Biden's conflict with the Saudis
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not pleased with President Biden and is doing whatever it can to make him look foolish (even though he often does that himself)
Despite its long record of Human Rights violations, the U.S. has had a good relationship with the Saudis as they have great power in OPEC and are the leader of the Gulf Sunni Islam states.
The top Saudi leadership feels the Biden administration does not show them the respect they deserve and makes decisions that put them in grave danger. At one of the Democratic primary debates, Biden slammed the Saudis for something that should have been said privately to prevent embarrassment.
“I would make it very clear we were not going to in fact sell more weapons to them, We were going to in fact make them pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are.” Biden also said there is “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia,” and, in reference to Yemen, said he would end “end the sale of material to the Saudis where they’re going in and murdering children.”
Per Giorgio Cafiero, the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, “Bin Salman and others in Saudi Arabia took a tremendous amount of offense to that rhetoric.”
The mainstream media claims Israel is the country opposing the Iran nuclear deal. But that is only part of the story. Iran is a Shia Muslim state, and the gulf Muslim states are Suni. The Suni and Shia Muslims have hated each other for the past 1400 years.
Iran and Saudi Arabia see themselves as leaders of their flavor of Islam and competitors for the leadership of the entire Muslim world.
At best, a new JCPOA will help Iran become stronger economically. At worse, it will give Iran a path to a nuclear weapon like the original deal did. Saudi Arabia believes Iran is an existential threat. A new JCPOA allows Iran to become a more significant threat.
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The first JCPOA was a terrible idea and this one is no better. Democrats and some liberals in Europe appear to be the only ones who think it is a good idea. The rest of the world sees it as a prelude to war in the Middle East. The one thing it has done is lead to greater cooperation between Israel and the Sunni Muslims who have a common interest in opposing Iranian aggression. What Biden has done is alienate most of the Middle East with his attempt to make a deal with the genocidal religious bigots of Iran. He has made Trump look like a diplomatic genius.
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