No surprise there

[fridi]

Parallel to their power-reasserting crackdown at home, the Saudis have also tried to destabilize Lebanon as well:

Hariri’s resignation last-ditch Saudi attempt to destabilize Lebanon: Analyst
“What we see now is that you have an irrational party - I mean the Saudis - who have been trying all the irrational things that come to your mind and now they are trying one last-ditch attempt because they have already tried everything. Lebanon has seen the explosions by terrorists, suicide bombers and everything and instability at the political level with delaying of the formation of Hariri’s government and all the pressures made in order to destabilize this country came from Saudi Arabia but all have failed,” Mohammad Obeid told PressTV in an interview on Saturday.

The Saudi's endgame is pretty obvious: because Iran wants to establish a corridor for their pipelines that connects Pakistan through Iran through North Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean, they've done everything in their power to dominate those territories through proxies. The Saudis and Turkey are the opposing side, they don't want Shia Iran to dominate the region, so they've run a number of proxy operations of their own in those countries to counter Iran.

The events in Yemen and Qatar are part of this. Both have seen the Saudis sinking into quagmires (in Yemen, an unwinnable war; in Qatar, a failed attempt to isolate the tiny country). They've tried to establish dominance in Syria through the rebels, but failed due to Russia's involvement (Russia also wants a base at the Mediterranean, in Lattakia). The Saudis have also failed to deal with the Huttis in Yemen, an Iranian proxy. They've failed to drive Hezbollah out of Lebanon, another key country (also with nice access to the recently discovered vast oil/gas fields sitting in the Mediterranean just outside Cyprus).

The trouble for the Saudis in Lebanon comes from the fact that the Lebanese Sunnis (Saudi proxies) have agreed on an (admittedly uneasy) truce and cooperation with Iranian-backed Hezbollah, for the sake of peace. Now that the Saudis have tried everything and failed (including a protracted 2-year long process of halting the formation of a Lebanese government), they've now practically detained Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, and forced him to read his resignation statement on a Saudi TV, from an undisclosed Saudi location. They've coupled this with some extreme language, saying Lebanon has essentially declared war on them because of a Hezbollah attack.

The Saudis want to destabilize Lebanon as a last attempt to halt the Iranian advancement towards the Mediterranean (of course Iran still has Assad in Syria, supported by Putin). The US, having clearly picked a side a long time ago, will of course support the Saudis no matter what - and so they have. Trump has already tweeted his support for Salman of Saudi Arabia, and attacked Iran and Hezbollah.

Question is, will Putin just sit there and watch, or he'll get involved in Lebanon too. My bet is on the latter. My expectation is that this Saudi/US attempt to stop Iran/Russia is going to fail too, just like in Iraq and Syria. Not just because the Saudis are running out of allies, but also because of the foreign-policy ineptitude of the current US administration.

Comments

[halialkers]

I thought Iran was so trustworthy and friendly that any bargain with them including solemn pledges not to expand arsenals was worth trusting? If they signed the bargain with the USA and Trump hasn't *quite* gone so far as to totally obliterate it favoring his usual muddled worst possible option of all of them with maximum chaos, surely their expansion can't be a net detriment, eh?

Besides last I checked the Iranians spent the Iraq War building an existing US body-count dating back to the 1983 incident in Beirut. If they were shooting up French soccer games we already know what France would be doing to them.

[fridi]

Sending them strongly worded letters?

[halialkers]

So France was dropping sternly worded letters from those bombers over Syria?

[fridi]

I'd say pretty much. What did they achieve in Syria?

[halialkers]

As much as they've achieved with their military since the Prussians kicked their asses in 1870. Which is to say a lot of dead people with nothing to show for it. But if repeated asskickings haven't convinced the French their day as a military force is done, what will, if anything?

[fridi]

Home-grown terrorists, perhaps?

[halialkers]

Most of the terrorists, including the ones that did shoot up the soccer game are domestic terrorists. And all that does is lead to French bombs dropped on Syria. So....

[asthfghl]

Iran WAS respecting the nuclear treaty - until Trump got pissed that they had chosen a different path toward geopolitical domination of the region, namely using proxies in neighboring countries.

[halialkers]

Oh please, they've been doing that since the 1980s. All those corpses in Beirut were a result of that methodology used then, and they've attacked Iraq and the United States in this regard at different levels since. They've a good many US bodies on their hands, and their idea of how to get along with neighbors is stir up local Shia to shoot and kill them.

Operation Ajax opened some of that can of worms, but remind me again why Tehran and its mullahs deserve rewards for relying first and foremost on terrorism to flex their muscles? Then again they didn't shoot up French soccer games like ISIS and their hostility toward Europeans is much more muted so I suppose the body-count is a bit of a factor.

[asthfghl]

"At different levels" being the key words here.

This isn't about who deserves what. It's a matter of precedent in international relations. An international treaty is either to be respected, or it means nothing and anyone can violate it at a whim as soon as the guard changes back home. If the latter applies to THIS particular treaty, the one specifically about Iran's nuclear program, then what stops it from applying to any other treaty in the future? Really, what are treaties for? Wiping some big fat presidential ass?

[halialkers]

Which is why, of course, the Kellogg Treaty stopped WWII when it officially banned war and why Canada, far from violating the spirit of the Kyoto Treaty with impunity under Harper and Trudeau alike is one of its most zealous enforcers, eh?

Treaties are ignored all the time, military and otherwise. When people crucify the leadership in Ottawa for blatant defiance of climate change treaties and various belligerent countries elsewhere that treat treaties and ceasefires as asswipes then you'll convince me treaties mean nothing.

I'd pretend that treaties have ever meant anything to my country but if that were so most of the Indigenous peoples still alive would still be living in their homelands, not in Diasporas enforced by an iron fist.

[asthfghl]

So again, what are treaties for? Posturing? Wasting paper? Giving historians like yourself something to talk about?

[halialkers]

All of the above in practice, yes.

[halialkers]

Pretty sure the Lavon Affair proved if the Israelis tried it they'd horribly fuck it up and have no clue how to do it.

Also pretty fucking clear that the last few years have shown Russians can literally blow up hospitals and civilian centers with impunity and the supposed concern for human life on the part of the Left in the West shrivels like a salted slug.

As far as the Saudis and the USA, sure. But who expects an empire to act with a smidgen of concern with the lives bulldozed. Are you saying US proxies mean that mangled corpses of US military personnel should attract no US resentment or counters? That's a standard nobody else in the world holds themselves too. If Iran can hold a civilian airliner blown to smidgens and SAVAK against the USA for all eternity and Israel that it exists, why isn't the USA allowed to hold the corpses of the Beirut bombing and the Iraq War against the Iranians?

Are American corpses to be stacked in pyramids of skulls, Tamerlane-style lest the USA commit the heinous offense of retaliating for the deliberate attacks on and murders of its soldiers? This is the logic of empire regardless of whether the Empire is ruled by a Claudius or an Elagalabus.

[halialkers]

And if you believe that the West in general gives any hint of a concern about human life in Syria the point to prove that was well before a protracted civil war that's become a classical 19th Century realpolitk confrontation halved the population of the country and left its infrastructure in ruins. Deliberately blinding itself to the signals sent by those shelled Turkish villages was an idiotic oversight of sufficient magnitude to be worthy of ranking up there with the historical Greatest Dumbasses list.

As far as the Saudis, they're as good at fighting now as they were in 1991. That is to say they have shiny toys, no real clue how to use them or maintain them, and they're only a threat insofar as the USA capably backs them. When the empire of gold slides into iron and rust, what that means for the vital yet puny satellites is the most interesting question in the world for the people who live there and is a prelude to yet more problems on its own.

Besides as Obama's shown, it's entirely possible to wage a protracted war with a staggering civilian cost in the region and as long as you're a Democratic politician the destabilizing effects and expansion of Iranian power are no big deal, and reality only reasserts itself when Republicans are in the White House and can have the foreign policy clusterfuck entirely laid at their feet.

[halialkers]

This is a lot of heat spent on a strawman that doesn't even bother to contradict my point.

When the point is that an empire acts like one there's not much merit to the original assertion bar perhaps some recognition of reality being reality.

I'm not saying that the U.S. should "let bygones be bygones," so to speak. I'm saying we shouldn't treat Iran's proxy battles in the region undermine the very real progress we've made with the nuclear deal. Which, I might remind you, helped to avoid a regional war that would have been triggered by Israel acting unilaterally to destroy Iranian nuclear research facilities.

What progress? Rewarding the Mullahs for shooting down a democratic movement in 2009 was counterproductive the whole time and undermined any pretense of spreading democracy arising out of 2003. Obama's policy to Iran was less the inadvertent bolstering of the Bush years and more a craven servile endorsement a regime that relies on shedding blood to get its primary aims met. When the Chinese massacred people in Tienanmen Square they weren't given rewards for it. Putin was not given rewards for his massacre in Grozny though the resolute and deliberate and malicious silence on the part of the Western Left undermines any pretense of rule of law at a global scale being any kind of consistent principle in the first place. It's not genocidal imperialism when Tsar Vladimir does it, after all.

It's also more than clear at this point that the Persian unifies the Arab and the Jew so Israel would not be acting unilaterally and would have the rare approval of most, if not all, of its Arab rivals in the region if it did act. This particular inconvenient narrative isn't exactly mentioned because it requires facing that since 1979 one autocracy was overthrown in favor of another and that new autocracy has never deserved to be trusted.

If we're going to make any progress on achieving "peace in the Middle East," it's got to be built like this: incrementally, on agreements that are respected and observed by all parties involved.

At what time since 1979 have Khomeini and Khameini shown the least hint to indulge in diplomacy or tolerating the existence of neighbors they despise? Iran didn't spend eight years waging a bloody set of failures to overthrow Saddam Hussein to show its tolerance or willingness to adhere to rule of law. Iran didn't blow up US marines in Beirut to show a willingness to negotiate. Iran didn't replace PLO terrorists firing Katyushas with its own proxies in a protracted war with Israel because it's been interested in negotiations. Iran didn't sponsor the Dawa Party and get to have its cake and eat it too with the USA and Iraq for the last few years because it's interested in negotiations. At what point does a clear preference for holy war as a first resort get taken into account?


By not insisting, as Trump now is, that all of our issues with Iran be dealt with at once, Obama wisely set the groundwork not only for controlling Iran's nuclear program but its broader reintegration into the global community. If the U.S. and other parties can convince Iran that they are trustworthy, we can work from there to address the other regional issues that some want to be dealbreakers for the whole thing.

An assertion the more wonderful for any proof that Khomeini and Khameini have ever displayed the least interest in any such engotiations.

Put another way: what do you think happens in Iran and the region, without this deal? Do you think the moderates in Iran gain more power or leverage? Do you think Iran eschews nuclear weapons - and Saudi Arabia, along with it? Do you think Israel stands back and hopes it all works out?

I see nothing changing for the better and arguably a weaker Iran not bolstered by a hilariously lopsided deal better than anything they could have deliberately designed for themselves.

[halialkers]

Again, you spend more time listing grievances than explaining why they matter.

I explained precisely why they mattered, you either don't like the answer or it doesn't tell you what you want to hear so you invalidate on that basis.

Using this kind of rhetoric is a very easy way to convince me not to take you seriously. No one is "rewarding the Mullahs" for anything. This is an intentionally loaded way of describing the nuclear agreement, designed to do half the argumentative work. I'm not interested in debating Sean Hannity.

So a deal that ends sanctions placed on the regime in question for many and many a reason predating the latest nuclear crisis isn't a reward? If ending sanctions isn't a reward for a pious pretense of niceness with a great amount of Arab, Israeli, and US blood behind it, what do you qualify as a reward?

https://www.thebalance.com/iran-s-economy-impact-of-nuclear-deal-and-sanctions-3306349

Meaning, what? That the region spirals into war all the more quickly? That Saudi Arabia would be quick to develop a nuclear arms program, with Israeli assistance? This is not a helpful fact for you. It demonstrates just how urgent the need to undercut Netanyahu's messianic delusions was.

Calling his delusions Messianic is being too kind to him. He doesn't think he's merely a Messiah, he thinks he's a King of Israel wrought out of the past based on the kind of actions he understakes. Nonetheless that doesn't erase a single one of the corpses and patterns of aggression Iran's launched. Speaking of willful ignorance of reality and what the other person says, I want to hear you point blank state you don't care about the bodies in question or alternately that you're objecting to other things.

We might well ask the same question of U.S. policy in the region over the same period. Which, again, isn't to say anything other than it's no reason not to seek a new way forward.

Wait, so the election of Barack Obama, all those protests against the USA, the degree to which US intervention in the region is despised by Western and Middle Eastern analysts alike, none of that holds any of it accountable? The degree to which the USA shoots itself in the foot with its allies and pays the according price doesn't hold it accountable?

You mean, apart from actual negotiations? Yes, it is hard to find evidence of negotiating that isn't negotiating.

Obama's deal wasn't a negotiation, it was a hornswoggling a rational opposition should have held to ironclad scrutiny. The GOP isn't one of those so it got through without any of their frankly bullshit hysteria derailing it one way or the other. Being taken for a sucker by a neo-medieval autocracy isn't a negotiation any more than the Opium Wars were a negotiation between the British and Qing Empires.

Given that one of the key problems with the Iran deal is that it isn't resulting in the kind of economic re-integration that Iran was hoping for, it seems a little silly to describe it as "hilariously lopsided." What, exactly, was "lopsided" about the deal?

For starters, rewarding a regime clearly relying on open fire and reload with the end of sanctions after it spent the whole previous seven years of Obama's Administration showing it has no inclination to change that reality knowing precisely that the moment it does it falls apart USSR in 1991 fashion?

Again, you can whine and cry that I'm not explaining why things are problems, but it gets real easy for you to do that when you selectively read my words to neglect my point blank statements because they don't fit your preconceptions. Either read my words and actually deal with what's said, and actually read the fucking fine print on these deals like how, say, rewarding Iran with the removal of sanctions for a pattern of terrorism and geopolitical expansion backed by same is just a wee bit foolish and akin to shipping Russian emigres into the maw of the Soviet state to be shot and tortured to death (which actually happened, BTW) is a challenge.

You can call that Sean Hannity all you want. Personally I call it actually living in the reality-based community. The Sean Hannity version would be glorying in bombing Iran, I would have preferred a much more rigorously scrutinized concept requiring actual concessions from the Mullahs, which is precisely what the little deal in question did not ask for or even come close to asking for.