Thread: M. E. Shenanigans

Israel is going to attack Iran to try and throw a wrench in this. Netanyahu won't finish his term without doing it

There will probably he terror attacks and shit inside Saud and Iran

Skidmark and Hoohoo.

I must get some popcorn.

'spectacularly clueless' seems to cover it.

Saudi Arabia to reopen embassy in Syria after more than a decade of closure

Thursday, 23 March 2023 4:41

"Saudi Arabia and Syria have agreed to reopen their embassies after cutting diplomatic ties more than a decade ago when the foreign-sponsored Syrian conflict started, a report says.

Reuters news agency, citing a source with knowledge of the matter, reported on Thursday that contacts between Riyadh and Damascus had gathered momentum following a landmark agreement earlier this month between Iran and Saudi Arabia on the restoration of bilateral relations after seven years.

The two governments were “preparing to reopen embassies after Eid al-Fitr”, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, a second regional source aligned with the Damascus government said.

The decision was the result of talks in Saudi Arabia with a senior Syrian intelligence official, another source noted.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject.

The high-ranking Syrian intelligence official reportedly “stayed for days” in Riyadh, and an agreement was struck to reopen embassies “very soon.”

One of the sources identified the official as Hussam Louqa, who heads Syria's intelligence committee, asserting that the talks included security on Syria's border with Jordan and measures to combat smuggling of illegal amphetamine Captagon pills from militant-held areas in Syria to the Persian Gulf kingdom.

Captagon is an amphetamine manufactured in Lebanon and probably also in Syria, mainly for consumption in Saudi Arabia, according to the French Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT).

It is also one of the most commonly used drugs in the Syrian war, where Takfiri militants say it helps them stay awake for days and numbs their senses, giving them stamina for long battles and allowing them to kill with abandon.

The reopening of Saudi embassy in Damascus will be preceded by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud's visit to Syria, during which he will meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia's Sputnik news agency reported.

Back in March 2012, Saudi Arabia closed its embassy in Damascus and then severed diplomatic ties with the Syrian government. The government also funded Takfiri militants seeking to overthrow Assad.

The sudden diplomatic breakthrough could indicate how the deal between Tehran and Riyadh may play into the settlement of other crises in the Middle East region."

Saudi Arabia to reopen embassy in Syria after more than a decade of closure

We might have a casus belle happening now in Syria

TO HELP END THE YEMEN WAR, ALL CHINA HAD TO DO WAS BE REASONABLE

With Joe Biden nowhere to be found, China’s diplomacy set the stage for Saudi concessions and cease-fire talks.

Ryan Grim

April 8 2023, 2:41 a.m.

"The war in Yemen looks like it’s coming to an end. U.S. media reported on Thursday that a cease-fire extending through 2023 had been agreed to, but those reports also included Houthi denials. On Friday, Al Mayadeen, a generally pro-Houthi Lebanese news outlet, reported optimism from the Houthi side that the deal is real and the war is winding down. Reuters later on Friday matched Al Mayadeen’s reporting, confirming that Saudi envoys will be traveling to Sana’a to discuss the terms of a “permanent ceasefire.”

What’s startling here is the apparent role of China — and complete absence of the U.S. and President Joe Biden — in the deal-making.

“Biden promised to end the war in Yemen. Two years into his presidency, China may have delivered on that promise,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “Decades of militarized American foreign policy in the Middle East have enabled China to play the role of peacemaker while Washington is stuck and unable to offer much more than arms deals and increasingly unconvincing security assurances.”

The U.S. always backed Saudi Arabia to the hilt and vociferously opposed the Houthis, who are backed by Iran. Now China has extracted concessions from the Saudis that made the cease-fire talks possible. The Saudis seem like they are fully capitulating to the Houthi demands, which include opening the major port to allow critical supplies into the country, allowing flights into Sana’a, and allowing the government to have access to its currency to pay its workers and stabilize the economy. Reasonable stuff.

“The Saudi concessions — including a potential lifting of the blockade and exit from the war — demonstrate that their priority is to protect Saudi territory from attack and focus on economic development at home,” said Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, which has been working for an end to the war in Yemen for years. “This diverges from the approach preferred by many Washington foreign policy elites who continued to hope that the Saudi war and blockade could force the Houthis to make concessions and cede more power to the U.S.-backed Yemeni ‘government.’”"

https://theintercept.com/2023/04/07/...i-arabia-iran/

Round 666 the pedos pals , christ murderers and red sea pedestrian's kids in endless wrangle about goat scrub, voices in the sky, dead sea scrotums, will be seen once cured as a form of psychiatric illness, Oi Moses keep taking the tablets.

^^ already posted about 8 hours ago by skidmark

US flexes muscle in Persian Gulf,
to no avail

A panicked US tries to insert itself into West Asia's tsunami of political, economic, and diplomatic shifts, but is anybody listening?

By MK Bhadrakumar

April 10 2023

"Three ominous US-related developments last week grate against the overall easing of tensions in the West Asian region:

Firstly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s phone call on Tuesday to UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan (MbZ), seeking a meeting to breathe life into the Abraham Accords;

Secondly, a hush-hush trip to Saudi Arabia by CIA Director William Burns to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) as Chinese diplomacy accelerates in West Asia;

Thirdly, the arrival of nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Florida into Persian Gulf waters.

The common thread here is the ascendancy of Iran in the geopolitics of West Asia, following its historic deal with Saudi Arabia, mediated by China with robust Russian support.

These three developments took place in the immediate context of a groundbreaking meeting between Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud and his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir Abdollahian on Thursday in Beijing.

In a bizarre coincidence, the USS Florida also transited the Suez Canal on Thursday on a mission in support of the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet, whose area of operation includes the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and parts of the Indian Ocean.

Saudi-Iran detente

In the weeks since Saudi Arabia and Iran’s 10 March agreement to restore diplomatic relations, top officials of both states have spoken on the phone several times, and Saudi King Salman has invited Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to visit Riyadh. The meeting of the two foreign ministers in Beijing on Thursday signals that Raisi’s visit to Riyadh is not far off.

The joint statement issued after the Beijing meeting shows that the cup of Saudi-Iranian detente is rapidly filling up and is approaching the half-full mark already.

The joint statement speaks of “boosting cooperation” and hints at specific initiatives in the pipeline, such as exploring “means of cooperation, with positive outcomes, considering the natural resources, economic potential, and many opportunities their countries have, which can help both gain mutual benefit.”

A senior Iranian official has openly sought Saudi investments. Earlier, Saudi Finance Minister Mohammad Al Jadaan flagged “a lot of opportunities” in Iran for Saudi investment. Direct flights are being resumed.

The joint statement affirmed “to boost cooperation in order to support stability and security in the region, to mutual benefit.” Tehran is nudging the Ansarallah movement to reach a ceasefire in Yemen in its negotiations with Riyadh. The Saudi and Omani envoys arrived in Sanaa on Saturday to negotiate a permanent ceasefire deal that may be announced before the Muslim Eid holiday starting on 20 April.

Saudi autonomy and US resentment

Basically, the Thursday meeting in Beijing on signals that Riyadh and Tehran are actively striving for a broader cooperative relationship, and China is stressing that it intends to continue playing a pivotal role as mediator and facilitator.

Chinese commentators are forecasting that Beijing is willing to act as a coordinator in resolving conflicts in the West Asian region, as it has great acceptability among regional states. China senses that Saudi Arabia’s autonomy is further increasing – adopting economic strategies without dependence on the US, and no longer politically obedient to Washington’s diktats.

The recent OPEC+ decision to further cut oil production is seen as evidence of this geopolitical shift. To quote from a Global Times commentary (reproduced in the People’s Daily) last week, “The mood of resentment toward the US in the Middle East [West Asia] is pervasive, not just in Saudi Arabia, as the US involvement in the region is seen as primarily driven by a desire to seize oil resources… No one wants to be the US’ pawn forever.

“The US’ attempts to control the global energy landscape, especially against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, have angered many countries, as Washington constantly demands that some Middle Eastern [West Asian] countries sacrifice their own interests to suppress Russia.”


“Washington needs to understand that the regional affairs should be, and will be decided by relevant countries in the Middle East [West Asia]. The US is still living under the illusion of American hegemony and determinism.”

In contrast, US media is awash with panic over American retrenchment in West Asia. There is a palpable sense of frustration in Washington. The decades-old US-Israeli strategy of “divide-and-rule” by propping up Iran as the bogeyman has lost traction.

Potential Iran showdown

The spectre that haunts Washington is that for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, Tehran is inexorably strengthening its ties with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, which in turn will incrementally bury western sanctions against Iran.

That said, Iran’s nuclear programme is steadily advancing, too. The US calculates that Iran’s nuclear programme still remains a divisive issue among the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia. But this window of opportunity may also close once Raisi’s visit to Saudi Arabia puts in place a matrix of Saudi-Iran strategic understanding.

Suffice to say, the Biden Administration may seize the recent IAEA report that spotted uranium particles enriched to 83.7 percent purity – very close to weapons grade – at Iran’s underground Fordow facility as justification for a showdown with Tehran.

A US official was quoted by Al Arabiya English saying that Burns’ mission to Saudi Arabia was actually to reinforce US commitment to intelligence cooperation. Quite possibly, Burns shared with MbS the latest intelligence reports regarding Iran. Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia has gone along with the foreign ministers meeting hosted by Beijing, signaling that its compass for improving ties with Iran is set and, importantly, that Riyadh will not be party to any US military action against Iran.

But then, a direct Saudi involvement may not be necessary, either. The USS Florida is reportedly capable of carrying up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles.

Shifting geopolitics of West Asia

Significantly, the White House and State Department officials have calculatedly chosen to commend the China-brokered Saudi-Iran deal, albeit couched in platitudes. US President Joe Biden also reacted in a muted manner to the highly provocative OPEC+ decision to further slash oil production next month, which, he knows fully well, is anchored on a profound understanding between Riyadh and Moscow and will bring in a huge windfall of profits for Russia from its oil exports.

Curiously, Netanyahu’s office staked a claim that MbZ called him and that the two leaders “agreed to continue the dialogue between them in a personal meeting in the near future.” But The Emirates News Agency, WAM, has since reported that the conversation actually took place at Netanyahu’s initiative and that MbZ said the UAE “would work with Israel, fellow Arab nations, and international partners to avoid regional escalation and advance a path to peace and stability.”

The WAM report unmistakably flagged that the UAE’s accent is on regional stability, and, implicitly, that it will not be dragged into any US-Israeli shenanigans to undermine the current processes in regional politics – not only between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but those involving Syria’s return to the Arab League, a ceasefire in Yemen, etc.

The news report failed to mention any commitment by MbZ to meet Netanyahu, who is, of course, all dressed up and raring to go, unwilling to give up yet that Israel has lost the regional plot.

Meanwhile, the USS Florida will be lurking in the waters of the Persian Gulf in a projection of American power, messaging a tacit, but ineffective, warning to both Arab states and Beijing that there can be no new sheriff in town, now or in the conceivable future.

Herein lies the real danger. The Biden Administration is in desperate need of good optics and may reflexively resort to force to thwart what is no less than a shift of tectonic plates in the geopolitics of West Asia, which might be better addressed with non-military tools – or simply, not addressed at all."

US flexes muscle in Persian Gulf, to no avail

Saudi, Omani envoys hold peace talks with Houthi leaders in Sanaa

By Aziz El Yaakoubi

April 10, 20232:42 AM GMT+7

"RIYADH, April 9 (Reuters) - Saudi and Omani delegations held talks with Houthi officials in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Sunday, Houthi-run media said, as Riyadh seeks a permanent ceasefire to end its military involvement in the country's long-running war.

The visit indicates progress in the Oman-mediated consultations between Riyadh and Sanaa, which run in parallel to U.N. peace efforts. The peace initiatives have gained momentum after arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to re-establish ties in a deal brokered by China.

Oman, which shares borders with Yemen, has been trying for years to bridge differences between Yemen's warring parties, and more broadly between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The envoys, who landed late on Saturday, met with the head of Houthi Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, in Sanaa's presidential palace, Houthi news agency SABA reported.

President Al-Mashat reiterated the group's position that it seeks an "honourable peace" and that the Yemeni people aspire to "freedom and independence", SABA said.

Both sides will negotiate ending hostilities and the lifting of a Saudi-led blockade on Yemeni ports, it added.

Sources have told Reuters that the Saudi-Houthi talks are focused on a full reopening of Houthi-controlled ports and the Sanaa airport, payment of wages for public servants, rebuilding efforts and a timeline for foreign forces to exit the country.

Yemen's war is seen as one of several proxy battles between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Houthis, aligned with Iran, ousted a Saudi-backed government from Sanaa in late 2014, and have de facto control of north Yemen, saying they are rising up against a corrupt system and foreign aggression.

They have been fighting against a Saudi-led military alliance since 2015 in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands and left 80% of Yemen's population dependent on humanitarian aid.

A Houthi official said on Saturday the group had received 13 detainees released by Saudi Arabia in exchange for a Saudi detainee freed earlier, ahead of a wider prisoner exchange agreed by the warring sides.

At talks in Switzerland last month attended by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Yemeni government and the Houthis agreed to free 887 detainees. The 13 prisoners are part of that agreement, Houthi official Abdul Qader al-Mortada said.

The Saudi government media office did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the prisoner exchange and the delegation visiting Sanaa."

Saudi, Omani envoys hold peace talks with Houthi leaders in Sanaa | Reuters

MAY 6, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR


US needs a junior partner in the Gulf.
​
"The Biden Administration is in a persuasive mood, won’t take no for an answer. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan disclosed at a think tank conference in Washington on Thursday that he proposed to travel to Saudi Arabia on Saturday for talks with Saudi leaders.

The Saudi establishment daily Asharq al-Awsat, quoting from Bloomberg, reported that Sullivan will be followed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken “in a new sign of the US administration’s determination to cement ties with the Kingdom.”

Meanwhile, Sullivan revealed that also going to Saudi Arabia will be representatives from India and the United Arab Emirates to discuss “new areas of cooperation between New Delhi and the Gulf as well as the United States and the rest of the region.” In essence, he claimed he is spearheading a White House initiative to reset Washington’s Gulf strategy.

Sullivan has a way of creating misconceptions, and there are no signs that New Delhi is even aware of this White House initiative to integrate India into the Biden Administration’s Gulf strategy.

The timing of Sullivan’s disclosure is interesting; it came soon after the India-Iran consultations in Tehran and on the eve of the foreign minister-level meeting Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in New Delhi on May 3-4.

Against the backdrop of Iran’s formal accession as a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at the summit meeting in India on July 3-4, there is renewed interest in New Delhi to re-energise India-Iran economic cooperation.

An Iranian foreign ministry statement said that Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval who visited Tehran last week “stressed the necessity of putting in place a roadmap of cooperation between the two nations within the framework of a long-term partnership”; sought an early meeting of meeting of the joint economic commission in Tehran to “provide fresh momentum” in the relations; and “exchanged views over the joint work of Iran and India in Chabahar, bilateral banking issues, the sanctions removal talks and regional issues.”

Doval’s counterpart, Iran’s National Security Advisor Ali Shamkhani, reportedly proposed that conducting bilateral trade in the national currencies would “help the two countries to reach their economic objectives” while President Ebrahim Raisi underscored that enhanced Iran-India economic partnership would enable the two countries to play a bigger role in the new world order.

Unsurprisingly, Washington feels uneasy that India is strengthening its ties with Iran at a time when the Saudi-Iran detente has boosted Tehran’s regional standing and the regional security in the Gulf region is phenomenally transforming.

Equally, Sullivan was well aware that as he was speaking in Washington, the foreign ministers of Russia and China — Sergey Lavrov and Qin Gang, were heading for New Delhi to participate in the SCO ministerial on May 4-5.

The SCO in its infancy was nicknamed as “Asian NATO”. That assumption proved wrong and, in fact, the original Brussels-based NATO is now itself migrating to Asia. Consequently, the SCO agenda is gearing up for deeper foreign policy coordination to counteract the West’s attempts to dominate the Asian power dynamic.

For Russia and China, SCO’s importance as a regional security organisation has sharply risen. Qin Gang in his speech at the SCO ministerial made a five-point proposal, which gave primacy to the concept of adherence to strategic autonomy, solidarity and mutual trust, security cooperation, promotion of interconnected development and so on.

Summing up the consensus at the SCO ministerial, the Chinese Foreign Ministry highlighted on Friday that “All participating parties… agreed to advance cooperation in such fields as transportation, energy, finance, investment, free trade, and digital economy, promote regional connectivity,” among other things.

From the Gulf security perspective, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE are about to join SCO-led cooperation efforts as dialogue partners (alongside Saudi Arabia.) Clearly, the US is nervous that SCO is poised to wet its feet in the Gulf waters, in an onward journey that may take it to Africa.

The traditional US approach has been to whip up Iranophobia to rally Gulf states but that ploy won’t work anymore. The Gulf states are steadily expanding their strategic autonomy and pursuing independent foreign policies to advance their national interests and promote peace and reconciliation in the region.

Arguably, they seem to make it a point to exclude Washington from their regional processes to resolve differences and reconcile contradictions in the inter-state relationships. The lack of trust between Saudi Arabia and the US is palpable. Saudi Arabia and the UAE actually ignored the US protestations over their normalisation and engagement with the Assad government in Syria. Thus, it is widely expected that Syria’s return to the Arab League is possible before its upcoming summit in Riyadh on May 19.

Again, the foreign ministers of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq said in a joint statement on Monday after a meeting in Amman that ties with Damascus will be established at the military and security level to “address security challenges.” The statement called for an end to “foreign interference in Syrian domestic affairs” and pledged to “support Syria and its institutions to establish control over all its territory and impose the rule of law” — de facto seeking the vacation of US occupation of one-third of Syrian territory!

Earlier, in a bilateral Saudi-Syrian statement at foreign minister-level, Riyadh agreed on the need to “support the institutions of the Syrian state to extend its control over its territories to end the presence of armed militias and external interference in the Syrian internal affairs.”

Quite obviously, the Biden Administration is in panic. The Biden administration’s estimation seems to be that given India’s concerns over the expansion of Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean region, it would make an ideal partner — and the added advantage is of course that India can also bring into the calculus its growing influence in the Gulf region. The US had made an attempt two years ago to put together a Quad-like clique (I2U2) involving India, Israel and the UAE. But it turned out to be a non-starter due to the floundering of the Abraham Accord.

How far New Delhi will want to get involved as a junior partner in Sullivan’s mission remains to be seen. India doesn’t need any American help to advance its interests in the Gulf region. The relations with the Gulf states have dramatically strengthened during the recent years under Modi’s watch. The UAE investments in India last year touched a peak level of $12 billion.

With the SCO summit due to take place in less than two months, it will be the mother of all ironies if India were to gang up with the Biden White House in our extended neighbourhood. The conclusion one can draw out of the SCO ministerial is that the India-China relationship is set to acquire predictability and stability in a conceivable future and a resumption of bilateral cooperation may become possible. "

US needs a junior partner in the Gulf - Indian Punchline

7 May, 2023 15:31

HomeWorld News

Arab League reinstates Syria

The country was suspended from the group for over a decade

"The Arab League agreed on Sunday to reinstate Syria’s membership in the organization. The move comes ahead of the upcoming summit of the League scheduled to take place on May 19 in Riyadh.

The decision was adopted at a closed-door meeting of the group’s top diplomats in Cairo, with representatives of 13 out of the 22 member states in attendance. All of them endorsed the move.

Syria was suspended from the Arab League back in 2011 in the wake of the civil unrest in the country, which came as a part of the broader Arab Spring turmoil in the region and ultimately sparked the civil war in the country. Most of the Arab nations severed diplomatic ties with Damascus at the time, with some of them openly backing various opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

During the years of war, various insurgents emerged in the country, ranging from the so-called “moderate opposition” militants, backed by different foreign actors, to internationally recognized terrorists, including the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). However, Damascus managed to crush most of them, regaining control over the most densely populated regions of the country with the help of the country’s key allies, Russia and Iran.

Turkish-backed militants currently hold parts of northern Syria, while US-backed Kurdish militias are in control of the country’s northeast, and most of its oil wells remain under direct US military control.

Earlier this week, the foreign ministers of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq held a meeting in Amman at which they adopted a joint statement calling for “ending the presence of terrorist organizations” as well as “armed groups” on the territory of Syria. They also called for stopping “foreign interference in Syrian domestic affairs” and pledged to “support Syria and its institutions to establish control over all of its territory and impose the rule of law.”

In recent weeks, indications have emerged suggesting that the years-long conflicts in the region, including the hostilities in Syria and Yemen, may be nearing their ends thanks to the ongoing diplomatic efforts of various parties. Last month, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad made a breakthrough visit to Saudi Arabia, which used to be a leading supporter of the anti-government militants in the country. After the visit, Riyadh publicly endorsed Syrian unity and integrity and backed a political solution to the 12-year-long war.

The development was preceded by a China-mediated agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to normalize relations, a milestone that apparently contributed to the Syrian rapprochement, as well as facilitating peace talks to end the eight-year-long conflict in Yemen, which has been largely fueled by the rivalry between Tehran and Riyadh."

Arab League reinstates Syria — RT World News

Shame you can get rewarded for genocide.

Originally Posted by Backspin

Israel is going to attack Iran to try and throw a wrench in this. Netanyahu won't finish his term without doing it

There will probably he terror attacks and shit inside Saud and Iran

The current Hamas attack on Israel could easily lead to an Israeli attack on Iran. Netanyahu doesn't have that much time left.

Originally Posted by Backspin

We might have a casus belle happening now in Syria

...what? A newly crowned prom queen?...

^ I think it's French Canadian

backspin - the bellend of the ball.

Just fuck off, the lot of you. 3 posters had a wank over a one letter spelling mistake. What a bunch of fucking tossers.

Poor widdle backspin.

This Hamas attack on Israel will most likely lead to an Israeli attack on Iran proper. Iran is bragging about the attack too. So the stage is set.

I wonder if all the left wingers getting behind Palestine right now will support Iran if/when Israel attacks it.

Originally Posted by Backspin

This Hamas attack on Israel will most likely lead to an Israeli attack on Iran proper. Iran is bragging about the attack too. So the stage is set.

I wonder if all the left wingers getting behind Palestine right now will support Iran if/when Israel attacks it.

...more news from the simplistic dipstick desk later...

Originally Posted by DrWilly

Poor widdle backspin.

No idea what you sent me, nor do I have any interest in opening it.

^ That was the extent of the message.

Anyway back on topic.

Sky News Arabia: The Israeli Defense Forces: Any Iranian move may lead to an American attack [against Iran]

Hezbollah bombed Avivim and Branit Military Barracks, the centre of command and control of the Gallilea brigade.

Hezbollah is in.