# The US should stay the fuck out of the Saudia Arabia/Yemen(/Iran?) war **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 19, 2019, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501 "2019-09-19T16:11:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/41 "2019-09-20T20:20:14Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > No. It’s an appropriate means of attaining what you said. Not appropriate to me. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/42 "2019-09-20T21:18:12Z")
Yes, I say stay out. I’m tired of the US having to fight other countries battles. Get rid of your own problems. Sidenote: could we cut back on the foul language? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/43 "2019-09-20T21:59:17Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > Then it’s a good thing we still have that treaty with Iran, so we can use abandoning the treaty and restoring sanctions as leverage against this kind of misbehavior … oh, wait … We didn’t have a treaty with Iran. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/44 "2019-09-20T22:22:59Z")
It was pretty clear what the poster was referring to. I got it, anyway. Good luck with that. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/45 "2019-09-20T22:38:13Z")
> [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](#): > > Why is the Iranian regime worse? > > Here’s [a 2016 _Forbes_ article](https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2016/01/05/saudi-arabia-is-washington-frenemy-reckless-riyadh-makes-mideast-more-dangerous-for-america/#7b8f0f3b0a87) about how Saudi Arabia is worse than Iran. I don’t think Bandow makes a very good case. As he acknowledges _“There is much bad to say about Tehran’s Islamic regime. It is authoritarian at home, dominated by intolerant fundamentalism, politically repressive, and a persistent persecutor of minority faiths. The Islamists are interventionists abroad, backing Hezbollah and Syria’s Bashir al-Assad. Long antagonistic to the U.S., Iran has displayed a disturbing interest in nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.”_ And Saudi Arabia? They executed a dissident cleric. Okay, Bandow does say more. But he doesn’t really back up his central claim that the Saudi regime is worse than the Iranian regime. Every argument he offers against the Saudi regime is at least equally true of the Iranian regime. Both are dictatorships that oppose civil rights and use violence against their citizens, both are theocracies that repress other religions, and both interfere in the affairs of other countries in the region. But on a scale of one to ten, Saudi Arabia is a seven and Iran is a nine. And even if the two regimes were equal, any change of regime is going to cause a lot of suffering and death. So the world’s a better place with the Saudi regime staying in power. I know that’s not what a lot of people want to hear. They just want to say that the Saudi regime is bad (which it clearly is) and then leap to the conclusion that any change must therefore be good. But that’s not the way the real world works. Very often things change from bad to worse. Iran itself is an example of that happening. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/46 "2019-09-20T22:59:44Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I believe some may say Iran is worse because it opposes US interventionist policy instead of driving it or at least supporting it. Nationalists like John Bolton are on this side of the argument. Well, yes, I would say that. While some would disagree, I feel that the United States has better intentions than alternatives like China or Russia. So a world in which the United States is powerful is better than a world in which China is powerful or Russia is powerful. And not just for Americans but for people in other countries as well. So, to be blunt, if a country is going to be ruled by a brutal regime then the world’s usually a better place if it’s a brutal regime that supports the United States than a brutal regime that opposes the United States. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/47 "2019-09-20T23:03:05Z")
Yeah. Nobody is calling for the overthrow of the Saudi regime. They are calling for withdrawal of US support of their very poor policies. The US doesn’t support Iran’s very poor policies. As for Iran’s interest in nuclear weapons, that was fabricated out of whole cloth. Even the US and Israeli intelligence agencies were saying Iran had long given up on nukes before Obama’s nuclear deal. Obama and Kerry were so desperate for legacy, they signed a deal that wasn’t bad on its face so much as irrelevant. The Saudis felt they were losing face, so Obama helped with their Yemen war to placate them. Obama admitted this much to, I believe, Jeffrey Goldberg. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/48 "2019-09-20T23:06:02Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Well, yes, I would say that. While some would disagree, I feel that the United States has better intentions than alternatives like China or Russia. So a world in which the United States is powerful is better than a world in which China is powerful or Russia is powerful. And not just for Americans but for people in other countries as well. > > So, to be blunt, if a country is going to be ruled by a brutal regime then the world’s usually a better place if it’s a brutal regime that supports the United States than a brutal regime that opposes the United States. The Saudis are a brutal regime supported by the US and Iran is a brutal regime supported by Russia. On that score it is clear that the US has backed the worse regime. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/49 "2019-09-20T23:13:17Z")
We really need to find someplace new to bomb the shit out of. All this new equipment ain’t going to pay for itself. Armaments are very expensive, then they go boom, and you need more. Looks like Iran is next up to bat. Perpetual war. The economy needs this. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/50 "2019-09-20T23:23:43Z")
It’s rather light on details, but [this AP story](https://apnews.com/053d4cacb6844de584f6a680de1489ab) says: > [@](#): > > President Donald Trump approves deployment of US forces to Saudi Arabia, UAE after attack on oil facilities. Sorry for violating the rule about quoting the whole thing. I couldn’t find a reasonable way to pare that down more than the AP already has. If it helps, let’s just pretend I only quoted the title of the article. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/51 "2019-09-21T00:23:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But on a scale of one to ten, Saudi Arabia is a seven and Iran is a nine. I honestly don’t know that I agree. I think I’ve discussed this before, but I regard SA as being rather more socially retrograde than Iran in its treatment of women, foreigners and in terms of embryonic democratic institutions( which might be barely breathing in Iran, but at least there is a social tradition of them there ). They’re both horribly repressive places that have funded terrorism. I think Iran scores worse on the international scene on average( though SA bears A LOT of quiet responsibility for nurturing the intellectual milieu in which groups like the Taliban emerged ), but I’d regard SA as internally a little worse if you’re not a very discreet royal. But it’s a bit like discussing which is more vile, vegemite or marmite - you can make a reasonable argument either way ;). The biggest thing SA has going for it is realpolitik. It has made its bed, that bed is the United States and though it has its own priorities it seems reasonably committed to sleeping in it. It’s a semi-faithful ally if only because there are no better options for them. Unfortunately it just so happens to be a nasty, repellent ally. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/52 "2019-09-21T00:54:17Z")
> [@Daylate](#): > > P.J. O’Rourke wrote (in a book about the Gulf War) that the press corp had a standing bet of something like a case of champagne to anyone who saw a Saudi lift anything heavier than a 20 dollar bill. > > To my knowledge, the bet was never collected. Let’s leave ethnic jokes, particularly jokes with no factual basis, out of this thread. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/53 "2019-09-21T00:56:46Z")
The issue may have to do with the petrodollar. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/54 "2019-09-21T01:02:17Z")
Why is the Saleh/Houthi/Iran-affiliated seemingly doing much better than the Hadi/government/Saudi-affiliated faction? The desert doesn’t seem like it would kind terrain to unconventional forces against a better equipped adversary with planes and possibly satellite intel. If Iran keeps up its gunboat/missiledrone diplomacy, what could the other side do? It seems like SA or the US could target Iranian energy facilities and networks without needing an Iraq-like invasion. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/55 "2019-09-21T01:12:57Z")
If we’re going to bomb something in Iran, I’d prefer it were IRGC facilities or components of their nuclear enrichment program. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/56 "2019-09-21T02:33:57Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > It’s a semi-faithful ally if only because there are no better options for them. In what ways is Saudi Arabia a “semi-faithful ally”, in your opinion? In the way that they funded 9/11? In the way that they apparently don’t actually fight their own wars? In the way that they murder journalists? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/57 "2019-09-21T03:28:21Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > The desert doesn’t seem like it would kind terrain to unconventional forces against a better equipped adversary with planes and possibly satellite intel. You’re visualizing the country wrong - [Yemen geography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Yemen). There is a indeed huge sand desert in Yemen, but almost nobody lives there. The areas worth fighting over and consequently the region in contention is rugged hill country, some of it on the western slopes actually temperate in climate. It is pretty suited to guerilla warfare and has been the graveyard of a lot of foreign armies over the centuries. Think of it as the Arabian penninsula’s version of Afghanistan. The intractable civil war Egypt participated in in the 1960’s is sometimes referred to as “Egypt’s Vietnam.” > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > In what ways is Saudi Arabia a “semi-faithful ally”, in your opinion? In that they kow-tow( usually )to American regional geopolitical interests, however hegemonic those may be. Don’t get my wrong, I’m not saying that’s necessarily a _good_ thing. I don’t think we should be getting in the middle of this mess either and Saudi Arabia is every bit as shitty a player as certain other notable past developing world U.S. “allies” like the late Shah of Iran. It’s an alliance of convenience only. Once Britain no longer played the role of power broker in the Gulf, the U.S. stepped in as a new patron. So SA is going to allow the U.S. to base combat planes in its air bases, combat ships in its territorial waters and share at least smidgeons of intelligence data with U.S. agencies. Policy wonks in the State department are going to slot them in the ally category. Semi-faithful because they’re not really strong enough to go it alone and they know it. The useful corollary to remember is that semi-faithful also implies semi-unfaithful. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/58 "2019-09-21T04:11:06Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > In what ways is Saudi Arabia a “semi-faithful ally”, in your opinion? > > In the way that they funded 9/11? In the way that they apparently don’t actually fight their own wars? In the way that they murder journalists? I doubt the Saudi government was supporting the Taliban. They’re the kind of regime the Taliban has pledged to overthrow. Basically, there are two centers of power in Saudi Arabia; the Saudi royal family and the Wahhabi religious movement. They don’t really like each other but there’s a division of power. The Saudis give money and support to the Wahhabis and in exchange the Wahhabis agree not to challenge the Saudis in their own country and direct their energies outside of the country. A major test of this partnership occurred in 1979 when a group of Wahhabi extremists seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Their goal was for this to spark a general uprising throughout the country that would overthrow the Saudis and give the country a Wahhabi religious regime. It didn’t work out; there was some rioting but not general uprising. And when the Saudi government ordered its police and troops to break up the siege by force, they showed they were willing to follow Saudi orders and shoot Wahhabi rebels. Both sides learned a lesson. The Wahhabis learned that the people with guns would side with the Saudis in a civil war. But the Saudis learned that the Wahhabis would prefer to get rid of the Saudis if they could make it happen. Moving forward to 2011, people like bin Laden and other Arabs who formed the Taliban are from the Wahhabi side of Arab society. The Saudi side would have been happy if every Taliban member dropped dead overnight. But as long as the Taliban is around, they would prefer to keep it aimed away from themselves and towards regimes in other countries. ---
**Author:** ![str8cashhomie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7cd45c/32.png) [@str8cashhomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/str8cashhomie)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/59 "2019-09-21T04:33:31Z")
Any discussion of the relative goodness of the Saudis vs the Iranians should take into account what Saudi Arabia is currently doing in Yemen. The Saudis are trying to starve Yemen into compliance and have put hundreds of thousands of lives in peril. Given this A- I find it difficult to argue that they act more morally than Iran B- I find it impossible to argue that the US is restraining Saudi Arabia from committing more atrocities than they do. If mass murder isn’t too far, nothing is. The defense for the US support of Saudi Arabia’s war (and mass murder campaign) in Yemen is typically that we prevent civilian casualties. I don’t think this is meaningfully true - it is more accurate to say we prevent direct civilian casualties. We can’t actually prevent civilian casualties while supporting a deliberate attempt to kill civilians. > **[85,000 Children in Yemen May Have Died of Starvation (Published 2018)](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/world/middleeast/yemen-famine-children.html)** > > The aid organization Save the Children said the number was a conservative estimate of those under age 5 who may have died. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2019, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501/60 "2019-09-21T04:40:09Z")
Americans are the last people on earth who should talk about “morals”, in the ME.:rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-should-stay-the-fuck-out-of-the-saudia-arabia-yemen-iran-war/840501.md?page=4)