"HUGE. China-brokered Deal, Iran and Saudi Arabia Restore Diplomatic Ties," ran the headline for today’s installment on The Duran YouTube Channel hosted by Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris. In terms of diplomacy the news was indeed earth shaking.
Some of the many far reaching geopolitical ramifications are explored by Christoforou and Mercouris.
More details are contained in an excellent early report here by Antiwar.com’s own Kyle Anzalone.
Some reactions provide an idea of the impact of this news:
The New York Timesreported, "China’s most senior foreign policy official, Wang Yi, indicated in a statement on the Chinese foreign ministry website that Beijing had played an instrumental role in the agreement. ‘This is a victory for the dialogue, a victory for peace, and is major positive news for the world which is currently so turbulent and restive, and it sends a clear signal. The world is not just the Ukraine issue, and there are many issues bearing on peace and people’s well-being that demand the attention of the international community and must be properly addressed by the parties concerned in a timely way.’"
In a less restrained fashion, Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) tweeted. "Iran-Saudi Arabia. CHINA was the privileged messenger. Not the discredited Divide and Rule Empire of Plunder. This will be positive for Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. And this reduces NATO to dust. Peace is NOT war."
The news gave no joy to Mark Dubowitz of the neocon Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the NYT it is "a lose, lose, lose for American interests." He went on, "It demonstrates that the Saudis don’t trust Washington to have their back, that Iran sees an opportunity to peel away American allies to end its international isolation and that China is becoming the major-domo of Middle Eastern power politics."
The most telling reaction came from a single verb used by the NYT reporter who described the Middle East as "a region that was long shaped by the military and diplomatic involvement of the United States." (Emphasis, jw).
From this writer’s point of view, the ability of China to broker the Iran-Saudi peace deal provides it with the creds to do the same with Ukraine – and beyond. It is a diplomatic master stroke that contrasts the US as a warmaker with China as a peacemaker.
John V. Walsh, until recently a Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience at a Medical School in Massachusetts, has written on issues of peace and health care for the San Francisco Chronicle, EastBayTimes/San Jose Mercury News, Asia Times, LA Progressive, Antiwar.com, CounterPunch and others.
US foreign policy today is shaped by the neocons and span both paqrties. Starting with the architects of the Iraq attack under Bush (Wolfowitz, Perle, Lewis “Scooter” Libby , Elliott Abrams and Kristol ) and continuing with those under the Biden Administration, Anthony Blinken and Victoria Nuland.
The Wolfowitz Doctrine.
It was Cheney, not Bush. Bush was more of a figurehead than anything.
Beware. There are irresponsible, dangerous thoughts in this article. Things like, “Peace is NOT war,” “China is becoming the major-domo of Middle Eastern power politics,” and my favorite: “It is a diplomatic master stroke that contrasts the US as a warmaker with China as a peacemaker.” (Sarcasm alert)
Indeed. Waiting for the US to make sure this doesn’t stick. False flag time.
“a lose, lose, lose for American interests.”Ah yes, our INTERESTS. That word again to describe why we are the way we are. The whole world is our INTEREST. Therein lies the problem for mankind.
This report about a Chinese brokered deal came out yesterday (Friday)
The day prior (Thursday) Reuters was reporting this:
DUBAI, March 9 (Reuters) – Yemen’s main southern separatist group on Thursday voiced concern about direct talks between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi movement and warned against any deal that goes beyond the parametres of United Nations-led peace efforts.
Yemen has been split by an eight-year-old conflict pitting the Iran-aligned Houthis, de facto authorities in North Yemen, against a fractious coalition led by Riyadh, including southern forces backed by the United Arab Emirates. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/yemeni-southern-separatists-voice-frustration-over-saudi-houthi-talks-2023-03-09/
Yemen’s civil war may be over now that the two sides who are in control of each sides appears to be reopening their embassies and reestablish diplomatic ties that were severed 7 years or so ago.
Will Syria be next? That’s another proxy war those two are fighting.
How about Ukraine? China is the world’s bank after all; I’m sure they’d be more than happy to buy their way into Ukraine by dangling some money at the politicians/businesses in Ukraine just like they do in the US, UK, Germany, France…….
The Houthis are only ones with a legitimate claim to power in Yemen. The U.S. puppet who was deposed had no legitimate claim to power whatsoever. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are the problems here.
Century old disputes between Shiite and Sunni are not as simple as sharing one side has a “legitimate” claim nor it is as simple as “US=bad” given the myriad of nations involved with that nation (whose borders were imposed on them) the last 100 years or so.
If you deny that the U.S. is the dominant empire on the planet, then you make comments like that. The sky is blue, water is wet, the Earth is round, and the U.S. dominates politics in the Middle East just like it does on the rest of the planet. The U.S. isn’t one of “myriad” nations trying to exercise power in the Middle East, it’s by far the most powerful force there.
Jeff, the world did not begin with the USA.
Nor did that conflict begin just a few years ago but is an fight between sects of Islam that began ages ago.
Are you now upset that China is the “power” there controling everything in your mind? Or is Chinese fascism a good thing to you? Everything you accuse the US of, China does as well but with prison camp labor as part of their manufacturing base.
Dude, read some 📚; historical knowledge is a good thing.
Has the US stopped using prison camp labor?
Lol!!!!
I served a few years working involuntarily in your perceived prison labor factories (max) and it isn’t even close to what the Chinese Muslim population goes through in those camps.
Heck it was not even as stressfull as a Apple factory dorm; we never had jumpers nor the movie nonsence of people being thrown off teirs. Apple used nets to catch jumpers at the dorms of their workers at one time. They might still do.
Prison labor is not the same and to equate that with forced labor of an ethnic population in prison camps is not really a thing to make silly asides about.
I don’t recall making any comparison of conditions at Chinese versus US slave labor camps. While such a comparison might be interesting, it’s irrelevant to whether or not each polity utilizes slave labor.
The US prison labor system is not slave labor.
Did you hear that on TV (West Wing perhaps) and is just mindlessly repeating it without critical thinking?
“The US prison labor system is not slave labor.”
Well, not ALL of it. Just most of it.
Lol…almost as laughible as West Wing econ quotes….
Do a few years in prison, and then share with me if that resembles anything like a slave camp.
Honestly, I can’t even see how an intelligent person would compare the US prison system with actual slavery.
Even someone like you that never spent more than a day or two in county lockup, if that should not believe such silliness.
Helpful hint; movies and TV shows are not documentaries nor are “reality” shows in jail cells are real either; bsing for cameras
It happens to be true that I’ve never spent more than a few hours in lock-up.
But I’ve had friends and relatives do years in penitentiaries — and at “minimum security work camps.” And threatened with punishment if they declined to work.
Putting someone in an area they’re not allowed to leave and requiring them to work on threat of punishment is involuntary servitude, aka slavery. It just happens to be a form of slavery that is specifically allowed in the US Constitution’s 13th Amendment (and that exception was openly and unabashedly exploited in the south to convert former “privately owned” chattel slaves into “government-owned” slaves).
I applied for a job at a poultry plant once, and then literally prayed that something else would come along before they hired me (and something else did come along). That place had such trouble getting employees — even “illegal” immigrants apparently felt they had better options — that the majority of their labor force was provided by the local jail. Given the “choice” between solitary confinement and disemboweling turkeys, at least some “chose” the latter.
Lol
The horrors you might work with illegals……
Oh no!
Privileges like being at a level where you have more yard time, longer visits, better eating times, better living accommodations might be in the offering if you work while in lockup.
That’s how it works in prison. Some actually prefer using state toothpaste and soap and have no money for commissary while living with another deadbeat (no single cells for those who refuse even a yard job) in the loudest cellhouse in prison. Sounds like your friends; more power to them but don’t ask me to share my stuff…lol.
A job likely at minimum wage and with 30% or more deducted for fines/fees is a damn fine job in lockup. Not possible where I was given it was max….
Where I was, you could get close to a couple hundred for a month if there was a big order in for furniture or some construction job outside the walls if you had your outs towards the end of your sentence of able to be paroled as most, not all would not do something stupid (most had no chains but if you were extremely skilled at plumbing they’d slap leg chains on someone even with a prior escape from a minimum camp…lol, and send them out with a sack lunch and free soda for a day or two.
Off site work at a factory was medium, not max. Most jobs in max paid around $70-80 in industries without the occasional big order, orderlies was 45, kitchen was 45 to 60 for cooks, butchers, bakers. Yard crew (picked up cigarette buts, mowed, sorted trash; great hustle possibilities;-) for those who were too old to work or “special” was under $20 a month plus most everyone had side hustles.
I was a orderly with as much funds I needed on the outside.
I could eat out of the pizza window as if I worked in industries and could afford to buy clothes for the visiting room which they allowed us to wear in the yard too (Wranglers are much nicer than $10 (back then) ones they bought in bulk ;-) and bought my TV the moment I could.You meet a lot of poor folk as cellies that way at first, if you get along especially with gangbangers, because they like to have a TV in a cell because people get board otherwise…lol. But you want to level up to get to the cell house with those who aren’t going home soon (or ever) because it’s quiet at night and no effing cellie!!!!
But……there’s always that….
Prison is not innocents being forced to work nor do they lock them up to keep full employment (another nutty prison conspiracy) true either.
Did slave catchers grab anyone?
Everyone there in prison was guilty except one who got totally screwed (the head state medical examiner testified that broken blood vessels in the eyes was indicative of child abuse, no prior injuries, that what was convicted the Guatemala immigrant. Then after the trial evidence had inadvertently had been destroyed the Medical Examiner retired and wrote a textbook and wrote that he had reconsidered what the burst blood vessels meant . He now considered them as a result of recitation attempts. Too late for my friend who can’t appeal and no politician will ever get involved with a child death) so don’t equate criminals with innocents being enslaved except the almost nonexistent innocent like my friend who will die in prison (but does run the Hispanic population in part; respect plays a big part you might say with those folks)
Totally wrong. Supporters of U.S. empire like you just use old tribal conflicts as an excuse or pretext for the U.S. doing all this horrible stuff. The president of Yemen before all the current fighting started was a U.S. puppet, which is why he was deposed. But the U.S. and its evil ally Saudi Arabia couldn’t let the Houthis take power even though they had more support of the Yemeni people than anyone else, because, among other things, the Houthis were somewhat allied with Iran. So the U.S. armed Saudi Arabia, which carried out major war- and human-rights crimes in Yemen, and caused the largest humanitarian crisis on the planet according to the U.N.
So yeah, tell me about how all this is about old tribal conflicts. Of course the U.S. will use those conflicts to its advantage, but that’s not at all what this is about. Saudi Arabia is now allied with Israel; get a clue and join the 21st Century.
This is a distraction that you raised, but I’m no supporter of China, Russia, the U.S., or any other large and powerful country. They’re all evil, just by being large or powerful if nothing else. But at this time, China isn’t the dominant empire on the planet, including in the Middle East, the U.S. is. And BTW, the U.S. uses slave labor too, it’s called prison labor. Not to mention that all the cheap needless crap that Americans buy is made in China, so look in the mirror regarding that complaint.
Houthi support is from the Shia who represent around 1/3 (and live in the north) which is much less than Sunni who comprise almost all of the rest.
Now China and their patron Iran have sided with the Sunni; sucks for the Shia (I feel for you and your angst) but they better put down their arms because the Chinese aren’t the nicest people to do business with. A lot of happy talk for the west but those factory towns of theirs are despotic environmental nightmares with coal smog instead of air to breathe.
If that is how they treat their own, they aren’t going to let an area that produces over 50% of their oil to fight amongst themselves.
Just because the US supported the larger side (Sunni) in recent years, of which Iran and China now support as well (and cut out the Houthi hence their upset) does not make a centuries old fight between Islam our fault nor even the new kid in town; the (fascist) nation of China is at fault.
I hope you are consistent; if the US is evil for supporting Saudi then China and Iran are evil as well. Which brings the question into play: just who is doing it correct?
Don’t worry though; just because the Houthi/Shia have been abandoned by Iran and has been enticed by China’s money, this century old Islamic fight is not over; caliphates come and go but there is always another one in the waiting