Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

'Iranian empire'... Christ. How does this bullshit get published? Do we think it's funded by the Sauds or by the UAE this time?

By the Iranians, obviously.

3rd Dimension Chess?

I think it's more that US strategy in the Middle East is very unfocused + not strategically developed. In some places we're pro Sunni and in some we're pro Shia. I think that much of that is probably old US policy (pro Sunni) giving way to new Obama-set US policy (pro Shia). In the biggest arena - direct relationship w/ Iran - we are assuming a fairly pro Iran policy. We are no longer pressuring Assad to step down, we are [supposedly] crafting a fairly pro-Iran treaty to lift sanctions, we are bombing IS and coordinating w/ Shia forces, etc. I think in some other places (Egypt support of Muslim Brotherhood, Bahrain) it's more muddled

it could very well be obama is thinking globally that winning Iran away from Putin would be a big coup for the West, but i think it's obv we're pursuing - at the very least - a conciliatory relationship w/ Iran and to the annoyance of many of our traditional Sunni allies in the region (and YES frederik also Israel)

lol "pro-Iran policy" slow yr roll there

practically speaking we are bombing the biggest regional threat to Iran a few years after toppling Iran's historical rival - whether intentional or not our policy has been very pro iran

i agree that it's probably not intentional and just hilarious US incompetence but maybe that's a good heuristic for whether a foreign deal is a good one or not - is the actor left happiest the one that - during nuke negotiations - says death to america?

man you are really around the bend here I don't even know where to begin

for one thing breaking US policy down along Sunni/Shi'a lines is completely irrelevant, US policy has never been based on such distinctions and it still isn't

also it's pretty clear the biggest regional threat to Iran from Iran's POV is not ISIS, it's the US/Israel, especially in the context of nuclear negotiations/deals. they aren't going to use nukes as deterrents against ISIS. Iran knows they can contain ISIS with proxies, as is their long-established practice when it comes to regional threats and goals.

Well, we also tried to topple Assad and pressured al Maliki into changing his anti-sunni policy, so...

Also, Iran is not at all the only ones saying death to america. And many of the rest get funding and inspiration from 'our sunni allies'.

And anti-Iran has def morphed into anti-shia quite often, for example in Bahrain. US and west might not see it like that, but Saudi Arabia def does.

and in this case if the US is willing to stand in as a proxy since it serves both our interests, obviously both the US and Iran are going to try to exploit that area of mutual interest. who it serves more in the long-run is debatable. For what it's worth I agree that it's more in Iran's interest than ours - I don't consider ISIS much of a threat to anything I care about as a US citizen - but US gov't goals here are not mine and they are pretty tangled: a more stable Iraq, fewer terrorist acts directed at US interests, a general wish to stop genocidal fanatics etc. But even so, just because Iran gets more out of the arrangement than we do does not mean that it is by it's nature a pro-Iranian policy; the US isn't entering into it explicitly to service Iran, the US is entering into it to further it's own agenda. I'm sure Obama is thinking that if this buys some goodwill from the Iranians than that's a positive. That may be naive by some calculations, but this is how relations between traditional enemies are repaired, by finding common ground.

xxp

new Obama-set US policy (pro Shia)

I do not buy this pro-Shia spin thing. Gawwd Mordy, you sound like Tom Friedman. Not wanting to get in the mess of trying to take down Assad is just Obama's longtime interest in not wanting to put US boots on the ground. Plus the pro-Saudi and pro-Egypt military aspects as you acknowledge don't fit into a Shia or Sunni dynamic.

A number of conservative writers are talking "Iranian empire" but they don't offer much proof for Yemen being part of that.

breaking news: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/03/26/GCC-states-to-repel-Houthi-aggression-in-Yemen-statement-.html

Warplanes of the Royal Saudi Air Force bombed the positions of Yemen’s Houthi militia and destroyed most of their air defenses, Al Arabiya News Channel reported early on Thursday.

Arab Gulf states had announced that they have decided to “repel Houthi aggression” in neighboring Yemen, following a request from the country’s President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

In their joint statement Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait said they "decided to repel Houthi militias, al-Qaeda and ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] in the country.”

The Gulf states warned that the Houthi coup in Yemen represented a “major threat” to the region’s stability.

It also accused the Iranian-backed militia of conducting military drills on the border of Saudi Arabia, a leading member of the GCC, with “heavy weapons.”

In an apparent reference to Iran, the statement said the “Houthi militia is backed by regional powers in order for it be their base of influence.”

Arutz Sheva is totally untrustworthy so take w/ huge grain of salt but:
Source familiar with coalition talks reveals: Bibi is planning to form a unity government with Labor and leave Jewish Home out.

Iran demands immediate halt to military actions in Yemen (Reuters)

The Saudi "empire" versus the Iranian "empire".

I never used the "empire" term which is pretty loaded. but i think denying that there is a cold war being fought between the saudi + iranian states is pretty silly.

It gets silly when it becomes an overly simple Sunni vs Shia description, that often ignores some of what Sunni states have done. Some would also say its presumptous of the US which long had a western hegemony attitude, to act shocked when other countries try to do that around the world. But lets not also complicate it by admitting that Isis is Sunni and there's Al Queda, and that lumping dictatorships, military run countries, poor falling apart countries & various extremist groups all under either Sunni or Shia, and part of a series of like-minded states is kinda simplistic. Plus most of the writers preoccupied with this now,simply want to blame Iran alone, while remaining uninterested in the role of the Saudis and the growth of extremist groups.

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-intelligence-yemen-20150325-story.html#page=1

Secret files held by Yemeni security forces that contain details of American intelligence operations in the country have been looted by Iran-backed militia leaders, exposing names of confidential informants and plans for U.S.-backed counter-terrorism strikes, U.S. officials say.

I think Shia + Sunni are a kinda easy organizing principle in the sense that they often indicate who is being funded by whom (whom is being funded by who?) - like Houthis obv have an ideological affinity with Iran, okay. Shia Iraqis are closely associated w/ Iranian govt. Al-Q have an ideological affinity w/ Saudi Wahhabism. But there are just as dramatic exceptions. Hamas is funded by Iran but is a Sunni org. Alawites are Shia but idiosyncratically so. So it's not something that is definitive. It makes more sense to say that there are two major formations in the area that tend to (but not exclusively) fall along partisan theological lines but that aren't defined by those ideologies - the gulf monarchies (the GCC), and Iran.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that theology has a symbiotic relationship w/ politics, but I don't feel comfortable saying that theology determines politics (like radical right-wingers tend to argue) or that politics determine theology (like the left pushes).

The thing is, the prism of seeing ME as a cold war between Gulf Monarchies and Iran, might be the way to look at it that makes Iran most sympathetic at all. Like, why are we taking the side of the fanatic, opressive, reactionary Gulf Monarchies? It makes no sense.

Of course, it's more complex than that. Wasn't the thing Saud + UAE + Egypt vs Qatar + Turkey some months ago?

From a human rights perspective, none of them are sympathetic

We make far more money out of one side.

there has been some friction between Sauds + Qatar, esp regarding the latter funding radical groups that the former wasn't on board w/ but my impression was that it was more like tension between nominal allies and not some kind of reconfiguration (as evidenced by the current GCC coalition).

re Iran i do believe that they're natural allies to the west - esp the more educated urban pop in Tehran - and i think it's really unfortunate that it hasn't aligned that way but practically speaking you have a regime predicated on a 'Death to the West' platform w/ strong ties to Russia, support for various regional actors undermining stability (which obv Sunnis are also responsible for), and a sometimes rogue nuclear program. even if khamenei wanted to sidle up to the US, could his regime survive undermining its foundational ideological principles?

a regime predicated on a 'Death to the West' platform

tbf this predication is largely the result of perfectly understandable resentment built up over decades of the US maintaining a puppet regime in the country.

realignments do happen occasionally (remember when we were talking about Russia as an ally for awhile, pre-Putin?) but whether one is in the cards here, eh if so it's a fair ways away

Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional rival and the Houthis’ main ally, denounced the assault as an American-backed attempt “to foment civil war in Yemen or disintegrate the country.” Houthi-controlled television channels broadcast footage of dead bodies and wounded civilians, blaming “American-backed aggression.”

What, no-one's blamed Israel yet?

everyone knows the US is really a Zionist Occupied Government

Houthis are soon going to discover what the FSA has known for a couple years now - that no one cares about pictures of dead bodies unless you can blame them on Israel

Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom
US praises US ally for bombing US-equipped militia aligned with US foe who is partnering with US to fight another US-equipped militia

@pareene
I'm rooting for the authoritarian monarchy to beat the theocratic dictatorship in the war

no one cares about pictures of dead bodies unless you can blame them on Israel

dude stop it

isolationism forevah, btw

yeah, what he said

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-orpQMN6oJow/VRQvPpjOjzI/AAAAAAAAoeI/w6gbGkkwxU4/s1600/What%2BIran%2BWon’t%2BSay%2B2.png

Egypt Says It May Send Troops to Yemen to Fight Houthis

hey Mordy have you noticed that Iraqi Shi'ite militias do not seem to be v impressed with Obama's "pro-Shi'a" policy

I did lol that now we r bombing Tikrit for the Shia militias and not only are they not going to participate but they'll badmouth the U.S. while they sit out

we're robbing them of their victory!

they were gonna be so victorious, you have no idea

feel like the big question w/ GCC is after they suppress houthis (assuming they're successful) does everyone just go home or do they go to eg syria

Israel releases withheld tax revenues to Palestinian Authority

Mordy, why is Shia supporter Obama providing intell to Sunni Saudi Arabia about Yemen?

Also x-post-- I don't see the Saudis/Gulf Coop Council going to Syria. Much tougher job than Yemen (which won't be easy either)

i would attribute all unfathomable Obama decisions in the Middle East to "hilarious US incompetence."

oh it's all p fathomable

i would guess his decision here was to support the somewhat stable in-exile President Hadi over the militant Houthi rebels bc of a bias towards the status quo, but it's just as likely that it was a good faith gesture to Sunni countries angry over the Iran negotiations.

btw Mordy, they found some of the missing Pentagon stuff, you can purchase to keep em outta the wrong hands.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/26/missing-military-tech-ended-ebay-craiglist/

Wow.

The US has long been supporting the Saudis, the US has had bases there in Yemen for awhile, the US had been working with Hadi for awhile, nothing surprising about it.

i see a lot of military generators in my industry and there are super undesirable. parts are too hard to replace, the tech doesn't work for most civilian implementations, etc. i don't know if there are similar issues w/ other military gear.