The Big Middle Eastern Thread

[Dr. Gonzo]

On 20/07/2019 at 03:43, Stick With Azeem said:

Javad Zarif met with Senator Rand Paul yesterday for possible talks

Putin’s favourite Senator! He probably doesn’t speak for the US’s position tbh, so that’s a bit weird.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Iran killed 17 people it said were CIA spies. They probably weren’t though, just unlucky Iranian-Americans, in the 80s the Iranian people who took my parents wedding pictures were arrested and executed when they went back to Iran and were accused of being British spies. Their crime was being British Iranians with cameras

[SirBalon]

Special relationship!!! 

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

7 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

Special relationship!!! 

 

Lol fuck this US administration. Lighting fuses in the tinderbox that is the Middle East, creating tensions that have directly impacted one of your allies, and then tell your allies they're on their own. Although part of me suspects that Pompeo (not Trump, because I don't think Trump knows anything) will know that the UK government's current policy of "be as inept as possible" will likely lead us to the brink of war with Iran.

Iran are desperate and are trying to force Europe to the negotiating table, their economy is already failing and these sanctions are putting a real squeeze on people. But going after the UK and acting belligerently is not the best strategy for Iran to bring the EU to the negotiating table.

[SirBalon]

3 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Lol fuck this US administration. Lighting fuses in the tinderbox that is the Middle East, creating tensions that have directly impacted one of your allies, and then tell your allies they're on their own. Although part of me suspects that Pompeo (not Trump, because I don't think Trump knows anything) will know that the UK government's current policy of "be as inept as possible" will likely lead us to the brink of war with Iran.

Iran are desperate and are trying to force Europe to the negotiating table, their economy is already failing and these sanctions are putting a real squeeze on people. But going after the UK and acting belligerently is not the best strategy for Iran to bring the EU to the negotiating table.

It just reminds me of what Obama said back in the day where we would be in the queue. There seems to be a very polarised view of present UK in the US.

[Azeem]

I can't understand why UK seized an Iranian oil tanker in the first place, it looks like UK was looking for an excuse to get involved in all of this

[SirBalon]

39 minutes ago, Stick With Azeem said:

I can't understand why UK seized an Iranian oil tanker in the first place, it looks like UK was looking for an excuse to impress the US in all of this

Maybe like this ???

[SirBalon]

 

[RandoEFC+]

Why are we even still anywhere near the Middle East? I thought the people had decided that we wanted nothing to do with other countries anymore?

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 minute ago, RandoEFC said:

Why are we even still anywhere near the Middle East? I thought the people had decided that we wanted nothing to do with other countries anymore?

There's this magical black liquid that comes from the ground and the Middle East has a lot of it.

After World War Two, imperialism became "unfashionable" so instead of out-in-the-open imperialism we've got economic imperialism going on. Which is basically just imperialism, but more dishonest and with more extra steps.

Colonies aren't a thing anymore, so "regional allies" that do regular business with the West are basically the same thing, but it also means Western powers can be had by the balls by people like the Saudis. There's money to be made in selling weapons to the Saudis and they have the largest crude oil reserves in the world. So they're an important regional ally... even though ISIS and Al Qaeda exist because of their funding of Salafist ideologies (like Wahhabism).

Because they're an important regional ally, their national interests become western foreign policy interests. Saudi Arabia and Iran have long standing issues, some of which go back centuries because of the Shia v Sunnis shite, some of which are much more modern points of tension. Specifically, the fact that Iran went from being a UK/US puppet government that was incredibly friendly with the West (even though it was a dictatorship at times) to being very hostile with the West... while Iran has the second largest crude oil reserves in the world, means that the Iranian revolution and rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran was very profitable for the Saudis. Their biggest competitor was essentially no longer competing for Western markets.\

So Saudi Arabia has routinely pushed for the West to go to war with Iran. And for Iran to be balkanized by the various ethnic groups in Iran, meaning those second largest crude oil reserves would no longer be part of one nation. But instead it'd be broken up (and Arabs would have a state in the aftermath of Iran being broken up, which would probably allow for more Saudi puppets in the region and another piece of the oil pie for the Saudis to have more control over the oil.

So that's the long term benefit for Saudi interests, which ties into Western foreign policy interests. As several new countries emerging from the smoldering rubbles of Iran also means new opportunities for new puppet governments (although Iraq and Afghanistan indicate that might not go over so great), which Western governments probably view as more appealing than having one powerful nation in the region that is wholly unfriendly to them.

And in the short term, Saudis would be happy with a war in the Middle East... especially Iran. Plenty of reasons for that: 1.) petrol prices will go up as a result of war - thus a big short term profit for them; 2.) war in Iran essentially guarantees they are victorious in their proxy war with Iran in Yemen - Iran will be busy defending itself from foreign invaders to fight a proxy war with it's old enemy - further solidifying Saudi dominance of the region; 3.) it'll kill a lot of Persians and Shia Muslims - ethnic divides in the Middle East are fucking massive and there's a lot of genuine hate against people for not being the same ethnicity. Let alone for not practicing the same form of Islam.

And there's too much money and power to ever expect economic imperialism to ever go away. If the West backs off, China will be happy to impose it's idea of global hegemony. If China decides it doesn't want to (which let's be real, they wouldn't make that decision - they'd seize the opportunity with both hands) then Russia or someone else would.

For as long as that magical black liquid that comes from the ground is as important to us as it currently is, we'll always be palling around the US and sniffing around the Middle East trying to influence it in one way or another.

[RandoEFC+]

@Dr. Gonzo they should ask the all knowing public whether we should be arsed with the middle east. If we don't need food, medicine or a functioning health system "because we're British and we're a great country" then I'm sure we can do without oil or indeed any fuel as well.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Just now, RandoEFC said:

@Dr. Gonzo they should ask the all knowing public whether we should be arsed with the middle east. If we don't need food, medicine or a functioning health system "because we're British and we're a great country" then I'm sure we can do without oil or indeed any fuel as well.

If disaster capitalists could find a way to profit off ceding economic imperialism, I'm sure they would. But with Brexit, they're hoping for austerity, privitisation, and deregulation - so the path to making shitloads of money from Brexit disaster is more immediately obvious than the path to making shitloads of money without economic imperialism.

Granted, there's probably a way to make lots of money in the west while working towards reducing our dependency on fossil fuels. But that's not going to happen when there's so many climate change deniers out there in the West, especially in the US. And given that the UK is doing all it can to make sure it's the US's poodle for the rest of our lives... we shouldn't expect our foreign policy to be too different from the US's ever anymore.

[SirBalon]

 

[Azeem]

Attacks at two Saudi oil and gas processing units, US blames Iran. 

Trump says his government is “locked and loaded” and ready to respond to whoever carried out Saturday’s attack, 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Stick With Azeem

[Devil-Dick Willie]

23 hours ago, Stick With Azeem said:

Attacks at two Saudi oil and gas processing units, US blames Iran. 

Trump says his government is “locked and loaded” and ready to respond to whoever carried out Saturday’s attack, 

US gonna attack themselves?

[Dr. Gonzo]

Honestly, now I think that the notorious war monger John Bolton was actually counseling Trump to show some fucking restraint on Iran - which quite frankly is unbelievable... but this timeline we’re on is unbelievable as fuck.

John Bolton is sacked and now there’s what looks to be a false flag attack on the Saudi’s and the Saudis and Trump baying for war with Iran.

But an administration that falsifies weather maps for hurricanes hitting the US shouldn’t be trusted. Especially on the issue of war in the Middle East.

Also fuck the Saudis, they buy billions in weaponry from the US. If this attack was real why don’t they just fucking defend themselves?

Oh that’s right, because even with their state of the art weaponry they can’t even put down a rebel uprising in Yemen because they’re too fucking inept. That’s why if they want to go to war with a real country, they’ll need the US to do it for them

[6666]

Isolating ourselves from European politics and cosying up with US politics even more than we already were will work out well I think... 

[Dr. Gonzo]

3 hours ago, 6666 said:

Isolating ourselves from European politics and cosying up with US politics even more than we already were will work out well I think... 

If we were the US's poodle before... I imagine now it's going to be something more of "we're the US's leashed gimp"

[Michael]

On 17/09/2019 at 17:29, Dr. Gonzo said:

Honestly, now I think that the notorious war monger John Bolton was actually counseling Trump to show some fucking restraint on Iran - which quite frankly is unbelievable... but this timeline we’re on is unbelievable as fuck.

John Bolton is sacked and now there’s what looks to be a false flag attack on the Saudi’s and the Saudis and Trump baying for war with Iran.

But an administration that falsifies weather maps for hurricanes hitting the US shouldn’t be trusted. Especially on the issue of war in the Middle East.

Also fuck the Saudis, they buy billions in weaponry from the US. If this attack was real why don’t they just fucking defend themselves?

Oh that’s right, because even with their state of the art weaponry they can’t even put down a rebel uprising in Yemen because they’re too fucking inept. That’s why if they want to go to war with a real country, they’ll need the US to do it for them

The Saudis have taken time to quell the rebel uprising in Yemen mainly because the rebels have been helped out with weaponary from Iran. The rebels have a huge population on their side as well.

It's a similar situation in Eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military have still not overcome the rebels in the small region of Donbas after 5 years of fighting. Despite buying weapons from the West, the Ukrainians are still waging a war in that region. The rebels are supported by the Russian State, which is a major reason as to why the rebels are still holding out. Both the rebels in Donbas and the Houthis in Yemen are hardened fighters as well and as long as they are supported by larger nations, it will be difficult to totally overcome them. It has little to do with the Ukrainian or Saudi militaries being inept.

[Michael]

On 18/09/2019 at 22:50, Dr. Gonzo said:

If we were the US's poodle before... I imagine now it's going to be something more of "we're the US's leashed gimp"

The relations between the US and the UK are going to be stronger than ever, if Boris remains as PM and if the UK leaves the EU as is expected.

[Michael]

On 22/07/2019 at 21:41, RandoEFC said:

Why are we even still anywhere near the Middle East? I thought the people had decided that we wanted nothing to do with other countries anymore?

As Dr. Gonzo said, it's all about money. The US is a capitalist nation which always seeks to make as much money as possible. Iran has a hell of a lot of oil and gas. The regime in Iran has always been confrontational towards the West. The oil tanker incidents and the attacks on the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, look like prime excuses for an invasion of Iran. Toppling the Iranian regime and getting more access to Iranian oil and gas is something that the capitalists in the US would seemingly relish. 

The US always pits nations in the ME against each other for the US's own interests. By helping to create instability in the region, there is always a rife excuse for the US to invade.

[Azeem]

32 minutes ago, Michael said:

As Dr. Gonzo said, it's all about money. The US is a capitalist nation which always seeks to make as much money as possible. Iran has a hell of a lot of oil and gas. The regime in Iran has always been confrontational towards the West. The oil tanker incidents and the attacks on the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, look like prime excuses for an invasion of Iran. Toppling the Iranian regime and getting more access to Iranian oil and gas is something that the capitalists in the US would seemingly relish. 

The US always pits nations in the ME against each other for the US's own interests. By helping to create instability in the region, there is always a rife excuse for the US to invade.

And it isn't really that difficult, the baggage of history between all major stake holders in ME Arabs, Persians, Turks, Kurds is too much to ignore. 

Edited September 20, 2019 by Stick With Azeem

[Vegan Kel]

It's amazing how many times these cunts can lie and get away with it. Why do people honestly believe these politicians and military freemasons have your interests at heart? Since when have they ever not manipulated wars, funded both sides and made a literal killing from it? 

If our 'leaders' (lol) and their military 'intelligence' (total misnomer) tell me something then that is the last thing I will believe, especially as they never offer any credible evidence. They just expect us to blindly take the words of proven liars and murderers. Sadly, the majority do

[Azeem]

100+ people killed in anti Iran backed government protests in Iraq. US/Saudi and Iran tussle will ultimately destroy the whole Middle East literally Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and now Iraq.......  

[Azeem]