Mohammed bin Salman: Saudi leader given US immunity over Khashoggi killing

You are using a very non-colloquial understanding of "independent" and to what end?

Are they independent if going against him means you most likely will lose your job next election cycle?

Both Russia and China have been pushing to do their oil settlements in a basket of currencies and not just the dollar. This should tell you all you need to know why KSA has the US right where it wants them.

The British Pound is a powerful currency backed by an industrial base and a consumer led economy everyone wants to sell into. EUR is the same way. But neither of them are superpowers because no other country needs the GBP or EUR like they need the USD.

Countries all around the world keep USD in their current account balance even if they barely import stuff from the US because every country needs oil and oil can only be bought with dollars.

Say your high school bully demanded 10 SchruteBucks every day to leave you alone at lunch. And the only supplier of SchruteBucks in the whole world was this paper salesman called Dwight Schrute.

Quite evidently, your entire life would revolve around making sure Dwight was still willing to give you SchruteBucks just so that your bully would stay off your back for one more day.

That bully is KSA. Dwight is the US. The kid sucking up to Dwight is all the other countries in the world.

When Putin rants about a unipolar world, this is what he is talking about.

It’s an unjust world where we can’t afford to antagonise the US without also running the risk of not being able to buy petrol to run our economy.

Pretty shameful. Up to this article being flagged.

I think the problem here is humans being (more easily) corruptible and capable of evil when lots of power and money are involved. I don't think oil specifically has something to do with it.

Although I agree with hoping we move on from depending on SA resources. (And I say this as a devout Muslim)

Hate to break it to you, but we don't care. We never have. "We" being the "enlightened west" in general. Study enough history and it becomes pretty clear. Governments only take humanitarian action against evil when there's a clear threat to their interests (Ukraine), a perceived strategic opportunity (Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya) or there's little/no risk in the confrontation (Somalia/Libya). We have a hard enough time getting people to care about their immediate neighbors, I'd be surprised if 1/100 Americans could even find Yemen on a map. Throw institutions and economics/ideologies on top and the international good of the common people always takes a back seat.

And lest people think I'm just shitting on America right now, look at the deals Finland/Sweden are making with Turkey for NATO membership. The vaunted, enlightened, socially democratic, supposedly-closest-thing-to-the-Star-Trek-Federation Nordics are screwing the Kurds for their own interests.

No institution outside of charities/NGOs has ever functioned from a standpoint of moral purity. Sure many have claimed to when a convenient narrative was available, but no nation that implemented a "morality first" platform would survive for long. They simply wouldn't be able to strike deals with most other nations on moral grounds, and would turn themselves into a nicer, gentler North Korea. I guess Bhutan comes the closest, but aside from their use as a buffer zone/chess piece between the Indians and Chinese, no one outside of some human-interest bloggers cares about Bhutan (if I have to hear about their happiness index one more time...). Europe's various moral stances are the result of American strategic overwatch and a globalized economic system where they didn't have to secure their own resources. Take those away and the morality will dry up awful fast (where do you think the old European empires came from?)

As for the Saudis and Yemen specifically, I think most Americans in the abstract would agree we should be sanctioning the Saudis... right up until they learn that means gas shortages and insane prices at the pump. For most Americans the cost of gas directly impacts their families' livelihoods, and people will always pick their own family's welfare over the welfare of strangers half a world away. Sure there's a minority that's willing to sacrifice regardless, and sure it would be nice if the whole world was that way. But it isn't, not even close. So we have to deal with what we have, and Yemen, among other places, is screwed.