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    Crashing Saudi Oil Economy Explains Urgent Yemeni Peace Offer

    By The Israeli-Hamas Conflict Is A Continuation of the 9/11 PlotNo Comments5 Mins Read

    After six years of blowing up Yemen and blockading its southern neighbor, the Saudi rulers are now saying they are committed to finding peace. The move is less about genuine peace than economic survival for the oil kingdom.

    The Saudi monarchy say they want “all guns to fall completely silent”. Washington, which has been a crucial enabler of the Saudi war on Yemen, has backed the latest “peace offer”. Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week endorsed the initiative from the Saudi rulers, saying he had spoken with them “on our work together to end the conflict in Yemen, facilitate humanitarian access and aid for the Yemeni people”.

    The Saudi foreign ministry stated: “The initiative aims to end the human suffering of the brotherly Yemeni people, and affirms the kingdom’s support for efforts to reach a comprehensive political resolution.”

    Can you believe this sickening duplicity from the Saudis and the Americans?

    So, after six years of relentless aerial bombing in Yemen causing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations, the Saudis and their American military supplier, seem to have developed a conscience for peace and ending suffering.

    The real reason for trying to end the conflict is the perilous state of the Saudi oil-dependent economy. Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil, gas and petroleum industry, recently announced that its profits have slumped by nearly half in 2020 compared with the year before. Down from $88 billion to $49 billion.

    Given that its oil economy provides nearly 90 per cent of state budget that is a stupendous hit on the Saudi finances. The Saudi rulers rely on hefty state subsidies to keep its 34 million population content. With income from the oil industry nosediving that means state deficits will explode to maintain public spending, or else risk social unrest from dire cutbacks.

    Saudi Arabia remains the biggest oil exporter, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic and world economies going into recession crude oil prices have plummeted. At one point oil prices fell to around $20 a barrel. The Saudi economy needs an oil price of around $70 a barrel to reel in a profit.

    The upshot is the Saudi war in Yemen has become a critical drain on state finances and potentially jeopardizing the superficial stability of the absolute monarchy.

    Of further alarm is the increasing missile and drone attacks by the Houthi rebels in Yemen on key Saudi locations, including the capital Riyadh.

    The Yemeni rebels are escalating airstrikes on Aramco installations at its headquarters in Dhahran and Dammam in Eastern Province, as well as in the cities of Abha, Azir, Jazan, and Ras Tanura. The targets include oil refineries and export terminals. The Saudis claim they have intercepted a lot of the missiles with U.S.-made Patriot defense systems. Nevertheless, the mere fact that the Yemenis can hit key parts of the Saudi oil economy over a distance of 1,000 kilometers is a grave security concern undermining investor confidence.

    The first major strike was in September 2019 when Houthi drones hit the huge refinery complex at Abqaiq. That caused Saudi oil production to temporarily shut down by half. It also delayed an Initial Public Offering of Aramco shares on the stock market as investors took fright over political risk.

    At a time when the Saudi oil economy is contracting severely due to worldwide circumstances, an additional debilitating threat is the intensifying campaign of Houthi airstrikes. They are taking the war into Saudi heartland.

    The Biden administration has condemned the Houthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia as “unacceptable”. Such American concern is derisory given how Washington has been providing warplanes, missiles and logistics for the Saudis to indiscriminately bomb Yemen causing tens of thousands of deaths. The Americans also enable the Saudis to impose a blockade on Yemen’s sea and airports, which has prevented vital food and medicines from being supplied to the country. Nearly 80 per cent of Yemen’s 30 million population are dependent on foreign aid deliveries. The blockade is a war crime, a crime against humanity, and the Americans are fully complicit.

    President Joe Biden has said he is ending U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. It was an election promise. However, it is not clear what military support the U.S. has actually stopped, if at all. The Saudi bombing of food depots continues and the blockade on the country could not be maintained without essential American logistics.

    More cynically, the Biden administration realizes that the Saudis started a war back in March 2015, when Obama was president and Biden was vice-president, that has turned into an un-winnable quagmire whose horrendous human suffering has become a vile stain on America’s international image.

    That’s why Biden and his diplomats have been urging the Saudi rulers to sue for peace. Now it seems the Saudi monarchy realizes that the reckless war launched by “defense minister” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has come with a price that they can’t afford to sustain if they want to preserve their rickety house of cards, known as the House of Saud.

    On the latest peace proposal, the Yemeni rebels have rejected it out of hand. They say it contains “nothing new”. The Houthis say the only way to end the war is for the Saudis and their American sponsors to end the aggression on their country. There is no “deal”. It is a case of the Saudis and the Americans just getting out.

    Meantime, the airstrikes on Saudi oil infrastructure are going to continue with ever-increasing damage to the royal coffers. Thus, the Saudi rulers have no choice but to unconditionally surrender in this criminal war. They are facing a humiliating defeat as the Yemenis take revenge and Uncle Sam washes his hands of blood.

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    This is not a conspiracy theory.  It is the most likely explanation we have of the information at this time. The Hamas October 7 attack on Israel was the opening gun of a plot devised by US neoconservatives and Netanyahu to renew the US attack on Hezbollah’s suppliers in behalf of Greater Israel.  Greater Israel is a Zionist belief that Israel comprises the territory from the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq. The purpose of 9/11 was to launch under the guise of a “war on terror” the wars that the American neoconservatives had called for in their publications and that General Wesley Clark told us about against Israel’s enemies in the Middle East.  The purpose of Washington’s “war on terror” was to destroy Hezbollah’s suppliers–Iraq, Syria and Iran.  Israel and the neoconservatives want these three countries destroyed because they supply Hezbollah with money and weapons that permits Hezbollah to successfully repeal Israel’s attempts to occupy southern Lebanon.  Israel needs the water resources in southern Lebanon.  With the Iraq, Syrian, and Iranian regimes destroyed, avenues are opened to Greater Israel. In other words, there was never a “war on terror.”  There was a war devised by US neocons against Israel’s opponents.  And that is precisely what the war on Hamas is about.  It is impossible to breach the Israeli security barrier without setting off alarms.  The plot called for the barrier to be stood down.  What most likely happened is this:  Israeli agents who have infiltrated Hamas were instructed to sell Hamas on the attack by promising the ability to disable the barrier and surprise the Israelis.  Netanyahu and the neocons sacrificed Israeli lives for the outrage about Israeli deaths, rapes, and Israeli babies with cut off heads.  This would gain Israel support for destroying the remnants of Palestine and incorporating all of Palestine into Israel, thus ending any prospect of a two-stare solution and simultaneously settling Netanyahu’s legal and political problems by making him a hero who consolidated Palestine under Israel. But the plot has wider aims, which were revealed by the almost instant appearance on the scene of US aircraft carrier task forces, the 101st Airborne Division followed by US Marines and Special Forces.  Israel, of course, does not need these American forces in order to destroy Gaza.  Pundits, reflecting either a lack of imagination or serving a disinformation function, have rationalized the presence of the US forces as a warning and protective buffer between Israel and Hezbollah/Iran. Think about this rationale.  If Netanyahu understood that the plot might bring Iran/Hezbollah and even Syria and Iraqi volunteers down on Israel’s head, would he have sponsored a plot that initiated war with Hamas?  The answer is not unless he and the US neoconservatives want to bring Iran/Hezbollah down on Israel’s head.  And they do, which is why the US forces are in the area.  A Hezbollah attack on Israel gives the neocons, who control the US State and Defense Departments and National Security Council the excuse they need to finish the real purpose of the “war on terror”– to destroy Syria and Iran.  Iraq was taken out, but Syria and Iran remain in Israel’s way.   Will this plot succeed? The plot is premised on drawing Hezbollah and Iran into the war.  If they are not drawn in–and Putin is doing his best to prevent them from being drawn in–the US neoconservatives don’t have an excuse to widen the war.  The neoconservatives would be tempted to go for a false flag attack that would provide an excuse, but it would be risky and not compare to Hezbollah troops pouring into Israel and missiles raining down on Israel from Iran.  If the neocons use a false flag attack, the result of Putin’s efforts will be to take the initiative, the element of surprise, from Iran/Hezbollah and to give the initiative to the neoconservatives.  Thus Putin’s efforts to contain the conflict would turn out to be counterproductive. The Israeli-Hamas conflict is running into trouble with the US Democrats.  Their “diversity-multicultural-open border” policy has brought Muslims into the US and into the Democrat Party and members of Congress.  Someone is getting through the neocon barrier around Biden as we can see from Biden’s efforts to dampen down the conflict, delay Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and warn Israel away from repeating Hamas’ atrocities.  If Biden succeeds in restraining Netanyahu and Putin succeeds in restraining Iran/Hezbollah, the plot will have to settle for second best. What would second best be.  It would be  bombing the Gazans out of Gaza into the Sinai Dessert into tent cities.  Israelis are already talking about this.  In other words, the Gazans who survive would become refugees outside of Gaza.  That would only leave a few isolated Palestinian villages in the West Bank, from which the remaining Palestinians would be driven out by the Israeli settlers. So it is possible for Israel to destroy Gaza without invading, which, as matters stand, is the trigger for Iran/Hezbollah’s entry into the conflict. What we don’t know is whether Putin can keep Iran/Hezbollah restrained if the consequence is the demise of Gaza and all hope for Palestinians. We also don’t know if Biden and the Democrats can prevent the Republicans, who are now aligned with the neoconservatives in behalf of Israel, from egging on the war.   Many  Republicans, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson,  are evangelicals who worship Israel more than God.  Netanyahu and American Evangelicals are invoking Biblical prophecies to stir Israelis and Americans into eschatological insanity.  Biden is discredited, and polls show that his public support is too low to permit his reelection.  Trump was recently described by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz as “the most pro-Israel President in history.”  This leaves us with the question:  Will Putin/Biden’s attempts to contain the conflict prevail or will the Republican/evangelical/neoconservative/Netanyahu efforts to widen the conflict prevail?  Time will tell.

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