Peter Zeihan posted a video on a topic has refused to post on. The third Middle East War.
In the video he posits that Israel may attack Iran’s oil infrastructure, this wiping out all of Iran’s export capability. As such, Iran would have no reason not to wipe out Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure and invade Saudi Arabia. This removing a significant amount of oil from the world market. He gives odds of something like this happening at 1 in 4 within the next 4 months. THAT is a bold prediction.
Of course he has also predicted 12 of the last zero collapses of China and 22 of the last zero collapses of the Russian military.
As most of the USA would be protected by some rules and fracking, but California would not, this would lead to some very interesting economic and political upheavals.
The US outlawed exporting crude a long time ago, but allows export of refined products. Thing is, the US is now Shiny-land, where profit rules. Pols turn their back on all that “protected free speech”, and outlaw export of refined products?
If it isn’t built yet, the “JC” does not have any employees to use as hostages. The moment any Proles are on the payroll, the “JC” can say “prohibit exports and all these “jobs” will be destroyed”.
Exactly, in this scenario the price of oil would go through the roof. Since we produce more than we consume, it seems like we’d be exporting like crazy.
Another thing is that the US and Saudi Arabia have a security agreement dating back to FDR. They agree to pump oil and we agree to sacrifice American soldiers if their neighbors act threatening. I don’t think Iran is going to invade. Iran could attempt to disrupt oil supplies however.
I know I sound like a broken record sometimes, but this is the exact type of scenario that shows why we need to decarbonize our economy as rapidly as possible.
The nice thing about US law wrt oil, not only the domestic oil producers benefit from a shortage on the other side of the world, the refiners also get a piece of the action, while refineries on the other side of the world are shut down, for lack of crude.
Per the video, the president was given the power to stop exports back in 2015. So, as a populist, and it doesn’t matter who the president is, they will be a populist, they can limit or exclude exports.
My wife looked at this video and asked what we should do. I said nothing, until Israel opens the game, we do nothing. If Israel does end all Iranian exports, then we move to a slightly more defensive position.
Considering the complexity and long term operation of the pager assassinations, Israel might be expected to react with more nuance than this video gives Israel credit for.
Which is why I keep asking myself why do people keep quoting someone who is so consistently wrong?
Every time Ziehan comes up, I look to see what silliness his is opining on now, then ignore the thread. Only one other person I can think of garners such a large following by being consistently wrong, and he is off-limits here because of the ban on politics.
Zeihan predicted the collapse of China in 10 YEARS a year ago on Rogan. He has 9 years to go.
I await a link to a Zeihan prediction of the collapse of the Russian military from Zeihan. He has pointed out Russian bad demographics but no prediction of a Russian collapse. Now I have read many such predictions from Main Stream News on the Russian collapse that has yet to materialize.
Zeihan has said that Russian demographic issues will force it to take a more aggressive security posture, specifically on Ukraine. Today much of Russia’s border regions are indefensible.
