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To: odds; SolidWood
Britain is much better positioned to manage the ‘diplomatic’ angle - that’s Britain forte in general.

Historically speaking, the British have been diplomatic fools in the middle east -- setting up evil with short-term gains. Right from the early 1800s when they propped up the Ottoman Turks instead of freeing Christians, to when they put Sunnis and Shias in a Christian Lebanon, to when in WWI they didn't attack at Antioch, when there was clear news of Arabs (under the Hashemites and secular pan-Arabism) and Armenians and Kurds ready to overthrow the Turks; instead they expended blood and thousands of lives at Gallipolli.

No, the Brits are an expended force -- let the Middle Easterners come under Russia and China and India's thumbs.

The Russians and Chinese won't be so nice -- look at Russia's brutal yet effective, people moving in the 1940s and 50s -- creating ethnically pure states.

They will slaughter all the non-Christians out of Lebanon, create Alawite and Christian Syrias, Christian Assyria, probably also a wider Armenia

Plus, the Russians will be kept busy for decades in the Middle East and Turkey -- no time or ability to cause mischief in the west.

24 posted on 12/08/2016 5:40:21 AM PST by Cronos (Obama's dislike of Assad is not based on his brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Cronos

In engineering the current M.E. Britain had a distinct agenda to serve the British Empire that was. Today that British Empire does not exist, and geopolitics have significantly changed too.

Of course, Britain still has her political, but more so her economic interests in the M.E. as much as the Russians, Americans, and the Chinese, in that region.

What I was saying before here was in a context & specifically about helping the US by using British diplomacy and influence to transition the House of Saud out of being custodians of Mecca and Medina, whilst limiting their ‘other support’ for the Saudis and the Gulf states.

The ‘other support’ includes: selling military equipment to them (along with the U.S.), doing business deals with them, and quit publicizing how ‘liberal’ & religiously tolerant the Gulf states are because they got nightclubs, a surplus of British tourists, and build a church or two to show goodwill.

Surprisingly or not, Russia exercises a great deal of diplomacy (not brutality) with Iran, as does China (to a lesser extent), to rein in the Mullahs in Iran.

With the Saudis, the Russians are definitely much less tolerant.

Needless to say, both the Saudis and Iranian regimes know exactly where they stand with Britain, USA, Russia and I should think with China too.


25 posted on 12/08/2016 6:11:09 AM PST by odds
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To: Cronos
Yes and the Brits celebrate that effing asshole Lawrence of Arabia. They have always had a hard on where Arabs are concerned. They sided against Christendom when they sided with the Turks against Russia in the Crimean. They paid tribute to the damn Barbary Pirates (to Lord Nelson's credit he was absolutely against this) while Jefferson decided enough is enough. Oh, yes, and being effing assholes to the ANZAC forces in Gallipolli. They also left behind weapon caches for the Arabs after they exited Palestine, and their own officers killed Jews in fighting for the Jordanians.
36 posted on 12/08/2016 1:25:34 PM PST by Sam Gamgee
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