Yeah; well being able to drive in the 21st century, drink wine coolers, show your nostrils and file a rape charge without a public notary is priceless, too.
So why do you think the intelligence chief of Saudi Arabia brought this up? Anyway considering how much you want to see the US out of the Middle East shouldn't you be welcoming this?
I think Mathloom's point, although hidden behind lame antagonism, is that this is just stupid political posturing. The US needs KSA, and KSA needs the US. Both sides don't like it, but it's the reality. Thus the line from the business community at the end of the article - "yeah, yeah, talk all you want but we don't see this changing anything."
The shi**y sh** is about to get a lot shi**ier: Hizballah’s War of Shadows with Saudi Arabia Comes Into the Light http://world.time.com/2013/12/04/hizballahs-war-of-shadows-with-saudi-arabia-comes-into-the-light/ Nasrallah rarely mentions Saudi Arabia by name, only referring to the monarchy in vague terms in order to maintain plausible deniability. But that all changed on Tuesday, when he accused Saudi agents of being behind the suicide bomb attack on the Iranian Embassy in Beirut last month that claimed 23 lives. In doing so he has openly declared a war that has long been fought in the shadows, first in Lebanon where Hizballah-allied parties are at a political impasse with the Saudi-backed Future Movement of Saad Hariri, and now in Syria, where Hizballah, with Iranian assistance, is fighting on the side of President Bashar Assad against Saudi-backed rebels. Oh the conundrum, do you blame the Israelis for Lakkas or Saudi Arabia. You can't blame both because they wouldn't be allies, would they?
business as usual in the Middle East. Nothing new here. It's a complex issue with a complex web of allegiances. If Iran's oil comes onto the worldwide market, along with the US' new supplies of oil, the price of oil will go down, which will hurt the Saudis badly, potentially even leading to social unrest.
Definitely. A lot of people tend to oversimplify the Middle East as a crusade between the West and the East. In reality, there's all sorts of crazy alliances and backdoor deals and backstabbing. Arabs don't like Israelis, but neither like the Shi'a and vice-versa. Meanwhile, we're funding this and that and there's extremists that don't like us that the Arabs have to appease. Then there's the economic aspect of it. It's like a Middle Eastern studies major once told me; if any leader there thinks they have a true ally, they're sorely mistaken.
Info on US/Iranian oil policy: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/29/us-usa-iran-waivers-idUSBRE9AS0QM20131129
That's a nice thought, but pretty unrealistic. Democracies usually don't vote in the interests of foreign powers.
If we lived in an perfect world, I would certainly support that policy, and we are allied with democracies around the world, but actually having a policy like that doesn't jive with reality. Reality is that a global power like the United States, a global power both economically and militarily, has to deal with all sorts of governments. Why? Because it serves our national interest to do so. Saudi Arabia, as disgusting as I find their government and so many of its internal and external policies, certainly fits that description. So we put up with them, and they put up with us, regardless of what is put out for public consumption. Someday, that bizarre construction that is the Kingdom will fall to pieces, and we may find ourselves dreaming of how it used to be there. Things could very definitely be worse in that country. I hope that when that government collapses, a democracy rises from the ashes, but don't count on it.
I'm coming to the conclusion that democracy is a pretty unattainable ideal for for a large percentage of the planet. Promoting cooperation for the greater good over self interests is counter to most people's hardwiring. It's broken in this country, and we are supposed to be the beacon.
you're right, and we have to have allies. i get that also. you put yourself in a tough position when you choose a country that is terrible on women's rights but more flexible on religious freedom lets say. we pretty much are allied with saudia arabia because they have never threatened to stop selling us their oil. its unfortunate that we have to deal in those parameters, or we want to be in afgahanistan because its a strategic location even though it doesn't get much more worse with human rights than there. i understand it, i just wish our politician would be more hardliners on democracy.
I don't know that much about opinions within Saudi Arabia but how much of a desire is there for democracy there? From what I know is that most opposition in Saudi Arabia is either Shiites who are oppressed or Wahabists who want a even more religious dominated society.
Lots of big money wants the US to go to War with Iran, but our awesome President isn't having any of it.
Agree about the human rights situation in Afghanistan, but I can only agree with "because its a strategic location" if you mean strategic because we need to be there for a while yet (in much reduced numbers) in order to continue to fight AQ and their allies. I don't doubt that as soon as it seems reasonable to leave because it serves our interests to leave, we will. We are more likely to leave because we are asked to by a credible Afghan government (if the Taliban stage a coup and take over, that might fit the "not credible" description), or the House refuses to fund our presence there. I think the House is apt to cut off funding before we are either asked to leave, or feel that our "work" there is done.
one reason we are negotiating with iran is because their youth want democracy. after their demonstrations a few years ago when the hawks wanted us to bomb their leadership because they saw it as an opening, obama showed discretion. at the time the demonstrators clearly didn't want our military to intervene and that patience is producing results.
