I admit to not giving my full attention to matters in the Middle East, but does this make sense to anyone:
“Yesterday, because of the failure of President Obama to confront Iran’s hegemony and expansion of its radical Islamic sphere of power in the Middle East, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, in conjunction with his Arab Gulf Cooperation Council partners, invaded Bahrain to head off an overthrow of its government by extremist Shiites loyal to the radical mullahs in Tehran. This act by King Abdullah, whose kingdom has been at loggerheads with Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over their betrayal of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and their weakness in confronting and to the contrary appeasing Iran, underscores how even Arab rulers have lost any faith in the American president, and do not respect him.
Ironically, Obama and Clinton have also seriously alienated Israel, another strong ally of the United States, and their actions will likely cause Israel and Saudi Arabia to take matters into their own hands to eliminate the Iranian threat. The Saudis invasion of Bahrain is the first sign that they consider Obama and Clinton to be in effect enemies of their countries’ interests.
Freedom Watch applauds the actions of the Saudis. It’s time to not only stop the hegemony of the mullahs in Tehran, but also to take strong action to remove them from power. The world cannot leave in power a radical neo-Nazi Islamic regime, bent on not only destroying Israel, but pursuing a radical Shiite Islamic revolution worldwide. Sadly, and dangerously, thanks to Obama and Clinton, the Iranian regime has been succeeding, so much so that the Saudis now saw an urgency to step in to do the job the United States should have done long ago by stopping Iran in its tracks.”
A decade ago, I am willing to bet Klayman was with wingnuts like me, screaming about Saudi Arabia in the wake of 9/11.
Mike (Hammer) Kay
Larry Klayman is a condo saleman.
I breathlessly await the foreign policy analysis of condo salesmen, right after I get my stock market report from the Hobos at my train station.
Chyron HR
Does that mean he’s no longer the secret ruler of all the
MuslinMuslixMuslims?Mark S.
For a second there I thought this was Freedom House and I would have had a sad. But no, this is some guy who writes for WorldNutDaily and I guess is a one man tea party.
Saudi Arabia and Israel are forming an alliance to take out Iran? It must be true, since I read it on the Internet.
MikeJ
How is this a problem for the US unless you just really want to in on the fun of killing a bunch of people?
Social Outcast
So the complaint is that Obama and Clinton aren’t concerned with protecting Saudi Arabia’s interests. When did that become the U.S. president’s job?
catclub
“the Middle East, but does this make sense to anyone?”
Crazy people. SATSQ
Ash Can
I’ll take “People Who Have No Fucking Clue What They’re Talking About” for $500, Alex.
beltane
So now they’re bedwetting over a radical Shiite agenda instead of the more general radical Islamist agenda because the Sunni Wahabis loves them some freedumbs. Makes sense to me in the sense that it makes no sense at all.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
It makes a lot of sense:
1. Something new to blame on Obama.
2. Can’t have the majority population – Shia in Bahrain – running the country. Must use force to keep them suppressed (see Wisconsin and Ohio).
3. Oh no, we can’t have Israel working with a Muslim country: How could we talk bad about Muslims if they start helping Jews.
4. And “neo-Nazi Islamic regimes” are bad. Only neo-Nazi Christian regimes are good.
GregB
The Saudis will invade Iran as soon as Canada invades Jamaica.
Plus, if they want to really destabilize their Kingdom and bring on collapse they should openly collude with Israel to attack a Muslim nation.
Brilliant.
Fuck these neo-con warmongers.
Pococurante
Why are you pointing us to a one man
tea partywebsite. Blogistan is full of theseself-proclaimed geniusescrackpots that curry favor on the lecture circuit.Mike (Hammer) Kay
Ah crap.
This is terrible.
Gilbert Gottfried just caved and apologized for his Tsunami jokes.
Gawd. When did we become so humorless. I remember when the Space Shuttle blew up, and by noon time, everyone was joking NASA stood for “need another seven astronauts”.
mikefromArlington
It’s about damn time the U.S. let the rest of the countries deal with their regional problems on their own.
Only mindless partisans on the right are pro intervention at every opportunity. I’m not even sure $$$ to defense contractors is a driving force any longer.
I think it all has to do with who has the biggest 8=========>.
beltane
@Social Outcast: The USA is apparently here to serve the interests of the Saudi royal family and the Israeli Likud party just like it says in the Bible and the Constitution. Why do you hate America you hater?
Tsulagi
No. SATSQ and all that.
Those three Freedom Watch paragraphs are nothing but air. Some get off on the smell of their own farts.
Bill in Chicago
Indeed:
http://www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com
Without them, there would be no War on Terror.
stuckinred
Buncha people over at Pat Lang’s joynt want us in Libya now!
Rock
OK, so imagine that I buy the premise that the “Iranian threat needs to be eliminated” (which I don’t). Wouldn’t the steely-eyed Realpolitik warrior this guy wants to be think it would be better to have other people expend blood and treasure to do so? The answer is yes. I think this essay is a failure even within the world in which it’s flawed assumptions are true.
Sentient Puddle
All I really caught was this:
Godwined himself.
Mike (Hammer) Kay
@stuckinred: how does pat feel about that?
me
Were the Baharinis throwing flowers at the feet of the Saudi Army? I can’t wait for Prince Abdullah’s “المهمة أنجزت” banner.
Comrade Javamanphil
Help me out here. As near as I can tell, the only logical conclusion that can be drawn by these two statements is that Freedom Watch is a traitor (in the academic sense, not speaking in hyperbole here.) Somebody want to correct me on this?
Dave
It only makes sense if the Bahraini Shia majority are actually extremist. Which they aren’t. So yes, this makes no sense.
Also, does this mean that Freedom Watch supports Wahabbism, the driving religious/ideological basis for the 9/11 terrorists?
Elia
Not that it should matter at all in terms of the validity/weight of this statement but, I’m Jewish aaaaannnd:
Calling Iran a “neo-Nazi Islamic regime” (never mind how actually nonsensical these words are when put together) is so offensive to anyone with a modicum of awareness or appreciation of just how fucked up the Nazis were.
These people are so fucked.
stuckinred
@Mike (Hammer) Kay: It’s turning into a wall-to-wall bashing over there. Gutless prez, dod, military and the fucking American public.
piratedan
well hell, the AOS controlls the Congress, why don’t they just throw this into the budget bill then, we won’t raise the debt ceiling until the Merikan USA is out there defending freedom in another Middle East war of dubious returns else we’ll dismantle the welfare state and trash Social Security.
Amir_Khalid
This guy Klayman says Saudi Arabia “invaded” Bahrain. Unless sending troops into Bahrain at their own King’s request counts as invading, Klayman is either wrong on this or lying.
Plus, all Arab rulers know that the no. 1 Middle East priority for the US is supporting Israel; that’s just the way American national politics works. That knowledge keeps them from putting all that much faith in any POTUS to begin with, whatever the state of their relations with the US.
New Yorker
Teh crazy, it burns.
An organization named “Freedom Watch” is applauding the actions of a repressive theocratic monarchy in aggressively invading a sovereign nation. That earthquake they’re feeling in the UK is from George Orwell violently spinning in his grave.
Yes, let’s take sides in the ancient Islamic feud between Sunni and Shi’a. I mean, it’s not like any Saudis have had a hand in the pursuit of a radical Sunni Islamic revolution worldwide. Osama bin Laden is Iranian, right?
cat48
The GOP is running on US Decline next election so I suppose the oped fits their premise that Obama has caused it because he refuses to lead and be the World’s policemen, as we always have. It is unusual in a way….almost CHANGE! The G8 decided against No FLY Zone for Libya yesterday. Mrs. Greenspan said she doubted the US would do it now…..especially without a Resolution of War from the Congress. The president is doing humanitarian aide only. This disgusts Hawkish GOP and Hawkish Dems. The president FAIL!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Dude sounds like a 15 year old whining about how it is so totally unfair that Dad locked up the liquor cabinet and hid the keys, and right before homecoming weekend too!
Rock
But we can’t invade another country — we’re broke!
Or does that argument not work in this case?
The Moar You Know
That’s quite a word salad they’ve cooked up there. I read it three times and it still makes no sense whatsoever, save that I can tell that they don’t like President Obama very much.
@Mike (Hammer) Kay: Pat does not seem to be terribly in favor of the idea. Not that it matters; as someone above pointed out, his commentariat is going full-metal crazy over there.
Tonal Crow
It is more wingnut hate on Obama, Clinton, and anyone to the left of Sauron. That is all.
rea
My goodness, if Obama really has maneuvered Saudi Arabia and Israel into a military alliance, he’s a diplomatic genius.
stuckinred
Lang’s summary:
Saudi troops in Bahrein, Salih resolute in Sanaa. Qathafi advancing in Libya.
This sounds to me as though the “dog whistles’ have sounded in Washington. Stability over all!! Whose whistles are these?
– Oil companies
– Israel
– The Arab despots.
– State Department gutlessness.
– US Armed forces unwillingness to do more (read moral illiteracy)-
– US Civilian unwillingness to do more (read “I’ve been bull shitted too often”)
You are on your own in Arabia. pl
Brachiator
Please pay attention to this piece of the quote because you are going to see a lot more of it as we get closer to the 2012 elections:
The conventional wisdom, and the strident view of hardliners in the Israeli government, is that the Obama administration is weak and cannot be trusted because it does not keep its word to autocratic dictators in the Middle East. Here, oil, and the current balance of power is more important than anything that people protesting in Egypt and other countries might ever want.
This is obviously nuts, but this only means that it will become a GOP foreign policy plank.
If Saudi Arabia and Israel openly worked together to blunt supposed Iranian designs in the the region, this would be the greatest foreign policy breakthrough in decades. Saudi Arabia would be forced to acknowledge that it subsidizes radical Islam only in order to guarantee its own security. And an alliance between the Saudis and the Israelis would instantly invalidate any notion of monolithic Muslim solidarity against Israel or the West. This would also irritate bin Laden no end.
But no matter how you slice it, the best thing is that the Obama Administration, so far, is not taking the bait to intervene in current rumblings in this part of the Middle East, since it is unclear as to who is playing who, and who might emerge from the turmoil as a leader or power broker. Only someone as foolish as Palin or grandpa McCain would want to jump into this mess.
Alex S.
This is all kinds of crazy there. I wonder where all the Shiites are that would start a worldwide shiite revolution.
Mike (Hammer) Kay
@stuckinred: what were they like before?
If I recall this correctly, wasn’t Pat’s site taken over by the crazed racist PUMAs of NoQuarter and HillaryIs44.
Ash Can
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
You know who else used force to suppress the Shia majority in his country. But hey, if Freedom Watch is down with that, fine for them. After all, they’re not saying just whose freedom they’re watching, now, are they?
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
I want to go on record renouncing Stalin and NOT applauding the actions of the tyrannical, freedom hating Saudis.
DP
Well that is one crazy rant.
I think the idea is that the government of Baharain (a sunni government of a majority shia country)and the Saudis feels more threatened by the protests because they fear Iran will help fuel shia uprisings in their countries.
I’m not justifying the above quote, which is uttely incoherent, but that’s the underlying idea, I think.
Mike (Hammer) Kay
/fixed
Martin
Bahrain has been a puppet state of Saudi Arabia for ages. There was never any doubt that SA would jump in and put down any unrest in the country, just like their wasn’t ever any doubt that SA would step up and offer what was needed when Saddam invaded Kuwait. They don’t tolerate governments they don’t control sitting over oil that they want to control.
Nobody over there is so stupid as to not understand this. It’s just another episode of ‘what can we twist into some cudgel to bash Obama with?’ Just the tortuous contorting the term ‘neo-Nazi’ is evidence enough of that.
catclub
The Arab league includes nations like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which do have armies. They had a choice: a) invade Bahrain in opposition to (mostly unarmed) citizen demonstrators or b) invade Libya in opposition to madman with tanks and guns and fighter planes. They picked a.
Tom
Ding! Ding! Ding!
I’d like to see a poll asking Americans if they’d rather Saudi Arabia or the U.S. invade Bahrain.
me
Some dude at reddit is claiming that the Saudis are massacring civilians in Shiite villages.
stuckinred
@Mike (Hammer) Kay: I read it because the dude has spent a good bit of time in the ME and seems to have a pretty good grip on what’s up.
slag
I can’t wait until Obama does decide to invade some foreign country just so the wingnuts can whine about wagging dogs.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Iran’s hegemony
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Pococurante
@Amir_Khalid:
And to think I thought our policy was to prop up dictators all across the Greater Middle East to make sure the oil flows. And to think I thought 56 Arab countries singling out Israel for human rights violations was simply part of the plan to divert attention from their own oppression, double-digit unemployment, and elites looting the profits.
Thanks for clearing that up for me.
PPOG Penguin
They support Mubarak against the Egyptian people, and call themselves Freedom Watch? Presumably they are watching freedom in the same sense that the US military is watching Bradley Manning.
Mike (Hammer) Kay
@stuckinred: I agree. He’s a good guy.
Tonal Crow
@PPOG Penguin: They’re watching their confederates destroy freedom, hence the name “Freedom Watch”.
catclub
@Pococurante: ” Plus, all Arab rulers know that the no. 1 Middle East priority for the US is supporting Israel; that’s just the way American national politics works.”
“And to think I thought our policy was to prop up dictators all across the Greater Middle East to make sure the oil flows.”
Actually it is both. A floor wax _AND_ a dessert topping!
daveNYC
@Ash Can:
No joke. A Sunni minority stomping on a Shia majority. There’s no way that could end in tears.
Pococurante
@catclub:
And just look at that shine! But will it last?
catclub
The Wikileaks on Middle east diplomacy, in which various Arab nations privately were willing to have the US take care of their problems with Iran, but were not willing to say so publicly, or to publicly commit their own resources to such an effort
(both wise in my view), have been conveniently forgotten.
Tonal Crow
@daveNYC:
And that is why the ultra-liberals, the ACLU, and the fraudulent “climate scientists” were 100% wrong to force George W. Bush to invade Iraq.
/wingnut
Citizen_X
@PPOG Penguin: They thought it was a tragedy for demonstrators to take down Mubarak, and they’re in favor of any military action against our longtime antagonist Iran. Sooo…are they cheering Khadafy as he kills off his demonstrators, or are they cheering for us to invade Libya to take down our longtime antagonist Khadafy? Decisions, decisions.
joe from Lowell
Muh muh muh, House of Saud, your anus tastes like honey!
Muh muh muh! Muh!
For those keeping score at home, the sum total of countries invaded by Iran, the country bent on world domination, remains zero (0) – that is, fewer countries than have been invaded by Saudi Arabia.
chopper
@Bill in Chicago:
LOL, that’s just quotable, innit? “we applaud the saudis for invading a neighbor to help put down anti-dictatorship demonstrations”
joe from Lowell
@Citizen_X:
They’re waiting to see what Obama does, so they can denounce that. Regardless of which way he goes. (Obviously, if you call your organization “Freedom Watch,” define your cause in terms of opposition to Islamic dictatorships, and then laud Saudi Arabia and embrace them as an ally, you’re not operating according to any set of principles).
Carl Nyberg
I suspect the sovereign, anarchic nation-state system is a sham.
These states really aren’t independent and sovereign in a meaningful way.
It’s a way for the elites to manage conflict, to fabricate differences for psychological manipulation.
Sheldon Cooper
Pat Lang wants Special Forces to go in Libya and work with the rebels to resist and ultimately oust Qadhafi. He thinks this will be a quicky and easy process based on the quality of Qadhafi’s forces.
Pat is no neocon but he believes strongly in liberating oppressed peoples, a concept drilled into him from his time as officer with SF. He has written before that he would have supported the Iraq invasion if it had not been based on bogus lies about WMDs but rather on removing Saddam.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Rock: There’s money for defense contractors and other megacorp citizens. There’s no money for individual citizens. The former is what we do to “create jobs” the latter is the way we keep people “incentivized”. Don’t you know how the best system in the world works?
Svensker
Does that mean Bibi’s gonna give all the money back?
Shoemaker-Levy 9
It makes sense if you are in favor of a hot war against Iran. It makes no sense if you call yourself Freedom Watch, in that it advocates for Bahrainis (approx. 2/3 Shia) to live under a Sunni dictatorship. It makes even less sense to call yourself Freedom Watch, advocate for Bahrainis to live in a dictatorship, and implicitly support an invasion by a country that makes Iran look like a democratic paradise. So this statement might make sense if they changed their name to theymaybesonsofbitchesbuttheyareoursonsofbitches.org.
Jay C
Amazing: Klayman managed to lose me just four words in “… the failure of President Obama…“, then totally blew whatever shreds of credibility his rant might have “…confront Iran’s hegemony… just one word later: the whole thing descending into a complete
cauldroncesspool of overheated BS “…extremist Shiites loyal to the radical mullahs in Tehran” – all within the first (only moderately-long) sentence!Really: who takes this ranting sh*t as any sort of serious analysis of US foreign policy? It’s the same-old, same-old: something gnarly goes down in the Middle east, and the old neocon PNAC gang and/or their enablers fire up the Mighty Wingnut Gibbertronic: shrieking their stale bellicose boilerplate about “Iran” and “mullahs” and raking Obama/Democrats/liberals/anyone-not-them for not somehow magically creating the (their) ideal outcome from some extraordinarily-fnucked-up situation in Arabia – a situation which their favored “solutions” would almost certainly/invariable make worse.
So of course this ass-backward screed will no doubt be taken by the Very Serious Commentariat as sage wisdom…
Villago Delenda Est
Bahrain is a relatively liberal state, too. They don’t have all the Wahhabist bullshit imposed on their citizens, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Saudi invasion changed some of that.
The Bandit House of Saud is sitting on a powderkeg. They’ve got a demographic problem on their hands…too many young people, many of whom question the Wahhabist ways, which include leaving girls to die in fires because they don’t have their veils, or their adult male relatives aren’t handy to escort them out, or whatever.
So naturally they jump at the chance to intervene in Bahrain, which is a threat to them anyways, just because women are driving cars there.
elmo
But waidaminnit. I thought the Shiites were the democratic and peaceful ones, and the Sunni were the brutal violent thugs? Glenn Reynolds told me so!
Ken J.
Serious question: when the country currently known as Saudi Arabia has its own political upheavals, and when the ruling family pulls out the heavy weaponry, will the USA (and its conservative factions):
– decide that People Power stops here, and the USA must support medieval monarchy and the divine right of kingship, and protect the family GWBush likes to hold hands with
– Recognize that Arabia is the next step after Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, threaten/declare a No Fly Zone and support something that might look like democracy some day?
One reason not to invest much (military) resources in Libya right now is that the possibility of turbulence in Saudi Arabia really would get to a core American interest, the oil.
Oh, if you’re curious about why Saudi Arabia sent troops to Bahrain — look at the map. The Saudi forces could drive there. On a causeway. Talk about “sphere of influence…”
Suffern ACE
I have to agree with him. The demonstrators in Iran last year crumbled rather quickly without U.S. support and direct intervention on their behalf. Had we explored military options like McCain said we should, no one would be demonstrating right now in the middle east because they would have no grievances. The demonstators in Iran would have won easily, as the government of Iran would have immediately surrendered to the superior US forces after an amphibious landing and just handed power over to the opposition without firing a shot.
Invade Iran and all of our other problems go away.
srv
@Mike (Hammer) Kay: Like before when? You mean when Pat was talking about how wonderful a guy Omar Sulieman was (worked with him!) and how caving to all those silly protesters in Tahir could lead to anarchy and cats and dogs living together?
Or that Obama is cowardly abandoning GW’s FREEDOM agenda (which he snarked on non-stop) and missed a great opportunity to destabilize Libya into a vacuum and let who-the-fuck-knows take over so the Arab world would know we really do lurv and support their freedom and we’d be on the right side of history?
It’s a real schitzoid crowd over there – Egypt freedom bad, Libya freedom good, mixed with a smattering of realist and conspiracy-laden insight into the politics.
Cris
I’m not real up on my diplomatic terminology, but does it count as an “invasion” when you were invited?
Also, too: <3 <3 <3 to commenter "me” for Mission Accomplished.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
This is why Steve Jobs wanted the Beatles catalog. Fab Four hits for foreign policy situations: Baby You Can Drive My Car.
Zifnab
Anybody remember this?
http://middleeast.about.com/od/saudiarabia/a/saudi-arabia-military-aid.htm
Be a damn shame if all those US built guns and bombs went to waste, amirite?
DP
I think there may be a larger dymanic going on with all the right-wing head exploding that seems to be going on in the wake of the middle east protests. The reaction on the right has been varied, but how can this support for authoritarian regimes be squared with the ususal “freeance and peeance” rhetoric of the right?
It can’t of course. But a problem for the wingers is that these protests and revolts show something: Muslims, even when living under muslim rule, actually want to be free. They want democracy. They want the internet. They want some semblance of ecomonic justice. Just like everyone else. Murabak did not ge ousted over his failure to impose strict sharia law.
This does not square with the winger view that all muslims want the whole world to live under a muslim caliphate imposing sharia law. So all these muslims living under the strict islamic law in Saudi Arabia should be happy, right? If it turns out that what muslims actually want is freedom, just like us!, well that kind of blows the whole theory.
AAA Bonds
For what it’s worth, FoxNation (the site you read if you want to actually UNDERSTAND the American right wing) has been flogging the “even foreign leaders don’t think Obama is worth anything” idea for a while now.
This is just part of that narrative, along with the pro-Saudi neoconservative narrative, and other ones you recognize.
By the way, the two “allied leaders” who wouldn’t talk to Obama directly in the latest Fox Nation story? Gbagbo in Ivory Coast and some guy named Mubarak in Egypt. Know you’ve never heard of them before. . .
Ufficio
@chopper: Hey, someone’s got to stand up for the freedom of pro-democracy demonstrators to be slaughtered by foreign mercenaries.
srv
Bahrain is just a practice op for when the Shia in KSA start acting up. They just arrested a cleric or two who were calling for reforms.
And you don’t have to worry about when Abdullah goes. The heirs to the throne all appear to be quite less enlightened than their uncle.
Jamie
I’m dreaming of the day when pundits are held to a not crazy standard. That’s gonna be a long wait.
If Democracy breaks out in the middle east we will lose influence because we can’t explain our toleration of tyrannical regimes in that area for the last 70 years or so.
Jamie
what’s the old Crack, war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography
Mike (Hammer) Kay
@srv: I haven’t seen Pat since 2006. Which is why I asked what his site is like (here). He seemed like a good guy when he opposed the invasion of Iraq and Iran.
HyperIon
@stuckinred:
Pat Lang is one strange blogger. My favorite moment (when I still visited the site) was when Cleek or Montysano (or somebody whose handle escapes me) stated that confederates were traitors. PL was outraged. Yet another douchebag Virginian with an “our university was the creation of Thomas Jefferson so all must bow down” attitude. He probably knows stuff but is insufferable.
Maude
There was a crackdown in Bahrain today. The King of Bahrain asked for Saudi help. Iraq has a Shia Prime Minister, also. Too.
soonergrunt
@Mike (Hammer) Kay: NASA vacation plan–a 71 second flight to Bahamas.
soonergrunt
@Rock: No. It only works for caring for our citizens.
We have special credit cards for invading other countries, powered by pixie dust.
srv
@HyperIon: The War of Northern Agression is strong there.
soonergrunt
@Zifnab: They used Canadian built Light Armored Vehicles and pickups built in Indonesia for this little op. At least, that’s what they used in the footage I saw.
Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles are a little expensive for that stuff.
Pococurante
@Jamie:
Heck we can’t even explain Michigan.
liberal
@Brachiator:
Maybe it’s not open, but I always assumed they have somewhat aligned interests.
Agreed.
Never mind jumping into the Middle East…I thought there was a good chance gramps was gonna get us involved in Georgia, where the other guys have nukes.
noodler
Freedom watch? Oy, with an article like that, thought the jump would take me to world net daily.