This is a Bipartisan Mess With Global Responsibility

For years, Presidents of both parties, and leaders of the other countries in the Global Economy have sucked up to the Leaders of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states.  We supported the Shah and didn't promote Democracy or encourage economic development or fair treatment of women.

Somehow,  all this led to a proxy war between the Sunnis and Shia that turned into the War on Terror, which in turn created conditions that have brought the Middle East to its current condition.

The U.S. is in an impossible condition and I am sure we would be in the same place (or even a worse place) if John McCain or Romney had won their elections.  Because Iraq is a Shia dominant country in an Iraqi National Election and some Iraqi Sunnis resent that to the point of becoming anarchists.  Syria was poised to disintegrate into it's Sunni and Shia areas with Iraq so out of control.

At this point, some Neo-conservatives would say, no I am wrong because if we had left the U.S. Army in Iraq, this wouldn't have happened.  But do you really believe the U.S. Army can fight a war in Iraq against the Sunni's and the Shia for decades.  The Sunni and Shia have been going at it for over a thousand years.  The U.S. Army would have been a magnet for the jihadists to come from all over to join ISIS with the U.S. Army right there for the fight they all want to have.

I have written before about the tangled web of the Middle East.  It is becoming ever more obvious that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran need to develop some diplomacy with each other if Jihadism is to be stopped.  The money needs to be cut off from the Jihadists and the militias that fight the proxy war.

That is what is going on in Yemen, a god forsaken country that has no economic reason to exist, except that it does for some reason.  Don't forget, almost every Muslim country in the Gulf has a mix of Sunni and Shia.  The opposing sect is discriminated against in many countries feeding the resentment.

So why does Saudi Arabia send its military forces against the Shia in Yemen but not ISIS?  Why do the Shia militias stand down vs ISIS when the U.S. military starts bombing in support of their efforts?    Why can't the Iraqi Army fight?  These are not questions with answers from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The world needs to cut off its use of oil from the Middle East and Russia as fast as possible.  Only by cratering the funds that feed this mess, will we be able to put these autocracies back into a less harmful place.

And while we are doing that, we need to get Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran talking to each other about what their vision of a peaceful coexistence looks like, because right now, that vision does not appear to exist.  And there is no reason for the U.S. military to be in the middle of that.