A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Senior Administration Official: "Saudi Arabia has an extensive border with Syria"

Oh God. We're really fuc screwed over if the intelligence community can't afford a map when laying out a "strategy" (really more a package of tactics, but that's another post.) From a White House Press Release called "Background Conference Call on the President's Address to the Nation" 
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  I guess I would just add one thing on the coalition question -- and I think this is important to really focus on, which is to say, in discussions with governments in the region, notably the Saudis and the Jordanians, what is clear is that we have a very common view of this threat.  And this is really quite unusual. 
ISIL has been I think a galvanizing threat around the Sunni partners in the region.  They view it as an existential threat to them.  Saudi Arabia has an extensive border with Syria.  The Jordanians are experiencing a destabilizing impact of over a million refugees from the Syrian conflict, and are profoundly concerned that ISIL, who has stated that their ambitions are not confined to Iraq and Syria, but rather to expand to the broader region.
Let's run that by again: Saudi Arabia has an extensive border with Syria.  

It does?
Oh please oh please oh please let this "Senior Administration Official" have to explain to the King of Jordan what he or she meant as they erased Jordan from the map. Please tell me it's not really this bad.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The US entire ME foreign policy is built on delusions.

It seems rather mean to dwell on one of the more minor of these.



Michael Collins Dunn said...

Mean, maybe, but I'm paying these people's salaries. They can afford a map.

TJ Jackson said...

Anonymous seems to have conflated mendacity with stupidity.