What's he gonna do now?

Obama has succeeded in getting us almost into war. Iran is breaking off relations with Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Iran has a much larger army and air force than does Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Their military is basically a place for some prince or friend of a prince to play soldier until they take over for their aged father. Saudi Arabia and Dubai have always relied on the US for protection. What do you think the first Gulf War was all about? So now the US (after reducing the size of it's military) may have to defend 8,000 miles away two countries from Iran. So what does Iran do? They can either go it alone, make a deal with Israel, or (more likely) put together a deal with Russia.
In the mean time, Russia is talking about problems in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. Problems that only a Russian invasion can solve.
North Korea says it can attack the US. China is building a second aircraft carrier and they only have to defend their coastline, not police the world, and they are still building those armed islands in the South China Sea.

Yep, Obama has allowed things to get out of hand in three parts of the world while continuing to reduce our navy, air force, and ground forces.

Happy Freakin New Year!!!

We have no need to defend those shitheads. They start something, let them finish it. We don't need anything they have.

Obama is right to keep us out of as much as possible. We aren't man enough of a country to take care of everyone anyway. Obama knows that.

If we must save their ass, they need to pay all of our costs and a huge profit on top of that - payable in dollars or oil. Plus, one million to each family that loses a child, and lifetime benefits, support and medical care to anyone who gets crippled.

If we must save their ass, they need to pay all of our costs... Originally Posted by DSK

Most people don't know this, but the Saudis and Kuwaitis reimbursed the US Treasury for the costs of Desert Storm back in 1991.
.

Most people don't know this, but the Saudis and Kuwaitis reimbursed the US Treasury for the costs of Desert Storm back in 1991.
. Originally Posted by lustylad

I'm glad to hear it - good example for going forward.

That is the way it should be. Pay us if they want us to police their regions for them.

Saudis pay us by buying from our military industrial complex. They need to pay our treasury.

Fucking ludicrous!

What happened to:

Obama has succeeded in getting us almost into war. Iran is breaking off relations with Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Iran has a much larger army and air force than does Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Their military is basically a place for some prince or friend of a prince to play soldier until they take over for their aged father. Saudi Arabia and Dubai have always relied on the US for protection. What do you think the first Gulf War was all about? So now the US (after reducing the size of it's military) may have to defend 8,000 miles away two countries from Iran. So what does Iran do? They can either go it alone, make a deal with Israel, or (more likely) put together a deal with Russia.
In the mean time, Russia is talking about problems in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. Problems that only a Russian invasion can solve.
North Korea says it can attack the US. China is building a second aircraft carrier and they only have to defend their coastline, not police the world, and they are still building those armed islands in the South China Sea.

Yep, Obama has allowed things to get out of hand in three parts of the world while continuing to reduce our navy, air force, and ground forces. Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

Are you fucking kidding me?

If Iran and Saudi Arabia start killing each other and the whole Sunni-Shia thing turns violent and Obama caused THAT, then he is a genius and I take back every bad thing I ever said about him.

We should not waste ONE single American life over there again. Arab Muslims are xenophobic, homophobic, paranoid, religious bigots bent on world domination for their death-obsessed desert cult.

Persian Shias are the same except, well, Persian.

LET THEM BLEED EACH OTHER WHITE. Eventually the populations of both countries will finally come to the realization that Protestants and Catholics came to about 300 years ago - that you cannot kill your way to uniformity of religious thought.

Then maybe - just maybe - they will overthrow the mullahs and the imams the way Kemal Ataturk overthrew the Caliphate in the early 20th century in Turkey and they will finally institute secular governments.

A fella can dream, right?

In the meantime, the US needs to stay the fuck out of there. Or haven't you been paying attention for the last decade JDBarleybrains?

That is the way it should be. Pay us if they want us to police their regions for them.

Saudis pay us by buying from our military industrial complex. They need to pay our treasury. Originally Posted by The2Dogs

The Saudi royals have been fomenting their brand of religious extremism - Salafism/Wahhabism - for decades. They only get upset when it escapes their control and sometimes turns against them.

The rest of the world - particularly the US - has paid dearly for this religious indoctrination. We don't sell nearly enough military hardware to the Saudis to offset the much larger costs we have incurred trying to combat jihadism. Not to mention the costs of supporting Israel and pursuing the phantom of achieving peace in the Middle East.

And, when you think about how much money the Saudis have made of the USA by fucking around with oil prices, the picture looks even worse.

The Saudis have played a cynical game for over half a century. And we have been their primary victim.

Are you fucking kidding me?

If Iran and Saudi Arabia start killing each other and the whole Sunni-Shia thing turns violent and Obama caused THAT, then he is a genius and I take back every bad thing I ever said about him.

he's not a genius, but he isn't stupid either. that's what makes him dangerous. most of the Republican candidates, starting with Trump say "it's their problem in the middle east."

it is their problem. it's not ours. unless they want to pay thru the nose to hire the US military as "mercs". even the Saudis might have a hard time coughing up that kind of dough but if anyone probably could, it would be them.

We should not waste ONE single American life over there again. Arab Muslims are xenophobic, homophobic, paranoid, religious bigots bent on world domination for their death-obsessed desert cult.

Persian Shias are the same except, well, Persian.

LET THEM BLEED EACH OTHER WHITE. Eventually the populations of both countries will finally come to the realization that Protestants and Catholics came to about 300 years ago - that you cannot kill your way to uniformity of religious thought.

Then maybe - just maybe - they will overthrow the mullahs and the imams the way Kemal Ataturk overthrew the Caliphate in the early 20th century in Turkey and they will finally institute secular governments.

A fella can dream, right?

In the meantime, the US needs to stay the fuck out of there. Or haven't you been paying attention for the last decade JDBarleybrains? Originally Posted by ExNYer

The Saudi royals have been fomenting their brand of religious extremism - Salafism/Wahhabism - for decades. They only get upset when it escapes their control and sometimes turns against them.

actually it goes back centuries but close enough to make the point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism

The rest of the world - particularly the US - has paid dearly for this religious indoctrination. We don't sell nearly enough military hardware to the Saudis to offset the much larger costs we have incurred trying to combat jihadism. Not to mention the costs of supporting Israel and pursuing the phantom of achieving peace in the Middle East.

And, when you think about how much money the Saudis have made of the USA by fucking around with oil prices, the picture looks even worse.

The Saudis have played a cynical game for over half a century. And we have been their primary victim. Originally Posted by ExNYer

the Saudis were behind 9/11. we should send them a bill for that. i think about 5 trillion ought to cover it.

Are you fucking kidding me?

If Iran and Saudi Arabia start killing each other and the whole Sunni-Shia thing turns violent and Obama caused THAT, then he is a genius and I take back every bad thing I ever said about him.

We should not waste ONE single American life over there again. Arab Muslims are xenophobic, homophobic, paranoid, religious bigots bent on world domination for their death-obsessed desert cult.

Persian Shias are the same except, well, Persian.

LET THEM BLEED EACH OTHER WHITE. Eventually the populations of both countries will finally come to the realization that Protestants and Catholics came to about 300 years ago - that you cannot kill your way to uniformity of religious thought.

Then maybe - just maybe - they will overthrow the mullahs and the imams the way Kemal Ataturk overthrew the Caliphate in the early 20th century in Turkey and they will finally institute secular governments.

A fella can dream, right?

In the meantime, the US needs to stay the fuck out of there. Or haven't you been paying attention for the last decade JDBarleybrains? Originally Posted by ExNYer

Did I say he caused this? Nope, stopped reading your nonsense after that misstatement.

Did I say he caused this? Nope, stopped reading your nonsense after that misstatement. Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

Well you should have continued to read...you are a neoconservative. ...which is a liberal in sheep wool.

Well you should have continued to read...you are a neoconservative. ...which is a liberal in sheep wool. Originally Posted by WTF

you are a sack of chimp balls hangin' out yer ass. you avatar proves it.

you are a sack of chimp balls hangin' out yer ass. you avatar proves it. Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

I can out pick you in college football with one of my chimp nuts in your mouth are you one of those silly fucks who thinks nation building is a conservative endeavor?

As much as we dislike the Saudis and their penchant for playing a double game, if the ruling House of Saud is overthrown, the replacement regime is likely to be far worse. Haven't we learned that lesson after seeing what replaced Qaddafi in Libya, Mubarak in Egypt, and threatens Assad in Syria? Radical Islamists would do anything to gain control of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina as well as the oil spigot that, if closed, could still strangle Western economies. Be careful what you wish for. As for me, I vote for doing whatever it takes to keep those 17 million barrels a day flowing out of the Strait of Hormuz. Odumbo is the first POTUS to fail to grasp what is at stake since FDR's famous meeting with Ibn Saud aboard the USS Quincy on his way home from Yalta. (http://www.ameu.org/getattachment/51...-Ibn-Saud.aspx)


Who Lost the Saudis?

Iran and Russia have an interest in toppling the House of Saud.

Jan. 3, 2016 5:20 p.m. ET

That headline question may seem premature, but it’s worth asking if only to reduce the odds that the Saudis are lost as we enter the last perilous year of the Obama Presidency. Iran and Russia have an interest in toppling the House of Saud, and they may be calculating whether President Obama would do anything to stop them.

This comes to mind watching the furious reaction by Iran and its allies to Saudi Arabia’s New Year execution of 47 men for terrorism. Most of the condemned were Sunnis, including members of al Qaeda, but the Saudis also executed prominent Shiite cleric Nemer al-Nemer, who had led a Shiite uprising in 2011.

“The divine hand of revenge will come back on the tyrants who took his life,” said Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday, among many other denunciations across the Shiite Middle East. Protesters ransacked and set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran before police belatedly stopped them. The Saudis responded by cutting off diplomatic relations with Iran.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Iranian ally and former Prime Minister of Iraq, put regime change on the table by saying the execution “will topple the Saudi regime as the crime of executing the martyr al-Sadr did to Saddam” Hussein. He was referring to the death of another prominent Shiite cleric in Iraq in 1980.

Iran already has ample reason to want to topple the Saudis, who are its main antagonist in the Shiite vs. Sunni conflict that has swept the region amid America’s retreat. The two are fighting a proxy war in Yemen, after a Saudi-led coalition intervened to stop a takeover by Iran’s Houthi allies. The Saudis are also the leading supporter of the non-Islamic State Sunnis who are fighting Syria’s ally Bashar Assad. Russia and Iran are allied with Assad.

Then there’s Saudi oil production keeping oil prices low. As the biggest exporter in OPEC, the Saudis have refused to cut production to stem a supply glut that has cut prices to $37 a barrel. This means Iran will get much less benefit from its renewed ability to export oil under its nuclear accord with Mr. Obama.

Saudi exports are also punishing Russia, the world’s second largest oil producer, which by some accounts needs oil at $100 a barrel to satisfy Vladimir Putin’s domestic promises. The ruble dropped to its lowest level to the dollar in 2015 last week on the prospect of still-lower oil prices. Russia and Iran would benefit greatly from internal Saudi turmoil or the threat of a larger regional war that caused oil prices to spike.

None of this means a direct Iran-Saudi conflict is imminent, though with dictatorships you never know. Iran had no good reason to fire rockets within 1,500 yards of the USS Truman last month, but it may have been testing to see how the U.S. would react. The Administration didn’t respond until the news was leaked, and then with a mild military statement.

The White House decision last week to walk back U.S. sanctions against Iran after its recent ballistic-missile tests may also embolden Iran to take greater risks. Iran’s leaders may believe the nuclear deal is a greater restraint on the U.S. than on their own regional ambitions. They can always threaten to leave the nuclear deal if the U.S. imposes new sanctions. The Revolutionary Guard may also believe they have more freedom of action given Russia’s support in Syria and its plan to deliver S-300 anti-aircraft missiles.

As for the Saudis, they can be forgiven for doubting that they can count on President Obama. Fairly or not, they concluded from the fall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak that this Administration will abandon its friends in a pinch. They saw his “red-line” reversal in 2013 in Syria, Mr. Obama’s accommodation to Russian revanchism in Crimea, and that he now may let Assad keep power in Syria. The Saudis intervened in Bahrain in 2011 without telling the U.S., and they recently formed a new Sunni-state coalition to fight Islamic State—again without the U.S.

The Saudis treat domestic dissenters harshly, but the Shiite cleric Nemer was no human-rights activist. Joseph Braude of the Foreign Policy Research Institute says that in the 1980s and 1990s Nemer was a leader in Hezbollah al-Hejaz, an armed group in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province. Nemer followed the teachings of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and declared the Sunni ruling dynasties in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait to be illegitimate. While he later toned down his revolutionary rhetoric, by 2009 he was again advocating a military option.

The Saudis are often difficult allies, especially the support by rich Wahhabi sheikhs for radical Islamist mosques and schools around the world. But in a Middle East wracked by civil wars, political upheaval and Iranian imperialism, the Saudis are the best friend we have in the Arabian peninsula. The U.S. should make clear to Iran and Russia that it will defend the Kingdom from Iranian attempts to destabilize or invade.
.

As much as we dislike the Saudis and their penchant for playing a double game, if the ruling House of Saud is overthrown, the replacement regime is likely to be far worse. Haven't we learned that lesson after seeing what replaced Qaddafi in Libya, Mubarak in Egypt, and threatens Assad in Syria? Radical Islamists would do anything to gain control of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina as well as the oil spigot that, if closed, could still strangle Western economies. Be careful what you wish for. As for me, I vote for doing whatever it takes to keep those 17 million barrels a day flowing out of the Strait of Hormuz. Odumbo is the first POTUS to fail to grasp what is at stake since FDR's famous meeting with Ibn Saud aboard the USS Quincy on his way home from Yalta. (http://www.ameu.org/getattachment/51...-Ibn-Saud.aspx)


Who Lost the Saudis?

Iran and Russia have an interest in toppling the House of Saud.

Jan. 3, 2016 5:20 p.m. ET

That headline question may seem premature, but it’s worth asking if only to reduce the odds that the Saudis are lost as we enter the last perilous year of the Obama Presidency. Iran and Russia have an interest in toppling the House of Saud, and they may be calculating whether President Obama would do anything to stop them.

This comes to mind watching the furious reaction by Iran and its allies to Saudi Arabia’s New Year execution of 47 men for terrorism. Most of the condemned were Sunnis, including members of al Qaeda, but the Saudis also executed prominent Shiite cleric Nemer al-Nemer, who had led a Shiite uprising in 2011.

“The divine hand of revenge will come back on the tyrants who took his life,” said Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday, among many other denunciations across the Shiite Middle East. Protesters ransacked and set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran before police belatedly stopped them. The Saudis responded by cutting off diplomatic relations with Iran.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Iranian ally and former Prime Minister of Iraq, put regime change on the table by saying the execution “will topple the Saudi regime as the crime of executing the martyr al-Sadr did to Saddam” Hussein. He was referring to the death of another prominent Shiite cleric in Iraq in 1980.

Iran already has ample reason to want to topple the Saudis, who are its main antagonist in the Shiite vs. Sunni conflict that has swept the region amid America’s retreat. The two are fighting a proxy war in Yemen, after a Saudi-led coalition intervened to stop a takeover by Iran’s Houthi allies. The Saudis are also the leading supporter of the non-Islamic State Sunnis who are fighting Syria’s ally Bashar Assad. Russia and Iran are allied with Assad.

Then there’s Saudi oil production keeping oil prices low. As the biggest exporter in OPEC, the Saudis have refused to cut production to stem a supply glut that has cut prices to $37 a barrel. This means Iran will get much less benefit from its renewed ability to export oil under its nuclear accord with Mr. Obama.

Saudi exports are also punishing Russia, the world’s second largest oil producer, which by some accounts needs oil at $100 a barrel to satisfy Vladimir Putin’s domestic promises. The ruble dropped to its lowest level to the dollar in 2015 last week on the prospect of still-lower oil prices. Russia and Iran would benefit greatly from internal Saudi turmoil or the threat of a larger regional war that caused oil prices to spike.

None of this means a direct Iran-Saudi conflict is imminent, though with dictatorships you never know. Iran had no good reason to fire rockets within 1,500 yards of the USS Truman last month, but it may have been testing to see how the U.S. would react. The Administration didn’t respond until the news was leaked, and then with a mild military statement.

The White House decision last week to walk back U.S. sanctions against Iran after its recent ballistic-missile tests may also embolden Iran to take greater risks. Iran’s leaders may believe the nuclear deal is a greater restraint on the U.S. than on their own regional ambitions. They can always threaten to leave the nuclear deal if the U.S. imposes new sanctions. The Revolutionary Guard may also believe they have more freedom of action given Russia’s support in Syria and its plan to deliver S-300 anti-aircraft missiles.

As for the Saudis, they can be forgiven for doubting that they can count on President Obama. Fairly or not, they concluded from the fall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak that this Administration will abandon its friends in a pinch. They saw his “red-line” reversal in 2013 in Syria, Mr. Obama’s accommodation to Russian revanchism in Crimea, and that he now may let Assad keep power in Syria. The Saudis intervened in Bahrain in 2011 without telling the U.S., and they recently formed a new Sunni-state coalition to fight Islamic State—again without the U.S.

The Saudis treat domestic dissenters harshly, but the Shiite cleric Nemer was no human-rights activist. Joseph Braude of the Foreign Policy Research Institute says that in the 1980s and 1990s Nemer was a leader in Hezbollah al-Hejaz, an armed group in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province. Nemer followed the teachings of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and declared the Sunni ruling dynasties in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait to be illegitimate. While he later toned down his revolutionary rhetoric, by 2009 he was again advocating a military option.

The Saudis are often difficult allies, especially the support by rich Wahhabi sheikhs for radical Islamist mosques and schools around the world. But in a Middle East wracked by civil wars, political upheaval and Iranian imperialism, the Saudis are the best friend we have in the Arabian peninsula. The U.S. should make clear to Iran and Russia that it will defend the Kingdom from Iranian attempts to destabilize or invade.
. Originally Posted by lustylad

We do not need their oil. We can produce all we need in the Estados Unidos. That should change everything. We have enough holes in the ground in West Texas and in the Bakken to keep our economy going for a long time, or at least until Mr. Musk can get us a 35,000 all electric luxury car.