That is what we might want to discuss, yes? I don’t have the answers, but I do have some ideas of the questions we should be asking. Chief among those is what the hell do we actually want, and why do we want it? Following that, how do we do things that help us get it.
I drill wells so deep that I’ve never had one run dry, knowwhatI’msayin
Pretty much.
On the price of oil, the Saudi’s can manipulate the market at will. They did so a few years ago when they turned on the spigot and the price of oil plummeted (failed attempt to curtail American fracking). Wanted to mention the flip side of high oil prices is that it makes new oil extraction projects more economical. E.g., new tarsands mines (imo an absolute abomination) are only viable if oil is >$83/PPB. OTOH, externalities are not priced into fossil fuels actual cost - the IMF published a paper a few years ago and calculated that 6.5% of the worlds GDP ($5.3 trillion) is spent (directly and indirectly) on subsidizing fossil fuels (note, a recent study calculated $400 billion in direct global subsidies.)
Of course, the people bearing the brunt for these costs are the poor and vulnerable, who not coincidentally will also be the front line victims in the (now) near future climate crisis. Intransigent beliefs on energy and economy have all-but sealed our future - and it’s bleak with or without an American presence in the Middle east.
The ramifications of this will be felt throughout society. It’s going to be apocalyptic.
Imagine just this one very benign scenario:
If you are a teacher, a police officer, or a firefighter in a San Francisco precinct, you can not possibly live near where you work. You have to live 30-40 miles from the city. So right now, your commute already costs $15ish/day.
Imagine when oil is $300/barrell. Now your commute is $50/day. Or $100/day. But long before that happens, you will have to quit your job, so now there are no teachers, firefighters, or police officers in San Francisco.
Oil is abundant. We will be facing the dire consequences of climate change long, long before oil scarcity and pricing becomes the driving force behind oil usage.
Is the rift between Sunni and Shi’a Islam as wide and unhealable as it seems? What if the ruler of a powerful, economically resurgent Persia declares himself or his buddy the 12th imam and the rightful caliph of all of Islam? That would give them claim from Morocco in the west to Indonesia in the east.
I’ll just declare myself pope
More like declaring yourself Jesus, but not quite. Both Sunnis and Shi’ites agree the 12th imam went missing and might turn up to lead them, if I understood correctly.
If anyone on the planet declared themselves Jesus, how do you think that would play out?
Free warm canvas jacket that ties in the back, room and board.
Put in the asylum. Same would happen were I to declare myself the 12th imam. But if the USA left the middle east and the ayatollah’s people started filling the void, that might be a way to unify Islam and legitimize their rule.
Like most long lasting religious schisms, this one is now (and probably always has been, to some degree) more about power and culture than it is about theology. The origins of Shia Islam are rooted in the power struggles following the death of the Prophet, and it’s a story of betrayal and civil war from the get-go. Since the death of Ali Shiite Islam has been pushed aside by the majority Sunnis to the extent that it’s as much a social and economic divider as it is a religious division. Shia clerics and messages appeal to the dispossessed and disaffected–read Khomeni’s sermons and messages to the Iranian people in the run-up to the Islamic Revolution, for example. It’s not coincidence that the Iranian-backed Shia populations in the region occupy the bottom of the socio-economic and political ladder, whether in Lebanon, Bahrain, or Iraq.
At the same time, the more dedicated or extreme if you prefer Sunnis, like the Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia, don’t just see the Shias as dissidents, but generally tend to view them as literal heretics. And of course the gap between the world view of wealthy Saudis and poor Iraqi dirt farmers is, shall we say, significant.
So, no, I personally don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of any reconciliation.
allright, thanks for setting me straight on that one ;-)
Can you provide an example of a major religion that unified in such a way rather than just splintering even further?
Nothing weird about muslims, they are as sectarian as anyone else in the world.
In a way that has already happened with Iran. But people tend to think that all Muslims in the middle east are good buddies with friendly histories until the US (the west) showed up to ruin things, and in reality that is not how the history of the area has played out. There are differences in the way Muslims interpret the Koran that have led them to make war on each other, to make Iran and Saudi Arabia enemies for instance, and which led to the Iran-Iraq war. The current violence in the middle east is more about secular religion than about the US.
I think it’s more accurate to state that different groups holding power in the middle East exploit differences in religion as a means of consolidating their power and deflecting criticism towards “the other”.
Very much so, though we have to be careful not to devalue the impact of theology as well. Religion does matter, but not always in the rather simplistic way many seem to think it does.
Heh, I’m no expert, and your question was a damn good one. With humans, just about anything is possible.
who are the biggest holders? Saudis? UAE? Iran?
Hezbollah?