While the Republicans are hysterically denigrating* the Lausanne agreement with Iran, the GOP seems all to happy about the war like actions of Saudi Arabia.
The GOP perhaps does not remember the 1950s when Standard Oil (or was if Gulf?) ran commercials on TV showing how American oil companies were developing the primitive Arabian states. Or maybe the GOP does not recall the Arab nationalist and socialist movements that surrounded the monarchist, fundamentalist Saudi Arabia? Today the monarchy remains an absolute theocratic monarchy while its propaganda arm spreads the Wahabi and Salafi doctrine that feeds terrorists from el Qaeda and ISIS to Paris, London and even Seattle.
Saudi Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman wants to establish Saudi Arabia as absolutely dominant in the Arabian Peninsula
Apparently, the GOP has no interest in the fact that the 9/11 raid was an act of Saudi nationals, supported by Saudi funds and acting on the basis of Wahabi and Salafi doctrines?
What is now striking about the GOP is their apparent tolerance of the eruption of a Saudi Arabian military coalition of monarchies ,, really a crusader army. . Driven by a real fear that its progeny would come back to bite the royals, Saudi Arabia and its regal allies are using their US backed military to enforce Sunni led hegemony. The league of kingdoms (AKA “The Gulf Co-operation Council”) has launched a devastating air war to support Yemeni army units still loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh was in effect a royal governor appointed by Saudi Arabia with American support. Now the forces of the Saudi led league of kingdoms are seeking to defeat an indigenous rebellion led by the Houthis ..allies of Iran. While the Houthis are a Shia minority, they are indigenous and resistant to Sunni royal rule. In Syria, the Sunni league of kingdoms is collaborating with Turkey ( a Sunni democracy) to support extreme jihadi movements led by Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate that last week captured its first provincial capital in the former Syria.
IN GOP jargon, I suppose al-Nusra is Jihadist. If so, I suggest that the league of kingdoms forces must be crusaders, Amazingly, the opponent to these royalist crusaders .. is Iran!
Why does the GOP buy into the Saudi propaganda while calling Iran a “terrorist state?” The Indendent offers an answer, ” The Houthis, who come from the Zaidi tribes in Yemen’s northern mountains, have an effective military and political movement called Ansar Allah, modelled on Hezbollah in Lebanon. They have fought off six government offensives against them since 2004, all launched by former President Saleh, then allied to the Saudis. Saleh, himself a Zaidi … was a casualty of the Arab Spring in Yemen but still has the support of many army units.”
The Independent’s analogy to Hezbollah is telling. While Hamas, a Sunni movement inspired by Wahabi ideas, may have destroyed itself by the 2014 Gaza war, Hezbollah has become the only credible force opposing Israel. Hesbollah is also the key to Iran’s proxy role against the Royal’s proxy war in Syria. In the GOP mindset, the enemy of Israel is America’s enemy too, even if (as in Syria and Yemen) it is the Iranian supported insurgents who stand for stability and a form of democratic reform.
My last sentence may startle you. Used to the rants of Iran’s obnoxious militants, Americans may forget that the intellectual force behind Iran’s revolution was .. in a Muslim sort of way … a democrat. The Ayatollah Khomeini tried to create a modern version of the city run by Muhamud before his return to rule Mecca. In Muslim tradition this rule was democratic, run by a council representing the tribes of Medina, then called Yathrib, under the guidance of a judge .. Muhamud. Muhamud ruled under The Constitution of Medina, a plan that included respect for individual rights, a form of fair trial, respect for Jewish and Christian rights, and .. esp important to the Saudis .. an opposition to great or inherited wealth. Jews today may not know that it was the Jewish tribes of Yathrib that welcomed Muhamud to be the judge, recognizing the man’s reputation of respect for Jewish tradition.
Things did not go well for the Yathrib Jews. After they refused to join Muhamud’s army in fighting the Meccans, the Prophet killed and enslaved the Jews. In the Quran this is depicted as being the result of Jewish duplicity. However, in Muslim tradition the Constitution of Medina is seen as the height of democracy and as a model for an Islamic society much as Jefferson and his colleague built America on Christian traditions.
Obviously, the last thing Saudis or their royal allies want is any form of democracy. The royal crusade against Shia is not really a Shia vs. Sunni war. Again, quoting an article in the Independent, “Madawi al-Rasheed, a Saudi visiting professor ,, says in the online magazine al-Monitor that Saudi King Salman’s defence minister and head of the royal court, his son Mohammed bin Salman, aged about 30, wants to establish Saudi Arabia as absolutely dominant in the Arabian Peninsula. (al-Rasheed) adds caustically that he needs to earn a military title, “perhaps ‘Destroyer of Shiite Rejectionists and their Persian Backers in Yemen’, to remain relevant among more experienced and aspiring siblings and disgruntled royal cousins”. A successful military operation in Yemen would give him the credentials he needs.”
* I avoid this term because it equates Black with shaming another human. The GOP’s actions toward anything Obama, deserve the term.