Lethal Trajectories - Michael Conley [160]
Lin Cheng knew that even if China had all the oil it needed, it would find little relief until the global economy was restored and nations could once again afford to buy Chinese exports. Lin knew that affordability of oil was the dragon in the canary cage, and until it was remedied, there would be no easy solutions.
King Mustafa’s regime was also cracking at the seams. His hardline reforms did not sit well with sectors of the Saudi population that had enjoyed a more moderate culture and government, and the economic impact of withholding large amounts of oil from foreign markets was being felt throughout the kingdom. Irreparable geologic damage was done to a number of Saudi oil fields where production was curtailed too abruptly, and oil storage became a major problem for the Mustafa regime. Mustafa started to sell a couple of million barrels of oil a day through surrogates in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE to ease the economic pain, but he also had to look the other way as they started selling more of their own oil. It weakened the effect of the embargo, but what else could he do? The additional supply, coupled with the reduction in demand due to the global economic meltdown, created a slight drop in oil prices, but the irreparable damage to the global economy had been done.
The protectorate alliance Mustafa had with his Gulf neighbors was also weakening. They were unwilling or unable to expel all Western military forces from their countries, and Mustafa was in no mood to engage those forces with his thinly spread armored brigades. He prudently withdrew his forces to the edges of their borders and relied more on his dirty-bomb deterrents than on land-based buffer zones to prevent an attack on Saudi territory.
Israel remained in the highest state of alert, but the prolonged effect of their full mobilization was taking its toll on the economy and psyche of the country. The insurrections in Gaza and the West Bank were eventually silenced, with great loss of lives and property. Israel had secured its borders with an iron fist after intercepting two dirty-bomb terrorist plots that would most assuredly have led to an all-out air assault on Saudi Arabia, had not President McCarty put his foot down. If it happened again, Israel proclaimed its intention to attack, regardless of American sentiment.
Prince Khalid ibn Saud had been granted asylum in the United States and used his time to build a cadre of military forces and political allies to help him reclaim Saudi Arabia. He pursued his contacts with OPEC and other Arab leaders and had a fair amount of success building an underground network in Saudi Arabia. His vision was clear: he would lead a force that would oust the Mustafa regime and restore Saudi Arabia to the responsible and stable nation it once was.
The Persian Gulf and surrounding countries became an armed camp. The allied forces crammed their combined air, sea, and land power into a relatively small area to enable massive strikes on short notice. The only thing standing in the way was the dirty-bomb shields lacing Saudi Arabian oil fields and threatening its Gulf neighbors. Without the dirty bombs, Mustafa’s regime, while formidable, was all but defenseless against the combined might of the allied coalition led by the United States and China.
As but one example of the military buildup, the Americans had bolstered their Fifth Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain, with three additional aircraft carrier battle groups. A large proportion of America’s air and ground forces, in fact, were within striking distance of Saudi Arabia and alert at all times for trouble. The allies joined in with strong matching forces.
Life for Clayton and Maggie McCarty was also challenging.