-
As I said just before, at least knowing the Gulfis are corrupt means we know they're not going to spend their oil wealth starting a war.
No they don't start wars, they just ship out their own extremists to other countries to maintain stability, and fund Militias like Daesh to fight as their proxies. Same thing is happening in Yemen too, FWIW.
Have a watch of this too, shows how much good intervention has done
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake
branwen-
Well aware of what the Gulfis have done, thanks - that's exactly the reason why I'm arguing that they're bad enough, so why should we want to let Daesh have its caliphate? That doesn't seem like a good outcome to me.
I don't really see what in Curtis' film suggests leaving Daesh alone is a good idea.
h2o
Just listened to Hillary Benn's speech. He said it better than I can.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2015/dec/03/hilary-benn-airstrikes-vote-speech-full-must-confront-isis-evil-video
As for the idea of allowing Daesh to have a caliphate. As I said just before, at least knowing the Gulfis are corrupt means we know they're not going to spend their oil wealth starting a war. They've done enough damage spreading their extreme interpretation of Islam. You want Daesh to get that kind of power?
EDIT to add - I now realise why I had such a problem with some of what @Oliver Schick said over on the ISIS/ISIL/etc thread. I think this theory of neocolonialism - while it has some analytical utility still - has blinded a lot of the left to the fact that some of these other countries that we once oppressed now have quite a lot of leverage. The West's relationship with the GCC states is a story as much about our weakness because of our dependence on their oil as it it as about how we created them in our colonial past.Yes, your average poor Saudi doesn't necessarily get much out of it, although their government does its best to buy them off. But the GCC states wield immense power, not least Saudi, because of their swing oil production. When OPEC meets, the populous states who need the money spend the days beforehand talking about production cuts to prop up the price. And when they get into the negotiating chamber, they shut the fuck up and do what the Saudis tell them because the Saudis are 30pc of OPEC output and can ruin them. This is a dynamic in which Western governments figure out how to deal with the Saudis to keep them onside and the Gulf stable, not a situation in which neo-imperial masters tell their puppets what to do. It's really fucking important to see that.
DOUBLE EDIT: Just to add to that, if you want to understand Western foreign policy towards Iran and Iraq from 1979 onwards, think about fucking OPEC. Yeah, we fucked it up - completely - but at least recognise that it wasn't just about money. It was about not ceding control to people who didn't like us very much. We should have done a far better job in not being cunts in the first place, I fully agree. But now we have what we have.