Iran and Saudi Arabia restore relations

[JohnnyB]

A few interesting takes in these threads, on the significance of the deal, the context, and implications.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1634197544065548291

https://twitter.com/user/status/1634222999351033858

https://twitter.com/user/status/1634209162820288515

[sharkov]

Leaders in Washington and London are privately seething with rage over the this deal

[nik-]

Maybe. Maybe they've also seen this movie before though.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by sharkov

Leaders in Washington and London are privately seething with rage over the this deal

What? Why?

No. Not at all. Prob pretty happy about it actually.

[indes]

Wasn't there quite a bit of discussion about the US losing a lot of their "soft power" under Trump's government? It does seem like the influence of the states is waning and imo the USD as the world reserve currency has reached the end of the line.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by indes

Wasn't there quite a bit of discussion about the US losing a lot of their "soft power" under Trump's government? It does seem like the influence of the states is waning and imo the USD as the world reserve currency has reached the end of the line.

The US is purposely taking a more isolationist approach. That plus but being oil dependent will automatically result in them being less influential in the middle east. The Saudis also informed the US of this deal the whole way through.

This is also just as much about the Saudis losing influence. They've lost control of many of their proxy armies. They no longer have the US by the cahones. They've been powerless to resolve the many ongoing civil wars surrounding them and spilling into their borders. They are trying to get out of their rut by starting a bunch of mega projects, that look totally doomed

At the end of the day China will never replace the USA, because their weapons are vastly inferior. You can make deals with China will your want, where does that get you if there's no answer to the nations being supplied by the USA. Plus China has fundamental structural problems that are likely going to cripple it's ability to maintain economic growth.

I also disagree about the USD being replaced as the world reserve currency. There aren't any other good options. You'd have to be crazy to use the CCP controlled Yuan. The Euro is just not stable enough, and the EU has lots of its own issues.

[Snuffleupagus]

Holy hypocrite batman, the words most anti islamic country brokering a peace agreement between the worlds two most hardline islamic countries with different sects that hate each other

[sharkov]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

What? Why?

No. Not at all. Prob pretty happy about it actually.

Peace in the Middle East is not in their interest as it would hurt their bottom line and decrease irans isolation. That is why all the western media are angry about this deal

[jeffman]

Hopefully this ends the Yemen civil war, saving hundreds of thousands of lives

[Azure]

Iran is helping Russia, so not sure how people see this as anything other than a complete disaster.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by jeffman

Hopefully this ends the Yemen civil war, saving hundreds of thousands of lives

Yemen civil war has been at a "standstill" in arms for almost a year now. The two sides had a truce from May to Oct last year which expired and they've been negotiating various concessions to extend it again. There's been skirmishes and the odd attack and handful of casualties, but the days prior to May 2022 of mass bombings / death / rampaging war where hundreds / thousands were being killed have not been going on for awhile.

However, the huge issue today is that the Houthis are preventing the Yemen gov from exporting oil without an extension to the truce based on their agreed terms, and +90% of state revenues come from this. As a result the country's finances (and by extension the Houthis finances) have plunged. So it's more about preventing mass poverty, famine, etc. at this stage.

Further, since this announcement the Houthis are claiming that Iran doesn't govern and dictate to them what they do. So they are basically messaging 'yeah nice that you guys went and made a deal, but a Yemen truce has to be on our terms' more / less. If Iran stops supporting them; this will be the lynchpin to a deal though as they will be out of options. Then it will be on the Yemen gov to show restraint and not push to regain lost territory, etc.

There are other key non-complicating factors not included in this post as well that add complexity and risk to extending the truce.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by sharkov

Peace in the Middle East is not in their interest as it would hurt their bottom line and decrease irans isolation. That is why all the western media are angry about this deal

On what basis? Peace in the ME means secure transport of crude oil and security of the resource generally. I think peace in the ME is in their interest actually.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by blankall

The US is purposely taking a more isolationist approach. That plus but being oil dependent will automatically result in them being less influential in the middle east. The Saudis also informed the US of this deal the whole way through.

This is also just as much about the Saudis losing influence. They've lost control of many of their proxy armies. They no longer have the US by the cahones. They've been powerless to resolve the many ongoing civil wars surrounding them and spilling into their borders. They are trying to get out of their rut by starting a bunch of mega projects, that look totally doomed

At the end of the day China will never replace the USA, because their weapons are vastly inferior. You can make deals with China will your want, where does that get you if there's no answer to the nations being supplied by the USA. Plus China has fundamental structural problems that are likely going to cripple it's ability to maintain economic growth.

I also disagree about the USD being replaced as the world reserve currency. There aren't any other good options. You'd have to be crazy to use the CCP controlled Yuan. The Euro is just not stable enough, and the EU has lots of its own issues.

Why do you say those Saudi projects are doomed? I think people forget just how much money Saudi has. That can't fix every problem, but it does fix a lot of problems and garners a lot of power in the region.

One issue Saudi has done very poor is in building any kind of armed forces that are competent. Like the Canadians, they kind horse traded that with the US so if the US continued to push isolationist watch for the Saudi's to really start to build up their defences and armed forces.

People like to #### all over the Saudis for bombing the Houthis in retaliation for the Houthis rocket launcher-ing Saudi civilian and infrastructure targets in south Saudi Arabia but I wonder how tolerant western countries would be in the same spot. If Mexico just decided to bomb downtown LA something tells me the States would respond but hey- I'm no expert.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Why do you say those Saudi projects are doomed? I think people forget just how much money Saudi has. That can't fix every problem, but it does fix a lot of problems and garners a lot of power in the region.

The proposed Saudi projects are just beyond the scale of anything attempted before:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neom

It's mostly supposed to be completed by 2030. They were supposed to have completed major projects by 2020. So far, almost nothing has actually been done.

Obviously Dubai is a totally different country than Saudi Arabia, but Dubai was the last one to attempt these megaprojects. Despite doing so on a much smaller scale than Neom, Dubai failed pretty miserably:

https://www.luxurytraveladvisor.com/...never-happened

Basically, Neom, and specifically the Line, is a project on such a large scale - a scale that no one else has ever even remotely come close to building a project on - that I just don't see at as feasible and certainly not on the time line that Saudi Arabia is proposing. From a purely financial perspective, to fund a project like this, you're going to need a massive budget surplus that lasts over the course of decades without any interruptions. Sure things are good for SA this year, but what about for the next 20-30 years.

The completion of Neom would actually be fantastic for the region. Given it's location SA is going to push for peace in the region immediately surrounding it. The project itself would pull 10s of millions out of poverty and into extreme modernity. Plus the Saudis wouldn't put up with any skirmishes in the immediate area. At the end of the day, I just agree with the wealth of pundits stating its not feasible.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Azure

Iran is helping Russia, so not sure how people see this as anything other than a complete disaster.

Iran already had major deals with China in place.

As for the SA/Iran relationship, they opening embassies, not forming an alliance. The two countries are natural rivals, and until religion begins to play a much smaller role in the region, will always be each other's biggest enemies.

The only thing this possibly changes is that China may be gaining more influence over SA. Like I said before, if the USA is buying less Saudi oil that was inevitable.

As for Russia's involvement, this may actually weaken them. Russia is now relying on China to buy their fossil fuels, expanding SA's competition is only going to hurt roster bottom line. As it stands, SA was already a major supplier to China, this isn't some surprise new relationship either:

https://www.worldstopexports.com/top...iers-to-china/

On top of that SA sells a fraction of the oil to the USA it sells to China. Around 2019 the USA purchased about 1/3 of what China did, and now that ratio is even smaller:

https://www.reuters.com/article/saud...-idUKL2N26505N

I also don't see this as moving China closer to Russia. China hates Russia. China sees all Russian territories east of the Ural mountains as belonging solely to them. And Russia is to Mongolia as the USA is to South Korea. China is treating the Russian crisis as an opportunity for itself. It'll buy discounted oil from Russia, but isn't forging any kind of attachment.

[Locke]

The real question here should be....

"Did Jared Kushner finally get it done?"

Or was it more of a:

"Guys, we gotta do this or they might send Jared back" kind of a deal?

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by blankall

...
I also don't see this as moving China closer to Russia. China hates Russia. China sees all Russian territories east of the Ural mountains as belonging solely to them. And Russia is to Mongolia as the USA is to South Korea. China is treating the Russian crisis as an opportunity for itself. It'll buy discounted oil from Russia, but isn't forging any kind of attachment.

Where on earth are you getting that?

[blankall]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

Where on earth are you getting that?

The centuries of warfare between China and Russia over Siberia?

There's a lot of speculation that China is giving Russia just enough rope in this war to hang itself. Then Russia will have to turn to China for aid, who will provide that aid in the form of "economic development" in Siberia, or even worse for Russia, a strict economic union. Russia is going into a state of decline and would become a bit player in a Russian/Chinese union:

https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/...eat-all-along/

Russia was said to have amassed 60% of its conventional ground arsenal on the border of Ukraine, and this rate has only risen since then. If such a momentous effort by Russia continues with such high losses, the Russian military will be a mere shell of its former self by the end, not to mention the damage done to Russia’s economy by the sanctions. Such a weakened Russia, isolated from the West, would have little choice but to ally itself with China on whatever terms the latter demands. This would provide China with a committed and docile strategic ally, and with access to the natural resources of Siberia.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/craigho...h=11565e276ce4

Their history of conflict in the region and the great demographic imbalance between China and the declining population of Russia’s Far East has fanned speculation for years that Beijing could press north. All the preconditions are in place for a surprise ramp-up in China-Russia border tensions.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...eclaim-siberia

[JohnnyB]

That is total fringe stuff. Asserting what you did as fact is just bs disinformation. I'm sure on all sides countries will be thinking about what happens with Russian resources and who steps in for redevelopment in the case of a Russian collapse, but the idea that China views everything east of the Urals as Chinese is not reality. I've never heard that advocated for in China, not even in a Monroe equivalent kind of way, and it's certainly not any government position.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

That is total fringe stuff. Asserting what you did as fact is just bs disinformation. I'm sure on all sides countries will be thinking about what happens with Russian resources and who steps in for redevelopment in the case of a Russian collapse, but the idea that China views everything east of the Urals as Chinese is not reality. I've never heard that advocated for in China, not even in a Monroe equivalent kind of way, and it's certainly not any government position.

China has been quite clear that they see the surrounding Asian territory as within their sphere of influence. They are in a massive expansionist phase, and their game plan is pretty simple, involving economic development.

If you go back to the 1800s and 1900s Russia and China were actively fighting over Siberia. China was pushed out of Siberia by a combined effort of Russia, the UK, France, the US, and Japan, through a series of treaties that China now refers to as the "Unequal Treaties". Even Mongolia was a part of China until they achieved independence solely via Soviet assistance.

With Russia unlikely to have the population to hold onto Siberia long term, many people are speculating that China will move in....first economically, then with its people, then politically.