I suppose if there is one good thing to come out of this war it is that the Gulf States are no longer consider a safe space for investors. The world of sports has been hit hard, as Saudi Arabia and other countries were working hard to lure boxing, F1 racing, football, tennis and golf to their sun-drenched borders, only to see that dry up over night. What were these sheiks to do with all their oil money? Now they watch their oil fields and refineries go up in smoke. Not that they won't rebound from these losses, but until then no more world heavyweight matches at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh.
It's been something to watch the sports world taken over by Saudi money. Not just the sports world but television and movie studios as well, as the Saudis had been putting up big bucks to get a share of the massive entertainment pie. They are major investors in the Paramount Sundance takeover of Warner Brothers, as the Ellisons had to do something to counter the Netflix offer of $84 billion. They got the Saudis to pitch in an extra $24 bil making it a deal the WB board simply couldn't refuse. So now Warner Brothers is partially owned by Saudi Arabia, as is HBO, CNN and a whole host of cable television channels that came with the deal.
The Ellisons had already taken over Paramount, which in turn bought CBS, and has since been drastically altering the news scape on that broadcast company. There have been mass departures, not just the crew of 60 Minutes, due to the new direction that favors a MAGA audience. It has seen a huge drop in viewer audience with their latest sock puppet as anchor, dropping below 4 million viewers, well behind ABC and NBC. I guess that's the price you pay for not making fun of Trump anymore. Still, they have plenty of time to revamp the network. But isn't one Fox News enough?
Already it seems that Trump is crying "uncle" as he has found no one to give him a hand in reopening the Strait of Hormuz. I guess Petey and the boys in the War Dept. didn't see that one coming. Now, Trump is apparently willing to negotiate to get the stranded oil and gas tankers through the narrow strait. That's not going to look too good on his war resume.
The so-called "Leader of the Free World" has been unable to get fellow NATO countries on board, calling them "cowards!" That's what happens when you don't discuss your plans with anyone beforehand. After all, NATO countries are busy helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia, or has our former Nobel-Peace-Prize aspirant forgotten that?
Meanwhile, Israel is working with the Pentagon to gut Iran's assets while Trump was playing golf. He was apparently upset he hadn't been informed of this. Now he knows how NATO countries feel.
I don't think Trump has been fully aware what is going on from the get-go. All Bibi and Petey needed was his rubber stamp. They'll take care of the rest. This war was supposed to be over in days but they didn't think Iran would "fight dirty." After having taken nearly two years to subdue Hamas, you would think at least Bibi would be aware how far Iran would take this war when directly attacked. The new Ayatollah still hasn't unleashed the Kraken.
The longer this war plays out the more damage to the lucrative Gulf States, which are a big part of the Trump administration's investment strategies in their future. You would think with Elon's $800 billion or so and Larry Ellison's $200 billion and all the other fat cat supporters behind Trump, they wouldn't need the House of Saud and its Gulf State subsidiaries, but apparently they do. It just goes to show you that much of this money is fictional like Dogecoin, but we live in an increasingly fictionalized world, making it hard to determine what is real anymore.
It wasn't that long ago that Elon and other tech barons were decrying AI, calling it woke, now they are all in. A bubble just waiting to burst like the Hindenburg. Of course, these guys will get off Scot clean. No offense to Scots.
I just don't get how we could put ourselves in the hands of Israel and the Gulf States. It was negotiated back in Trump's first term when his son-in-law Jar Jar was getting these Arab states to recognize Israel and free up their money to invest heavily in Trump projects. Jar Jar got a $2 billion Saudi investment in his private equity firm for all his hard work.
This was suppose to bring peace to the Middle East but all it did was create more tensions, which bubbled over on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1200 Israeli civilians and taking 250 hostages. Bibi vented his rage on Gaza, leveling the seaside territory and killing more than 70,000 Palestinians in the process. You'd think that would be enough bloodshed for a decade, but Bibi wasn't through. He wanted to get to the source, Iran, which has been funding these terrorist groups for years. The Saudis were fine with it because Iran had also been funding the Houthis in Yemen and they wanted to see this civil war come to an end, as it affected its control over the Arab peninsula.
Let's call Donald. He'll do it. We can get Donald to do anything. So there he was sending an armada to the Arabian Sea, with Captain Petey Hornblower on the prow of the ship, to give Iran a good scare. The IDF would do the dirty work. They would take out the Ayatollah. The US just had to provide cover. It seemed so easy. The US had already successfully gotten Venezuela to comply to their dictates simply by kidnapping Maduro. The only problem was that Venezuela was all too happy to get rid of their little emperor. Iran was not so happy to have their Ayatollah executed in his home, probably on his prayer mat.
Here we are three weeks later and still no sign the war will be over any time soon. I suppose if Iran does drop a "dirty bomb" or takes out other NATO country assets in the Middle East, Europe will be dragged into this war. What happens next is anyone's guess, but it is somewhat hopeful that Trump seems to be developing cold feet. This turned out to be much more than he bargained for and now he is looking for a way out, even as thousands of Marines are being deployed to the Arabian Sea.
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