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tweakabelle -> RE: The Massive Gift to Iran from two Administrations ago (7/17/2017 3:25:47 AM)
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FR
Is there a more glaring example of the folly of Western intervention in the region than this?
The US led push to get rid of Saddam Hussein ended up handing the country to Iran on a platter. The mullahs in Teheran must have thought that all their birthdays had happened at once. And why shouldn't they? They had been handed control over a former enemy State with the opportunity to turn it into a vassal State - who could blame them for taking that opportunity?
This has upset the entire delicate Shia-Sunni balance, made Saudi Arabia paranoid about Iranian expansion setting off a dangerous spiral of tension that has turned Yemen into a battlefield pummeled by US armed Saudi forces and greatly complicated the already disastrous situation in Syria. Current events in Qatar should be understood through this prism. Obama's hope was that the region would find itself a balance of power with three disparate powers Israel Saudi Arabia and Iran cancelling each other out. The danger with this strategy is that it could very easily disintegrate into military confrontation. The upside for the US was the chance for a complete military withdrawal from the region after decades of unsatisfactory engagement. Both the Saudis and Israel opposed US withdrawal for very different reasons.
The irony is that both the US and Iran share an essential interest in the destruction of the Sunni extremist group IS, while opposing and distrusting each other in just about every other sphere. The shame is that this history of antagonism will blind both sides, preventing them from spinning joint action against IS into a diminution of mutual tension, even possibly detente. I rather suspect that the mullahs in Teheran, given the right encouragement, could be open to such an arrangement, especially with the more 'liberal' faction seemingly in control in Teheran. Sadly I have no faith that Trump is statesman enough to realise these possibilities exist, let alone seize them.
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