Trump Claims Responsibility for Gulf Crisis

[Bengalzona]

(06-06-2017, 10:53 PM)Dill Wrote: Well, I am still not quite sure what is going on. The crisis appears to have been precipitated by a Russian FAKE NEWS attack--not Trump's definition of fake news, but the one accepted by responsible journalists: totally false content presented to fool people. It appears Russia hacked a state website and attributed to the Emir statements encouraging to Iran. ("US Suspects Russian hackers planted fake news behind Qatar crisis":
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/russian-hackers-planted-fake-news-qatar-crisis/index.html)

Qatar is Russia's #1 competitor in the natural gas market, and Qatari officials beat up a Russian diplomat at the Doha airport in 2011, supposedly over Russia's block of a pipeline to Europe through Syria. This conflict strengthens Russia by weakening US credibility and influence.

Qatar is also a thorn in Saudi Arabia's side, since it is so much more progressive, the home of AlJazeera, has often contested Saudi Leadership in the last decade of Middle East conflicts.  Their support of the Muslim Brotherhood (which is not a terrorist group in my view) angers the Saudis, who themselves funded the brotherhood until they started complaining the Saud family was too corrupt to be stewards of Mecca and Medina. There was even a military clash between the two countries in Qatar's southern desert back in the '90s, though almost nothing is known about the cause or the outcome.

Still, even the hack does not explain the sudden embargo by six nations. I suspect the Saudis perceive a vacuum of US power here and are trying to fill it. Qatar is the richest country in the world per capita, a real prize for whomever can control its gas. I don't know if you have been following Saudi foreign policy, but it is stupid and aggressive. They know a great deal about managing the world oil market, but military power is another story. I disagreed with Obama and Bush's cooperation with them in Yemen. Now Trump has stimulated who knows what dreams of regional power in their minds.

A fake news attack should make this all easy to walk back, but the Saudis don't seem to want that.
Here's a decent article on the subject. https://www.rbth.com/international/2017/06/06/will-russia-come-to-qatars-defense_777740

Interesting.

Saudi military is a farce. Their internal security forces are somewhat professional, but their military has no taste to fight. This, despite the fact that we have dumped tons of our most sophisticated weaponry on them since the 1980's. The incursion they led into Yemen blew up in their faces when they met hardened rebel fighters. So we ended up trying to send arms to the pro-Saudi rebels in an effort to aid our "buddies", and many of those weapons ended up in the hands of Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.



Meanwhile, Qatar has a much more professional (if smaller) force. They have acquitted themselves well in recent actions where they have fought.