Yesterday's WaPo had competing headlines about Iran and KSA (Saudi Arabia): Iran is described as a "potential" terrorist threat while the likely Saudi role in the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is described as threatening the US-KSA relationship. The latter problem (likely to be smoothed over by claiming it was done by "rogue agents") has distracted from the ongoing story of how Iran is this awful enemy and threat to the US, "the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism" as organs oof the US government repeatedly tell us. The problem is that in recent years there have been zero terror attacks by entities principally funded by Iran.
The new story reports on "potential" attacks, with the most serious possibility being in Europe, where indeed in thr 80s and early 90s Iranian MOIS apparently killed as many as 60 opponents of its regime in various attacks in Berlin and other locations. An Iranian embassy official based in Vienna has been arrested in Bavaria in connection with an alleged plot to attack Mujahedin-el-Khalq (MEK) activists near Paris, which plot was foiled. As it is, the MEK was labeled a terrorist group itself by the US government until 2012. It may be that such a plot was in the making, but it did not happen. Regarding the US two supposed Iranian spies were arrested in the US who may have been plotting something, but again, no actual attacks, and there is a related report that at least one spy supposedly supported by Iran working for Hezbollah went to the FBI to offer to become an informant but was arrested. Ah ha! Another terrorist!
Of course, there is the usual complaint that Iranian forces are in Syria and Iraq, but they are in both nations at the invitation of their governments. Iran supports Hezbollah in Lebanon, but like Iran itself it ceased engaging in terror attacks in any serious way back in the 90s and is now too busy ruling Lebanon to mess with such stuff. There are also claims they arm the Houthis in Yemen, but most evidence says they do little of that, and the main problem there comes from the US-Backed Saudis bombing the Yemenis, including civilians.
Which brings us to the Saudis. So now people are suddenly questioining the close US alliance with them after this Khashoggi business. But they are the ones bombing and killing civilians in large numbers in Yemen. They have supported al Qaeda related groups in Syria. It was fro KSA that most of the bombers on 9/11 came from. And while the Saudis may now have allowed women to drive, women were never kept from driving in Iran. The Saudi-funded madrassas all over the world have been major breeding grounds for Sunni terrorists of various factions and stripes. Really, this is a no-brainer. It is the KSA that is a much more serious terror threat than Iran.
Barkley Rosser
Excellent, really excellent and necessarily bold.
ReplyDeleteI think we know where this $110 billion figure is coming from. It is not only a misleading number but also a disturbing alliance between the Saudis and the former Obama Adminsitration:
ReplyDeletehttp://securityassistance.org/fact_sheet/us-arms-transfers-saudi-arabia-and-war-yemen
Note footnote 12:
“Of the more than $100 billion in offers reported to Congress, $57 billion have been translated into formal sales agreements. The U.S. has delivered $14 billion worth of weaponry to between 2009 and 2015. The gap between orders and deliveries reflects the fact that for deals involving major equipment like fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, armored vehicles and combat ships there can be a considerable lag time due to various factors, from protracted negotiations over price and technology transfer, to the time involved in building new systems If the equipment involved in the deal is not taken from existing U.S. stocks, to the level of available capacity to service foreign clients while maintaining production of the same systems for the U.S. military.”
Per annum sales have been $2 billion per year. The rest is speculative and even if they came to pass – would not be anywhere close to $100 billion a year.
{psst - this is from PGL on a computer acting badly}.