More than anything else in Saudi Arabia, that thing you smell is fear. Everything is coming unglued for the royal family there all at once. If we all weren’t so distracted by the Coronapocalypse these things would all be front page news. In the past week there have been three major stories concerning Saudi Arabia,…
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may feel that the global pandemic and its economic fallout are the more immediate of his problems as the kingdom gradually lifts restrictions put in place to stymie the spread of the coronavirus. However, looming large on the horizon is a potential rift with the United States as a…
Energy analysts have long assumed that, given time, growing international concern over climate change would result in a vast restructuring of the global energy enterprise. The result: a greener, less climate-degrading system. In this future, fossil fuels would be overtaken by renewables, while oil, gas, and coal would be relegated to an increasingly marginal role…
From the very beginning I’ve been a staunch critic of President Trump’s “Energy Dominance” policy. And I was so for a myriad of reasons, but mostly because it was stupid. Not just stupid, monumentally stupid. Breathtakingly stupid. And I don’t say this as someone who hates Trump without reservation. In fact, I continue to hope…
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) can no longer plead youth or inexperience. That time has passed. What you see is what you get. The misrule, blunders and war associated with him as crown prince will only continue with him as king. The full repertoire of the crown prince’s statecraft was on display in…
It’s believed that a US-Iran war would disrupt the flow of Middle Eastern oil and, as such, should be avoided at all costs. With US oil futures trading in the negative, has the risk of such a war suddenly become attractive? Last week, nearly a dozen Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) vessels harassed…
