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Fear and loathing in Saudi Arabia
A somewhat condensed opinion piece from Brookings' Kenneth M. Pollack:The Saudis are scared of the rising tide of popular mobilization and Shiite mobilization; they are scared by their loss of control over the oil market and what that is forcing them to do domestically; they are scared by the spillover from the region’s civil wars and the costs that they are being forced to bear to try to prevent that spillover from affecting them; and they are scared that we are abandoning them for Iran. The Saudis’ world, in other words, is pretty scary. And their modus operandi today is the same as it always has been: to lash out to try to beat back the threats that they see and regain control of their circumstances. Hence their stunning intervention in Yemen, their constant escalation in Syria, and now this latest flare-up with Iran. It’s also why America’s constant appeals to them to just calm down will have no impact except to infuriate them further. Unless we want to take up some of these burdens for the Saudis (their first choice, as always), then we have nothing that they want. It only adds insult to injury when Washington refuses to recognize the threats that they see, does nothing to help them with those threats, and then tries to keep them from doing what they think they need to do to deal with those threats themselves. It’s also why we should expect to see other crises like this one in future. The Saudis are going to keep taking whatever actions they feel necessary to deter or defeat what they see as Iranian efforts to undermine their external power and their internal stability. In the unstable Middle East of the early 21st century, that aggressiveness is going to have very unpredictable effects. But what looks chaotic to Washington will continue to seem entirely logical from the perspective of Saudi Arabia. Posted by: Pappy 2016-01-10 |
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