The Petrodollar. If that goes down the America goes down and America won't go down without shooting off everything it's got.
There is no contradiction in what I am saying. I hate the Saudis, I think they are animals, not even human. But, I'm assuming (correct me if I'm wrong) that we don't want a nuclear war or a total and final financial collapse? If we agree on that much then we are forced to agree, whether we like it or not, that the US and Saudis must remain aligned at this point in time. Because the continuance of the Petrodollar rests on them, that's how fucking stupid successive US regimes have been. And if China decides to participate in any sort of attack on the Petrodollar, maybe under the disguise of reluctantly protecting its own contracting and probably collapsing economy, then that will be that. So it would be insanely dangerous to provoke that situation right now. If and when the US does secure energy self sufficiency then that's going to be even more dangerous but this is where your criticism finds an answer. Deprived of an option to just blow everything up, how can the Saudis be cut out of the picture? How can they be marginalised, ostracised and sanctioned like the bastards should have been, in any just world, years ago? We don't live in a just world but we want to carry on living. I hope whoever is pulling Trump's strings knows the answer because the other lot sure as hell didn't have a clue.