I can't see how it is actually a win for Trump. OPEC has mostly been a big partner with the US. They are the ones that have mandated using the dollar as the baseline currency for buying and selling OPEC oil.

The UAE's exit almost certainly signals they are planning on selling oil in other currencies (probably the Chinese yuan). It's also a sign of the UAE wanting out of the partnership it's enjoyed with the US and it's allies.

For a super brief background, the US has what's been called an oil-for-security deal with Saudi Arabia since 1945. The US supports the Saudi royal family and Saudi Arabia keeps the oil flowing, which has largely been the case (other than 1973). Saudi Arabia remains the "big dog" in OPEC. OPEC+ is really about Russia even though it also includes Kazakhstan and Mexico. Russia became a major oil producer and exporter in the last 20-30 years.

OPEC generally likes stability in oil prices. How it works now is that every 3 months they meet and figure out what the demand for oil will be and adjust production based on that projection to maintain both a price floor and a price ceiling. Prior to this conflict that range was $70-80. Each member gets a share of that production. OPEC hasn't always been successful in policing member countries who have at times exceeded their production targets and also lied about production cuts.

Gulf countries now are utterly dependent on US arms to maintain their (typically unpoular) despotic regimes (usually monarchies). The UAE is particularly belligerent here. I view Dubai as a cleaner, shinier Mos Eisley. The UAE is directly responsible for the genocide in South Sudan. US arms are diverted to the RSF in exchange for illegally smuggled gold to Duabi that gets laundered via Switzerland [1]. Dubai is a terrible place.

Beyond Russia's rise as a major energy exporter, the US also became one in the last 15 years, particularly in 2015 when the export ban was lifted on crude oil (which had been there since the 1973 oil shock). OPEC countries are generally unhappy about this development because every barrel the US exports tends to be 1 barrel OPEN doesn't. But they're also largely powerless to do anything about it.

The Iran War is a massive strategic blunder by the US because it's shown the US has been unable to stop Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz despite spending $1T+ a eyar on its military but, just as bad, it's shown that the US cannot or will not defend GCC countries or even its own bases in those countries from Iranian counterattacks.

Foreign countries generally pay for US bases as part of a broader security agreement and the idea of joint responsibility for security guarantees. But what if those guarantees are essentially worthless? This will completely reshape the US relationships with GCC countries. The UAE is really just the first domino to fall.

Short-term this smells like the US is either behind this break or at least approves of it. The idea is probably for the UAE to increase production in an effort to stabilize oil prices. This administration has also shown a complete disregard for historic alliances (including NATO) and they probably view OPEC as a cartel they want to break up. But I think this will long-term further destabilize the region and I wouldn't be surprised if some of these governments end up falling or at least break security ties with the US.

If anything, GCC countries will likely see China as a more reliable and stable trading and security partner as a result of all this.

[1]: https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/28/sudan

In fact, it may even be possible for this to be more in line with the vision of people who did not vote for Trump than the people who voted for him.

If you look at presidents historically, there are some occasions where the vision they described during the campaign to get votes is not in fact the vision they bring about while governing.

Also - what is your presumption of what my vision of the USA might be?

Abu Dhabi and Cairo have been misaligned for years since the Sudan Civil War began (UAE backs the RSF and KSA+Egypt back the Army) as well as the UAE backing Abiy Ahmed in Ethiopia at the expense of their traditional partner KSA.

> To my understanding there isn’t a treaty yet.

This is as close as it will get. New Delhi doesn't "sign" defense treaties unless pushed to a corner, because it reduces maneuverability.

The Pakistan-KSA alignment was already cooking after IK was overthrown. I think I mentioned it before on HN (need to find the post I wrote) but given the primacy Pakistan has had in US-Iran negotiations well before the war as well the PRC's increasingly miffed attitude at Pakistan following the CPEC attacks, the US most likely brokered a back-room realignment between PK and KSA.

A neutral-to-ambivalent India with a pro-America Pakistan is better for the US than a completely aligned India with a pro-China Pakistan.

TODO: citations

Don't worry too much, the return on investment of renewables is much better than politics. Politics can put a few brakes on, but that only slows things a little, it won't stop it. (and politics is not set - there are plenty of forces opposing oil - they are not in power now but they are still powerful and are likely to gain power again as the tides switch)

While I like the parent's provided information, I feel like the pandemic, fiscal stimulus, and wars were bigger drivers for inflation!

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmace...

There are a number of elements that go into gas prices like additives, refining margin (called the "crack spread") and distribution but crude oil prices are a huge part of that. Also, like anything demand plays a huge role and that means the market's expectation for future supply.

"I and my brother against my cousin, and I and my cousin against the stranger."

I added quotes, it should say that Pakistan's weapons program is one that is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as Pakistan is not a party to it.

There are dozens of ways to increase production through world peace, better drilling technology and ideological conversion. Most of African production is well below geological potential (Libya being the easiest example, but also applies to Nigeria and the DRC etc). European shale is barely investigated, Russia is restricted by sanctions, the Middle East by war. Antartica and the Falklands are relatively unexplored but feasible.

However, the electrification of transport will erode demand in everything besides heavy shipping and jet fuel. Without that demand oil prices will crater.

That's to say, I think you forgot to update your number when time passed.

1 - time started at the 1970s, that's a well known fact

In short, the US cannot functionally be independent on fossil fuels even if we extracted every drop of oil within our borders--because we literally cannot use all of it, and most of it would be wasted just sitting around.

Despite there being way less than 1 successful attack per week [1] travel through the Red Sea is down from ~500/week to ~200/week [2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_attacks_on_commercial_v...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sea_crisis#Houthi_attacks_...

It all depends on how Saudi wants to be seen in the moment and what Trump thinks makes him look better in the moment.

But like, Saudi gave Americans golden planes and extraordinary amount of bribes, so one would assume they were buying something.

And while it's true many member exceed targets, it's like speeding on US highways: everyone does it, but anyone driving 20 mph faster than the pack is nobody's friend. Karma will happen.

All this to say, you calling a local company and getting quotes captures your price but that’s not quite the same as the global price.

https://esgnews.com/us-imposes-solar-tariffs-up-to-123-on-im...

EDIT: I was wrong - tariffs on eg Chinese made solar panels are more like 65% right now - there’s multiple tariffs. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/02/04/u-s-raises-solar-poly...

Point being the US government is making them expensive for US consumers but that’s not true for global markets where they want to have energy independence. Solar is in fact very cheap these days.

A plug in solar panel and microinverter at the local supermarket is about €1k/kW. 9kW of solar for €9k/£8k/$10.5k to power an average US car and an average US house.

Avearge US car does 13,000 miles a year needs about 4,500kWh, so €4500

An average US home uses 11kWh a day, or 4,000 kWh a year, that would be another €4000

US electric price is an average 17c per kWh. That's a 15% ROI.

I suspect the costs your quoting are mainly things like scaffolding and labour, and that's not going to get cheaper.

The panels themselves - ignoring inverter, install, etc, are $100 for a 400W panel [0]. To generate a whopping 16,000kWh a year -- 70% more than the average -- you'd need to spend $4k on panels. Even if panels were free, your quotes would still be obscene because tradesmen charge obscene amounts (or rather roofing work is just expensive)

[0] https://www.solartradesales.co.uk/aiko-neostar-2s-460w-n-typ...

They can, though? Batteries can offset the start-up times, otherwise gas plants can start up within minutes and nuclear can ramp up within days

Remember that 20% of the Israeli population is Arab.

>That diversification helps everyone else, but will hurt the US, which hurts financial markets, and thus everyone else.

These are huge jumps in logic, I'm not even sure where to begin. I guess the most glaring question is: If other countries are actively diversifying from US assets as you claim, why would they still be so hurt by a US financial market downturn?

>And once they're all divested, the diversification will add risk and losses.

Since when does diversification ADD risk, and how would losses be incurred?

>which of course China is leading the world in, as nobody cares about "better", they care about "cheaper"

Also a huge claim to make. You'll find plenty of people who want the best models and are pretty price-insensitive, especially among those who get the most economic value out of AI.

The Yuan is the current bogeyman the Gulf States use when they want attention from the US (not that they’re not diversifying, just that it isn’t a structural shift in a meaningful way). The UAE is making this play right now to make sure they are part of the conversation in deciding how things with Iran end and making sure their influence is sustained after the current administration.

The wealth fund is a way to deploy whatever yuan they receive while gaining political favor with China as well.

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-legal-adviser/2...

> > Iran threatening the US, funding Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are documented facts. Iran even wanted a ceasefire against Hezbollah in the recent negotations. And Jewish people deserve to be able to live in their own homeland, thinking otherwise is racist.

Do you actually want to respond to that or will you just want to rant about people thinking Jews should dare live in their homeland?

> Jewish people live peacefully in Palestine

No. There is documented history of violence and suppression by Muslim colonisers towards Jewish people. This is consistent with how Islam has treated other minority groups in areas it has controlled for the last thousand years. This is why the British partitioned the area into Jewish and Arab states.

> Zionists came from Europe.

Jewish people are from Judea. The key is in the name. A name which is older than the Bar Kochba rebellion which caused the Romans to rename Judea to Philestinia, which Yassar Arafat and the other people that invented the "Palestinian" identity in the 1960 are not.

> rights of the Palestinians whose presence the Israelis deny entirely.

Arabs in Israel have more rights than Arabs in Arab countries.

Jewish people in Gaza and Palestinian parts of Judea/Samaria are torturedm raped and killed.

Who is denying rights?

Not quite. ADCOP was carrying 50% of UAE production (1.5-1.8 million bpd) and is being ramped up significantly. OPEC had limited UAE's output to 2.9-3.5 million bpd thus far and since the conflict UAE has been targeting 5 million bpd. With this announcement the dependence on Hormuz is being lessened drastically.

> 2) They can gain by increasing their production, IF they can get that out through Hozmuz. And IF (after Hormuz is opened) other OPEC+ countries DO NOT decide to do the same and the price of oil collapses.

As pointed out above Hormuz is being bypassed with ADCOP's capacity being ramped up. I am willing to bet, this announcement is what will get Iran to seriously consider removing its blockade of Strait of Hormuz since its main leverage will be gone. A good example is Russia's loss of leverage over Europe when most of the EU countries cut their dependencies on Russian Oil/Gas since the start of the Ukraine war.

> 3) US did not meaningfully came to their help. The high-end air defense systems were reserved/moved to Isreal. They mostly defended themselves, with the stuff they bought over the years from the US. A slightly cynical take would be 'classic protection racket'.

Most of UAE's equipment is from the US. See US approves $7 billion more in weapons for UAE - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-approves-7-bill... and U.S. Considers Financial Support for Oil-Rich U.A.E - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/business/economy/us-uae-f... Only recently have they started diversifying with a major defence deal with South Korea.

> 4) The national interests of other OPEC members are best served by being united against greater forces from outside region, not by fracturing and bickering among themselves. This is classical divide and conquer.

Nope; OPEC/OPEC+ exists only to serve the interests of Saudi Arabia and Russia. The others went along since money was rolling in anyway. But now the geopolitical situation has changed and every member has to look after its own national interests.

They won't sit still, though. Eventually, if this were tried, we'd see Chinese-flagged tankers buying passage rights from Iran and being escorted by PLAN ships.

No way does Commander TACO take that shot. The US interdiction threat in the gulf is empty, and everyone know it. Iran gets paid at the end of every story. The whole boondoggle has been a failure for the US in every analysis.

Perhaps worth noting that the US is not unscathed in this, as oil/petroleum is a global market that includes the US. US domestic gas pump prices (which is input into everything, including groceries) go up when global oil prices go up. Not to mention things like fertilize (and, as a lot of people suddenly found out, the importance of helium).

And it's not like the US can practically stop exports, as a lot what the US produces can't be processed by their own refineries (at least at prices palatable to the consumer).

* https://blog.drillingmaps.com/2025/06/this-is-why-us-cant-us...

So it's not wrong to say that the world may end up in a global recession, and Asian countries have more acute problems that will hit sooner than the US, but the US will also face those issues if things drag on.

I have the impression that somehow if the world will go into a recession, China will come out ahead. It looks like they either prepared for it or they have enough space to maneuver.

That is the plan: After decoupling the EU from Russia gas by provoking the Ukraine war, now it is time for the Asian countries to be cut off from gulf oil/gas, so the US fracking projects become economical and the entire "allied" countries depend on the US petrostate.

It is the only way to preserve US hegemony. Since this long term project is bipartisan, higher gas prices in the US don't matter before the midterm elections.

The only difference in foreign policy between Trump and Biden is that Trump is more risk taking and often spells out the real intentions, such as "we'll take the oil".

This is true, but Emiratis are a notable exception. The UAE may be the only Arab country where Jews are not only allowed to live, but can do so safely without fearing either their neighbors or their government.

For example, last year when a rabbi was murdered, the Emirati government reacted forcefully and made a point to sentence the perpetrators to death. Note, the perpetrators were not Emiratis.

> The modern Egyptian state is oriented toward close partnership with the US, and a large part of that was peace with Israel post '73.

While also true, the relationship between Israel and Egypt has been tense lately.

They are at peace, and the border is stable. And economic integration is tightening, for example with the recent $35B gas deal [1]. So it's plausible that UAE could align with both, as you say.

But at the same time, it's just as plausible that this alignment will become increasingly complicated for geopolitical reasons. As Israel grows stronger in the region, Egypt seems to have adopted a strategy of indirectly undermining them.

For example, Egypt's handling of the Gaza war has indicated that they were playing a double game - openly containing Hamas, while covertly allowing them to grow stronger. When the IDF captured Rafah in 2024, they uncovered massive smuggling tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border, which could not possibly have been unknown to Egypt.

Sisi is also known for having cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood domestically, as they were his primary political rival. But externally, he has shown a willingness to support them as a tool to weaken his rivals, including Israel. This is a dangerous game which could easily backfire.

One more example: just this week Egypt is conducting a live fire military exercise 100m from the Israel border - a deliberate decision that is escalating tensions. [2]

[1] https://www.egyptindependent.com/all-you-need-to-know-about-...

[2] https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/egypt-live-fire-drills-is...

It’s actually surprising it’s achievable for so long but in the long term doesn’t feel stable given the direction things are headed

Only the non-competitive ones. That's how competition works.

OPEC would be deemed an illegal anti-consumer price fixing scheme under the laws of any country with even the most basic of anti-trust laws, if not for the fact that its entirely composed of sovereign countries not subject to any law but their own.

If the price of oil remains low the gulf governments can't fund their social programs and risk instability. That may not be the only reason for OPEC but it's a major one.

When fracking really took off the writing was on the wall and I think many OPEC nations have since taken serious measures to shield themselves from price drops. This is probably why the UAE can now feasibly leave OPEC. I thought the fracking boom was the end of OPEC but they managed to hang on.

It may be confusing to others but it's ultimately your choice.

Regardless, my point was that people have a political axe to grind and call this “Israel’s war”.

They intentionally ignore the political realities that the Iranians have pissed off almost everyone in the region and the longstanding tension of the IRGC and the US and our new “Cold War” with China.

I mentioned this upthread, the instability OPEC is trying to prevent is civil unrest from not being able to fund their social programs and governments. They need a price that puts them in the black and the rest of the world will pay. If it was a free market the fracking boom would still be raging and oil would be $30/bbl. Many gulf nations would fall apart if oil was at that price for a long period of time hence the price manipulation. (I'm not sure how they got the frackers to ease up, some say many of the frackers were bought out by OPEC members and their wells capped but that's just conspiracy afaik)

Well the war is still ongoing, and Iran's regime is already feeling the pain of the blockade [1]. Pricing oil in Yuan because, I guess, the US is somehow not protecting the UAE doesn't make sense because China won't be there to protect them either. The US can just say, well fine you can sell your oil in Yuan. But we'll just blockade the Straight and seize oil priced in Yuan or something. Who exactly does the UAE need protection from? Iran? China's ally?

I swear I read this same story over and over again. There's always just an accusation "thing happened, here's how the US is now in a state of being screwed" and there's just never any follow-up or perhaps imagination that the US could just do something too. Hypersonic missiles? US Navy is done for, no possible counter. Iran has drones? Boom. US is done for no way they can spend Patriot missile money on $30,000 Iranian drones. Nope, nothing anyone can do at all. Iran "closes the Straight", well the US can't do anything. Now they are "embarrassed" and "slammed".

> OPEC cartel membership didnt gain it access to Hormuz

What does this mean?

[1] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-is-flooded-with-s...

So U.S. equities will be sold for pennies?

Are you predicting a U.S. stock market crash bigger than the Great Depression, when oil runs out?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsO-rULEfrk

I gotchu: https://youtu.be/-evIyrrjTTY ("This Land is Mine", 3 min)

Thank goodness our predecessors didn't think this way. They thought that through reason, hard word, and humanism they could overcome these things, and they did. No doubt there were plenty of naysayers.

What will we do with our turn?

India has geography for solar, and the human/industrial capability for nuclear.

Southern Europe can go solar as well.

Northern Europe has it tougher (except Norway, with its abundant hydro). Nuclear could work. Or long range DC cables from South Europe or North Africa (if ever Europe helps them to put their act together - not easy or fast, but definitely in their best interest).

It is more like the Western nations which cannot withstand another month of all this 'posturing' .. But there is some resilience to the idea that the Iran/Russia/China corridor is going to keep those nations relatively buffered from total disaster.

I dont think UAE cares about American oil prices that much. Nor does Europe nor does Asia. That just meand America is less motivated to solve clusterfuck it created.

And yes, it is huge issue already. With flies cancelled for summer, with strategic reserves already being used, with homeschool and home office in some countries, shorted workweek in others, factories producing less.

> We probably won't know for twenty years if that's true or not.

We do know that. There was no urgent reason to start badly prepared war. And no involved country is peaceful.

> The country also sits on a wealth of natural resources but was solely researching nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

It was entirely legal for them, because literally USA teared down agreement to do the opposite.

And what everybody knows now is that the only way to be safe from aggression is to have nuclear.

Furthermore, it also reduces the drain on the (often very fragile, for thirld world countries) foreign reserves, especially relevant when the oil prices fluctuate wildly.

If your solar panels are old and you don't have money to replace them, you get slightly less electricity. If you are out of gasoline/diesel and you have no money to buy it, you have a big, big, problem.

Trump did manage to make it more expensive for most of the world, but reversing that chaos is much, much harder.

And corruption is one of those annoying problems that dont go away easy

    > one-party state of Singapore (technically democratic, in practice it functions like a recallable monarchy).

This lines with my core opinion that it is rarely at peace except when under dominance of one flag (e.g. Achaemenid and Cyrus the Great) before Alexander the great defeated Darius III.

Yes, many different sects of Islam are in the region.

Comments here should be read as opinions, not as facts. I see it every time there is a subject I know deeply about, 90%+ of the comments are either factually incorrect or just bad opinions.

> The quick cuts and dazzling montages, as well as the dramatic shots of Harris absorbed by a document he’s unearthed, highlighting it suspensefully in tight close-ups, all lend credence to the often-excellent work he does. But it also makes it easy to mask his mistakes. And for someone who takes journalism to heart, his mistakes are big, leading to oversimplification and an occasional lapse in skepticism.

[...]

> In a video that garnered 8.5 million views and which Harris thumbnailed with the words “WE HAVE PROOF,” Harris explores the recent craze over UFO sightings—sorry, UAP sightings, meaning unexplained anomalous phenomena. In passing, he mentions Mick West, who has done excellent work debunking a lot of blurry footage of what is alleged to be high-tech spy drones or aliens.

> But the bulk of the video is spent leering at report after report—a total of 144 are being investigated by the U.S. government right now!—while original music amps up the mystery. The emphasis on evidence over context is key to Harris’ style: flood the space with visuals that keep your attention and elicit questions and only occasionally pull back to explain.

I wouldn't be surprised if the UAE starts scheming to foment within Saudi Arabia next. And unfortunately, the only counter to that would be for Saudi Arabia to become further entrenched in its Salafi culture.

The increase in production capacity is irrelevant if you don't have a way to export the said production.

My question was specifically about the increase in the pipeline's capacity. Because your statement "As pointed out above Hormuz is being bypassed with ADCOP's capacity being ramped up." does not make sense otherwise.

Chatgpt tell me this this: Short term: increase ADCOP from ~1.5 → ~1.8–2.0 mb/d (confirmed and achievable) Medium term: expand storage and export infrastructure at Fujairah Long term: build additional pipelines/corridors alongside ADCOP

Short term is too small. Medium term does not help with the throughput, just better buffering. And the long term is, well, long term (= many, many years).

Why could something that might happen many years in the future force the Iran to open Hormuz now?

The thing is, 5-10 years from now the importance of oil will be greatly diminished, as this oil shock will result in much greater push for decarbonisation than all climate summits combined (and the technology -- mostly solar and long distance DC lines - is essentially ready, at a reasonable cost). The gulf states see this, so I am not 100% sure all those pushes for extra pipelines will come to fruition, once the Iran war cools down.

> the Iranian diaspora is conspicuously absent from anti-Israel protests in the US

Iranians who migrated to the west are largely supporters of the Shah, who was overthrown by the revolutionaries, and thus they despise the revolutionary government. Israel hates the Iranian revolutionaries too and so the Iranian diaspora found themselves in favour of Israel because of this shared sentiment of hate against the current Iranian government. However, anti-Israeli sentiments in Iranian diaspora has increased now because of Netanyahu's foolish genocide in Gaza, and the supporters of Shah (and Israel) have now increasingly have resort to intimidation to suppress many of them from speaking out for Palestinains and against Israel. As this MEE article outlines - How pro-Israel Iranian Americans are silencing Palestine supporters - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-how-pro-israel-i... :

> Several Iranian-American activists who spoke to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity have said they fear speaking out in support of Palestine, saying that anyone who does so publicly has been faced with doxxing campaigns and even threats to their lives. "It's one of those things where it's caused a huge divide in the community," said one Iranian activist ... They say the reason that it appears that most Iranians in the diaspora are pro-Israel is because most of the ones who do support Palestine are afraid to speak up. "The vocal presence of Iranian Zionists online and at rallies might create a misleading perception. In reality, many Iranians are afraid to speak out and do not align with this viewpoint," said one Iranian activist who spoke to MEE on condition of anonymity. "The loudness on social media doesn't accurately represent the broader sentiment."

> But let's be clear: Jews in Iran live in a state of submission and fear ... jews are eternally suspected of duplicity and disloyalty, and must continuously prove that they are not secretly "zionists".

This is a common propaganda for fear mongering amongst the minorities. Interestingly, Pakistanis say the same thing about Muslims living in India. And yes, while there are isolated incidents of minority violence against Muslims in India too (just as there are against the Jews in Iran), it is not a common occurrence in society driven by hate against these minorities.

Some cultures go thousands of years without ever forming civilizations that escape barbarism. Slavs in particular seem especially unable to find their way out of tyranny, for literally thousands of years.

Sometimes you call a spade a spade. Essences exist. Copes against it like “intersectionality” have been thoroughly rejected by the body politic and that’s why you see zoomer and gen alpha talking like they’re all from 4chan - because 4chan was the only place where essentialism was not only accepted but encouraged.

I feel like Israeli aid, while vastly more salient than it used to be, is still mostly salient as a left-of-center wedge issue, otherwise being about as salient as your average major foreign policy issue - ranking just under the least salient domestic policy issue, which ranks just under the most minor personal quality of any candidate, which ranks under the current state of the economy, which ranks under the current perceived state of the economy. Wow, that's way too many times to use "salient" in one sentence.

And for the record, I'm not arguing about how much people should care, just how much they do.

Could you imagine me making the same argument with other historically 'unwanted' groups, like for example Black people or Jews? If these populations keeep getting kicked out and marginalised through millennia, surely you have to start wondering why.

  > They were always in harm's way. The war could have waited, and Iran could have doubled or tripled its missile stockpile and then they really would have been in harm's way. 

The missing ingredient has never been how many missiles Iran has stockpiled, it was external military action from someone like the US that gave them the window to assert that control.

The US didn't do the world any favors by getting it out of the way sooner or something, that's just absurd apoligism for a poorly planned war of choice that has obviously been a net negative for basically the entire world.

It would be like if the US nuked China and then shrugged after they predictably retaliated saying it just proved the threat from their stockpile that had always existed.

Iran did not mined strait until USA and Israel bombed it twice during negotiations, threatened civilisation destruction, murdered political leaders and attacked BOTH civilian and military infrastructure.

You dont get to start a war or bomb and then blame the other side for not passivele accepting the situation.

USA caused harm here.

Brookings Institute has a series of papers about Islamist movements around the world: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/rethinking-political-isla...

which includes both analyses from Western academics as well as responses from members of Islamist parties.

> It absolutely follows that intolerant populations can systematically elect intolerant leaders who then cause instability.

Intolerant of what, and what do you mean by "instability"? If the ideology of the political parties and institutions reflects that of the (vast) majority of the population, why would we expect "instability"?

Democracy can descend into demagoguery; I believe that occurs when the "people" feel like the state has been captured by an elite (oligarchy) that doesn't represent their interests (i.e. interests of the majority), "intolerant" or not - e.g. Gracchi brothers, Hugo Chavez, etc etc.

May I ask what country that is?

I did not say "five year from now, there will be far better bypass options"; that is the expert being quoted in the last linked article above. If you had read that you would know he was talking about the situation as a whole i.e. involving Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE and other gulf countries all of whom are looking at ways to bypass Hormuz once and for all. Of these Saudi Arabia and UAE are the most ahead now and that is why UAE left OPEC to chart its own course since the others are lagging behind. Five years is definitely not long term but very aggressive for all gulf countries to setup infrastructure to bypass Hormuz. UAE is ahead of the game (with ADCOP since 2012) and it can easily setup its parallel lines in the next couple of years.

Again, i recommend you actually do some research on renewables vs. petroleum needs. Most transportation which can use electric is small-scale (eg. cars) but aviation/shipping etc. need Oil for the foreseeable future. What is being done with renewables is to control pollution/greenhouse-effects (essential) and lower dependence on Oil (financial/geopolitical reasons). I have already pointed out the need for Petrochemicals. If you do some research on the share of renewable energy sources in some of the world's biggest economies (specifically China and India) you will see that it is still very small considering their current/future needs. Renewables have a long way to go before they can actually make a dent in the global Oil needs.

America is already fucked, given how awful its urban sprawl is. Trucks used for commuting and not haulage just makes it double fucked.

I am familiar with the EU situation. The carbon tax you would have needed to achieve the effect of fleet emission standards would have been political suicide.

And that is not just psychological. People who buy used cars and drive their cars until they fall apart are well correlated with people who can't afford high carbon tax. Buyers of new cars are the people who can. Carbon Tax would mean massive redistribution of the money raised. Yet another political mine field.

Allowing light trucks to turn the SUVs and replace sedans is not an "unintended consequence"--it's either stupidity or graft (not xor).

There are several laws that are "wtf -- is this the best we can do?"

Tall grilles are a purely aesthetic choice. We could create safety standards for pedestrian impacts and end this inane trend. And still drive trucks!

I would consider it military infrastructure, but if you don't then you can't really complain about the US attacking, say, a petrochemical facility while Iran is/was simultaneously attacking infrastructure in the Gulf and attacking actual civilian targets like apartment buildings.

So you have to be consistent. It's either military or not. Iran is doing the same thing the US is doing or neither are doing it. Either way there's no room for moral superiority or outrage when both countries are somewhat acting the same, of course with Iran attacking and killing more civilians and whatnot.

that pattern is hardly unique to middle east/islamists though. look at central/south america. guatemala, chile, brazil etc all had democracies overthrown by "elite" coups.

like almost every instance in the middle east, there is actually a common denominator between these coups... resistance to the US-led order magically seems to invite instability.

I just bought a (small, hybrid) truck because I need to do some truck stuff. I 100% would have bought an electric if the market produced one with comparable capability and competitive price, but we're not there yet, and I don't have Rivian money (yet! lol maybe someday).

My point being: there is still a huge demand for trucks from both a capability and culture standpoint, and very little supply of a cost-comparable product that doesn't take gas or diesel. Rivian is around double what most people want to pay, and the F150 Lightning was marketed poorly and had bad towing/hauling range compared to gas/diesel equivalents.

I'm not here to defend "truck culture" but I do believe that if you offer people a better product, they will figure it out and buy it. An electric truck with 400+ miles of towing range, an onboard 2kW+ inverter, 500 ft-lbs of torque, and fast charging for the same price as a comparable gas F150 will sell. Unfortunately the battery energy density and EV supply chain economies of scale aren't there yet in North America.

(I would support a Constitutional amendment to restrict campaign contributions and effectively overturn the Citizens United v. FEC decision.)

Advertised products will sell more, but only to a certain point. Like someone who wants an SUV and knows nothing else might buy the one from Chevy instead of Mitsubishi because of advertising.

So let's say Iran stops building up massive amounts of missiles, funding these terrorist groups, stops pursuing a nuclear weapon, stops mass killing of its own civilians, and stops helping Russia prosecute its war against Ukraine (we can even leave this optional just to not introduce additional complexities).

What will the United States now have to do on its side as it pertains to Iran?

> To protect themselves when America starta Another war.

Yet, only Iran has to protect themselves. Why is that? Well it's because they're doing bad things, and they know that we may do something about it. Why isn't Peru stockpiling missiles, or Thailand, or Iceland? It's because Iran's government was seized by an authoritarian regime that hates America and decided we would be the enemy forever and has continued to attack, and take other violent or non-violent actions that destabilize the region and global trade. If they just stopped doing this stuff, there wouldn't be a reason to "attack".

> It is israel who just displaced millions of people.

I don't think so. But Iran is responsible for Syria and those millions of people too. Like Maduro is responsible for the 8 million + refugees from Venezuela.

Your point of view of the world does not match reality. Stop making excuses and defending brutal authoritarian dictatorships.

> Is the idea here that only USA gets to have missiles?

Well you believe in nuclear non-proliferation, right?

> “My sympathies are all with the Jews… They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them,” Gandhi wrote in the Harijan article ... “It is wrong and inhumane to impose the Jews on the Arabs…,” he wrote. “It would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home,” Gandhi said ... “A religious act [the act of Jews returning to Palestine] cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb,” he wrote ... “The Jews have a good cause. I told (British Zionist MP) Sidney Silverman that the Jews have a good case in Palestine. If the Arabs have a claim to Palestine, the Jews have a prior claim.” ... “But for their [the Jews’] heartless persecution, probably no question of return to Palestine would ever have arisen,” he wrote in “Jews And Palestine”. “They have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism,” he wrote.

(Note that India's current one-sided bonhomie with Israel is an exception and based more on the rapport of shared political values between Modi, Netanayhu and their respective political parties - Sanghis, i.e. Hindu religious fundamentalists, in India, and religious fundamentalists Zionists in Israel share a common political ideology - https://youtu.be/mZhugTmSrMo?t=1696 ).

"whether you like it or not US/Israel are the only guarantors of security in the Gulf"

The profit margins on larger trucks are higher precisely because that's what consumers want. No one is forcing them to buy those vehicles.

But NONE of the Arab countries want to help Gaza people really.

I suppose shall have to make do without 101-level instruction in Chomskyian anti-Imperialism, woven through with whataboutism and international conspiracies.

> whereas my claim is that governments (democracies or not) that run afoul of their local hegemon tend to have a short shelf life. this is not unique to US hegemony.

Wow, big if true. Someone let Iran know.

How many trillions of dollars and gallons of blood did the US expend to make Afghanistan non-Taliban, or Vietnam non-Communist? And who rules Afghanistan and Vietnam today? You mention the Brezhnev doctrine, and yet literally not one of these countries is Russian-aligned today. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan failed just as hard as the British and American ones, all at the height of those respective countries' powers. Not very powerful, these alleged hegemons.

My overall point is that the Middle East (and Latin America, etc) has many local issues (e.g. corruption, misgovernance, sectarianism, organised crime), and an unhelpful habit of blaming some ill-defined global hegemony for misfortunes that are readily explicable as the consequences of these local phenomena. The US is no innocent lamb, but it does no service to the people of any of these regions to pretend that another hundred years of anti-Imperialist rhetoric will somehow bring benefits that the previous hundred years did not.

In these countries, this brand of tired anti-Imperialism is a figleaf for authoritarians. In the West, it is masturbatory politics for a certain type of narcissistic Westerner with a saviour complex, who fundamentally believes only Westerners have agency in the world, and everyone else are just motes of dust floating in the West's shadow. It's this confluence that results in absolute travesties like Chomsky supporting the Khmer Rouge, a far greater evil than all the worst allegations against America stacked together.

If you want to help the Middle East, get involved in civil society building efforts that help bridge the gap between sectarian communities; support charitable and poverty relief efforts that are not affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood; get involved in civil rights advocacy on behalf of the oppressed in the Middle East (women, LGBT communities, religious and ethnic minorities, the list goes on); partake in initiatives aimed at tackling corruption, organised crime, etc. Or at the very least encourage and support the people who do these things, rather than regurgitating half-remembered anti-Imperialist tropes from your polsci 101 class, as though that were a contribution of any value whatsoever.

The one thing that will absolutely not help them, at all, is more meandering, false narratives about how they have no agency in the face of shadowy global hegemons, and how should just lie down and wait impassively for some sort of new, more just world to be given to them by their Western betters.

Israel/USA did not attack Iran out-of-the-blue for no reason. It was because of Iran's troublesome actions over past many decades that its neighbours decided to align with US/Israel for protection.

Your use of fanciful terms like "protection racket" exposes your cluelessness of the subject i.e. the centrality of Oil to the world economy and stability.

Finally, your last line is a silly one with no bearing to reality or this discussion. As i said, i do not like FUD/ignorance being spread on important topics.

I do wonder if you all can hear yourself: a lot of subtle implications of genetic defects in Palestinians' character and selective understanding of geopolitics in the region, or just basic societal dynamics.

I invited another commenter to transpose their reasoning to groups it's less popular to openly discriminate, I'd suggest you do the same.

But you should still not spread misinformation. Also, America _has_ been accused of worse things than the Cambodian genocide (as far as genocides can be compared, but I'm following your lead on comparing atrocities here): take the genocide of the indigenous American population for one.

But you're extrapolating quite a bit here. Could you please 1) provide the reference for this "provoke"-bit, so that we can evaluate it ourselves, and 2) explain exactly what the damning evidence is.

Show me the smoking gun, please.

I'm saying shop owners think that gays steal.

Just somehow can't fathom how (with all your superior understanding) you can utter this nonsense: Any collateral damage to world/oil economy etc. were managed and stabilized.

If you had not noticed, the oil and gas (and fertilizer, and aluminium, and helium) are still barely dripping, not flowing. And the end does not really appear in sight. The damage is definitively not managed and stabilized.

My original point was that UAE raising their production capacity is irrelevant as long as Hormuz is not open, as the bypass pipeline is of limited capacity. The only relevant thing you were able to say (but not substantiate) is that surely UEA will be able to build a parallel pipeline in 2 years. Time will tell.

Considering the nuanced nature of the claim - a conclusion as to his sympathies borne of deep familiarly with his work - there's no reason for me to think you wouldn't find additional reasons to quibble over any specific citations and passages. I have no evidence that you're a good faith interlocutor, so I really see no reason to expend that effort. If you're actually interested, I do encourage you to read the original works. (If it wakes you up to Chomsky's sympathies and immunises you against some of his bad politics, perhaps not a total waste of time.)

I had provided many sources to show how things are and how they are developing. The sources to do with infrastructure even shows which all countries (there are two) had been bypassing Hormuz for a while now with their alternative pipelines. It also showed the level of investments going on to accelerate their developments. And yet you are engaging in childish "nah, nah, nah" behaviour.

I can only shake my head bemusedly being reminded of the truism of Einstein's quote - "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe".

I'm asking for one (1) source where he is "pretty clear" about his Khmer rouge sympathies. You are writing up a storm to make that seem like an unreasonable thing.

And you would start this exercise by googling "chomsky khmer rouge"? Implying you have no mental model about what Chomsky said and when. Strange, considering your posturing about your political science degree and familiarity with Chomsky's work.

I must assume you have a PhD (or that you're working towards one), because you call yourself an academic. Any decent researcher would be able to identify sources for something they claim to be an expert on. At least, that is my experience, having worked in academia for a while. But you can't tell me what Chomsky said or where, even in broad terms?

All the 'possible alternative routes' remain in 'conceptual' stage. The east/west and Fujeirah pipelines are operational, and, as discussed before, insufficient. That was my whole point (especially w.r.t. to UAE).

The KIRKUK-CEYHAN pipeline is middling (170k barrels/day, up to 250k) and does not help UAE at all.

The Goreh-Jask pipeline is in IRAN! (an not really operational), does not help UAE at all.

Don't you read with comprehension? Don't you see that this is another irrelevant reference that does not address my point at all?