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| Time for the US to Start Worrying About a Saudi Collapse |
| 2015-10-11 |
| Hat tip to Thing From Snowy Mountain. Note: It's behind a one-time wall, but worth reading. Here's what I think is the BLUF: [ForeignPolicy] While the United States may be severely limited in terms of what it can do in the short term to help the kingdom address its mounting challenges internally, it still has significant capability to alleviate some of the rising external threats and pressures that the Saudis face. That is surely America’s comparative advantage: the ability to reassure key strategic partners of our commitment to their security, and our determination to maintain a regional correlation of forces that favors the United States and its friends while deterring our common adversaries. But that is precisely the role that the Obama administration has so disastrously failed — or, more accurately, refused — to perform over the past several years, in the process undermining the morale and confidence of already fragile friends while super-charging the ambitions and aggression of their worst enemies. The question now is whether the Obama administration is even capable of recovering from the geopolitical mess it has triggered. Does it even have a clue about the disastrously destabilizing chain of events that have been unleashed by its very purposeful decision to put a “closed for business” sign on Pax Americana in the Middle East? Does it at last understand that what replaces the abandonment of U.S. leadership in the region is not some virtuous equilibrium or balance of power among local competitors, but accelerating levels of violence, extremism, and chaos? Does it have any idea of how it would go about the arduous task of rebuilding the strategic partnerships that its policies have so badly undermined, and stemming the rising tsunami of disorder that now threatens to swamp the region and U.S. interests? Alas, there’s absolutely no reason to believe that the answer to any of these questions is yes. In which case, the risks will continue to grow that on top of all the other disasters that President Obama will bequeath to his successor, he may yet add one more: an increasingly unstable and perilous situation in Saudi Arabia — the world’s largest exporter of oil, the site of Islam’s holiest sites, and a country awash, in almost equal measure, in advanced American weapons and angry Wahhabis. |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #16 See also TOPIX, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > PUTIN, SAUDI DEFENCE MINSTER AGREE TO COOPERATE FIGHT AGZ SYRIA MILITANTS. Gotta wonder iff Sunni Saudi rival Shia Iran is okey in this, as the latter is seeing its newfound "Sphere of Influence" from Iraq to the Med shrink due to Russian intervention. AND * WAFF > [Newsru] TEN ISIS MEMBERS DETAINED IN MOSCOW WID BOMBS. * GROONG > [Iraqir] RUSSIA'S BASE IN GYUMI [Armenia] MAY BE ATTACKED. * SAME > [Sputnik News] RUSSIA DEPLOYS MI-24 GUNSHIPS [Hinds] NEAR AFGHAN BORDER. * WAFF > RUSSIAN GENERAL STAFF: "WE WILL [read, CAN] BOMB AFGHANISTAN TOO" [iff We want to], YOU D **** ED AMERICAN-SKIS/YANQEES! lol. More seriously, the above e3flects Russia's covert/secret real fear, + why Vlad/VladVedev is now in Syria, + may Vlad's Boyz may intervene more directly or similarly in IRAQ + AFGHANISTAN. Thusly this Guam AM we have Vlad/Vladvedev saying Russia ... * SPUTNIK NEWS > "RUSSIA IS DEFENDING EUROPE BY FIGHITNG TERRORISTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST". Too bad the Bammer + Contemporary US Politicos in general are too SUPER/HYPER-PC = PRO-RE-ELECTION "SAFE" = "CHICKEN LITTLE" TO SAY SUCH THINGS IN PUBLIC ANYMORE. Missin' JOHN WAYNE, GARY COOPER, CHUCK NORRIS, + even TOM "SAVING PRIVATE RYAN" HANKS. * SAME > GAME CHANGER; RUSSIA'S [Direct Military] INVOLVEMENT IN SYRIA [Iraq? AfgHAN = AFPAK?] SHIFTS BALANCE OF POWER | MINISTRY OF DEFENSE OF RUSSIAN FEDERATION. * PRAVDA = ... > RUSSIA TO PRESERVE [Assad-led] STATEHOOD IN SYRIA BEFORE HELPING IRAQ. > [Freerepublic] IFF RUSSIA CAN SAVE SYRIA, IT CAN SAVE [Eastern + Western] CHRISTIANITY. TOLD YA, DIDN'T I, BUT FIRST A NICE APPLE FRITTER + COFFEE. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2015-10-11 23:50 |
| #15 Let them fall. Let everyone fight for the carcass. Fighting for Mecca and Medina might be what it takes to draw the ISIS folks out of Europe. The US should help Kurds and Israel play defense and otherwise just frack the hell out of our own oil production. |
| Posted by: schwarz 2015-10-11 21:58 |
| #14 And they're _all_ about to find out how much they needed the Traditional America they wanted cut down to size. Not least of all the Permanent Bureaucracy who found out the management of OPM had been outsourced to Beijing, who are going to do horrific things with them and their personal data sooner or later, or the Saudis who are a thin spattering of pointy-haired bosses hiding their pointy hair under kaffayehs over a bunch of slave-wages Filipino day laborers who aren't going to die to defend them from Russian-armed Iranians. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2015-10-11 18:01 |
| #13 The funny thing is, all the people who supported the election of This Asshole, including the Sunni Arab Establishment in the Muddle East and the Permanent Bureaucracy here, all did it because they wanted someone to cut Traditional America down to size. That they wanted someone who was going to be a Piece of Shit to Real America but not be a Piece of Shit to the House of Saud's or The Permanent Bureaucracy's interest... they're shocked, SHOCKED, I tell ya, to find out that he's a piece of shit to them along with being a piece of shit to the country he should owe loyalty to. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2015-10-11 17:59 |
| #12 As I mentioned in the O-Club, Foreign Policy is the industry rag for the US diplomat and the internationalist think tanks. Nominally non--partisan, it's still center-left and tends to favor the Democrat. And to paraphrase Richard Fernandez: "When the New York Times called Obama’s Syria policy 'hallucinatory' and the Washington Post offers friendly advice it’s a clear sign that important people are worried about the president’s competence." Apparently the New Jacobins never bothered to keep the "important people" in the revolutionary loop. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2015-10-11 16:28 |
| #11 more motivated by a concern about what will happen to the money that the Sauds spread through the financial and political world The Saudis have been running a budget deficit since the price of oil dropped. At a very rough estimate, within a decade they may well be selling off investments abroad -- not to mention cutting Egypt, et al loose -- to make a much reduced payroll. Any bets on whether the House of Saud survives that inflection point? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2015-10-11 15:35 |
| #10 ^ *snort* |
| Posted by: Frank G 2015-10-11 15:20 |
| #9 Damn it, there if, not therov. Damn autocucumber |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2015-10-11 15:14 |
| #8 No, that isn't what the article said. The links thereof ya want to, if not, why bother posting? |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2015-10-11 15:12 |
| #7 I'm not going behind the paywall, but knowing the publication and reading this précis I can deduce the argument. Saudis, the wonderful Saudis. True allies of the USA Saudis. Sweet, kind, generous Saudis, magnanimously building madrassas and mosques all over the globe as expressions of religious freedom and tolerance. Those Saudis. OK, here is a post which includes very specific ideas on how to help said Saudis: http://theological-geography.net/?p=139 |
| Posted by: TopRev 2015-10-11 14:18 |
| #6 bring freedom of religion to Saudi,the cleric head would explode. |
| Posted by: paul 2015-10-11 13:16 |
| #5 After the 1964 Alaska Earthquake, my friend's boss said, "Remember, every disaster is a new opportunity." So are we going to prop up a totally corrupt regime that has spread misery and undermined civilizations all over the world? The Saudi Kings need to be accountable for what they do. IAMA. Insh'Allah My A$$. Man up and take responsibility for what you do or do not do. That is also sound advice to our own so-called leaders, who do not lead. We are all heading for an abyss that is avoidable if leadership and a sense of values are strong. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2015-10-11 13:01 |
| #4 They're worried about their bribes and payola. |
| Posted by: Ebbart Glererong5900 2015-10-11 11:11 |
| #3 the world’s largest exporter of oil, If the spigot gets turned off, it will take only political decisions to resolve that. the site of Islam’s holiest sites So? Once the Saudis are done, whatever deranged remnants of that misbegotten faith who want them can have them. If they want to slaughter one another to see who is the last man standing on the holiest pile of rubble in Islam, I say that's fine. a country awash, in almost equal measure, in advanced American weapons and angry Wahhabis. These folks never seem to notice that it's American and European expats who keep those weapons working. They leave and those angry Wahabbis have nothing more than very expensive static displays. I'm sorry, but I get the feeling that a lot of these 'what-about-the-Saudis' articles are more motivated by a concern about what will happen to the money that the Sauds spread through the financial and political world than anything else. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2015-10-11 11:02 |
| #2 The operational procedure for this administration has been that our enemies get whatever they want and our allies get screwed. Under that, the Saudis get, what? |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2015-10-11 10:05 |
| #1 give Saudi to their military and banish the clerics. |
| Posted by: paul 2015-10-11 06:56 |