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

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Just read that Egypt and UAE have done the same. Crazy!

Egypt does everything Saudi wants.

Almost everything. Egypt's unlikely to ban Egyptians from working there.

[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.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Wow, my opinion of Saudi Arabia is only going up! And without Trump these positive developments likely would not have happened.

well, you know as well as all of us, that the hamas/terrorist-subterfuge is only feint.

Of course, but the diplomatic conflict is real. As long as these countries focus themselves on each other they don't focus themselves on Israel.

And if one of them actually manages to unite the Sunni Arabs? That has to be Israel's worst nightmare right now given how its current policies assume the Arabs will always remain divided and thus not pose an existential threat to Israel.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And if one of them actually manages to unite the Sunni Arabs? That has to be Israel's worst nightmare right now given how its current policies assume the Arabs will always remain divided and thus not pose an existential threat to Israel.

Israel's policies assume none of that, they know better. But at this point it is less likely than ever for Jordan and Egypt to seek a conflict with Israel (intelligence cooperation goes rather deep, especially with Jordan), Qatar are Sunnis themselves, and uniting all Sunni Arabs is about as likely as uniting all Slavs.

I imagine the Habsburgs thought much the same. It doesn't mean that even a temporary unity wouldn't pose a threat to Israel. And its policies do very much assume that Israel will remain the most powerful country in the region forever. If they didn't, then the policy of turning the Arab portions of the West Bank into a bunch of fragmented Bantustans would make no sense. While that's not the officially stated policy, it is the effect of Israel's current settlement policy.

As for relations with Jordan, the Hashemites are always having to tread carefully due to its shaky economic circumstances.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Saudis have upped the stakes in their war with Qatar.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-40378221

I don't know why they want to make Qatar into a Irano-Turkish client state, but that will be the net effect I think.  At least with the Iranians, Qatar will be able to preserve the illusion of independence, while capitulation would effectively make it Saudi Arabia's fourteenth region. Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani can't capitulate to these demands without losing everything the Thanis have been striving for over the last two centuries.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Saudis will just annex Qatar if they go down that road, it would be easy for them to do it. The Saudis now think that they should have control over the entire area. The Omanis don't really care but everyone else is in bed with the Saudis because of the fear of Iran and more riyals coming their way for "projects, development", etc.

Don't be ridiculous.  If the Saudis go down that path, they won't annex, they'll install their own puppet Al-Thani.  With hundreds if not thousands of Al-Thanis and no requirement for primogeniture, they should be able to find at least one puppet willing to have the Saudi hand up their backside.