Posted on 01/05/2016 3:42:53 AM PST by Timber Rattler
The Obama administration on Monday confronted the fundamental contradiction in its increasingly tense relationship with Saudi Arabia. It could not bring itself, at least in public, to condemn the execution of a dissident cleric who challenged the royal family, for fear of undermining the fragile Saudi leadership that it desperately needs in fighting the Islamic State and ending the conflict in Syria.
The United States has usually looked the other way or issued carefully calibrated warnings in human rights reports as the Saudi royal family cracked down on dissent and free speech and allowed its elite to fund Islamic extremists. In return, Saudi Arabia became Americaâs most dependable filling station, a regular supplier of intelligence, and a valuable counterweight to Iran.
For years it was oil that provided the glue for a relationship between two nations that share few common values.
Today, with American oil production surging and the Saudi leadership fractured, the mutual dependency that goes back to the early 1930s, with the first American investment in the kingdomâs oil fields, no longer binds the nations as it once did.
But the political upheaval in the Middle East and the American perception that the Saudis are critical to stability in the region continue to hold together an increasingly fractious marriage. So when Saudi Arabia executed 47 people, including Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, the dissident cleric, on Saturday, beheading many of them in a style that most Americans associate with the Islamic State rather than a close American partner, the administrationâs efforts to explain the relationship became more strained than ever.
In fact, the executions were the culmination of a series of events in the past few years that have led to clashes between the two nations.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Yeh, heh, heh, they said “fractured”.....
I do too, but if it comes to blows between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the last thing I want to see is a US soldier lose his life helping the Saudis.
The Saudis have been mucking with our foreign policy since the seventies. With energy independence in sight it’s time to slip the yoke.
They have oil. We need oil. Alliance explained.
(Whether we need their oil enough to put up with their s*** is another matter entirely.)
Finally.
The Current Regime is struggling even harder to explain its de facto alliance with the Iranians.
Even less than a US soldier losing his life defending the Saudis, would I expect or want a US soldier losing his life defending the Iranians.
The Current Regime has decided which side it will defend in this coming MUCH wider conflict, and they have come down solidly on the side of the Iranians.
The Muslim Brotherhood is going to be P*SSED at this perfidy. Now, more than ever, ISIS is going to be launching attacks within the countries they consider to be “enemies”.
Nobody is safe.
Yep, not that difficult. When it comes to keeping the economy running, principles go out the window.
I’m trying to remember: Where did most of the passports held by the murdering pilots of 9/11 attacks originate?
Can you say: “Jarrett” or “Huma?”
Fast becoming: They have oil, China wants oil, US does not want China to have unimpeded access to said oil.
If we could now see the 20 redacted pages from the 911 report, we probably would have nothing to do with them.
Swiss bankers are preparing a welcome.
It makes more sense when you just determine that the U.S. government has been bought and infiltrated by foreign governments for years.
Poor Barry- all those Muslim Brotherhood types in his administration, but Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett always close at hand to smack his fingers with a ruler. What's a man to do?
As of today, he 'll just do more of what he has done since his Arab Spring tinkering didn't go according to the timetable: kick some really big cans down the road while shoving the next executive outrage up the American public's azz with the help of a compliant GOP-e.
Mr. niteowl77
Our gov's enabling of Saudi Arabia is a large part of why the US is not the country I grew up in. Whether it was pretense or not, as a child, (1) I really believed that I lived in a special place and the gov would keep us safe and prosperous and (2) I really believed that in choosing alliances, the US would take the high road, and not ally with scum. I also believed that we would let other cultures and governments alone as long as they didn't directly attack us.
Viet Nam shattered a lot of those views. After 911, I thought every Saudi should've been deported from the US and it was finally obvious that they are the enemy of the people.
Some Freepers talk about the strategic need to ally with them, blah, blah, blah. I'm not buying it. The US should get out of the global manipulation business, and go back to things we expect, like defending Christians and keeping invaders out of the US.
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