Democratic Presidential Debate

[Grendel]

F.D.R. and Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud made an agreement in the 40s when the former was returning from the Yalta Conference. The U.S. would protect the Saudi crown, and in exchange, S.A. would co-operate with the U.S. on anything it asked, and, of course, provide it with oil. This agreement has remained since then. Saudi Arabia was made into a puppet state of the U.S. in exchange for security — not the other way around.

Most of US's oil comes from Canada now. The Petrodollar deal is now directed towards protecting the Saudis' monopoly on the local oil trade. If someone trades oil for a different currency than the USD, US attacks them, because another currency being able to bypass the exchange for US dollars now hurts the value of the USD, and our currency monopoly is threatened. The Euro was actually somewhat more valuable than USD for a while; that's why Iraq happened.

It's not about receiving oil, it's about denial-of-access to other traders so they're forced to go through an exchange for USD at some point, because there's no gold left and our money is entirely fake otherwise. Big difference. Think of it as the equivalent of killing off anyone who refuses to trade with us, rather than stomping in and plundering for the bare resources like most war narratives would have you think.

[FreelancePoliceman]

Most of US's oil comes from Canada now. The Petrodollar deal is now directed towards protecting the Saudis' monopoly on the local oil trade. If someone trades oil for a different currency than the USD, US attacks them, because another currency being able to bypass the exchange for US dollars now hurts the value of the USD, and our currency monopoly is threatened. The Euro was actually somewhat more valuable than USD for a while; that's why Iraq happened.

It's not about receiving oil, it's about denial-of-access to other traders so they're forced to go through an exchange for USD at some point, because there's no gold left and our money is entirely fake otherwise. Big difference. Think of it as the equivalent of killing off anyone who refuses to trade with us, rather than stomping in and plundering for the bare resources like most war narratives would have you think.

You’re correct, of course. I was thinking of the agreement at the time, because the context in which I learned of it had to do with America in the world wars period. At the time the Western Allies were attempting to secure access to oil in the Middle East (among other things, e.g. naval access, regional influence, etc.), and this had a lot to do with the partition of the Ottoman Empire and formations of the Arab states left behind.

But yes, the petrodollar has been more of an interest for the U.S. than the actual oil itself for a good time now. It’s 2:30 AM and I’m dead-tired right now so I’ll chalk that up to my ommission.