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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28883 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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The only reason Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani hasn't publicly thrown in his hat with Xi after this is because there's a non-zero risk Trump might bomb Qatar after reading about it on X.

Are you referring to something specific or did you just make that up? Because publicly the Qataris are talking about how this is ruining their impression of Iran, not America. And privately nobody is contemplating anything close to America bombing Qatar. You think Trump just wakes up on Twitter and decides who to bomb? You aren’t being dramatic? Trump is on Twitter so you can hear his message, not the other way around. If you think differently maybe you also think the hooker has never seen one so big before?

The logic of the whole war is Trump stitched together a new Middle East coalition of Israel, Saudi, Qatar, UAE, and Bahrain. This entails all working more closely with America which is how Trump got the buy-in to start the war in the first place. Did someone tell them that America is a partner of instability and everyone is moving out of America’s orbit? They didn’t seem to have gotten the memo.

So far none of these "coalition members" have been rah-rah about the war. What exactly are the Gulf states getting out of it? Two months ago, they were pumping oil and shipping it to their customers with no problems at all. Today, they have to join this coalition of yours, spend their oil revenues on air defense, on navies, on a land invasion of Iran just to go back to what is basically status quo ante bellum: pumping oil and shipping it to their customers with no problems at all.

The Sunni states hate Iran and have been informally allied against it for a generation. They are not amused that Iran is bombing them and they want to see Iran put down.

https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/world-news/israel-iran-war-uae-joins-bahrain-in-urging-unsc-action-on-strait-of-hormuz/articleshow/130050237.cms

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-891956

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8lzn2ejpjo

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/uae-minister-coexistence-with-iran-impossible-right-now-addressing-threat-essential-for-peace/

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/us/politics/saudi-prince-iran-trump.html

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/kuwaits-top-diplomat-blasts-irans-destabilization-of-the-region/

Stories like this are extremely common. The Gulf States do not want to be constrained by a rogue nation willing to blow up their international trade routes. They do not want Iran to toll the strait. They are happy to use America’s military to achieve their objectives. If your model here is that Saudi et al. were happy with Iran until America blew it all up, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. If you think Saudi et al. view this like European countries seething about everything Donald Trump does, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.

I didn't say they were happy with Iran, I said they were happy with the status quo, that is, Iran shouting "Death to America" and funding proxies in various shitholes away from the Gulf. Iran didn't blow up their international trade routes or try to toll the strait, because it had a reasonable expectation that it would get attacked by literally every major country if it tried this without a provocation. But now the window of acceptable fuckery from Iran has been widened thanks to the US and Israel launching a decapitation strike.

The major evidence suggests the exact opposite of what you're saying here. The Gulf Powers were not happy with the status quo (they've all wanted Iran cut down to size for generations, are you really disputing this? Why are all the Gulf States condemning Iran in public if they're actually debating how to create a new order without America?).

But now the window of acceptable fuckery from Iran has been widened thanks to the US and Israel launching a decapitation strike.

I don't even know what this could possibly mean. "The window of acceptable fuckery"? We blew up Iran's military and are now going to blockade them. The material with which Iran would actually block or toll the strait is shrinking by the day. Saudi Arabia is increasing the flow of oil through pipes that go around the Gulf and is interested in building more. Bahrain and Kuwait and UAE want Iran bombed back to the stone age so that Iran can never bomb then again. "The window of acceptable fuckery?" The status quo was that Iran had an ambiguous threat to target the straits, the new status quo now that they've used it is that their power to constrain the other Gulf States is being systematically destroyed.

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