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Originally posted by dd74
I base that assertion on 1) The country doing the pulling out is the U.S.; 2) which has very little support worldwide; 3) Is getting its ideological ass handed to it daily in the M.E.; 4) economically relies heavily on out-of-country oil reserves.
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93% of US oil consumption is from other than mideast petroleum, mostly from the western hemisphere. It's only price that prevents that from being 100%, that is to say, mideast oil is cheap enough to attract buying of about 7% of American oil needs from mideast suppliers. That's likely to change in any case as India and China combined oil needs increase enough to make mideast oil purchases too expensive for American companies to purchase. The oil consumption in America is expected to increase at a small, but steady rate for the next three decades, then stabilize for a period, then decline. Both India and China will require very large increases annually for quite some time as their countries continue to develop.
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I won't disagree that other nations have pulled out of countries from whom they've received commodities, and not suffered consequences.
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That's correct, and there are concrete reasons for that. The most important is that there is a requirement for products made in one country that are in excess of their requirements to be sold. In the best situation, that selling is done worldwide, which works best if there's no one able to hold anyone else at gunpoint to steal the commodity.
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But I will also argue that the U.S. is in a much more unique situation by virtue of its economic and political power than France, Britian, etc.
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The US government's most successful propaganda campaign has produced your opinion. That is the notion that every individual American's lifestyle, their day to day living comfort, is totally dependent on the US government threatening people globally. The truth is precisely the opposite.