"'Let’s work out a plan for grabbing some Middle East oil if we want,' Kissinger said."

[kpete]

How One Man Laid the Groundwork for Today’s Crisis in the Middle East

this is just a snippet:

By June 1974, Treasury Secretary George Shultz was already suggesting that rising oil prices could result in a “highly advantageous mutual bargain” between the United States and petroleum-producing countries in the Middle East. Such a “bargain,” as others then began to argue, might solve a number of problems, creating demand for the US dollar, injecting needed money into a flagging defense industry hard hit by the Vietnam wind-down, and using petrodollars to cover mounting trade deficits.

As it happened, petrodollars would prove anything but a quick fix. High energy prices were a drag on the US economy, with inflation and high interest rates remaining a problem for nearly a decade. Nor was petrodollar dependence part of any preconceived Kissingerian “plan.” As with far more of his moves than he or his admirers now care to admit, he more or less stumbled into it. This was why, in periodic frustration, he occasionally daydreamed about simply seizing the oil fields of the Arabian peninsula and doing away with all the developing economic troubles.

“Can’t we overthrow one of the sheikhs just to show that we can do it?” he wondered in November 1973, fantasizing about which gas-pump country he could knock off. “How about Abu Dhabi?” he later asked. (Imagine what the world would be like today had Kissinger, in the fall of 1973, moved to overthrow the Saudi regime rather than Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende.) “Let’s work out a plan for grabbing some Middle East oil if we want,” Kissinger said.

Such scimitar rattling was, however, pure posturing. Not only did Kissinger broker the various deals that got the United States hooked on recycled Saudi petrodollars, he also began to promote the idea of an “oil-floor price” below which the cost per barrel wouldn’t fall. Among other things, this scheme was meant to protect the Saudis (and Iran, until 1979) from a sudden drop in demand and provide US petroleum corporations with guaranteed profit margins.




juicy, juicy article from The Nation (last few paragraphs are a great reminder):
http://www.thenation.com/article/how-one-man-laid-the-groundwork-for-todays-crisis-in-the-middle-east/

[KT2000]

1. A war monger with power

it made me sick to see him with the Pope.

[leveymg]

2. The grand strategist utterly failed to foresee the ultimate result

The tail has swallowed the dog.

[Scuba]

3. This is the guy Hillary trusts to give her advice.

[tk2kewl]

5. .

[lonestarnot]

6. Eeeeequala!

:cringe:

[bemildred]

4. Arrogant, greedy, stupid, and belligerent, the US managerial class in a nutshell. nt

[Paladin]

7. Where does this crazy mindset come from?

You hear the same thing from Trump: if we want some nation's oil and gas, let's just take it. As if national borders and state ownership of resources don't mean a thing. Dangerous "thinking."

[ChisolmTrailDem]

8. Die al-fucking-ready! How do these evil bastards (you too, dick cheney) keep going? nt