Spriro on American Hegemony

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Doug,
Was I right to pick up skepticism in your interview of Spiro? What do other
people think of how he has made sense of how the petrodollars were
recycled. He focused on who won and lost and which preexisting arrangements
were violated along the way (for example he likened the way the US
influenced the recycling to a teacher deciding to auction off grades). He
also pointed to the dual advantage that the US derives from the pricing of
oil in dollars: ability to procure oil by simply printing greenbacks and
consumption of global exports simply because other countries need dollars.
Finally he suggested that the deal the US cut with Saudi Arabia for the
latter's massive purchase of T bills explains why the US sent 500,000
troops to defend a feudal desert monarchy. I fear that others here didn't
find the analysis that compelling. So I'd love to hear peoples' skepticism
(of course Doug's in particular).

Yours, Rakesh