8 Comments

It looks more and more like Blinken and company are in state of panic and they have no one to blame but themselves.

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No, they'll always have Russia to blame, if not China. It's always Russia's fault. We have a leaky faucet on the outside of the house and I'm sure Putin has something to do with it. I mean, that's a reasonable conclusion, isn't it?

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What if anything does the US get?

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Well, you, I, and anyone else in here get nothing. But the US defense industry gets assurances that the US will keep a large footprint in the region and stay mired in Middle East wars for another 100 years. With all that worrying isolationist talk coming from some quarters, they can rest assured that the gravy-train will keep coming in perpetuity.

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That is what is really important to the Biden administration. The defense industry.

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The Administration will sell this as "We gotta give the Saudis whatever they want. Because China!"

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U.S. foreign policy has run off the rails. The U.S. will never leave the Middle East until it is forced out. The proof is evident in its unconditional and shocking support of Israel's vicious genocide and ethic cleansing campaigns in the occupied Palestinian territories along with its outrageous efforts to silence domestic criticism of Israel's grotesque actions which include an outrageous insistence that opposition to Israel's genocide in Gaza qualifies as anti-semitism. The Biden administration is clearly bent on keeping Saudi Arabia and Israel as its twin pillars to project American power in the region. Trump will prove no different.

The neocons who run Biden's foreign policy have failed in the Middle East and against Russia. And they're in the process of failing against China and in the Sahel. Trump will prove no different.

There are no serious U.S. diplomats, only clowns who, for example, threaten China while asking for its help.

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Totally agree with Mr. Larison, as always. But it’s interesting to ponder, for arguments sake, which of the two shit-sandwiches you’d prefer if given a choice—Saudi arms/security guarantees with or without Israeli normalization.

I would much prefer to decouple Israeli normalization with this Plan B than the earlier alternatives.

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