Iran Invades Saudi Arabia

Good

Iran is next on the chopping block anyway, this will give people justification for an invasion or bombing campaign.

>>14048
In the immediate range this is more likely to give justification to 2005-7 Iraq-style domestic ethnic cleansing. Then, there are also cyber implications...

http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/12/20/sectarian-twitter-wars-sunni-shia-conflict-and-cooperation-in-digital-age/in6n

Wait did they actually invade? Is it happening yet?

Ultimately this is just another knot in the middle east tangle. The powers that benefit from ongoing animosity there (such as Saudi defense minister Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, eldest son of the current king, who may be using the powers of his post to maneuver himself onto the throne, upsetting the current line of succession which favors a cousin of his) occasionally need a shakeup to keep things moving.

The most sensible proposal for what western states (which tend to value stability) can do going forward that I have heard is a kind of "Marshall Plan for the Middle East." Unfortunately, the various recent events in Europe that seem to be eroding the influence of the EU (UKIP, Euro crisis, most recently the events in Poland...) may force us to re-evaluate whether the Marshall Plan was successful in the long term at all! It at least stopped the spread of fascism for a few decades, anyway.

The Saudi regime seriously concerns me. They know what they are doing, they want to curtail Iranian involvement in the region and they will provoke Iran, and Iran will react.

All this while the world is conveniently distracted by IS. Turkey has performed a similar move using the syrian civil war as an excuse to bomb kurds.

I can legitimately see this conflict escalating into a "global" war.

>>14077
A state directly assaulting, facilitating an assault of, or even failing to protect a foreign embassy and its personal after signing and ratifying the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations is an invasion.

Weren't they already fighting a war against each other in Yemen?

>>14091

And a proxy war in syria and iraq

Saudi Arabia don't officially support IS, but Saudi weapons and money have a habit of falling into IS hands

>>14091
Most would say this is an escalation of the same (so far) cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.The analogue of this step would be the Berlin Wall.

>>14078
>Middle East Marshall Plan

Water on sand. There's no rule of law. At least giving Greeks money results in better exports numbers and more jobs for Western Europeans. If stability is the best one could expect from dumping money on the Middle East (and I think you're right about it being the extent of the good one could expect) then the same money is probably better spent on Ukraine or India.

But it's crazy, if you contrast incentive measures with disincentive measures (like bombing and sanctions) then it's not clear what is better, and the only thing everyone agrees on is that the status quo is the absolute worst way to handle anything.

The US, West, and UN are currently dispatching high level envoys to try and mediate.

Good, fuck the Saudis.

>>14108
>money is probably better spent on Ukraine or India.
You're probably right about that, but that still leaves the middle east "unsolved."

I've known otherwise rational, well-informed (needless to say, not /pol/pots) people who can't see any resolution to the various crises other than "let them all kill each other until the fighting stops," but as we know from other conflicts in other parts of the world, that doesn't really work. Genocide doesn't end wars--it turns out warlords don't stop fighting when the enemy is dead. When the situation is so bad that people are resorting to voicing ideas like that, it seems like even the marginal solution of "pay everyone to not fight" should be on the table after all.

Unfortunately, beyond what we've mentioned, the Saudis are probably too rich for that to work. If we hesitate on this until the oil runs out, that would be another story, but at that point it will be completely Mad Max over there and there probably won't be anything left worth saving (and the economic damage to the rest of the world will have already been done).

>>14118

The solution is fairly simple, but it will never be implemented.

Iran was brought to its knees by sanctions. Saudi Arabia and Turkey must also be sanctioned.

You stop selling arms to the saudis. You force Turkey to control its border and you coerce everyone involved to stop buying IS oil. This would have global implications sure - oil prices would skyrocket - but its a small price to pay for a shot at peace.

Never going to happen though.

>>14119
>Iran was brought to its knees by sanctions.
Yet they still don't play nice, because they have similarly uncooperative friends in Russia, Syria, etc.

Do sanctions really work? I think you are at least correct that the thought would scare the Saudis, so I guess that's better than having no leverage on them at all.

And, as you've brought them up, I think Turkey is a uniquely strange problem in international relations today. Why has the US been willing to put up with so much shit from them, and why can't they, NATO, etc. do anything about it? Exactly what does Turkey have to do to get kicked out of the club? I see this as a failure of US leadership. I'm very curious what Hillary will do about it, and how effective her policy will be on that.

>>14128

Iran are playing as nice as they ever will. Russia and syria are more immediate neighbours and so are a greater priority for them. We are still miles away from the days of Ahmadinejad.

Sanctions do work, but they require patience and intent. Problem with Saudi Arabia is that we have no intent. We smile and nod while they fund things that damage our interests. They feel that they are untouchable and they have become more of a liability than an ally. We should call their bluff.

Turkey is probably related to some cold war bullshit about it being of strategic importance should the west ever be involved in a war agaisnt Russia. But under their current leadership they are at risk of turning into another tinpot dictatorship. I've no hopes of either Hillary or Trump doing much to change this. Hillary's politics are not modern or daring enough and I doubt Donald Trump understands the situation.

>>14138
If you like modern and daring, you may like this:
http://pas.sagepub.com/content/41/1/135.abstract

The government it prescribes could be built to or implemented as a framework for reconstruction in a place like Iraq.

>>14142
Isn't that the essence of de jure ethnic minority seats in government practiced in countries like Singapore? That practice generally isn't considered "free" or "democratic." That's why you see it in one-party states that have risk of fractionation.

>>14159
Reserved seats and offices (such as Iraq's various vice presidents) aren't democratic or remotely administratively functional. The desired effect of inclusion isn't even achieved because nationalists usually win the seats or they're given to sycophants that happen to be "brown" or whatever. The democratic alternative would require aspiring representatives to serve a population of individuals that are more or less demographically identical to the makeup of the larger country. In such a system identity politicians and extremists win zero seats, and the center and compromise win more easily.

The essay brings up reserved seats at one point as a way to offset 1/3 / 2/3 divides (like with Iraq's Sunni and Shia), but I disagree with the sentiment. The model it is already proposing renders the issue moot. Neither political parties nor individual candidates could afford to directly and consistently not represent 33% of their constituents.

>>14080
How long until a global war spreads to America? Will nukes get involved?

>>14128
>>14138

The thing about Turkey is that without them the EU (and NATO minus the US) loses an BIG percentage of their military strength. So much so that each of the other big powers will be able to take us on in an all-out war if America is busy elsewhere/not intervening. Mainly in manpower, but we're not nearly at the place where ''boots on the ground'' is unimportant. You're right it's mainly about Russia but that's not suprising. An imbalanced Europe/Russia relationship is not something that promotes stability. If NATO didn't have Turkey I could see the possibility of having more old USSR states in unrest. Which consequently will lead in NATO clay/power decreasing, and that's not really in line with America's strategy.

So no they will probably never be kicked out, but I agree the government is a shitstorm and I'm actually kind of suprised Erdogan hasn't fucked it up competely (yet).

Shia and Sunni fighting a great war against each other can only be a good thing for humanity provided that the West closes its borders to refugees.

it is all a trick by SA to make the price of oil go up

>>14034
Nuclear war when?

>>14231

How? War radicalises people and makes their resolve stronger. How does prolonging suffering in that part of the wold help anyone?

>>14323
Just close the borders to the Syrians, is all!

>>14337
ISIS agrees with you. If the very idea of diplomacy with external powers weren't antithetical to their reason for existence, they would be demanding that Europe, Canada, etc. (not to mention Lebanon and other surrounding countries) send their refugees back!

>>14323
what prolongs suffering is the bullshit artificial borders in that part of the world

like yurop there's no way to redraw them without a massive war, it's just inevitable and the quicker it happens the better

also if millions of muslims died the world would be a much better place

muslims dying = great

>>14395
I know this is just edgy /pol/pot wanking, but it is demonstrably true that when you subject a people to endless, indiscriminate bloodshed for god knows how many years, you don't get a productive, healthy society at the end of it. Look at what happened in central Africa after the various colonial and civil wars, in China after the Opium wars, or in Cambodia after the Vietnam war. The most fucked up dictatorships, the ones that inevitably throw their countries back into the stone age, obliterate any chance of getting an education, getting out, etc., are the ones that emerge from the dregs of a society where only the cruelest, most battle-hardened warlords and the meekest, most servile victims remain.

>>14399
1. i don't and have never supported the west interfering in the region (except in afghanistan that one time ubl literally declared war on the west)

2. they already have awful societies

3. there's nothing we can do to stop it and nor do we have any right to get involved beyond perhaps providing humanitarian aid

4. it's demonstrably true that the less muslims that exist the better the world is

>>14399
also think of the long-term benefits

5. oil price will go up which is bad at first but forces adoption of better and/or domestic sources of energy and restructuring of infrastructure thus increasing energy security and giving a push to the paris climate change agreement

6. stop haemorrhaging money in the region for good since the local players that emerge will have responsibility for upholding the new order

7. lower chance of terrorism as IS and so forth have to focus their energies and resources on the war rather than committing atrocities against countries half way across the world that are staying out of the conflict

the key thing is that we have to stay the fuck out of this and turn refugees back

>>14284
disgusting

>>14401
>there's nothing we can do to stop it
The thing is, we started it. Well, "we" didn't, you and me, I hope, but policymakers in various global powers going on back through to the days of the Soviet Union and the British Empire did.

>nor do we have any right to get involved
We (this time just meaning "the rest of the world") is already involved. Where did ISIS get their guns? Did they make them? No, Russians did. Where did they get the money they used to buy whatever they didn't steal? We traded it to them for oil. Why did they have oil? Because decades ago we sent engineers to find it and dig it up. It goes on and on, you know.

>>14407
we caused the situation to be far more fucked up than it needed to be but we didn't start it, they've been killing each other since mohammed died and for the same reasons

we can't possibly be involved in a war that has not yet broken out. if you're viewing it as an extension of the recent wars in the region then you have a point, but there's no reason we can't back out if it turns into a regional clusterfuck instead of a relatively localised one. america already backed out of iraq and frankly not only does the american public want out of the region but america can't afford to fight another trillion dollar war.

of course i'm not naive. america will probably still go to war or at least take sides, its just a dumb idea to do either.

>>14078
The Marshall Plan was to stop the spread of communism not fascism.

fascism had to be stopped by force.

>>14480
Right, and Poland, Ukraine etc. were states that DID fall to communism, and those are the same states where nationalist tensions are once again rising today, as they did before WWII.

What I'm suggesting is that "decades of war + pay them off" isn't necessarily a cure for the original problem in Europe (which was Fascism), so why would the same formula, war + money, work on the middle east? Keep in mind we already started the war.

>>14498
Are you seriously saying that Europe is now as Fascists as it was in the Second World War?

Force of Arms + investment has lead Western Europe away from Fascism and unless there is another monumental crisis the likes of the First World War AND the Great depression then fascism wont rise again in Western Europe.

I'm not saying the same formula is applicable to the middle east but its better than anything else we've got.

if we take a non-interventionist path then it just means millions more refugees and that can't be tolerated.

>>14401
>The less *religion that exists the better the world is

In a majority of the history of Arabs Vs Persians wars, the Persians won most of them. Food for thought.

>>15411
I wouldn't call Iran as in a state of winning or even impending winning. The best off they've been in modern history was in the Baghdad Pact years. If it's to be all out war or even a continuation of this garbage then the whole region/world will only lose.