Oh, if only we had more renewable energy so we didn't have to give a crap about which dictator is making a move against which other dictator in the Middle East.
The best part is that it wasn't even Iran that did this.
It's fine to be skeptical, but where is your quotation proof end quotation that definitively Iran did not do this? You are saying there's a 0% chance this happened?
The Yemeni group claiming credit for it seems like pretty good evidence that they did it.
How is that evidence? It's a claim of responsibility. I could claim I own the moon, that's not evidence of doing so. The broader issue is if Iran helped plan and stage the attack, which is what a few sites are now reporting.
The Trump admin and Neo cons clamoring for war may or may not be the case. I've said before, this isn't a blameless game. if Iran is directly providing support and technical support for strikes against major oil producers, I'm having a hard time seeing how even a Democrat could avoid doing limited strikes in retaliation. It's a hand forcing deal.
I'm waiting to see more concrete evidence before I'm weighing in.
Just because al quaeda claimed credit doesn't mean Iraq didn't do it!
I'm just curious how a small fleet of drones and missiles managed to enter SA airspace. Like what was the flight path? How would they of crossed the Gulf undetected?
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
It seems vanishingly unlikely that even drones would go undetected in Iranian airspace with recent geopolitical events.
Let's be honest, the whole reason we went into Iraq in the very first place in Desert Shield/Storm was because Saudi Arabia felt threatened and wanted to eliminate a regional rival that was growing in power and getting bolder about throwing its weight around. This is nothing really new.
My opinion is that if Iran did strike Saudi Arabia that’s a big problem... For Saudi Arabia. But fuck the US being a cat’s paw for various internal regional disputes.
Unless there is a bunch of shenanigans young DA was fully unaware of Desert Storm was because Iraq invaded another sovereign country. Like, we weren't fond of them to begin with but they just flat out enacted a war of aggression and twenty years before Crimea that wasn't going to fly on the international stage.
Let's be honest, the whole reason we went into Iraq in the very first place in Desert Shield/Storm was because Saudi Arabia felt threatened and wanted to eliminate a regional rival that was growing in power and getting bolder about throwing its weight around. This is nothing really new.
My opinion is that if Iran did strike Saudi Arabia that’s a big problem... For Saudi Arabia. But fuck the US being a cat’s paw for various internal regional disputes.
Unless there is a bunch of shenanigans young DA was fully unaware of Desert Storm was because Iraq invaded another sovereign country. Like, we weren't fond of them to begin with but they just flat out enacted a war of aggression and twenty years before Crimea that wasn't going to fly on the international stage.
Shield is yeah, an entirely different matter.
Yeah, there were shenanigans. The Bush administration was asked by Hussein directly if it would object to an invasion of Kuwait and told the US had no concern for internal regional matters among Arab states. Saddam was a shithead and it was a war of aggression, but the lead up to the Kuwait invasion was a lot more complicated than just “Saddam Hussein woke up one morning and decided to invade Kuwait”.
Let's be honest, the whole reason we went into Iraq in the very first place in Desert Shield/Storm was because Saudi Arabia felt threatened and wanted to eliminate a regional rival that was growing in power and getting bolder about throwing its weight around. This is nothing really new.
My opinion is that if Iran did strike Saudi Arabia that’s a big problem... For Saudi Arabia. But fuck the US being a cat’s paw for various internal regional disputes.
Iraq invaded Kuwait which is why we led a coalition including the kingdom and Egypt among others, and we never invaded Iraq in 91.
Let's be honest, the whole reason we went into Iraq in the very first place in Desert Shield/Storm was because Saudi Arabia felt threatened and wanted to eliminate a regional rival that was growing in power and getting bolder about throwing its weight around. This is nothing really new.
My opinion is that if Iran did strike Saudi Arabia that’s a big problem... For Saudi Arabia. But fuck the US being a cat’s paw for various internal regional disputes.
Iraq invaded Kuwait which is why we led a coalition including the kingdom and Egypt among others, and we never invaded Iraq in 91.
Seriously? There was definitely a large scale invasion of southern iraq in Gulf war 1. Remember the highway of death and the destruction of the retreating Iraqi army? The ceasefire negotiations literally happened inside occupied Iraq.
This isn't the first incursion from Yemen, iirc the Houthis already crashed drones near Riyadh to demonstrate they could reach the Saudi capital
The Saudi Arabian government is currently not blaming Iran which means they don't want a conflict or the evidence that the attack originated in Iran is weak
Weak evidence never stopped them yet. Considering the Iranians probably helped the Houthis with drone tech, they've already got better evidence than they had against Iraq.
I don't think they want another Middle Eastern quagmire.
Weak evidence never stopped them yet. Considering the Iranians probably helped the Houthis with drone tech, they've already got better evidence than they had against Iraq.
I don't think they want another Middle Eastern quagmire.
They may also be starting to realize that Iran won't be Iraq War 3. The Iranians are signalling that they are willing and capable of turning Saudi Arabia into a full-blown theater of war, which is a lot different from the Saudi's current position where they sit back and take advantage of destabilization within their neighbors' borders.
The US is a rogue state with the power of 'might makes right', and had been for 'a while'
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
By that standard, all state actors are rogue states. The only ones pretending otherwise are those with enough power to still have something to lose, and not enough power to get away with it.
The best part is that it wasn't even Iran that did this.
It's fine to be skeptical, but where is your quotation proof end quotation that definitively Iran did not do this? You are saying there's a 0% chance this happened?
The Yemeni group claiming credit for it seems like pretty good evidence that they did it.
How is that evidence? It's a claim of responsibility. I could claim I own the moon, that's not evidence of doing so. The broader issue is if Iran helped plan and stage the attack, which is what a few sites are now reporting.
The Trump admin and Neo cons clamoring for war may or may not be the case. I've said before, this isn't a blameless game. if Iran is directly providing support and technical support for strikes against major oil producers, I'm having a hard time seeing how even a Democrat could avoid doing limited strikes in retaliation. It's a hand forcing deal.
I'm waiting to see more concrete evidence before I'm weighing in.
To be fair, regardless of what happened, the bolded is definitely also happening.
So far the most compelling evidence I've seen us put forth that it couldn't have been the Houthis is that the attacks came from WNW; which, last I checked, isn't where Iran is either.
US officials say the images show damage consistent with coming from a west-north-west direction, not Houthi-controlled territory which lies to the south-west of the refinery.
But honestly, I don't see how the vector of the final attack leg is of any relevance. They're refineries, not flak batteries; they could have orbited over the target for an hour if they wanted to.
Q Have you promised the Saudis that the U.S. will protect them in this case?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, I haven’t. No, I haven’t. I haven’t promised the Saudis that. We have to sit down with the Saudis and work something out. And the Saudis want very much for us to protect them, but I say, well, we have to work. That was an attack on Saudi Arabia, and that wasn’t an attack on us.
But we would certainly help them. They’ve been a great ally. They spend $400 billion in our country over the last number of years. Four hundred billion dollars. That’s a million and a half jobs. And they’re not ones that, unlike some countries, where they want terms; they want terms and conditions. They want to say, “Can we borrow the money at zero percent for the next 400 years?” No. No. Saudi Arabia pays cash. They’ve helped us out from the standpoint of jobs and all of the other things. And they’ve actually helped us.
I would call and I would say, “Listen, our oil prices, our gasoline, is too high. You got to let more go.” You know that.
CROWN PRINCE SALMAN: Yeah.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I would call the Crown Prince and I’d say, “You got to help us out. You got to get some more.” And, all of a sudden, the oil starts flowing and the gasoline prices are down. No other President can do that. No other President was able to do that, or maybe they didn’t try. But I’ve done it.
So now they’re under attack, and we will work something out with them. But they also know that — you know, I’m not looking to get into new conflict, but sometimes you have to.
'1.5 million jobs depend on KSA defense contracts' is one hell of a claim.
$400 billion for 1.5 million jobs over an ambiguous but plural number of years is ~270k per job, no more than 135k per job per year assuming "the last number of years" is the grammatical minimum of two.
That's *productivity* (revenue per job) not paychecks. In many industries, 135k/year in productivity means a poverty level paycheck, and in the best paid industries (in terms of pay/productivity) that's still not going to touch 50k a year.
And that's assuming Trump's ambiguous number of years is two. If it's, for example, four years, then best case scenario that's "retail middle management" pay. And if it's ten years, then even slavery costs more than that.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
'1.5 million jobs depend on KSA defense contracts' is one hell of a claim.
$400 billion for 1.5 million jobs over an ambiguous but plural number of years is ~270k per job, no more than 135k per job per year assuming "the last number of years" is the grammatical minimum of two.
That's *productivity* (revenue per job) not paychecks. In many industries, 135k/year in productivity means a poverty level paycheck, and in the best paid industries (in terms of pay/productivity) that's still not going to touch 50k a year.
And that's assuming Trump's ambiguous number of years is two. If it's, for example, four years, then best case scenario that's "retail middle management" pay. And if it's ten years, then even slavery costs more than that.
Make sure to put an ‘i’ after everything, because Trump is all about the imaginary numbers.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
So a bit on the buildup to the first Iraq war, since it seems to be not well understood, and basically sets the framework for the entire current middle eastern power structure:
As is common in the Middle East, the root causes of the invasion of Kuwait essentially stretch back hundreds of years. Kuwait was a merchantile city state on the Indian ocean dating back to the days of the Ottoman empire. The Ottoman Empire and Iran were in constant conflict over Iraq, and through the course of things, Kuwait became something of a neutral ground while Iraq proper eventually went to the Ottoman empire and was held by it. Because of this situation, the Ottoman province of Iraq was cut off from the Indian Ocean (this didn't matter much for the Ottomans as they had other routes to the Indian Ocean, but would become really important later). After the Ottoman empire fell, the nation of Iraq had no effective access to the Indian Ocean despite having a tiny strip of mostly unusable coastline, so a major geopolitical goal since the formation of Iraq was to take over a route to the Indian Ocean and the shipping opportunities therein.
In the early 80s, Iran had just gone on everyone's shit lists after the revolutions and all that went along with them. Iraq saw an opportunity in that there is a strip of Arabic language speakers on the very western border of Iran at exactly the spot they would need to access the Persian Gulf and aquire a route to the Indian Ocean. It seemed a natural fit to annex this area while Iran was in turmoil anyway, and Iraq shopped around to the US and Soviets the idea , which was approved. Iraq invaded, was promptly pushed back, and WW1 ensued. For almost ten years Iraq and Iran were locked into a stalemate, with no progress either way but an expensive and costly war between them. During this time, Iraq shifted from the Soviet to the US sphere of influence. The US hated Iran, and the Soviets were on the way out, so it was a natural fit. The US provided aid to Iraq. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait (which was a Saudi proxy), and the other Arab states also provided loans to Iraq in vast amounts for the war efforts. Another interesting thing Kuwait did towards the end of the war is that they set up an illegal horizontal drilling operation into an Iraqi oil field just across the border hoping that no one would notice. This would also be important later.
Eventually it became clear no clear winner would result. The two sides went to the UN which after a peace conference decided the best way to settle things would be to return to status quo antebellum. Both sides were ok with this except Iraq still occupied a bit of the Iranian coast around the Shatt al arab, the river that they initially started the war over, which they refused to return. Iraq's international allies like the US and Soviet Union (both still, oddly enough) strongly pressured Iran to officially cede the area, to no avail.
So the war was effectively at a cease fire. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait started aggressively attempting to collect loans. Iraq discovered Kuwait's little drill operation. Iraq tried to pressure Kuwait into forgiving loans and stopping its drilling in exchange for not pressing the matter, and Kuwait basically told Iraq to fuck off.
Fast forward a couple of years and Saddam Hussein notices he's got a lot of problems that conveniently involve Kuwait. Iraq has more access to the Persian Gulf but can't really use it because it is disputed by Iran and under military threat (no one wants to ship out of an area that might be overrun at any time by the Revolutionary Guard). Iraq's economy is being dragged down by loans coming due, a large portion of them being due to Kuwait. And Iraq is losing oil revenue both due to competition from Kuwait and directly from pirate slant drilling operations into Iraqi oilfields.
So Iraq opens communications with Iran and proposes returning the Shatt al Arab in exchange for a guarantee that Iran will not interfere in an invasion of Kuwait. Iran agrees. Iraq floats this by the US embassy who indicates they have no problem with Iraq taking any measures against Kuwait it deems necessary. Iraq launches an invasion and quickly secures the city.
Saudi Arabia justifiably freaks the fuck out. A proxy was just invaded, and a large Iraqi army exists in direct threat to Saudi cities. SA complains to the US, who orders Iraq out of Kuwait. Iraq, who has already pulled out of their Iranian territory, tells the US to fuck off. The rest is, as they say, history.
You left out that part where, if not explicit, the US did not object when approached about it. It was after the freakout, which included media reaction, that we suddenly needed to jump in and defend a monarchy for freedom!
You left out that part where, if not explicit, the US did not object when approached about it. It was after the freakout, which included media reaction, that we suddenly needed to jump in and defend a monarchy for freedom!
I don’t even know if I would say it wasn’t explicit, there are transcripts of the interview and it’s pretty much as straightforward a promise of noninterference as you ever could expect in diplomatic terms.
You left out that part where, if not explicit, the US did not object when approached about it. It was after the freakout, which included media reaction, that we suddenly needed to jump in and defend a monarchy for freedom!
I don’t even know if I would say it wasn’t explicit, there are transcripts of the interview and it’s pretty much as straightforward a promise of noninterference as you ever could expect in diplomatic terms.
I wasn't sure if I remembered it entirely as a thing or as some general conspiracy theory.
You left out that part where, if not explicit, the US did not object when approached about it. It was after the freakout, which included media reaction, that we suddenly needed to jump in and defend a monarchy for freedom!
I don’t even know if I would say it wasn’t explicit, there are transcripts of the interview and it’s pretty much as straightforward a promise of noninterference as you ever could expect in diplomatic terms.
I wasn't sure if I remembered it entirely as a thing or as some general conspiracy theory.
In response to a question about Iraq pressing territorial claims in Kuwait if negotiations regarding loans and drilling were unsuccessful:
U.S. Ambassador Glaspie – We have no opinion on your Arab – Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960’s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.
It was later said that the Ambassador did not fully understand the scope of what Saddam Hussein was asking, but either way, the ambassador either was incompetent and misinterpreted a fairly straightforward question, or the US gave a US allied dictator permission to embark on a shady military conquest over an area the US didn’t give a shit about and then backslid when it turned out to be a major international incident that wasn’t anticipated.
I don’t really think the ambassador was incompetent and there’s plenty of precedent for the US giving allied dictators carte blanche over regional military action, so there you go.
Sounds like Netanyahu lost but is refusing to acknowledge the existence of the Arab parties, saying he has a majority of the Jewish members of the Knesset so he gets to form the government anyway. It's not up to him, but that's what that fascist piece of shit is saying.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
He is desperately afraid of prosecution.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Sounds like Netanyahu lost but is refusing to acknowledge the existence of the Arab parties, saying he has a majority of the Jewish members of the Knesset so he gets to form the government anyway. It's not up to him, but that's what that fascist piece of shit is saying.
Just, so many many many words I wish i could scream.
Sounds like Netanyahu lost but is refusing to acknowledge the existence of the Arab parties, saying he has a majority of the Jewish members of the Knesset so he gets to form the government anyway. It's not up to him, but that's what that fascist piece of shit is saying.
Well shit, now he's giving the Republican Party ideas.
Sounds like Netanyahu lost but is refusing to acknowledge the existence of the Arab parties, saying he has a majority of the Jewish members of the Knesset so he gets to form the government anyway. It's not up to him, but that's what that fascist piece of shit is saying.
He also blamed the media for “unfair coverage” of him, which for a guy under a corruption investigation for bribing Israeli media is a hell of a claim to go with.
Anyway, been looking at the results at BBC News and it does seem Netanyahu isn’t quite out yet. Exit polls have the result as too close to call. So far Netanyahu and Gantz are tied on 32 seats each, so Beiteinu is likely to be the one decide who to form a coalition with.
Anyway, been looking at the results at BBC News and it does seem Netanyahu isn’t quite out yet. Exit polls have the result as too close to call. So far Netanyahu and Gantz are tied on 32 seats each, so Beiteinu is likely to be the one decide who to form a coalition with.
From what I've read, Beiteinu's requirements aren't compatible with the religious zealotry wing of Bibi's coalition.
Anyway, been looking at the results at BBC News and it does seem Netanyahu isn’t quite out yet. Exit polls have the result as too close to call. So far Netanyahu and Gantz are tied on 32 seats each, so Beiteinu is likely to be the one decide who to form a coalition with.
From what I've read, Beiteinu's requirements aren't compatible with the religious zealotry wing of Bibi's coalition.
Yeah I very much got that impression. I’m cautiously optimistic that Netanyahu may be out on his ear, but it all depends on if the exit polls are calling it correctly or if the ultra orthodox bloc ends up doing better than predicted.
Anyway, been looking at the results at BBC News and it does seem Netanyahu isn’t quite out yet. Exit polls have the result as too close to call. So far Netanyahu and Gantz are tied on 32 seats each, so Beiteinu is likely to be the one decide who to form a coalition with.
From what I've read, Beiteinu's requirements aren't compatible with the religious zealotry wing of Bibi's coalition.
But they also don't like the Arabs in the Blue and White coalition…
Anyway, been looking at the results at BBC News and it does seem Netanyahu isn’t quite out yet. Exit polls have the result as too close to call. So far Netanyahu and Gantz are tied on 32 seats each, so Beiteinu is likely to be the one decide who to form a coalition with.
From what I've read, Beiteinu's requirements aren't compatible with the religious zealotry wing of Bibi's coalition.
But they also don't like the Arabs in the Blue and White coalition…
Could they all hold their noses long enough for Netanyahu to get prosecuted and then go for new elections once he's out? Or was the corruption argument the only reason that they did this well in the first place?
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Anyway, been looking at the results at BBC News and it does seem Netanyahu isn’t quite out yet. Exit polls have the result as too close to call. So far Netanyahu and Gantz are tied on 32 seats each, so Beiteinu is likely to be the one decide who to form a coalition with.
From what I've read, Beiteinu's requirements aren't compatible with the religious zealotry wing of Bibi's coalition.
But they also don't like the Arabs in the Blue and White coalition…
Could they all hold their noses long enough for Netanyahu to get prosecuted and then go for new elections once he's out? Or was the corruption argument the only reason that they did this well in the first place?
It's quite possible that Netanyahu hurt Likud. He's been comically corrupt, his wife took a plea deal back in June on some corruption charges, and his son has been doing all sort of stupid stuff too.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Anyway, been looking at the results at BBC News and it does seem Netanyahu isn’t quite out yet. Exit polls have the result as too close to call. So far Netanyahu and Gantz are tied on 32 seats each, so Beiteinu is likely to be the one decide who to form a coalition with.
From what I've read, Beiteinu's requirements aren't compatible with the religious zealotry wing of Bibi's coalition.
But they also don't like the Arabs in the Blue and White coalition…
Yeah, remember when Netanjahu proposed annexing more parts of Palestine lately? Gantz was pretty upset about it. Because he claimed Bibi stole the idea from him.
Is there anything we can do with sanctions we're not already doing?
I mean, if Trump feels like he's got to do something, and this accomplishes that so we don't go in guns blazing, that seems best case scenario.
I don't think so. Sanctions are only useful if they're in response to specific behavior and you remove them once the situation is corrected.
Since Iran was complying with the antiproliferation deal and Trump put the sanctions back in place anyway, it gives them zero reason to even try to comply in the future. He effectively removed sanctions from our toolbox for trying to change Iran's behavior.
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Just because al quaeda claimed credit doesn't mean Iraq didn't do it!
If they originated from Yemen, though...
Unless there is a bunch of shenanigans young DA was fully unaware of Desert Storm was because Iraq invaded another sovereign country. Like, we weren't fond of them to begin with but they just flat out enacted a war of aggression and twenty years before Crimea that wasn't going to fly on the international stage.
Shield is yeah, an entirely different matter.
Yeah, there were shenanigans. The Bush administration was asked by Hussein directly if it would object to an invasion of Kuwait and told the US had no concern for internal regional matters among Arab states. Saddam was a shithead and it was a war of aggression, but the lead up to the Kuwait invasion was a lot more complicated than just “Saddam Hussein woke up one morning and decided to invade Kuwait”.
Iraq invaded Kuwait which is why we led a coalition including the kingdom and Egypt among others, and we never invaded Iraq in 91.
Nah, the Houthis have been firing rockets and missiles into SA for a while. Air defenses are pointed that way as well.
Seriously? There was definitely a large scale invasion of southern iraq in Gulf war 1. Remember the highway of death and the destruction of the retreating Iraqi army? The ceasefire negotiations literally happened inside occupied Iraq.
The Saudi Arabian government is currently not blaming Iran which means they don't want a conflict or the evidence that the attack originated in Iran is weak
I don't think they want another Middle Eastern quagmire.
They may also be starting to realize that Iran won't be Iraq War 3. The Iranians are signalling that they are willing and capable of turning Saudi Arabia into a full-blown theater of war, which is a lot different from the Saudi's current position where they sit back and take advantage of destabilization within their neighbors' borders.
Fits well with the rest of the UN then.
To be fair, regardless of what happened, the bolded is definitely also happening.
So far the most compelling evidence I've seen us put forth that it couldn't have been the Houthis is that the attacks came from WNW; which, last I checked, isn't where Iran is either.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49718975
But honestly, I don't see how the vector of the final attack leg is of any relevance. They're refineries, not flak batteries; they could have orbited over the target for an hour if they wanted to.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-crown-prince-salman-bahrain-bilateral-meeting/
$400 billion for 1.5 million jobs over an ambiguous but plural number of years is ~270k per job, no more than 135k per job per year assuming "the last number of years" is the grammatical minimum of two.
That's *productivity* (revenue per job) not paychecks. In many industries, 135k/year in productivity means a poverty level paycheck, and in the best paid industries (in terms of pay/productivity) that's still not going to touch 50k a year.
And that's assuming Trump's ambiguous number of years is two. If it's, for example, four years, then best case scenario that's "retail middle management" pay. And if it's ten years, then even slavery costs more than that.
Make sure to put an ‘i’ after everything, because Trump is all about the imaginary numbers.
As is common in the Middle East, the root causes of the invasion of Kuwait essentially stretch back hundreds of years. Kuwait was a merchantile city state on the Indian ocean dating back to the days of the Ottoman empire. The Ottoman Empire and Iran were in constant conflict over Iraq, and through the course of things, Kuwait became something of a neutral ground while Iraq proper eventually went to the Ottoman empire and was held by it. Because of this situation, the Ottoman province of Iraq was cut off from the Indian Ocean (this didn't matter much for the Ottomans as they had other routes to the Indian Ocean, but would become really important later). After the Ottoman empire fell, the nation of Iraq had no effective access to the Indian Ocean despite having a tiny strip of mostly unusable coastline, so a major geopolitical goal since the formation of Iraq was to take over a route to the Indian Ocean and the shipping opportunities therein.
In the early 80s, Iran had just gone on everyone's shit lists after the revolutions and all that went along with them. Iraq saw an opportunity in that there is a strip of Arabic language speakers on the very western border of Iran at exactly the spot they would need to access the Persian Gulf and aquire a route to the Indian Ocean. It seemed a natural fit to annex this area while Iran was in turmoil anyway, and Iraq shopped around to the US and Soviets the idea , which was approved. Iraq invaded, was promptly pushed back, and WW1 ensued. For almost ten years Iraq and Iran were locked into a stalemate, with no progress either way but an expensive and costly war between them. During this time, Iraq shifted from the Soviet to the US sphere of influence. The US hated Iran, and the Soviets were on the way out, so it was a natural fit. The US provided aid to Iraq. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait (which was a Saudi proxy), and the other Arab states also provided loans to Iraq in vast amounts for the war efforts. Another interesting thing Kuwait did towards the end of the war is that they set up an illegal horizontal drilling operation into an Iraqi oil field just across the border hoping that no one would notice. This would also be important later.
Eventually it became clear no clear winner would result. The two sides went to the UN which after a peace conference decided the best way to settle things would be to return to status quo antebellum. Both sides were ok with this except Iraq still occupied a bit of the Iranian coast around the Shatt al arab, the river that they initially started the war over, which they refused to return. Iraq's international allies like the US and Soviet Union (both still, oddly enough) strongly pressured Iran to officially cede the area, to no avail.
So the war was effectively at a cease fire. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait started aggressively attempting to collect loans. Iraq discovered Kuwait's little drill operation. Iraq tried to pressure Kuwait into forgiving loans and stopping its drilling in exchange for not pressing the matter, and Kuwait basically told Iraq to fuck off.
Fast forward a couple of years and Saddam Hussein notices he's got a lot of problems that conveniently involve Kuwait. Iraq has more access to the Persian Gulf but can't really use it because it is disputed by Iran and under military threat (no one wants to ship out of an area that might be overrun at any time by the Revolutionary Guard). Iraq's economy is being dragged down by loans coming due, a large portion of them being due to Kuwait. And Iraq is losing oil revenue both due to competition from Kuwait and directly from pirate slant drilling operations into Iraqi oilfields.
So Iraq opens communications with Iran and proposes returning the Shatt al Arab in exchange for a guarantee that Iran will not interfere in an invasion of Kuwait. Iran agrees. Iraq floats this by the US embassy who indicates they have no problem with Iraq taking any measures against Kuwait it deems necessary. Iraq launches an invasion and quickly secures the city.
Saudi Arabia justifiably freaks the fuck out. A proxy was just invaded, and a large Iraqi army exists in direct threat to Saudi cities. SA complains to the US, who orders Iraq out of Kuwait. Iraq, who has already pulled out of their Iranian territory, tells the US to fuck off. The rest is, as they say, history.
I don’t even know if I would say it wasn’t explicit, there are transcripts of the interview and it’s pretty much as straightforward a promise of noninterference as you ever could expect in diplomatic terms.
I wasn't sure if I remembered it entirely as a thing or as some general conspiracy theory.
In response to a question about Iraq pressing territorial claims in Kuwait if negotiations regarding loans and drilling were unsuccessful:
It was later said that the Ambassador did not fully understand the scope of what Saddam Hussein was asking, but either way, the ambassador either was incompetent and misinterpreted a fairly straightforward question, or the US gave a US allied dictator permission to embark on a shady military conquest over an area the US didn’t give a shit about and then backslid when it turned out to be a major international incident that wasn’t anticipated.
I don’t really think the ambassador was incompetent and there’s plenty of precedent for the US giving allied dictators carte blanche over regional military action, so there you go.
Just, so many many many words I wish i could scream.
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Well shit, now he's giving the Republican Party ideas.
He also blamed the media for “unfair coverage” of him, which for a guy under a corruption investigation for bribing Israeli media is a hell of a claim to go with.
Anyway, been looking at the results at BBC News and it does seem Netanyahu isn’t quite out yet. Exit polls have the result as too close to call. So far Netanyahu and Gantz are tied on 32 seats each, so Beiteinu is likely to be the one decide who to form a coalition with.
From what I've read, Beiteinu's requirements aren't compatible with the religious zealotry wing of Bibi's coalition.
Yeah I very much got that impression. I’m cautiously optimistic that Netanyahu may be out on his ear, but it all depends on if the exit polls are calling it correctly or if the ultra orthodox bloc ends up doing better than predicted.
But they also don't like the Arabs in the Blue and White coalition…
Could they all hold their noses long enough for Netanyahu to get prosecuted and then go for new elections once he's out? Or was the corruption argument the only reason that they did this well in the first place?
It's quite possible that Netanyahu hurt Likud. He's been comically corrupt, his wife took a plea deal back in June on some corruption charges, and his son has been doing all sort of stupid stuff too.
Yeah, remember when Netanjahu proposed annexing more parts of Palestine lately? Gantz was pretty upset about it. Because he claimed Bibi stole the idea from him.
Euronews is a Europe wide public broadcast news service.
I mean, if Trump feels like he's got to do something, and this accomplishes that so we don't go in guns blazing, that seems best case scenario.
I don't think so. Sanctions are only useful if they're in response to specific behavior and you remove them once the situation is corrected.
Since Iran was complying with the antiproliferation deal and Trump put the sanctions back in place anyway, it gives them zero reason to even try to comply in the future. He effectively removed sanctions from our toolbox for trying to change Iran's behavior.