The Saudi Problem

It is generally assumed that wars are started over historic hatreds, competition for resources or territorial ambitions. This allows us to pretend that all wars are bad and the fault of bad or stupid men. Every war is described in terms of what should have been done to prevent it. The reason for this is the belief we not only know why wars were started, but we have the knowledge to prevent future wars.

Study up on the Great War or the Thirty Years War and you see how that is just ridiculous. Events have a way of getting away from even the most powerful. As I tried to explain in my Dungeons & Dragons view of history, history in real time is a version of John Conway’s Game of Life played out in four dimensions, but it looks like this to the people living it.

That said, sometimes war is just the least bad option. It solves a problem with the least amount of pain, or so it seems at the time. For instance, look at what’s happening with the Saudis. Not too long ago, the Saudis were selling oil for between $80 and $100 a barrel. The American Army was breaking up Iraq and guarding Saudi interest in the region. Things were working out pretty well for the Kingdom.

Today, the Americans are giving away the store to the Iranians in what some think is a strategic realignment. Yemen is a boiling cauldron of sectarian violence requiring Saudi military operations. There’s a real threat of millions of starving Yemenis pouring into the Kingdom. Oil is trading at thirty bucks a barrel and the Kingdom is running huge deficits. The Saudis have been quietly deporting their guest workers, mostly out of fear they could rise up in revolt.

The Middle East, of course, is a bad neighborhood and the Saudis know that better than anyone. They play the game harder that anyone so no one should feel sorry for them. Much of what is going on in the region is in some way their fault, but there are greater forces at work in the region over which they have little control.

The Saudis are in the middle of something analogous to the Thirty Years War with the area of Northern Iraq and Syria being the main theater of operations. Western media often describe the Arab Muslim world as divided between Sunni and Shia, but it is much more complicated than that. Unlike Western Progressives, Arab Muslims have a much stronger, more emotional connection to the past and the people who created it. For example, the divides within Islam have been there since the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD.

That’s where the comparison to the Thirty Years War breaks down. The Reformation and Counter Reformation were all about how the people of Christian Europe related to one another. Would the various tribes of Europe relate to one another within the dominion of the Catholic Church or would they relate to one another outside the Church. The end result was a Europe of nations, each with their own version of Christianity.

The war in Islam is entirely about how Islam relates to the outside world. As an organizing philosophy, Islam is being swamped by Western materialism. The only thing Islam has going for it right now is a surplus of young people, most of whom would prefer to be anywhere, but places run by Muslims. As a smart guy recently wrote, Islam is dying and this war is about who gets to manage the decline.

That brings us back to the Saudis and their troubles. The Kingdom is competing with Iran for the right to direct the Islamic response to the West. Both sides think they are the natural leader of Islam and the natural hegemon in the Middle East. The difference, it appears, is that Iran wants the West out the region, while the Saudis want the West, particularly the US, heavily involved in the region.

The problem for the Saudis is the US has become an unreliable partner. The Obama administration’s hostility to Israel and their obsession with striking a deal with Iran has left the Saudis without a powerful ally. Waging economic war via oil prices is taking a major toll on the Kingdom’s finances, making it harder to conduct petrodollar diplomacy. What the Saudis could really use is a war in the region that drags in the US in a major way.

The financing of Syrian rebels may have been based, in part, on the belief that the US would eventually get back into Iraq. If so, it was a miscalculation as Obama is too weak and afraid to commit to another military adventure. Instead, the Russians used the conflict as an excuse to increase their role in the region. This is certainly bad for Russia in the long run, but it bolsters Iran in the short run.

That may explain why the Saudis executed that Shiite cleric the other day. It was intended to provoke the Iranians. While there is little hope for Obama doing anything in his final year, the Saudis may figure it is a good idea to ratchet up the heat in the region so that the Republican who enters office has a reason to reverse course and get the US back into the game.

Of course, war with Iran would be a disaster for the Saudis even with the US on their side, willing to commit forces to defense the Kingdom. They are no match for the Iranians and hosting US forces brings all sorts of trouble. But sometimes war is the least bad option. Given where the Saudis find themselves at the moment, provoking a confrontation with Iran may be the best option they have.

 

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UKer
UKer
8 years ago

Islam may be dying, at least in terms of a recognisable entity, but it is going to give one hell of a kick before it is eventually absorbed into western materialism. On the other hand, if western materialism is so anxious to shoot itself in the foot (and the head) then Islam may as well hang on and become the dominant force in the Middle East, Europe, North Africa and, er, North America. Watch for then the Chinese/Russian bloc (aided by their interests in middle to southern Africa and probably India) to confront the death cult. It wouldn’t surprise me,… Read more »

Anon.
Anon.
8 years ago

They said they’ll get some if Iran will get some, even buying it off the shelf from Pakistan (“I’ll have 3 chicken tikka massalas and yes, I’d like some nuclear bombs to go with that. And extra naan bread.”)
I’m sure they will. I imagine Turkey will too. Or perhaps Iran will bomb Turkey if it tries, once Iran has the bomb. All kinds of interesting times await us thanks to Obama. All thanks to Obama. And this discussion should be a matter of national debate but somehow it isn’t. The left doesn’t care for that sort of talk.

NovaDog
NovaDog
Reply to  Anon.
8 years ago

Neither does the GOPe. They were happy to go along with the Iran deal. It was a two-fer for their K Street pay master’s. Huge $$’s to be made from Iran and Obama signing off on the TPP means even more cash. Remember McConnell saying how easy the TPP negotiations were going? The fix was in from the get-go.

Vernon Hasshoffenfus
Vernon Hasshoffenfus
Reply to  Anon.
8 years ago

If we hadn’t invaded Iraq in 2003, Obama would have had no opportunity for the pea-brained exercises he’s been conducting in that neighborhood — and there’s a strong case that the progressive wave that swept him into office wouldn’t have happened on the same scale without Bush doing such dumb things over there.

I voted for Bush and I supported his stupid wars but I wish I hadn’t. On the other hand, I’m not ashamed I didn’t support his loathsome and moronic enemies.

Tough times all around.

alzaebo
alzaebo
Reply to  Vernon Hasshoffenfus
8 years ago

Wow. So true and you’re the first to say it. General Garner and the military would’ve had the “boot on their neck, gun in their face” Footprint wrapped up in two years. So Garner was fired and a megalomaniac from State, Bremer, was brought in and kept in to ruin everything in an orgy of corruption. (Over in Afghanistan, Omar and the Taliban were Pakistan’s puppet government anyway, making them ‘our’ puppets as well.) Bush was silent about the anti-war movement. He proclaimed Islam was the religion of peace. He did everything he could to encourage a Progressive anti-war movement… Read more »

alzaebo
alzaebo
Reply to  alzaebo
8 years ago

Eh. That’s a stretch, I was too hasty.

But you’re absolutely right, without Iraq, there might’ve been no Obama.

(I regret that I too fell for it, and defended the booswash, until a black mechanic put it plainly- “So, why we there?”)

Bush had never simply, plainly answered the question. No, you tell me, Mr. Bush, one sentence- why we there? Don’t make me guess.

And don’t say “fight ‘me over there” while we keep building mosques here.

alzaebo
alzaebo
Reply to  alzaebo
8 years ago

Correction
-Fight ’em-

alzaebo
alzaebo
Reply to  thezman
8 years ago

Thank you!
There’s a reason Congress is erecting a statue of “I think he’s a hero” Dick Cheney in DC.

His war profits are now buying up eastern Nevada, expanding his Wyoming fiefdom.

I guess his battle experience in evading the draft 5 times made him fit to be Secretary of Defense under the Global Godfather, Pappy.

alzaebo
alzaebo
Reply to  alzaebo
8 years ago

Oh, and quite right about the Cold War keeping a lid on it. The Saudis supply our military fuel, priority #1.

I’ve said secular Nasserite socialism was a necessary step to bring the 83 IQ Muslims into the modern world.

Burkas were almost extinct until both the KGB and CIA resurrected jihad doctrine in Afghanistan

Heaven forbid those atheist Russians should introduce female doctors and engineers- but all those deeply religious customers might have kept trading for oil in rubles!

trackback
8 years ago

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guy
guy
8 years ago

How is Saudi Arabia set for nukes?

I did a quick check and found nothing but conflicting reports.

Peltast
Peltast
Reply to  guy
8 years ago

There is rumors that Pakistan will give some of their nukes to the Saudis, some people say that was the Saudis who financed the Pakistani nuke development and delivery system.

alzaebo
alzaebo
Reply to  Peltast
8 years ago

Already delivered, some of them. Pakistan is balking on some, their eye on India and Kasmir.
The Saudis took delivery on Chinese missles for those warheads, several years ago.

alzaebo
alzaebo
Reply to  alzaebo
8 years ago

Iran had been buying up the old hulks of the Soviet Arsenal from Kazakstan, Belarus, and Ukraine, and plutonium from No. Korea, for years.

Perhaps one reason Bush and Obama danced around Iran is because Iran is already nuclear.

(Been hearing that “Someday Soon” chant every year since 1979.)

Anon.
Anon.
8 years ago

Islam is not “dying”. Just because Muslims suffer from Islam’s pathologies doesn’t mean Islam is dying. Not even that it’s weakening. It would be in decline (or dying) if Muslims would keep it at arm’s length, or abandon it, or simply were to have below-replacement demographics. None of these things is happening (other than perhaps in Iran). Quite the opposite. Even while Islamic societies get poorer and turn their countries into hellholes, Islam thrives. Now they’re turning Germany et al into hell holes and if the process is left to continue, Islam will conquer Europe. So much for ‘dying’.