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True. Yet, we should not just sit back and wag our finger at them when they do (not that you are suggesting such). I'm not nor have I ever advocated anything close. We screwed up by believing that the people of the Middle East could live peacefully in a free democracy. Maybe they can in a few generations, but not now, not given the prevailing culture of both Sunni and Shi'a sectarianism.
i don't advocate finger wagging. i advocate changing the global energy model. if they are to have democracy, it will have to happen via internal demand, as have all other democracies.
Assad was the only thing holding that country together. Even Jordan, which has an outward appearance of western style freedoms, is a harsh and unforgiving autocracy. Assad just found himself surrounded by a bunch of well meaning rebels in one group of smaller groups, and a bunch of ill meaning terrorist groups trying to create a Caliphate that eventually gelled into ISIS, that were all spawned by the Arab Spring and took advantage of a vacuum being created by the pull out of US forces, since we were the only stabilizing force left in the region (sad thought isn't it).
and an incorrect one. even during foreign military interventionism, there was plenty of sectarian conflict. the region was hardly stable.
That's the one I'm waiting on showing their hand. They already exist, IMO, they just haven't gone public yet. When they do, hell will paid by the entire world. Backed by the Saud family's Trillions of dollars, they will make bin Laden, al Baghdadi and the rest of the past and current players actually look like the JV team that Obama called them.
and if they're defeated, another will come, and more demands will be made for boots on the ground / expanded perpetual war in the Middle East. perhaps we should consider another strategy.
We support the Saudis because it's still in our economic and national security interest to do so. When that stops, you can bet your bottom dollar... so will the "love." You have a great point here. That would definitely reduce their cash flow, but the emerging economies like India, will be buying fossil fuels for the next 100 to 150 years because of it's low cost relative to new technologies, so even if the US went cold turkey from oil, the terrorists in the Middle East would still have their income streams. What we CAN do, is become as energy independent as possible to at least reduce the amount of money we send to the Saudis and all the other ME countries to prevent financing our own deaths.
oil is a fungible commodity, which means that oil producing nations are still going to benefit. a better idea is to innovate our way out from under it, and then export the technology.
That's what funds most of it. But with China, India, other parts of Eastern Asia that are emerging economies, African countries that are just now beginning to industrialize, we are not going to be able to cut off the flow of oil coming from the ME without creating famine, genocide, and unrelenting civil war across the third world of the likes we have never seen.
i could say the same about potential wars for access to diminishing resources. once again, the better investment is to replace oil as a transportation fuel.