"É inimigo público nº1 dos EUA, qualquer um que ameace o seu parasítico sistema petro-dólar".
The USA has some unsavoury allies in the Middle East, including theocratic dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.Their vast energy reserves are not only essential to the USA, but also the trading of these reserves in the petrodollar monopoly is vital to propping up the bankrupt US economy. Russia, at the moment, is the primary energy supplier to the EU - the world's largest market. It is widely accepted truism today, over a decade after the "war on terror" began, that all the wars in the Middle East were launched to protect America's oil and energy interests.
Less well known is the country's desperate scramble to protect the petrodollar monopoly. If that fails, the dollar will no longer remain the world's reserve currency and the USA is financially screwed. If you look at all the recent wars, invasions, and "humanitarian interventions" that have resulted in collapsed countries and anarchy across whole regions, it is clear that beyond oil and gas the key issue is money: pre-2003 Iraq tried to trade what oil it could in euro not dollars and Saddam Hussein was deposed; despite being welcomed briefly back into the international fold, once Libya's Colonel Gaddafi began to talk about establishing an African gold dinar currency, backed by Libya's oil wealth to challenge the petrodollar, he too was toppled; Assad wanted to facilitate energy pipelines to Europe for Russia and Iran, and he was attacked; even Iran tried to trade its energy reserves in euro, and lo and behold it was almost invaded in 2008; and finally Russia itself trades some of its energy in rubles.
As people say, always follow the money. So, in my view, this is the current geopolitical situation. Russia is now strong enough, with its domination of Europe's energy supply, its backing of Middle Eastern countries that want to break away from the US sphere of influence, and its investment development bank with other BRICS countries, that it can challenge the US hegemony. However, threaten the petrodollar monopoly and thereby the very financial solvency of the United States of America and you are suddenly Public Enemy No 1.
