• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

Saudi Arabia rejects US Senate’s ‘interference’ in kingdom

Okay. So what happens, 10, 15, 20 years down the road when we discover cold fusion or an infinite buttered toast / cat array for energy or the oil runs out? These regimes are gonna collapse then but even more powerful.

A power vacuum in the Middle East is inevitable on a moderate time line because they've only got one thing to put on the table.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Okay. So what happens, 10, 15, 20 years down the road when we discover cold fusion or an infinite buttered toast / cat array for energy or the oil runs out? These regimes are gonna collapse then but even more powerful.
Click to expand...

Right now, if Saudi Arabia collapsed, the shock that would produce in global oil supplies would threaten the existence of countries that cannot afford the energy price increases that would produce. Higher energy costs mean higher food costs, and for populations at the margins, that can mean famine, and likely war as well.

If Saudi Arabia collapses because their oil is no longer worth anything due to cheaper replacement technology, then food security in other countries is obviously not going to be a problem.
 
theprestige said:
Aside from the occasionally gauche approach to assassination , this particular prince seems to have more to offer than most of the House of Saud.
Click to expand...


In much the same way that, apart from one, brief period, Mr Lincoln really enjoyed "Our American Cousin".
 
Darat said:
I thought you were meaning to get rid of the ruling class altogether not just the one Prince.
Click to expand...

no, not at all: that is Trump's and others' strawman, that for some reason it is MBS or nothing at all in Saudi Arabia, and that any pressure would make the country break all ties with the US.
 
Doesn't "gauche" mean left-handed? In Saudi, you wipe your butt with that one and eat with the right.

Interestingly, if MBS does become King he'll be the first one not to have been a son of Ibn Saud. Ibn Saud had a LOT of sons.
 
Darat said:
Allowing cinemas and women to drive, which whilst more freedom is of course good I think it is more about what makes a good story to mask the stink of the SA state.
Click to expand...

There are probably multiple motives involved. Even if increasing freedom wasn't really one of them, it's probably not just a PR stunt. I think it's also an assertion of primacy over the hard-line clerics in the country. MBS is asserting dominance over them. And if he succeeds at that, that's probably a good thing in the long run. Decreasing the power of the clerics opens up space for even more freedom in the future, so that even if that wasn't really the goal, it might still be the effect.
 
Saudi Arabia is a totalitarian dictatorship, run as a theocracy for the masses, and as an oligarchy for the ruling class. There is no desirable political or social reform, that could be accomplished there except by a certain amount of ruthlessness on the part of the reformer.

Casebro talks about bombing the Kingdom into submission. Fuelair talks about assassinating their government officials. The irony of their prescriptions is not lost on me.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Okay. So what happens, 10, 15, 20 years down the road when we discover cold fusion or an infinite buttered toast / cat array for energy or the oil runs out? These regimes are gonna collapse then but even more powerful.

A power vacuum in the Middle East is inevitable on a moderate time line because they've only got one thing to put on the table.
Click to expand...


Nitpick:
I don't know how it compares to the rest of the world, but about 70% of the US petroleum consumption is transportation fuel. Unless fusion power caused the entire world to abandon internal combustion engines in favor of electric vehicles, there would be a reduction in revenue, but not a complete collapse. Automobile use is dramatically increasing in countries like China, which means more fuel being used.
 
Armitage72 said:
Nitpick:
I don't know how it compares to the rest of the world, but about 70% of the US petroleum consumption is transportation fuel. Unless fusion power caused the entire world to abandon internal combustion engines in favor of electric vehicles, there would be a reduction in revenue, but not a complete collapse. Automobile use is dramatically increasing in countries like China, which means more fuel being used.
Click to expand...

Fusion power means very cheap (once the stations are built I have no clue how much a fusion power plant would cost to build) and almost unlimited power, so yes either electric cars or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would take over pretty quickly IMO.
 
lobosrul5 said:
Fusion power means very cheap (once the stations are built I have no clue how much a fusion power plant would cost to build) and almost unlimited power, so yes either electric cars or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would take over pretty quickly IMO.
Click to expand...

I doubt it. Electric cars still have range problems, hydrogen fuel infrastructure would be expensive to create and has problems of its own, and existing cars won't go away quickly. But if you have super-cheap energy, you can simply create gasoline from organic stock.

Fusion power plants would be massive infrastructure expenditures. They would not make energy super cheap any time soon (as in within decades of the first one coming online), though they would definitely help.
 
carlitos said:
:D
Click to expand...
While it's funny, but the comedic aspect is tempered by my awareness that the author relentlessly normalizes Trump -- all politicians lie, no big deal -- and it would be nice to know that opinions run stronger than "gauche" as to having a Wapo reporter living in the US chopped into pieces by MBS goons.

Meanwhile our POTUS, who had threatened reporters with violence numerous times, treats it no more seriously than "gauche" himself, if even that.
 
What's with our resident War on Radical Islam cheerleaders getting cold feet about confronting Saudi Arabia?

Seems odd.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom