JR, you are absolutely correct that the money trail is ultimately key, and nobody expresses that kind of thing like you do!  And you also point out the irony (hypocrisy?) in seeing public opinion galvanized by the beheadings of two Americans, while the same thing happens with state sanction in Saudi Arabia.  Yes.  Hopefully, the president is not going to justify what he will talk about tonight on the basis of that alone, but the effect, the extraordinary effect on the nation by the beheadings, is noted.  

Maybe Obama will link our new blow stuff and people up and send more weapons scheme to an income tax surcharge and the GOP will stall it in committee. It was so much easier when we were told getting Saddam and purple fingers voting would turn Iraq into a stable democracy. Bombing Jihadists will only create more Jihadists.

Although the latest plan, from the Democrats, is the US will 'train' some faction to fight IS and all the other factions. Infidels soiling the cause will condemn any group we back to oblivion. I hope this thing is not approved. We are flailing in the dark.

Neo-cons said Shiites and Sunni's would never turn on each other. Many are still presented as experts, Bush advisor Wolfowitz is still on TV (meet the Press, June 2014)

2003 - "We can pay for the war with the oil, and there has never been ethnic conflict in Iraq, not to worry!

On the tragic humor side, The Ode to Wolfowitz (from 2003) I can no longer find it on Google. By an unknown writer on the occasion of Wolfi's hotel being hit by a rocket launched from a donkey in Baghdad Oct, 2003.

Ode to Wolfowitz

O sweet, sweet Irony. How comforting thy terrible countenance became to the wise when thou chose to turn thy gaze to the proud and haughty and administer their comeuppance…

O Wolfowitz...

It was with great woe that the wise beheld thou in thy smug righteousness, when thou would not bear reproach for thy excesses and appetites, thy shock and awe, where mothers in Babylon wept...

And the wise witnessed thee before the senate, with thy chest puffed up with proud boasts, demanding the senate yoke more taxes onto the necks of the poor, so thou could pry ever more no-bid contracts for thy Caesar and his coin masters...

O Wolfowitz, Vice-regent of Neo-Babylon....

After thou filled thy coffers with gold and heaped contempt upon the meek who dared beg for the crumbs from thy Caesar's table, thou devised plans to survey the land of the vanquished and behold thy spoils of war...

Lo, how couldst thou neglect, that thy withering presence would greatly kindle the hot displeasure of the weak as they witnessed thy proud mouth boast of thy great works, of what was, and was to come…

Even while yet, the great crowd still awaits thy showing of these, weapons o' mass destruction, that thy footman, Uncle Powell, did bellow in a wroth voice full of war, and swore an oath before the great assembly of the kings of the world, were hid of every shadow of every rock in Babylon...

The vanquished, not able to bear the baneful discomfiture of thy haughty visage, made council to prepare for thee, a strong cup of trembling...

In thy infallible omniscience, thou failed to heed the ministrations of thy Prefect, Pontius Bremer, who establishes his chambers in fortified walls and cities and makes for his daily company, fierce men of war and bravery renowned, and will not suffer to leave their presence...

In thy fervent desire to make proof for thy Caesar of this, progress and security that thou hadst allegedly wrought amongst the vanquished, who have bitterly wept for the sake of their sons and daughters, thou proceeded to lay thy head in the midst of the maelstrom, thy heart made glad and confident by thy own proud boasts...

With great marvel, the wise witnessed thee, shocked and awed from thine own bedchambers in thy underwear, after thou were served but a meager sip from this same cup of trembling thou pitilessly force to the lips of the weak, gourd after gourd...

What jest greeted thee, when thou strived to strengthen thy trembling knees and made haste to clear thy throat with thy Caesar's customary gargle of, staying the course, dead-enders, Baathists, foreign instigators and such like, even as thou fled for thy life....

O Wolfowitz...

Wherefore dost thou now deny thyself the rapturous joy of a Mesopotamian sunset...?

There's a difference between " killing " ... bullet, bomb, or building collapse ... and " execution " ... public decapitation.

The deliberate execution was new territory no one expected and no one was prepared to deal with. The new players in the game have different value sets they follow that aren't found in anyone's game plan for waging war.

But the west should have had a clue seeing how justice in the Middle East is carried out swiftly and deadly ... get caught stealing and you lose your hand ... very simple solution and very few thefts.

As for shutting down oil revenues that won't happen ... oil demand in the 3rd world are such that it would find it's way there regardless of the efforts by the industrialized west. And I suspect China would ignore any oil embargoes ... they need all the oil they can get and have been on the road to challenging the US at every corner of the world because they intent to take the US's position as the dominate currency and global leader.