By Staff Writer Kira Bruce
Unfortunately, conflict in the Middle East continues into the last few weeks when a drone-lead missile hit a Saudi Arabian oil production plant. This had serious repercussions in ME-US relations.
The United States is Saudi’s military ally so they expect us to help when there is a need for military aid. Yet, since Saudi government officials are keen on blaming Iran, without concrete evidence, we are in a difficult place.
The US cannot aid Saudi Arabia to retaliate against Iran unless there is evidence. One of the missiles was found undetonated in the desert near the oil plant. There was hope that the flight path could be revealed by using the motherboard inside the missile but so far this has been inconclusive in figuring out the flight path.
Iran has been under heavy sanctions since 2018 when the Trump administration abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran which allowed them to sell their oil and trade with other countries. The 2015 deal lifted economic sanctions on Iran which had been a devastating toll on their economy for years.
Implementing trade sanctions on Iran plummeted the worth of their currency to record lows in 2018. Some EU countries have tried to help Iran by facilitating trade with some companies which will not be penalized by the US.
Saudi officials over and over again have said that the perpetrator is Iran. I think this is because Iran is one country that actually would benefit from less Saudi oil being on the market.
By destroying some of the limited oil supply we have, I think the hope was that it could increase the price of oil so much that the US would buy from Iran. This would force the US to lift the sanctions on trade with Iran.
Thankfully, the price of a barrel of oil only increased slightly and Saudi oil production will be back to the normal amount by the end of Sep. 2019.
Trump escalated the situation with tweets per usual, he said, “Going into Iran would be a very easy decision, as I said before, very easy,” he continues, “The easiest thing. Most people thought I would go in within two seconds but — plenty of time. Plenty of time.”
There is no reason for us to go into another senseless war in the middle east. People all over the middle east want the US to stop interfering in their politics and wars. As Bassem Youssef suggests while on The Daily Show, we need to gradually extract ourselves from the Middle East and North African region and not return.
It is not just Middle Eastern people who are sick of the forever wars in the middle east, the Iraq war was the most protested war in United States history. The American people do not want their sons and daughters dying in the middle east anymore. This is made even more evident by the fact that the past two presidents (Obama and Trump) both ran with the promise of pulling out of the Middle East. This begs the question, when is Washington going to stop acting like an oligarchy and start listening to what the American people have to say?
I think if we are doing more harm than good we should stop, sit back and re-think how we can help the MENA countries. Instead of continuing what we have been doing which is proving to not be working or helping.
While this may seem like a classic American involvement in the Middle East, it as much American military involvement for the sake of better trade deals. The United States is not the economic superpower that it was twenty years ago, and China is increasingly becoming the world’s largest economic superpower. What message does the United States starting a military involvement over trade deals send to China.