Last week's column, "What to make of Saudi Arabia cutting all diplomatic ties with Iran? An escalation, but no game changer"[1], didn't generate much attention-not exactly unexpected-but the "fallout" of Saudi Arabia executing Saudi Shiite cleric Nims al-Nims has unexpectedly drawn close attention and criticism by the New York Times and Washington Post.
Finian Cunningham [2] noted both the Times and the Post editorial pages excoriated the Saudi regimes "dangerous sectarian policies and reckless regime".
The Post described al-Nims execution as "a step that was risky and ruthless as it was unjustified". The Times called it a "barbarity" and "actions that blatantly fan sectarian hatreds, undermine efforts at stabilizing the region and crudely violate human rights".
So apparently this writer erred "that Americans wouldn't hear it put that way by the fawning corporate MSM which treats Saudi Arabia with kid gloves certainly not condemning them even though they are the primary backer of terrorists in the world". Okay, point taken.
But Cunningham later writes, "The idea of Washington no longer patronizing the Saudi rulers is tantalizing, but it is rather naive. For such a notion fails to understand the deep, essential dependence of American global power on the Saudi regime".
"The ruling class might be vexed with the despotic House of Saud stoking regional tensions, but the relationship with Saudi Arabia's absolutist, head chopping regime means that Washington can't afford to ever give it a chop".
That "relationship" between the Saudi's and America was the reason this writer believed the execution of al-Nims- although certainly an escalation and enflame Iran as it surely did-would not be a game changer i.e. the US wouldn't suddenly overthrow the Saudi monarchy because of its barbaric executions and sectarian provocations.
As Cunningham so presciently puts it, "On the issue of oil, it is not merely the supply of the black stuff. More importantly it is the petrodollar system by which global trade is conducted" whereby "the world's top oil producer would sell in perpetuity the commodity denominated only in the US dollar".
"Without this system, the US currency would cease to be the world's reserve currency. Without that status, the US would collapse in bankruptcy".
"In short, the US is beholden to the Saudi regime for its financial and economic survival".
How's that for putting it bluntly.
So ignore the bloviating, outsized harrumphing over Saudi Arabia's latest barbarity enflaming sectarian passions. These two bastions of American corporate MSM journalism's usual proclivity to distort the truth is unbounded when it comes to America initiating coups (Ukraine) or the Islamic State (IS) birthed as the direct result of this countries illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, just to name two recent issues distorted in their papers reporting.
Simply put, the US house of cards financial system and economy remains intact as long as the dollar remains the world's reserve currency.
That dollar system could be put into serious distress particularly if the BRICS- Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa-new development bank, the AIIB, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the OBOR, One Belt, One Road project-all contracts executed and paid between each countries own currencies, intentionally excluding the dollar denominated system, becomes a new financial model attracting other non-aligned countries such as Iran, Venezuela, Bolivia, the Asian "Stans"-that not only challenges the dollar system but eventually could replace it.
So with the US desperate to retain the petro dollar system of global trade in the US dollar, Saudi Arabia and its oil seem to hold many of the top cards underpinning the US economy.
With that in mind don't expect any US neo-con inspired regime change provocations to occur undermining the Saudi regime.
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