i'm sure there are parallels in arab history, but the history i know is in france. jay points out what i was thinking when watching this.
there are a handful of dominant frankish kings - clovis, charlemagne - that managed to unite a large area through warfare and conquest. these empires were then split up amongst the king's sons as a strategy to present conflict over the empire. the hope was that if each son had it's own kingdom, they wouldn't fight over the big crown. of course, that rarely worked out in france, but it was eventually more "successful" in germany where dozens of states were set up - until the prussians showed up, and the horrors of german nationalism appeared.
i'm not drawing silly comparisons. but the whole thing is really astounding.
yeah. the americans want to be an exporter, not pull themselves to sufficiency. that's propaganda. everybody makes more money if the saudis and americans ship oil to each other.
the americans have their own export interests in reducing supply.