The Middle East

Things are heating up there, and I don’t think it’s being covered much, particularly given all the coverage of the Texas shooting. First, the Huthis fired a Scud missile at Saudi Arabia from Yemen, which the Saudis shot down, and are blaming on their puppetmasters in Iran, declaring that it may be an act of war.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese Prime Minister has resigned. In Riyadh. Because he fears for his life and that Iran is now effectively in control there. And there’s a huge shakeup going on in the House of Saud. The ancient rivalry between the Arabs and the Persians may be reaching a boiling point.

All this as Israel has been engaging in the biggest war games in almost two decades.

But nothing to worry about. No more peaceful, stable region in the world, historically, than the Middle East.

[Update a few minutes later]

And the deputy governor of Asir province was killed in a helicopter crash. Could be a coincidence, but there’s a lot going on over there.

7 thoughts on “The Middle East”

  1. “”May be?”

    So now, instead of quickly winning wars we’re going to have them for decades with an occasional nuke for spicing.

  2. With ISIS mostly defeated in Syria, that means the USA wont be active there very much if at all. The rebel groups are not much concern except for the Kurds. This is great news for Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah.

    Hezbollah is now battle hardened and ready to turn their attention back to Israel. They also have more armaments and funding than before thanks to Obama’s Iran deal. Israel has been preparing for this.

    But what is going on in Syria isn’t good news for Saudi Arabia. Will they be able to keep the proxy war going? Combined with how Yemen is going, it doesn’t look like the Saudis are doing well on the military front.

  3. With less and less dependence on Middle-Eastern oil, it seems likely that the US government is going to care less and less about what happens there.

    Then the Middle-Eastern countries can get on with their traditional hobby of fighting each other. That will mean that they’ll have far less time to waste on attacking the West, so it seems likely to be a good thing all round.

  4. I wouldn’t like to be in Iraq right now. It’s smack middle between both those two. There’s a reason why Saddam focused so much on his military besides being who he was. If the US extracts from there the whole place might erode even more. I think it’s a waste of time to continue much longer in Syria. Although it might make sense to get control of some of the Eastern cities in Syria to better buffer for the Kurds and plug the other side of the border.

    As for the helicopter crash I wouldn’t attribute much to it. Helicopters are notoriously unreliable and crash all the time, even in the best of conditions, let alone desert conditions with dust. Quite likely there was a lot of activity there so I wouldn’t dismiss maintenance neglect either. He was a Prince but the Saudi Arabian royal family is plain huge. They have no shortage of princes.

  5. As for the Scuds the Yemeni government had them so it wouldn’t be terribly surprised at it. I do think if things escalate further the Iranians might export something more than anti-tank missiles to them though. Remember the Zulfiqar missile?

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