Middle East Politics

The Sauds are also starting a full-on oil price war, after the deal with OPEC+ (Russia) to curtail production in order to inflate prices collapsed. I don’t know how much oil Iran and to a lesser extent Iraq are effectively even able to export right now, but this will compound their misery. It effectively kneecaps ME economies that require higher prices to get by.

This combined with the new pandemic is close to a worst case scenario for Iran. Even if sanctions are lifted under a new US regime, oil prices won’t rebound without SA willing to play ball.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...t-time-after-opec-pact-unravels-idUSKBN20V08G
 
Organic Potatoes said:
The Sauds are also starting a full-on oil price war, after the deal with OPEC+ (Russia) to curtail production in order to inflate prices collapsed. I don’t know how much oil Iran and to a lesser extent Iraq are effectively even able to export right now, but this will compound their misery. It effectively kneecaps ME economies that require higher prices to get by.

This combined with the new pandemic is close to a worst case scenario for Iran. Even if sanctions are lifted under a new US regime, oil prices won’t rebound without SA willing to play ball.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...t-time-after-opec-pact-unravels-idUSKBN20V08G
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They are both in OPEC, they usually decide together these dissensions and this is not the first time they do it. They did the same thing against the US shale oil companies putting them out of business 3 years ago.
 
Giggsyking said:
They are both in OPEC, they usually decide together these dissensions and this is not the first time they do it. They did the same thing against the US shale oil companies putting them out of business 3 years ago.
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They’re both in a cartel dominated by SA. They would not work against their own self interests, or approve of SA immediately offering a price discount as they have much different priorities in part due to their population/production ratios.

And they didn’t put US shale oil out of business.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
They’re both in a cartel dominated by SA. They would not work against their own self interests, or approve of SA immediately offering a price discount as they have much different priorities in part due to their population/production ratios.

And they didn’t put US shale oil out of business.
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They at least caused massive losses to them.

I am not disagreeing with you. Iraq and Iran wouldn't approve of anything SA decide, but if it is a decision by OPEC it means they are on board at the moment, I dont know if it is a solo move by SA or it is an synchronized OPEC move.
 
Giggsyking said:
They at least caused massive losses to them.

I am not disagreeing with you. Iraq and Iran wouldn't approve of anything SA decide, but if it is a decision by OPEC it means they are on board at the moment, I dont know if it is a solo move by SA or it is an synchronized OPEC move.
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That is not necessarily true. OPEC is not an egalitarian coalition; SA is ‘first among equals‘.
 
Yes, but it’s near enough the same thing for the purposes of this discussion. More here. That big growth on the right is powered by shale oil.
 


Some rumors floating around that some very senior Iranian and Hezbollah operatives were in the vicinity of these strikes.
 
45 years since start of Lebanon’s awful civil war (or wars might be a better description):

 
It’s 100 years today since the conclusion of the San Remo conference, which gave birth to the maps of the Levant and Iraq which ultimately survive to this day - the mandate for Syria (including Lebanon) going to the French, and those for Palestine (and by consequence Transjordan) and Iraq to the British. There have been three major attempts* to undo these maps - the union of Egypt and Syria from 1958-61, the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait in 1990-91, and the ISIS campaign of 2014-2018, but their endurance is remarkable given the lack of legitimacy associated with them.

Some immediate consequences were a brief Franco-Arab war over Syria which ended with the French occupation of Damascus and the end of the short-lived Hashimite Kingdom of Syria, a major anti-British revolt across Iraq during the summer of 1920 which ended with the placing of the Hashimites on the throne of Iraq, and the Treaty of Sèvres of the following August which severely limited the emerging post-Ottoman Turkish state by granting territories in Anatolia and Thrace to the Armenians, Kurds, and Greeks. Ataturk would reverse these promises in the wars which followed.

The major long-term consequence, apart from the actual birth of these states, was the formal international recognition of the terms of the Balfour Declaration by which the mandate of Palestine was to be reserved for the development of the Jewish national home.

* (a more minor successful change was made with the Turkish annexation of the Syrian province of Alexandretta/Iskenderun, modern-day Hatay, in 1939.)
 
2cents said:
There have been three major attempts* to undo these maps - the union of Egypt and Syria from 1958-61, the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait in 1990-91, and the ISIS campaign of 2014-2018, but their endurance is remarkable given the lack of legitimacy associated with them.
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I am not sure, that this is telling us much about the region or these borders. It tells us more about rules/norms of nation-states and the international system.
 
PedroMendez said:
I am not sure, that this is telling us much about the region or these borders. It tells us more about rules/norms of nation-states and the international system.
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Yes I’d tend to agree. If it tells us anything about the specific region it is that the Middle East is subject to the same pressures which apply globally, and is perhaps not the exceptional case it is often portrayed to be.
 
2cents said:
* (a more minor successful change was made with the Turkish annexation of the Syrian province of Alexandretta/Iskenderun, modern-day Hatay, in 1939.)
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Is Turkey de facto annexing more Syrian land? I’m confused about what’s going on there, and not seeing much news on it.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
Is Turkey de facto annexing more Syrian land? I’m confused about what’s going on there, and not seeing much news on it.
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I haven’t really been keeping up lately so open to correction here, but from what I remember the Turkish presence in Syria today has three elements. They’re in Idlib basically with Russia’s permission with the official aim of clamping down on ‘terrorism’. They are north of Aleppo supporting proxies they used against Assad (although this might also be said of Idlib). And they are along the north-east border to prevent the emergence of a PKK statelet there.

However while these three actions were on the face of it produced by different immediate dynamics, they might also all be viewed as (a) Erdogan attempting to consolidate Turkish spoils from the Syrian fall-out, and more broadly (b) an expression of Turkish nationalist claims to northern Syria dating back to the final days of WW1. This is because British forces moving north from Damascus and Baghdad captured Ottoman territories in Syria and Iraq after the armistice was called in October 1918, and the subsequent Turkish National Pact laid claim to them. These included most of Mosul Province and in Syria I think at least some of the territories mentioned above.
 
This has gone right under the radar:

 
2cents said:
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They want Hariri back. He has neglected that city along with the richest man in Lebanon, the local to Tripoli, Mikati(who was a PM as well in the past)

The situation isn't great at all and I feel for them because they truly are the most who suffer from poverty, but now is not the time to overthrow the government because I believe it'll take months to appoint a new PM and another couple of months to assign ministers to their offices
 


(edit): the full film



 
Bashar al-Assad fleecing his extraordinarily rich and corrupt cousin for $3b, apparently in order to service a debt to Moscow. Two threads:



 
Israel is going to annex part of the west bank. Would UK impose sanctions just like they did against Russia?
 
Foxbatt said:
Israel is going to annex part of the west bank. Would UK impose sanctions just like they did against Russia?
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“The signatories...point out that the UK did not hesitate to sanction Russia after the annexation of Crimea, claiming any move in the West Bank would warrant a similar response.”

Interestingly, when Jordan annexed the entire West Bank in 1950 Britain was one one of just a few countries to recognize Jordanian sovereignty.
 
Meh. For all intents and purposes, the two state solution is dead, perhaps nobody has done more to kill it than Netanyahu.

The Israelis may as well start more formally annexing parts of the West Bank, it will at least bring things more to a head and it will be a bit more of a struggle to hide behind technicalities regarding what they're doing.
 


Don’t see it myself but who knows? Clear enough that Moscow is sick of him.
 
2cents said:
“The signatories...point out that the UK did not hesitate to sanction Russia after the annexation of Crimea, claiming any move in the West Bank would warrant a similar response.”
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do they write stuff like this just to get me mad
 
Leaked papers from OPCW shows the Director Arias lied. The two whistleblowers were right and OPCW was wrong. Ian Henderson led the team and all documents show that.
No wonder the public don't trust these international organisations when they have untrustworthy people leading those. I wonder what kind of dirt CIA has on Arias?
 
africanspur said:
Meh. For all intents and purposes, the two state solution is dead, perhaps nobody has done more to kill it than Netanyahu.

The Israelis may as well start more formally annexing parts of the West Bank, it will at least bring things more to a head and it will be a bit more of a struggle to hide behind technicalities regarding what they're doing.
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A one state solution, with equal rights for all and a right of return is and should be the just outcome. It'll likely never happen in our lifetimes, but it is the only fair solution IMO.
 


There are very few countries worse than Eritrea. Isaias Afwerki is a paranoid, autocratic, narcissistic despot whose political ballast derives from Maoism.
 
There’s a really good documentary series on iPlayer- Once Upon a Time in Iraq, which tells the story of the Iraq war through testimonies of Iraqi civilians, soldiers and other actors in the conflict. Some really interesting testimonies.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
There’s a really good documentary series on iPlayer- Once Upon a Time in Iraq, which tells the story of the Iraq war through testimonies of Iraqi civilians, soldiers and other actors in the conflict. Some really interesting testimonies.
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Been watching it, it’s excellent. Nate Sassaman is a decent representative for the American shit-show there, and should probably have spent the last decade defending himself in The Hague rather than giving motivational talks on leadership.
 
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