Saudi Arabia General Discussion Thread: Purge Time with Finn and Jake

[Zinneke]

Surely the massive US military presence in Qatar rules out annexation?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I wonder if Kuwait and Oman will be forced to take a side? Maybe the latter will get a get out clause becaue they always seem to think they're Switzerland or something, but Kuwait caused a lot of anger amongst the KSA with it's "why are we even fighting" shtick a few months or so back. (and apparantly from what has leaked Kuwait was often labeled just as much a prodigal son as Qatar).


fwiw the US will almost certainly back KSA over Qatar, troops or no troops.

[Zinneke]

Surely the massive US military presence in Qatar rules out annexation?

Naval Support Activity Bahrain is not a large base and deals mostly with small MCMs (minesweepers). The base just put out a statement saying nothing will change essentially status quo. The OIC is probably working with CENTCOM trying to figure out wth is going down, recall or not to recall, etc. I can tell you that if KSA decides to go all in, there is very little we could or would do.

I mean the airbase in Qatar.
Also US-Qatar relations were good, but I imagine this was brought up in Trump's KSA visit.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

If KSA, UAE, etc. block shipment, we could be looking at a naval engagement here.

Christ...

[Stranger in a strange land]

Some fun facts:
+ 88% of the population of Qatar is non-citizen foreign workers
+ There are more Indians in Qatar than Qatari citizens
+ Qatar has a population of 2.6 million: no chance Iran could supply it with an airlift, especially considering the rather, er, extravagant standard of living that Qataris are [in]famous for.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Surely the massive US military presence in Qatar rules out annexation?

The potential annexation wouldn't be by Iran, it would be by Saudi Arabia / UAE. I find the possibility that Trump would go along with that to be frighteningly likely. (How friendly/hostile has Al Jazeera's coverage of Trump been?) Heck, the Saudis probably got Trump to sign off (verbally, at least) on this during his visit.

[Zinneke]

Surely the massive US military presence in Qatar rules out annexation?

The potential annexation wouldn't be by Iran, it would be by Saudi Arabia / UAE. I find the possibility that Trump would go along with that to be frighteningly likely. (How friendly/hostile has Al Jazeera's coverage of Trump been?) Heck, the Saudis probably got Trump to sign off (verbally, at least) on this during his visit.

If anything KSA are profiting on the fact Trump has no idea what is going on in the ME right now and is relying on Tillerson when pretty much all the Near East policy adviser seats are empty.

But the fact the US still directly rely on Qatar for Afghan and Iraqi operations means I think at "worst" this is KSA trying to oust the current leadership through a coup rather than annexation and invasion, and at "best" its a response to Qatar violating some gentleman's agreement related to either Syria or the gas reserves with Iran, and that being the final straw for the Saudis after Qatari sponsoring of Arab Spring. KSA would not risk starting a hot war with Iran, it may have a bigger defense budget but it would not last a limited war with attrition and the internal strife.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I wonder if it could be related to this. Saudi Arabia could be trying to fool dumbs into thinking that they never fund terrorists and that everything is Qatar's fault. Of course they're both to blame.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/05/theresa-may-urged-not-to-suppress-report-into-funding-of-jihadi-groups

[Gass3268]

Panic buying in Qatar now as shoppers stockpile food

[Lachi]

I'm now wondering what will happen to the 2022 world cup. I hope they move it back to the rightful winner, Australia.

[Iosif]

Can anyone explain what is going on here?

The Saudis hate Muslim Brotherhood and the Quataris were big sponsors of them when they were relevant.

There's also Iran, which KSA always gets annoyed that its smaller cousins aren't sufficiently angry about (for reference: Qatar has the weird Islamist fetish that is more utopian unify the ummah than Saudis; UAE only care about money and Oman is in a strange halfway house due to geography and the fact it's brand of religion is different from bath sides).

There's also economic bickering about natural gas etc

That is a terrific summary.

[Gass3268]

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[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

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And Trump sets fire to another US alliance carefully built over years.

Guess Qatar is kicking themselves for not plastering Trump's face all over their nation and not giving him a giant glowing orb to hold. Maybe it's not too late for them to change their name to Trumpistan?

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Qataris didn't give Trump an orb to hold? Low energy.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

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Naturally, it won't prevent wealthy Saudis to finance terrorists with the rulers turning a blind eye.

It almost looks like the U.S. along with stronger Arab nations simply picked a little country as a fall guy to show their anti-terrorist "credentials". Not that Qataris are innocent apples, but still.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

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Naturally, it won't prevent wealthy Saudis to finance terrorists with the rulers turning a blind eye.

It almost looks like the U.S. along with stronger Arab nations simply picked a little country as a fall guy to show their anti-terrorist "credentials". Not that Qataris are innocent apples, but still.

Yeah... It makes me think of a cartoon I can't find. There are a bunch of wolves in ill-fitting sheep costumes, in front of a mob of angry sheep, all pointing fingers at at one un-disguised wolf saying "he did it!"

[Gass3268]

Jordan has jumped in too

Pentagon: We can't square Trump's comments with our position on Qatar

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Jordan has jumped in too

Atlas-style bandwagon effect.

[DavidB.]

Atlas-style bandwagon effect.

Jordan and Mauritania are just emptyquoting now.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

X post from aad:

At a guess, I assume this is how things went down:

1) trump's team both are stereotypically as anti Iranian as one would expect, but also contain more scepticism to the Gulf and its foreign influence than was previously expected from the GOP. This is a shift not limited to trump, with anti-Saudi, Emirati and Qatari narratives becoming fairly popular in even 'mainstream' 'establishment' circles.

2) Saudi does not want to lose its cover from the west, so when trump visited it basically blamed everything on Qatar. I.e. "oh we agree with your concerns on terrorism and we are dealing with it, but you know who isn't dealing with it? Qatar". This is not a completely unfair assessment - Qatari ideological influence on the islamic world is a lot more quasi-populist, revolutionary theology than Saudi promoted salafism which theologically is more rooted in ultra-conservatism" Trump would have been happy to hear this, especially as it neatly links in with his handlers' main concern of isolating Iran.

the global western establishment will be in two minds. One the one hand, they view Qatar as a pretty malignant influence, with a lot of delusions about its own significance and far more likely to disrupt 'useful' dictators and more open about funding jihadi proxies than Saudis are. On the other, this is a very risky move, which could cause the ultimate fear - a war between Iran and KSA, which at worst could cascade and bring in the entire Muslim world or even further, draw in Russia and USA to save their respective charges. (trumps relative detente with Russia would not last IMO)

I'm fairly interested on where Erdogan and Barzani will fall in such an escalation.

[ApatheticAustrian]

ahaha ahaha ahahaha


wow


FIRST ON CNN: US suspects Russian hackers planted fake news behind Qatar crisis
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/russian-hackers-planted-fake-news-qatar-crisis/index.html

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[ApatheticAustrian]

According to AlJ (yayaya, i know, not the best source right now), Saudi-Arabia demanded 10 points from Doha in the next 24 hours....otherwise there would be a form of punishment.

https://twitter.com/faisaledroos/status/872251817110806528

Part of the 10 points:

Ousting Hamas......no more funding for terrorist groups.....breaking up relationships with Iran......killing Al Jazeera (lol).....not meddling anymore in egyptian affairs.


This is not even rough diplomacy, this is sheer imperialism. arguably sparked by russian provocateurs.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Ousting Hamas......no more funding for terrorist groups.....breaking up relationships with Iran......killing Al Jazeera (lol).....not meddling anymore in egyptian affairs.

Obviously they mean no more funding for terrorist groups that Saudi Arabia doesn't like. Lets not kid ourselves about Saudi Arabia.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

According to AlJ (yayaya, i know, not the best source right now), Saudi-Arabia demanded 10 points from Doha in the next 24 hours....otherwise there would be a form of punishment.

10 points.  That seems familiar.  And it didn't even tale killing a Saudi royal to do it.

[Lord Halifax]

X post from aad:

At a guess, I assume this is how things went down:

1) trump's team both are stereotypically as anti Iranian as one would expect, but also contain more scepticism to the Gulf and its foreign influence than was previously expected from the GOP. This is a shift not limited to trump, with anti-Saudi, Emirati and Qatari narratives becoming fairly popular in even 'mainstream' 'establishment' circles.

2) Saudi does not want to lose its cover from the west, so when trump visited it basically blamed everything on Qatar. I.e. "oh we agree with your concerns on terrorism and we are dealing with it, but you know who isn't dealing with it? Qatar". This is not a completely unfair assessment - Qatari ideological influence on the islamic world is a lot more quasi-populist, revolutionary theology than Saudi promoted salafism which theologically is more rooted in ultra-conservatism" Trump would have been happy to hear this, especially as it neatly links in with his handlers' main concern of isolating Iran.

the global western establishment will be in two minds. One the one hand, they view Qatar as a pretty malignant influence, with a lot of delusions about its own significance and far more likely to disrupt 'useful' dictators and more open about funding jihadi proxies than Saudis are. On the other, this is a very risky move, which could cause the ultimate fear - a war between Iran and KSA, which at worst could cascade and bring in the entire Muslim world or even further, draw in Russia and USA to save their respective charges. (trumps relative detente with Russia would not last IMO)

I'm fairly interested on where Erdogan and Barzani will fall in such an escalation.

Within the Greater Middle East - not Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Central Asia, Black Muslim Africa etc. Maybe Pakistan, but even that is doubtful.