Robert Baer on the US’s addiction to Saudi crude

“The United States’ policies on Saudi Arabia, Baer argues, are built upon the delusion that Saudi Arabia is stable?that both the country and the flow of its most precious commodity can continue on indefinitely. Sustaining that delusion is the immense amount of money (estimated at $19.3 billion in 2000) exchanged between the two partners: the U.S. buys oil and sells weapons, Saudi Arabia buys weapons and sells oil. Oil and the defense contracts underpinning its protection bind these two countries together in such a way that when Saudi Arabia falls — a fate Baer feels is absolutely certain — the U.S. falls too. Perhaps not all the way down, but, if we don’t curtail our dependence, he argues, a failure in Saudi Arabia could have catastrophic consequences for the United States.” [More.]