[Aunche]

The first paragraph is a fair consideration. The second is a complete stretch. It's not as if America would suddenly stop providing military support to Saudi Arabia if we suddenly switched to bitcoin. An America that historically used Bitcoin would be even more incentivized to "secure" fossil fuel nations.

[roenxi]

If the Saudis started selling oil in bitcoin they'd probably lose their military support and/or be overthrown.

It is difficult to justify why the US is providing militarily support to the Saudis without invoking oil and dollars. They are a pretty shady regime and not the sort of people the US wants to be supporting. And the Saudis don't seem to be trading with America as much as China [0, 1].

[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/saudi-arabia/exports-by-country

[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/saudi-arabia/imports-by-country

[cliftonk]

While the term "petrodollars" makes sense prescriptively, saying that the KSA would be "overthrown" if they started settling transactions in something other than dollars is pure hyperbole. The macrobullshitters that keep throwing around this idea of ongoing US coercion are doing so with absolutely no proof. Sure, there's some soft power things going on, but they settle in USD because USD has been the de-facto currency for world trade (and thus currency reserves) for some time now. IF anything, we see a movement away from USD into a currency basket with a high weighting of USD over the coming decades.

[orestarod]

Decisions and strategies worldwide do not make sense if you don't acknowledge that such things happen. That e.g. an oil country moving away from the dollar is something the US would do nasty things to avoid - and the reasons for that fall in the category of "conspiracy theory", but that is the case because no official tale makes sense. You know it is not about the weapons of mass destruction, because these were proven lies, and you know they did not tell these lies to "save the people from a despotic regime" after decades of "we don't care", because there are other examples of despotic regimes (including KSA) the US does not bother or has friendly relationships with.

So, what would you think is the reason the US invaded Iraq?

[louloulou]

Do people not seriously think about why the Iraq war happened? Everyone accepts that the WMD rational was disingenuous, so then why?

It just so happened to coincide with Saddam starting to sell oil for Euros, and France and Germany just so happened to oppose the war.. but it's probably nothing to do with oil and dollars.

Gaddafi wanted to sell oil for Gold. In that case Europe and the US were on board with removing him. Why then, when he'd been in power since the 70s?

[andrepd]

The Saudis are also well-liked by the US and much of the Western leaders because they buy billions in arms. Nevermind the crucifictions, decapitations, and dismemberments.

Reminds me of one of by favourite Frankie Boyle jokes: "Our government was angry about Khashoggi. We sent the Saudis a strongly worded arms invoice."

[nostrademons]

Take a look at OPEC companies that have priced oil in other currencies:

Iraq started pricing oil in euros in 1999:

https://www.theglobalist.com/iraq-the-dollar-and-the-euro-5/

Iran started pricing oil in yuan in 2012:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-17988142

What's our geopolitical relationship with Iraq and Iran now?

[randomopining]

So they changed their pricing currency and then we became enemies? Or we were enemies, and they changed their pricing currency because of that... lol

[tareqak]

The US CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Mossadegh in Iran and then received backlash for it in the form of the Iranian Revolution [0][1].

[0] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/iran/2017-06-15/iran...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

[totalZero]

The first Gulf War began in 1990, and the Iranian Revolution took place in 1979. The causality may well have taken place in the reverse of what you suggest.

[notahacker]

Yep. You'd think if the reason the US restarted their war with Iraq was using Euros as a reserve currency, they might have made a bit more fuss about those pesky Europeans creating the Euro with the explicit goal of being a global reserve currency a few years earlier...

[spiralx]

Being the largest reserve currency has more costs to the US than benefits overall and policy has been to try and reduce that exposure for the last decade or so.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-d...

Being a reserve currency means any financial crisis in the world tends to affect your currency and trade, not a good thing.

[johnyzee]

I think it is a very worthwhile observation, that existing, comparable systems also have massive 'externalities', only they aren't measured in kwH.

[totalZero]

That is a general defense of the form of the statement, but not a defense of the statement itself.

The dollar is not the largest cause of perpetual US entanglement in the Middle East. Oil dependency, on the other hand, may be.

[njarboe]

Amazingly, due to fracking mostly in west Texas, the US is now a net oil producer. We should really change our Mid-East foreign policy to reflect that fact.

[ClumsyPilot]

The Saudis have chopped a guy to pieces and his the body at the embassy in a foreign country.

Imagine the headlines if Russia did that in US. Yet they are sill 'allies'

[Animats]

It's not as if America would suddenly stop providing military support to Saudi Arabia if we suddenly switched to bitcoin.

No, but now that the US is a net petroleum exporter, puling the plug on the whole Middle East is a real possibility.

[arcticbull]

Not all oil is the same. There's a reason that while Canada is massively a net exporter of oil (especially to the United States), boats from the Middle East show up on the regular. Common misconception. [1]

[1] https://www.aboutpipelines.com/en/blog/why-does-canada-impor...