Investing Offshore Is Filled With Growing Risk

The entire Mid East geopolitics has changed this past month and it is largely due to Iron Dome combined with the Shiite threat to the Sunni rulers. Egypt is now closely aligned with Israel and is key to making certain Hamas is decimated and unable to rearm. It is also key to keeping the funding from Qatar and Turkey out of Gaza which they have been doing lately. Hamas can demand whatever it wants, but Israel and Egypt and Fatah will not allow them to rise again. Egypt essentially wiped out the Muslim Brotherhood and will kill any new Brotherhood leaders who try to emerge. What is so different is that now Israel is closely aligned with the Saudis, Jordan, the Emerates, as well as Egypt. Fatah has a good relationship with Israel and stands to gain control of Gaza once the war stops. All Hamas can promise the people is more destruction, while Fatah can point to the West Bank and the lack of any destruction, a growing economy and a relatively peaceful relationship with Israel. You might notice there was almost no disruption in the West Bank during the Gaza war. No anti Israel demonstrations in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Meanwhile Gaza lay in ruins. Point counter point. It is there for all the Muslims to see how cooperating with Israel against the Iran backed terrorists is good for their lives. They also see how ISIS brutally kills Shiites.

So what does all this mean. The war between Sunni and Shiite is just getting underway in Iraq, it is full on in Syria and now it is spilling into Lebanon.  That will go on for several years and thousands on both sides will die. Turkey is on the wrong side of this battle as is Qatar and they will pay a big price for that with the Sunni Arab states. The US must become oil independent. We must have Keystone and a lot more fracking and offshore drilling. Wind and solar barely make a dent now that Obama has decided to kill coal. Coal was 40% of US power production. Wind and solar are less than 5%. It is hard to know yet how energy costs in the US will be impacted, but likely for the good vs Europe and China if fracking and Keystone are allowed to go full out. That will mean more factory production in the US if they ever change corporate tax rates.