Obama and Carter in Saudi Arabia
According to the Associated Press, the President is meeting with King Salman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in hopes of strengthening relationships with the Kingdom. The Saudis are worried that Congress will blame the Saudis for 9-11 during their latest investigation. To express their mistrust of Obama, a lower-ranking prince met him at the airport;
Stepping off of Air Force One earlier at King Khalid International Airport, Obama was greeted not by King Salman but by a lower-ranking royal, Prince Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud, the governor of Riyadh.
[…]
Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Gulf Research Center, said the Saudi decision not to dispatch a high-level delegation to greet the president was unusual and intended to send a clear message that they have little faith in him.
“He will find a leadership that’s not ready to believe him,” Alani said. “The Saudis had disagreements with previous presidents. Here you have deep distrust that the president won’t deliver anything.”
Meanwhile, Ashton Carter, the US Secretary of Defense, is meeting with regional defense ministers to encourage them to put a little more skin in the game against ISIS;
A senior defense official said the defense chiefs had a robust discussion, but came to no solid agreements on the increased aid.
The official said it appears the Gulf nations will be willing to consider doing more. But the Sunni leaders want to wait until they see more political improvements in Baghdad and greater participation and aid for the Sunni population before they agree to do more. Iraq is a Sunni-majority country with a Shiite-led government.
The U.S. has been unhappy with what the Gulf nations have been willing to do in the fight, both with their military forces and financial contributions.
Basically, the Obama Administration has a good strategy for the war against ISIS, that being using US firepower to support the Arabs in their ground war against ISIS. However, in practice it’s not working out, mostly because the Arabs aren’t doing their part – that’s because Obama is depending on his incompetent team – Biden, Carter and Kerry – to do the hard work of convincing the Arabs to pick up their load. Because of political pressure from home, US troops can’t fight a ground war against ISIS with a restrictive set of rules of engagement that won’t allow them to kill the bad guys. The Arabs have no such restrictions. Obama should let Iran have their way with ISIS in order to convince the Arabs to do their fair share.
The war against ISIS won’t be successful until they’re all bloody heaps in the sand, and only the Persians and the Arabs can do that.
Category: Terror War
Lars will be by later to splain all this.
Unless he’s off railing against Mike Rowe again…
Mike Rowe is 600,000 times the man Lars could ever be.
Ha! Always wondered if that was the same Lars. That about figures…
Yup… after he’s done with the latest SJW protest at Bezerkley for Safe Spaces for Transexual Students from Transylvania or raging against white privilege at the local Food Co-Op.
“The Saudis are worried that Congress will blame the Saudis for 9-11 during their latest investigation.”
Hmm, I wonder. Why, oh why would they be worried about that? /sarc
Besides, when have the Saudis not tried to get America to do their fighting for them?
Even the Saudi’s mistrust him these days and sent a gopher prince to greet him, I guess he no longer rates the head prince, and this the POTUS that bowed to them and kissed their royal azses a few years ago…I wonder if we’ll get another such nationally embarrassing display of weakness over the next few days ? oh the joy of having such corrupt, manipulative, foreign policy weak and incompetent all in 1 package non-leadership, that the media or office of propaganda is in luv with……..;-(…I don’t get it ???? it will be more of the same nonsense or worse, if the nation allows Hillary to get the shot of her wet dream at power and control.
That’s just what I was thinking. I’m sure CNN and MSNBC will show him genuflecting in front of the underling prince, meanwhile Obama will be unaware of the significance of that signal. What a fucking embarassment.
There seems to be a pattern emerging, when it’s Buh-rock showing up at a foreign country. The host nation shows their pleasure by not sending their head of state to greet him.
Didn’t Raul Castro sleep through Buh-rocks Havana arrival? Obviously, his arrival wasn’t all that.
Yep. Castro snubbed him too. I think I’ll start keeping track.
US-Saudi relations have been an unprecedented free fall since the Iran deal. I feel as if they won’t get much better (at least) until the next administration comes in.
‘…intended to send a clear message that they have little faith in him.’
Yeah, Your Majesty, get right in line with the rest of us on that score. I wouldn’t send my cat to meet him, either.
Probably had to send the goober prince because the head of the sanitation department head could not be found.
Did Obama and Carter fly together? If so, I see a movie in the making … The Sum of All Dimwits. Sure to be a blockbuster. I’m sure Obama will lecture them about their treatment of women, gays, outspoken critics, etc. Oh, wait, not so much. Carter will lecture them about acceptance of women, gays, transgenders, etc. into their military. But, first, the Saudis would have to stop executing members of those groups.
I’m pretty sure that stonings and beheadings have been put on hold for the duration of the visit. The date vendors are pissed but I hear there will be a two double beheaders the day after Jimmah and Baracka leave. (Try the veal.)
“Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Gulf Research Center, said the Saudi decision not to dispatch a high-level delegation to greet the president was unusual and intended to send a clear message that they have little faith in him.” No shit. Who does? But I’m not at all certain the Saudi Big Guy and the Saudi Little Big Guys avoided the airport greeting for that reason. More likely, it was one of those “just in case” decisions.
Maybe the Saudis snub and mistrust the administration because they handed nukes to IRAN and are actively grooming that evil terroristic religious monstrosity to become the regional hegemon, all through our own diplomatic incompetence.
Just a thought…