Working in direct opposition to U.S. interests in regions of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Palestine, and Afghanistan.

Yes, I was trying to say something like what you are saying -- at your average dinner party petrodollar importance cannot be underestimated.



I thought these articles were pretty explanatory...

https://www.brookings.edu/...rbitant-privilege-2/

http://www.truth-out.org/...ollar-s-special-role

So how does that money flow work? The Saudi's give us money for arms, and we work that money back into the Middle East via ISIS?

Uh, how about the Saudis funding ISIS?

Because the Saudis make so much money from buying weapons from us? I feel like you're earning the GIECO lady gif...

The funding of ISIS, like much of Middle Eastern politics, is a maze of mirrors.

But from what I can tell neither the U.S. nor Saudi governments are a significant direct contributor to ISIS. We both consider them enemies. Though in maze-of-mirrors style they (we) may indirectly support them at times.

But from what I can tell neither the U.S. nor Saudi governments are a significant direct contributor to ISIS.


The key is direct but you can bet a lot of the arms sold to any country in the Middle East ends up in the hands of ISIS. That is the problem with these arms deals that everyone keeps doing "to be safe". It simply makes the world far more dangerous.


The Saudis aren't particularly concerned with ISIS, they are only interested in acting as a deterrent to Iran. Saudi is far more concerned with the Iranian support of the Houthis in Yemen as they are right on the border.


For the U.S to sign another massive arms deal with the Saudis is just more proof that money and jobs is the real issue and terrorism is an after thought, you deal with that after terrorist attacks occur. That way it's a win/win for the arms dealers. You sell arms to a country, then the terrorist get a few weapons and then have to supply more arms to keep the country even safer. It'll never end until people realize it is the huge amount of weapons in circulation that is the problem.

I don't think either one of them is our friend, but overall I think Saudi Arabia is the bigger threat. I think oil, weapons deals, and some intelligence sharing bind the US and SA, but I think the Saudis export Wahhabism and pour a huge amount of money into developing madrassas around the world that propagate and amplify the Wahhabist message, which in turn is a big factor in developing Islamist militancy that poses actual, direct threats to the US.

Culturally, as between the Saudis and the Iranians, I think the Iranian people are closer to the values of the US and more likely to be a nation that we could eventually come to have a productive, non-threatening relationship with that isn't based on a devil's bargain like the US/SA relationship. Obviously, we're not anywhere near that right now with Iran, but I could see it happening someday. Not sure I see that ever happening with the Saudis.

Those are really good points. I know some Iranian families who fled here to the U.S. around the time of the revolution, and they're fully and completely westernized and modern. And extremely productive. Knowing those families influences my feelings about Syrian refugees, since Syria has a similar "modernized" culture among the professional classes.

I think the elite in Saudi Arabia, too late, realized what it has created with Al Qaeda and it's offshoots. And they're afraid of it. But they can't reverse it. They're horribly stuck. I think that's one of the reasons they're loading up on U.S. weapons. Self-protection because they know that at some point the whole thing could turn on them.

I'd say from 53 to 79, Iran was "western" - The US and UK backed a coup that toppled the monarchy that was put in place after a civil war in the early 1900s after a disastrous land war in Asia against Russia toppled the empire.

If you only knew of post-revolution Iran, you'd never guess these were college students in Tehran in 71


This could be any western city in 70, but it's Tehran: