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| Olde Tyme Religion |
| Putin Gets It and We DonÂ’t |
| 2013-11-17 |
| Middle East politics amounts to managing the decline of a failed culture. Nothing expresses Arab failure more vividly than Egypt, a banana republic without the bananas, now living on a $14 billion or so annual subsidy from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States. With 70% of its population living in agricultural areas, it imports half its food, and would starve if not for the Saudi check. ‘ Egypt is beyond the point of no return economically, and American foreign policy is beyond the point of no return intellectually. Americans of both parties–Obama and Kerry on one side, and Sens. McCain and Graham along with the Weekly Standard on the other–believed that by waving the magic wand of democracy over this cataclysmically failed state, all would be well. I characterized this consensus as “Dumb and Dumber” earlier this year. The outcome, of course, is that Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov turned up in Cairo this week to hear his Egyptian counterpart declare that America’s erstwhile Arab ally wants to restore Russian-Egyptian relations to their level during the Soviet era–when Egypt was an enemy. ...Vladimir Putin gets it, and we don’t. He backs the Assad regime in Syria against Saudi-supported rebels. He is cracking down ruthlessly on Muslim terrorists in the Russian Caucasus, using Stalin-era forms of collective punishment. Nonetheless Riyadh is footing a $4 billion bill for Egypt to buy Russian arms. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #2 The Sunni Saudis as Defender of the Islamic Faith will not allow Pretender Shia Iran to go Nuclear widout the Saudis themselves also going Nuclear. In Riyadh's mind, the burden is on both Mama Russia + US-Allies + UNO to make sure the above scenario never happens. NO IRAN NUKE DEAL = MIDDLE EAST WAR + SAUDIS GOING NUCLEAR. Lest we fergit, its PAKISTAN that historically desired to be the World's first Islamic Superpower, iff only to snot on Hindu India, NOT Iran or the KSA. POST-2014, FUTURE TALIBAN, ETAL-CONTROLLED? ISLAMABAD ISN'T GOING TO LIKE BEING UPSTAGED BY TEHRAN OR RIYADH. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2013-11-17 19:16 |
| #1 Wonder if Putin's going to collect enough American toys from the Gypts to set up his own little NTC in the boondocks? Of course if they have a hard enough time just keeping their own equipment up and running, they're in for an interesting experience with those toys. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2013-11-17 15:43 |