you said Trump announced it like that means he's an integral part of it, thats an example of him announcing something that he had nothing to do with. im not saying he had literally nothing to do with this deal, im simply suggesting he had less to do with it than he'd admit.

see timeline i posted above, its not as if the UAE and Israel were in full on war mode Saudi/Iran style previous to these talks.

as to your questions, it suggests that the factions of Islam are now more at odds than progressive Islam and Israel. in my opinion that means we're on a track for violence, not peace, and Iran will either be embargoed until it falls to internal revolution, or violently torn down by a coalition of Muslim nations while Israel does overhead surveillance and provides weapons. none of that has to do with Trump either, Iran's spiral into madness predates both him and Obama.

stop applying a false binary, my answer is neither trump good or trump bad, its trump neutral. i dont see any leverage that he's used, and is therefore not very involved, so in that sense i think good move. why poke OPEC or threaten Israel's weapons to make a peace deal between two already tenuous allies happen?

How are you making this assessment. 99.9% of the geopolitics that matter in this world happen behind closed doors. I'm sure Putin and Erdogan or Putin and el-Sisi have had convos and maybe talked grown up business and we probably will never know anything about it.

Like it's difficult for me to divorce what's happening now and Trump's administration animosity towards Iran because if you understand the ME dynamics they can't be divorced. These are all related issues and neither you or i know what's been promised or conceded behind closed doors.

Trump: i wont point in your direction when you saw a guy into pieces.. *you owe me one.
UAE: we will say you helped on this deal.. *we are even

jokes on you i have horrible taste even without the rona, spotted cow tastes like coors light to me

Spotted Cow is pretty mild-flavored, anyway. You gotta get a Raspberry Tart to see if your taste buds have been rona'd or not.

im using fairly simple algebra, UAE and Israel were on the brink of peace talks before Trump took office but they fell apart due to a lack of concessions for Palestinian settlements. now Israel is willing to make enough concessions to get the deal done. that leads to one of two options, Israel legit is stepping up to the table, or both Israel and UAE are more desperate to take down Iran, or realistically both. that leads to options where Trump has done something to change Israel's position, or Israel is changing their position because of the growing threat of Iran, or realistically both.

which begs the question, what leverage does Trump have to make Israel shift? i can only think of arms deals, and i dont see him using that leverage in earnest. it seems far simpler to me that the most progressive nation that is growing more and more progressive while Iran regresses more and more is now ready to make a deal and Trump put a cherry of some kind on the sundae. likely promises to support conflict against Iran, as if that was ever in question, he was always going to do that.

i realize behind closed doors deals will never get confirmed, that doesnt mean we cant speculate. im in the position that trump doing almost nothing is the best move for the USA, open to have my mind changed tho.



clenches fist wisconsinly

This post was edited by thesnipa on Aug 13 2020 02:40pm

We're still the hegemon of the world and still have a deep vested interest in what's happening in the ME. Two players that hated each other historically coming together because of a shared enemy makes somewhat sense. Two players that we have deep relationships with coming together because we're the 5 ton gorilla in the room making sure these lesser players find common ground and have their sights set on the 'real' threat makes more sense. I doubt this relationship would happen if we didn't ok it and our interests were aligned with the general anti-iran alliance.

ME is such an interesting place with all of the different alignments. Like Turkey overnight went from almost near war with Russia to being pretty close with them with the Russians warning them about that coup. Now look at a place like Libya and try to decipher the alignment mess. Russia, UAE, Egypt all support Haftar while Turkey is sending troops to the other side. It's like game of thrones IRL with the constantly shifting alliances.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Aug 13 2020 03:05pm

but they already had this relationship before this almost to this extent. They got together during the Obama administration to ask us and Russia to be hard on Iran. We were soft on them and putin got them hard and finished them.

Murica fapping hard on killed palestinian children.

I really wouldnt call an alliance that includes Saudi-Arabia and Egypt "progressive Islam". Even when it comes to Dubai... yes, Dubai is probably the most progressive muslim country in the ME, but it should still be kept in mind that they are about as far to the right of Alabama Republicans as Alabama Republicans are to the right of California Democrats. Social norms and ideology in this region of the world operate on a totally different scale than those in the West.

Otherwise, I basically agree with your view on the issue. The trend of rapproachment between Israel and the Gulf monarchies is a long-term one that had already been going on for quite some time. I really dont think that the influence by the Trump administration was the factor that got these peace talks over the hump. Trump and his admin officials seemingly played some positive role, and he deserves credit and praise for it, but his impact is most definitely blown out of proportion.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 13 2020 03:30pm