Never thought I’d see Mr. Fogle dethroned as Worst Jared in my lifetime.
Well, I guess we’re all in on the new regime now. Personally, I’m not at all concerned by Trump’s eagerness to back leaders consolidating their power through mass arrests.
The Saudis keep making noises about Lebanon and Reuters at least keeps acting like it’s a big deal. I don’t get it. They have no cards to play there. All their attempts at building up Sunni militias there have been failures. The Christians hate them. I can’t think of any plausible way their military is a threat to Lebanon.
My best guess is that they’re trying to manipulate the Trump administration into seeing them as the victims of Iran/Hezbollah. But it’s hard to tell because in that part of the world they really are playing 3-dimensional chess and thinking many moves ahead. And it’s possible that Saudi Arabia right now is being run by a guy who is trying to play 3-dimensional chess but is really bad at it.
Saudi Arabia is nothing more than a corporate kleptocracy masquerading as a nation. Working from that, it’s pretty much predictable what they’ll try and do.
I’m confused; the Saudi military dwarfs the Lebanese military, or do you mean in terms of being a legitimate threat at overthrowing them? If that’s the case, then yeah - I just don’t see that happening.
They don’t share a border, though. How would the Saudi military even get to Lebanon?
Depends what their goal is. If it’s just to cause damage, they don’t need to bother with land forces; cruise missiles and maybe air strikes through the air of their buddy, Jordan, and either Lebanon’s routine combatant Israel or the currently embroiled Syria.
Invasion and overthrow? Yeah, not too possible without it being a wider conflict.
Flying through Syria would mean going past the Russian air defenses there. Flying through Israel to attack fellow Arabs would be extremely unpopular. Maybe they could go over Egypt if they used aerial refueling, but would Egypt want to get involved?
So I don’t think it can be ruled out, but it doesn’t seem likely.
Just as importantly, what the hell is there in Lebanon to attack? I mean, after decades of civil war, unrest, and random incursions by Israel, there doesn’t seem to be much anyone would want to or need to whack with a cruise missile.
True, but if one is making a proportional response based on a cruise missile that blew up in the sky … that rubble looks like a good target, lol
I can’t imagine Israel being kosher with armed Saudi planes that close to their border.
Depends. Israeli policy is nothing if not opportunistic. Depending on which targets were being, well, targeted, it’s entirely possible the IAF would even facilitate the operation, if covertly. Middle Eastern politics is about as murky as it gets.
True. They might “escort” them with interceptors, let them hit their targets and go home.
If they deviate even slightly said “escorts” blow them out of the sky.
Beirut was a party town. It’s where Westernised rich Arab kids went to party.
Hezbollah command centres so well built and hidden the Israelis had problems with them but I guess unlike the Israelis the Saudis don’t have a problem striking arms depots kept in schools and hospitals, so there is your answer.
Then, after the attack, they would express concern and offer thoughts and prayers
Every EU4 player knows you need to get military access from the countries that are in between. Where Saudi Arabia went wrong is that they forgot to do this before declaring war, it’s such a n00b mistake.
If I were in that situation and couldn’t get military access I would just declare war on the countries in between so I could roll right through. Geez I hope they don’t ever read this post.
You go, girl.
This seems bad, is this bad?
Could be really bad.
Or it could be that the Prince really wants an external enemy for folks to focus on right now rather than looking too closely at his coup.
Clearly, only having Yemen, Iraq and Syria trashed because of a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is not enough-- got to blow up Lebanon as well. And the biggest reason Iran is a threat to Saudi Arabia is because it is more democratic, oddly enough. Good to know that we are backing the right side on this one.