So as I understood it you have several blocs within the middle east. With core agents who don't get along, but second tier states more free in their negotiations.
The problem is that religious ideology driving some if not all their political actions complicates things to an extent. If their holy book and doctrine conflicts with another group, they might go to war with them or try to subjugate them despite how disadvantageous it would be for their country to do so.
I don't even pretend to claim any expertise trying to follow the dots in ME politics. The whole region is a sewer. But the bigger trends can be plotted, oil money, the open Shia/Sunni schism, etc. But then something can happen, and they all unite as Muslims, and then once that's over, they go back to blowing each other up.
I'd honestly put UAE in a category by itself below Israel but above the ones listed in number two.
UAE is kinda like the Switzerland of the Middle East because they didn't have any resources of their own, so they focused on becoming a center for trade and business and banking. There are even areas in UAE and particular their capital and trade hub of Dubai where religious laws are relaxed, which seems unthinkable given the tenor of other Middle Eastern countries (e.g. serving alcohol etc.)
There were periods where UAE seemed to behave almost in a completely secular way, although after the Arab Spring uprisings there was a swing back towards religious fervor and they started making showy arrests for things that were previously ignored (like Western women going around uncovered).
Still, pretty much all the Middle Eastern countries do business through Dubai. Western business people who can't set foot in countries like Saudi Arabia because of Israel stamps on their passports can safely meet their investors in Dubai. Iran probably launders a lot of their money through Dubai as well. All in all, the other Middle Eastern countries would lose a lot for attacking or trying to break ties with UAE which makes them a very good starting point for US/Israel efforts.
Two things Israel has are money and technology (mostly from us). If those start flowing freely into UAE and they start benefiting then other fence-sitting Arab nations are going to see it's a lot easier to hold their nose and do business with the Jew (and consequently the entire Western marketplace) than to sit out and only do business with backwards, barely-industrial Muslim nations.
Great response thanks. Unfortunately for us perhaps, it seems UAE recognizes their moment to not become Switzerland 2.0, but the replacement for Hong Kong.
I don't know how valuable it is to think of it this way. Due to the borders being created artificially by European interests, each country has powerful interests at odds with each other and aligned with differing countries.
For example, in Lebanon, especially in the south, there is a lot of representation by Hezbollah, which is Shiite, and aligned with/backed by Iran. However, Lebanon is a mostly secular country, with an uneasy power-sharing agreement between Maronite Christian, Sunni and Shiite factions that is probably not going to survive this unrest. Under the agreement, both the president of the country (and the president of banks) is required to be Maronite Christian, while the PM must be sunni, and the speaker of parliament Shiite. Now that the entire government has been forced to resign, look out for "interests" from the Sunni gulf states, Shiite Iran, US/Europe and Israel to all try to co-opt the movement to acquire power in the power vacuum. France and Israel have already very publicly stepped up; there are more (all of them, I'd imagine) lurking in the shadows and trying to pull strings.
In KSA, one of the more straightforward political situations in the region, the govt is firmly Sunni; they will give lip service in support of Palestinians against Israelis, but in reality they are deeply aligned with the US/UK/Israel partnership, and will always make decisions with that in mind. However, the oil-rich but money-poor south is mostly Shiite and they rule them with an iron fist, creating a dissident faction in their petroleum extracting region, and the royal family has always been paranoid about that above all, because they know if there is a revolution it will emerge from there. Almost all the "anti terrorism" measures that the Saudi govt refers to are just brutal crackdowns on dissidents in that region, rather than any crackdown on their own Wahhabi extremist groups. The Shiites in the south are aligned with the Yemeni shiites, who are aligned with Iran, KSA's biggest enemy, but neither is very well backed because Yemen is very poor. Thus, KSA has (with US/UK help) been able to brutally bomb and starve Yemeni civilians with very little opposition.
The more natural national border for KSA would be more north, so the divide would be along sectarian lines, and much of this conflict would have been avoided. But that would have placed most of the oil fields outside the country, which would undermine the whole point of the British Mandate creating/installing the royal family when they created the country.
Other countries I could go into are even more complicated and fractionalized. There really are no straightforward alliances or tiers.
All that matters in foreign policy is democracy or non-democracy. All the problems and wars involved non-democracies. Democracies do not war against democracies. It's these flawed leaders that need to create external enemies to control their own population to stay in power.
China has a central bank. Syria has a central bank. Iran has a central bank. Russia has a central bank.
All of the foreign policy problems in the world come only from non-democracies. When Russia takes steps back from their 90's constitution to a dictatorship, everyone reacts against it because of the potential for war.
Iran's central bank is owned by who? Is it connected to the IMF?
DPRK? Afghanistan? Libya? (Before we killed Kadafi) Look through our opponents since WWII, and see how their central bank status was before and after we threw blood and treasure at them.
Quick question.
So as I understood it you have several blocs within the middle east. With core agents who don't get along, but second tier states more free in their negotiations.
Is this right?
UAE in 2, for sure. They are not aligned with Iran.
The basic breakdown is
Oil producing vs. non-oil producing
Then
Shia vs. Sunni.
Figuring out ME politics is a clusterfuck. They all backstab each other, then have photo ops shaking hands, when it benefits them.
The problem is that religious ideology driving some if not all their political actions complicates things to an extent. If their holy book and doctrine conflicts with another group, they might go to war with them or try to subjugate them despite how disadvantageous it would be for their country to do so.
I don't even pretend to claim any expertise trying to follow the dots in ME politics. The whole region is a sewer. But the bigger trends can be plotted, oil money, the open Shia/Sunni schism, etc. But then something can happen, and they all unite as Muslims, and then once that's over, they go back to blowing each other up.
Right. It's clans. All views are open to the next generation. Only Shia/Sunni divide remains
Uae is more in group 2
I thought UAE and Saudi Arabia had a big dust up a year ago. No?
I couldn't say for sure, they are both military allies of the US
I'd honestly put UAE in a category by itself below Israel but above the ones listed in number two.
UAE is kinda like the Switzerland of the Middle East because they didn't have any resources of their own, so they focused on becoming a center for trade and business and banking. There are even areas in UAE and particular their capital and trade hub of Dubai where religious laws are relaxed, which seems unthinkable given the tenor of other Middle Eastern countries (e.g. serving alcohol etc.)
There were periods where UAE seemed to behave almost in a completely secular way, although after the Arab Spring uprisings there was a swing back towards religious fervor and they started making showy arrests for things that were previously ignored (like Western women going around uncovered).
Still, pretty much all the Middle Eastern countries do business through Dubai. Western business people who can't set foot in countries like Saudi Arabia because of Israel stamps on their passports can safely meet their investors in Dubai. Iran probably launders a lot of their money through Dubai as well. All in all, the other Middle Eastern countries would lose a lot for attacking or trying to break ties with UAE which makes them a very good starting point for US/Israel efforts.
Two things Israel has are money and technology (mostly from us). If those start flowing freely into UAE and they start benefiting then other fence-sitting Arab nations are going to see it's a lot easier to hold their nose and do business with the Jew (and consequently the entire Western marketplace) than to sit out and only do business with backwards, barely-industrial Muslim nations.
Great response thanks. Unfortunately for us perhaps, it seems UAE recognizes their moment to not become Switzerland 2.0, but the replacement for Hong Kong.
I don't know how valuable it is to think of it this way. Due to the borders being created artificially by European interests, each country has powerful interests at odds with each other and aligned with differing countries.
For example, in Lebanon, especially in the south, there is a lot of representation by Hezbollah, which is Shiite, and aligned with/backed by Iran. However, Lebanon is a mostly secular country, with an uneasy power-sharing agreement between Maronite Christian, Sunni and Shiite factions that is probably not going to survive this unrest. Under the agreement, both the president of the country (and the president of banks) is required to be Maronite Christian, while the PM must be sunni, and the speaker of parliament Shiite. Now that the entire government has been forced to resign, look out for "interests" from the Sunni gulf states, Shiite Iran, US/Europe and Israel to all try to co-opt the movement to acquire power in the power vacuum. France and Israel have already very publicly stepped up; there are more (all of them, I'd imagine) lurking in the shadows and trying to pull strings.
In KSA, one of the more straightforward political situations in the region, the govt is firmly Sunni; they will give lip service in support of Palestinians against Israelis, but in reality they are deeply aligned with the US/UK/Israel partnership, and will always make decisions with that in mind. However, the oil-rich but money-poor south is mostly Shiite and they rule them with an iron fist, creating a dissident faction in their petroleum extracting region, and the royal family has always been paranoid about that above all, because they know if there is a revolution it will emerge from there. Almost all the "anti terrorism" measures that the Saudi govt refers to are just brutal crackdowns on dissidents in that region, rather than any crackdown on their own Wahhabi extremist groups. The Shiites in the south are aligned with the Yemeni shiites, who are aligned with Iran, KSA's biggest enemy, but neither is very well backed because Yemen is very poor. Thus, KSA has (with US/UK help) been able to brutally bomb and starve Yemeni civilians with very little opposition.
The more natural national border for KSA would be more north, so the divide would be along sectarian lines, and much of this conflict would have been avoided. But that would have placed most of the oil fields outside the country, which would undermine the whole point of the British Mandate creating/installing the royal family when they created the country.
Other countries I could go into are even more complicated and fractionalized. There really are no straightforward alliances or tiers.
All that matters in foreign policy is democracy or non-democracy. All the problems and wars involved non-democracies. Democracies do not war against democracies. It's these flawed leaders that need to create external enemies to control their own population to stay in power.
You're missing a key ingredient. To see who doesn't have a central bank, just look who the US military fights against.
China has a central bank. Syria has a central bank. Iran has a central bank. Russia has a central bank.
All of the foreign policy problems in the world come only from non-democracies. When Russia takes steps back from their 90's constitution to a dictatorship, everyone reacts against it because of the potential for war.
Iran's central bank is owned by who? Is it connected to the IMF?
DPRK? Afghanistan? Libya? (Before we killed Kadafi) Look through our opponents since WWII, and see how their central bank status was before and after we threw blood and treasure at them.