In his New York Times article titled "Iran May Be America's Enemy but Saudi Arabia Is Not a Friend," Andrew Bacevich wrote that after last week's attack on Saudi Aramco, US President Donald Trump should be cautious about throwing the weight of the United States behind a non-ally. Trusted.

The writer, head of the Quincy Institute of Serious Governance, recalled an Iraqi plane attack on the US frigate "Stark" in 1987 during a patrol in the Persian Gulf, and how US officials took advantage of the event immediately after Washington accepted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's explanation that the attack Killing 37 sailors was an accident, to intensify pressure on Tehran.

He pointed out that this incident provided a catalyst for what became a short naval war forgotten between the United States and Iran.

He explained that the US authorities dealt with last week's attack on Saudi oil facilities in a manner similar to the Stark incident when it was quick to blame Iran, and warned of the possibility of growing violent confrontation between the two countries again. He added that before deciding to pull the trigger, it would be better for Trump to reflect on the 1987 incident and its aftermath.

At the time, the United States engaged in the bloody war between Iraq and Iran, and when the war turned into a tragic dilemma, President Ronald Reagan and his advisers convinced themselves that it was in the US interest to help Iraq. As Iran was the "enemy", Iraq became a "friend."

However, the writer says, the US won little of this good victory, and the main beneficiary was Saddam Hussein, who wasted no time in rewarding Washington for invading and annexing Kuwait shortly after his war with Iran ceased. America's “friend” became America's “enemy”.

Proxy conflict
The confrontation with Iran has become a precedent and delusion, and successive administrations have since imagined that the direct or indirect use of military force could restore stability to the Gulf in one way or another. What actually happened was the opposite. Instability has become chronic and the relationship between military policy and actual US interests in the region has become more difficult to understand.

In 2019, this entrenched tendency for armed intervention makes the United States once again embroiled in a proxy conflict, this time a civil war that has torn Yemen since 2015, with Saudi Arabia supporting one party to this endless bloody conflict, while Iran backing the other.

The United States, under President Barack Obama and President Trump, has now thrown its weight on Saudi Arabia, providing similar support to the Reagan administration to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, but the US-backed Saudi forces have shown no more efficiency today than Iraqi forces at the time. Going on in Yemen.

Bacevic commented that he does not imply that Washington supports the wrong side in Yemen, and that what he meant though is that neither side deserves support. He said that Iran may be well qualified to be America's "enemy", but Saudi Arabia is not a "friend". Regardless of the huge amounts spent by Riyadh on the purchase of US weapons and how much effort is invested by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in courting Trump and his family members.

He said the widely held belief in US policy circles that the United States in the Persian Gulf (and elsewhere) had to take sides rather than the other was a source of frequent loss. The escalating rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran poses a risk of further destabilization in the Gulf.

Supporting Iraq in its reckless war with Iran in the 1980s represents a strategic short-sightedness, resulting in far too many problems to be solved and unleashing a series of expensive wars that have yielded little. About that.