Oil may be the gateway to kicking Venezuelan sanctions
The looming energy crisis seems to have Biden thinking more clearly about the status quo when it comes to Nicholas Maduro.
The looming energy crisis seems to have Biden thinking more clearly about the status quo when it comes to Nicholas Maduro.
Failure to respond to the Kingdom’s slights would reinforce the perception that Washington is a mere oil dependent, susceptible to demands.
Washington is desperate for more OPEC oil production and our ‘friends’ know it. Some might call this extortion.
The US can take the lead on clean energy production while at the same time reducing its reliance on authoritarians with a lot of oil.
American withdrawal, coupled with the need to diversify Gulf state economies away from oil, is driving efforts to dial down regional tensions.
Attempts at “adjustment programs” have been met with protest and younger generations are likely to hold their countries’ rulers to account.
After centuries of domination by foreigners, the Middle East is now being reshaped primarily by interactions between countries within it.
Biden appears to be revoking a Trump-era waiver that put the U.S. in the middle of a battle over Syria’s crude resources.
Trump’s Syria envoy admitted to giving special treatment to the firm and that no other companies were involved.
Policymakers often justify a heavy US presence in the region based on baseless ‘energy security’ fears.
“The U.S. is stuck in a broken, angry, and dysfunctional Middle East. It can’t transform the region — see Iraq and Afghanistan — and it can’t extricate itself from it.”
If states see the present low prices as an opportunity for reform toward more realistic economies and more limited political ambitions, the Middle East could vastly benefit in the long run.
The old paradigm that has served as the foundation of the U.S.-Saudi relationship over the previous 75 years — security for Riyadh in exchange for reliable oil supplies for Washington — is no longer as applicable as it once was.
Some have argued that the US should commit to an increasing dependence on petroleum, as well as ushering in a new cycle of overseas interventions propping up an existing, overburdened, and outdated system of U.S. military hegemony.
Trump loosened regulations on oil drilling in pursuit of his “energy dominance” policy, but the recent Saudi “oil shock” has demonstrated its fragility.