The Trigger Point

The Trigger Point

Bahrain is located next door to Saudi Arabia. The majority of Bahrain's population is Shia; however, the country has been ruled by the same Sunni family for over 200 years.

As you can imagine, the uprisings in Bahrain have not been taken lightly by the entrenched royal family. In fact, they have fought back mercilessly against the Shia uprisings. To ensure the Sunni control is protected, Saudi Arabia has sent in troops to help crush the Shia revolt and Iran has stepped forward to support the Shias.

After years of indirect fighting, Iran and Saudi Arabia are squaring off directly as the violence in Bahrain has reached new levels of savagery.

Already, Shia protesters have been sentenced to death by the Sunni royal family.

New York Times columnist Michael Slackman reports that he was recently detained by Sunni Bahrain security forces. They were about to shoot him when he showed his American passport.

"We're not after you. We're after Shia," the Sunni policeman stated. Slackman reports that it "sounded like they were hunting rats."

According to The New York Times , in Bahrain in recent weeks, you could see "corpses of protesters who were shot at close range, a teenage girl writhing in pain after being clubbed, and ambulance workers beaten for trying to rescue protesters."

The NYT also reports on a video from Bahrain showing "security forces shooting an unarmed middle-aged Shia man in the chest with a tear gas canister at a range of a few feet. The man collapses and struggles to get up. And then they shoot him with a canister in the head."

The violence and chaos we are witnessing in the Middle East goes far beyond a fight for freedom. The more the uprisings destabilize the existing power structure, the more violent and prevalent the Sunni vs. Shia violence becomes. The violence will not stop in Bahrain. According to the Arab Times , on June 6, 2011, armed gangs slaughtered 120 police officers in Yemen, mutilating the bodies and throwing others into the Assi River.

Chaos is spreading fast, and Shia Iran have attacked Sunni Saudi Arabia where it really hurts, The Saudi oil fields...

If you thought the 2008-2009 financial crisis was rough, hold on to your hat, because when the Saudi oil fields are breached, we are going to witness an economic meltdown of astronomical proportions.

Saudi Arabia is the main supplier of oil to the world. According to the U.S. government, Saudi Arabia supplies 25% of the world's oil. Because of its massive reserves, Saudi Arabia is also a "swing producer"... meaning that in a crunch, they can step in and provide oil if another country is knocked offline.

For example, when Libya's oil production (only 2% of the world's supply) was knocked out during recent turmoil, oil prices were kept "in check" (they jumped 30%!) because Saudi Arabia was able to step in and provide extra oil.

Bottom line: The Saudis are CRUCIAL to the world economy... without Saudi oil, the world would simply not be able to function.

"If Saudi Arabia were to become unhinged, the consequences are almost impossible to imagine -- politically, economically, at every level," says Ryan Crocker, who was the U.S. ambassador to Iraq until 2009.

"You have no idea how bad it will be if Saudi goes down" says Business Insider.

What if Saudi oil were taken out of production? Even the threat of such would send the global oil market reeling.

"If you take it out of the equation, if something happens and the Saudis shut down, you're looking at $500 [per barrel] oil," oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens told National Journal Daily in a phone interview from Dallas.

 Saudi oil fields are vast and vulnerable... with roughly 3,400 miles of wide-open pipelines stretching across the country.That's more than the distance from New York to California. In other words, it's impossible to defend.

 The biggest Saudi oil fields are located in the Eastern Region... right across the causeway from Bahrain!

And guess who lives in the Sunni-owned Saudi oil fields?

A huge Shia population!

According to The Telegraph, Saudi Arabia's Shia population is "deeply aggrieved and marginalized, and sit on top of the kingdom's oil reserves."

As violence escalates in Bahrain... Sunni troops from Saudi Arabia are killing Iran-backed Shia protesters on a regular basis, an attack on Saudi oil pipelines likely, it is practically inevitable. It's only a matter of time before the violence and rage spreads from Bahrain to the Saudi oil fields. And like the uprisings we've seen throughout the Middle East, once one attack is launched, more will follow.

According to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS):

Tankers and pipelines are very vulnerable targets.Pipelines, through which about 40% of world's oil flows run over thousands of miles and across some of the most volatile areas in the world. A simple explosive device could puncture a pipeline deeming it non-operational. Due to their length, they are very difficult to protect."

In April 2011, an attack on an Egyptian pipeline shut off fuel to Jordan and Israel.

And Yemen oil exports STOPPED after an attack on one of their pipelines in March 2011.

In April 2011, three explosions rocked Iranian pipelines.

These attacks caused oil supply disruptions. But nothing compares to what will happen when Saudi Arabia gets hit.