Strange Doings

Something doesn't add up here, eh? Just yesterday, Helen Cooper, Mark Mazzetti, and Jim Rutenberg reported for The New York Times on "Saudis’ Role in Iraq Frustrates U.S. Officials". Specifically:

One senior administration official says he has seen evidence that Saudi Arabia is providing financial support to opponents of Mr. Maliki. He declined to say whether that support was going to Sunni insurgents because, he said, “That would get into disagreements over who is an insurgent and who is not.”

The officials speaking to The New York Times had to stay anonymous because "openly criticizing Saudi Arabia would further alienate the Saudi royal family at a time when the United States is still trying to enlist Saudi support for Mr. Maliki and the Iraqi government, and for other American foreign policy goals in the Middle East, including an Arab-Israeli peace plan." Nevertheless, the sources were "clearly intent on sending a pointed signal to a top American ally" in part "because it appears that Saudi Arabia has stepped up efforts to undermine the Maliki government."

Today, though, comes a different Times article, David Cloud's "U.S. Set to Offer Huge Arms Deal to Saudi Arabia". This $20 billion package had been getting held up by Israeli concerns, but "senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years."

Putting this all together, we're going to give Israel billions of dollars in bribes in order to get them to not object to our decision to sell huge quantities of advanced weaponry to a country that is arming the people we're fighting in Iraq. Makes sense to me!

Photo by Flickr user al-Fassam used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

Sure, that makes perfect sense- in ordere to make a $20 billion arms sale (which admittedly probably has about a 50% profit margin) the US taxpayer will be happy to cough up $30 billion as a gift to Israel.

Y'know, if you wanted to convince people that a secret cabal of Jewish bankers ruled the world,this would be the kind of example you might use.

Posted by SERIAL CATOWNER | July 28, 2007 1:12 PM

Well see your thinking poorly there. Israel then can turn around and use the $30 billion to buy US arms. So instead of a $20 billion arm sale, its now $50 billion!

Posted by Rob | July 28, 2007 1:19 PM

These are the kinds of shennanigans empires are forced into, having to manage various client states and kingdoms that might not get along so well. Rome was always doing this stuff with tributary kings and princelets.

Posted by Ben Cronin | July 28, 2007 1:31 PM

The only way it makes sense: they're gangsters. After that, it ALL makes sense.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 28, 2007 1:46 PM

Also, giving 30 billion to Israel is going to further piss off Islamists which in turn is going to make the al-Sauds feel even more insecure and make them want to buy more weapons from the US. So, its basically a feedback system designed to funnel money to the defense companies and Israel. Its absolutely beautiful.

Posted by michesmith | July 28, 2007 1:52 PM

I'm re-reading "The Glass Bead Game".

I think it will all make sense to me now.

Posted by bird | July 28, 2007 2:03 PM

Makes a lot of sense if you're Lockheed...

Posted by DJ | July 28, 2007 2:14 PM

I stopped asking in 2003 when Airhead-in-chief ordered UN Inspectors OUT of Iraq (wasn't the denial of entry to them the original projected casus belli?) whether ANYTHING this country does any more makes any sense. It doesn't.

At the time, I told everyone I knew that Iraq was going to be a big mess, making the West Bank look like kids' stuff, and that the only winners were going to be the supposed ultimate 'evil-doers'--Iran and al Qaeda. But that made sense, so of course wasn't considered.

Now everyone is anxious and upset that Maliki and the Green Zone gang aren't doing a national reconciliation. Why is it a surprise that they are not? What motivation do the Shiites and Kurds have to reconcile with the Sunnis? After all, THEY now control the oil and the armed forces/police. It is in THEIR interest to NOT reconcile--they are HOPING we leave--and then they will clean the Sunnis' clocks and control everything. Maliki's statement 2 weeks ago telling us to leave makes perfect sense, then, as does their opposition to arming the Sunnis. I saw today on Talk Left that Maliki recently demanded the recall of Petraeus. No schok, there,
either.

WE are setting the stage for the 'bloodbath' that will follow our departure, and by sword-rattling against the Iranian's, while quietly ignoring Saudi interference.

None of OUR moves makes any sense, but everyone else's motivations are painfully obvious to all except to the idiots here in Washington and the media.

Posted by twit | July 28, 2007 2:23 PM

This certainly makes sense from David Brin's "Manchurian Candidate Theory".
Short version: George Bush and Dick Cheney are puppets of the Saudi Royal Family. And every seemingly stupid idea, every act of incompetence, every bad policy that the Bushes have pursued has been done on purpose and with great skill and effect. Its just that the objective has been to enrich the royal family and damage the long term interest of the United Sates.

Posted by occam's comic | July 28, 2007 2:30 PM

This $20 billion package had been getting held up by Israeli concerns, but "senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years."

Yeah, because if there's one thing the Middle East needs now it's more bombs and tanks. What the fuck is with these people?

Posted by Fledermaus | July 28, 2007 3:54 PM

If the 20 billion package gets approved...Osama will have a party and propduce a video of himself inspecting his new weapons of mass destruction. My only question is when will bush learn not to arm his ememies?

Posted by tinfoil | July 28, 2007 4:29 PM

Something else I recall from the WP or NYT the other day: about 45% of the international terrorists nabbed in Iraq these days are Saudis. Of course, we're not saying anything to the royals about this; they might not want our JDAMs and other toys....

Posted by Tambopaxi | July 28, 2007 9:24 PM

Interestingly, Joe Klein, who is the Laocoon of the serious set on the blogosphere, struggling mighily against the serpentine netroots, just came out with an impassioned plea for 'seriousness" - and at the same time the claim that he'd been there, been right on that Saudi story yesterday, as reported by the NYT. It was a serious report by serious reporters, so it could be seriously commented on. Today, however, he skips the new Saudi story of arms sales to make some mandarin moaning sounds about Glenn Greenwald. I imagine the seriousness goes back in the box regarding the Saudis, who haven't received any serious reporting by the Western press since the Death of the Princess fiasco caused the British government to grovel hard to the royal family. Because serious people know that our allies, however they may deviate, are necessary evils in our struggle for truth, justice and democracy.

I suppose the arms story explains the Saudi story. It was a blackmailing move by officials who wanted Israel to get more money. That's how the serious set works.

Posted by roger | July 28, 2007 9:24 PM

I'm as ready to don the tinfoil as anyone when Bush is concerned. But really the weapons we're selling the Saudi's aren't the kinds of small arms and light weapons the insurgents are using. Hell, half the Pentagon would cheer if the insurgents had a bunch of tanks and jets. It's be the kind of war they train for and want to fight.

No, these are designed to be used by the Saudi's against the Iranians if it comes to that. And from the US perspective that's probably not a half bad thing - assuming you don't have Cheney scheming to find any cassus belli he can. Besides (and I'm only half joking), its not like our F-22's won't beat out their F-15's even if 10 years from now Bin Ladin has run the Royal Family out of town.

Posted by Patrick | July 28, 2007 9:45 PM

We're secure that Saudi oil is our oil. It's a devils bargain, but there you have it. Of all the client states to have, the one sitting on top of the world's largest oil deposits makes sense.

Posted by mq | July 28, 2007 9:51 PM

mq - who is the client, who the master here?

Posted by roger | July 29, 2007 12:11 AM

No, these are designed to be used by the Saudi's against the Iranians if it comes to that.

Unfortunately this has the drawback that the Saudis, even after years of U.S. training and arms, couldn't defeat Grenada if it came down to it.

Posted by Col Bat Guano | July 29, 2007 1:06 AM

Help me out here... how is it Israel's prerogative to "accept" or "not accept" any decision we may make with regard to arms sales to the Saudis?

If Israel objects, then they're going to... what? Last I checked, the US was a sovereign country, and not a client state of Israel.

Indeed, since we're graciously helping them out to the tune of billions of dollars a years in subsidies, maybe they could be expected to help us out with non-provocative behavior once in a while, instead of constantly violating international law and committing war crimes -- which makes the US look even worse by association with Israel than we've made ourselves look by our own actions.

One can certainly raise objections about the advisability of further entangling ourselves with the Saudis, but that's a decision for the US to make, and Israel really doesn't get to say yea or nay.

If that shitty little nation of beanie-wearing welfare queens wants to throw a temper tantrum over our foreign policy, maybe they should start footing their own bill for the expenses of maintaining their apartheid empire in the middle east.

Posted by moron | July 29, 2007 2:55 AM

One senior administration official says he has seen evidence that Saudi Arabia is providing financial support to opponents of Mr. Maliki.

Only financial support? The US military under General Betrayus is ARMING Suuni fighters, the same guys that have been killing GIs, who are having trouble understanding the logic of giving arms to people who recently killed their buddies, but of course they're politically unsophisticated.

Posted by Don Bacon | July 29, 2007 3:19 PM

So, what would be a better policy? It's not easy to curry favor with the Saudis, Iraqi Shiites, and Israelis simultaneously. Of course many initiatives will will be welcomed by some of our allies and cursed by others. And of course we can't get them all to do what we want all of the time.

What's the alternative? We could dump some of our allies. If so, which ones do you suggest? But we can't really get out of the "empire and clients states" game in the Middle east, because we need to keep the oil flowing.

Posted by Ragout | July 29, 2007 4:56 PM

If Israel objects, then they're going to... what?

Get on the phone to Tom Lantos and tell him what to do with the bil.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 29, 2007 5:12 PM

If Israel objects, then they're going to... what?

Bomb Saudi Arabia's oil wells, annex the West Bank, invade the Sinai... None of these things seems likely today, but they were until 1967, before the US and Israel were allies. If the US really did adopt an anti-Israel policy, we'd find that it's not so smart to make enemies of the guys with the strongest military in the Middle East.

Posted by Ragout | July 29, 2007 5:20 PM

I don't quite understand what you mean to say in your above comment, Ragout. Are you suggesting that if the U.S. made an enemy of Israel that would be primarily to America's detriment (rather than Israel's)? If you really think that, I'd say you're completely delusional. We're Israel's only real enabler in the world, if you hadn't noticed, most of the rest of the world being rather disillusioned with her behavior. I'd say Israel has far, far more to lose than the U.S. from a severing of ties. What are they going to do, turn the military hardware that we've so generously donated to them against us? But, I have to admit, it takes a lot of chutzpah to argue that we should be the ones shaking in our boots from such an eventuality, I've gotta give you some credit on that front.

Posted by Warren | July 29, 2007 11:48 PM

Ragout, I think it's clear that the guys with the strongest military in the Middle East is... the US. Suggesting that today, Israel would (1) attack a major US ally and (2) directly disrupt the supply of oil to the US merely because the US sells arms to Saudi Arabia seems pretty ridiculous.

Intense lobbying pressure is a more realistic explanation than the threat of some catastrophic attack. Especially when so many powerful Congressmen are trying to fund expensive presidential primary campaigns.

Posted by Sean | July 29, 2007 11:51 PM

Suggesting that today, Israel would (1) attack a major US ally and (2) directly disrupt the supply of oil to the US merely because the US sells arms to Saudi Arabia seems pretty ridiculous.

Twenty odd years ago the Saudi's put out a peace proposal on Palestine (which resembles the same one stuck out there in 2002), and the Israeli response was to fly a fleet of bombers over Saudi oil fields. The threat was not aimed at the Saudi's directly but at the U.S. (well the Saudi's weren't the people they cared who got the message).

It's a really old part of Israeli foreign policy Labor to Likud that the "Samson option" of burning the whole middle east down if they don't get their way should always be on the table. How serious they are about it, their capablity to do it (outside using nuclear weapons), are questions open to debate.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 30, 2007 12:15 AM

I'm suggesting that it would be bad for the US to lose Israel as an ally. To lose them in order to curry favor with the Saudis would be moronic. Sure, it would also be worse for Israel to lose the US as an ally, but so what? We're supposed to harm ourselves because Israel would be harmed more?

And of course, before Israel was a close US ally, it sometimes took actions that harmed US interests. Joining the UK and France in fighting Egypt and shutting down the Suez Canal in 1956 is a prominent example.

Posted by Ragout | July 30, 2007 2:23 AM