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If the crown prince of Saudi Arabia has in mind a war with Iran, President Trump should disabuse his royal highness of any notion that America would be doing his fighting for him.
Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, the 32-year-old son of the aging and ailing King Salman, is making too many enemies for his own good, or for ours.
Pledging to Westernize Saudi Arabia, he has antagonized the clerical establishment. Among the 200 Saudis he just had arrested for criminal corruption are 11 princes, the head of the National Guard, the governor of Riyadh, and the famed investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
The Saudi tradition of consensus collective rule is being trashed.
MBS is said to be pushing for an abdication by his father and his early assumption of the throne. He has begun to exhibit the familiar traits of an ambitious 21st-century autocrat in the mold of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
Yet his foreign adventures are all proving to be debacles.
The rebels the Saudis backed in Syria’s civil war were routed. The war on the Houthi rebels in Yemen, of which MBS is architect, has proven to be a Saudi Vietnam and a human rights catastrophe.
The crown prince persuaded Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE to expel Qatar from the Sunni Arab community for aiding terrorists, but he has failed to choke the tiny country into submission.
Last week, MBS ordered Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Riyadh, where Hariri publicly resigned his office and now appears to be under house arrest. Refusing to recognize the resignation, Lebanon’s president is demanding Hariri’s return.
After embattled Houthi rebels in Yemen fired a missile at its international airport, Riyadh declared the missile to be Iranian-made, smuggled into Yemen by Tehran, and fired with the help of Hezbollah.
The story seemed far-fetched, but Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said the attack out of Yemen may be considered an “act of war” — by Iran. And as war talk spread across the region last week, Riyadh ordered all Saudi nationals in Lebanon to come home.
Riyadh has now imposed a virtual starvation blockade — land, sea and air — on Yemen, that poorest of Arab nations that is heavily dependent on imports for food and medicine. Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni are suffering from cholera. Millions face malnutrition.
The U.S. interest here is clear: no new war in the Middle East, and a negotiated end to the wars in Yemen and Syria.
Hence, the United States needs to rein in the royal prince.
Yet, on his Asia trip, Trump said of the Saudi-generated crisis, “I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing.”
Do they? In October, Jared Kushner made a trip to Riyadh, where he reportedly spent a long night of plotting Middle East strategy until 4 a.m. with MBS.
No one knows how a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran would end. The Saudis has been buying modern U.S. weapons for years, but Iran, with twice the population, has larger if less-well-equipped forces.
Yet the seeming desire of the leading Sunni nation in the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, for a confrontation with the leading Shiite power, Iran, appears to carry the greater risks for Riyadh.
For, a dozen years ago, the balance of power in the Gulf shifted to Iran, when Bush II launched Operation Iraqi Freedom, ousted Saddam Hussein, disarmed and disbanded his Sunni-led army, and turned Iraq into a Shiite-dominated nation friendly to Iran.
In the Reagan decade, Iraq had fought Iran as mortal enemies for eight years. Now they are associates, if not allies.
The Saudis may bristle at Hezbollah and demand a crackdown. But Hezbollah is a participant in the Lebanese government and has the largest fighting force in the country, hardened in battle in Syria’s civil war, where it emerged on the victorious side.
While the Israelis could fight and win a war with Hezbollah, both Israel and Hezbollah suffered so greatly from their 2006 war that neither appears eager to renew that costly but inconclusive conflict.
In an all-out war with Iran, Saudi Arabia could not prevail without U.S. support. And should Riyadh fail, the regime would be imperiled. As World War I, with the fall of the Romanov, Hohenzollern, Hapsburg and Ottoman empires demonstrated, imperial houses do not fare well in losing wars.
So far out on a limb has MBS gotten himself, with his purge of cabinet ministers and royal cousins, and his foreign adventures, it is hard to see how he climbs back without some humiliation that could cost him the throne.
Yet we have our own interests here. And we should tell the crown prince that if he starts a war in Lebanon or in the Gulf, he is on his own. We cannot have this impulsive prince deciding whether or not the United States goes to war again in the Middle East.
We alone decide that.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.”
Copyright 2017 Creators.com.
I think your last sentence is missing the word “should,” as in “We alone should decide that.”
The reality is The Lobby has been deciding what happens in MENA. They’re the ones who decided the US must take out 7 Muslim countries in 5 years. The US pols, if they’re lucky, get to decide when it’s time to replace the carpets in the House and the Senate.
My prediction is that in the near future Israel will be in a war against Hezbollah. It may be started by Saudi Arabia bombing Hezbollah in Lebanon or it might be something else. Contrary to what some deluded minds think, Hezbollah would be no match for Israel this time around. They should be awful careful before trying to start a conflict with Israel.
I wish Israel the best in exterminating the Hezbollah terrorists should they try to rain rockets down on them! LONG LIVE ISRAEL!
OMG, this is the second piece I’ve read on UR where the author is weepy about the demise of Saudi “rule by consensus.” Get over it already. MBS is merely asserting himself as the Capo di tutti Capi of what has been a vast criminal syndicate family, which, BTW, was implicated up to its eyeballs in the WTC attacks but has been given a free walk by this and the past four administrations.
And why are we and our British co-conspirators weeping about the poor Yemenis while selling the bombs to Riyadh? I guess we needed the pretext to invite more “refugees.”
LOL! Good one, Pat!
Pat, When was the last time we alone decided on a war in the Middle East? Actually, Israel will decide it for us and we will jump into it like an obedient puppy. Netanyahu has been pushing for war in Lebanon for a long time and now he has found two useful idiots, MbS and Donald Trump, to wage that war without any scratch on Israel.
It is insane.
Tired of crosswords? Try spotting in Mr. Buchanan’s columns the Establishment cliches, notions that could just as likely be stated by a Krauthammer — today’s answer below.*
His premise remains that the USG has a legitimate role to play in the affairs of people and nation states around the world. Our republic was founded to the contrary, but Mr. Buchanan succumbed to the lure of empire during his years in governance. The supposed “Mr. Paleoconservative” once again here serves to constrain the discussion to whose blood Uncle Sam should have on which hand.
Mr. Buchanan remains, in my view, a good guy. But he has been lapped by other, much more insightful writers published on this website. His most valuable word today is the correct “reining” in his headline, a remarkable point of ignorance among UR commenters.
—–
*”Yet we have our own interests here.”
So we have the Trump regime’s Israeli lobby minder in cahoots with the Israelis and Saudis to try to get up a war with Hezbollah and probably Iran (as Buchanan points out, it’s hard to see how MBS makes his power grab work without some sort of war and foreign policy triumph). Meanwhile halfway around the world the US military is engaged in a massive military buildup and policy of menacing provocation off the shores of North Korea.
So either the Trump regime plans at least one and perhaps two wars, or it has just gratuitously managed to make US military policy hostage to the reasonableness and restraint of the North Koreans, the Israelis, the Saudis, the Iranians and Hezbollah.
A real foreign policy triumph. Not.
Three plausible possibilities arise, as a result of the situation the Trump regime has gotten the US into:
1 There will be wars in either Korea or the Middle East (or perhaps even both at once). The Trump regime will prove to have been so murderously criminal as to have intended one and perhaps two or more wars of aggression, by either initiating a “preventive” war in North Korea, or greenlighting an Israeli/Saudi war in the ME.
2 There will be wars in either Korea or the Middle East (or perhaps even both at once). The Trump regime will prove to have been so calamitously incompetent as to have created the conditions for these wars to occur and drag in the US without having intended to wage such costly wars.
3 By some remarkable chain of events, the US provocation of North Korea and encouragement of its Israeli and Saudi dog-wagging tails will not result in wars, and the Trump regime will have gotten away with rank, rash stupidity, gaining nothing from it but increased general contempt for the US.
All told, foreign policy is one area in which the Trump regime’s claims to have been better than the Clinton alternative might still hold, just about, but are looking thinner by the day.
“We alone decide that.” It’s been a long time Pat since the US decided any foreign policy decisions ‘alone”. Sad but true.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-israel-and-saudi-arabia-conspire-to-seize-control-of-the-middle-east/5617913
Sorry Pat, you missed it in your ending…”We cannot have this impulsive prince deciding whether or not the United States goes to war again in the Middle East. We alone decide that.”
The Zionist entity settler non-State decides that.
I wonder how Moslems feel about the long tentacles of Israel being in control of Mecca and Medina?
Keep on wishing. If Israel had the cojones she would have done that long time ago. But after 2006 the mighty paper tiger will think twice before tangling with Hezbollah. Her best approach now is to use the new useful idiot (MbS) to start the war in Lebanon and hope the US will jump in to save him when Hezbollah kicks his rear end as it did Israel’s in 2006.
The only way Israel can live long is if she stays away from Hezbollah.
now this must be the most anti-Semitic thing I’ve ever read in my life!
six million wasn’t enough, eh Pat?
this is, of course, rather horrifying
is this how they get their war on Iran, by using the Saudis as a spring board?
It’s really quite perfect from the neocon, Zionist point of view. You have this brash new Saudi dickhead, full of vainglorious hubris, and you can blame him, as the ZUS comes to his aid and crushes Iran, while Israel threatens Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria.
But what about Putin? Is he going to play along?
Maybe this is all part of Trump’s grand strategy. It’s no secret that no one can stand the Saudis. I mean come on, right?!
So Trump concocts this scheme… He’ll tell Bibi that he’s going to get at Iran by using the Saudi as a dupe. Filling the prince with delusions of grandeur, he’ll give him veiled promises of back-up (a la GHWB and Saddam / Kuwait) though the backdoor of his son-in-law, who isn’t in on the grand scheme, but is also a dupe.
The end game is to allow Iran to crush the Saudis and esp. the House of Saud, who Trump learned to despise when he was over there, watching all these Viagra besotted, menopausal old assholes waving swards around like they were thirteenth century Sultans.
All he has to do is not help them once they attack Iran. This will no doubt mollify the Zionists, even if the Saudis, (their allies) are crushed, because as I mentioned, no one can really stand these jerks anyways.
This is what Trump and Putin were discussing in private on the Asian trip.
It suits them both.
Out of the ashes of the House of Saud, a new and more populist regime will flourish in Saudi Arabia. When that happens, the forces funding ISIS will disappear. The relentless sabre rattling at Iran will go with it. The Shia will be ascendant, and the Wahhabis will hide under rocks where they belong.
It’s a win / win!
the only fallout will be when Jared confronts his father in law and protests being used like an April Glaspie.
Trump will simply dismiss this and tell Jared, ‘sorry son, but this is how statecraft is done’
Presumably all that stuff about “Trump’s grand strategy” was just an amusing spoof of the increasingly shrill and absurd rationalisations of the “Trump’s playing n-dimensional chess” crowd over the past 11 months?
Because although I could absolutely understand you trying desperately to find some glimmers of light in what is an increasingly gloomy reality, I don’t think you are actually stupid or self-deluding enough to really make yourself believe it.
Israel can bomb Hezbollah relatively successfully … meaning that they’ll lose a few planes, drop a lot of bombs, but not really do anything decisive against an enemy that’s had decades to dig-in and prepare.
What we know from 2006 is that Israel can not succeed in a ground war/ invasion of south Lebanon. Back then, they got stuck and couldn’t advance and suffered more losses than they expected. And since then, Hezbollah has gotten stronger and now has lots of combat vets from Syria. While the Israeli army has gotten worse, continuing its downward spiral into an army that’s only good for an occupation and for bullying Palestinians at check-points. Despite what the paid Israeli trolls would try to tell you.
I don’t want war. I don’t want the destruction of lives that comes with that. But if Netanyahooooo decides to start a war as one last gasp to try to keep him and his wife out of jail, it will end very badly for Israel. And the Saudis can’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag with that mercenary army of theirs.
well Randal, with so much that is indeed gloomy, I do try from time to time to make some attempt at balderdash so over-the-top that hopefully someone somewhere cracks a wry smile reading it.
I also cling, (perhaps pathetically) to some small shred of hope that Trump isn’t a complete zio- ruse, and that he really does want to be a good, (if not great) potus.
But we live in Rothschild’s world, and in order to get along, you have to go along, up to a point.
My ravings were sort of wishful thinking that Putin and Trump could create a sort of bastion of sanity for the world to survive Rothschild and his tribe of psychotic war pigs. And let’s be fair, it isn’t only the Zionists and the American MIC and assorted whores and lickspittles like McCain. The House of Saud is a festering and oozing boil on the geopolitical stage, and who of sane mind wouldn’t want to see that lot reduced to living in a post House of Saud prison in Saudi Arabia, run by their legions of former victims.
[actually Randal, I was hoping that some agents of the Saudis might be lurking here and reading this stuff, to get a better handle on the true West’s agenda vis-à-vis Iran and Yemen and such. And I was surreptitiously trying to put the seed of doubt into their minds about Trump’s guarantees of support should they attempt any treachery vis-à-vis Iran. So it was my ruse to trick them into thinking they might end up like Saddam, since surely GHWB duped Saddam, just as perhaps Trump is trying to dupe them.
Look how often the ZUS tricks governments into being their dupe, only to betray and kill the leaders later. Not just Saddam, but Mubarak and Morsi and look how they tried to perpetrate the coup on Erdogon, at that hotel. If Putin hadn’t warned him, he’d be in some torture chamber in Gitmo or some other CIA blacksite somewhere, if not dead. So this is a warning to those Saudi princes…]
Terrorists? Who else would defend the Lebanese homeland against Israeli aggression?
Israel is toast.
Not so sure. I think we ought to ask Kushner to share with us what our game plan is exactly – he seems to be the one flying around and writing the script for us. It would be nice though, just out of courtesy to let us know what we tax payers are being asked to fund. Maybe he can share it in Congress and get more standing ovations than Bibi. Wouldn’t that be grand!
Peace.
Isn’t it interesting that all the brilliant (Harvard, MIT, etc. trained) minds in Israel can’t cope with a black turbaned “Mullah” educated in a religious seminary in Najaf, Iraq. He has proven to be a better and smarter field general than all those well trained military brains in Tel Aviv. Israel’s only option is to assassinate him as was done to the previous secretary general of Hezbollah. But Hezbollah is not just an organization, it is a cause that cannot be defeated by assassinating its leader. One goes down another will come forward and the fight goes on.
A war between Israel and hezbollah/Iran would be like a Red Sox versus Yankees series. “Can we root for a tie, with injuries?”;)
I disagree. I think Mrs. Clinton would’ve blinked in the last moment over Syria. She’s a risk-averse woman, after all. All Putin would’ve had to do was to show her the risks involved.
And we wouldn’t run the risk of a huge Middle Eastern war involving Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia (or the US attacking Iran, or both), nor the risk of a nuclear war with North Korea.
The only risk factor would be that Clinton would be sick, so her entourage might have some room to play dangerous games. It’s still better than Trump himself playing those games.
This Prince supposedly wants to wipe out corruption, but having a Saudi prince fight against corruption just isn’t as reassuring as one might wish.
Kinda like when Henry VIII got complaints about Thomas Cromwell, so he set up a committee to look into corruption in the C of E.
At the head of the committee, he put Thomas Cromwell.
White Nationalists in occupied North America and Europe should learn from Hezbollah and emulate their methods, not just the military part but also the community outreach. Helping the poor and elderly, making self defense teams, and weaning lower class Whites away from drugs, alcohol and negro lifestyle habits.
This is the brilliance of Nasrallah. When it comes to foreign policy, the whole Lebanon (Shia, Sunni, and Christian with the exception of Israeli lapdog Sam Geagea of Sabra and Shatila massacre fame) backs him up. In terms of domestic policy, Hezbollah provides social, health, and educational services to the people of Lebanon. What is there not to like the man? One of Israel’s minister once remarked that Israel better listen to what Nasrallah says because he has never lied to us. What other praise one needs after this.
Maybe, maybe not. I suspect you’re letting distance rather rosy-tint your recollection of the crass stupidity of the late Obama US military and the Clinton stance on foreign policy.
Regardless, that’s all academic now. What really matters is that there are plenty of signs that Trump and the Trump regime US military are quite possibly going to be a disaster for everyone bar a few profiteers and vultures.
Worth a try, I suppose 🙂
Their genius has been in making a change while keeping a distance from the government. It’s a brilliant move; you can stay in “opposition” mode no matter who is in power and all the while make serious lasting changes for your society on the ground and help steer it in the direction you want.
Peace.
The idea that Saudi Arabia could attack and go to war with Iran is sheer fantasy. SA has purchased huge amounts of weapons from the US but that’s to buy off the US. Otherwise they have no real military but a mercenary one recruited from Yemen and other places. When the going gets dangerous mercenaries just go home. SA might stage provocations but would want the US to do the real work. They’ve put themselves in danger with their failed project in Syria but that was in cooperation with the US and now they’ll want US protection. What SA has is lots of money to pay others to act as their bodyguard. Insofar as this supposed anti-corruption drive goes things wold have to be really bad for them to be perturbed by it.
If and when the war with Iran starts, it will be fought by he US. All the weapons being sold to Saudi Arabia are for safe keeping. The planes will be operated by the US pilots. Saudi pilots can’t hit the Rock of Gibraltar if their life depended on it. Additionally, the US is building an army base in Israel. The joker in the deck is the forgotten contingent of “Blackwater” mercenaries left behind in Iraq. They will be used as guerrilla fighters in case of a land attack.
This is obvious. Saudi Arabia is militarily irrelevant, and Israel has a long standing policy of using the US to fight and pay for its wars. They aren’t going to do anything unless they can get guaranteed US engagement.
I would welcome internecine war between and among the various Muslim tribes and nations in the Middle East as long as Uncle Sam stayed completely out of it. Sadly, past experience expensive as it has been in terms of blood and treasure, would not prevent us from repeating the same deadly mistakes.
“Pledging to Westernize Saudi Arabia…”
No Islamic country can be “westernized” and remain an Islamic country.
My prediction?
Saudi Arabia will NOT become a “westernized” country.
Great post anonymous; America’s 2nd biggest flaw is that America ignores its own problems and runs around the world creating problems and messing around for no good purpose.
USA has a vast welfare system for the poor and the elderly. Guess you never heard of social security, medicare, senior centers, free bus passes and door to door pick up free van and car service, free meals at senior centers and all cheap senior housing for seniors only, free nursing home care through medi caid and medicare until death. There is even more for Mothers of children who can’t find jobs tht pay more than welfare. When capitalism fails to provide jobs, our welfare system steps in and pays more than the average low level job anyway.
It was in America that alcholics anonymous was created. It is supposed to be the very best way to cure alcholism There is also Al Anon for the families of alcholics. As for negro lifestyle habits, we are a christian western civilization heritage nation and that means free choice, not As Allah Wills it.
Lower class Whites and their drugs, drink and negro lifestyle habits? It’s not exactly a lower class problem. I happen to live about 11 miles southeast of a settlement of Whites who are the most drunken, drugged, debauched and degenerate Whites in this country. The settlement is called Malibu Ca and the drunken drugged debauched degenerates are multi millionaires.
Hezbollah provides the welfare because the Arab countries don’t have much of it. America is awash with welfare programs.
You read too many media stories about lower class Whites suddenly being drug addicts. Don’t believe whagt you read in the media.
Hey Rurik, it is always an inspiration to read your comments as you are one of the best commentators who think from outside the box.
Your contention about Trump might be correct; if we consider how he threw a few bones to the neocons and the MIC by waging a war of words against Syria, North Korea and China with the net result that America’s relations with China had never been any better, all proven by the majestic welcome displayed by the Chinese to the American president, and the stopping of the CIA flow of arms to the Syrian rebels, and the confignment of the crisis with North Korea to a war of words, it looks IMHO that Trump is more interested in peace than in war.
If the Mueller investigation starts moving in a direction that is other than the impeachment of Trump, then we could hope that there is a covert action within the American government that is aiming at putting an end to the Rothschild’s New World Order and handing back the United States to the American folks.
As far the Middle East is concerned, the war in Syria is putting an end to the dream of Greater Israel and the strategic position of the Isrealis has never been worse since the creation of Israel. The de facto alliance between Hizbollah, Syria and Iran has become a de jure alliance buttressed by Russian bases in Syria. The Iranians will not back down from building permanent basis in Syria despite all the huffing and puffing of Netenyahoo who at the most can harass the Syrian army with limited strikes as he and Israeli leaders know that they are ill prepared to face a broad front stretching from South Lebanon to the Golan Heights unless America gets involved which is a prospect that I see much less likely with Trump than if we had the Clinton satanist in the White House.
Trump has played the U.S Army card surrounding himself with generals to get the protection he needs against the deep state. Trump did not reach power as a head of a third party whereby he could put his party men in charge. Trump is walking a fine line as a would be reformer who is treading a treacherous road from America the war nation to America the business and mind your business nation. Let us hope that our optimism is well placed.
Thank you Joe,
I agree with everything you’ve said, and said well!
cheers