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clk said:
My proposal was not an immediate blockade of Saudi Arabia.
No, but the steps you propose in the leadup to that are all either impossible or ineffective.
The goal is not to completely end the dependence on oil, just to reduce it to the point where we can supply our own oil instead of depending on countries that support terrorists.
Simply put, this cannot be done within the next 20 years (if ever), and even if it could be, we cannot wean the rest of the world off of Saudi oil either. It's simply not possible, because they have among the cheapest-to-produce oil in the world. Someone will always be willing to buy it. Drop demand significantly and you'll freeze out high-cost producers, not low-cost producers.
If we can stop buying oil from Saudi Arabia and other Mid East countries, it will cripple their economy and force them to change their economic and social structure.
More than one fallacy packed into this single sentence. We CANNOT stop buying Saudi oil. Or more precisely, we cannot stop demand for Saudi oil, whether it comes from us, from China, from Japan, from India, from Europe, or wherever. Saudi Arabia is a low-cost producer. They will always have a market for oil, so long as they have oil and people need it. Neither condition will change within the next twenty years (and possibly much longer). We cannot wait this problem out.
The second fallacy is that crippling their economy will force them to change. Well, in the sense that everyone always changes in response to changing conditions, yes. But not in the sense that they'd have to liberalize at all. Saddam absolutely WRECKED the Iraqi economy. Simply devastated it. Did his regime respond by liberalizing? No, it did not. Why this blind faith that wrecking Saudi Arabia's economy magically means that they'll have to liberalize? It's NEVER worked on totalitarian governments before, what makes you think that it would suddenly prove effective here?
1. Use international support that we had after 9/11 to pressure middle eastern countries towards social reform.
This is a slogan, not a plan. Pressure by what means? Who would go along with this? Certainly not Russia and China: they'd get rather nervous at the idea of democracies forcing liberalization on authoritarian governments (wonder why?). Europe? Maybe some of them, but that would be a hard sell too: plenty of people in France and Germany, for example, think the middle east is screwed up BECAUSE of the US, so why would they take significant risk to help us fix the problem? And then you get to places like Africa, where the dictator's club is more likely to support their fellow tyrants AGAINST the US than to demand social reforms. International support? There was always less of it than most people imagine, especially when you're talking about translating that into concrete action.
2. Give countries like Saudi Arabia an ultimatum: either reform your country or we will stop purchasing oil from you in 10 years.
Bwahahahaha! You think they'd take that threat seriously? First off, 10 years is to long to not be making progress. Second, they don't need to sell their oil to us. They just sell it to other countries. Oil is fungible. Our refusal to buy directly from them (something we would NOT be able to get everyone to go along with - especially countries like China) would have almost no impact whatsoever. Remember: oil is fungible. Keep repeating that, because it's something you've got to start learning if you want to understand any of this, and so far, you clearly don't.
Also threaten economic sanctions. Tell them that if they agree to reform, they will have our support.
Sanctions? You think China, for example, would be willing to cooperate? Fat chance. They'd gladly serve as the middle man, take a small profit, and let Saudi Arabia continue on their current path with just a slight increase in costs. Sanctions have a track record of failure against despotic regimes, ESPECIALLY ones with large oil reserves. They might feel a pinch, but they'd survive just fine. Saddam did, and he had only a fraction of the oil output Saudi Arabia has, as well as a united UN security council to enforce those sanctions, something you've got to be smoking crack to believe we could ever achieve with Saudi Arabia.
3. Launch a huge government project (like the Manhattan project) that focuses on alternative fuel research. Impose fuel economy standards on automakers. It's not farfetched, we already have hybrid cars that get excellent mileage. We just need to make them more popular.
That's fine and all, but you've GOT to be kidding me if you think this is actually a solution. It's helpful, but it's not enough, not by a LONG shot. We cannot drastically change our own energy consumption demands overnight, nor will our own increased efficiencies translate into a significant drop in GLOBAL energy demands.
And as I already pointed out above, drops in oil prices force out high-cost producers first. Saudi Arabia is the ultimate low-cost producer. They may feel a pinch, but they will ALWAYS have a market for their oil. Always. Remember: oil is fungible. Look it up.
Faced with international pressure and the prospect of a huge economic depression, I think countries like Saudi Arabia would relent and agree to slowly reform their societies towards religious moderation.
Like I said, when has that EVER worked for ANY totalitarian government?
You don't have a workable plan for dealing with Saudi Arabia. I don't really fault you for that: nobody really does, because they've got the world by the shorthairs. But since you DON'T have a workable plan, there's no point in trying to pretend that we shouldn't have gotten rid of Saddam because we should have been dealing with Saudi Arabia instead.
