What Do You MENA (Middle East, North Africa and other nearby Political Hotspots) 2019

Talking of state intelligence and security forces:

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/11/europe/syria-white-helmets-backer-james-le-mesurier-intl/index.html

huge leak from iran in the intercept and NYT today - some of the links here. mostly about how they took power in iraq. i haven't read much of it yet but looks like a significant publication:

Good morning, here's our series of stories based on 700 pages of top secret documents from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. This has never happened before: https://t.co/AiDfviY14I

— Murtaza Mohammad Hussain (@MazMHussain) November 18, 2019

The importance of these Iranian cables seems more to provide confirmation and details to what could be reasonable inferred from the power dynamics in the region and the visible 'hot' conflicts. Iran and Saudi Arabia are both pushing hard to accumulate and consolidate regional influence, through every means available to them and the situation is very fluid and constantly shifting.

yes it's a world of difference between vague inferences + real information as "through every means available to them and the situation is very fluid and constantly shifting" is practically meaningless in content whereas these 700 pages help fill in the gaps of what those means include and how they actually look

Iran is a land of contrasts

Just stunning work by the Bush administration. Spend a couple trillion dollars and kill a couple hundred thousand civilians so that Iraq can become a client state of Iran.

Experts on the Ian Masters news program were talking about this as early as 2002. Iraq is a majority Shi'a country, many of whose leaders had spent years in Iranian exile; and Iran a neighboring hedgemon that has taken the indirect/subterfuge approach to regional politics for centuries. Installing Ahmad Chalabi and other Western affiliated INC exiles to govern was always a fantasy that only neocons were indoctrinated enough to believe.

no gov't for Benny. Time for yet another election!

Not necessarily - indictment coming down tomorrow supposedly which could mean Likud minus Bibi aka potential gov as minor partner

indictment meaning Bibi would step aside? or would he have to be removed/challenged from within the party?

Either potentially I imagine depends on whether Bibi and Likud think he can beat it?

Bibi is getting all Trumpy like in his criticisms re attorney general he appointed. Bibi's status could get get ruled upon by Israel Supreme Court

so sick of this left wing anti semitism from uh Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit

"Channel 13 News reported that Hollywood producer Milchan, the central figure in Case 1000, told police that he attended a dinner at the Prime Minister's Residence in which Netanyahu's wife lashed at the Adelsons, telling them, 'You are spilling my blood, you are all spilling my blood.” Sheldon Adelson reportedly responded: "Calm down, we're doing the best we can. I lose 40 to 50 million dollars a year [on Israel Hayom]. … We regularly write in your favor and you keep shouting at me."

Another report from Channel 12 involving testimony from Case 2000 quoted Miriam Adelson as saying that Sara Netanyahu “once told me that if Iran gets nuclear weapons and Israel is wiped out, I’ll be to blame, because I’m not defending Bibi.”

Both the prime minister and his wife complained about their coverage with the Adelson newspaper’s former editor in chief, Amos Regev, both in person and in “screaming phone calls.”

Eventually, Miriam Adelson said, she and her husband got fed up and stopped visiting the Netanyahus."

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-netanyahu-israel-indictment-cases-charges-1.8160019

Still think they should name the US Embassy after Adelson, who effectively paid for it with his own money

warming up to bibi and sara reading that anecdote

does any other asshole world leader have such an affectionate nickname that both his supporters and haters use?

refuse to call this piece of shit "Bibi"

my dad (a chilean exile from the pinochet dictatorship) and i sometimes jokingly refer to pinochet as "el tata" (grampa) so i don't mind calling netanyahu bibi

Dubya?

This thread is not getting used that much. Do we start a 2020 one, anyway?

We can discuss>

Netanyahu wants temporary immunity

Predicting how Iran will respond to the US action.

Complexity of knowing that Soleimani was responsible also for crushing Iranian and Syrian opponents of dictators in addition to Americans who never should have been in Iraq, but determining that if an outside force takes action against him without authority, that end result may still not help poor folks who were suffering in those countries, or help Western powers either

i think a new thread makes sense. it got over 200 posts and i definitely used it last year for things i'd otherwise be bumping this thread to post

Any new title ideas for thread? I see an older Iranian thread is getting use now

We're talking about sand and death

"We're talking about sand and death-- Middle East, North Africa and other nearby Political Hotspots 2020 " works for me

"We're talking about sand and death"-- Middle East, North Africa (MENA) and other nearby Political Hotspots 2020

New thread started