The Arab regimes have their public anti-American, anti-Israeli stance. That’s for the consumption of the masses. Then, they have the practical behind the scenes pragmatism you must have if you’re going to survive in a bad neighborhood. Allegedly, Israel has used a Saudi airbase as a refueling stop. When it hit the press they were publically angry at “the lies.” But, apparently, they had opened a corridor in which there were no anti-air assets.
I haven’t seen anything on this in several years now. Anybody have the latest?
That’s true, and the monstrous, terrorist pseudostates like the PA and Hamas are also faces of the Arab regimes. Despite our usual stance around here, there is moderation among the Muzzies — but only when they need something.
The rumors (3 or 4 years ago?) about the IAF repurposing an obsolete airbase in n. Saudi Arabia was denied at the time, and may have been just some anti-Saud agitprop, but it’s likely that Israel has been participating on the down-low with Saudi AF and anti-terrorism training, and that it has been going on on for some years now, perhaps as long ago as the Gulf War.
Remember years ago, when that self-proclaimed Mahdi took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca? It took two weeks and the efforts of a good chunk of their entire army for the House of Saud to prevail against those nuts, in a tiny little spot, with no resupply for the jihadists. The fighting in the honeycomb of underground catacombs was so awful that the government had a construction company (ironically, I think it was Bin Laden’s) fill most of those tunnels and chambers with concrete.
The Saudis got so desperate they obtained help in the form of analysis from three agents of French intelligence; also the Wahhab imams extracted some concessions from the regime in order to declare the “Mahdi” and his followers apostate. If the House of Saud had been on the ball, they’d killed the Wahhab imams first, then the Mahdists, and afterward started systematically clearing the oilfields of Shia (that’s where the Saudi Shia live, figures, huh?) and resettled the entire oilpatch with foreign workers from, for example, the United States. Generally speaking, US workers don’t blow up their workplaces, start oilwell fires, or strap bombs to themselves.
I would guess this is one of many topics discussed in the super secret antiIran coalition war room that has been in existence for years. The enemy in the region, the common enemy is Iran. Syria is an Iranian surrogate.
America can’t bomb Syria. Saudi Arabia can’t bomb Syria, Qatar and Turkey can’t bomb Syria....... no cause.
Israel can claim self defense and did. None of the above complained because they all agreed to the action