Context:
(1) “The United Arab Emirates,” today “made a shock request of [Pakistan] — repay $3.5bn immediately” [1].
(2) Saudi-Emirati relations were at an all-time low before the Iran War [2]. (Saudi Arabia just bailed Pakistan out of its Emirati loan. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan agreed a mutual-defence treaty last year [3].)
Put together, we’re seeing an Emirati-Israeli axis emerging to balance Saudi hegemony in the Gulf and Iranian hegemony over the Persian Gulf. I’d expect to see an Emirati deal with Egypt and India next if this hypothesis is correct.
What I don’t yet see is the ambition of the endgame. Is it Saudi Arabia backing off in Africa? Or is it seizing the Musandam Peninsula, islands of the Strait and possibly even territory on the other side?
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/99073d6e-4b57-417f-88fb-7a2c0e55e...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/world/middleeast/yemen-sa...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Mutual_Defence_Agree...
Shouldn’t UAE be upset their entire economy has absolutely rammed by the war started by Israel? At least the Saudis have pipelines - UAE is fucked
It's more complex than that.
Saudi Arabia has the East-West Pipeline [1] that takes ~7Mbpd (million barrels per day) of oil to Red Sea ports to avoid the Strait of Hormuz. They were already using it so there's not a lot of extra capacity they can get out. If we continue up the escalation ladder, the next big risk is that the Houthis close Bab al-Mandab, which is a not-quite-as-narrow but still vulnerable chokepoint to the Red Sea.
The UAE has the ADCOP (Abu Dhabi Cross Oil Pipeline) [2], which takes ~1.8Mbpd to the Gulf of Oman. This is beyond the Strait of Hormuz but not that far so technically is still vulnerable to drone attacks (in particular) from Iran if, again, we climb the escalation ladder.
The real issue is American security guarantees to GCC nations have been shown to be an illusion. Heck, the US can't protect their own bases in the region. Also, the US can't protect maritime traffic through the Strait. I mean this is in all seriousness: there is no military solution to this problem short of the use of nuclear weapons.
That means we are now in a situation where the US has to either split with Israel and offer Iran significantly better terms than they had before the war, likely including the lfiting of economic sanctions, or the US has to sit and watch the world plunge into recession and Asian countries in particular are going to burn. And who knows what a prolonged impasse will do to Europe, particularly come winter.
So far, the US seems to prefer letting the world burn rather thans plitting with Israel.
A protection racket ceases to be a protection racket if it no longer offers protection.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E2%80%93West_Crude_Oil_Pi...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habshan%E2%80%93Fujairah_oil_p...
> So far, the US seems to prefer letting the world burn rather thans plitting with Israel.
That is the plan: After decoupling the EU from Russia gas by provoking the Ukraine war, now it is time for the Asian countries to be cut off from gulf oil/gas, so the US fracking projects become economical and the entire "allied" countries depend on the US petrostate.
It is the only way to preserve US hegemony. Since this long term project is bipartisan, higher gas prices in the US don't matter before the midterm elections.
The only difference in foreign policy between Trump and Biden is that Trump is more risk taking and often spells out the real intentions, such as "we'll take the oil".
> Asian countries in particular are going to burn
They won't sit still, though. Eventually, if this were tried, we'd see Chinese-flagged tankers buying passage rights from Iran and being escorted by PLAN ships.
No way does Commander TACO take that shot. The US interdiction threat in the gulf is empty, and everyone know it. Iran gets paid at the end of every story. The whole boondoggle has been a failure for the US in every analysis.
> escorted by PLAN ships
This would be a blunder by Beijing. It would involve trotting their ships through half a world of American and allied sensors, only to put an untested-in-blue-waters navy perilously far from nearest bases or support if anything goes wrong.
I’m not saying the likes of Xi, Putin or Trump couldn’t do it. But it would be an intelligence bonanza for the West, India, Japan and Taiwan.
I suspect USN commanders have been ordered to leave Chinese flagged tankers well alone, even in the absence of a PLAN escort.
The escorts wouldn't be for defense, they'd be for PR.
>That means we are now in a situation where the US has to either split with Israel and offer Iran significantly better terms than they had before the war, likely including the lfiting of economic sanctions, or the US has to sit and watch the world plunge into recession and Asian countries in particular are going to burn. And who knows what a prolonged impasse will do to Europe, particularly come winter.
I have the impression that somehow if the world will go into a recession, China will come out ahead. It looks like they either prepared for it or they have enough space to maneuver.
The UAE is over-collateralized. They can sustain such a conflict for a very long time.
davidf18 your post (and all your recent posts) is flagged dead.
UAE is the third largest producer in OPEC, and has options to avoid the straight, yet Their economy recently get shocked though by the war they wanted to avoid
strait
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Even when Israel strikes first, someone else started it. Brilliant!
hmm isn't the whole thing a continuation of "revenge against hamas's attack on Oct 7th 2023" ?
hamas being a proxy to iran, I don't get why people think iran as some "peace loving, innocent country"
well, are they?
raping/killing some *foreigners* and displaying their bodies as parade...
well that's not very "peace loving and innocent" is it?
When you make a ceasefire and then strike first, that’s called being the aggressor.
How many civilians has Israel killed since oct 7? When is it enough?
Israel killed >50k civilians since October 7 between all the conflicts
Revenge is not a justification for destroying civilizations.
Israelis also rape, kill, and do other vile things to prisoners, innocent or guilty, who they imprison with or without charge.
> Israelis also rape, kill, and do other vile things to prisoners, innocent or guilty, who they imprison with or without charge.
well but do israelis parade their dead rape victims openly?
> When you make a ceasefire and then strike first
well that's between trump and iran? did netanyahu agree?
I agree that netanyahu is being a dick here: he should have focused on iran, instead of invading lebanon. That alone is a huge political/PR mistake
but... how's that ceasefire related? is israel a proxy of usa? does Trump control israel directly?
Ethically, the israel politicians goes at great length NOT to damage civilians: the walkie-talkie bomb is a classic example of "try to kill all the militants WITHOUT carpet bombing"
(though they failed to "kill all" with that scheme, and... well they did bomb a lot after that)
> well but do israelis parade their dead rape victims openly?
1) why is that an important distinction?
2) but since you asked, they do, western media just refuse to show it but all you need to do is follow a bunch of israeli instagram accounts and you'll see more than enough sooner rather than later
> 2) but since you asked, they do, western media just refuse to show it but all you need to do is follow a bunch of israeli instagram accounts and you'll see more than enough sooner rather than later
woah... big claims here! maybe you should post source?
> well but do israelis parade their dead rape victims openly?
Ah, this is where you draw the line?
well where do YOU draw the line then?
One side openly tries to do maximum death on everyone including infants (eg. fire random missiles, intifada, and the oct 7th attack)
The other side at least tried their best NOT to attack back (expensive missile defense systems) or at least kill only the militants selectively (walkietalkie boomboom)
I mean, you should be ashamed of even comparing israel vs iran/hamas/etc
> One side openly tries to do maximum death on everyone including infants
That would be israel with special focus on journalists and doctors
> The other side at least tried their best NOT to attack back
As idiotic as it is, Iran shown more restraint then Israel and USA against other countries. Internaly not, but ouyside yes. They played tit for tat.
> Iran shown more restraint then Israel and USA against other countries > They played tit for tat.
like... firing missiles at UAE...? launching drone to dubai tower?
did India do anything to iran to get its ships fired upon?
blocking hormuz strait... that alone was enough to trigger global coalition -- though due to Trump's trade dick move to allies... no one sent troops...
if it's "tit for tat", then why does iran make so many un-related countries suffer (eg india?)
well simple: iran is the new pirate of 21st century. nothing more or less.
if anyone says "that's because US attacked", then if I got hit by a car, can I have my revenge on nearby pedestrians?
First paragraph
> On 1 April, Israel bombed an Iranian consulate complex in Damascus, Syria, killing multiple senior Iranian officials.[28] In response, Iran and its Axis of Resistance allies seized the Israeli-linked ship MSC Aries and launched strikes inside Israel on 13 April.[6]
Not to mention, Israeli occupations in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. Iran is not the only bad actor.
Yes, they hit the building in Syria where Iran and proxy military leadership were meeting two weeks prior. That’s a lot different than attacking another country directly, let alone recklessly targeting civilians as Iran has in every attack they’ve led or had proxies lead.
That’s 2024, you said the proxies started it in 2023?
Yes, this was about the direct strikes between Iran and Israel.
I assumed you were aware of the most widely publicized conflict in human history, but just in case you’re serious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_7_attacks
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-fighters-trained...
https://israel-alma.org/special-report-for-years-iran-planne...
There was extensive planning for a multi front attack including Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The story of this war is the previous idea in Israel that you could work out with an extremely religious enemy at the border as underneath their claiming to want to destroy you, they are rational.
After Hamas decided to go on a national suicide for no achievement except for a single day of an orgy of violence and the complete destruction of gaza, that view has changed.
This puts Hezbollah similar to Hamas, and their patron Iran ballistic and nuclear weapon program in a different light, and makes preemptive strikes and the complete destruction of the Iranian Axis (largely successful) as an important goal for Israel
I hope the FBI and DHS take note of American tech workers who support Iran and its proxies. No government agency should go anywhere near a YCombinator company.
This sentiment strikes me as somewhat beneath the usual caliber I see here. Perhaps it would serve you well to step away from the keyboard for a while: take a walk, grab a drink at a bar, enjoy a quiet evening, and allow some real-world perspective to settle in.
Is that what I’m doing? Am I providing support to Iran? Or am I just expressing an opinion that criticizes Israel?
You don't have to support Iran, to condemn Israel.
Agreed. One doesn’t dictate the other’s signal—step away from the monitor, let the noise fade, and you’ll notice they’re running on parallel tracks.
Lol you mean until two years from now, when tides will inevitably shift?
The so-called "Zion-don" won't be in office forever, despite what he seems to believe.
Look at the polling. The current U.S. stance on Iran and Israel is extremely unpopular. It's only a matter of time before a natural course correction occurs, and the voters' voice is heard, whether at the upcoming midterms or the next presidential election.
And let me tell you, if you think HN is bad, you better not check Zoomer social media.
protesting an idiotic war started for Israel is not supporting Iran. Seems obvious!
Iran has been using Hezbollah to attack Israel for over 30 years now. The explicit goal of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas is the destruction of Israel.
Absolute bullcrap. Hezbollah was created to stop illegal Israeli occupation of Lebanon. What hezbollah has done to the Israelis is nothing more than what they deserve
> Shouldn’t UAE be upset their entire economy has absolutely rammed by the war started by Israel?
It's pretty convoluted logic to blame Israel for Iran attacking the UAE.
The problems the UAE has are not based on Iran attacking the UAE but Iran closing the Strait - which is a direct and foreseeable result of Israel attacking Iran.
The US and Israel attacking Iran. Also with the Saudis heavily lobbying Trump to do it as well.
The Saudi crown prince wants Trump to continue the war still.
1: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-israel-attack-iran-iran-i... 2: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/us/politics/saudi-prince-...
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Someone's going to have to provide me with an explainer of how many different proxy forces are involved in Yemen. I can barely keep up with Lebanon and have forgotten Syria.
> an explainer of how many different proxy forces are involved in Yemen
RealLifeLore has been doing a decent job covering it [1].
The broad summary is you have the Saudi-backed unity government, the Iranian-backed Houthis, who claim all of Yemen but practically want North Yemen, and the UAE-backed STC, who also claim all of Yemen but practically want South Yemen. Emiratis bring the Israelis to the party. The Iranians bring the Russians. The Saudis bring various international elements (I know less about them than the Houthis and STC).
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IgD7zmJN3_A&pp=0gcJCVACo7VqN5t...
Johnny Harris has a pretty decent video on the topic as well
Johnny Harris is astoundingly wrong about most things, so I'll skip it thanks
Years ago I had found his channel and liked it, and then some video (I don’t remember the title or even subject at this time) came up on a subject I happened to know quite a bit about. He got to some point in an explanation, bungled it, and then hand-waved it away, saying the details were unimportant.
Stopped caring about anything he had to say after that, and I also then realized that there was a an entire genre of “person with no actual expertise reads Wikipedia articles and explains them with good lighting and high production quality.”
Same. It was the "How The U.S. Ruined Bread" video for me after which I started watching critically and found the editing style to be over the top and makes it harder to think about the content while it's being presented. So I eventually stopped watching.
Interesting. I had a similar experience with Veritasium’s video on kinetic bombardment, where I think they dismissed the concept based on tossing bowling balls out of helicopters onto sandcastles.
Do you have a reputable sources to back up your claims here? Johnny cites sources pretty consistently.
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health-a...
> The quick cuts and dazzling montages, as well as the dramatic shots of Harris absorbed by a document he’s unearthed, highlighting it suspensefully in tight close-ups, all lend credence to the often-excellent work he does. But it also makes it easy to mask his mistakes. And for someone who takes journalism to heart, his mistakes are big, leading to oversimplification and an occasional lapse in skepticism.
[...]
> In a video that garnered 8.5 million views and which Harris thumbnailed with the words “WE HAVE PROOF,” Harris explores the recent craze over UFO sightings—sorry, UAP sightings, meaning unexplained anomalous phenomena. In passing, he mentions Mick West, who has done excellent work debunking a lot of blurry footage of what is alleged to be high-tech spy drones or aliens.
> But the bulk of the video is spent leering at report after report—a total of 144 are being investigated by the U.S. government right now!—while original music amps up the mystery. The emphasis on evidence over context is key to Harris’ style: flood the space with visuals that keep your attention and elicit questions and only occasionally pull back to explain.
Most things? That's a really strong claim, do you have anything to back it up with? Just a couple videos here and there wouldn't cut it, given how strong your claim is.
For what it's worth I watch his videos and he seems to touch on incredibly valuable topics I would never hear about otherwise, like [1].
STC was defeated after a Saudi bombing campaign, and their independent nation quashed. While there might be holdouts here and there, they are a non-entity now.
Quite impressive how they folded. UAE bluff was called spectacularly and I think that, in the future, looking back, that event might mark the beginning of the end of their geopolitical ambitions.
> that event might mark the beginning of the end of their geopolitical ambitions.
i hope so, they have been one of the biggest sources of discord in the Middle East, funding civil wars in Libya, Sudan, Yemen, funding a coup in Egypt.
Best of luck! These proxy wars have existed since the days of Assyria. 3000 years and running.
Kind of depressing thought actually.
> Kind of depressing thought actually
I gotchu: https://youtu.be/-evIyrrjTTY ("This Land is Mine", 3 min)
Finally, a history video I fully understand
Brilliant video. Thank you.
I tried to make sense of middle eastern politics once. My conclusion has been „It’s complicated.“
Reminds me of this (by now completely outdated) middle east friendship chart I once came across.
[0]: https://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/07/17/the_middle...
I'd go to you for information before I'd go to the people who say, "It's really all pretty simple..."
Yes - but complicated by what.
Not really there are time of instability but large stretches of stable government usually under a single empire the Persians, Rome, Caliphs and then Ottomans. The current shit show is due to a western induced collapse of the ottomans and then western powers ensuring no single nation can once again enforce that stability.
>Not really there are time of instability but large stretches of stable government usually under a single empire the Persians, Rome, Caliphs and then Ottomans.
The Gulf countries now are in a far better condition than they were under the Ottomans (and than modern Turkey). "Stability" is what led the Ottoman Empire to devolve into a backwards, economically undeveloped society that was incapable of competing with the west.
Lots of things have existed throughout history, yet we have overcome them in the last few hundred years. There is peace in Europe (west of Russia) which had as ancient conflict as Yemen; there is democracy, freedom, women have equal rights in much of the world, starvation and many diseases are mostly overcome, warfare is very rare and not an omnipresent threat, ...
Thank goodness our predecessors didn't think this way. They thought that through reason, hard word, and humanism they could overcome these things, and they did. No doubt there were plenty of naysayers.
What will we do with our turn?
I wouldn't get too complacent about peace in Europe. The peace in the last 80 years or so was the result of very specific conditions that no longer apply.
The EU is at heart the European peace project, and it very much still applies.
I think your assessment of whatever the "specific condition" is, is wrong.
While I commend the positive attitude and I tend to have a positive view on the trajectory of humanity.
This part of the planet has been almost intractable since the age of Hammurabi - it is quite fractured without any current overarching unity or framework. There isn't a dominant religion (similar to Europe) or shared values. I could say almost meaningless things like "thought that through reason, hard word, and humanism they could overcome these things" which would make little of the hard truths of the long histories of the varied peoples and fractions of the area.
It would almost seem naive to say things like because we've solved some tough problems in the last century we can solve all problems.
I think you gloss over much and certainly give yourself a mightier than thou feeling with your "Thank goodness our predecessors didn't think this way".
I too hope for peaceful resolution and stability but fall back to the historic record of success especially in a place that is constantly, recently and historically decimated by war among fiefdoms.
Europe didn’t have a common religion after the Reformation (at least not in the sense people who lived there at the time would recognise).
In fact it was wars with a strong religious element between Protestant and catholic factions that tore Europe apart for centuries afterwards
Europe didn't have a common religion before the reformation as well. There were literal crusades inside Europe including against other christians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Crusades
No dominant religion in the Middle East? Haha!
The reason is fractured is because of the inherent tribalism within the cultures of the region. Strip away the tribalism (Oman, Qatar, UAE to an extent), concentrate the people near a few cities (Egypt), or provide them a unifying overarching culture (Iran, Turkey), and you get some success. In fact, the early Islamic empires were heavily mired in infighting even though they were "unified" under the Caliphate, in spite of the Prophet's calls for the "Ummah" (One Islamic Nation). I would even argue that Islam's biggest contribution to the region was in providing a specific administrative framework with which to shed the tribal infighting and unite culturally similar but disparate peoples together. It's also why Israel succeeded as a nation with its European flavor of nation-state identity.
An Israeli intelligence officer perhaps correctly attributed it to the past culture of water scarcity and needing to protect your water sources. That is, in the desert, there are only so many sources of water, and if someone steals it away from you, you simply die. So that created a culture of inherent suspicion of outsiders and people outside the clan, even though they all share the same customs and culture.
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I think there are only 3. Houthis (iran), PLC (saudi), and STC (UAE).
I guess Al-Qaeda and Isis are also there.
On whose side is Turkey? Or is it charting its own path?
Turkey’s main goal is preventing the establishment of a Kurdish state for fear of losing it’s Kurdish region.
It’s doing its own thing, mainly in Syria, Libya, and Somalia afaik.
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No it doesn't.
In the Middle East everyone fights with everyone else and everyone is in covert or open alliance with everyone else. Simultaneously.
Arab Bedouin saying:
"I and my brother against my cousin, and I and my cousin against the stranger."
And for extra fun, the U.S. sometimes likes to jump into the fray.
The US is more of a bouncer on behalf of Israel than anything else, really.
-- Moshe, why are you keep reading anti-Semitic papers? -- I just like to hear how powerful and clever we are.
Defense of Israel was the primary justification offered in a recent State department memo asserting the legal basis for the war with Iran. Unusually, its publication was not announced on social media or to the press, unlike most state department official pronouncements. Anyway, rather than being opinion, this is (for the present) the official position of the United States government.
https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-legal-adviser/2...
> Defense of Israel was the primary justification offered in a recent State department memo asserting the legal basis for the war with Iran.
It's funnier than that. The justification is "self-defense of its [the USA's] Israeli ally".
Sometimes?
Every ~10 year or so. As opposed to the locals who experience it daily, either war or the conflicts-between-wars.
The US has been doing air strikes in the Middle East on a regular basis since ~1990, and they extensively support the military adventures of allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia.
You are missing this interesting, and confidential until now, deployment of Israeli forces in UAE:
"Israel sent "Iron Dome" system and troops to UAE" - https://www.axios.com/2026/04/26/israel-iron-dome-uae
Also...their central bank governor quietly asked the US Treasury for a dollar swap line...Combined with the Pakistan $3.5B recall and OPEC exit, that is three coordinated moves of a cashflow stressed country...and of course the US is being asked to extend taxpayer backed dollar credit to the same royal family that bought 49% of Trump's crypto company four days before inauguration...
https://fortune.com/2026/04/19/uae-talks-us-possible-financi...
UAE is in a tough spot because while they have diversified from oil, the industries they have diversified into like tourism, air travel and banking, were relying on a halo of safety that turns out to not exist.
Also, for tourism they aren't exactly welcoming to western culture. They don't even allow trans or non binary people (X) to transit to other places at dubai or abu dhabi. Can't have your cake and eat it.
That Western culture is only a few years old and only affects a tiny percentage of people who opt into it.
While true, that doesn't really factor into this given that that market is so small that they don't lose anything by banning things that aren't compatible with their values.
So no, they most definitely can have their cake and eat it, and have done so for over two decades.
Emirates is one of the world’s largest airlines, and in many parts of the world Dubai offers the best and most frequent air connections between various cities. So while UAE itself may be a small market, it’s quite a major transit route.
They also turn a blind eye to plenty of other things that go against conservative islamic values: alcohol is served onboard, gay flight attendants are employed, etc. So it’s surprising to me that they aren’t a bit more tolerant here.
You always choose where to draw your lines.
It may be confusing to others but it's ultimately your choice.
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I think it's not so much that they don't have liquid assets they can sell.
The issue is those liquid assets are US Treasuries and US public market equities (mag7 etc.).
They don't really want to sell them, and they also know that the US really doesn't want them to sell them - the last thing Trump wants heading into the midterms is an S&P500 bear market and 10y treasuries heading back to 5+%.
So they ask for a swap line and they're negotiating from a position of strength, the US doesn't have much of a choice but to give them as much as they need and damn the consequences
This kind of cooperation is not unprecedented, for example they've collaborated in the occupation of Socotra.
Sometimes foreign aid is good, other times it's bad.
Saudi Arabia and Somalia agreed upon military cooperation early this is year. Egypt and Turkey are in this axis as well. Somaliland was recognized by Israel late last year. UAE and Ethiopia are on this axis. Part of the endgame might be lifting the Middle East from a transit zone to a logistics hub.
"Emirati-Israeli axis"
I'd add the US to that as well. Both the UAE and Israel are highly (practically solely) dependent on US for their military tech and supplies.
> Put together, we’re seeing an Emirati-Israeli axis emerging to balance Saudi hegemony in the Gulf and Iranian hegemony over the Persian Gulf. I’d expect to see an Emirati deal with Egypt and India next if this hypothesis is correct.
Don't Egypt and Israel hate each other though? Could UAE feasibly align with both?
Virtually all Arabs hate Israel but Arab governments are more varied. The modern Egyptian state is oriented toward close partnership with the US, and a large part of that was peace with Israel post '73.
So yes, the UAE could align with both.
> Virtually all Arabs hate Israel
This is true, but Emiratis are a notable exception. The UAE may be the only Arab country where Jews are not only allowed to live, but can do so safely without fearing either their neighbors or their government.
For example, last year when a rabbi was murdered, the Emirati government reacted forcefully and made a point to sentence the perpetrators to death. Note, the perpetrators were not Emiratis.
> The modern Egyptian state is oriented toward close partnership with the US, and a large part of that was peace with Israel post '73.
While also true, the relationship between Israel and Egypt has been tense lately.
They are at peace, and the border is stable. And economic integration is tightening, for example with the recent $35B gas deal [1]. So it's plausible that UAE could align with both, as you say.
But at the same time, it's just as plausible that this alignment will become increasingly complicated for geopolitical reasons. As Israel grows stronger in the region, Egypt seems to have adopted a strategy of indirectly undermining them.
For example, Egypt's handling of the Gaza war has indicated that they were playing a double game - openly containing Hamas, while covertly allowing them to grow stronger. When the IDF captured Rafah in 2024, they uncovered massive smuggling tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border, which could not possibly have been unknown to Egypt.
Sisi is also known for having cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood domestically, as they were his primary political rival. But externally, he has shown a willingness to support them as a tool to weaken his rivals, including Israel. This is a dangerous game which could easily backfire.
One more example: just this week Egypt is conducting a live fire military exercise 100m from the Israel border - a deliberate decision that is escalating tensions. [2]
[1] https://www.egyptindependent.com/all-you-need-to-know-about-...
[2] https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/egypt-live-fire-drills-is...
By the way that's just Qatari propaganda meant to put a wedge between Israel and Egypt. Qatar(Muslim Brotherhood) hates Egypt (that cracked down on MB) and hates Israel. They paid Netanyahu's advisors to push those lies about Egypt's double game and the cross border tunnels. Netanyahu the clown he is, "leaked" those lies to journalists. Qatar also paid Haaretz journalist to push those lies. The current situation with Egypt is good. They need to pretend to be somewhat cold to satisfy the hostile to Israel population, but there is cooperation and good relationship.
I did notice that Al-Jazeera was actively covering this issue. So your explanation would make sense.
What about the military exercise though? Al-Jazeera is eagerly covering it, but it is in fact happening...
I'm thinking that two things can be true at once - Egypt sees Israel as a "soft rival" and will undermine it when it can, without risking the peace itself; and Qatar is actively trying to put a wedge between them. No?
(thanks for the thoughtful discussion).
The military exercises too, just pure nonsense. Sinai peninsula has complicated security issues that they are trying to control. Egypt depends on Israel for cheap gas and really there is no indication whatsoever for any attempts to undermine. They do exercise soft power and play regional games. Egypt had and has very good leadership (with Sadat being the greatest modern leader in the middle east).
Various Arab states maintain this balancing act between a virulently anti-Israel population and a US-aligned (in most cases, US-installed) regime that’s tacitly okay with the existence of Israel.
It’s actually surprising it’s achievable for so long but in the long term doesn’t feel stable given the direction things are headed
Which Arab regimes, today, are "US installed"? Iraq is the only plausible answer.
As far as stability, I don't know. My view is that Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists. Dictatorship/monarchy has proven far more stable. Syria is trying to buck the trend; we'll see how it goes.
Maybe more accurate to say “Western-installed” although generally I don’t like grouping Europe and the US together as some coherent entity in this case it’s probably accurate.
All of the Gulf monarchies as well as Jordan are essentially western creations that were created as states mostly by the British and then heavily reinforced by the US from the 70s onwards
> Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists.
why does that imply instability?
Fundamentalists tend not to be pragmatists.
i don't think you know much about islamist parties and are just grasping for reasons to justify suppressing democracy in certain places.
ennahada (tunisia), pks (indonesia), jui (pakistan) are all examples of islamist parties that have compromised or reached across the aisle at various points just off the top of my head.
besides, isn't the point of democracy to allow people to be led by those who represent their principles? if they are in power, why should the majority expect their elected leaders to compromise those principles?
> ennahada (tunisia), pks (indonesia), jui (pakistan) are all examples of islamist parties that have compromised or reached across the aisle at various points
Would love to read more on this. Naïvely, I shared OP’s view of Islamist parties’ intransigence. (Note to third parties: Islamist != Islamic majority or even Islamic parties, and certainly separate from Arab parties.)
> isn't the point of democracy to allow people to be led by those who represent their principles?
Yes. But nothing says democracies are fundamentally stable. It absolutely follows that intolerant populations can systematically elect intolerant leaders who then cause instability.
Because every Islamic theocracy to date has been profoundly destabilising for its neighbours and the world, and always ends up imprisoning and immiserating its own people. No one wants more Irans or Afghanistans. (Or Saudi Arabias, though that's not said out loud as often.)
but neither Saudi Arabia nor Afghanistan's leaders were voted in ...
and secular/socialist/monarchic dictatorships have arguably worse effects on their neighbors and citizens - e.g. Saddam, Assad, Nasser, MBZ in UAE, MBS
Yes, there are a lot of bad options in the Middle East; Islamic theocracy has no monopoly on awfulness.
I think the broader point is that a democracy is unstable when the electorate just votes for their favourite warlord / cleric, who promptly ends / rigs any further elections.
In the Middle East, there appears to be a pattern of electorates voting for / staging a revolution in favour of Islamists, which either leads to a terrible Islamist regime, or leads to an elite coup, which of course destroys the democracy in the process. Worst case scenario all of this happens at once in different places, and you get a terrible civil war.
Democracy is great, but it requires an electorate that actually wants to sustain and retain a democracy. Those appear to be few and far in between.
> In the Middle East, there appears to be a pattern of electorates voting for / staging a revolution in favour of Islamists, which either leads to a terrible Islamist regime, or leads to an elite coup, which of course destroys the democracy in the process.
that pattern is hardly unique to middle east/islamists though. look at central/south america. guatemala, chile, brazil etc all had democracies overthrown by "elite" coups.
like almost every instance in the middle east, there is actually a common denominator between these coups... resistance to the US-led order magically seems to invite instability.
That seems rather Whataboutist to me. I never claimed this only ever happens in the Middle East. We are, however, talking about the Middle East, so local examples would seem apposite. You seem to desire to make this conversation so abstract that it becomes about nothing.
> resistance to the US-led order magically seems to invite instability
Or perhaps 'resistance' is an awfully popular rallying cry for demagogues who bring instability, and the US is just the hegemon du jour. "It's the US' fault your crops are wilting! And international capital! And immigrants! And, oh, I don't know, the gays, why not. Rise up for El Generalissimo! Enlist your sons in the blood struggle, that will definitely improve things!" /s
Much sexier to be a revolutionary fighting shadowy foreign forces than to actually fix any of your own problems. No, no, tomorrow's problems will be America's fault too.
> I never claimed this only ever happens in the Middle East.
you said
> Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists.
whereas my claim is that governments (democracies or not) that run afoul of their local hegemon tend to have a short shelf life. this is not unique to US hegemony.
see: Brezhnev doctrine (USSR), or the canonical example of Athens and Melos from Peloponnesian war
> Rise up for El Generalissimo! Enlist your sons in the blood struggle, that will definitely improve things!" /s Much sexier to be a revolutionary fighting shadowy foreign forces than to actually fix any of your own problems. No, no, tomorrow's problems will be America's fault too.
I'm sorry, you seem triggered by this discussion, it doesn't seem productive to continue on my end.
Real heads know that the strong do what they can while the weak suffer what they must.
lol yes exactly.
Realism has more way explanatory power in geopolitics than idealism. Idealist explanations are typically incoherent (e.g. above thread).
> I'm sorry, you seem triggered by this discussion, it doesn't seem productive to continue on my end.
I suppose shall have to make do without 101-level instruction in Chomskyian anti-Imperialism, woven through with whataboutism and international conspiracies.
> whereas my claim is that governments (democracies or not) that run afoul of their local hegemon tend to have a short shelf life. this is not unique to US hegemony.
Wow, big if true. Someone let Iran know.
How many trillions of dollars and gallons of blood did the US expend to make Afghanistan non-Taliban, or Vietnam non-Communist? And who rules Afghanistan and Vietnam today? You mention the Brezhnev doctrine, and yet literally not one of these countries is Russian-aligned today. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan failed just as hard as the British and American ones, all at the height of those respective countries' powers. Not very powerful, these alleged hegemons.
My overall point is that the Middle East (and Latin America, etc) has many local issues (e.g. corruption, misgovernance, sectarianism, organised crime), and an unhelpful habit of blaming some ill-defined global hegemony for misfortunes that are readily explicable as the consequences of these local phenomena. The US is no innocent lamb, but it does no service to the people of any of these regions to pretend that another hundred years of anti-Imperialist rhetoric will somehow bring benefits that the previous hundred years did not.
In these countries, this brand of tired anti-Imperialism is a figleaf for authoritarians. In the West, it is masturbatory politics for a certain type of narcissistic Westerner with a saviour complex, who fundamentally believes only Westerners have agency in the world, and everyone else are just motes of dust floating in the West's shadow. It's this confluence that results in absolute travesties like Chomsky supporting the Khmer Rouge, a far greater evil than all the worst allegations against America stacked together.
If you want to help the Middle East, get involved in civil society building efforts that help bridge the gap between sectarian communities; support charitable and poverty relief efforts that are not affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood; get involved in civil rights advocacy on behalf of the oppressed in the Middle East (women, LGBT communities, religious and ethnic minorities, the list goes on); partake in initiatives aimed at tackling corruption, organised crime, etc. Or at the very least encourage and support the people who do these things, rather than regurgitating half-remembered anti-Imperialist tropes from your polsci 101 class, as though that were a contribution of any value whatsoever.
The one thing that will absolutely not help them, at all, is more meandering, false narratives about how they have no agency in the face of shadowy global hegemons, and how should just lie down and wait impassively for some sort of new, more just world to be given to them by their Western betters.
Ok, lot of stuff to unpack here, but I'll stick to just pointing out obvious misinfo, which is often repeated:
Chomsky never backed the Khmer rouge, he questioned some of the claims and western focus on the Khmer rouge, which was ignoring US culpability. He also never denied that the Khmer rouge were committing atrocities.
Was he wrong? Yes, at least in specific instances. But he was never outright supportive of the Khmer rouge. This is very old propaganda.
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Arabs dont have equal standing and treatment in israel. Also, Israel is increasingly far right and best estimate is less rights in the future.
There are 2 million muslim, mostly arab, citizens who are officially and legally equal to jews. They are distinct from the arabs in Gaza or the west bank, who are not citizens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Penalty_for_Terrorists_L...
> The law imposes the death penalty on persons convicted of fatal terrorist attacks. In military courts, the death penalty is the "default"; only Palestinians are tried. In civilian courts, both Israelis and Palestinians are tried, but the law applies only to those who "'intentionally cause the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel'—a definition designed to exclude Jewish terrorists". It therefore "effectively enshrines capital punishment for Palestinians alone".
And to preempt the "but that's Palestinians, not Israeli Arabs" bit, nope:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terms_for_Palestinian_citizens...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel lists all sorts of other smaller inequities:
> In 2005, the Follow-Up Committee for Arab Education said that the Israeli government spent an average of $192 a year on Arab students compared to $1,100 for Jewish students.
> In the 2002 budget, Israel's health ministry allocated Arab communities less than 1% of its 277 m-shekel (£35m) budget (1.6 m shekels {£200,000}) to develop healthcare facilities.
I don't think I implied they are not discriminated. But they do, generally, enjoy the same rights. I just thought to correct what I perceive as factually incorrect.
These are explicit government actions, not random civilians doing discrimination.
I agree that we should hold Israel to highest standards (which are, unfortunately, eroded especially by the US, these days).
Nevertheless, you should always ask yourselves: would you prefer being an gay Arab in Tel Aviv or a gay Jew in Gaza?
If they join a religion that isn't on the state approved list, they can't get married there and hard or extra expensive to get buried. There are some limits on religious freedom.
They can just get married abroad. There are even online ceremonies now.
A decent number of Israeli Jews have to do that as well, since Israel recognizes Jewish marriages only under orthodox rabbis. Some Israeli Jews are not even considered Jews under strict orthodox rules.
> They can just get married abroad.
They don't have to if they are one of the approved religions. That's a restriction on religious freedom.
> since Israel recognizes Jewish marriages only under orthodox rabbis
I don't get how is this evidence of religious freedom.
And religion and marriage really shouldn't have anything to do with one another. Atheists can marry too.
They can. It’s called a civil union. Complaining about marriage laws in Israel in this uninformed way is just an antisemite dog whistle.
A civil union is not the same as a marriage. And I'm not just talking about Israel.
Ideally, this is true:
marriage = civil union + religion
Of course everyone should be free to call their civil union whatever they like and the government shouldn’t differentiate at all if your civil union has a religious blessing as well. Just because some governments appropriated the religious terminology and/or the civil union developed from a union sanctioned by a priest doesn’t mean that a government needs to guarantee everyone a religious marriage. To the contrary. Everyone should be able (and required) to register the civil union if they want to be treated as married by the state. I’m not here to defend the status quo of all the laws in Israel - I’m here to emphasize that your reading of the laws about civil unions and marriages in incomplete and the standards you apply to Israel are a hundred times higher than those you seem to apply to any other country. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
So, not a religiously free state, as OP said.
That’s a lie. You can form a civil union, which is very similar to the religious marriage. On the other hand, does Hamas recognise a Jewish marriage?
> You can form a civil union, which is very similar to the religious marriage.
Yeah, we tried "separate but equal" here too.
> On the other hand, does Hamas recognise a Jewish marriage?
Being the good guys is about more than being "second worst".
You might be surprised, but a civil union is the only legally binding form of marriage in many countries, e.g. Germany. The Churches - even though they are state churches - aren’t even allowed to provide a wedding ceremony if the civil union hasn’t been performed beforehand. Which different legal provisions do you think make the „religious marriage“ vs. „civil union“ morally equal to „separate but equal“?
> Being the good guys is about more than being "second worst".
If you cannot think about any group that’s not as bad as Hamas, but worse than Israel, I‘m happy to help… just ask!
> You might be surprised, but a civil union is the only legally binding form of marriage in many countries, e.g. Germany.
That's great.
That's not Israel's setup.
> If you cannot think about any group that’s not as bad as Hamas, but worse than Israel, I‘m happy to help… just ask!
"Others are worse" is not the moral standard one should aspire to, either.
Israel’s setup is not perfect (and so is the one in Germany), but as long as you cannot show that there is any meaningful legal difference in the eye of the state between a couple that’s married (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Druze) or in a Civil Union, I cannot see the difference to the system in Germany. I think (not an expert) the system in the UK in the same: you can get married either by the Church of England or by a civil institution - both are valid, both are equal before the law.
Edit: just check it, it’s true. “You can choose to have EITHER a religious ceremony OR a civil ceremony if you’re getting married.” [0]
So since we’ve established that it’s a common practice in some countries that marriages can be either religious or civil, but still equal before the law, could you please elaborate how exactly civil unions in Israel are discriminated against compared to religious marriages?
[0] https://www.gov.uk/marriages-civil-partnerships/plan-your-ce...
Everyone can get (civil) married: Fine!
No one gets (civil) married, everyone can get a civil union: Fine!
Certain people can get (civil) married, others get a civil union: Not fine.
This is very simple. "Separate, but equal" never works.
But what is the DIFFERENCE between the two, other than the name? Please enlighten me, I cannot find any meaningful information on this.
Also: this kind of discrimination - if there is any - is targeting Arabic and Non-Arabic Israelis in the exact same way. So I don’t fully understand why you pointed this out as an Act of discrimination against Arabs.
Opting for a separate comment for this one:
> "Others are worse" is not the moral standard one should aspire to, either.
OP stated that all Arabs hate Israel. This opens up the debate if living in an Arabic ethnofascist state such as Gaza or a Muslim fundamentalist state like Saudi Arabia would be the better choice for those 2 million Arabs. So yes, I think being the lesser of two evils is already the answer to that binary choice.
They're not buddies per se, but Egypt was the first ME country to normalize relations.
They've also been cooperating on blockading Gaza for a couple of decades. Israel gets most of the attention for that, mostly rightfully so, but people seem to forget that there's a border with Egypt too and that has also had very limited access.
Egypt learned on other's mistakes for once. They saw how Jordan welcomed Palestinians on their land and they repaid the kindness by launching a coup against the government in 1970. No wonder not a single anti-Israeli coalition country is willing to deal with Palestinians directly at their own home and are keeping borders watertight :) .
Don't forget that after being expelled from Jordan, Arafat relocated to Lebanon where he proceeded to take over the South ("Fatahland"), start a civil war, and pull in Israel with constant attacks across the border. Until Israel kicked them out in 1982, the Palestinians played the disruptive, parasitic role in Lebanon that Hezbollah plays today. In fact, Hezbollah rose to power precisely by filling the void left by the Palestinians in 82.
You're probably aware of your bigotry, as the stupid smiley at the end of your comment seems to suggest, but your reasoning only serves to support the pre-made conclusion of 'Palestinians are genetically evil'.
As an Arab friend summed it up, 'All Arab governments like to trumpet the Palestinian cause when it serves them, but none of them are willing to lift a finger to help the Palestinians.'
Are you sure? Jordanians tried and it burned them spectacularly. And if my memory served, Egypt also tried to some extent and eventually was eagerly and happily offloading Gaza into Israel's hands. Then, they built a huge border defensive line to keep Gazan out that would make Trump's Mexican border a joke in comparison.
At some points people need to wonder why.
> At some points people need to wonder why.
Could you imagine me making the same argument with other historically 'unwanted' groups, like for example Black people or Jews? If these populations keeep getting kicked out and marginalised through millennia, surely you have to start wondering why.
Egypt is trying to have their cake and eat it too. Total crackdown on islamists at home - whether Hamas or any other incarnation of the Muslim Brotherhood - but also making sure they remain a thorn in the side of Egypt's rivals. See for example the massive smuggling tunnels discovered by the IDF in Rafah in 2024, which had been keeping Hamas covertly resupplied through Egypt. Hard to imagine that Egypt was unaware.
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To be fair, part of the peace deal between Egypt and Israel gave Israel some control over the crossing, and they seized it entirely during the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_Border_Crossing
> The Rafah crossing was opened by Israel after the 1979 peace treaty and remained under Israeli control until 2005...
> Under a 2007 agreement between Egypt and Israel, Egypt controls the crossing but imports through the Rafah crossing require Israeli approval.
This is to a large part to give Egypt plausible deniability. They don’t want to deal with Gaza, refugees, or a humanitarian crisis, but also don’t want the political fallout of taking action like the Israelis do.
Eh, 50/50. Israel would not respond positively to Egypt throwing the gates wide open.
On the contrary, I believe Israel would be delighted. It would lessen the humanitarian burden on them, and force Egypt to deal with the Hamas problem more directly. It will never happen, though. No Arab country will "throw the gates wide open" for Palestinians. They have done so before, several times, and it went very badly.
The Israeli openly proposed for the Gaza Palestinians to move to Egypt (effectively ethnic cleansing Gaza, their obvious goal), not that long after 7.10.
Egypt said 'HELL NO', first, because they don't want to deal with Palestinians (both political and economic nightmare), and second because it would have been viewed as ceding to Israelis and helping them cleanse Gaza, which would be highly unpopular among their population.
> The Israeli openly proposed for the Gaza Palestinians to move to Egypt
Yeah, that's not "wide open". Israel would absolutely be happy with a one-way exit gate.
Most Palestinians would be happy too... In practice "wide open" and "one-way exit gate" are the same thing.
No they wouldn't, it's their land and they demonstrated after 80 years of ethnic cleansing that they will not be driven out it. I already addressed another one of your racial fantasies elsewhere, here you descend into genocide apology.
That is very reductive of the whole situation. The Egyptians are not singularly focused on helping Palestinians; it is far more nuanced than that.
Bottom line, Egyptians are not interested in supporting millions of refugees inside their border. So the border stays closed to mass immigration.
All that may be true.
Also true: If Egypt opened the border and Israel objected, Israel would take swift military action.
No, why? Israel would celebrate.
But NONE of the Arab countries want to help Gaza people really.
> No, why? Israel would celebrate.
This is directly contradicted by Israel's actions in the Gaza War. Egyptian control of the crossing was not enough, so they took it. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-07/israel-ra...
Israel would object to aid and weapons flows into Gaza. It would be fine with Gazans leaving the Strip. The problem is there are currently zero takers globally for a significant Palestinian refugee population, in part, as other comments have mentioned, due to the history of Palestinian refugee populations in the Middle East. (To my knowledge, Palestinian Americans have been fine and productive members of society.)
Racial theorists are out in full force today.
I do wonder if you all can hear yourself: a lot of subtle implications of genetic defects in Palestinians' character and selective understanding of geopolitics in the region, or just basic societal dynamics.
I invited another commenter to transpose their reasoning to groups it's less popular to openly discriminate, I'd suggest you do the same.
> To my knowledge, Palestinian Americans have been fine and productive members of society
With a few notable exceptions... A Palestinian-American murdered Bobby Kennedy for being too supportive of Israel.
if egypt opened the border, it would mean weapons and bombs flowing from egypt into gaza.
thats not something israel would be excited about
More like refugees flowing out, which Egypt doesn't want to deal with.
The Palestinians didn't help their cause with Yasser Arafat's Black September uprising in Jordan. Then they topped that up with strong support for Saddam when he invaded Kuwait. Like the ones in Kuwait were literally betraying Kuwaitis to the Iraqi troops.
Oh, and did I forget Lebanon? They literally fomented the civil war.
I mean "open the border" to allow Gazans to leave to Egypt. But Egypt (and none other Arab countries) are accepting refugees from Gaza.
At the same time, neither would Egypt. Refugee crisises are messy.
Yes, the "refugee crisis" in Jordan and Lebanon was indeed quite messy...
https://www.thoughtco.com/black-september-jordanian-plo-civi...
https://www.historiascripta.org/post-ww2/the-palestinians-of...
People don't forget it. But Egypt is a dictatorship aligned with US/Israel, so there's again not much we can do there. Ending foreign aid to Egypt is probably very aligned with ending foreign aid to Israel in terms of popularity among American voters
> Ending foreign aid to Egypt is probably very aligned with ending foreign aid to Israel in terms of popularity among American voters
I strongly suspect the average American has absolutely zero sense of how much foreign aid we give Egypt. That's not to contradict your point directly, just that it isn't a very salient part of American politics (unlike Israeli foreign aid).
> it isn't a very salient part of American politics (unlike Israeli foreign aid).
I feel like Israeli aid, while vastly more salient than it used to be, is still mostly salient as a left-of-center wedge issue, otherwise being about as salient as your average major foreign policy issue - ranking just under the least salient domestic policy issue, which ranks just under the most minor personal quality of any candidate, which ranks under the current state of the economy, which ranks under the current perceived state of the economy. Wow, that's way too many times to use "salient" in one sentence.
And for the record, I'm not arguing about how much people should care, just how much they do.
It's also become a right-of-center (right of far-right?) wedge issue in the past 12 months. But I otherwise completely agree with you; I think there's a veritable chasm between how much the media talks about the US's foreign aid (both to Israel and in general) and how much it actually matters to the average voter.
Egyptians and Israelis hate each other, not their governments. They're on friendly terms relatively speaking.
Israelis do not hate Egyptians... The Arab world has a major Jew-hatred problem, but the reverse it not true.
Remember that 20% of the Israeli population is Arab.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_Arabs
> Death to Arabs" or "Death to the Arabs" (Israeli Hebrew: מָוֶת לָעֲרָבִים, romanized: Mávet la'Aravím) is an anti-Arab slogan originating in Israel.
Your source documents a real phenomenon but doesn't support the universal claim that "Israelis hate Arabs". Please provide evidence proportional to the scope of your argument.
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If Egypt were a democracy, its government would hate Israel. That's why the current dictator overthrew the last democracy and had its elected leader die in jail, and that same dictator is now supported heavily by US funding
The briefly elected Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt was .. not as liberal as the Tahrir Square protests demanded.
I think you might be overestimating how liberal the protesters were. Source: I was in Tahrir square during the protests and spoke with many Egyptians.
Almost all of the complaints I heard while I was in Egypt were about corruption and lack of opportunity. It was more frustration with rampant nepotism/cronyism and less a desire for liberalism. From the ground, it appeared to be driven by economic forces and not political ideology.
In fact, many Egyptian men that I spoke to made the argument for the continued oppression of women (e.g. the full burqa and absence from work). In general, the populace was decidedly anti-liberal.
The election of the Muslim Brotherhood happened after I left the country, but it was no surprise to me at all. The fact that they attempted to change the constitution so quickly after their victory was unwise, and the subsequent coup by the West was just as unsurprising.
And the UAE played a large role in covertly supporting the movement that toppled it.
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As I recall, it was Saudi Arabia that largely bank rolled Pakistan's "not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty" weapons program [Ω](?) .
[Ω] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_weapons_of_mass_d...
So there's that.
> ... bank rolled Pakistan's not party to ...
They bank rolled Pakistan's not party to the treaty? Sorry I can't parse this sentence.
Did you munge two sentences i.e. Saudi Arabia bankrolled Pakistan's nuclear weapons, and also Pakistan is not party to the treaty?
My bad, it's late in the evening here and I typed something that works when spoken with emphasis and timing (at least in my head).
I added quotes, it should say that Pakistan's weapons program is one that is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as Pakistan is not a party to it.
We all know Israel isn’t party to it either.
Nor India, nor South Sudan. North Korea was, but didn't comply and then went backsies.
Of the four never did non signatories, South Sudan is not like the others (wrt one metric at least).
We all live in a yellow cake submarine..
Its a pakistani submarine, with exclusive saudi-royalty members on the bridge.
We should build a city that is a statistical bunker- basically a line, for the edge case of jihadist insurgents getting the forbidden eggs in the cake.
Oh like mark Zuckerberg 30th through 40th mansions?
Thank you for this analysis! MSM doesn’t seem to be covering this and it’s hard to know what’s going on if you’re not familiar with the region.
> Egypt
Already aligned with the KSA [0]
> India
Already aligned with the UAE [1]
---
IMO the Pakistan aspect is overstated. This is a reversion to the norm of KSA-Pakistan relations before Imran Khan completely destroyed it by fully aligning behind Qatar and Turkiye when both were competing against KSA.
[0] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/5/egypt-says-it-shares...
[1] - https://thediplomat.com/2026/01/india-uae-embark-on-a-strate...
> Egypt is aligned with the KSA
It’s complicated [1]. My low-key guess is cutting off Pakistan was intended to send a message to Cairo.
> Already aligned with the UAE
Aligning. To my understanding there isn’t a treaty yet.
> the Pakistan aspect is overstated
Pakistan isn’t the cause. It’s the canary. These moves happening in quick succession (strategically, over the last year, and tactically, in the timing of these announcements) speaks to previous assumptions being fair to be questioned.
[1] https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/egypts-t...
> My low-key guess is cutting off Pakistan was intended to send a message to Cairo
Abu Dhabi and Cairo have been misaligned for years since the Sudan Civil War began (UAE backs the RSF and KSA+Egypt back the Army) as well as the UAE backing Abiy Ahmed in Ethiopia at the expense of their traditional partner KSA.
> To my understanding there isn’t a treaty yet.
This is as close as it will get. New Delhi doesn't "sign" defense treaties unless pushed to a corner, because it reduces maneuverability.
The Pakistan-KSA alignment was already cooking after IK was overthrown. I think I mentioned it before on HN (need to find the post I wrote) but given the primacy Pakistan has had in US-Iran negotiations well before the war as well the PRC's increasingly miffed attitude at Pakistan following the CPEC attacks, the US most likely brokered a back-room realignment between PK and KSA.
A neutral-to-ambivalent India with a pro-America Pakistan is better for the US than a completely aligned India with a pro-China Pakistan.
TODO: citations
India is doctrinally non-aligned (being a founding father of the Non-Aligned Movement), and the chance of a completely US-aligned India has always been zero. Even with Russia, its closest "ally" (only by a history of cooperation, not in any formal pact-ratified sense like Russia-China), it maintains only an arms-length relationship.
India is actually the true neutral major power. I don't really count Switzerland because it was obvious it would align with the EU/NATO/US axis when things got hot, as it did in the context of Ukraine-Russia.
Yep. There's nothing wrong with that, but it means US-India relations tend to remain fairly transactional while allowing both autonomy from a strategic standpoint, such as India signing a RELOS with Russia and Pakistan under Munir returning to the American fold at the expense of the Chinese.
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