Israel's Strike on Hamas Leaders in Qatar Shatters Gulf's Faith in Us Protection

Either the Qataris knew about it and threw one of their citizens under the bus or they didn't know about it and they won't do anything to avenge one of their citizens. Either way their reputation amongst the Arab word as the U.S.' useful idiot stands.

Imagine having all the money in the world only to let people walk all over you, phew.

Theo whole situation is so messed up. Israel declares Hamas as the enemy and invades Gaza, the US supports and declares Hamas a terrorist organization. US has friendly relations with Qatar, Qatar gives the US a 747 while also hosting Hamas. The whole Middle East is f…ed up and nothing that’s done makes sense.

But ... nobody should have faith in air defense for an area bigger than a few square kilometers. If anybody promises that, their only option is a separate air defense system for every few square kilometers. I don't know but I doubt that sort of thing is deployed anywhere outside of Ukraine or Washington. And in Ukraine only the places that are currently engaged in active warfare. Not even Brussels or Israel has that. In Israel, only specific borders and some city centers are protected (much like in Ukraine) but the grand total of protected areas is not going to be that much. Even Tel Aviv airport did not have active air defense systems, partly because that's much harder, though probably now a few of smart Israeli have been told to solve the hard problem.

And if anybody has faith that even the best such systems would protect against a cruise or ballistic missile with a nuke on board, they don't.

All Qatar had to do was to look at Ukraine to see how some of US promises are worth in the current administration. Better luck next time.

Israel attacked 6 countries within 72 hours during "cease fire" talks. If all neighbors are a "threat" I wonder who the real problem is.

I'm surprised that anyone can believe to be protected from Israel. Neither the US or European countries demand accountability when Israel kills their any of their citizens; the EU and even the US have curtailed freedom of speech to benefit Israel; in its favour they send the police against their own citizens to disrupt protests, and betray their deepest values and international law. It's clear that in the West, Israel's interest comes before everything else.

Here's a fun little corollary. Israel has nuclear weapons, and Iran is working on it. Gulf states, so far, appear not to have been pursuing this path. They probably felt effectively protected by the US, and felt they would lose their relationship with the US if they did pursue this path.

But now, that's gone. US is not protecting them, and they are between two belligerent nuclear powers.

1, 2, 3, what's the natural conclusion? And what happens when a fractioned region enters a nuclear race?