UAE to leave OPEC

It's more complex than that.

Saudi Arabia has the East-West Pipeline [1] that takes ~7Mbpd (million barrels per day) of oil to Red Sea ports to avoid the Strait of Hormuz. They were already using it so there's not a lot of extra capacity they can get out. If we continue up the escalation ladder, the next big risk is that the Houthis close Bab al-Mandab, which is a not-quite-as-narrow but still vulnerable chokepoint to the Red Sea.

The UAE has the ADCOP (Abu Dhabi Cross Oil Pipeline) [2], which takes ~1.8Mbpd to the Gulf of Oman. This is beyond the Strait of Hormuz but not that far so technically is still vulnerable to drone attacks (in particular) from Iran if, again, we climb the escalation ladder.

The real issue is American security guarantees to GCC nations have been shown to be an illusion. Heck, the US can't protect their own bases in the region. Also, the US can't protect maritime traffic through the Strait. I mean this is in all seriousness: there is no military solution to this problem short of the use of nuclear weapons.

That means we are now in a situation where the US has to either split with Israel and offer Iran significantly better terms than they had before the war, likely including the lfiting of economic sanctions, or the US has to sit and watch the world plunge into recession and Asian countries in particular are going to burn. And who knows what a prolonged impasse will do to Europe, particularly come winter.

So far, the US seems to prefer letting the world burn rather thans plitting with Israel.

A protection racket ceases to be a protection racket if it no longer offers protection.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E2%80%93West_Crude_Oil_Pi...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habshan%E2%80%93Fujairah_oil_p...

davidf18 your post (and all your recent posts) is flagged dead.

UAE is the third largest producer in OPEC, and has options to avoid the straight, yet Their economy recently get shocked though by the war they wanted to avoid

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