Those indomitable Yemeni corsairs, the rogues of the Red Sea, the Houthis, just blocked the Bab-Al-Mandeb to all Saudi vessels (meaning now oil that originally flowed through Hormuz from Saudi Arabia now that was being re-routed to the Red Sea has to go via Suez and around Africa to reach the medium light oriented refineries of SEA, their principal destination) . Congratulations to oil bulls if mentally retarded Americans and their arrogant and terminally inbred Gulf Arab vassals don’t get the picture and fast and put a complete and irrevocable end to this conflict because shit has now, as many say, just gotten real. Whether this will impact upon Australia and it’s seeming ability to avoid any serious economic repercussions via it’s absurd bargaining power and general demographic irrelevance remains to be seen, but misery or extended and exacerbated misery for many (such as in the Philippines and Thailand) awaits. This continuing-to-drag-on-conflict has utterly vindicated myself and Richard Spencer (though in the latter case, for the wrong reasons) in all of our political predictions and recommendations.
Now many in the world are going to find out why Bab-Al-Mandeb translates literally into the “gate of tears”. A political and diplomatic solution is now needed (not a military one), quickly.
The spinelessness of Albo throughout this entire conflict who was the first to jump on board internationally in support of it (though he is to be commended for his backroom petrol contract bargaining) and the absolute idiocy of all aus right wing parties (lnp and phon, the latter of which has fortunately politically peaked) who wanted to commit men and material to it, will never be forgiven or forgetten, at least to me. when you make the greens look good you know you have done something wrong.
america should have taken the MOU and walked, it was about the best deal the world was going to get. the gulf arab pygmy states getting 86ed now is just too painful for me to watch (on a personal interest level, obviously it is satisfying otherwise), world economy cant possibly just shrug this off anymore.
We did commit an AWACS jet not sure if it’s still there
Tbh we should have committed something like an air warfare destroyer some time ago and assigned it defensive duties only. It’s invaluable drone and missile combat experience, is now in the global interest and I have no idea why this hasn’t happened.
there is no “defensive” posture possible as the gulf arab states are effectively playing host to u.s bases. itd be like if i moved in to your neighbours house next door and he let me throw my fecal matter over his fence into your backyard then you started throwing stuff back into his, then your neighbour cried foul to the authorities about it saying “its not like its me throwing the shit, i didnt do anything wrong” its honestly pathetic our govt is pretending this is a legitimate position.
Whatever happened to the petrol rationing fears? It’s impossible to get any media articles on it since April, not just for Australia but also developing Asian countries.
Like I understand Australia and presumably NZ have wheeled and dealed their way out of it but who is wearing the impact?
Supply was supposed to not be able to keep up now yet oil is barely over $80
Phillipines, Thailand and various countries are wearing the impact, as we basically outbid their oil using our natural gas exports etc as a bargaining chip. There were lots of videos on TikTok and the like of people in the PH walking to work etc because petrol became too expensive there.
Various countries are emptying their strategic petroleum reserves, the BoJ has been shorting the futures market, they released a lot of oil onto the open seas (including Iranian oil) during the MoU period. It took many months in the 1970s for the Gulf Arab embargo to show up in the global marketplace, it may not have the same effect this time for various reasons but oil super bulls are unfortunately probably going to be vindicated eventually if the U.S doesn’t walk away
THe australian media has been assidously avoiding talking about the conflict as much as they possibly can since it went pear shaped and not according to plan sometime around April, you’re right it’s hard to find anything good
Someone also changed the “Government statement on Iran” page on the prime minister of australia govt website seemingly recently, it originally said something to the effect of “The Australian government supports the U.S doing [[anything]] to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon” and this was edited off the page, Albo doesn’t want to talk about it anymore as much as he doesn’t have to and they can pingpong and jawbone the futures prices
This guy from Melbourne has some excellent stuff on the dynamics of energy markets in the present context, genuinely great resource here: https://nickwade.substack.com