It's litearally medieval, which is par on course for what this odious country (regime, to be more clear). It's pretty much what Saudi Arabia is: a medieval regime in 2018.
Of course, they just had to have trillions of dollars of oil under their feet, hence we are accustomed to seeing our elected representatives, our leaders, bowing and kissing the hands of that scum. Repugnant.
It is most definitely irrational, because there is no rational reason why the US has that position.
Egypt's and Saudi Arabia's stance toward Israel has softened partly because of their relationship to the U.S., and partly because of the bifurcation of regional interests--the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Turkey, notably, has recently vacillated between strong support of Israel (including bilateral--U.S. not involved--strategic security cooperation) to being passive-aggressive (i.e. ignoring arms shipments). Not coincidentally, Turkey has had a similar relationship with Iran. And through all of this Turkey has remained a NATO member.
So... it's complex. The U.S. is perfectly capable of normalizing relationships with a country hostile to Israel, as long as that hostility isn't openly flouted. The degree to which Iran openly flouts its hostility to Israel, and to which the U.S. stylizes itself as Israel's protector, is context dependent and self-serving and really not about Israel, per se.
All of which is to say, the U.S. is antagonistic to Iran not because of Israel, but because of the U.S. And vice-versa. And it all quite clearly started with the Iranian Revolution.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_role_in_the_Iran%E2...
I can see Iran being a regional threat, and whoever has power in that region controls a major portion of the world's energy supply. However, I don't see why an Iranian-dominated region is worse than a Saudi-dominated region. Iran seems more democratic and stable than Saudi Arabia, at a first approximation, but both are brutal, anti-democratic, oppressive regimes. And IIRC the Saudis have been the primary supporters of extremist Sunnis worldwide.
How is Saudi Arabia better for the U.S. than Iran?
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan, on the other hand, all work closely with Israel.
They have money and influence. They have a stated and record of trying to harm the USA and the US allies. It's a threat and wouldn't take long to become a nuclear power (see pakistan).
What's hard to understand about the last 75 years? The speed of technology transfer is less than a change in Iranian regime.
Not implying Pakistan is a threat, SMH
It was Roosevelt that did the deal with the Saudis. The deal was as follows: sell us your oil in perpetuity and we will make sure that nothing threatens the 'royal' family.
Note the naming of the Saudi Aramco state oil business. 'Aramco' has the letters 'am' in it and that is because it is the 'Arab American Company'.
You are correct that the U.S. has 'irrational' opposition to Iran. This is because the U.S. has irrational opposition to any country that does not care about the dollar. The only truly sovereign nations are the ones that the U.S. has 'irrational' opposition to, everything else is a vassal state.
They are about as strong as they can possibly be.
But at the end of the day, they're 32m people. 1/10th the US population or about the same as Texas or New York.
The US didn't "make ksa extremely weak"... they're weak because they're small.
Now that rationale is probably foolish in the extreme.
But they do have a rationale.
>In 1997, Fortune magazine named AIPAC the second-most powerful influence group in Washington, D. C.[46] According to journalist Connie Bruck, AIPAC has been able to "deliver the support of Congress"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Israel_Public_Affai...
Of course, this is a fully legal way to influence the US political system. Sure, it costs a fair bit, but it doesn't matter who's in power. I was impressed by how unobfuscated the video's message was.
That excuse has long been used to justify support of brutal, oppressive regimes. It often leads to 'blowback', resulting in brutal, oppressive, anti-Western successors, such as in Iran.
Also, nobody can say how things would turn out, and whether the result is better or worse is a judgment for the Saudi people to make. If given the power in a democracy, they can always elect someone else.
If you don't think anything that billionaires (and their ilk) do is suspicious, then people are not looking hard enough. Just because they made their billions via tech doesn't make them any more benevolent.
Are you familiar with drones?
>What Saudi Arabia did here is just abhorrent, and akin to something out of the Sopranos or Goodfellas.
Funny that you mention this. Surely this violent act is shocking and catches the eye. But, the thing is that it can be argued that things like their financing of terrorism, or to be more direct their ongoing bombing of Yemen and funding of civil war is much more harmful than this one assassination -- much like Tony Soprano's asbestos dumping and HUD scams probably ended up causing more harm than the handful of people he "whacked"...
Less overtly brutal, not necessarily less harmful.
when was the last time an opposition journalist was targeted for a drone strike by the us?
I personally do believe the official US story that he was actively recruiting and actively participating in Al Qaeda. but a lot of people have debated with me otherwise.
Clearly, he was "in" the Al Qaeda culture, but publicly at least... some believed him to only be a preacher.
War is messy, to say the least. I'm not sure if the truth will ever come out. Nevertheless, I'm personally in the belief that Anwar Al Awlaki was too personally connected to a number of attackers, so he almost certainly was an operative.
Nevertheless, I bring up this example to demonstrate that the line between "operative", "journalist", and "preacher" can very well be blurred during wartime. Regardless, the US certainly ordered an assassination through our Drone technology.
Much of the evidence to his Al Qaeda "operative" connections is classified unfortunately. So the US Documents at least, won't be released for many years to come. In any case, even with only the public information, its clear that there's a "Lot of Smoke" as they say, and where there is smoke, there's probably a fire. But nothing really proves him to be an operative publicly (just a lot of corroborating evidence and close personal-connections to attackers).
Drones target fighters, and they sometimes kill civilians. They don't target civilians. If you don't think there is a difference there fine, but many lose sight of it.
While I personally agree with you, I know people who will vehemently disagree with you on this factoid.
I wouldn't necessarily call him a "general", but perhaps an "operative". He had way too many connections with prominent attackers, so surely he was related to them. But once again, US-evidence of his operations remain classified and thus force me to only speculate on the matter.
At bare minimum, Anwar Al Awlaki was a publisher and prominent writer to the Al Qaeda magazines. So yes, he was an "enemy journalist" in some regards. The US alleges he did more than just write however, and that's why President Obama ordered the drone strike.
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My ultimate point is that the line between "journalism" and "operative" is incredibly blurry, even to US Officials.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/judge-all...
Well, your country (probably) doesn't chop up people in your embassies, but your country most certainly does assassinations and abductions in foreign countries world wide. It's proven fact.
Yes, there are genocidal Rwandan warlords stealing resources in the Congo.
Yes, Aung San Suu Kyi and her boys are doing a pretty brutal number on the Rohingya right now.
Yes, there are murderous cartels operating in Mexico.
Yes, the United States is holding children in camps in deserts.
Etc etc etc.
What I'm trying to say is, YES, there is a lot of misery in the world. But right now we're talking about the fact that you've taken a chainsaw to a reporter for saying that he thinks you might be too brutal. Can we stop with the what aboutism for a moment and just kind of let that sink in for a second?
That's incredibly untrue. The drone assassination program was making ~2 strikes a week under Obama in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and other places. After Trump took over that pace has accelerated and safety controls have been removed.
What would you call these if not assassinations? I mean, nothing as barbaric as sawing a guy's body - but we're blowing up someone who we hope is our target and everyone near by. I'm not sure that's better.
One difference is that the US isn't killing Western Journalists. The US does kill people, and coincidentally their children, for saying things they don't like though. Anwar al-Awlaki was an Islamic preacher, and US citizen, who preached in favor of jihad against the US. He was killed by drone strikes. Later, his teenage son, also an American citizen, was killed when the US "accidentally" blew up a restaurant where he was eating with friends. Still later, in another bit of bad luck, his eight year old daughter was killed by US forces in a commando raid.
The US absolutely commits assassinations.
Your government kills people with drones, often with many innocent people as casualties along with it, without any form of process and even US citizens.
Wow, that's crazy.
>Silicon Valley big wheels as Marc Andreessen, Sam Altman and Travis Kalanick are advisors to a $500 billion megacity project being built by the country, which has pitched it as a model of what future cities will look like.
Has Sam Altman commented on this project at all, or is it not associated with YC?