Golden Age of Gaia – by Sagesage: Do I see some shenanigans going on here? Saudi Arabia rejects their seat on the UN Security Council and Jordan is elected to step into it (Story 1). Meanwhile in Story 2, the US is sending missiles to Saudi Arabia in an effort to bring resolution to the Middle East because “…This region is dangerous, it’s combustible, it’s unstable…” So, is this telling me that bringing in more weapons and having the US big brother influence is going to help bring peace? Sorry, I don’t buy it. It’s that kind of thinking that got us into our predicament in the first place.
Story 1 – Jordan Elected to UN Security Council Seat that Saudi Arabia Rejected
The Guardian – December 6, 2013
http://tinyurl.com/lzr2hdz
General assembly chooses replacement for Saudi Arabia after it turned down seat in protest at failure to end Middle East conflicts.
The UN general assembly has elected Jordan to the security council seat that Saudi Arabia rejected in an unprecedented act.
Jordan was elected to the two-year term on the council with 179 votes in the 193-member general assembly. Saudi Arabia got one vote. Jordan was selected by Arab countries and endorsed by Asian nations.
Saudi Arabia stunned the diplomatic world by rejecting the security council seat on 17 October, less than 24 hours after it was elected.
The Saudi foreign ministry accused the security council of failing to end the Syrian and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and to convene a conference on creating a Mideast zone free of weapons of mass destruction.
Jordan will join four other newcomers to the council – Chad, Nigeria, Lithuania and Chile – on 1 January.
Story 2 – US Approves Missile Sale to Saudi Arabia
Press TV – December 7, 2013
http://tinyurl.com/lb86yhk
The US Department of Defense has approved the sale of thousands of anti-tank missiles to Saudi Arabia amid Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel’s visit to the Middle East.
On Thursday, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress that it had approved Riyadh’s request for nearly 14,000 tube-launched, optically tracked wire-guided (TOW) missiles and more than 1,700 similar missiles in two separate deals valued at nearly $1.1 billion.
“The proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a critical partner who has been, and continues to be, an important force for political stability in the Middle East,” DSCA said.
Hagel, who arrived in Bahrain on Thursday, reassured American allies in the region that Washington would not change its military policy.
On Friday, he said that the United States has no plans to scale back its military deployments or arms sales to the Persian Gulf states.
“I will assure our partners that we’re not going anywhere,” the Pentagon chief said.
“This region is dangerous, it’s combustible, it’s unstable,” Hagel said. “But having a steady American hand in this region to help our allies and reassure our allies is really key to working through this really dangerous instability.
I am finding this all quite hard to read, for once, the usual poorly hidden poker face is truly unreadable at US foreign policy HQ, just what is going on?
The sale of the TOW’s (which is quite an old system) suggests a “need” ahem for taking on ranked armour, Iran’s advances in tank armour plating would probably be on par with Russian technology for its own grown tanks and the late Russian tanks they have would probably shrug off the TOW so for arguments sake we can probably cross off Iran in that particular crosshair, so the next contender would be Syria, a Syria that has actually just been relieved of probably the only weapons keeping the US out but the concerted Russian and Chinese response regarding Syria pretty much frightened the life out of the hawks in the Pentagon and when Russia shot down (with ease) those two missiles, the crash trolleys were probably in demand at the Pentagon.
It could be Syria but I suspect it may Egypt, another modern army but a modern army that is not playing US hardball and is being quite rebellious to Uncle Sam and his succubutic monkey Rabid Rabbi.
I still get the strong impression that there has been a seismic shift in policy thinking in the White House, Obama did the unthinkable, gambled on fracking and came out aces high, he turned a country dependent fully four fifths of its energy needs as imports into an energy independent nation, suddenly the Middle East is no longer strategically important especially as its expected the US will enter the export market, the stranglehold Saudi Arabia had around the US has evaporated and to be honest, I imagine the policy thinkers in the WH are somewhat thinking that now they couldn’t give two figs if the ragheads blew up the heebiejeebies and vice versa but it has to be done in such a way as not to be seen as running or abandoning the place and to leave a little security in the region especially as America is kind of Satan No 1 to oh so many now but let them struggle in the dirt whilst America faces off against its real enemy… China