Has the US lost the Middle East? – interview with Ken Timmerman – Beyond the Matrix [audio]

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Rod Reuven Dovid Bryant and Jerry Gordon bring back veteran Iran-watcher, best-selling investigative journalist Ken Timmerman to address the question of has the US lost the Middle East. Background are troubling developments with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Turkey. The bottom line: Iran intends to achieve its goal of controlling the area between the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and the Mediterranean with more than 25% plus of the world’s oil supply while perfecting its Shi’ite objective of surrounding and destroying Israel. As Stephen Bryen has noted in a recent Beyond the Matrix interview the US has “no strategy, no intelligence” and thus appears unable to deal with what Timmerman considers are dire geo-political threats.
Notwithstanding the unresolved recent Israeli do-over election, Timmerman noted that Netanyahu has developed an effective strategic diplomatic and national security policy. He has avoided war with Iran, while punishing it in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq through deconfliction arrangements with Putin. Timmerman hopes that Netanyahu’s legacy will survive in whatever national unity government emerges. He points to a recent interview with Iran’s nefarious Quds Force Commander General Soleimani who noted that in 2006, Iran didn’t intervene in Lebanon against Israel as the US was engaged in War in Iraq. Now Iran and proxies surround Israel on three sides and is seeking to fulfill Shi’ite bizarre doctrine of destroying Israel and bringing back the 12th Imam.
On the Trump Peace Plan Timmerman cites the resignation of Special Envoy Greenblatt saying “there’s no peace partner” – meaning the Palestinians.
We next turned to Saudi failures to defend their oil facilities and display war making capabilities against the Houthi Iran proxy in Yemen, the survival of reformist Crown Prince Mohmmed bin Salman. Timmerman cited the ability of Iran and Iraqi proxies to launch a swarm of drones and cruise missiles that devastated the oil facilities and fields: “ their intel enabled it to the thread the needle of gaps in radar” of billion dollar US anti-Missile defense pointed in the wrong direction”. The Houthi attack that devastated a combined Saudi and Sudan force showed this is really a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. He expects more Houthi cross border razzias against the Saudi seeking to disable the Saudi Royal Regime. Saudi royals are divided over anti-corruption strong arm actions by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salam (MBS) and taking responsibility for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, despite the latter’s Muslim Brotherhood and support of Qatar. MBS is seeking reforms of conservative Wahhabism and diversifying economic reforms such as the ARAMCO IPO. Timmerman warns that Iran could play the Shi’ite card in the Saudi oil rich province through a network of Imams and Mosques. The takeaway is that the Saudis are not strong enough to take on Iran. Irony is that only the US, Israel and the UAE support MBS.
Iraq, Timmerman believes that Iraq is falling apart with internal protests, Iran controlling 100,000 Shi’ite Hashd al Shaabi PMF militia fighters and Israel attacking their warehouses stocked with precision missiles. Iraq is effectively a “province of Iran ceding sovereignty to its neighbor”. The question remains will the US keep its remaining assets in Iraq at the Al-Sad airbase.
Turkey’s Erdogan’s objective in his “safe zone” foray into northeastern Syria Kurdish homeland is to ‘smash Kurds in eastern Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq”. Erdogan, Timmerman contends, was the main patron of ISIS in Syria. Erdogan’s objective in invading northeastern Syria would be to release the 70,000 ISIS families and fighters.
We end this fast-paced informative interview with a discussion of Timmerman’s views on the Whistleblower compliant over Ukraine issues and President Trump’s response.