4 ms·

> There is no reason the U.S. should be allies with the House of Saud. We have almost no aligned interests and very different views on human rights and Wahhabis

> There is no reason the U.S. should be allies with the House of Saud. We have almost no aligned interests and very different views on human rights and Wahhabism. Well, in isolation, sure. But in the broader geopolitical sense, it really does make sense to have at least one close ally in that region.

maze-le 10y ago
> But in the broader geopolitical sense, it really does make sense to have at least one close ally in that region. What about Israel, Turkey, Egypt?
- cmurf 10y ago
  Really? You think their moral positions are significantly better than Saudi Arabia? And they have essentially zero to offer economically? Their governments aren't any more sane or stable, in the enduring sense, than Saudi Arabia.
  - maze-le 10y ago
    This was not a moral judgement, I simply questioned the claim, that Saudi Arabia is the only influential US-ally in the middle east.
    - knodi123 10y ago
      you're right, I was inaccurate about that. But saudi is certainly a valuable ally, right?
    - toyg 10y ago
      Influentially speaking, they are. Israel has zero influence on neighbours except for threats of nuclear war. The Egyptian government is currently seen as illegitimate pretty much everywhere. Turkey leverages its geopolitical position towards Europe and Russia, but Erdogan has few friends left and might well end up like Mubarak in the long run. For good or bad, the combo of economic and religious power Saudis can swing is pretty unmatched in the region at the moment -- their only counterweight being, potentially, an Iranian state with smart people at the wheel for more than a few token years.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    Yes, they are significantly better in a moral sense. They don't behead people for sorcery, or stone them to death for adultery. They also don't finance Wahhabi madrasa in other countries. Here's an example of what Saudi money buys elsewhere in the world: http://www.rferl.org/content/tatarstan-attack-spar-fears-that-islamist-threat-is-spreading/24650674.html http://www.rferl.org/content/tatarstan-attack-spar-fears-tha...
logfromblammo 10y ago
Americans are better aligned with the largely Shi'ite Muslim Persians than with Wahhabbist (Sunni) Muslim Arabs. Note that this has almost nothing to do with relations between the governments of the U.S. and Iran. On the axis of prince to ayatollah, I prefer the ayatollah. On the axis of theocratic absolute monarchy to theocratic constitutional republic, I prefer the republic. Supporting the Shah was a mistake. Supporting the House of Saud is also a mistake. Supporting the ayatollahs would be another mistake. What the U.S. should be doing is to support the personal and economic freedoms of all people living in Asia Minor, and to stop making their sole points of contact the strongarm governments and/or rebel groups. Like everyone else on the planet, the people in that region just want one of two things: help my business prosper, or leave me in peace. The constant military interventions and arms support and political deals serve neither goal.
- cmurf 10y ago
  "support" personal and economic freedoms for all people is code for what policy, exactly? Because the word is vague on its own, and in the way in which you're using it. This sounds like a very interventionist foreign policy, otherwise what else could "support" mean, if it's at all a meaningful statement? I also think you severely underestimate the strength of entrepreneurship as a social class, in that area of the world. It's not like they materialize out of nowhere the instant the U.S. stops propping up strongarm governments. They didn't exist in any signficant number before U.S. intervenist policies either. And by what moral authority do you draw upon to suggest that these countries should be modeling themselves off the U.S. economically in the first place? I think the better policy is to leave them alone, in the John Quincy Adams approach to foreign policy. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/jqadams.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/jqadams.htm
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." --T. Jefferson It means you leave people alone, unless you have a mutually beneficial trade to offer them. If a country has no entrepreneurial class, you look to make money elsewhere. The US has no moral authority to demand imitation. It just has money--lots and lots of money. And it lets its own businesses spend their own money relatively freely, so long as they obey most of the laws and regulations and pay most of the taxes and make sufficient campaign contributions. So that leaves only two acceptable foreign policy sticks. You have the embargo, and you have the boycott. And you have only one carrot--access to all the money held by your country's consumer market and philanthropic donors. The US could decide, for instance, to boycott all goods and services produced in whole or in part by children under the age of 16 years, or by prisoner or slave laborers. This would, of course, require detailed provenance records for all goods entering US ports, and voluntary certification inspections for facilities listed in those records. And it would make all goods imported to the US more expensive. And it would put a lot of child laborers out of work, even if they really do need to be working to survive. If you are an international supplier, you only need to imitate US working conditions if you want to export to the US. If you do want access to the market, you can't get there with kids, convicts, or slaves. This is slow. Apartheid ended 35 years after the first international boycott campaign, and the actual impact of the boycott is debatable. Israel has shrugged off a boycott for a long time, because the US actively undermines it. The US embargo against Cuba never produced any meaningful result, after many long decades. In contrast, you can charge in, guns blazing, topple a regime, eradicate its bureaucracy, and stir up its internal politics with a bayonet, then go home by the end of your presidential term. But it isn't going to earn you many friends.

maze-le 10y ago

> But in the broader geopolitical sense, it really does make sense to have at least one close ally in that region. What about Israel, Turkey, Egypt?

cmurf 10y ago
Really? You think their moral positions are significantly better than Saudi Arabia? And they have essentially zero to offer economically? Their governments aren't any more sane or stable, in the enduring sense, than Saudi Arabia.
- maze-le 10y ago
  This was not a moral judgement, I simply questioned the claim, that Saudi Arabia is the only influential US-ally in the middle east.
  - knodi123 10y ago
    you're right, I was inaccurate about that. But saudi is certainly a valuable ally, right?
  - toyg 10y ago
    Influentially speaking, they are. Israel has zero influence on neighbours except for threats of nuclear war. The Egyptian government is currently seen as illegitimate pretty much everywhere. Turkey leverages its geopolitical position towards Europe and Russia, but Erdogan has few friends left and might well end up like Mubarak in the long run. For good or bad, the combo of economic and religious power Saudis can swing is pretty unmatched in the region at the moment -- their only counterweight being, potentially, an Iranian state with smart people at the wheel for more than a few token years.
- int_19h 10y ago
  Yes, they are significantly better in a moral sense. They don't behead people for sorcery, or stone them to death for adultery. They also don't finance Wahhabi madrasa in other countries. Here's an example of what Saudi money buys elsewhere in the world: http://www.rferl.org/content/tatarstan-attack-spar-fears-that-islamist-threat-is-spreading/24650674.html http://www.rferl.org/content/tatarstan-attack-spar-fears-tha...

logfromblammo 10y ago

Americans are better aligned with the largely Shi'ite Muslim Persians than with Wahhabbist (Sunni) Muslim Arabs. Note that this has almost nothing to do with relations between the governments of the U.S. and Iran. On the axis of prince to ayatollah, I prefer the ayatollah. On the axis of theocratic absolute monarchy to theocratic constitutional republic, I prefer the republic. Supporting the Shah was a mistake. Supporting the House of Saud is also a mistake. Supporting the ayatollahs would be another mistake. What the U.S. should be doing is to support the personal and economic freedoms of all people living in Asia Minor, and to stop making their sole points of contact the strongarm governments and/or rebel groups. Like everyone else on the planet, the people in that region just want one of two things: help my business prosper, or leave me in peace. The constant military interventions and arms support and political deals serve neither goal.

cmurf 10y ago
"support" personal and economic freedoms for all people is code for what policy, exactly? Because the word is vague on its own, and in the way in which you're using it. This sounds like a very interventionist foreign policy, otherwise what else could "support" mean, if it's at all a meaningful statement? I also think you severely underestimate the strength of entrepreneurship as a social class, in that area of the world. It's not like they materialize out of nowhere the instant the U.S. stops propping up strongarm governments. They didn't exist in any signficant number before U.S. intervenist policies either. And by what moral authority do you draw upon to suggest that these countries should be modeling themselves off the U.S. economically in the first place? I think the better policy is to leave them alone, in the John Quincy Adams approach to foreign policy. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/jqadams.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/jqadams.htm
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." --T. Jefferson It means you leave people alone, unless you have a mutually beneficial trade to offer them. If a country has no entrepreneurial class, you look to make money elsewhere. The US has no moral authority to demand imitation. It just has money--lots and lots of money. And it lets its own businesses spend their own money relatively freely, so long as they obey most of the laws and regulations and pay most of the taxes and make sufficient campaign contributions. So that leaves only two acceptable foreign policy sticks. You have the embargo, and you have the boycott. And you have only one carrot--access to all the money held by your country's consumer market and philanthropic donors. The US could decide, for instance, to boycott all goods and services produced in whole or in part by children under the age of 16 years, or by prisoner or slave laborers. This would, of course, require detailed provenance records for all goods entering US ports, and voluntary certification inspections for facilities listed in those records. And it would make all goods imported to the US more expensive. And it would put a lot of child laborers out of work, even if they really do need to be working to survive. If you are an international supplier, you only need to imitate US working conditions if you want to export to the US. If you do want access to the market, you can't get there with kids, convicts, or slaves. This is slow. Apartheid ended 35 years after the first international boycott campaign, and the actual impact of the boycott is debatable. Israel has shrugged off a boycott for a long time, because the US actively undermines it. The US embargo against Cuba never produced any meaningful result, after many long decades. In contrast, you can charge in, guns blazing, topple a regime, eradicate its bureaucracy, and stir up its internal politics with a bayonet, then go home by the end of your presidential term. But it isn't going to earn you many friends.