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2011-01-29 Africa North
Saudi King Offering Mubarak Unspecified Support To Put Down Rabble
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Posted by  Anonymoose 2011-01-29 14:26|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ]  Top

#1 PJM's Tattler quotes a young Egyptian woman to the effect that it doesn't matter whether the new government is secular or Islamicist. If she's representative of young Egyptians, this will go very badly, very soon.
Posted by lotp 2011-01-29 15:57||   2011-01-29 15:57|| Front Page Top

#2 If she's representative of young Egyptians, this will go very badly, very soon

Yeah, it will. The Iranians have been backing El-Baradei to the tune of $millions. Now the Sauds are publicly supporting Mubarak. And there's enough info to indicate reported support for the Muslim Brotherhood was always off by half.

It won't end well.
Posted by Pappy 2011-01-29 16:07||   2011-01-29 16:07|| Front Page Top

#3 I'm not sure how much of this we could influence even in the best of circumstances, but I would feel a lot better about our prospects if we had an administration capable of stringing two coherent thoughts together in rapid succession. This is that 3AM phone call Hillary was always going on about.

And one thing we can control is the idiotic set of constraints currently choking US energy production. In this environment every barrel has strategic value.
Posted by Matt 2011-01-29 16:22||   2011-01-29 16:22|| Front Page Top

#4 The Iranians are said to be supportive of the the dissenters in the streets of Egypt. The Iranians are mostly Shia and Egypt is 90% Sunni. How does Iran have much influence in Egypt. It would seem that Saudi Arabia would ideologically be much closer to Egypt than Iran.
Posted by JohnQC 2011-01-29 16:37||   2011-01-29 16:37|| Front Page Top

#5 The Iranians have been backing El-Baradei to the tune of $millions.

Why do you say that, Pappy? Your statement feels right, given how Mr. Elbaradei covered for the Iranian nuclear effort while at the IAEA, and he apparently has the expense of keeping a home in Vienna as well as the family house in Cairo...
Posted by trailing wife 2011-01-29 16:54||   2011-01-29 16:54|| Front Page Top

#6 The Iranians are said to be supportive of the the dissenters in the streets of Egypt. The Iranians are mostly Shia and Egypt is 90% Sunni. How does Iran have much influence in Egypt. It would seem that Saudi Arabia would ideologically be much closer to Egypt than Iran.

Money. Lots and lots of it. As in support for the opposition. The Saudis aren't supporting* the opposition. Who would you expect to have more influence among Mubarak's opponents?

* In fact, most of the Saudi "aid" to the Muslim world comes in the form of the building of mosques and madrassas. The Iranians provide training and funding to foreign revolutionaries.

Example (referencing Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood aka Ikhwan - whose most well-known alumnus is Zawahiri - from the Long War Journal):

Zawahiri's ties to Iran are decades old. In The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright explains that Zawahiri planned a coup in Egypt in 1990. "Zawahiri had studied the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran," Wright explains, "and he sought training from the Iranians." In exchange, Zawahiri offered the Iranians sensitive information "about an Egyptian government plan to storm several islands in the Persian Gulf that both Iran and the United Arab Emirates lay claim to." The Iranians paid Zawahiri $2 million for the information and trained Zawahiri's operatives for the coup attempt, which was ultimately aborted.

In sum, the Iranian revolution has provided inspiration to Sunni and Shiite Islamists alike. It has offered them hope that they could overturn the existing order and impose their own radical vision on the state.
Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-01-29 17:09||   2011-01-29 17:09|| Front Page Top

#7 The Iranians are said to be supportive of the the dissenters in the streets of Egypt. The Iranians are mostly Shia and Egypt is 90% Sunni. How does Iran have much influence in Egypt. It would seem that Saudi Arabia would ideologically be much closer to Egypt than Iran.

Here's an analog from a couple of centuries ago - George Washington had fought for king and country during the French and Indian War; yet he allied with the French during the Revolutionary War. Note that Washington was English by descent, and that the English and the French had been traditional enemies for many hundreds of years at that point.
Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-01-29 18:05||   2011-01-29 18:05|| Front Page Top

#8 In fact, the Hundred Years' War was fought between England and France.
Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-01-29 18:07||   2011-01-29 18:07|| Front Page Top

#9 Why do you say that, Pappy?

Quoted from MEMRI:

According to the daily Al-Siyassa, known for its opposition to the Iranian regime, a senior Iranian official delivered a check in the sum of seven million dollars to a businessman close to Mohamed ElBaradei. The transaction, it was reported, took place in Bucharest, and was intended to fund the latter's campaign in the Egyptian presidential elections.
Posted by Pappy 2011-01-29 19:20||   2011-01-29 19:20|| Front Page Top

#10 Sounds like a reward from a grateful nation for a job well done.
I always wondered what the payoff to that piece of shit was gonna be for buying them all that time.
Posted by tu3031 2011-01-29 19:25||   2011-01-29 19:25|| Front Page Top

#11 Scott Ritter said he's cool. That's enough for me
Posted by Frank G 2011-01-29 19:36||   2011-01-29 19:36|| Front Page Top

#12 There is a strong possibility the Saudis may not be around next week.
Prince warns S. Arabia of apocalypse
Posted by tipper 2011-01-29 20:29||   2011-01-29 20:29|| Front Page Top

#13 Thank you, Pappy.
Posted by trailing wife 2011-01-29 20:32||   2011-01-29 20:32|| Front Page Top

#14 #11 Frank, glad to see you hold a grudge as long as I do.
Posted by Matt 2011-01-29 21:16||   2011-01-29 21:16|| Front Page Top

#15 Well all of these riots and demonstrations in the Middle East are troubling because I would be VERY surprised if any of the changes move the governments closer to the west, freedom and a representative government. It will be a disaster for the muslims living in these countries but they are too stupid to see what they are doing to themselves. As to the impact on the west it is a giant step towards the final confrontation between islam and the west. Please review the Three Conjectures - these crazy muzzies WILL join together and attack Israel and then the West as a whole. Bad times are coming but they do take us one big step closer to resolving the muslim war with the west.
Posted by Hellfish 2011-01-29 21:56||   2011-01-29 21:56|| Front Page Top

#16 I see one possible way the youth will turn away from the Brotherhood. The Antiquities. It's been built and hyped into the point it's a National Pride, there are even reports of protesters grabing abandoned police batons and forming a barricade around the National Museum until the Army arrived to...Deal, with the looters. And that the Protesters helped.

Also reports of Protesters making blockades all around the city in a vigilante effort against looters.

The Brotherhood doesn't strike me as the type to give a damn about Ancient Egypt, and would more likely destroy or sell it off. It's possible if some of the looters caught end up being "radicals" the situation could change. VERY unlikely, but wierder things have happened.
Posted by Charles 2011-01-29 22:18||   2011-01-29 22:18|| Front Page Top

#17 Despite any PC-Deniable Media, Diplomatic rhetoric to the contrary, THE SAUDIS + US-NATO KNOW THE FORMER ARE NEXT ON THE RADIC ISLAMIST HIT LIST, as is the rest of Muslim OPEC.

Wid the Oil also goes the Muslim States budding NucProgs.

IT WON'T MATTER ANYMORE IFF THE US-ISRAEL MIL ATTACK OR INVADE IRAN, OR SUBORN AFPAK, BECAUSE RADICAL ISLAM WILL NOW HAVE MULTIPLE ALTERNATE SOURCES FOR NUCTECHS. Both Russia + China will have to kowtow as well.
Posted by JosephMendiola 2011-01-29 23:06||   2011-01-29 23:06|| Front Page Top

#18 "TIANNAMEN SQUARE" moment for Moderate Islam + Arab-Muslim democracy.
Posted by JosephMendiola 2011-01-29 23:09||   2011-01-29 23:09|| Front Page Top

00:05 JosephMendiola
00:02 Redneck Jim
23:39 Secret Asian Man
23:30 gorb
23:09 JosephMendiola
23:06 JosephMendiola
22:56 JosephMendiola
22:48 pan
22:41 Pappy
22:40 JosephMendiola
22:34 DarthVader
22:20 Charles
22:18 Charles
22:10 Charles
22:08 Charles
22:04 Charles
21:56 Hellfish
21:50 swksvolFF
21:40 crosspatch
21:36 Dave UK
21:16 Matt
21:10 swksvolFF
20:50 Frank G
20:32 trailing wife









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