"The Middle East is in a war of two competing blocs."

In his blog, Ace of Spades writes,

If you don't know -- and it's a mystery why the media doesn't tell you this more often, because it's a well-known fact and it's pretty simple and explains a lot of the otherwise confusing moves in the Middle East -- the Middle East is in a war of two competing blocs.

In one bloc is Iran, Turkey, and Qatar. Qatar, which has less of a negative public profile than Turkey and certainly Iran, and also has a ton of money to spread around, is in charge of shaping US policy (and putting money in the hands of those who can shape US policy) in favor of the Iran-Turkey-Qatar troika.

I think people feel more comfortable being on the Qatari payroll than they would be being on Iran's.

But being on Qatar's payroll is essentially the same as being on Iran's. They're partners in this troika. Qatar is just the less-scary frontman for the troika.

This troika supports the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the other bloc is Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, most of the other Gulf States (Bahrain, etc.), and... Israel.

This group, by and large, opposes the Muslim Brotherhood.

This is why the Jamal Kashoggi assassination was such a major public spectacle: Khashoggi was a Qatari information officer assassinated for being a Qatari information officer, not for being a "journalist." This is why Turkey was so eager to milk the story for all the PR, and why American media who have for some reason partnered with Qatar really wanted to make this a huge event -- it was part of the Iran-Turkey-Qatar information ops against a major player in the rival bloc.

That doesn't mean it's a good thing to murder fairly minor intelligence assets like Kashoggi. But it does explain why there was so much storm and thunder about it.

Because Qatar was paying money so that there should be storm and thunder about it. And Turkey was lending a hand.

And the parts of the American media which have allied softly with Iran since Ben Rhodes' echo chamber, and since Obama decided to support Iran over Israel, were happy to play their part.

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