> we don't care what militarily irrelevant countries think about our activities because, well, we don't and they don't matter and we don't really care what they think.
America has its own oil. Europe is buying it, which increases the price.
To lower prices, America can help Europe get their oil back from the strait or it can ban sales to Europe both of which could make American oil cheap for Americans.
By not helping, Europe is screwing Americans. And, pretty soon, screwing Europeans too because Americans will be fed up with high prices. They will move to stop exports.
But the US already buys only 8% of it's oil from the Middle East. How long do you think they will care to help people that don't want to help themselves? It's more likely they will stop selling to Europe.
If I had to guess, I think American oil companies that operate in the strait selling oil to Europe are the only reason the US is still working so hard to control the strait. It's a lot of money on the table. But it's certainly not for Americans, just for a few rich American oil companies and their European customers.
1. Oil is a global market. Global supply and demand affects prices everywhere.
2. Oil isn't the only commodity that is at stake here. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted the global helium supply, for instance, and helium is used in critical products Americans need.
3. Asia relies heavily on oil and other commodities that pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Asia is the factory of the world and manufactures tons of the goods that are exported to the US, from clothing to electronics. Obviously, an energy crisis in Asia has the potential to disrupt American supply chains.
4. The petrodollar system creates artificial demand for US dollars. This is a massive financial and soft power benefit to the US. If Atlas shrugs and the petrodollar system starts going away, the rebalancing/recalibration that takes place is not going to be very pleasant for Americans.
1. So the US is responsible for reclaiming a global market by itself? Or is the US required to be terrorized for 4 decades as a sacrifice for the global market?
2. And Europe doesn't need any?
3. But not European supply chains?
4. That's probably true. So the US is required to serve the EU with its military because the EU is their customer? I can think of several ways that the US can keep this position without the strait. But it's much more expensive for Europeans.
1. "Reclaiming" what? The president of the US, without Congressional approval, decided to launch a war against Iran. He broke it and now, like a petulant child, he wants everyone else to help him fix it. There was no credible evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to the US. Virtually all of Iran's actions against the US in the past 40 years involved targets in the Mideast and once again, the history explains why Iran and the US aren't friends. In addition to the fact that the US was instrumental in the 1953 coup and supporting the Shah's brutal dictatorship that terrorized millions of Iranians, let's not forget that the US provided significant aid to Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War and it's pretty much accepted as fact in the Arab world that the Iran-Iraq War was a US design. Bottom line: the US needs to accept responsibility for creating the very environment that it says threatens it.
2. Europe didn't launch a war against Iran. They are obviously going to suffer (like everyone else in the world) but that doesn't mean they have an obligation to allow the president of the US to effectively commandeer their resources to clean up the mess he made.
3. Of course it affects European supply chains. It's going to affect everyone on the planet basically. But again, Europe didn't launch this war. Why do you seem to think they have a moral obligation to get involved in what virtually everyone in the world sees for what it is (a foolish war started by the US and Israel)?
4. The US isn't required to do anything. Your perspective seems to be that the US is God's gift to the world and everyone else is just freeloading. Another perspective is that alliances like NATO, the petrodollar system, etc. have been the sources of America's outsize economic, political and military power post-WW2. In my opinion, Americans have no idea what is coming as Pax Americana dies. It's not going to be pretty and I believe it is an existential threat to the way of life Americans have come to expect.
1. You're essentially saying that Iran deserves revenge. That kind of justice is incompatible with civil rights. If that's the reason that Europe is abstaining, then its stance is even less agreeable and makes me worry that Europe will be the next bastion of anti-civil rights mentality. That would truly be the last conflict.
2. No, Iran launched a war against "the West." And Europe did nothing about it (helped them along even), but wants the benefits of cheap oil at the expense of American lives. Europe should pay the extra cost to ship from South America if they don't want to get involved in the conflict. Standing back and benefiting is freeloading.
3. This is an incredibly Eurocentric perspective. Iran terrorizes Americans, but America should consider Europe's oil prices when they respond? The US could simply stop selling to Europe to lower American prices. A few rich oil companies would lose a bunch of money upfront and upscale production in the US and elsewhere. Europeans lose because their oil would now require longer shipping. Good thing for Europe that there are greedy American oil companies pushing to avoid that.
4. Europe is freeloading. Europe is waiting for rich American oil companies to save the low prices for them. Europe should pay for America to ship to them at a premium, or Europe should refine for themselves. Good luck with that. Until one of those happens, Europe is 100% freeloading.
It's funny your link starts in 1979. Perhaps you should read about what the US did in Iran before that.
Here's a teaser: in 1953, the US and UK instigated a coup that overthrew the Prime Minister of Iran. The goal: keep Iran from nationalizing British oil interests.
The coup put the country in the hands of the Shah, who was basically a pro-Western dictator.
In 1957, the Shah set up SAVAK, which was basically secret police. Per Wikipedia:
> According to a declassified CIA memo citing a classified U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, the CIA played a significant role in establishing SAVAK, providing both funding and training. The organization became notorious for its extensive surveillance, repression, and torture of political dissidents. The Shah used SAVAK to arrest, imprison, exile, and torture his opponents, leading to widespread public resentment. This discontent was leveraged by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then in exile, to build popular support for his Islamic philosophy.
You mean where the Islamic Republic in an effort to "export Islamic Revolution" (their words not mine) went about terrorizing US assets in the region? Yes, I'm familiar. That seems like an effort on Iran's part to firmly state that it doesn't want peace.
Also EU can be reached and bombed by Iran so we have more to loose than some army bases in the desert like you guys. I assure you that Europeans wouldn't support getting bombed because we had to help Trump make more money.
> industrial users can just buy the fields or hills around their factories and put up panels or wind turbines rather than negotiate with a bunch of entities.
Domestic users can just do the same. Some of us already have.
Yes, it’s not alway possible but a huge portion of domestic usage can be covered with a small install. Payback 5-10 years.
> The hydro fraction is also a really bad indicator in general, because it basically just reflects geography of a country and not really its effort to reduce CO2 emissions.
As a ‘clean green New Zealander’, your comment is perfect.
We trash our country in such appalling ways. The fact they there aren’t many of us and that the easy way of getting power is hydro is coincidence, not a national conscience.
Why is this even a crises? Sure there's fossil fuel price shocks but watching mission control for Artemis and comparing it to the Apollo missions the difference in tech can't be understated. We've made massive progress in only 50 years as a civilization collectively. We used to basically waste energy powering giant displays. Now we use a fraction of the energy on far better ones. 50 years from now we're likely to have so much solar and batteries deployed that it might actually hit "almost free" levels.
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