Biden to grovel before Khashoggi's murderer/the Butcher of Yemen in exchange for lower gas prices.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Imagine being this much of a cuck.

Biden just fell massively in my eyes. Like I said, I want GMac to enter right now and explain how this is okay. Because I'm trying and failing to rationalize this disgusting about-face. What Biden did here is utterly disappointing, shameful and pathetic.

Well, we have to get oil from somewhere, and there's not that many countries producing oil.  We're not getting it from Russia, obviously.  NATO countries are already completely out of oil.  The only other options are basically Venezuela, Iran or Saudi Arabia.  We already tried Venezuela and that doesn't seem to be working out, so it's either Iran or Saudi Arabia.  Iran is a far worse country than Saudi Arabia, and also a huge liability at this point in time since they're currently actively trying to assassinate Americans as revenge for the Soleimani strike.  So if you start flooding Iran with American oil execs trying to set up import operations, they may all just end up being kidnapped and held for geopolitical ransom.   Also Iran is on Russia's side.

Biden wanted to solve this problem with massive investment in renewables, but Congressional Republicans wouldn't let that happen.  So he's stuck going with the least bad option.

As much as I'd like to see Saudi Arabia treated like an absolute pariah, as Biden pledged during the campaign, that's simply not going to be feasible as long as we (A) are dependent on them for oil, and (B) are dependent on them as a logistical hub for middle east operations.  Now Biden has scaled down our presence in the middle east so we've made good progress on (B).  And we were making pretty good progress on (A) too until Russia invaded Ukraine and global supply of oil collapsed.

I don't really know what else you guys want him to do because the fact is that oil has to come from somewhere and if we can't get Saudi Arabia to give us more, eventually some European nation is going to fold and start importing from Russia again, and Putin will win.  I'm not happy about this but I'd rather see this happening than see Putin get what he wants.  It's not like this is something Biden wanted to do -- Biden wanted to replace our fossil fuel dependence with renewable energy, and ostracize Saudi Arabia.  But now he's stuck because of events that has conspired beyond his control.

PS before some Republican shows up saying "lol just drill more" or "muh keystone pipeline" that's a proposal that would take years to show dividends, by which point the war in Europe would almost certainly be over and Biden would likely be out of office.  So that's not a real solution it's just a cheap talking point taking advantage of ignorance.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Disgusting. Biden promised us that he would distance the United States from Saudi Arabia, a known sponsor of terrorism and abuse of human rights. The fact that he had to bend to their will because of oil suggest that the United States doesn’t make enough of it’s own energy. The United States needs to be massively investing into green technologies that will help save our future from the inevitable climate catastrophe, not bowing to the will to give oil a continuous run.

I agree with this but I don't know what more you want Biden to do about it.

He's already investing more than any other president in history in green infrastructure through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework.  He wanted to invest far more, but Manchin killed BBB, which had that plan.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Accolades to you - wow - just wow. You were somehow able to take even this and rationalize it to the extent that I get why Biden did this now. You have a great skill of defending Biden through and through. I commend you. I know I've said it before - but I mean it very seriously: You should be Biden's Press Secretary. You really know how to defend him and rationalize what he does no matter what, and you do it so well that (I think) most reasonable people feel compelled to agree with you. It is a great skill. You could've taken the easy way out and just criticized Biden like all the rest of us have, but instead you've written a long, well-reasoned, logical post that really makes what Biden did sound reasonable and the best option.

Thank you!

[GeneralMacArthur]

Accolades to you - wow - just wow. You were somehow able to take even this and rationalize it to the extent that I get why Biden did this now. You have a great skill of defending Biden through and through. I commend you. I know I've said it before - but I mean it very seriously: You should be Biden's Press Secretary. You really know how to defend him and rationalize what he does no matter what, and you do it so well that (I think) most reasonable people feel compelled to agree with you. It is a great skill. You could've taken the easy way out and just criticized Biden like all the rest of us have, but instead you've written a long, well-reasoned, logical post that really makes what Biden did sound reasonable and the best option.

No, he does not deserve credit for contorting himself into a pretzel to kiss Biden's ass defend Biden no matter what, as if Biden will give him a job if he keeps at it. He claims that somehow Saudi Arabia is far better than Iran and suggests they aren't on Russia's side (Lavrov was literally in Riyadh today). The difference between Saudi Arabia and Iran is the former values money ahead of Islamic fundamentalism, while the latter values Islamic fundamentalism ahead of money. You wouldn't even need American oil execs in Tehran - there are existing brokers and intermediaries to do that. Actually, you wouldn't even need to bring a single drop of oil into the US from Iran to alleviate the current situation.

Please tell me how "letting Putin win" is worse than letting MBS win. If that's how we're defining the stakes, Putin has already won.

Interesting. You might be right that Iran > Saudi Arabia. I'm no Middle East expert. However, he did bring up anti-American sentiment all over Iran following Soleimani's assassination. It might be very risky to go to Iran to get oil? Again, I don't know, and both of you guys know better than I. All I know that neither option is good at all. I just don't know which is worse. I believed GMac but what you said makes sense to me too.

Iran is definitely not a better ugly friend than Saudi Arabia.

First of all, Iran f---ing hates our guts and will never be our friend.  Saudi Arabia may murder journalists but at least they don't chant "Death To America" during their Friday prayer service every week.

Second of all, Iran has us over the barrel already because Trump dismantled the JCPOA.  Iran is now making a nuclear weapon to destroy Israel, and we're in an incredibly weak negotiating position because we already reneged on the deal once.  We're already having to play really nice with them to avoid a potential Israel-Iran nuclear exchange.  Having to beg them for oil as well will really undermine our position.

Thirdly, Iran is absolutely one of Russia's key allies.  Thanks to western sanctions, Iran does most of its trade with Russia.  Iran buys most of its weapons from Russia.  Iran and Russia are on the same side in every middle eastern conflict Iran is involved in.  Russia also shares intelligence with Iran.  None of this is true of Saudi Arabia.  Santander casually implied that both Saudi Arabia and Iran are equally friendly with Russia because "Lavrov was in Riyadh" but of course this is just a lie.  Saudi Arabia has been a military partner of the United States ever since the Gulf War and we have American bases there.

Moreover, there's an implicit agreement between America and Saudi Arabia that if Iran ever gets a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia will be protected by the American nuclear threat.  Because Iran and Saudi Arabia are mortal enemies and Iran would absolutely love to obliterate Saudi Arabia just as soon as it's finished with Israel.  That's just another reason why it's so bizarre to even consider the notion of "flipping" from Saudi Arabia to Iran as a regional partner.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Imagine actually believing this.

Lazy, dumb response.  Be better.

[GeneralMacArthur]

If you think that keeping oil flowing involves some unsavory compromises, wait until you learn about material supply chains for electric batteries. The shift to renewable energy does not solve this problem.

There are a lot of disturbing political and moral assumptions in the Dune books--Al's mixed review of the first book on this forum goes into some of them--but the fundamental "the Spice must flow" concept underlying most of their conflicts is evergreen, and was already evergreen when they were written considering the sordid history of trade and natural-resources policy before the discovery of petroleum.

Not that any of this makes the ridiculous circular "the Saudis are better than the Iranians because they're our allies, and we know this because they wouldn't be our allies if they weren't" arguments from the "this is fine" dogs of the foreign policy establishment any less reprehensible.

What do you want Biden to do

[GeneralMacArthur]

Glad to hear I was wrong about this. Definitely a big change from a decade ago. The charging infrastructure is still a major issue for many.

This is also my dad's reason for not buying an electric car and I would assume a great many other people's as well.

Fortunately Biden is on it.

https://highways.dot.gov/newsroom/president-biden-usdot-and-usdoe-announce-5-billion-over-five-years-national-ev-charging

[GeneralMacArthur]

If you think that keeping oil flowing involves some unsavory compromises, wait until you learn about material supply chains for electric batteries. The shift to renewable energy does not solve this problem.

There are a lot of disturbing political and moral assumptions in the Dune books--Al's mixed review of the first book on this forum goes into some of them--but the fundamental "the Spice must flow" concept underlying most of their conflicts is evergreen, and was already evergreen when they were written considering the sordid history of trade and natural-resources policy before the discovery of petroleum.

Not that any of this makes the ridiculous circular "the Saudis are better than the Iranians because they're our allies, and we know this because they wouldn't be our allies if they weren't" arguments from the "this is fine" dogs of the foreign policy establishment any less reprehensible.

What do you want Biden to do

It would be nice if he could actually credibly threaten to meaningfully restrict the weirdo scamming cultists in Riyadh's blank check on American arms if they don't stop using muh gas prices to extort the American public, for starters.

I've noticed lately that a lot of Biden's critics, when asked what they would do in his place, spin up these fantasies involving blackmail and threats to bully some other party into compliance.  We see it on an near-weekly basis with demands that Biden imprison Manchin's daughter or denounce Kyrsten Sinema from a lectern.  You know Trump did stuff like this and it didn't work, right?  It's basically this desire for Biden to be more aesthetically similar to Trump, despite the entire premise of his presidency being that he would do the opposite.  Trump didn't actually accomplish much, whereas Biden is accomplishing things, but he doesn't seem like a strong arrogant bully, which is what people really want, so they hate him and miss Trump.