There’s only one problem with the thesis.
Yemen.
Yemeni President Hadi has already returned to Aden, soon Sanaa will fall. This simply could not have been accomplished without American in-flight refueling of Saudi and UAE bomb-laden jets.
I never could get my head around this, as it was during the tense final days of the Iran-nuke agreement negotiations that the decision was made to supply refueling services to enable the attacks in Yemen, completely contrary to Iranian interests there. And Iran wanted Yemen, almost had control through their Houthi proxies, and as such, Hadi’s return to Aden is a tremendous defeat for the Mullahs.
A big black eye. Enabled, no-not possible at all-without Obama’s decision to provide the critical mid-air refueling that all the Sunni-Arab coalition sorties required.
How does this square with the thesis that Obama wants the Iranians to dominate the region? During this time, Obama also approved delivery of American weaponry to Egypt, to el-Sisi, whom he obviously abhors. What’s up with this?
To me, he’s been playing both sides, hopefully, someone here can help me understand why I’m wrong.
No, you make excellent points.
The total picture is indeed very muddied.