Democrats' odd love of mullah-run Iran has twisted our Middle East policies. Is that error being corrected?
The U.S. may reach a security guarantee deal with Saudi Arabia:
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday a deal may be on the way with Saudi Arabia after talks that his national security adviser had with Saudi officials in Jeddah aimed at reaching a normalization in relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. ...
U.S. officials see a potential deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia as possible after the administration of former President Donald Trump reached similar agreements between Israel and Morocco, Sudan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
We're already seeing tangible American moves:
Thousands of Marines backed by advanced U.S. fighter jets and warships are slowly building up a presence in the Persian Gulf. It’s a sign that while America’s wars in the region may be finished, its conflict with Iran over its advancing nuclear program continues to worsen, with no solutions in sight.
The United States could soon offer to put armed sailors and Marines on commercial ships traveling through the Gulf's Strait of Hormuz, two U.S. officials said on Thursday, amid alleged attempts by Iran to hijack ships in international waters.
As I said, the Saudi outreach to China was an effort to get America to take their security concerns seriously. China didn't really broker peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran:
An escalating dispute over a gas field in the Persian Gulf poses an early challenge to a Chinese-brokered agreement to reconcile regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.
China was a prop to get America's attention. Will China gain anything from the Iran side of its deal?
More importantly, will an American-Saudi security deal preempt a new Iran nuclear deal or will Democrats--who oddly love the mullahs--use a security deal as a shield to get a nuclear deal even worse than the awful original?
Is the appearance of American resolve just a ploy to surrender to Iran's desires for nukes while pretending to pressure Iran into exactly the deal Iran wants?
Iran and the United States reached an agreement on August 10 for the release of five US nationals detained in Iran. The United States will release six billion dollars of frozen Iranian assets and release several Iranian prisoners as part of the agreement. The release of six billion dollars would be a significant boost for Iran’s struggling economy.
Ah, Smart Diplomacy.® Way to kill my willingness to show faith in the administration.
UPDATE: A Saudi-Israeli deal has to be awesome to be worth it for America? Really?
Don't make pursuit of the perfect be the enemy of good. This is the Middle East. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.
UPDATE: What I said in 2016 about paying Iran large chunks of money to release Americans:
And have no doubt, by briefly capturing 10 American sailors and two patrol boats, Iran rubbed our nose in the fact that if Iran needs more hostages, they'll have no problem getting them.
Further, as we did back then, by releasing Iranians we hold we make this ransom seem like an equivalent prisoner exchange rather than Iranian hostage-taking.
And despite Obama administration claims that our money wouldn't "dramatically" increase Iran's funding of aggression and mayhem, what I said about so-called "economic aid" to Iran, which doubled its military budget and put all of the pallets of cash flown into Iran into its military budget.
FFS.
UPDATE: We pretend this is a glorious deal but Iran would rather rub our noses in our defeat:
Iranian officials insisted that they can spend freely the $6 billion received as part of the recent prisoner swap agreement with the United States, rebuffing Western reports that Iran can only use the funds for humanitarian purposes. Iranian state media focused predominantly on celebrating the agreement with the United States and framing it as a victory for Iran on August 11.Iran frames it as a victory because it is.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
