Posted on 10/13/2019 11:27:05 PM PDT by NorseViking
RIYADH, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Saudi Arabia on Monday for the first time in over a decade, seeking to capitalise on growing influence borne of military advances in Syria, strong ties with regional rivals and cooperation on energy policy.
Moscow accrued power in the Middle East in 2015 by sending troops to Syria, where it and Iran have been key backers of President Bashar al-Assad amid civil war, while the United States pulled back.
On the eve of Putin's trip, U.S. troops were evacuating northern Syria as their erstwhile Kurdish allies struck a deal with Assad's Russian-backed army aimed at halting a Turkish offensive.
Russia has also strengthened ties with both Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Iran, which are locked in a decades-old contest for influence that veered towards open conflict after a recent spate of attacks on oil assets in the Gulf that Riyadh and Washington blame on Tehran. Iran denies the charges.
Tensions with Iran, which is locked in several proxy wars with Saudi Arabia including in Syria, have risen to new highs after Washington last year quit a 2015 international nuclear accord with Tehran and re-imposed sanctions.
Putin, accompanied on the trip by his energy minister and head of Russia's wealth fund, is due to hold talks with King Salman and de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom Putin says he has friendly relations.
The strengthened ties have seen non-OPEC Russia, once regarded as a rival in oil markets, join OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia in forming an alliance known as OPEC+ to support crude prices by restraining output.
Ahead of the visit, Putin, who offered to provide Russian defense systems to the kingdom after
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Vladimir is a smart chess player
Too bad the economic well-being of Russia’s people is lagging.
What do you mean specifically? And I'm not being sarcastic - I don't have any telly
Could be better but not really bad.
The photographs don't lie...
I said back in 2011/12 that the whole U.S./Turkey/Saudi/Qatar/European near decades long covert regime change agenda against Assad, which flowered public in the form of the “Syrian Opposition” was a bigger blunder than working with the Pakistanis and Saudis to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan.
In the end, for the U.S., Syria went from being a contained and manageable security concern, to one with massively increased Russian & Iranian assets and influence in Syria.
How in the hell did the stupid blockheads think (a) Assad would concede a single demand to the opposition, and (b) would it came to conflict Assad would not use the massive responses he could, and (c) following the war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq that the American public would buy American intervention to actually topple Assad.
None of that was likely, and yet upon the Arab spring the single was given by the western backers that the “Syrian opposition” could begin its share of the regime change agenda against Assad and once their heads were raised the west would go in and back them up.
Now Russia is in the Middle East right where the U.S. never wanted it and will never be happy or feel secure about it.
Syria Regime Change - possibly the biggest blunder of the west.
Wolfowitz Doctrine. Clintons supposed to be a royal family and rule the world. Nothing could go wrong.
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