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MI6 Spy says why Saudi Arabia is furious and forced Trump to cancel Project Freedom.

Posted on 5/7/26 at 9:53 am
Posted by loogaroo
Welsh
Member since Dec 2005
42398 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 9:53 am
The NBC story wasn’t good enough, now they dug up a former al-Qaeda member. This is comical.



quote:

Having spoken to a senior Saudi official about the NBC article regarding Project Freedom, I honestly think the article completely misunderstood what actually happened because it was written almost entirely from a US perspective rather than from a GCC perspective. First of all, contrary to the impression being created, the GCC were NOT blindsided by Project Freedom. They knew about it beforehand. Roughly half a day before. The airspace was opened. The facilities were available. Nobody objected. There was broad support for the idea because, at least publicly, Project Freedom was supposed to be a limited humanitarian-security operation aimed at relieving the 22,000 sailors trapped around Hormuz and allowing shipping lanes to breathe again. Nobody in the GCC had a problem with that. But here is the issue .. and this is the part the NBC article completely misses. If you are asking GCC countries to participate in such an operation, then you need to be upfront about the rules of engagement from day one! You cannot say:?“Please open your skies and bases, expose your energy infrastructure” …only for everyone to discover afterwards that the actual American policy was apparently: “Oh by the way, if Iran attacks you with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in several waves, we still won’t retaliate because Donald Trump is busy chasing The Deal.” And this is exactly what shocked the Saudis. Not the Iranian attack itself. The UAE/GCC expected retaliation.. This is Iran. Nobody in the Gulf is naïve about that anymore. The shock came from the American reaction afterwards. You had attacks against Emirati infrastructure. Fujairah was targeted. Multiple waves involving drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles. And Washington’s response was basically:?“Meh. Minor incident. Let’s not escalate.” Minor incident?! For the GCC that was madness. Because what Riyadh, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi suddenly realized was that Trump’s obsession with preserving “The Deal” had apparently reached the point where Gulf energy infrastructure was now considered acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of his precious negotiations. Everything became:?The deal.?The deal.?The beautiful deal.?The greatest deal.?The mother of all deals. The ultimate “Art of the deal” Or perhaps, more accurately:?The ultimate fart of the deal. Because from the Gulf perspective, this stopped looking like strategy and started looking like desperate political vanity mixed with deadly wishful thinking. Had the GCC been told beforehand:?“Listen, whatever Iran does to you during Project Freedom, America will not retaliate because we do not want to endanger negotiations…” …they would have almost certainly refused participation from the start. The problem was not Project Freedom itself. The problem was discovering midway through the operation that the GCC countries were apparently expected to sit there quietly as punching bags while Washington played negotiation theatrics with Tehran. So the Saudis and Kuwaitis pulled plug! Because the GCC know something US usually forgets: Iran plays the long game. You can freeze enrichment.?Pause enrichment.?Delay enrichment.?Sign ten agreements.?Twenty agreements.?Forty agreements. But if the infrastructure remains…?If the centrifuges remain…?If the IRGC remains…?If the proxy network remains… then eventually the game resumes. There will be another distraction.?Another pandemic.?Another financial crisis.?Another war somewhere else.?Another paralysis in Washington. And while the world is distracted, enrichment quietly resumes again. Ironically, much of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile expanded during the pandemic years precisely because global attention was elsewhere. Judging by the reaction to the UAE attacks, the Saudis and Kuwaitis concluded that Trump’s version of deterrence had become: “Please absorb the missiles quietly because I’m trying to write the sequel to “The Fart of the Deal.”
Posted by boosiebadazz
Member since Feb 2008
85685 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 9:55 am to
quote:

Everything became:?The deal.?The deal.?The beautiful deal.?The greatest deal.?The mother of all deals. The ultimate “Art of the deal” Or perhaps, more accurately:?The ultimate fart of the deal.


come on, bruh.
Posted by Bunk Moreland
Member since Dec 2010
68426 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 9:59 am to
The whole thing is bizarre. Trump had a quote the other day that was something like "there was no attack. Well, maybe a little." It did seem like he was trying to minimize whatever happened to UAE. I actually applaud him for not going into immediate escalation mode as some commentators thought the Project was meant to initiate a provocation.
Posted by aTmTexas Dillo
East Texas Lake
Member since Sep 2018
24012 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 10:00 am to
Well Trump talks about getting “deals” a lot.
Posted by boosiebadazz
Member since Feb 2008
85685 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 10:02 am to
I saw where two commercial satellite companies have stopped allowing access to pictures from the Middle East at the request of the US government. The article was suggesting the admin is trying to stifle information about regional damage to US installations and ally infrastructure from getting out.
Posted by scrooster
Resident Ethicist
Member since Jul 2012
43914 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 10:09 am to
Knowing the mindset of Arabs in general, understanding to some degree how they think ... the Saudi official is probably spot on, from their perspective.

It's not necessarily an attack on Trump as much as it is the one sided perspective of the original article.

And, in all honesty, Trump's verbology, his phraseology, is a little too deal-centric at times.

Arabs are some of the best negotiators in the world. They're well known for a shite or get off the pot approach and they hate Iran with a passion. They'll run out of patience eventually ... especially if Trump allows assaults on them without retribution.
Posted by holdem Tiger
Member since Oct 2007
1257 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 10:10 am to
Who knows what's really happening behind the scenes as far as strategy? Have to give some benefit of the doubt, particularly with good results so far.

If he gets a rock-solid deal, I can forgive leaving the regime in place. But my standards for rock-solid are very strict.
Posted by loogaroo
Welsh
Member since Dec 2005
42398 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 10:21 am to
quote:

Knowing the mindset of Arabs in general, understanding to some degree how they think ... the Saudi official is probably spot on, from their perspective.


quote:

It's not necessarily an attack on Trump as much as it is the one sided perspective of the original article. And, in all honesty, Trump's verbology, his phraseology, is a little too deal-centric at times.


I agree with this. I got a little carried away with calling it bullshite, but the MSM will still spin it to make Trump look bad.

Posted by LSUA 75
Colfax,La.
Member since Jan 2019
4955 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 10:53 am to
Trump is between a rock and a hard place.
He desperately wants this war to.end,mid term elections coming up
He could bomb them back to the Stone Age,destroy all their electrical and water infrastructure,destroy their oil facilities.
He doesn’t want to do that,it would be a humanitarian disaster for the citizens of Iran.
Problem is the IRGC will never capitulate,they will let Iran be destroyed and all die before they do that.
I’m sure he is being told that but he is hoping against hope that they will agree to his terms and make a deal.

I agree that Iran should never be allowed to have nuclear weapons and I respect his resolve not to kick the can down the road like all his predecessors including Reagan.
At the same time I don’t see it ending well for him and the Republicans.

A huge percentage of our electorate are a bunch of ignorant dolts that don’t see the big picture.All they know is gas is up and “Orange Man” is bad.
The citizens of today are not like citizens of WW 2,they were wiling to sacrifice for the greater good,hopefully for a better future even though first couple years of the war looked pretty dismal.
Posted by wdhalgren
Member since May 2013
5326 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 11:10 am to
quote:

Having spoken to a senior Saudi official about the NBC article regarding Project Freedom, I honestly think the article completely misunderstood what actually happened because it was written almost entirely from a US perspective rather than from a GCC perspective.


The bolded parts are comical. If anything, the original NBC article was written from an Iranian regime perspective. It never explained that Saudi's motive was they thought Trump was being too soft on Iran. NBC wasn't inclined to print that, so they left it sounding like Saudi didn't support the US plan to open the SOH. They even amplified that by saying Saudi didn't know about the plan for "Project Freedom".
This post was edited on 5/7/26 at 11:15 am
Posted by JacieNY
Member since Jul 2024
2146 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 11:12 am to
If he gets a rock-solid deal . . .

The marks always leave thinking they got a "rock-solid deal" until they get home, open it up and see all they got was a . . . rock.
Posted by NC_Tigah
Make Orwell Fiction Again
Member since Sep 2003
138978 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 11:57 am to
quote:

Washington’s response was basically:?“Meh. Minor incident. Let’s not escalate.” Minor incident?!
... except for the minor detail of TEN THOUSAND IRANIAN TARGETS subsequently destroyed.

Aside from that one trivial point, Aimen Dean may have a point.
Posted by Timeoday
Easter Island
Member since Aug 2020
23179 posts
Posted on 5/7/26 at 12:06 pm to
Do you know where Iran is hiding their navy and air force? I read where none of their military assets have been damaged because Iran had decoys on bases and in the water. /s
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