I wish more Americans would take these remarks by Pat Lang to heart:
Lastly, the chimera of a great Arab alliance (a la NATO) is delusory. The Saudis lack both the organizational ability for such a thing and significant military power. They possess one of the world’s largest static displays of military equipment. They have neither the manpower nor the aptitude to use such equipment effectively. As I have written previously, the Gulf Arabs have long had such an alliance. It is the GCC and it has never amounted to anything except a venue for the Arab delight in meetings and blather.
The basis for the desire for such an alliance is the Israeli strategic objective of isolating Iran and its allies; Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas with an eventual hope of destroying the Iranian theocracy. Israel is frightened of a possible salvo of many thousands of missiles and rockets into Israel from Lebanon as well as an eventual successful creation of a missile deliverable nuclear weapon by the Iranians. These are real and credible threats for Israel, but not for FUKUS. Israel has only two really valuable counter-value targets; Haifa and Tel Aviv. A hit on one or both with a nuclear weapon would be the end of Israel. The Israelis know that.
There’s a lot more at the link about how awful the Saudis are but the part above is the most important. Even stripped of the anti-Israeli content it’s significant.
When we were there they were head chopping and cutting off hands. Of note, if it was a European they would let them anesthetize the arm first, at least while we were there. In the newspaper they had feature articles on the executioner talking about his sword preference. (He actually preferred a heavy knife for the hands.) The pilots who were present when the first Saudi shot down an Iraqi plane came to our place to get their stop and goes and were talking about the Saudi pilot. Had to talk him through the whole thing. During briefings for the first month we called ourselves the hostages. We figured if Saddam sent his armor south the Saudis would just run away and leave us.
Steve
Trump should remember a ruler/country with no scruples about something like this also has no scruples about screwing American interests if they judge it to be their interests.
Resolved: the Saudis are scumbags
Now, back to something actionable. Open to the group:
1. The narrative appears to be that Kahshoggi should be awarded the Purple Heart. This guy was related to an arms dealer, was a Wahabist and, apparently, an associate of UBL. Does that deserve assassination? Of course not. But let’s not fool ourselves who he was or who he played the game with
2. We should be revolted at his execution. But those are our morals. (Heh, except for what is not reported to delicate American ears.) Our neighbor, Mexico kills journalists. So do the Russians and Chinese. Do we cut off all commercial and diplomatic relations with them? Its sort of a Hobson’s choice. All the actors are bad, but do we just take our toys and go home?
3. What is a proportionate and effective response from us? Its easy to hurl invective, especially at the current administration. But that just identifies one as unserious. In perspective, are all our presidents post WWII evil or feckless because none have taken dramatic action? Perhaps more importantly, how have we mispositioned ourselves for so long that presidents feel their hands are somewhat tied? So how do we rectify that?
4. If we get a divorce from SA, who do we date?
1) The United States government is an arms dealer and associate of UBL, too. In fact we continue to support al-Quaeda affiliates.
2) “Cutting of all relations” is Trumpian hyperbole.
3) The correct response is ” we take no further responsibility for survival of your regime.”
FUKUS? I first saw that acronym a year or so ago in a somewhat anti-American blog reporting on US/British/French activities in Syria. It might have been “Moon of Alabama.” Now it is mainstream.
By the way, it only took two or three days for NPC to infect the web, and for the NPC’s to react strongly.
As far as KSA is concerned, they were evil from the git-go. Once upon a time, we relied on the Shah to police the Persian Gulf, but that option lapsed long ago. Now we have no one.
Pretty much. When engagement means removing regimes we don’t like and replacing them with regimes that nobody likes or propping up bad regimes a little less engagement is probably a good thing.
Your comment, Dave, would probably be worthy of an entire series of posts. Isolationism (or, what exactly does a little less engagement mean?) doesn’t seem realistic. We are awfully big and powerful, but disengaging from a number of the top players on the world stage just doesn’t seem feasible.
If we don’t want to cut all ties, there is still a lot we can do that would be in our own best interests. We could kick out all of the clerics that Saudi Arabia sends here. Lets have intense vetting of anyone SA wants to send here. Stop opposing Iran just because they are an enemy of SA (and Israel). Deal with Iran based upon what they do or don’t do to the US. Stop covering for them in the UN. Call them out publicly for their support of AQ and ISIS.
Steve
At the very least it means we need to develop an allergy to regime change. If we don’t like a regime, we reduce contacts (in both directions). If we’ve already cut all contacts, we suck it up.
I’d support all of those (I’ve mentioned several of them from time to time).
We’ve got to stop romanticizing other countries. Both the mullahs who rule Iran and the Saudi royal family are awful people who do awful things.