Ecologically Unsustainable, Authoritarian Slave States, Gulf Countries Find Themselves Stuck with the Collapsing U.S. as an Ally
  • shawn1122@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    Bizzare thing to celebrate. Millions of ordinary people would suffer if it played out this way and it would not be driven by the will of people, instead by external factors.

    Maybe America getting off the oil teat of several of these nations would be the first organic move for these authoritarian governments to be destabilized. May even bring about the end of the petrodollar which would bring a lot more balance into the world. Those are more reasonable outcomes to hope for.

    It also should be pointed out that several democratic Arab nationalist movements came about in the early post WW2 period and Western powers (mostly Britain) suppressed those movements because it’s easier to have a pro Western autocrat than to take a risk on letting people have democracy.

    One thing everyone needs to understand about geopolitics is that when an external power wants to control a region, they prefer a friendly autocrat over the unpredictability of democracy. The Brits and then the Americans have been installing / protecting autocrats friendly to their national interests for quite some time now. If they ever tell you they’re pro democracy, you would be a fool to believe it.

    Iran’s history is a perfect example of this. They democratically elected a leader that wanted to nationalize their oil in the 50s. America and the British didn’t like this, because it would affect the profits of their private oil companies, so they staged a coup and installed an oppressive monarch. So much for believing in “democratic values”. 30 years later the Iranian people revolted and in that power vacuum a theocracy emerged.

    The point being, if Westerners (especially Americans or Brits) long for democracy in the Gulf maybe they should begin by looking at the actions of their own governments - if they’re looking to be intellectually honest.

  • Cris_Citrus@piefed.zipEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    I feel very mixed on whether this is entirely a good thing. While those US allied regimes suck, I worry about what’s happening to the people there.

    Hopefully if they collapse, the structure that comes next is meaningfully better…