While the US and Saudi Arabia has been attempting to work out normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia (in Israel’s absence) with unreasonable concessions to Palestinians as a condition, more disturbing news emerges:
Tehran seems on track to restore relations with more countries after a groundbreaking agreement with Saudi Arabia.
According to Foreign Policy Magazine, “when the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume diplomatic relations was announced, many U.S. officials and commentators welcomed it. Even though the Chinese-sponsored deal was an apparent blow to the United States’ status in the Middle East, experts speculated that normalization between the Saudis in Riyadh and the Iranians in Tehran would lead to regional de-escalation.” Even nuclear nonproliferation was hoped for.
The hope was based on naïve confidence in Saudi Arabia and an underestimation of Iran, which is more emboldened than ever now.
The China-brokered rapprochement has yielded significant benefits for Iran since it improved the regime’s image in the view of many regional players, as Western hope for Iran’s isolation fades. Djibouti, a small country in the Horn of Africa, bordering Somalia, and the Maldives, a South Asian country, have resumed diplomatic talks with Iran, while the major concern is talks between Iran and Jordan and Iran and Egypt — with Iraq and Oman mediating.
In a friendly gesture last March, “Egypt decided to allow Iranians who wish to visit South Sinai through a certified tourist agency to obtain a visa upon arrival.” Days ago, Iran held further talks with Egypt, described by both sides as “fruitful.” Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi stated the hope that the two sides “could usher in ‘a new chapter to start and revive relations.’” Jordan and Iran have also been talking where the Syrian crisis is central. Both sides resolved to partner in a “’step-for-step’ process where the Syrian regime is reintroduced to the international community in exchange for reforms.”
The Iranian regime is now “ready to draft and sign a comprehensive bilateral cooperation accord” with the Saudis, in an expanding friendship proving to be lucrative for Iran.
The stronger Iran gets in its position with regional allies, the more dangerous it becomes to Western interests. It is also well established that the terrorist regime aims to wipe Israel off the map. And recently, an official Saudi map showed Israel erased and “Palestine” in its place. The Saudis have hosted top level Hamas operatives, and followed up on the meeting with the release of Hamas prisoners. The Saudi-Iran rapprochement has also “prompted talks between the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen on one side and Saudi Arabia and the internationally recognised Yemeni government on the other, and helped Syria to be readmitted into the Arab League.”
As all these cozy relationships are being formed with Iran, one must also remember Iran’s alliance with Russia. Senator Ted Cruz recently recently warned that the Biden administration is funding both sides of the Iran-Ukraine war. Biden not only seeks a nuclear deal with Iran, but in its latest prisoner swap deal, released $6 billion in frozen funds to the Islamic Republic. “Flooding billions of dollars into Iran… goes into drones that the Russians use to kill Ukrainians,” Cruz warned.
Renewed ties between Tehran and Riyadh have opened up a golden opportunity for Iran to build relationships with its Arab neighbors and beyond. This was the result in part of a miscalculation by Western officials (politicians and analysts alike), who had hoped for a de-escalation with Iran. The unity of the Muslim ummah, despite historic sectarian divides, has always been and will be always prioritized over infidel countries; Iran and Saudi Arabia are the most prominent representatives of the world’s Shia and Sunni populations respectively. And both countries belong to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which welcomed the “brotherly ties” of the Iran-Saudi rapprochement.
The West’s lack of understanding of Islam and decline under woke leadership places it at a grave disadvantage in every global negotiation. The West, unlike Islamic and Communist countries, no longer have a distinct identity. This is being observed and noted. And America, once the global icon of freedom, is now a global joke under the Biden administration, which continues to do all it can to prop up Iran.
Kepha says
We Americans have also had a hand in driving China and Russia closer together; and encouraging a league of the nasties which includes North Korea and Iran.
Then again, once China has taken Taiwan and seen to the reunification of Korea under Pyongyang, it will doubtlessly remind Viet Nam that it was once the Chinese province of “the Pacified South: Annan/Annam 安南) and that about 70% of the Vietnamese vocabulary derives from Middle Chinese (the common ancestor of Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Gan, and Xiang). After that, maybe Beijing will also press that Mongolia, Tuva, the Outer Northeast, the lands east of Lake Balkhash, and Arunachal Pradesh were also originally under the Great Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and “lost to imperialism”. They’ve already asked Japan to reconsider its hold on the Ryukyu Islands (a Chinese tributary prior to the 1870”s)..
Much as I love Taiwan, South Korea, and a bunch of others lying in the shadow of a rankled, irredentist China, as well as respect Ukraine’s standing up to Russia and sympathize with the non-MeK opponents of the Mullah-ocracy of Iran, I doubt that the USA and allies are in much of a position to face down an alliance covering the bulk of the Eurasian landmass. We badly need to get a cultural counter-revolution in place, get our own economy back on track, and ditch some silly romantic notions about the “Third World”.
Ho-ho-ho! Joe must Go!
Wellington says
I would greatly welcome, Kepha, a counter-revolution to the highly destructive counter-revolution in the West that has its origins in the 1960s (or perhaps even earlier, as far back as ancient Greece, which engaged in massive self-criticism, something unique in the history of civilizations, and which served the West well and ill over the centuries—until very recently far more well than ill but no longer in our time).
But I digress. Always good to see you post here at JW because of your knowledge of so much. Hope you and those you hold closest to you are doing well in a very unwell world.
Unknown guy says
Israel’s worst nightmare is normalisation of relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Aum says
Christine,
Your last paragraph summarizes the situation well.
Hope there is a change in attitude.
Mick says
China does not lecture its ‘allies’, (unconvincingly), on democracy and equality. Based on a common interest in stability and the prosperity of the elite, no wonder they can build bridges.
OLD GUY says
A great deal of the turmoil around the world is aimed at bringing down America and our monetary system.
Our funding the defense of borders round the world while we leave ours wide open is a little confusing and dam stupid.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
It almost looks like our ruling elites want to destroy the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, so that the US dollar can become as worthless as the currencies of Uzbekistan or Zimbabwe, both of which resemble the Weimar Republic
I don’t see how the dollar gets back from that, since the idea that it’s a politically neutral currency has been shattered once & for all