“How are we going to enforce it?”

Good question. If only there was some sort of… I don’t know… a world court of some kind, whose verdicts everybody respected, including us.

No, the problem is that an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia is as childish a fantasy as suing OPEC to pump more oil. The arms industry is a more powerful lobby than corn farmers, auto-makers, all the mega-churches and Hollywood combined. Remember the opposition to land mines? That was pretty strong. The US is still not a signatory on the Mine Ban Treaty and although “The US has not produced antipersonnel mines since 1997 and is one of just fifteen countries left in the world that either actively produces them or reserves the right to do so.

They currently have 13 US built Corvettes and a lot of French boats (frigates, etc.) but command and control is by SAIC out of LaJolla. Most of their armor is American and the main strength of their air is 150 ish F-15’s and 110 F-5’s. I don’t know what American maintenance and upgrades are required to keep these things in top killing form, and I don’t know how much it would hurt them to stop providing it.

Their nominal use for this military is protection from Iran, who is already supplied by Russia and China. So, by looking elsewhere for military hardware, really all they got is Old Europe.

That’s a pretty good strategic resource they need, and realistically, they need from America.

No-one thinks that the Saudis are even one tenth as desperate for advanced weaponry as the US is desperate for oil. Seems to me the only reason people are mentioning withholding weapons from Saudis in exchange for a better deal on oil is that this idea seems halfway resonable- whether it would actually work or not.

The idea of suing OPEC for oil, on the other hand, just sounds like a bizzarre and childish fantasy trip. It seems like the US Congress is putting all its energy into pandering to an angry and scared public rather than addressing the systemic reasons that we are so dependent on OPEC’s oil in the first place.

OK. If you’re convinced that our market share on guns is secure because there are really high barriers to entry into the weapons industry. I also wonder how much of that deal is for expensive and hi-tech items that, if they had to, the Saudis could forgo.

And, of course, we have to worry about a production cut by OPEC in its entirety, not just the Saudis.

But if you really really believe that the Saudis are anywhere near as dependent on us for guns as we are dependent on OPEC for oil, by all means write your Congressman and urge a trade war. It’s hard to think of anything more American than trying to get cheaper oil by threatening to hog all the guns.

If OPEC had the reserves to build new production facilities without lowering long-term profits, they would have built the infrastructure to increase production. You don’t put new tires on a 10-year-old Ford Escort.

I’m not aware of any legal basis for demanding OPEC states increase production to meet global demand. Exxon reported incredible first quarter profits. They’re not going to invest in production, however, when proven oil and gas reserves are stagnant and/or falling. Exploring isn’t cheap, either, and when we find crude the cost of extracting it may not be worth the cost.

It’s a little late for NOPEC. I think prices will continue climbing, increasing demand for conservation. If nothing else OPEC will be treated like any business. There’s moral value to that.

Alec:

I don’t know who it is who wrote on it, but someone recently did a fascinating article on your IMF-types actively suppressing the ability of governments to intervene constructively within their constituent economies – and that under the same policy, Taiwan and South Korea and Japan and Singapore would have wound up US fiefs instead of effective and forceful economies (their economic growth came from selective subsidies and other government action within the market, not tax-slashing and nonintervention).

The IMF, World Bank, Paris Club, etc. have been a bigger waste of space than John Bolton’s UN since the Cold War ended. This legislation isn’t going to make it any easier for the scavengers.They already have a free hand:

The truth is that the bank’s credibility was fatally compromised when it forced school fees on students in Ghana in exchange for a loan; when it demanded that Tanzania privatize its water system; when it made telecom privatization a condition of aid for Hurricane Mitch; when it demanded labor “flexibility” in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami in Sri Lanka; when it pushed for eliminating food subsidies in post-invasion Iraq. Ecuadoreans care little about Wolfowitz’s girlfriend; more pressing is that in 2005, the Bank withheld a promised $100 million after the country dared to spend a portion of its oil revenues on health and education. Some antipoverty organization.

Russia under the leadership of the recently departed Boris Yeltsin was a case in point. Beginning in 1990, the Bank led the charge for the former Soviet Union to impose immediately what it called “radical reform.” When Mikhail Gorbachev refused to go along, Yeltsin stepped up. This bulldozer of a man would not let anything or anyone stand in the way of the Washington-authored program, including Russia’s elected politicians.

After he ordered army tanks to open fire on demonstrators in October 1993, killing hundreds and leaving the Parliament blackened by flames, the stage was set for the fire-sale privatizations of Russia’s most precious state assets to the so-called oligarchs. Of course, the Bank was there. Of the democracy-free lawmaking frenzy that followed Yeltsin’s coup, Charles Blitzer, the World Bank’s chief economist on Russia, told the Wall Street Journal, “I’ve never had so much fun in my life.”

Just a historical FYI: The post-war Japanese miracle may not have been possible without U.S. support for an international political climate where Japan would be able to export and maintain its protectionist policies.

It’s a unilateral world now and we can afford any WTO fine as punishment for our own protectionist policies while we demand free markets for everyone else under the banner of freedom. No reason to do for East Timor what we did for Japan.

How about ‘crimes against humanity’!?

Fine by me.

An effort to demonize OPEC for the high price and poor supply of oil goes hand in hand with the more general trend of blaming organized, government-backed policymakers for whatever goes wrong in the economy.

The last time we got all freaked out about OPEC was early Reagan.

Hmmmmmm.

We’re really gonna start whining when these state producers decide that strategic reserves are more important than immediate cash flow.

You make dollars at home?

Now, wouldn’t burning your only profitable export to power your country be pretty much like heating your house by shoving dollar bills in the fireplace? Not to mention the carbon footprint.

Not to point out the obvious-but there are quite a few American assets located in foreign countries that could just as easily be seized by those governments. Used to pay off third world debt, perhaps?

Dubai can help itself to Halliburton assets if it wants. It’s not like taxpayers and future generations of taxpayers footing billion-dollar contracts have benefited from offshore accounts avoiding federal taxes in Social Security, Medicare, etc. Foreign direct investments have always been risky.

Gee, if only the US had some some commodity they could withhold as retaliation.

Good point. Because the US belongs to a gun cartel that can drive up the price of weapons with little fear of that an OPEC state could find another arms supplier. Everyone knows China would never be interested in exchanging arms for cheap oil. Yes, the US is in a great bargaining position with OPEC. Let’s get this trade war started people!