athenasius
Well-Known Member
Saudi Arabia is almost all Sunni and part of those Sunnis are Wahabist extremists such as the guy who planned and executed 911. Iran and it's friendlies are Shia like Syria (an offshoot of Shia) and Lebanon's Hezbollah with the exception of Turkey which is also Sunni. Some exceptions apply.
BUT Iran's Shia even with Syria and Lebanon is a minority world wide, I think I read about 10% but they want to take over the whole thing.
90% of Muslims world wide are SUNNI and so is Saudi Arabia where the 2 holiest sites are; Mecca and Medina.
Iran wants to control Mecca and Medina. Taking that away from Saudi Arabia would give them more leverage over the Muslim "Umma" which is their word for the muslim world as a whole. Forcing Shia Islam on the rest of the Muslim world.
Enter Turkey who want to control Islam much as they did under the Turkish Caliphate up till WW1. They keep things hopping in Israel and the Temple Mount because they want to control Syria, plus Jerusalem AND the whole muslim world plus force Iran into Sunni Muslim idealogy.
Jordan is odd. The king of Jordan is from descendants of Mohammed and his great grandfather and the previous generations WERE in control of Mecca and Medina since Mohammed's day.
They are Sunni but they are also enemies of the Saudis because the SAUDIS talked Britain into giving them Mecca and Medina
And that was how Britain gave Jordan which was part of the territory to be given to Israel, over to the King in place of Mecca and Medina.
This is why the Jordanian royal family isn't secure in Jordan as that was the original "Palestinian" state. It WAS a 2 state solution already back at the end of WW1 courtesy of the backstabbing Brits who wanted Saudi oil more than keeping their word that Lord Balfour gave in the Balfour declaration.
It's why Jordan would have to be given major incentives to accept their own Pali refugees from the camps in the West Bank back into Jordan where they came from. They fund terror over in the West Bank (so called because in 1948 when Jordan invaded Israel they annexed it from Israel and put settlers there) and they don't want the troublesome types that have generations of terrorism built into their society.
Right now Israel and Saudi Arabia are getting friendly for 2 reasons. The first is from Saudi's perspective. They view America under Biden as weak and don't see Trump coming back. They need good allies against Iran. Israel is the strongest army and the best people to help the Saudi's stop Iran from taking over Saudi Arabia. As such they've got an agreement (not sure how official it is) that if Israel wants to bomb the daylights out of Iran, they are welcome to fly over Saudi territory.
The second is also pragmatic. Saudis and Israel along with Jordan want a railway taking oil from the eastern side of Arabia to end points in the Gulf of Aqaba or Eilat where it can continue by sea or by train further to the Mediterranean. This stops the threat of Iranians blowing up the oil tankers as they sail thru the OTHER side of Arabia across from Iran in the Persian Gulf.
That new city NEOM that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia is building is poised along the route of the train.
2 countries that work with Iran on the Saudi Arabian area are Qatar and Yemen. Yemen is terrorism pure and simple and is being used by Iran to attack as far north as Mecca and Medina occaisionally. Qatar is a diplomatic friend and puppet regime for Iran.
I know that all sounds horribly foggy and intertwined but that is how the Arabs and other Muslims operate.
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