"You had one job..."
From AntiWar.com:
Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to reopen their embassies on Thursday after their foreign ministers met in China
CIA Director William Burns visited Saudi Arabia earlier this week to express frustration over Riyadh’s surprise normalization deal with Tehran that was brokered by Beijing, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
According to the Journal, Burns told Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that the US “has felt blindsided” by Riyadh’s rapprochement with Iran as well as Syria, two nations under crippling US economic sanctions.
Following the deal with Iran, Saudi Arabia is poised to normalize with Syria. Riyadh is expected to invite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to an Arab League summit it’s hosting in May. The Biden administration is against regional countries upgrading ties with Syria as it prefers to keep the country isolated as US policy is to prevent reconstruction....
....MORE
HT: ZH
The CIA being blindsided by Riyadh-Tehran rapprochment is a pretty major indictment of the State Security Apparatus.
Right up there with the failure to spot the crop failures in Russia and Ukraine which led to the Soviets getting huge advantage in 1974's "Great Grain Robbery".
And the failure to foresee the rapidity of the collapse of the communist governments in Eastern Europe.
And the round-up, torture, and murder of virtually all the human assets the CIA was running in China.
And the Chinese hack of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management starting in 2013, exposing the personal information of 20 million current and former employees, including those with highest level security clearances. That was actually a joint CIA/FBI failure. As was the Soviet development of the H-bomb.
And....well, it is a very long list.
On the other hand, perhaps the CIA director is lying and they weren't blindsided—spies lie for a living—and this is exactly the result that those in the corridors of power desired. Reduce the standing of the U.S. in the Middle East and in the eyes of the rest of the world, enhance the power of the petroleum power players, maybe make some bucks for themselves with a few well placed hydrocarbon bets informed by, as the securities lawyers say, material non-public information.
Who knows? And is it any wonder that James Jesus Angleton went nuts?
