* * *
The New Year’s execution by Saudi Arabia of the Shiite
cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr was a deliberate provocation.
Its first purpose: Signal the new ruthlessness and
resolve of the Saudi monarchy where the power behind the throne is the
octogenarian King Salman’s son, the 30-year-old Defense Minister Mohammed bin
Salman.
Second, crystallize, widen and deepen a
national-religious divide between Sunni and Shiite, Arab and Persian, Riyadh
and Tehran.
Third, rupture the rapprochement between Iran and the
United States and abort the Iranian nuclear deal.
The provocation succeeded in its near-term goal. An
Iranian mob gutted and burned the Saudi embassy, causing diplomats to flee, and
Riyadh to sever diplomatic ties.
From Baghdad to Bahrain, Shiites protested the execution
of a cleric who, while a severe critic of Saudi despotism and a champion of
Shiite rights, was not convicted of inciting revolution or terror.
In America, the reaction has been divided.
The Wall Street Journal rushed, sword in hand, to the
side of the Saudi royals: “The U.S. should make clear to Iran and Russia that
it will defend the Kingdom from Iranian attempts to destabilize or invade.”
* FRIGGIN' NEOCONS...
(*GNASHING MY TEETH*)
* AGAIN... THE RUSSIANS SHOULD BE OUR ALLIES - NOT OUR
ENEMIES!
* AS FOR THE SAUDIS...
(*SHRUG*)
* THEY'VE ALWAYS BEEN OUR "FRIENDEMIES." (SEE:
9/11; NATIONALITY OF HIJACKERS.)
The Washington Post was disgusted. In an editorial, “A
Reckless Regime,” it called the execution risky, ruthless and unjustified.
* AND SO TOO DOES THE LEFT MISS THE NUANCE...
(*SIGH*)
Yet there is a lesson here. Like every regime in the
Middle East, the Saudis look out for their own national interests first.
* YEP! (IF ONLY WE DID THE SAME!)
And their goals here are to first force us to choose
between them and Iran, and then to conscript U.S. power on their side in the
coming wars of the Middle East.
* OBAMA (ALONG WITH HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, OBAMA'S
FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE) HAS THROWN THE WORLD INTO CHAOS. HIS ACTIONS HAVE
WEAKENED THE U.S. POSITION IN THE WORLD AND HIS (THEIR!) FOREIGN POLICY HAS
DONE MORE HARM TO OUR COUNTRY THAN ANY ROGUE NATION OR TERRORIST GROUP COULD
EVER HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH.
* OH... AND BY THE WAY... IT'S NOT JUST AMERICA AND
AMERICANS WHO BEAR THE CONSEQUENCES; IT'S THE ENTIRE WORLD! IT'S YEMEN, LIBYA,
EGYPT... IT'S EUROPE...
(*SIGH*)
Thus the Saudis went AWOL from the battle against ISIS
and al-Qaida in Iraq and Syria.
* AGAIN... OBAMA AND CLINTON LARGELY "CREATED"
ISIS! OUR (OBAMA'S AND CLINTON'S) SUPPORT FOR THE OVERTHROW OF MUBARAK AND THE
INSTALLATION OF THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD INTO POWER FOR A TIME... THE TOPPLING OF
GADAFI AND THE SUBSEQUENT CHAOS IN LIBYA... THE UNDECLARED WAR AGAINST SYRIA...
THE RENEWAL OF THE COLD WAR AGAINST RUSSIA...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* FOLKS... OBAMA'S PRESIDENCY HAS BEEN A DISASTER IN
EVERY RESPECT...
Yet they persuaded us to help them crush the Houthi
rebels in Yemen, though the Houthis never attacked us and would have
exterminated al-Qaida.
(*MASSIVE MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)
Now that a Saudi coalition has driven the Houthis back
toward their northern base camp, ISIS and al-Qaida have moved into some of the
vacated terrain. What kind of victory is that — for us?
(*SIGH*)
In the economic realm, also, the Saudis are doing us no
favors. While Riyadh is keeping up oil production and steadily bringing down
the world price on which Iranian and Russian prosperity hangs, the Saudis are
also crippling the U.S. fracking industry they fear.
* I DISAGREE. I VIEW THE U.S. FACKING INDUSTRY AS - AT
WORST - IN "HIBERNATION."
The Turks, too, look out for number one.
* AND THE PRESENT TURKISH GOVERNMENT IS NOT OUR ALLY...
(*BITING MY LOWER LIP*)
* TURKEY STARTED "TURNING" DURING THE CLINTON
ADMINISTRATION... THE EARLY 90's...
The Turkish shoot-down of that Russian fighter-bomber,
which may have intruded into its airspace for 17 seconds, was both a case in
point and a dangerous and provocative act. Had Vladimir Putin chosen to respond
militarily against Turkey, a NATO ally, his justified retaliation could have
produced demands from Ankara for the United States to come to its defense
against Russia. A military clash with our former Cold War adversary, which half
a dozen U.S. presidents skillfully avoided, might well have been at hand.
* I BELIEVE THERE'S A GREATER DANGER OF WAR... WAR IMPACTING
US PHYSICALLY HERE WITHIN OUR OWN BORDERS... NOW... THAN WE'VE EXPERIENCED
SINCE THE 1980's. AGAIN... OBAMA'S (SUPPORTED - CARRIED OUT - BY HILLARY
CLINTON) FOREIGN POLICY HAS BEEN A TOTAL DISASTER FOR THE U.S. AND THE WEST.
These incidents raise some long-dormant but overdue
questions. What exactly is our vital interest in a permanent military alliance
that obligates us to go to war on behalf of an autocratic ally as erratic and
rash as Turkey’s Tayyip Recep Erdogan?
* ANSWER: NONE!
Do U.S.-Turkish interests really coincide today?
* ANSWER: NO!
While Turkey’s half-million-man army could easily seal
the Syrian border and keep ISIS fighters from entering or leaving, it has
failed to do so.
* YEP...
Instead, Turkey is using its army to crush the Kurdish
PKK and threaten the Syrian Kurds who are helping us battle ISIS.
(*NODDING*)
In Syria’s civil war — with the army of Bashar Assad
battling ISIS and al-Qaida — it is Russia and Iran and even Hezbollah that seem
to be more allies of the moment than the Turks, Saudis or Gulf Arabs.
* YEP...
(*SIGH*)
“We have no permanent allies … no permanent enemies …
only permanent interests” is a loose translation of the dictum of the 19th
century British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston.
Turkey’s shoot-down of a Russian jet and the Saudi
execution of a revered Shiite cleric, who threatened no one in prison, should
cause the United States to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of the alliances
and war guarantees we have outstanding, many of them dating back half a
century.
* THAT'S NOT THE WAY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT OPERATES. WE'RE
AN INCREDIBLY STUPID AND SELF-DESTRUCTIVE PEOPLE WITH A GOVERNMENT TO MATCH.
(*SHRUG*)
Do all, do any, still serve U.S. vital national
interests?
* ANSWER: NOPE!
In the Middle East, where the crucial Western interest is
oil, and every nation — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Libya — has to sell it to
survive — no nation should be able drag us into a war not of our own choosing.
In cases where we share a common enemy, we should follow
the wise counsel of the Founding Fathers and entrust our security, if need be,
to “temporary,” but not “permanent” or “entangling alliances.”
(*NODDING*)
Moreover, given the myriad religious, national and tribal
divisions between the nations of the Middle East, and within many of them, we
should continue in the footsteps of our fathers, who kept us out of such wars
when they bedeviled the European continent of the 19th century.
* FROM YOUR TYPING FINGERS TO THE GOD'S NOTICE, PAT!
(BECAUSE I FEAR THE AMERICAN SHEEPLE ARE FAR TO IGNORANT TO EVEN COMPREHEND THE
POINTS YOU'VE MADE HERE...)
(*SIGH*)
This hubristic Saudi blunder should be a wake-up call for
us all.
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