Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran have increased dramatically on the world stage after the drone strikes on Saudi ARAMCO facilities. Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of ordering the strike, although the circumstances have yet to be clearly investigated and potentially suggest more that what is immediately available.
Having noted this, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford said this past Friday that the US will deploy small units of troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They would be equipped with air defense capabilities including Patriot missiles and woulds serve to protect against any “Iranian threats” that might endanger commerce or oil production in the region.
Dunford said that “It’s fair to say not thousands” would deploy, indicating the number would be in the hundreds. This came after a White House meeting with President Donald Trump and his national security team at which Esper and Dunford went through a list of Iranian provocations in the region, including the recent drone incident, and provided military “options” to counter Iran.
“This is a first step” in sending a “clear message that the U.S. supports our partners in the region,” Esper said.
Esper said Trump, who earlier announced additional economic sanctions on Iran, had approved the deployment to “protect our citizens and interests in the region.” This comes at a time when the announcement by Esper and Dunford eased concerns that the U.S. was considering a retaliatory strike that could spark a regional war. But, Esper said, other “options” were under consideration should they become necessary.
The presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia is not uncommon, and it something that the Saudis want. For the Americans, it is that they safeguard the oil production there because the US economy runs on oil and without the oil the US cannot survive, for even though the US produces her own oil, she still needs to consume a tremendous amount in order to remain in power. The money that she spends on this enriches many people, from bankers and industrialists to the House of Saud.
Likewise, one must remember that the House of Saud appears strong but is very weak. The nation is wracked by constant internal fighting with her own people who hate the family and struggle to keep control over them. Her northern neighbors of Turkey and Iran have already signed treaties of friendship with each other along with Saudi Arabia’s neighbors, and are looking for the opportune time to invade and destroy Saudi Arabia. Most of the Muslim world does not like Saudi Arabia, so she has little public support. After the US, Saudi Arabia has tried to create frantic alliances with Pakistan and China, but she cannot rely on either because both will look out for their own interests first, and since they too will likely be attacked, it is possible that it will be a situation where each party will have to fend for his own needs.
This leaves Saudi Arabia in the current position that she finds herself in, which is dependent on the Americans and Israelis to supply her with weapons and protection. Without this, the “cold war” that some claim is starting between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and which we at Shoebat.com assert has been going on for a long time between the two nations, could become a shooting war as Turkey, seeking to revive her Ottoman past and with the support of the Muslim world, invades Saudi Arabia and places the royal family upon a field of khazouks to the cheers of the Middle East while declaring the revival of the Ottoman past.
Turkey will not do this so long as the Americans are involved because they cannot fight the Americans and they know it. But Turkey is a patient nation, and if she waited centuries to eat away at the Byzantine Empire to create the Ottoman Empire, she will certainly wait for centuries if need be to give Ottoman punishment to who she regards as blasphemers, apostates from Islam, and usurpers as guardians of the Middle East and Islam, which is something that Turkey regards herself as throughout history.
This is what seems to be the impetus behind the Khashoggi murder as well as the increased US presence, for it appears the older members of the House of Saud wanted to isolate and restrain who they viewed as a younger and dumber generation and keep the US close out of fear of Turkish attempts to depose the family. In the meantime, the Saudis have been buying massive amounts of food as well as weapons from the US, likely to supply their own troops domestically and to send guns to their soldiers fighting the current war in Yemen, but also so spend money on American companies so to keep them close and returning for business.
I noted that there is reason to speculate that the drone attacks against ARAMCO were not from Iran. While one might suggest, and with good reasons to that Israel may have been involved in them for her own benefit to justify conflict with Iran, one must also not rule out potential Saudi involvement too, for if the Saudis either ordered or agreed to any strike on their own facilities that could interrupt the American oil supply, naturally the US will send troops into Saudi to ensure that production does not stop. This is not even about opposing Iran, but about creating a justification for a US military presence which serves to place a restraint on Turkey, who would not consider anything against the nation that does not involve US approval or might damage US interests, especially for something that the US considers to important.
Saudi Arabia is OK for now, but that does not mean she is in good health. Like a terminally ill man whose medicine serves only to help him with more time before his inevitable death, Saudi Arabia is an ill nation that is being propped up by the Americans. Once the US is done using her, Saudi Arabia is over, and her justice from her neighbors will be delivered swiftly and without mercy.