Monday, January 04, 2016

It's On: Gulf Emirates Break With Iran, Saudis Incensed With Obama

by JASmius



Pick your metaphor: The zipper is unzipping, the dominoes are falling, the Middle East is spiraling ever downward into complete, unrestrained, higgledy-piggledy chaos, all as a deliberate, calculated result of the Obama Doctrine.  And we have zip, zero, nada, bupkis influence with which to restrain it and no power left to project into that region to turn back the havoc tide:

Bahrain and Sudan announced on Monday they were cutting diplomatic ties with Iran, a day after Saudi Arabia also severed relations with Tehran.

Saudi Arabia cut ties with regional rival Iran on Sunday after Iranian protesters attacked its mission there, angered by the Sunni Muslim kingdom's decision to execute a leading Shi'ite cleric. Iran is the main Shi'ite power.

"Bahrain decided to break off diplomatic relations with the Islamic [Empire] of Iran and calls upon all members of the mission to leave the kingdom within forty eight hours," BNA news agency said....

Sudan said it woud cut diplomatic relations as well and the United Arab Emirates said it was restricting some ties with Iran.

"The Sudanese government announces the cutting of diplomatic relations with the Islamic [Empire] of Iran immediately," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Historically speaking, when a large country in a face-to-face confrontation breaks off diplomatic relations with its rival and its smaller allies quickly follow suit, the usual next step is armed hostilities.  Just saying.

The U.S., of course, would prefer that there be no such armed hostilities for purposes of at least the facade of stability and continued Western access to Middle East fossil fuel resources, which aren't nearly as critical as they were decades ago when an Arab oil embargo could devastate the U.S. economy, but are still strategically important.

Wait a minute - "continued Western access to Middle East fossil fuel resources"; Barack Obama is an utter anti-carbon zealot, radically determined to "wean the West off of fossil fuels" once and for all.  Goading an all-out war between Iran and Saudi Arabia and its allies, cutting off global access to the Persian Gulf, sending oil prices exploding upward (they're already rising this morning)....sounds right in Red Barry's anti-energy wheelhouse, come to think of it.

Ditto "royally" pissing off the Saudis by effectively switching sides:

“We believe that diplomatic engagement and direct conversations remain essential in working through differences,” State [Commissariat] spokesman John Kirby said Sunday. “We will continue to urge leaders across the region to take affirmative steps to calm tensions.”

After spending seven years taking every step possible to inflame them.  Gee, why would the Saudis have any difficulty taking Foggy Bottom at its phony-baloney word?

But the public call for calm papered over long-simmering disagreements over Iran and other matters between the United States and Saudi Arabia, its powerful Middle Eastern ally, and threatened a serious rupture.

Or as close to a Muslim ally as it's possible for any "infidel" country to get, anyway.  And why would a "rupture" not be entirely justified, after O has consistently and alternately ignored and shivved them in the ol' hexiribs?  Hell, they just did it again with this drivel:

Administration officials were privately critical of the Saudis for provoking the weekend’s upheaval with the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric who was arrested two years ago and sentenced to death for fomenting dissent against the ruling Sunni royal family.

But note, this criticism isn't based upon Western moral values, but entirely because the execution of Sheikh al-Nimr would anger the mullahs, and the mullahs must be kept happy and content at all costs, no matter how much they gleefully undermine their neighbors with the ultimate goal of conquering them.  And, I'll point out again, look at the pic above: For the Saudis and Gulf states, Iran is not some place on the other side of the planet, they're eyeball to eyeball with them across the Persian Gulf.  So it's easy for this White House to burble appeals for "restraint" and "reducing tensions" when, even if they weren't mullahgarchic stooges as bad as Boy Assad, Iran would not be the same level of existential threat to us - though the latter is getting closer and closer all the time.

But, of course, Barack Hussein Obama is Ali Khamenei's House Dhimmi, perfidiously betraying decades of Saudi cooperation in being a bulwark and counterweight against Tehran by green-lighting their nuclear arsenal and showering $150 billion on them and their imperial jihadist activities.  Just the sort of thing that produces exasperated diplo-rants like this one:

“Enough is enough,” said a person authorized to convey Saudi thinking on the condition of anonymity. “Tehran has thumbed its nose at the West again and again, continuing to sponsor terrorism and launch ballistic missiles and no one is doing anything about it.”

“Every time the Iranians do something, the United States backs off. The Saudis are actually doing something,” the person said. [emphases added]

Yes - either calling the mullahs' bluff or igniting the Middle East conflagration the mullahs have been looking for for all these years before (they hope) Tehran can retaliate with nuclear weapons.

Will The One give one Big off his Bertha about the Saudis breaking with us?  Hard to see why he will; he's got his "landmark/breakthrough/historic" Neville Chamberlain legacy, and drastically reducing the global fossil fuel supply that is his reason for existing to the extent that promoting the Global Jihad isn't.  It's one more "mission accomplished" banner to hang in the Oval Office, as far as he is concerned.

Alfred Pennyworth said it best:



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