The middle east...

[Bedford Roughyed]

Iran accusing Saudi Arabia of carrying out air strike on its embassy in Yemen...

 

Saudi's hanging Shia clerics.

 

This new Saudi regime are flexing muscles but I'm not sure it will end well.

 

(never mind the whole Syria bit)

[GeordieSaint]

It is an absolute mess. The problem is both 'States' are as bad as each other. We all know the problems with Saudi Arabia but the Iranians are as bad executing Sunnis regularly from various ethnic groups like the Baluchis and Kurds whilst using force and proxies in their attempt to dominate the Middle Eastern region. There is an internal Islamic Civil War going on and has been over a thousand years between Shia and Sunnis. In the words of a former RUSI Director, "we'd be better not getting involved and letting them get on with it."

[Martyn Sadler]

There is an internal Islamic Civil War going on and has been over a thousand years between Shia and Sunnis.

 

When we invaded Iraq and knocked off Saddam Hussein, that was the key thing that the west didn't fully understand.

[Bedford Roughyed]

Sunnis and Shia, Arab and Persian.

 

Its been bubbling for ages of course.  The new Saudi regime seems to be taking it up a level however.  New King is letting his son get involved in Yemen, etc.  I wonder if the oil price is putting pressure on too?

[GeordieSaint]

Sunnis and Shia, Arab and Persian.

 

Its been bubbling for ages of course.  The new Saudi regime seems to be taking it up a level however.  New King is letting his son get involved in Yemen, etc.  I wonder if the oil price is putting pressure on too?

 

It has always been a friction point but has escalated in recent times. Martyn isn't far off the mark with his assertion that the Iraq Invasion 03 upset the status quo and this has been exemplified dramatically due to the Arab Spring on both sides with an emboldened Iran seeking to dominate through proxies in Bahrain, Eastern Saudi Arabia and Yemen whilst the Saudis and other Sunnis states pushing in Syria for example. Saudi actions in Yemen against the Houthis are reactive. Still, it an absolute minefield and a right old mess.

[Bedford Roughyed]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/prince-mohammed-bin-salman-naive-arrogant-saudi-prince-is-playing-with-fire-a6804481.html

 

 

At the end of last year the BND, the German intelligence agency, published a remarkable one-and-a-half-page memo saying that Saudi Arabia had adopted “an impulsive policy of intervention”. It portrayed Saudi defence minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – the powerful 29-year-old favourite son of the ageing King Salman, who is suffering from dementia – as a political gambler who is destabilising the Arab world through proxy wars in Yemen and Syria.

[The Future is League]

I honestly don't think the middle east problem will ever be solved.

[Rage]

I honestly don't think the middle east problem will ever be solved.

It can be solved. Israel and Palestine making Peace going back to the 1967 borders & everything will fall into place.

[Bedford Roughyed]

It can be solved. Israel and Palestine making Peace going back to the 1967 borders & everything will fall into place.

 

Wouldn't fix the Iran/Saudi issue.  Even if it could happen.

[bowes]

It can be solved. Israel and Palestine making Peace going back to the 1967 borders & everything will fall into place.

95% of the trouble in the Middle East these days has absolutely nothing to do with Israel and Palestine

[Saint Toppy]

I honestly don't think the middle east problem will ever be solved.

Call me a cynic but I firmly believe that once the oil runs out no-one except the arms maufactureres will care. The West, Russia, China etc. will just wash their hands of the whole region and leave them to kill each other year after year. In election year politicians will no doubt make a few occasional humanitarian token gestures and they'll intervene if their own security is threatened, but other than that they'll all change policy and declare the region as one they should no longer interfere in. 20-30 years from now the west will close its borders with virtually no-one getting in or out of the region and civil war will priobably engulf the whole area.

For all the blame laid at the door of countries like the USA and Russia, its only because of their continued intervention that an all out war across the whole region hasn't happened. Once they leave all bets are off and whats happening in Syria now will be mirrored across the whole middle east region.

 

For those that doubt that this will be the most likely outcome take a look at Africa. There's been war after war, invasions, genocide and every other kind of atrocity happening for years but we rarely intervene because there's very little for other countries to gain from it. No oil = No intervention !

[Bedford Roughyed]

Good to see the accidental incursion by a couple of US boats into Iranian waters seems to of past without major incident. It's almost like having diplomatic relations can work!

Meanwhile Louise Mensch is demanding air strikes and calling Iranians pigs.

[GeordieSaint]

Meanwhile Louise Mensch is demanding air strikes and calling Iranians pigs.

 

Airstrikes on Iran?

[Bedford Roughyed]

Yup

[GeordieSaint]

Yup

 

Ufff... do you have a link? I could do with a chuckle this afternoon.

[Bedford Roughyed]

Ufff... do you have a link? I could do with a chuckle this afternoon.

 

Her twitter feed is a joy.

 

Louise Mensch ‏@LouiseMensch  4h4 hours ago

Louise Mensch Retweeted Sobhan Hassanvand

Air strikes now

 

Louise Mensch ‏@LouiseMensch  4h4 hours ago

Louise Mensch Retweeted Neil Warden

I know they've been released. Obama should now strike @HassanRouhani palace into rubble

[GeordieSaint]

Her twitter feed is a joy.

 

Louise Mensch ‏@LouiseMensch  4h4 hours ago

Louise Mensch Retweeted Sobhan Hassanvand

Air strikes now

 

Louise Mensch ‏@LouiseMensch  4h4 hours ago

Louise Mensch Retweeted Neil Warden

I know they've been released. Obama should now strike @HassanRouhani palace into rubble

 

Surely that is some form of joke? It did make me laugh at the lunacy of it all...

[Bedford Roughyed]

Surely that is some form of joke? It did make me laugh at the lunacy of it all...

 

No jokes.  She seems quite keen to double down on it!  Now rambling about the sexism and racism of the one female sailor covering her hair.

[jacksy]

Horrible woman.

USN trespasses and get pulled and then released without harm. 

[Bedford Roughyed]

She's still going.

[Martyn Sadler]

To have American naval personnel kneeling at gunpoint and apologising profusely to the Iranians is a tremendous PR coup for that country that will bolster its anti-USA credentials.

 

It seems that the Americans are now, to use Mao Tse Tung's words, a paper tiger. They don't frighten anyone.

[Bedford Roughyed]

To have American naval personnel kneeling at gunpoint and apologising profusely to the Iranians is a tremendous PR coup for that country that will bolster its anti-USA credentials.

 

It seems that the Americans are now, to use Mao Tse Tung's words, a paper tiger. They don't frighten anyone.

 

Should they of opened fire to avoid a PR coup?  To put the wind up a few people?

[ckn]

To have American naval personnel kneeling at gunpoint and apologising profusely to the Iranians is a tremendous PR coup for that country that will bolster its anti-USA credentials.

 

It seems that the Americans are now, to use Mao Tse Tung's words, a paper tiger. They don't frighten anyone.

The rules of armed combat are quite clear: The American crew screwed up.  They were held according to international law then released in good faith.  Nothing to see, let's move on.  Unless you're a Republican politician or crazed lunatic who suggests that the US should have gone to war over their own mistake.  Only a brain-dead fool would suggest sabre-rattling military escalation over this incident is even slightly appropriate.

 

What did they expect the Iranians to do?  Apologise profusely for inconveniencing the American military personnel in Iranian territorial waters?

[Martyn Sadler]

The rules of armed combat are quite clear: The American crew screwed up.  They were held according to international law then released in good faith.  Nothing to see, let's move on.  Unless you're a Republican politician or crazed lunatic who suggests that the US should have gone to war over their own mistake.  Only a brain-dead fool would suggest sabre-rattling military escalation over this incident is even slightly appropriate.

 

What did they expect the Iranians to do?  Apologise profusely for inconveniencing the American military personnel in Iranian territorial waters?

 

You and Bedford Roughyed are missing the point, which is that when forces of the world's supposed superpower are humiliated at gunpoint by a country it has recently supposedly done a deal with, then the superpower isn't a superpower any more. And to put the photos and video out as the Iranians did was to cock a snook at the Geneva Convention, apart from anything else.

 

If you set yourself the task of being the world's policeman, as the Americans have by and large since the SWW, you can only do that if other nations respect you, which is another way of saying they fear you.

 

When they are not frightened to kick sand in your face, your power has gone.

 

That's all well and good, but if the Americans are giving up that role, other nations will take their place. And, whoever they are, their values may not be compatible with ours.

 

An awful lot of other countries with despotic regimes, as well as terrorist groups, will have been watching this and drawing their own conclusions.

[ckn]

You and Bedford Roughyed are missing the point, which is that when forces of the world's supposed superpower are humiliated at gunpoint by a country it has recently supposedly done a deal with, then the superpower isn't a superpower any more. And to put the photos and video out as the Iranians did was to cock a snook at the Geneva Convention, apart from anything else.

 

If you set yourself the task of being the world's policeman, as the Americans have by and large since the SWW, you can only do that if other nations respect you, which is another way of saying they fear you.

 

When they are not frightened to kick sand in your face, your power has gone.

 

That's all well and good, but if the Americans are giving up that role, other nations will take their place. And, whoever they are, their values may not be compatible with ours.

 

An awful lot of other countries with despotic regimes, as well as terrorist groups, will have been watching this and drawing their own conclusions.

The US is a bit war-weary but even at peak-power at the end of the Cold War they wouldn't have done anything apart from send an apology to Tehran for intruding in their territorial waters.  The US were in the wrong, Iran isn't an ally by any means and actually had the rights under international laws to detain the crew for criminal trespass charges.  They took a few pictures because they're Iran and they like willy-waggling at the US and have done ever since the 1970s.

 

Anyway, why does one bit of respecting international law and having an amicable hand-back of the crew mean that the US is "giving up its role" as world policeman?  What should they have done?  Ordered the crew to go bravely to their deaths against an overwhelming force only to spark a greater conflict?  No, the US military did exactly the right thing by admitting they were in the wrong, the Iranians handed back the crew, incident defused.  Or so it should be anyway.