Is it just me, or is it getting hotter...

[Don Corleone]

So we have 2 cauldrons boiling over....

The Persian Gulf:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sa...0UJ0G920160105

Saudi Arabia, feeling a little PO'd at recent Shiite gains apparently executed a 2nd-tier Shiite cleric who had been calling for civil rights for Shiites living in the Kingdom. They also abandoned the cease fire in Yemen and resumed operations against Shiite rebels. The Shiite world (indeed, most of the world) reacted with outrage. Iranian crowds promptly overran the Saudi embassy. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain suspended all diplomatic activity with Iran and expelled all their diplomats. And this morning, Iran unveiled a 2nd nuclear capable underground missile site: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ir...0UJ1CB20160105.

A good friend of mine who's an Iranian Christian living in Silicon Valley has told me repeatedly that what the West always seems to miss is that more than Westerners or Jews... Sunni and Shiites hate each other far more... the nuclear program in Iran has always been and will always be directed towards Saudi Arabia, not Israel (who makes for nice cover, not much more).

I was going to mention the other (the East and South China seas), but I'll start a second thread.. way too much going on in each theater for just one thread.

Pray, meditate, think happy thoughts... whatever it is you do to instill positive energy into a situation... please start doing so earnestly now. Things over there are getting pretty unstable, and I don't think we're able to deal with the current levels of chaos...we certainly don't need an all out war between the 2 regional powers to really F%^@ things up.

[Montmorency]

It will be interesting to study in hindsight (maybe in a decade) how the Obama administration's strategy of regional balancing will have shaped the conflicts and powers in the ME.

At least, it always reminds us not to be hasty in evaluating what foreign states look like to us at a single point, as the many layers of inter/intra-governmental communication and policy are largely opaque to the general public.

[Husar]

Sounds like the Middle East.

[Pannonian]

Pray, meditate, think happy thoughts... whatever it is you do to instill positive energy into a situation... please start doing so earnestly now. Things over there are getting pretty unstable, and I don't think we're able to deal with the current levels of chaos...we certainly don't need an all out war between the 2 regional powers to really F%^@ things up.

There's plenty of evidence that whatever we do in that region, they'll still hate us for doing it or not doing it. Not doing anything is cheaper, and they'll hate us anyway.

[Fragony]

The cleric who was executed doesn't seem to be such a bad guy but who knows. I don't understand why SA did that, they are already enemies without it.