Saturday, November 19, 2016

Iran And Saudi Arabia Are Tearing The Middle East Apart


Max Fisher, New York Times: How the Iranian-Saudi Proxy Struggle Tore Apart the Middle East

Behind much of the Middle East’s chaos — the wars in Syria and Yemen, the political upheaval in Iraq and Lebanon and Bahrain — there is another conflict.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are waging a struggle for dominance that has turned much of the Middle East into their battlefield. Rather than fighting directly, they wield and in that way worsen the region’s direst problems: dictatorship, militia violence and religious extremism.

The history of their rivalry tracks — and helps to explain — the Middle East’s disintegration, particularly the Sunni-Shiite sectarianism both powers have found useful to cultivate. It is a story in which the United States has been a supporting but constant player, most recently by backing the Saudi war in Yemen, which kills hundreds of civilians. These dynamics, scholars warn, point toward a future of civil wars, divided societies and unstable governments.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: This conflict has been ongoing since the birth of Islam .... and if we have learned anything in the past few decades .... our ability to influence events in the region are severely limited. Stay engaged .... yes. Help our allies .... yes. But to get directly involved in a sectarian/religious war .... that is a recipe for disaster.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Get rid of Islam => get rid of the War

jimbrown said...

We need to keep a sharp eye on the winner.

jimbrown said...

We need to keep a sharp eye on the winner.