us the money to outbid them on oil that they will desperately need as well?

The above is why we will participate in any serious middle east engagement. It doesn't matter if we want to or not, we simply can't live without the oil they send us and we aren't willing to at least mitigate that risk by aggressively pursuing our own sources. We are currently doing exactly the opposite and shutting down a large chunk of our new oil production in the Gulf of Mexico for a very long time (it could be up to 10 years before we see drilling return to its pre-moratorium state) even though better options for safely doing so have been proposed. Since we can not substantially reduce consumption anytime in the near future and new production takes a while to get online, shutting down the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico has a huge risk of making us get involved in yet another war that we shouldn't be involved in and damn sure can't afford.

We could easily replace the roughly 2 million barrels of oil per day we import from the middle east (mainly SA, Iraq and Kuwait) with a well thought out and implemented plan for securing our own oil. Seven wells on a single field came online in the GOM a few years ago and is currently producing 260,000 barrels a day. 70 percent of GOM oil comes from deepwater wells and up until Obama announced his moratorium the GOM employed roughly 1/4 of all deepwater rigs (as of 2007, we had since increased the number of rigs from 30 to 33, not sure about worldwide numbers to date though). Most of those rigs will NOT be here in 6 months and they will be leaving behind wells in various stages of production which is arguably more dangerous than completing them. Those rigs will be signing long term contracts that will keep them drilling in other countries for many many years. New rigs will be built and we might be able to employ a few to drill in the gulf within the next 3-5 years but you can probably count them on a single hand.

The bottom line is it is very possible to get off of oil that comes from places that have a very high risk of dragging us into wars to protect that oil supply. It appears that we prefer the risk of war (as well as funding people who don't like us) over safely drilling our own oil.

 

[Patranus]

Bomb bomb bomb,
bomb bomb Iran!

 

[Lemon law]

Darwin333 maybe puts his finder on it, by saying, "If Iran blocks Saudi Arabian oil exports the US will lose 1,100,000 bbls a day and regardless of what people think there isn't another country that is both willing and able to replace that supply."

Ok, now realize that is what may happen if Israel is permitted to bomb Iran.

Now what are we going to do about it when it happens. Bomb the Iranian government into submission. We have been there done that with Gulf war 2 under that great military genius GWB. And within a few weeks of the wars opening, American tanks were rolling into Baghdad, the Saddam Huessein government Kaput, but every damn Iraqi insurgent group then looted all of the widely dispersed Iraqi armories, and independent of any Iraqi central government were using those explosives against themselves and the USA. In the case of Iraq, most of Saddam's armaments were depleted by Gulf War one, but Iran, unlike Iraq is much more than a paper tiger. And if if the Iranian government is history, you can bet all kinds of Iranian patriots operating as small partisan groups will continue to blockade the Persian gulf with weapons looted from Iranian armories.

And unlike Iraq which is mostly flat sand ideal for tank warfare, Iran is mostly difficult terrain with many places for insurgents to hide in as natural fortifications.

Even with 200,000 troops, we could not control Iraq or its insurgents, Iran is much bigger and has 3X the population. And 100X the quality weaponry to repel any land based occupation.

 

[Darwin333]

Darwin333 maybe puts his finder on it, by saying, "If Iran blocks Saudi Arabian oil exports the US will lose 1,100,000 bbls a day and regardless of what people think there isn't another country that is both willing and able to replace that supply."

Ok, now realize that is what may happen if Israel is permitted to bomb Iran.

Now what are we going to do about it when it happens. Bomb the Iranian government into submission. We have been there done that with Gulf war 2 under that great military genius GWB. And within a few weeks of the wars opening, American tanks were rolling into Baghdad, the Saddam Huessein government Kaput, but every damn Iraqi insurgent group then looted all of the widely dispersed Iraqi armories, and independent of any Iraqi central government were using those explosives against themselves and the USA. In the case of Iraq, most of Saddam's armaments were depleted by Gulf War one, but Iran, unlike Iraq is much more than a paper tiger. And if if the Iranian government is history, you can bet all kinds of Iranian patriots operating as small partisan groups will continue to blockade the Persian gulf with weapons looted from Iranian armories.

And unlike Iraq which is mostly flat sand ideal for tank warfare, Iran is mostly difficult terrain with many places for insurgents to hide in as natural fortifications.

Even with 200,000 troops, we could not control Iraq or its insurgents, Iran is much bigger and has 3X the population. And 100X the quality weaponry to repel any land based occupation.

So I assume you advocate that we should immediately drop the 6 month moratorium on Gulf of Mexico drilling, implement a new drilling safety plan such as the "gang of 66" and aggressively go after our own oil so that we are no longer at risk of being drug into war because of the actions of Israel (or any other country in the region)?

You can't have it both ways.

 

[Lemon law]

Now Darwin333 loses all sanity by saying, "So I assume you advocate that we should immediately drop the 6 month moratorium on Gulf of Mexico drilling, implement a new drilling safety plan such as the "gang of 66" and aggressively go after our own oil so that we are no longer at risk of being drug into war because of the actions of Israel (or any other country in the region)?

You can't have it both ways."

Who says there are only two ways? You seem under the delusion that Iran must be bombed? Or that we have enough oil to meet our own needs.

In short Darwin333, the mid-east may be a fucked up place and the whole world will need mid-east oil, but when you have a fucked up situation, job one is to not fuck it up worse by trying sure absolute insanity by attacking Iran.

Not even GWB was crazy enough to allow Israel to attack Iran.

 

[Freshgeardude]

http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=178305

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Israel and the US are trying to drive a wedge between Iran and Saudi Arabia, following a London Times report that Saudi Arabia will allow Israeli jets to use its airspace to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Ahamadinejad said "there is no doubt that America and the Zionist regime are enemies of Iran and Saudi Arabia," in a meeting with the new Saudi ambassador to Iran.


"Should [America and Israel] have the opportunity," Ahmadinejad said, "they would harm all the states in the region. If Iran and Saudi Arabia will be united on regional matters, our enemies will not have the courage to invade Muslim land."

The Times cited a US defense source as saying the Saudis had conducted exercises to ensure Israeli jets are not shot down going through Saudi airspace in the event of an attack against Iran. The source added that the US State Department is aware of the agreement.

Sources in Saudi Arabia told The Times that it is common knowledge within defense circles in the kingdom that an arrangement is in place if Israel decides to launch the raid. Despite the tension between the two countries, they said, their governments share a mutual loathing of the regime in Teheran and a common fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. However, Riyadh has publicly denied the report.

An Israeli attempt to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities would likely target uranium enrichment facilities at Qom and Natanz as well as a heavy water reactor at Arak and a gas storage development at Isfahan, the report said.

Questioned on the option of a Saudi flight path for Israeli bombers, Aharon (Ze’ev) Farkash, who headed military intelligence until 2006 and has been involved in war games simulating a strike on Iran, was quoted by The Times as saying: “I know that Saudi Arabia is even more afraid than Israel of an Iranian nuclear capacity.”

LOL The US is an enemy of Saudi Arabia. this guy is totally insane!

 

[Lemon law]

Maybe FreshGearDude, you should realize that Saudi Arabia is not happy with Iran, Iraq, the USA, or Israel.

 

[Noobtastic]

Maybe FreshGearDude, you should realize that Saudi Arabia is not happy with Iran, Iraq, the USA, or Israel.

saudi arabia is an apartheid muslim state whose entire existence is thanked to US intervention.

without the US the saudi tribe would have withered away and died.

the whole arab world can thank the colonial powers for protecting them, finding their oil, allowing them to breed and spread their bigotry to rivaling states.

infecting the world with islamic supremacism and arab apartheid.

 

[Darwin333]

Now Darwin333 loses all sanity by saying, "So I assume you advocate that we should immediately drop the 6 month moratorium on Gulf of Mexico drilling, implement a new drilling safety plan such as the "gang of 66" and aggressively go after our own oil so that we are no longer at risk of being drug into war because of the actions of Israel (or any other country in the region)?

You can't have it both ways."

Who says there are only two ways? You seem under the delusion that Iran must be bombed? Or that we have enough oil to meet our own needs.

In short Darwin333, the mid-east may be a fucked up place and the whole world will need mid-east oil, but when you have a fucked up situation, job one is to not fuck it up worse by trying sure absolute insanity by attacking Iran.

Not even GWB was crazy enough to allow Israel to attack Iran.

This will be my final post to you because you obviously do not have the ability to read and comprehend an entire post before spouting off. Let me help you out and bold it for you:

I do not want to go to war with Iran nor do I want to get drug into a war with anyone else. However, our current energy situation demands that we protect our supply which a lot of just happens to come from the mid east. That means if whoever the fuck in the mid east decides to start shooting we MUST protect our energy at all costs.

We DO have more than enough untapped oil to replace what we currently get from those unstable regions. If we tap those sources we are no longer at risk of being drug into a war against some shithole country because our economy no longer relies on their ability to export us oil.

Do I need to draw a fucking picture or something? This isn't a difficult concept to grasp. 1 million barrels a day of additional domestic production puts us in an unbelievably better situation to tell Israel they are on their own. 2 million barrels a day gets us off of oil from the entire region, we can tell them all to get fucked. Please don't be foolish enough to claim that we can not produce an additional 1M barrels a day if we so desired.

 

[StageLeft]

Doesn't really matter how good or bad our relationship is with them. We must protect them in order to protect ourselves from economic collapse. That is the risk you take when you depend on unstable regions to supply your economies lifeblood.

I think that's what I meant. The US has good relations (republic of georgia) and then the US has relations with people it does business (Kuwait) with and and those are REALLY good.

I've read this thread. These rumors now about using Saudi airspace I have to wonder simply if the official position for the kingdom at this time is that no of course not those Zionists won't use our airspace, but what they say now vs what they actually would agree to may be different. I'm not sure I see much of a gain for Saudi here, though, they really would have a bullzeye on them.

I think however for the most part Iran will take it lying down, even if they do some fairly limited counter attacks, they cannot possibly win a full on war against Israel, to which they do not even abut, so I don't see such a war happening. They'd likely step up all their proxy efforts, though in other nations.

 

[Lemon law]

To Darwin333, now that I understand your positin beter I can better understand what you are trying to say in, "Do I need to draw a fucking picture or something? This isn't a difficult concept to grasp. 1 million barrels a day of additional domestic production puts us in an unbelievably better situation to tell Israel they are on their own. 2 million barrels a day gets us off of oil from the entire region."

Two little problems with your position.

(1) God forgot to endow the USA with abundant oil. Even a reckless crash USA program would not come up with even 500,000 barrels per day. And US oil production is further delimited by a lack of drilling rigs. The USA has leased a plethora of drilling sites to oil companies, but the fast bulk are not being tapped by anyone. Once the USA leases a drilling site to the XYZ oil company, we have to wait and wait and wait for the XYZ oil company to drill on its, even if a pile of other oil companies would be thrilled to use that drilling site today.

(2) At the end of the day the USA is better off buying oil from others cheap rather than totally depleting our limited reserves, when in future everyone's oil will become more valuable than it is today.

 

[PJABBER]

Two little problems with your position.

(1) God forgot to endow the USA with abundant oil. Even a reckless crash USA program would not come up with even 500,000 barrels per day. And US oil production is further delimited by a lack of drilling rigs. The USA has leased a plethora of drilling sites to oil companies, but the fast bulk are not being tapped by anyone. Once the USA leases a drilling site to the XYZ oil company, we have to wait and wait and wait for the XYZ oil company to drill on its, even if a pile of other oil companies would be thrilled to use that drilling site today.

(2) At the end of the day the USA is better off buying oil from others cheap rather than totally depleting our limited reserves, when in future everyone's oil will become more valuable than it is today.

You are neither a geologist nor an exploration engineer, nor are you at all familiar with this topic based on the above comments. So, you are just expressing a personal and incorrect opinion. Again.

You may have heard of the massive amounts of oil coming out of the Gulf of Mexico? It has been in the news lately.

Drill, baby, drill? Well, Alaska is waiting. From Wiki...

In 1998, the USGS estimated that 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge contains a total of between 5.7 and 16.0 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, with a mean estimate of 10.4 billion barrels, of which 7.7 billion barrels falls within the Federal portion of the ANWR 1002 Area. In May 2008 the EIA used this assessment to estimate the potential cumulative production of the 1002 area of ANWR to be a maximum of 4.3 billion barrels from 2018 to 2030. This estimate is a best case scenario of technically recoverable oil during the area's primary production years if legislation were passed in 2008 to allow drilling.

Here is yet another sea of oil, without the issues of deep sea drilling...

The USGS Assessment for the Bakken Formation estimated mean undiscovered volumes of 3.65 billion barrels of oil, 1.85 trillion cubic feet of associated / dissolved natural gas, and 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids in the United States portion of the Bakken Formation. These resources are contained within both conventional and unconventional reservoirs. The Bakken Formation in Canada contains additional resources and has been called one of the largest oil fields in Canada.

Time for the U.S. to move toward nuclear, sure, and to use the country's own natural resources, not so much those of nations only marginally aligned with U.S. interests. Not to cut Israel, Saudi Arabia or the Gulf oil states out, but to provide us with the resources necessary to achieve cheap energy to power our industry and to fuel our own economic growth before that of others in this competitive world.

 

[Lemon law]

The great genius PJABBER somehow assumes to say, "You may have heard of the massive amounts of oil coming out of the Gulf of Mexico? It has been in the news lately."

Ya I too have noticed, 40,000 barrels a day of gulf oil, leaking out every day, at that rate, we might be able to sell the Louisiana purchase back to France for the original 3 million and skin France in the deal. Let them clean up the gulf mess because BP will
not be able to afford to.

Drill baby SPILL!

 

[Darwin333]

To Darwin333, now that I understand your positin beter I can better understand what you are trying to say in, "Do I need to draw a fucking picture or something? This isn't a difficult concept to grasp. 1 million barrels a day of additional domestic production puts us in an unbelievably better situation to tell Israel they are on their own. 2 million barrels a day gets us off of oil from the entire region."

Two little problems with your position.

(1) God forgot to endow the USA with abundant oil. Even a reckless crash USA program would not come up with even 500,000 barrels per day. And US oil production is further delimited by a lack of drilling rigs. The USA has leased a plethora of drilling sites to oil companies, but the fast bulk are not being tapped by anyone. Once the USA leases a drilling site to the XYZ oil company, we have to wait and wait and wait for the XYZ oil company to drill on its, even if a pile of other oil companies would be thrilled to use that drilling site today.

Really? 500K barrels with a reckless crash program wouldn't be possible?

You truly do not know what you are talking about. In JUST the Gulf of Mexico we have brought well over 250,000BBLs/Day of NEW production online in just the last 3 years. That is considering that most of our waters are off limits to drilling/exploring, vast new fields are being discovered faster than we can tap them but again we don't even let them explore areas that could very well have vastly higher producing fields than they are currently drilling on. 500,000 barrels is impossible yet half of that has been brought online in just a few years eh? Wanna buy a bridge?

As far as the leases, that is a political issue. I have no problem putting stipulations in the bidding process that take into account who can start development the quickest. That is why I said we need a comprehensive PLAN. Lets figure out what we think the best producing fields will be (most of the groundwork has already been done) and go after those first while simultaneously exploring previously unexplored regions. We really have no clue how much oil certain regions have because no one is going to spend a ton of money doing extensive surveys when they know they won't even be able to drill a test well.

As far as lack of drilling rigs, we currently have close to 1/4 of the worlds deepwater drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately those rigs are about to move to other countries because of the moratorioum. I assume you are joining me in advocating the reversal of that decision so that we do not lose those resources for years and potentially a full decade?

(2) At the end of the day the USA is better off buying oil from others cheap rather than totally depleting our limited reserves, when in future everyone's oil will become more valuable than it is today.

Another retarded argument. You would rather us be in a situation where we are FORCED into war with a country like Iran because Israel decides to bomb them instead of drilling our own oil? That is what this entire argument has been about. The ONLY reason we are in the middle east is to protect our oil supply. If we no longer need their oil we will no longer be at risk of being FORCED into a war that we want no part of. I guess you prefer our military presence in the middle east? You are part of the reason we will inevitably be involved in another war in that area, backing the people you seem to despise, relatively soon. Mark my words, if we are still dependent on their oil in a decade we will be involved in another war.

I never would have taken you for someone who would be willing to go to war in order to protect future profits that you hope will still be profitable when we do decide to tap them. (IMO, 2 decades and our need for oil will start declining as other technologies start to replace our reliance on oil for transportation, we could probably do it within a decade if we had the will and money which we have neither).

Not to mention all the tax/royalty revenues we will not be collecting, thousands more very good paying jobs (in lieu of the current course which will destroy tens of thousands of high paying jobs and bankrupt hundreds if not thousands if businesses)

My way increases .gov revenue, creates thousands of high paying jobs, protects our national security, helps our trade imbalance, moves us towards a position in which we aren't required to fund those that don't like us, and removes our risk of being drug into another ME war.

Your way keeps our military in the ME, generates less revenue for the government, less jobs, higher trade imbalance, much higher risk of serious economic damage (we are talking depression like damage), and worst of all it will result in us getting involved in another war all based on the simple hope that we will be able to make more profit off of it at some point in the future???


My way is better.

 

[Lemon law]

Darwin says, "In JUST the Gulf of Mexico we have brought well over 250,000BBLs/Day of NEW production online in just the last 3 years."

Now do the math, its taken 3 years to bring in that 250,000 barrels, so it would take like 12 years to get your million barrels/day. And at the same time, you forget to factor in all those other US oil fields that have been basically pumped dry. In short, oil is not a renewable resource. Or an infinite resource.

And we also have to realize that oil, like all minerals has a production cost associated with it. Oil from oil shale and tar sands is recoverable, but it only starts to get economically feasible when oil prices rise up past $100.00/barrel or greater, the recovery process is slow, and then there is the huge environmental damage. On the other hand the Saudi oil fields struck it lucky, the oil is not deep, the production costs are very low, but one day, even the Saudis will find they are pumped dry.

Worse yet, its used to be mostly the USA doing most of the world's oil consumption, but as China and Indian are increasing their consumption of oil, supply still remains about the same and demand is ever increasing. And we all know how the economic law of supply and demand works.

On the other hand Darwin333, you do have some points, its been about 150 years since the first oil well was drilled, and we are still well shy of what is called peak oil, as we discover more and more potential drilling sites. I have heard estimates that we are 40 and maybe 60 years from that peak oil point. But 200 or 250 years is just a moment in the geological history of the earth, and is it wise for just a few generations of humans to selfishly utilize all of it thus robbing all future generations.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Saudi Arabia Ok's Israeli strike on Iran

I'm calling shens.

Unless someone shows me where Egypt, Jordon and/or Syria agreed to open airspace for an attack.

Or even Iraq. You remember Iraq, don't you? The formally somewhat secular Iraq dictated by a Sunni thug that is now a Shia domain.

Good luck with that one.





--

 

[heyheybooboo]

Grrrr ...

 

[EagleKeeper]

Saudi Arabia Ok's Israeli strike on Iran

I'm calling shens.

Unless someone shows me where Egypt, Jordon and/or Syria agreed to open airspace for an attack.

Or even Iraq. You remember Iraq, don't you? The formally somewhat secular Iraq dictated by a Sunni thug that is now a Shia domain.

Good luck with that one.

--

The OP has a link to an article which indicates that SA will not interfere if the IAF passes through SA airspace.

Why would the IAF need to pass through SA airspace?

What does the three that you mentioned have to do with Saudi Arabia. Is it their airspace that the IAF would need to cross? Crossing Jordan & Iraq would reduce the distance; but Israel can run south and then turn east without worrying about those that you mentioned.

 

[Darwin333]

Darwin says, "In JUST the Gulf of Mexico we have brought well over 250,000BBLs/Day of NEW production online in just the last 3 years."

Now do the math, its taken 3 years to bring in that 250,000 barrels, so it would take like 12 years to get your million barrels/day. And at the same time, you forget to factor in all those other US oil fields that have been basically pumped dry. In short, oil is not a renewable resource. Or an infinite resource.

The vast majority of that 250Kbbls/day comes from a single field that currently has 7 wells, all drilled by a single rig.

We are finding larger and larger reserves of oil every day. Brazil just found the largest reserve in 30 years off the coast of Rio. They are estimating that it will at MINIMUM produce 1M barrels a day.

We have no clue how much oil we really have because so much of our land and sea is off limits. Some of that is for good cause, I am not advocating that we strip mine national parks or anything but a ton of that area is off limits for no good reason at all. If you actually believed what you are saying you would be advocating drilling the wells now and capping them for later use. That way if some drastic interuption in supply does occur we can replace it with domestic product relatively quickly (still take a while but we would be way ahead of the game).

We have plenty of proven reserves and we have more areas of our coastal waters that hasn't been explored than has been. A TON of land that is likely to have huge amounts of oil, there could very well be a field like Brazils recent find sitting out there but we don't know nor will we with our current course of action.

And we also have to realize that oil, like all minerals has a production cost associated with it. Oil from oil shale and tar sands is recoverable, but it only starts to get economically feasible when oil prices rise up past $100.00/barrel or greater, the recovery process is slow, and then there is the huge environmental damage. On the other hand the Saudi oil fields struck it lucky, the oil is not deep, the production costs are very low, but one day, even the Saudis will find they are pumped dry.

I am not including any tar sand or shale oil in the discussion. I don't know much about the production of either, I am talking strictly about offshore, coastal and conventional land reserves.

Worse yet, its used to be mostly the USA doing most of the world's oil consumption, but as China and Indian are increasing their consumption of oil, supply still remains about the same and demand is ever increasing. And we all know how the economic law of supply and demand works.

Which makes my point all that much more valid. Regardless of price there will be, and currently is, increasing competition for the oil exporting nations are selling. China has been buying up and signing as many long term contracts as they can. Which means that if we lose a source it isn't easily replaceable which means we plunge into a depression. If we could replace the oil SA ships to us we would have told them to get bent long ago. As far as price is concerned, I bet we would come out way ahead paying $10 a barrel more for oil in lieu of the cost of our military presence in the middle east. Not to mention the other positives like helping the trade imbalance, high paying jobs that we desperately need right now, increased government revenue, etc...

On the other hand Darwin333, you do have some points, its been about 150 years since the first oil well was drilled, and we are still well shy of what is called peak oil, as we discover more and more potential drilling sites. I have heard estimates that we are 40 and maybe 60 years from that peak oil point. But 200 or 250 years is just a moment in the geological history of the earth, and is it wise for just a few generations of humans to selfishly utilize all of it thus robbing all future generations.

"Future generations" will not be using oil as we do today. Do you really think we will be driving vehicle with internal combustion engines in another 100 years? If we get serious in this country we could significantly reduce our oil usage in the transportation sector within a decade. In reality I figure it will be more like 2 decades, lets call it 3 for the sake of the discussion, but the technology isn't that far off. Our biggest hurdle will not be technology but infrastructure.

All we need is a "bridge" to get us 30 years down the road. I would prefer we not get involved in another war or 2 for that bridge but unfortunately our current policy all but guarantees we will be involved in another war(s). Knowingly or not, this is what you currently support.

You can argue anyway you wish but it doesn't change the cold hard facts. Oil IS the lifeblood of our economy, any major disruption in our supply will plunge us into a depression that will devastate our economy. Knowing the last sentence to be fact, we will use the full might of our military to protect our oil supply. If that means bombing the shit out of Iran after someone else picked a fight with them then that is what we will do, we simply don't have any other choice in the matter. It won't be a matter of us wanting to go to war with XYZ country or wanting to protect XYZ country, it will be a matter of us going to war to protect ourselves from economic ruin. Since we have already gotten involved in wars for that very reason, it is hard to argue that it isn't likely to happen again given the situation hasn't changed (actually, it is getting worse).

 

[Lemon law]

The other thing to note is the Israel violates the air space of Jordon, Syria, and Lebanon anytime it feels like it. I do not know about violating Egyptian air space, and right now Israel would be well advised not to try violating Turkish airspace.

I do know that Israel has made a few incursions into Iraqi airspace post the US military occupation, and US planes have turned them back without an exchange of fire.

Its remotely possible that Israel could trespass on Saudi airspace without a defensive response from the Saudis, but the question becomes, whose air space will Israeli have to trespass over to get to Saudi airspace? And possibly even more importantly, will Iran be informed that possible Israeli planes are coming almost as soon as they leave Israeli airspace. The other thing to point out, no matter the route Israel takes to get from Israel to Iran, will be very fuel delimited, so defensive missiles and bomb loads become a trade off that must be pared to the bone. And if Iran scrambles its aged jets, they can carry the full weight of missiles and go on afterburners, and much better Israeli planes could becomes defenseless sitting ducks. The other joker is Turkey, who has modern jet planes close to as good as Israel's. Israel's only prayer is achieving the element of complete surprise while totally jamming Iranian radar.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Does Israel need to go over anyone to get to Saudi airspace?

They can engress at the Red Sea via Eilat.
1400km across Suadi and 250km across the Persian Gulf and there is Iran.

Would they have some type of refueling setup planned such as airborne tankers or fuel bladders prepositioned? doing so; would increase the survivalbility of the strike force by allowing more weapons and less external fuel loads.

Where in Iran they would have to go is a different story.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

In retaliation, Iran would launch a nuclear strike at the Saudi oilfields.

BOOM!

The end of the oil civilisation as we know it.