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> Iran will use the roughly $100 billion in frozen assets it will receive to support terrorism and other misadventures. > Iran’s support for terrorism, its imp

> Iran will use the roughly $100 billion in frozen assets it will receive to support terrorism and other misadventures. > Iran’s support for terrorism, its imprisonment of dissidents and even some Americans, its meddling in Iraq and Syria and its arms trade. Funny that Saudi Arabia is guilty of all the above if not 10X worse but not a single word from those republicans. This speaks volumes of the power of the Saudi lobby in the US political system and how their wealth could influence decisions and policies in the US.

nashashmi 11y ago
> This speaks volume of the power of the Saudi lobby ... or it shows the systematic hate for Iran.
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  Why "or"? Can't it be both?
  - irrelative 11y ago
    | != ^
joezydeco 11y ago
Except that allowing Iran to export even more oil keeps the price of crude down on the floor. Saudi Arabia can't survive oil staying at $30 for the next decade. So maybe this is an end-run around the Saudis and letting things sort themselves out naturally?
- mapt 11y ago
  From what I understand? Saudi Arabia has plenty of money banked; They can survive a decade without the sort of windfall profits they've enjoyed. "SAMA's net foreign assets totaled $628 billion in November, down from a record high of $737 billion in August 2014," The marginal price to produce a barrel of Saudi crude is still the lowest in the world, at just three USD. What's going die out once the equipment is worn out (or require extensive subsidy) are marginal plays in developed countries like Canada, the US, and the North Sea, the Arctic, the deep offshore drilling, tight or heavy oil, tar sands, tar shales, smaller fields without economies of scale, and all forms of biodiesel & ethanol (yes, even the most efficient, Brazilian ethanol). All the oil-dependent economies are going to suffer and compensate monetarily, by drawing down sovereign wealth or cutting expenditures, but the harder bound is the level at which it makes economic sense to stop drilling. Production prices in the above settings are high enough that they just can't make money at $30/barrel, which is a whole other category of problem than not making enough money to feed the government budget which has ballooned only in the last decade taking advantage of higher prices. http://knoema.com/vyronoe/cost-of-oil-production-by-country http://knoema.com/vyronoe/cost-of-oil-production-by-country
  - joezydeco 11y ago
    Saudi oil revenue has already sunk below government expenditures[1]. The just-announced 2016 budget has a deficit of $87 billion[2]. That's 7 years to go until the reserves are gone. And how much does the House of Saud hand out to its citizens to keep things calm and orderly? What happens when that money starts to dry up? [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-saudi-budget-expected-to-be-squeezed-by-low-oil-prices-1450915313 http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-saudi-budget-expected-to-be-... [2] http://english.alarabiya.net/en/special-reports/saudi-budget-2016/2015/12/28/Saudi-Arabia-to-unveil-2016-budget.html http://english.alarabiya.net/en/special-reports/saudi-budget...
    - mapt 11y ago
      They bleed out savings while slowly ramping back down to the vicinity of the levels that they handed out 15 years ago. This is a traumatic process, sure - but it's not like they were uncomfortably poor 15 years ago, and they (unlike some others, I'm looking at you Venezuela) have plenty of buffer with which to keep their populations comfortable until a few years after their rivals stop drilling.
      - moistgorilla 11y ago
        Going from rich to poor is significantly harder than staying poor.
        mapt 11y ago
        All they need to do is outlast maybe 20% of the rest of the oil producers, enough to raise prices back up.
- pmorici 11y ago
  "allowing Iran to export even more oil keeps the price of crude down on the floor" That's probably the best case scenario for the rest of the world. Cheap energy and keep the amount of money middle eastern countries have to fight each other to a minimum.
marcoperaza 11y ago
I'm no fan of Saudi Arabia, particularly their global proselytizing of radical Islam and internal repression of opposing thought, but they're not comparable with Iran. Iran directly arms and funds terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. They funded terrorists in Iraq with the sole purpose of killing as many American troops as possible and undermining the new Iraqi government. They are allies of Al-Qaeda and provided material support to their operations, including US embassy bombings and 9/11. They've also continued to support the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Even though they are not shy about their imperial intentions in the Middle East, the West seems to be sticking its head in the sand. The risk of an Iranian-dominated Middle East should not be under-estimated. They already have their hands on Syrian, Lebanese, Yemeni, and Iraqi politics. They exert their influence by extortion. If you don't bend to their will, Revolutionary Guard-backed insurgents blow you up.
- markdown 11y ago
  Without evidence (from reputable news sources outside of USA), I'm going to have to ignore your claims. Sounds like the propaganda US politicians spew. Iran has a long history of supporting freedom fighters (terrorists if you're on the other side), but so has Saudi Arabia... and they were responsible for 9/11, which pretty much trumps all else.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    If you want to learn about this stuff for yourself, this Wikipedia article is a good starting point, you are rightly skeptical about such a controversial issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...
    - baudehlo 11y ago
      This information brought to you by the people who said Iraq has WMDs. Colour me a bit skeptical.
    - markdown 11y ago
RealGeek 11y ago
9/11 terrorists were not from Iran or Iraq, they were Saudi nationals.

nashashmi 11y ago

> This speaks volume of the power of the Saudi lobby ... or it shows the systematic hate for Iran.

enraged_camel 11y ago
Why "or"? Can't it be both?
- irrelative 11y ago
  | != ^

joezydeco 11y ago

Except that allowing Iran to export even more oil keeps the price of crude down on the floor. Saudi Arabia can't survive oil staying at $30 for the next decade. So maybe this is an end-run around the Saudis and letting things sort themselves out naturally?

mapt 11y ago
From what I understand? Saudi Arabia has plenty of money banked; They can survive a decade without the sort of windfall profits they've enjoyed. "SAMA's net foreign assets totaled $628 billion in November, down from a record high of $737 billion in August 2014," The marginal price to produce a barrel of Saudi crude is still the lowest in the world, at just three USD. What's going die out once the equipment is worn out (or require extensive subsidy) are marginal plays in developed countries like Canada, the US, and the North Sea, the Arctic, the deep offshore drilling, tight or heavy oil, tar sands, tar shales, smaller fields without economies of scale, and all forms of biodiesel & ethanol (yes, even the most efficient, Brazilian ethanol). All the oil-dependent economies are going to suffer and compensate monetarily, by drawing down sovereign wealth or cutting expenditures, but the harder bound is the level at which it makes economic sense to stop drilling. Production prices in the above settings are high enough that they just can't make money at $30/barrel, which is a whole other category of problem than not making enough money to feed the government budget which has ballooned only in the last decade taking advantage of higher prices. http://knoema.com/vyronoe/cost-of-oil-production-by-country http://knoema.com/vyronoe/cost-of-oil-production-by-country
- joezydeco 11y ago
  Saudi oil revenue has already sunk below government expenditures[1]. The just-announced 2016 budget has a deficit of $87 billion[2]. That's 7 years to go until the reserves are gone. And how much does the House of Saud hand out to its citizens to keep things calm and orderly? What happens when that money starts to dry up? [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-saudi-budget-expected-to-be-squeezed-by-low-oil-prices-1450915313 http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-saudi-budget-expected-to-be-... [2] http://english.alarabiya.net/en/special-reports/saudi-budget-2016/2015/12/28/Saudi-Arabia-to-unveil-2016-budget.html http://english.alarabiya.net/en/special-reports/saudi-budget...
  - mapt 11y ago
    They bleed out savings while slowly ramping back down to the vicinity of the levels that they handed out 15 years ago. This is a traumatic process, sure - but it's not like they were uncomfortably poor 15 years ago, and they (unlike some others, I'm looking at you Venezuela) have plenty of buffer with which to keep their populations comfortable until a few years after their rivals stop drilling.
    - moistgorilla 11y ago
      Going from rich to poor is significantly harder than staying poor.
      - mapt 11y ago
        All they need to do is outlast maybe 20% of the rest of the oil producers, enough to raise prices back up.
pmorici 11y ago
"allowing Iran to export even more oil keeps the price of crude down on the floor" That's probably the best case scenario for the rest of the world. Cheap energy and keep the amount of money middle eastern countries have to fight each other to a minimum.

marcoperaza 11y ago

I'm no fan of Saudi Arabia, particularly their global proselytizing of radical Islam and internal repression of opposing thought, but they're not comparable with Iran. Iran directly arms and funds terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. They funded terrorists in Iraq with the sole purpose of killing as many American troops as possible and undermining the new Iraqi government. They are allies of Al-Qaeda and provided material support to their operations, including US embassy bombings and 9/11. They've also continued to support the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Even though they are not shy about their imperial intentions in the Middle East, the West seems to be sticking its head in the sand. The risk of an Iranian-dominated Middle East should not be under-estimated. They already have their hands on Syrian, Lebanese, Yemeni, and Iraqi politics. They exert their influence by extortion. If you don't bend to their will, Revolutionary Guard-backed insurgents blow you up.

markdown 11y ago
Without evidence (from reputable news sources outside of USA), I'm going to have to ignore your claims. Sounds like the propaganda US politicians spew. Iran has a long history of supporting freedom fighters (terrorists if you're on the other side), but so has Saudi Arabia... and they were responsible for 9/11, which pretty much trumps all else.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  If you want to learn about this stuff for yourself, this Wikipedia article is a good starting point, you are rightly skeptical about such a controversial issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...
  - baudehlo 11y ago
    This information brought to you by the people who said Iraq has WMDs. Colour me a bit skeptical.
  - markdown 11y ago

RealGeek 11y ago

9/11 terrorists were not from Iran or Iraq, they were Saudi nationals.