The Gulf Cooperation Council and Mideast Oil Politics

One Foot in the Gravy

The Gulf Cooperation Council and Mideast Oil Politics

The GCC was formed in 1981 to provide a framework for cooperation and collaboration between and among Kuwait, Qatr, Bahrain, the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia. It produces a great deal of oil and natural gas, much of which is exported. Proven oil reserves (90% probability of recovery) of member countries are

Saudi Arabia, 267 billion Barrels.

Kuwait, 101 billion Barrels

UAE 97 billion Barrels

Qatr, 25 billion Barrels

Oman, 5 billion Barrels

Bahrain, 0.125 billion Barrels

Also,

Proven Natural Gas Reserves are

# Country Gas Reserves (MMcf) World Share

2 Iran 1,201,382,000 17.3%

3 Qatar 871,585,000 12.5%

5 Saudi Arabia 294,205,000 4.2%

7 United Arab Emirates 215,098,000 3.1%

10 China 163,959,000 2.4%

12 Iraq 111,522,000 1.6%

20 Kuwait 63,500,000 0.9%

28 Oman 24,910,000 0.4%

31 Yemen 16,900,000 0.2%

52 Bahrain 3,250,000 0.05%

Notes:

1. The GCC includes all countries on the Arabian Peninsula excepting Yemen

2. Available area explored is near 100% in all cases, except UAE, which has only explored the least promising 40% of its territory.

Why Sheikh Mohammad and Prince Mohammad declined phone calls by Biden

This goes back at least to the election of 2008. Barack Obama’s campaign contacted the government of Iran and reached agreements to let up on sanctions. The agreement that was reached with Iran later, resulting in significant relaxing of trade sanctions and providing pallet-loads of cash to the regime was unacceptable to them. Many of the GCC members announced that they no longer felt safe with US guarantees of their security since Iran would become a nuclear state. The deal struck with Iran is unenforceable as there is no time limit for Iranian objections to an inspection notification to be observed. And the agreement essentially guarantees Iran can develop its own nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them.

.

Trump understood how poor the agreement was and withdrew the US from it. Biden, in his hurry to undo everything Evil Orange Man had done, re-entered the agreement with Iran. Which made him Putin’s partner in the deal. And once more ensured Iran would become a nuclear state.

Iran has embraced a scorched-earth form of Shia Islam, putting it in conflict with most Shi’ite states. The differences were not petty theological points, such as how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, but fundamental. Iran viewed Shi’ite states as guilty of apostasy.

The penalty for apostasy has always been death in the Abrahamic religions. Although most Christian sects do not practice literal death, there is nonetheless a death penalty: Excommunication, which entails spiritual death, is practiced by most Catholic sects, including Roman, Anglican, Eastern Rite and Coptic. Jews shun apostates. Muslims typically kill them. Iran has fomented war in Yemen for years, and the Houthis running Yemen today are ruthless: Most of the country of thirty million is dead or displaced.se

Iran has undertaken or supported hostilities against every member of the GCC and is trusted by none of them. It has gone so far as to invade islands in the Arabian Gulf that are part of the sovereign territory of oil emirates.

The Loss of the Dollar’s Position as the world’s Reserve Currency.

It has become clear that Russia will be a client state of China, forced to sell energy and food to China. India may be a democracy, but it doesn’t need a weatherman to tell it the direction in which the wind is blowing. It will join a new international payments clearance system being set up by China and Russia. At that point, countries no longer need to have dollars on hand to buy energy; they will need Yuan.

That means that the US will lose all ability to shape markets and most of its influence in the world.

The crux of the problem in the GCC

The crux of the problem in the oil-rich monarchies is that the people suffer from Nauru Infection, a disease that was fatal to the once-wealthy island. The saddest joke I ever heard was told to me by a Saudi friend.

- An American, a German and a Saudi were asked if sex was work or fun.

- The American said that it was pure fun.

- The German said that it was work. “I go to my job all day, and when I come home, I have another job to do.”

- The Saudi pondered the question for a while. “It must be fun, because if it was work, I’d have a Pakistani do it for me.”

The crux of the problem in the US

Biden has no understanding of international finance nor of the energy market, and his Vice President, selected based on skin color and genitalia, is hopeless. Neither understands the least detail of complex systems, and the administration to date has been a lurch from one disaster to another. Biden has thrown away decades of presidential efforts to protect against inflation and has no understanding of its mechanics. It doesn’t affect him or his family. There is absolutely no reason for him to care, except that he owes leadership to the American people, not the authoritarian regime he has created.

We threw out an accused tyrant only to replace him with a real one. Biden has obligated the country to pay bills it cannot afford. The reckless spending in the trillions has debased the dollar, causing it to crash on international markets. If we had gotten anything of use out of the money, besides feeding Nancy Pelosi’s knee jerk partisanship, and kowtowing to the New Green Deal Effetes, I suppose one could conclude it was worth it. It wasn’t.

Last year I published a number of articles each entitled “A Billion Here, a Billion There, Soon You’re Talking about Real Money.” They detailed the waste in the multi-trillions of spending that Biden signed, conditioning aid on race in some cases, declaring that Covid caused windstorms, funding charities that turned around immediately and sent large contributions to the Democratic Party. I was resigned to him putting us in a difficult position. I never thought he would destroy the country.