The Saudi-UAE coalition in Yemen has completely disintegrated over the past few weeks. Southern separatists, backed by the UAE, are openly fighting with Saudi-backed government forces. And just recently, the UAE itself is accused by Yemen's totally illegitimate and Saudi-backed government of bombing its forces in an airstrike. So not only are the hapless and vicious Saudis fighting against the Houthis in the north of Yemen, they are now fighting against UAE-aligned separatists in the south of Yemen. It seems like the people in Yemen, both north and south, have no interest in being told how to run their country by a foreign invader who crushes all democracy inside their own territory. Clearly, the Saudi war effort in Yemen is faltering badly and has no chance of succeeding. This was obvious from the very beginning. The Saudis, lacking any semblance of competent ground forces, relied almost entirely on a monstrous naval blockade of Yemen combined with a haphazard air campaign that was more effective at bombing school buses than actual insurgents. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration, having seen the writing on the wall, is now attempting to organize direct talks between the Saudi regime and the Houthi rebels. Unfortunately, nothing Trump can do now will ever erase the stain of his involvement in the needless and evil war on Yemen, especially after the US congress expressly revoked any authorization for US involvement in that war. Instead of taking that opportunity to obey the constitution and withdraw the US from a disastrous and villainous war, Trump responded by issuing a veto, as if vetoing the absence of authorization for war was even constitutionally possible. So add Yemen to the list of abject Trumpian failures, a list that grows with each new day. But looking on the bright side, at least we can envision a beginning to the end of the despicable Saudi-led war on Yemen.
Here's another surprise: https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/...ying-out-strike-on-terrorists-in-idlib-syria/ Whether the US has teamed up with Russia and the Syrian Army or not, they're going after the same targets.
Get the leaders of KSA and Iran and have them hand to hand fight to the death for Yemen. I'd watch it.
Eventually, even Trump will figure out that no one needs to be buddies with MBS and his ilk. While America has supported a lot of unsavory characters in the past, none of the ones it was willing to publicly dine with had quite his interest in human body parts and grounded human meet. Even MBS's own friends couldn't feel quite secure in his presence. This is a guy who once had a Saudi ally, Lebenan's prime minister Harriri, visiting the Wahhabi kingdom abducted and forced to read an anti-Iranian tirade and held in captivity until wiser heads convinced MBS that holding a visiting foreign head of government (and hitherto an ally of Saudi Arabia) captive might not be the brightest move. These sorts of hands-on, individualistic, acts of barbarism often have a greater impact on the reputation of foreign leaders the US supports than the run-of-the-mill mayhem, suffering and even genocide they inflict in places like Yemen.
I get what you're saying, but there is really no comparison between the two. The "leaders" of KSA are ruthless dictators who indoctrinate, train, finance, and arm the world's worst terrorist organizations. At least in Iran, there is some semblance of representative democracy. Women can serve in government and vote there. Again, by no means a liberal democracy, but far more enlightened than the outright savagery practiced by KSA.
Don't worry. Trump's neocon handlers will inform him of his real position before he takes any action.
Why should I care what system of government some backward shithole 8000km away has? That's for them to change. The Iranians are no strangers to the funding of terrorism. I agree our alliance with KSA is absurd on anything but a realpolitik reading of the region. Hence why I think we should put a fence around the region and let them fight it out hand to hand. Gentleman style. The Iranians can let women fight too I suppose. That's kinda tolerant.
I didn't say you should. But as long as we're discussing it on this political forum, I felt it was worth mentioning. There is really no equivalence between those two governments. One is a totalitarian dictatorship while the other is a republic of sorts, albeit a deeply flawed one. Can you name a single terrorist attack that occurred on western soil which involved the Iranians or one of their ideological proxies? Even viewed in the context of realpolitik, the US alliance with Saudi Arabia fails. For starters, Saudi Arabia are the real number one supporter of anti-western terrorism and ideology in the world. The biggest reason they're fighting it out is due to the legacy of colonialism and imperialism in the region. Just look at Iraq, for example. An artificial nation-state created by the British empire which consolidated Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites under a unitary political system. Red ants and black ants inside a glass jar would have a better chance at peaceful coexistence.
Well, they ain’t all that secret, are they? What the US ought to do is behave morally and demanded the immediate surrender of both Saudi Arabia and Yemen to the US. Won’t happen. But still not illegal to dream.
During the 1980s and 1990s, a wave of kidnappings, bombings, and assassinations of Western targets, particularly American and Israeli, occurred in Lebanon and other countries. The attacks, attributed to Hezbollah, have included: The 1982-1983 Tyre headquarters bombings The blowing up of a van filled with explosives in front of the U.S. embassy in Beirut killing 58 Americans and Lebanese in 1983. The 1983 Beirut barracks bombing of the U.S. Marine and French 'Drakkar' barracks which killed 241 American and 58 French peacekeepers. On May 30, 2003, a U.S. federal judge ruled that Hezbollah carried out the attack at the direction of the Iranian government.[22] The 1983 Kuwait bombings in collaboration with the Iraqi Dawa Party.[23] The 1984 United States embassy annex bombing, killing 24 people.[24] The hijacking of TWA flight 847 holding the 39 Americans on board hostage for weeks in 1985 and murder of one U.S. Navy sailor The Lebanon hostage crisis from 1982 to 1992.[25] According to Middle East analyst James Philips, an August 1989 bombing in London was a failed Hezbollah assassination attempt on Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie, after the Iranian government put a $2.5 million bounty on his head over the novel The Satanic Verses.[26][27] Iranian officials have repeatedly called for Rushdie's death as recently as 2005.[28] The bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina killing twenty-nine people in 1992. Hezbollah operatives boasted of involvement.[29] The bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina killing 85 people in 1994. Hezbollah claimed responsibility.[30] Argentine justice accused Iran of being behind the attacks because of Buenos Aires' decision to suspend a nuclear material delivery and technology transfer.[31] The 1994 AC Flight 901 attack, killing 21 people, in Panama. Hezbollah claimed responsibility.[32] The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, killing 19 US servicemen. On December 22, 2006, federal judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that Iran was responsible for the attack, stating "The totality of the evidence at trial...firmly establishes that the Khobar Towers bombing was planned, funded, and sponsored by senior leadership in the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The defendants' conduct in facilitating, financing, and providing material support to bring about this attack was intentional, extreme, and outrageous."[33] The 2012 Burgas bus bombing, killing 6, in Bulgaria.[34] Hezbollah is believed to have carried out that attack on its own accord, without any Iranian involvement or foreknowledge.[35]
Albania[edit] On 19 December 2018 Albania expelled Iran’s ambassador to the country, Gholamhossein Mohammadnia, and another Iranian diplomat for "involvement in activities that harm the country's security", for "violating their diplomatic status and supporting terrorism."[7] The expelled Iranians were alleged to have plotted terrorist attacks in the country, including targeting MEK\PMOI event to silence dissidents.[8] Argentina[edit] Main article: AMIA bombing On 18 July 1994, there was an attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which killed 85 people and injured hundreds. It was Argentina's deadliest bombing ever. Argentina accused Tehran in 2006 of being behind the attacks, and indicted several senior Iranian officials, including Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ahmad Vahidi, as well as Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyah. France[edit] In October 2018, France froze Iranian financial assets in response to an alleged bomb plot to be carried out against an opposition group at a rally in Paris. The plot was said to be against the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which styles itself as Iran’s government-in-exile.[51] Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat in the Vienna embassy, was arrested in Germany in connection with the alleged plot to blow up a meeting of Iranian dissidents in Paris in June.[52] Denmark[edit] In October 2018, Denmark said the Iranian government intelligence service had tried to carry out a plot to assassinate an Iranian Arab opposition figure on its soil.[53] The planned assassination was of an exiled leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA). Sweden extradited a Norwegian national of Iranian background to Denmark in connection with the foiled plot against the ASMLA leader.[52]
This position I can sympathize with as long as you don't turn around and wage war on those might have a direct stake in the region to undermine the barbarism. In any fight between Iran and the Wahhabis, Iran will be fighting the US too. Not only because the US is the country that sells most of the weapons that make Wahhabi Arabia have the 3rd largest military budget in the world above what is spent even by Russia on its armed forces, not just because the US also supplies the military coffers of all of the Wahhabi allies in the region and provides them with all their intelligence and training, not merely because the US does everything it can to set the diplomatic and geopolitical chessboard in ways that would seek to favor them, but also because it is well-established US policy that in a war against Saudi Arabia, the US will be there to fight too. Otherwise, Mohammad Bin Salman and his ilk would never dare do what they have been doing. Not in Yemen, not anywhere else for that matter. I don't want to get drawn into a long, protracted and ultimately fruitless discussion of what constitutes terrorism. But please do not equate what Iran does with what the Wahhabis do. Just don't. Iran has sometimes supported groups with real grass route support in their community, using asymmetric tactics to fight the military and military related apparatus of foreign powers which have invaded and/or occupied them. It doesn't engage in mindless acts of barbarism, violence or mayhem because (a) it is not indoctrinated by either the Western-type neo-colonial crusader mentality nor the Wahhabi mentality that hates everyone who isn't them; and (b) it sees no benefit from such mindless acts of violence targeting random civilians to create fear and justify the kind of backlash we saw after 9/11. Or the kind of horror and disgust that was engendered by ISIS. It is absurd, period. Except for all the reasons I mentioned, it wouldn't be a battle waged the way you suggest. Iranian women are an integral part of Iranian society at every level, including during war. But fortunately we haven't decided that the quest for gender equality means sending them to fight in our war zones. In that regard, in fact, maybe ISIS is a bit more "advanced" than we are as they do use women and children as tools to help them in their fights.
So we have four incidents across the span of 25 years involving three plots that never actually materialized and one actual attack, all of which are alleged to involved Iran, but for which there is no real proof. And two of the countries in question (Albania and Argentina) hardly qualify as "western" soil. Talk about grasping at straws. Meanwhile, I can point to numerous actual terrorist acts, including 9/11, which can be traced directly back to Saudi Arabia.
Oh, by the way, if political assassinations are an act of terrorism, then doesn't that make Israel a terrorist nation itself?
Correction: You can trace 9/11 back to Saudi ArabiANS not Saudi Arabia. On the other hand all of those cases involved iranina government officials.
What you list can be broadly put into 3 separate categories: First, attacks by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah, a group that represents the largest number of people in that country even if severely disenfranchised by Lebanon's sectarian system of power, was fighting foreign forces who were trying to install and prop up a completely unpopular minority government friendly to Israel. In Lebanon, Iran and the US were involved in a proxy war and Iran won. Lebanon was able to rid itself of the kind of governments the US/Israel wanted to install in that country, free itself of Israeli occupation, and defend itself against Israeli aggression. Regardless, these weren't acts taking place in Europe or N. America but against American targets in Lebanon. Second, alleged plots by Iran to attack Israeli linked targets in Europe following Israel's assassination of Iranian scientists in Iran and other such terrorist acts inside Iranian territory. The Israelis suspected Iran would retaliate, would feed whatever "intelligence" they could spin to some anti-Iranian governments working closely with them in these countries, and then claim they had uncovered some plot being fomented by Iran against either the Israelis or their local agents in Iran by this time, i.e. the terrorist group MEK (aka National Council of Resistance). Other than one particular incident that might have had more substantiation to it, and a retaliation for an Israeli act of terrorism against Iran, an amateurish attempt to target an Israeli bus in Bulgaria I believe (showing Iran, contrary to all these claims, is simply not all that expert in 'terrorism'!), the rest of the accusations were totally ridiculous and unsubstantiated. Last, the long-standing, heavily politicized, case of the AMI bombing in Argentina 24 years ago. Despite all sorts of Israeli pressures to keep that case alive and point the finger on Iran for that attack, that case has still not produced any verdict of the sort. Of course, it has become a political football with all sorts of intrigues in Argentina, but nothing anyone can genuinely claim to stick on Iran. Now, do you want me to list the terrorist acts conducted against Iran, on Iranian soil even, by the US/Israel and their agents? The list is going to be pretty long!
Why should I care.. I'm neither of those. But I do know for a fact that iran has tortured and killed Canadian citizens. If you piss in my cornflake expect a slap at the least.
While I am not sure every time Iran arrests a dual national, they have targeted the right individual, you have to also sympathize with those in Iran tasked to find spies and other agents working on behest of foreign governments. Indeed, if anything, under the totality of circumstances, Iran has done a remarkable job not going overboard with paranoia so far. Consider the following reports just from the last 2-3 days: https://news.yahoo.com/revealed-how...i-stuxnet-cyber-attack-on-iran-160026018.html Revealed: How a secret Dutch mole aided the U.S.-Israeli Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/04/us-iran-military-reward-program-1480620 U.S. unveils unusual $15 million reward program targeting Iranian military group The goal is to get more information about the financing for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist group. https://t.co/LtBVhsrwTc https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49589075 Iran tanker: US offers captain millions to hand over ship
Have the Saudis give the oil fields back, then I'll support "mind my own business"...unless they keep stoning women for enjoying life--that's every rational person's business.
Sorry but it takes one sick coward to break the skull of a woman by beating her to death with a shoe. So brave, so viril... On the other hand, we're talking about a muslim country and women are the only thing their men stand a chance on in a fight.
