Everyone
is hating on the Saudis. Even the Toronto Star gets its hate on. Of course, I
was way ahead of the Saudi Haters and at least my sense of morality is not
hanging precariously from a sliding scale on in the Hate of the Month club. TheToronto Star hits all the latest progressive talking points on Saudi hate.
Saudi
Arabia’s King Salman and his regime may posture as steely guardians of Mideast
stability, after their mass execution of “inciters of violence and terrorism.”
But sheer fear, not considered resolve, is the driving force behind a state
bloodbath that has fanned tension across the region.
Salman
has confounded allies including the United States and Canada, infuriated Iran
and dampened prospects for settling wars in Syria and Yemen with his brutal
recklessness. The execution of 43 mostly Saudi Sunni
jihadists and four Shias — including the popular cleric Sheikh Nimr
al-Nimr — has also cast a shadow over efforts to combat Islamic State and other
terror groups.
Yet it is
Saudi weakness not strength that has brought the Mideast to this ugly juncture.
A regime that was truly secure wouldn’t have to resort to such barbarity, the
largest mass execution in decades.
Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has rightly joined the international
chorus decrying the executions, the tensions they have provoked and the
problems they have caused for allies. Salman, who was installed this past year,
is sending an age-old message that there’s a new sheriff in town, one who won’t
brook any trouble.
The
executions, by beheading and shooting, were timed to rally the House of Saud’s
ultraconservative base behind the government, to crush domestic Sunni support
for militant groups after a wave of bombings and shootings that have shaken the
kingdom, and to warn the country’s unhappy Shia minority not to get out of
line.
The
regime has reason to fear for its legitimacy.
The
talking heads have suddenly woke up to the fact there is a war going on in the
Middle East, that no one in the West wanted to name or think about (mostly
because it’s a war without Jews directly involved), and we are smack dab in the middle of it.
This is not a ‘good guy’ vs bad guy’ kind
of conflict. More like ‘baddie vs other baddie’ instead. As
Henry Kissinger once remarked about the Iran-Iraq war; isn’t it a shame they
both can’t lose?
Of
course, it’s being waged by some traditional western allies against Iranian
hegemony, and it’s been going on directly and indirectly since the Iranian
Revolution of the Seventies, most often through a series of proxies.
Let me
explain something to all the new armchair experts on the Sunni-Shiite religious
divide. The Iranians came to aid of the ‘Shias’ in the Lebanese civil war,
mostly by dividing the secular Amal movement. The religious Shias split off
from their secular brethren and formed Hezbollah. Hezbollah grew, prospered and
only exists only due to Iranian patronage. During the Israeli-Lebanese war in
2006 there was a popular joke making the rounds in Lebanon and it went like
this; Hezbollah is Lebanon and the rest of us are just tourists.
No one
ever asks themselves how it came to be that Syria, a country with a large Sunni
majority, came to be aligned with the Iranians. No doubt someone will bore you
with the explanation that the Alwaite minority rules over the confessional as
in a ‘fair balancing of power’ but the truth is the Alawites are sect of Shia
Islam; ergo, this is why Iran has always supported the Assad regime ‘cause they
go with their own – every time. And Syria is crucial to maintaining Iranian
hegemony.
I know
most Westerners do not care about Yemen per say, let alone Middle East
geography, but it is really is in everyone’s interest to pay attention. There
is a reason the Saudi executions came now, and the act was committed from
a place of strength and designed to send a big FU message to Mad Mullahs of
Iran. The Saudis have been biding their time with these prisoners, some of them
for years, and the Saudis would not have executed these men unless they were
operating from a position of strength. On the day of the execution, the Saudis also announced the UN brokered ceasefire was over in Yemen.
Yemen's
descent into its current hell would never have happened, if the Mullahs were
not busy trying to create another area of influence in the heart of the Sunni Gulf
states. The Iranians were threatening the bread and butter of the Gulf States
by controlling the Hanish Islands. What makes these little islands
important is their strategic location. Control those islands and you control
the entrance/exit from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Arden, and if you control
the entrance and exit from the Red Sea; you then control a not so insignificant
portion of world trade. 
Once the Islands were
back in Saudi command, everything else has been falling into place for the
Saudis and their allies. The Houthi have no resupply route and should start to
run out of weapons within the next few months. This is why now there is
currently a major escalation by the Saudi Coalition forces in Yemen.
What you really
have to ask yourself is why suddenly so many Westerners are suddenly upset that
the Mullahs are getting their comeuppance...and read the comment section on the
Al Jazeera site. It’s pure gold.
