For decades, the common thought about the United States was that its glory days of being the number one producer of oil were long over. Indeed, the current narrative in the US about gas prices is usually based on the uptick or downtick of suppliers from the OPEC cartel.
Professor Isa Blumi joins me for part 2 of our series on Yemen. We pick up in the late 90’s after Ali Abdullah Saleh has come to power in a unified Yemen. Isa discusses Saleh’s strategy of sowing chaos all over the country in order to maintain absolute power. Isa talks about Saleh’s use of extreme violence, and his reliance on US power. We then explore how the so called Arab Spring played out in Yemen. We discuss the orchestrated nature of the movement, and how is sought to control the very real desires of the Yemeni public.
If Gulf countries do not increase oil outputs to cover the shortfall left by Iran, America may not defend them, US President Donald Trump has warned in a tweet.
America wants to cut Iran’s oil exports to zero by November. Should it succeed and Tehran’s two million barrels a day be taken off the market, the cost of oil is likely to soar and cause a major headache for Trump domestically; the American public are known to be hostile to anything that increases the cost of filling up their cars.
It is as clear as day that President Trump is obsessed with regime change in Iran. What is not made clear is how much his gambit is damaging to Americans and American interests.
Without cause or justification, Mr. Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA), striking a hard blow to America’s European allies – and its own credibility. Moreover, he threatened European countries with secondary sanctions should they continue to trade with Iran.
Iran may be on the brink of revolution as protest rage across the country over its collapsing currency, high unemployment, drought, impending US sanctions and a ban on its oil. Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams say that it is likely that the CIA is agitating the situation to create the conditions for regime change. [...]
This week professor Isa Blumi joins me for an in-depth discussion of the economic and geopolitical history of Yemen. We cover the period between the mid 1800’s all the way through to the early 2000’s. Isa talks about the forgotten history of Yemen through out the conversation. We discuss Yemen’s role as a bulwark against imperialism, from its earliest days fighting against the British East India company to American oil conglomerates. Isa talks about North Yemen’s role as a progressive nation that supported everyone from the George Habash to Che Guevara.
US District Judge William Alsup shut down a lawsuit filed by liberal mayors in Oakland and San Francisco who sued big oil companies for their alleged impact on climate, claiming damages included sea level rise that has yet to materialize, but is on the way, according the models cited in the litigation. The judge explained that it would be unfair to blame oil companies who supplied the oil to the public benefitted from it and demanded it. [...]
The American empire and its media openly talk coup in Venezuela because it sits on vast – and nationalized – oil resources, and this is US expansionism at its finest, The Empire Files host Abby Martin told Lee Camp.
Venezuela’s oil – nationalized by Nicholas Maduro’s socialist government – is key in understanding why the US neoliberal establishment and their media openly talk regime change, Abby Martin, who hosts a show on Venezuelan Telesur, told Lee Camp in an interview edition of Redacted Tonight.
F. William Engdahl explains how the ‘ghost’ of Zbigniew Brzezinski is shaping Washington’s geopolitics across Eurasia – Russia, China, Iran…all targets on the grand chessboard.
IMAGE: North Tehran by day. (Patrick Henningsen @21WIRE)
F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
