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They are all part of the Arab league. As such no matter which side, none of them will fight with Israel at its side.
I'm not 100 percent sure about that here since Sunni and Shia Muslims are about as nice together as putting Irish Catholics and Protestants together 50 years ago.
I can't for the life of me see why would support or help the Saudi's when they have purposely been trying to destroy our energy sector. I can't see the Bush family being friendly with them since they've likely cost them a nice chunk of money. Our government has made far more stupid decisions than that before though so it's possible.
The Saudis want to BE somebody. They want to dominate the region. Saddam Hussein's existence bothered them, so GWB took him out. Check. Iran bothers them too because Iran wants to dominate the Muslim world. Hope our govt isn't crazy enough to go in there.
Saudi Arabia is trying to bring down other oil producing countries by selling their oil really cheap. Then, they'll be able to dictate at what price oil goes for.
These parasites want to be important in this world. They love to rub elbows with European royalty to feel like they're really "royals" when in reality they were nothing but Bedouins until the Egyptians cleaned them up and educated them
Meh. They're all muslims; they'll just kiss and make up.
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Originally Posted by katygirl68
I thought Iran and Saudi Arabia always hated each other because the Saudis are Sunni Muslims and the Iranians are Shiites.
The conflict is racial. Persians had three great empires over the course of thousands of years whiles Arabs ranged from being vassals to nusianaces. When the Sassanid and Roman empires virutally detroyed each other, the Arabs rose up to fill the power vaccum, toppling Persia and turning the Persia into a client state.
The Sunni-Shia split merely came because Persians intentionally chose a radical version of Islam in order to be revolutionary. It is not a perfect split as there are Arab Shias and Persians Sunnis. In truth, the racial split remains more important.
Despite this temporary reversal of fortunes, Arabs have not defeated Persians on the battlefield for a thousand years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by greywar
Saudi is very very heavily armed. I suspect this would be a losing proposition for Iran. But not overwhelmingly so.
I am very curious as to why you think this. From my undestanding, Iran is generally considered the greatest power of the region and its not even close. Even when Iraq famously had the fourth largest army in the world, supplemented by pretty good Russian armor, they were no match for the Iranians. A quick Wiki search had John Abizaid deaclaring Iran most powerful military force of the Middle East outside of Israel. The sheer weight of the population differance and the quality of Persian troops have been pointed out.
Have the Saudis been stockpiling? Is this a result of sancitons affecting Iran's capabilites?
Anyone siding with Saudi Arabia over Iran has some issues they need to work out.
Iran is not the Shi'ite equivalent of Saudi Arabia as the prime Sunni power. Fanatical groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda don't exist in the Shi'ite community. Iranian-backed Shi'ite groups in the Middle East like Hezbollah may hate the US, but they make a clear distinction between hating our government and hating our people, and they only hate our government because of our imperialism and because we back Israel without hesitation. Groups like Hezbollah also enjoy good relations with secular and Christian parties, their number one ally in Lebanon is the biggest Christian party in parliament. Whatever political differences you have with such groups, they are not barbarians. Meanwhile, Sunni groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda are monsters, beheading people on sight. The thing is, these monsters are no different than the ruling family in Saudi Arabia. Wahabism is wahabism. The Saudi family gets a pass for behaving with and promoting an ideology that we hate ISIS for.
You may hate Iran for hating us (and they hate us because of what we did in 1953, and also because our sanctions starved so many of them), but Iran has the same interest as us in seeing terrorists like ISIS and al-Qaeda wiped out. In fact, they are doing more to eliminate them than we are.
By the way, in a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, all Iran would have to do is bomb the Saudi's oil sights to finish them. Combine that with the fact that Iran's population is nearly three times Saudi's, and the fact that the Saudi military are cowards who can't fight worth a damn (how's that campaign in Yemen going?) despite how much money they have, and you have a swift Iranian victory. The real question is whether Iran's allies could whether the storm when Israel comes for them, which the Saudis will inevitably push for.
The Iran deal emboldened Iran so now Saudi is flexing some muscle leading to this escalation. Thanks Obama. Another president who cannot see beyond the next 3 days.
I am very curious as to why you think this. From my undestanding, Iran is generally considered the greatest power of the region and its not even close. Even when Iraq famously had the fourth largest army in the world, supplemented by pretty good Russian armor, they were no match for the Iranians. A quick Wiki search had John Abizaid deaclaring Iran most powerful military force of the Middle East outside of Israel. The sheer weight of the population differance and the quality of Persian troops have been pointed out.
Have the Saudis been stockpiling? Is this a result of sancitons affecting Iran's capabilites?
The Saudis have been investing heavily in their military as of late. Let me look up their relative military spending....
Saudi-3rd most in the world, and highest as a % of GDP among larger countries at 80 billion spent last year, vs 11-12 billion for Iran. I dont think its entirely sanctions so much as just massive spending differences.
And Saudi and Iran have been fighting via proxy in Yemen, with the Saudis not doing near as well as they had expected I think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mightleavenyc
The Iran deal emboldened Iran so now Saudi is flexing some muscle leading to this escalation. Thanks Obama. Another president who cannot see beyond the next 3 days.
Yes, because by golly we should be Saudi's lap dogs right? Sheesh. Give your Obama Derangement syndrome a rest.
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