I mean that covers Beirut, although the Marines were there as peacekeepers, but which Iranian proxies were we countering in Iraq? That's why ginsu'd their one general.
Iraq is a Shia majority state. Saddam's regime was an undemocratic, secular, but ethnically Sunni minority government. We thought it would be a bright idea to overthrow him and let the people decide who to run them. The very predictable outcome of this is for the people to elect a Shia government. Only at this point did we go 'oh shit, now we have to make sure this natural ally of Iran never becomes an actual ally of Iran.' Hence the forever war.
This war was a retarded three-way fight. You had the Ba'athist remnants (secular), who opposed us for obvious regions. You had the Saudi-backed Sunni Salafi groups, who were associated with al-Qaeda and, later, ISIS. And then you had the Special Groups, who were Shia and Iran-aligned, being funded by the Ayatollah and even directly swearing loyalty to him in some cases. We ostensibly supported the leader of the democratically elected government, yet that leader used the Special Groups to counter Sunni insurgencies and to mop up the remnants of Saddam loyalists, and so his entire power base was loyal to Iran. Our soldiers were constantly being sniped at by both Shia and Salafi groups during our occupation, both of which were acting as catspaws for Iran and the Saudis, respectively.
The Iraqi army then folded like a paper fan when we left and ISIS swept in. When Trump intervened and crushed ISIS, a big factor in the victory was the fact that these Special Groups were officially folded in to the Iraqi command structure as the PMF, and these forces were much more effective than Iraq's army had been. However the relationship immediately soured, as the allied Shia forces claimed that they were being bombed by Israeli drones in 2019 and that America was turning a blind eye. The inability of Trump to respond to these accusations (because he is Israel's bitch) let to a fatwa against American troops in Iraq, which Trump then responded to by bombing several of their bases. This was then followed up by us bombing several more of their bases and assassinating Soleimani. We have been bombing them since, and they have become more aggressive towards our troops, who were previously treated as allies against the Islamic State.
This is part of why I hate Israel. We can't do shit in the Middle East because they constantly fuck everything up and bribe/blackmail our politicians to let them do whatever they want. It would have been great for us to leave Iraq as a buffer state between the Saudis and Iran, in which they would fight one another to exhaustion for the foreseeable future. But Israel would never tolerate that, because the Iranian presence in Iraq allows them to smuggle weapons to their proxies near Israel. I understand Israel having this position, but them turning us into their instrument in doing so harms larger American/Western interests in the Middle East. In this case, it soured our relationship with a very effective ally, one which is now folded into the Iraqi state, causing unnecessary friction in a region which is volatile enough as it is and putting American soldiers in more danger.
turkey yes, but i really don't see the saudis having imperial ambition.
my impression is that they are perfectly content with their state as is, their foreign policy seems aimed only at securing stability for their state and wealth for their family.
there is lots of corruption and incompetence in the house of saud, but little to no appetite for territorial expansion or regional hegemony.
They have catspaws throughout the region, just as the Iranians do. The Saudi based Salafi-network stretches into Central Asia, Europe, and across North Africa. They are far, far more assiduous when it comes to having their fingers in every pie than the Turks or even the Iranians. Then there's their governing ideology. The Saudis follow the teachings of Salafism, which stem from the Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya. His views on politics can be summed up in one of his favored aphorisms, drawn from Hadith: 'A king is the shadow of God on His earth. Who honors him will be honored by God, and who despises him will be despised by God.' Their view of Monarchy is absolute, and they view
all non-Salafi sects of Islam as heretical, even other Sunnis. The Saudis spread soft power by using their oil money to fund and spread Salafism - the money is a means to an end (power), not an end itself.
Before the Saudis came to power, Salafism was an obscure sect relegated to the margins of Arabia, in the desolate Najd. With oil money at their disposal, it has spread like wildfire not just through the Middle East but through the rest of the world as well. Look up which kind of mosque just about any terrorist in the West went to and you'll start to notice a bit of a pattern. And wherever it spreads, so does Saudi influence.
