@bidetmarxman: A few hours ago, the pressure in Nord Stream 2, the undersea gas line connecting Russia and Germany, plummeted and began leaking gas bubbles into the Baltic sea near the Danish island of Bornholm. 🧵...…
almost a third in less than a year??? wow lol. i can only imagine that as things get worse, the rate of usage over the long term will only go up, not down
yeah especially with how integral the petrodollar is to dollar hegemony and neo-imperialism. what with saudi arabia also looking to sell oil to china in yuan, and BRICS+ proposing more usage of national currencies…sure is a wild time to be alive
And MBS just got named PM of KSA… a massive move away from the US sphere.
It was big for me to understand that one arm of the KSA royal family has been trying to reform away from Wahhabism for like 60 years. And the Western backed arm is pro-Wahhabism.
that’s interesting, i didn’t know that at all although it’s no surprise that the US prefers the most reactionary slice possible. i feel like, whether through less sectarianism, eurasian integration, or recognition of the US as a common enemy, we could see cooling down in the contradiction between turkey and SA, again spelling doom for US oil by pushing them out of syria. nothin like adding even more fuel (or less, in this case?) to the fire haha. also might spell doom for israel too
100%, Wahhabism is a manifestation of the divide and conquer approach. The British chose to install the al-Sauds precisely because they felt confident that they could use the clerics to exert influence over the royal family.
The thing that made me really understand this was the 1979 Mecca mosque takeover by extremists. in 1979 the mosque was taken over by religious extremists opposed to the progressive reforms being enacted by the royal family. The response from the Iranians was to blame the US and it was widely believed in the region to the point that there were mass protests all across pakistan, iran and in Hyderabad in opposition to the AMerican presence. It was a massive coup against the reform minded royal family members and set the internal politics back decades. It was a massive blow to KSA sovereignty as they had to rely on French special forces to remove the threat.
MBS is essentially removing teh political power of the clerics. and by killing Kashoggi, a US CIA asset (his uncle was literally a CIA weapons smuggler billionaire) and he worked for a propaganda outfit, the Saudis were sending a massive message to the US. The coup in 2019 where MBS essentially seized de facto power from his cousing Nayeff was also a massive signal. https://themaydan.com/2021/09/reordering-saudi-religion-mbs-is-defanging-wahhabism-not-dethroning-it/
It’s been useful for destabilizing the region in general. A lot of the people involved in the 9/11 attacks in the US were Saudi, and it was a convenient excuse to start wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Nobody ever even got upset with KSA.
The only reason oil hasn’t exploded is that the gov has tapped into the SPR and passed it off as if they secured more oil. We are fucked.
haven’t they used, like, a surprisingly large portion of it too? i recall seeing something about that in the past few months
According to this it has been depleted by 27% so far
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-release-and-refill-of-the-strategic-petroleum-reserve/ar-AA12fFLB
almost a third in less than a year??? wow lol. i can only imagine that as things get worse, the rate of usage over the long term will only go up, not down
The US is an oil empire… The spice must flow and if it doesn’t, it all implodes. But with the global south standing up…
yeah especially with how integral the petrodollar is to dollar hegemony and neo-imperialism. what with saudi arabia also looking to sell oil to china in yuan, and BRICS+ proposing more usage of national currencies…sure is a wild time to be alive
And MBS just got named PM of KSA… a massive move away from the US sphere.
It was big for me to understand that one arm of the KSA royal family has been trying to reform away from Wahhabism for like 60 years. And the Western backed arm is pro-Wahhabism.
that’s interesting, i didn’t know that at all although it’s no surprise that the US prefers the most reactionary slice possible. i feel like, whether through less sectarianism, eurasian integration, or recognition of the US as a common enemy, we could see cooling down in the contradiction between turkey and SA, again spelling doom for US oil by pushing them out of syria. nothin like adding even more fuel (or less, in this case?) to the fire haha. also might spell doom for israel too
100%, Wahhabism is a manifestation of the divide and conquer approach. The British chose to install the al-Sauds precisely because they felt confident that they could use the clerics to exert influence over the royal family.
The thing that made me really understand this was the 1979 Mecca mosque takeover by extremists. in 1979 the mosque was taken over by religious extremists opposed to the progressive reforms being enacted by the royal family. The response from the Iranians was to blame the US and it was widely believed in the region to the point that there were mass protests all across pakistan, iran and in Hyderabad in opposition to the AMerican presence. It was a massive coup against the reform minded royal family members and set the internal politics back decades. It was a massive blow to KSA sovereignty as they had to rely on French special forces to remove the threat.
MBS is essentially removing teh political power of the clerics. and by killing Kashoggi, a US CIA asset (his uncle was literally a CIA weapons smuggler billionaire) and he worked for a propaganda outfit, the Saudis were sending a massive message to the US. The coup in 2019 where MBS essentially seized de facto power from his cousing Nayeff was also a massive signal. https://themaydan.com/2021/09/reordering-saudi-religion-mbs-is-defanging-wahhabism-not-dethroning-it/
It’s been useful for destabilizing the region in general. A lot of the people involved in the 9/11 attacks in the US were Saudi, and it was a convenient excuse to start wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Nobody ever even got upset with KSA.
Holy shit
oil prices are rising again… we’re back to over $6/gal here