Middle East Friendship Chart

need to add Jordan

I could have simplified it further. Just describe every relationship as It's complicated, and skip the chart entirely.

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need to add Jordan

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And Qatar which is the most enigmatic country in the Mideast.

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Everyone hates ISIS. Is that the Royal flush of Middle East politics?

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Yep. Interestingly, Gaddafi was as universally hated as ISIS, and his overthrow was the only other time that I can think of that American, Arab League, Iranian, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and Israeli interested coincided.

The most interesting is the view of the relationship between Hamas and Turkey. It is complicated between the US and Turkey - "NATO allies" but Hamas has one friend in Turkey and Turkey has two friends in the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

So Turkey has a better relationship with Hamas then the US.

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Posted by navyDon't let the chart fool you ... ISIS has friends.

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This. Even so-called moderate Muslims like the spread of Islam so what if it's from the barrel of a gun

I don't remember where I read it but there was a great article written saying there are three forces in the Middle East competing for influence: Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Iran is trying to create a Shi'ite zone in the region. Iran is a Shi'ite country and they're currying favor with the Shi'ite-dominated government in Iraq. Even though Syria is a majority-Sunni country, the clan that runs the country of which Assad is a member, the Alawites, are a spin-off of the Shi'ites.

Saudi Arabia is a Sunni-dominated country that hates the Shi'ites and wants to back other Sunni regimes in the Middle East. They support Jordan and Egypt, both Sunni countries that are traditional allies. They want to influence the Iraqi government which is forced to have Sunnis and also Kurds in the government due to power-sharing agreements. They also have good relations with the Gulf States.

Turkey used to be a more European country but the current regime is now wanting to embrace radical Islam and even though it's Sunni, it supports Muslim Brotherhood-connected movements that are more radical. It supports Hamas and it supported the deposed government in Egypt. Erdogan, the leader of Turkey, has talked about having a neo-Ottoman era in the region.

From an American perspective, even though Saudi Arabia is morally backwards and members of the royal family have bankrolled some pretty ugly people, their government itself is stable and doesn't support terrorism and the countries it supports are stable and don't support terrorism. The Saudi bloc in the region is also more favorable to Israel than the Iranian and the Turkish blocs.

The Iranian and Turkish blocs are far more wont to cause trouble, far more likely to support terrorism and far more anti-Israel than the Saudi bloc. So from our perspective, it makes sense to side with the Saudis over the other competing blocs.

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truthfully, every answer should be, "it's complicated."

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FIFY