Iran and Saudi Arabia

Why would Iran try to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the United States? If you wanted to you could come up with all sorts of grand Tom Clanceyan conspiracy theories, but often the simplest answer is probably correct. Iran and Saudi Arabia are regional rivals for power in the Middle East. Because the Iranians know that targeting a US or Israeli ambassador would mean certain war, they chose the next best thing to accomplish two goals: demonstrate their power to the Sunni Saudis and show the U.S. that they have a global reach.

Using our southern border shows our vulnerability; not to mention highlighting the ease with which the Mexican cartels (armed with Fast and Furious guns) can be used to continually degrade our national security.

The operation was amateurish and thankfully failed, but it does give one pause that there may be some destabilizing elements in the highest reaches of the Iranian regime. What if this was a rogue operation? Will the Saudis reply militarily? Do they have the capability to considering they had to pay off their "Arab Spring" protestors? Will this provocation increase Israeli fears of Iran's reach or do they already know their capabilities to operate in the west?

There are many other questions that could come out of this incident...stay tuned.

A New Start

Well, it's time to get back on the horse and start bloggin' again. My last post was pretty uninspired, so I'll try to do a bit better. I just (re)-downloaded Blogger on my Android-based phone so there's no excuse for me not checking in to IntRam more frequently.

So, what's been happening? Herman Cain, the former Godfather's Pizza CEO is running ahead of pretty much everybody for the GOP nomination. I like his down-home, plain-spoken manner, I'm not sure about his 9-9-9 plan, but it's a start to get people talking. I was really excited that Rick Perry jumped into the race a couple of months ago, but he's been underwhelming. Although, that view is mainly coming from the left and people who don't like him on the right, so I'm still for Perry until he gets beat. Romney is just another slick-ass politician who will disappoint a lot of people if he's elected.

It's a shame that Gingrich has so much baggage in his past. He's clearly the smartest candidate we have and has the most robust intellect which would serve the country well. A general election campaign with him against Obama would just be brutal. All the rest of the candidates: Bachmann, Paul, Johnson, Santorum, Huntsman (am I forgetting someone?), are pretty much unelectable and may be vying for a cabinet post or appointment...

Well, that's it for now. Let's try to keep this going. I've been ranting and raving about a lot of stuff and I need to get it down on "paper"...