[schalab]

What was wrong with US's response to 9/11 attacks?

Tunnel vision, moral and patriotic grandstanding, group think, not thinking about the long term consequences of actions.

Yes, Saddam Hussein was evil, but the consequences of removing him were much more dire and opened up pandora's box.

Yes, what Saudi Arabia did was gruesome, but if you respond by cutting them off totally, they will ally with China. You lose the entire region, your leverage on oil production in the middle east. You make your rivals stronger. Is that reaction proportional with the action?

Is this one incident, which is not like Saudi Arabia didnt get massive blowback for, worth the long term consequences?

Where is the media commentary which is more pragmatic and willing to look at things two steps down, a decade from now?

Which media outlets actually present the question in that format. Nobody has learnt anything from the previous problems. People are still easy to manipulate, and the media still lacks any kind of long term thinking.

[buboard]

> but if you respond by cutting them off totally, they will ally with China.

This is not easy. None of the ME players can change alliances without inflaming the region

[vharuck]

>Is this one incident, which is not like Saudi Arabia didnt get massive blowback for, worth the long term consequences?

Not punishing them for this one incident can have the long term consequence of there being more such incidents. Maintaining alliances and amassing power is valuable, but only because they allow us to achieve goals. Many people, myself included, think human rights should be one of those goals.

[excursionist]

What I find really strange is that the murder of one US/Saudi journalist is apparently worse than the mass murder being carried out by Saudi Arabia and US in Yemen. Why is that? Is it because Saudi Arabia did not get explicit approval from US to murder Khashoggi? Or is it only because it could be used as a political point against Trump?

[rolltiide]

The US is not dependent on middle eastern oil any more.

Let them ally, tell them “have fun with that”

Same goes to any other middle eastern allies with troubling policies who we have unwavering support for. “We disagree with how you treat some human beings, have fun with Russia!” “Why havent you just been issuing debt on the international markets to fund your defense programs like the rest of us? Have fun destabilizing your whole economy, thats life!”

[opportune]

I think the US control over global oil supply in theory has a few big consequences greater than just importing cheap oil:

First, there’s the whole petrodollar thing, which in theory is a net positive in global trade (since all this external money is sloshing around in USD, there is more demand and liquidity for USD globally, and at the end of the day that means we get traded things in exchange for printing money).

It also gives us a lot of leverage over other countries the world over. If Russia is acting up, the US can pressure countries to dump oil to lower the price and hurt Russia.

A lot of these countries like SA buy a lot of US weapons which we like for economic and political reasons.

Also, the US wants the region to be stable, since Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel are all at varying degrees of being nuclear powers and don’t have great relations between each other. If there were a big war over there, it would be bad for business globally and could destabilize countries outside of the region.

Now, I’m not saying I like this state of affairs, but it’s complicated and there aren’t a lot of good guys over there, so it’s hard. At least the current state of affairs is somewhat stable.

[tonyedgecombe]

It is, there is a global market for oil and if the ME imploded you can be sure Americans will be paying more for their fuel.