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Saudi Arabia + four other Arab nations cut ties with Qatar

Unitedwestand13

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Things in the Middle East just got more complicated


https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/world/middleeast/qatar-saudi-arabia-egypt-bahrain-united-arab-emirates.html?_r=0&referer=

BEIRUT, Lebanon — For years, the tiny, energy-rich country of Qatar has carved out a niche in the Arab world by trying to be everything to everyone. It housed an American military base and flooded the region’s airwaves with its influential media, all while keeping close ties to Iran and a wide selection of Islamist movements.

On Monday, five countries in the region announced that they were forcing Qatar to choose: its powerful neighbor Saudi Arabia, Egypt and at least three other Arab nations severed all ties with the country, escalating their accusations that the Qatari monarchy supported Sunni Islamist terrorism and Iranian designs on the region.

Those Arab nations not only abruptly suspended diplomatic relations, as they have in the past, but also surprised many by cutting off land, air and sea travel to and from Qatar. All but Egypt, which has 250,000 people working there, ordered their citizens to leave Qatar.

The move created an immediate crisis for Qatar, whose only land border is with Saudi Arabia and which imports about 40 percent of its food from the Saudis. Residents said that people were stocking up on food and cash. And Qatari diplomats and citizens were scrambling to meet a 48-hour deadline to leave some Gulf countries where they had been posted.

One more headache in the Middle East.
 
Major deflection tactics from the Saudis when it's every bit as clear that the Saudi régime has been supporting ISIS in the same way and on the same scale as Qatar. There's a reason why ISIS do not attack Saudi Arabia. As far as I'm aware, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, ISIS haven't claimed a single action on Saudi interests or within the kingdom. ISIS always claim their hits, in fact they claim a lot of hits that aren't theirs too. But not in Saudi Arabia. Interesting.

TBH this has very little to do with ISIS and everything to do with regional geo-political games with Iran. One set of theocratic dictatorships are trying to isolate a quasi-democratic theocracy. Both sides are actively engaged in sponsoring terrorism across the region and globe, and we are meant to take sides and applaud one set of bastards while excoriating the other?
 
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