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8 Responses to “Sectarian geopolitics in two easy tweets just yesterday”

1. Ken Hoop Says:
   September 8th, 2016 at 6:55 pm

   Here is a difference: Wahhabism generally says liberating Palestine should be postponed until liberating the Shia world from Shiism and from decadent Sunni regimes. Iranian Shiism does not postpone liberating Palestine until Shiism is imposed on the region.
   Probably resulting in this:

   http://atimes.com/2016/09/us-cluster-bombs-obama-apologizes-to-laos-sells-more-to-pound-yemen/

2. Charles Cameron Says:
   September 9th, 2016 at 3:30 pm

   Hi Ken:
   .
   That’s an interesting article for the hypocrisy it indicates — or is that more a matter of not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing?
   .
   I’ll leave the political motivation for the US selling weapons to the Saudi regime for use in Yemen to others.

3. Charles Cameron Says:
   September 9th, 2016 at 3:34 pm

   I saw this yesterday in DW:

   Iranian pilgrims pay the price of power struggles in the Middle East
   .
   Saudi Arabia’s decision to sever ties with Iran exacerbated their already strained relationship. Right now, it means that this year’s Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, has begun without Iranian pilgrims.
   .
   When it comes to religious matters, there is little hope of compromise between the two rivaling powers in the Middle East. Iran’s Shiite leaders and the Sunni House of Saud are now openly arguing about who is actually a Muslim.
   .
   The Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insulted Saudi rulers by calling them “faithless”. On his website he wrote, “The world of Islam, including Muslim governments and peoples, must familiarize themselves with the Saudi rulers and correctly understand their blasphemous, faithless, dependent and materialistic nature.” Saudi Arabia has barred Iranian pilgrims from participating in the Hajj. Khamenei called for a “fundamental reconsideration of the management” of the holy sites by Saudi Arabia, backing his demand by citing the deaths of thousands of pilgrims last year.”
   .
   The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al Shaykh, responded by saying that Iranians were not real Muslims. Then he went on to reiterate what Saudi children learn in schools – that Shiites were a disgrace to Islam. And of course, every attack was followed by a counterattack.
   .
   The Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Khonsari tweeted, “Indeed; no resemblance between Islam of Iranians & most Muslims & bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric & Saudi terror masters preach.” The Twitter post triggered a virtual mudslinging match between Iranian and Saudi Twitter users who have ever since been insulting each other to their hearts’ content.

   [ .. more .. ]

4. Ken Hopp Says:
   September 9th, 2016 at 6:27 pm

   http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2016/09/an-important-day-in-history-of-saudi.html

   More on the motivation.

5. Charles Cameron Says:
   September 9th, 2016 at 6:58 pm

   Thanks, will read.

6. Grurray Says:
   September 9th, 2016 at 8:19 pm

   “That’s an interesting article for the hypocrisy it indicates — or is that more a matter of not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing?”
   .
   She seems to have forgotten the part about the fundamental immorality of the North Vietnamese Army fighting the war from areas where children play and families farm the land. The fact is that the more civilians that died, the more the NVA benefited from the public outcry. They were perfectly happy to sacrifice as many Laotians as possible. This is a similar motivation as in Gaza where Hamas stores Iranian rockets in schools in the hopes that deaths of children will make the TV news. Fortunately, Israel has much more concern for human life and warns civilians, to the short term detriment of their own security, before any occupied building is to be targeted, and this is why Hamas is now in a long term losing spiral. If we had better perceived the benefits of the moral high ground during the Vietnam War as the Israelis now do, we might have had a different outcome.
   .
   Certainly unexploded ordinances are dangerous and should be dealt with, but it’s a stretch to claim that this is the reason Laos is trapped in a cycle of poverty. They remain a backwards country that is one of the few left controlled by a repressive communist regime (in case you were wondering why Obama is so comfortable dealing with them). They regularly persecute minorities, such as the Christian Hmong, who otherwise might contribute to prosperous growth. In fact, Laos is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to live in if you are a practicing Christian. Not quite as bad as Iran, but close.

7. Ken Hoop Says:
   September 10th, 2016 at 6:36 pm

   An international agency found no evidence of your claim re Hamas.

8. Charles Cameron Says:
   September 10th, 2016 at 8:29 pm

   Which agency, and which claim (storage in schools, or losing spiral)?