Has Trump Started Saudi Arabia’s War on Iran?

Has Trump Started Saudi Arabia’s War on Iran?

The news of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani’s killing by the Trump administration in a missile attack near the Baghdad Airport in Iraq rocked the world with a bang. Many, or most, Trump followers celebrated his death on social media and blindly followed the rhetoric of “Trump killed our enemy.” This supporter of President Trump stayed silent until he could see what the President had to say about it.

For a good while there was a curiosity-teasing silence from President Trump—something unusual, given how vocal he is on Twitter (and always loved it). When the President finally spoke about it, my suspicion over the motive behind Soleimani’s killing strengthened. The suspicion: Trump is ready to fight Iran NOT for America but for Saudi Arabia.

In his statement, Trump made claims that seem seriously in need of proof/substantiation. The most notable of his claims that would be his attempted justification of is:

Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him.

Caught in the act? My gut response: I’ll need to see proof and it’ll be reasonable to say the whole nation deserves to see the proof for such a huge claim that relates the killing of a top Iranian military general to a supposedly immediate threat to Americans. Since the incident, no proof has been provided. Instead, within President’s statement, clear hints are visible (at least to this writer) that it’s not for America that he took this step, but for someone else—someone near and dear in that region. And yes, you guessed it right; it’s Saudi Arabia.

Saudi-Iran rivalry goes back to decades. It’s religious in nature and history. In fact the enmity of the two main sects of Muslims (the Sunni represented by Saudi Arabia versus the Shia represented by Iran) goes back all the way to the 7th century.

In contemporary Middle East, Saudi and Iranian regimes have been in battle for military and political supremacy. Saudi Arabia along with its allies tried to overthrow the Iranian-backed Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. Obama provided CIA support for Saudi mission. Thus ISIS was made into a monster to overthrow Assad. The long and bloody attempt failed as Russia defended Assad against ISIS and the so-called “rebels”.

On the other hand, Iran had started a parallel attempt to overthrow the Saudi-allied regime in Yemen. Iranian backed Houthi fighters (a dominantly Shia sect) of Yemen started an uprising in 2014 and claimed nearly half of Yemen in a short period of time. Saudis failed to stop the Houthi rebels buying getting tons of high-grade war weapons from US and the west. With time, the tables turned on the Saudis as the Houthi rebels acquired drone missiles and started targeting Saudi facilities and installations within Saudi Arabia (Yemen shares border with Saudi Arabia).

Then came the big Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities that terrified the Saudis and seriously disrupted their oil supply. Instantly the Saudis called for the world to take action against Iran for backing the Houthis in Yemen.

And that’s where America, now led by President Trump, once again came to Saudi rescue. Trump went on record saying the US was “locked and loaded” and was waiting for Saudi Kingdom to decide who attacked them and how US would go after the attackers.


With such an open declaration of readiness to attack anyone who had attacked Saudi Arabia, perhaps many were that time alarmed over the President’s tweet despite the President’s campaign trail promise of not fighting others’ wars.

Analysts with an eye for Middle Eastern affairs instantly saw the big conflict cooking up in the region where an “angry and injured” Saudi Arabia wanted the US to fight its war against Iran. And US seemed ready but needed just a little time to make sure the US response seems not serving the Saudi kingdom, but an act of self-defense. In other words, the US act of war had to look like a US-Iran conflict not a Saudi-Iran war.

Now, the Trump admin has acted on behalf of the Saudis and they have provided nothing to justify it except the rhetoric that Iran is bad and an enemy of America. While many conservatives and Trump supporting pro-Americans quickly bought this pill, at least some critical thinkers are looking at it with a frown. Is there really any proof that Soleimani was planning an attack on American diplomats and military and was caught in the act? Not so far. It’s a claim made by the President and is no different that the claim of the loony left that Russia colluded to elect Trump or that Trump had a quid pro quo in the Ukraine call.

Tucker Carlson looked at President Trump’s statement on his decision on Qassem Soleimani’s killing and offered a fairly balanced and reasonable commentary.

The next big question is that while conservatives are behaving like liberals in blindly following President Trump’s decision to fight Iran for Saudi Arabia while masking it as America’s war, what exactly will be Iran’s response to this act of war directly hitting them?

My own two cents say Iran won’t attack Americans, at least not immediately. Instead of taking on the big and powerful brother, they’d likely kick the weaker, dependent baby who is in care of the big brother. And to my console, I did see a recent article predicting the same – but can’t find the link right off.

For now that seems to be the state of the affairs and there is one thing conservatives need to consider before falling off the cliff of blind loyalty. Trump did a great job in reclaiming America from liberal destruction. Now he appears to be selling the nation a suspicious package that may not contain what they really like or want. Do they have an obligation to correct him or accept anything he offers based on his past good work? The choice if theirs.

3 thoughts on “Has Trump Started Saudi Arabia’s War on Iran?

  1. Clinton did the same while facing impeachment. I believe it has more to do with USAs internal politics at the moment. I do agree though, Trump or for that matter any US President would fight for Saudi interests without any hesitation.

    1. Not sure about the impeachment farce at all. On Clinton they had solid evidence for impeachment – lying under oath. On Trump, they have nothing. The transcript and testimonies embarrassed the Democrats and that’s why the Dems aren’t even submitting the impeachment inquiry report to the Senate – with a Republican Senate majority, it’s Dead on Arrival.
      That said, what I didn’t get to in my article is possible economic side to this attack. Saudi oil prices have been sinking – and in moments of the attack oil prices surged by over 4 percent. Gold also went up sharply. So maybe a desperate Saudi Arabia wanted it to happen real bad. I say it’s Trump’s worst decision of his Presidency so far. I can see it backfiring big time if he continued to dance to the Saudi tune.

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