Kathy,
My view of the Saudis is totally negative. 9/11 was a joint op -- Iran and Saudi Arabia. And they are pushing the global jihad and the West is opening their doors to it. Except Trump, of course.
I'm just saying why Trump said he's not hassling the Saudis. But the main problem is the oil. We are ok here, but Europe and I think Japan are dependent on Saudi oil. They pump close to what we do and I think recently they were pumping 11 MBPD as a swing supplier with the concern of much of Iran's oil coming off the market. Take their oil off the market and the world's in big trouble. We have a deal with them on that from the WW II era. They could swing to Russia or China for arms and the oil goes with them. Splitting suppliers would be detrimental.
We can go so far and it seems we did by showing our extreme displeasure with MBS' actions, as did the rest of the world. I thought he'd be dead by now, at the hands of the princes that he incarcerated and took billions from. What they do, they will do. So far, the King is backing MBS.
I am told MBS is the lesser of the evils. I think he's very dangerous, actually, but am not an expert and can only say this is being said by experts. We do have a joint interest in Iran. So I consider them friends in name only. Classic "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" in action. If the mullahs go, I'm not so sure MBS will remain friends with us. MBS is also luring investments to Saudi Arabia. My view is they nationalized Aramco, they could nationalize anything in the future and the price of oil is going down, so they might be hurting, going forward and might be inclined to pull the plug on investors. A complex picture.
Another couple of trillion, that would be Trump's. Ouch. Well, we had no choice but to save the military and get high tech back on track before it totally went down the tubes. Obama should have been impeached early on.
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