{"id":902,"date":"2002-02-25T18:46:00","date_gmt":"2002-02-25T22:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles-wp\/?p=902"},"modified":"2002-02-25T18:46:00","modified_gmt":"2002-02-25T22:46:00","slug":"the-best-laid-plans-of-saudis-and-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/2002\/02\/25\/18\/46\/the-best-laid-plans-of-saudis-and-men\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Laid Plans of Saudis and Men"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So I was baffled why people seemed to be taking this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/news\/677951.asp\">new Saudi <\/a><a href=\"..\/Webstore\/Israel%20-%20Sharon%20Declares%20War\/US%20encourages%20Saudi%20proposal.html\">&#8220;peace proposal&#8221;<\/a> seriously. Or at least, letting it see the light of day. Given that it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2002\/02\/22\/international\/middleeast\/22DIPL.html?pagewanted=print\">demands Israel&#8217;s <\/a><a href=\"..\/Webstore\/Israel%20-%20Sharon%20Declares%20War\/US%20Is%20Talking%20Up%20Plan%20From%20Saudis%20on%20Mideast.html\">withdrawal<\/a> from the territories it occupied after 1967, and the current mood Israel&#8217;s rulers, that seemed absurd. Then I read this:<\/p>\n<p><i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.org\/Search\/printable_fulltext.asp?i=20020301FAEssay7969.xml\">If oil trading were left to market forces, the kingdom&#8217;s oil exports to the United States would fall by half. Instead, Saudi Arabia pays a price for its market share, a price that fluctuates each month as market forces change. Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, earns about $1 a barrel less on sales to the United States than on sales to the countries of Europe and East Asia<\/a><a href=\"..\/Webstore\/Oil\/Battle%20for%20Energy%20Dominance.html\">. That discount translates into a subsidy to U.S. consumers of $620 billion per year. In return, the United States deploys military forces in the Persian Gulf, which is of course also expensive. And <b>given U.S. sensitivity to Riyadh&#8217;s policy concerns on an array of issues, from the Arab-Israeli peace process<\/b> to Kosovo to Central Asia, Washington pays the additional price of being constrained in its own foreign policymaking.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So I was baffled why people seemed to be taking this new Saudi &#8220;peace proposal&#8221; seriously. Or at least, letting it see the light of day. Given that it demands Israel&#8217;s withdrawal from the&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}