"while another went ballistic"

isn't that the point of the damn things.....................

I think that starting with the BBC and finishing with you Harry, there is very little understanding of the position in which the Saudi's are in, fortunately the British and US governments are both backing the Saudi's.

The Saudi system is not democratic but the current system is based on the Bedouin Culture which is centuries old. The Kingdom is a dictatorship but a very benevolent dictatorship, in which the vast majority of Saudi's support the King and now Crown Prince MBS. There is a radically strange judicial system but the laws that we would consider unacceptable in the west are very rarely enforced, for example being Gay in Saudi Arabia simply goes on behind closed doors as "don't ask, don't tell".

Saudi Arabia is not expansionist. Iran is and there is a great deal of fear of being surrounded by forces allied with Tehran in Riyadh. Yemen would be a strategic catastrophe to Saudi Arabia if the Iran backed Houthi rebels take control. That would hand control of the entrance to the Red sea and the Suez canal to Iran. The Houthi rebels only represent a minority of Yemeni's and all of their power comes from Iran, this power allowed them to overthrow a government which was considered to be ligitimate by the UN.

Whilst the Saudi's do endeavor to avoid civilian casualties to the same degree that the British and Americans do, the Iranians clearly do not.

The Saudi's have allowed ships recently to deliver aid to Yemen. This humanitarian move has clearly backfired as those missiles delivered on Riyadh last night were probably dropped off recently amongst those aid shipments.

Israel and Saudi Arabia are currently de-facto allies.

This war fought by the Saudi's has far more ligitimacy than the second Gulf war or the Vietnam war. I'd argue that if Yemen was Oil rich then the west would have become significantly more involved.

No. Harry, it isn't. The missiles being fired at Saudi, that Patriot is trying to knock down, are ballistic missiles. The Patriot is a guided missile, designed to intercept ballistic missiles (if it's a PAC 3). Going ballistic is a malfunction if the real shooting war is going on.


@gladrag
That's why you don't just shoot one missile when you are intercepting a ballistic missile that is inbound. Are you disputing the seven interceptions? (Given that the spokesman was Saudi, I'd not be surprised at any cynicism regarding the source ...)


Oh, we have a naïve one, have we? Their efforts at spreading their influence and the spread of Islam is no secret. Follow the money.


Insofar as their not pursuing territorial expansion, yeah, you are technically correct.

The Saudis funded the construction of several large Mosques on the island of Bali in Indonesia. Bali is a Hindu island with a small Muslim minority....

Funny old world, innit.

Both view Iran as a major threat. Makes sense.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend....