Tag Archives: Saudi

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Persian Gulf, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Quest for Gulf Hegemony: GCC Cyber Attacks and Media Warfare Escalate After the Trump Summit, What Next?…….

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Interesting things have been happening in the Persian-American Gulf region, especially in the aftermath of President Trump’s visit and his speech in the Arabian Peninsula.

The website of the “official” Qatar News Agency was hacked last week. The hackers inserted headlines that quoted the Emir of Qatar criticizing the Saudi and Emirati leaders and praising closer ties with the Iranians.
This led to some fury in the royal and princely palaces along the Persian Gulf. Followed by a flurry of visits among Gulf potentates and leaders.

Qataris claimed their official news agency website had been hacked and fake statements inserted, but the Saudis and UAE media continued a relentless barrage of attacks and threats against the Qatari regime. It is possible that the UAE and/or Saudis may have hired some hackers to create a cause for attacking Qatar, a casus belli from their point of view.

In the United States, the issue of Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, where the US Central Command has its Persian Gulf headquarters, could be under consideration again. Saudi and Emirati (UAE) surrogates among paid lobbyists, paid American journalists, and paid American Think Tank analysts are again suggesting that the regional CENTCOM HQ be moved to the UAE. My unreliable sources report that the UAE potentates have been lobbying for it furiously.
Kuwait tried to mediate by sending it foreign minister to calm things down. The Emir of Qatar visited Kuwait, which is usually neutral in inter-GCC and Gulf disputes. The goal seems to have been to get some intermediation going.
The leader of the UAE, Crown Price Mohamed Bin Zayed visited Saudi Arabia to coordinate. Bin Zayed is reputed to be close to Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, the Dauphin in Waiting of Riyadh. But the Saudi and Emirati potentates are having serious differences over the Yemen war. Egyptian media, very close to the UAE potentates since General Sisi staged his military coup, have also escalated even more against Qatar.

Then the website of the corpulent foreign minister of Bahrain Khalid Al Khalifa (effectively a satellite of Saudi Arabia) was hacked, his tweets replaced with anti-regime items and photos of unrest and repression in Bahrain.

Then GlobalLeaks started releasing emails and messages implicating UAE (Emirati) officials with gifts, bribes, to US journalists and think tanks. It published info of close ties between UAE ambassador to Washington and the pro-Israeli organization Front for the Defense of Democracies (itself an Israel right-wing front financed by Las Vegas Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson). Apparently the ambassador, known in Washington as a man-about-town and generous party-giver, is pushing for some kind of American confrontation with Iran in the Persian Gulf, the same goal of the Israeli right-wing Likud. Except that the United States and Israel are both outside interlopers, located far from the Persian Gulf.

All this turmoil and the Iranian mullahs did not have to lift a finger: all of the turmoil locally made by the Gulf GCC internal struggle for and against Saudi hegemony.
Perhaps an understandable aftermath of the ill-fated visit of Trump and his clan to the Wahhabi summit in Riyadh, in the aftermath of his famously nonsensical speech.

Then on Sunday (today) came proof that the intermediation attempts have failed. UAE and Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain severed diplomatic relations with Qatar.  The controlled media of those countries escalated their campaign against the government of Qatar. There is no doubt that there will be attempts by UAE and Saudi Arabia to instigate a military coup for regime change in Doha. Oman and Kuwait usually refuse to join such inter-Gulf conflicts and have so far maintained relations with Qatar (as they did with Iran after the others broke relations).

Oddly, news agencies reported yesterday that six Qatari soldiers were wounded while “defending” the southern Saudi border against Yemeni retaliation for the Saudi-American-British bombing of their cities.

Stay tuned….

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, Donald Trump, GCC, Middle East, Muslims, Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran, Weapons deals

Fallout of Donald Trump’s Poisonous Middle East Visit to Saudi Arabia……..

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Donald Trump‘s Middle East visit was not only the most expensive ever for his Saudi hosts, reportedly to the tune of about $460 billion that they cannot afford. The princes may even be forced later to scale down and stagger payment of some of what many natives consider a “ransom” paid to Trump. If and when the dust from his unfortunate and disastrous visit to the Arabian Peninsula ever settles down. (Already some independent Arab media claim the Saudis are canceling big weapons deals with Turkey, presumably a result of the Trump holdup)

The visit is proving a most poisonous event, one that has raised passionate sectarian tensions to levels that even Al Qaeda and ISIS could not do. Having a world superpower take direct sides in a sectarian conflict largely created by Trump’s new regional allies and urging one side side to “go for it”. That will also prove disastrous for US foreign policy. If the princes are foolish enough to take Trump at his words, they would see his speech as an invitation for them to escalate, with a promise of American collusion and participation in the event of a new war.
(Of course, some of the princes may know, like we do, that Trump is prone to exaggeration, that his word can’t be taken seriously. Hopefully that is the case, but still, so much lethal hardware in the hands of a spoiled young prince….).


First came the accession of King Salman and his rash son. Almost a future reckless Saddam Hussein of the Arabian Peninsula, if the past two years are any indication.
Then enter Donald Trump, whose knowledge of the region is focused on how much money he can extort from the native princes and potentates. An incompetent and greedy Western leader who is after loot: that is how most Arabs and Muslims see him. Regardless of the propaganda headlines of the controlled and royally-owned media of some Gulf GCC states.


Trump‘s Saudi visit was the most poisonous event for the Middle East since the accession of Saudi King Salman and his son, in itself retroactively an event that started the slide towards deeper more open sectarian conflict in the Persian Gulf and the wider Arab World.

The American visitor and his clan were not even out of Riyadh before the fallout from his visit started to poison the air over the Persian Gulf to a degree unprecedented in modern times.

More on this later…..

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arabian Gulag, Arabian Peninsula, Donald Trump, Gauleiter Bannon, Islam, POTUS, Ramadan, Saudi Arabia, Trump, US Foreign Policy, USA

Axis of Corruption: Happy Ramadan and Many Wahhabi Returns, Imam Trump, Haji Gauleiter Bannon, et al……..

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The Holy Muslim month of Ramadan may start on Friday (or maybe Saturday for some more ornery Muslims). Saudis claim they will start on Saturday because they can’t confirm seeing the moon crescent yet. So Ramadan will most likely start in most Muslim countries on Saturday (on Shabbat as our Jewish neighbors would say).

So in the spirit of Donald Trump’s recent initiation in and conversion into the joys of Wahhabi regional sectarian politics, and many billions of money, in Riyadh. He is now an honorary Wahhabi. All during that first meeting of his Axis of Corruption, so:


Happy Ramadan, Mr. Imam Shaikh Trump.

Happy Ramadan, Haji Gauleiter Bannon.

Happy Ramadan, Shaikh Herr Sturmbanfuhrer Miller.

Happy Ramadan, Melania and Ivanka for surviving the staged stag events of last week and withstanding the thick air of hypocrisy and corruption. Just scrub yourselves well, ladies, use disinfectant if you must.

Happy Ramadan, to whoever else is lurking in the Dark Side.

Donald, may those many billions of dollars stolen by the Arab potentates from the Persian Gulf peoples always be with you. You are now an Honorary Muslim, although of the Wahhabi Sect. A founding father of a new axis, your very own Axis of Corruption extending from the Persian Gulf to Africa and beyond.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Media, Arabian Peninsula, Donald Trump, GCC, Middle East, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Trump, U.S. Foreign Policy

The Fake Facade of Trump’s Saudi Summit Collapses, GCC at War Within Itself………

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Did Donald Trump stir up a hornets nest during his Saudi visit? Apparently he did: for now we know that all did not go as smoothly as we were told and shown on television.

Strange events erupted as soon as Trump left Riyadh. Reportedly some discord existed from the beginning of the Summit, but they tried to sweep it under the red carpets. All the media propaganda about policy coordination vanished after Trump left with his Saudi money prize. And Iran had nothing to do with it this time! Only the diehards of the discredited ruling family in Bahrain would blame any outsider this time.
Two days after the departure of the Trump Circus from the so-called Arab-Islamic-American Summit all hell broke loose. The carefully presented facade collapsed:
Some countries complained that they were promised by the Saudi foreign minister Adle Al Jubeir that there will be no resolution condemning Iran. There are many Muslim and Arab countries present that have good relations with both sides. Some of them had left Riyadh before the communique/resolution was crafted and issued by allegedly American-Saudi-GCC staff. The Lebanese Foreign Minister openly hinted that Al Jubeir lied to him about that. Countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, the Central Asian Republics, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, a couple of Gulf GCC members, among many others, have close or cordial relations with Iran.

Independent Arab media also report continued disputes during and after the Summit involving other countries. Including Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Erdogan of Turkey and Oman downgraded the meeting by sending ministers instead of heads of state. Lebanon’s president and Iraqi Prime Minister did not attend.

American media got the fake news that the Saudis and the Trump team wanted them to hear. That is the fake facade that we saw on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, ABC, etc. A lot of cleverly orchestrated Fake News.

It all collapsed as soon as Air Force One left Riyadh.

Other developments occurred within the GCC itself:
The Bahrain regime decided to storm a Shi’a town, the home of the most senior Shi’a cleric who is currently under arrest and incommunicado. Battles ensued between regime forces/mercenaries and supporters of the opposition. Five young men were shot dead, some wounded, almost three hundred arrested.
Almost simultaneously, a strong war of words and media broke out between Qatar on one side, and the UAE and Saudi Arabia on the other (I consider the Bahrain regime an appendix of the Saudi regime).

The Qatari Emir was quoted saying that some Gulf states practice an extremist form of Islam that encourages terrorism. Guess who he meant by that? Saudi and UAE media blasted the Qataris and blocked Qatari media broadcasts (AlJazeera, etc). The Qatari Emir was also quoted that Iran is not a threat, that it has been reasonable, that there are other more serious threats. Some interpreted this to mean Saudi Arabia.
There has been speculation initially, and some claims, that the Qatari Emir was misquoted, that someone hacked into the media outlets. But that now seems unlikely, for the media attacks continue. This was has been confirmed, as the Saudi-UAE war of words and threats against Qatar continues. Qatar is, of course, an independent country that can craft its own foreign policy without kowtowing to the Saudi princes and their march towards another losing war in the Persian Gulf.

There have been suggestions that the US Central Command should move its regional headquarters from Qatar. Mostly by old American Neocons and those with close Saudi ties.

Stay tuned for more….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Counterrevoltion, Donald Trump, GCC, MAGA, MENA, Middle East, Persian Gulf, Sectarianism, U.S. Foreign Policy

The Arab Islamic American Summit Comes Up With a Trump Motto: Holy Art of the Deal….

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The Saudi organizers of the so-called Sunni Arab Islamic American (Sectarian) Summit in Riyadh have come up with a website and a logo, sort of.

(My browser told me this website is not safe and would not open it. I’ll say.)

It says :

Historic Summit, Brighter Future
Together We Prevail

Which is rather cheeky, after what I have opined about this exclusively sectarian provocative summit. It will fail in most of the goals it has been set to achieve, whatever they be, except to milk the Persian Gulf Arabs, mainly the Saudis, for a few hundred billion more dollars for Mr. trump’s projects. Expensive weapons, toys that the potentates can’t even use properly: I repeat myself, but their failure against poor Yemen is one example. Maybe there will be more spectacular failures in the near future as they talk Donald Trump and the hawks around him into new wars in the Gulf and the wider Middle East.

I would have the thought the organizers, and their highly-paid American and British lobbyists that devised the logo would do a more accurate job. The logo could say, for example:

Wahhabism, Sectarianism, and Republican Corporate Values:
Together We can Exploit the Swamp and Make America Great Again!

It would also help if they distribute stacks of a new Holy Book of the Summit: free copies of “The Art Of The Deal“

I commented on this Sunni-Republican-Royal Summit yesterday in this post here. I will have more comments later….

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arabian Peninsula, Culture, History, Islam, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Agony of Mecca: Birthplace of Islam becomes City of Greed and Bulldozers………

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“AS THE governor of Mecca, Prince Khalid bin Faisal Al Saud has been able to compensate for earlier failings. He came to his role in 2007 from Asir province, where his plans to erect modern tower blocks in the city of Abha were largely unfulfilled. He successfully erased Abha’s quaint old town, with its beehive houses made of wattle, only to replace them with squat breeze-block bungalows. Not a high-rise was to be seen. Now, on top of what was Mecca’s old city of lattice balconies and riwaq arches, the prince has overseen the Middle East’s largest development project. Skyscrapers soar above Islam’s holiest place, dwarfing the granite Kaaba far below. Diggers flatten hills that were once dotted with the homes of the Prophet’s wives, companions and first caliphs……….. two 50-floor towers on the site of the third caliph’s house. Such is the pace that for a time the holy city’s logo was a bulldozer…………”

This travesty, nay this crime, has been going on for some years. Islamic monuments from the home of Prophet Mohammed to the homes of his wives to the homes of Omar and Ali and other Sahaba have been razed to build malls, parking lots and luxury hotel apartments. Royal Saudi greed conspires with Wahhabi Salafi doctrine that opposes all types of monuments. To destroy the history of Islam, in the Birthplace of Islam.

It is not new, it’s been going on for years while Western powers that blasted the Taliban and ISIS for destroying ancient monuments remain silent. Aiding and abetting the desecration of history. I have posted often on this sad and outrageous issue. Here are a few of my older posts on this topic:

The Wahhabi War on History Continues: Now the Grave of the Prophet……..

Biblical Monuments, Islamic Monuments………

Cultural Dichotomy: Destroying Islamic Monuments, Funding Ancient Roman Restoration……

Breaking News: Prince of Mecca Receives Mayor of Mecca, Holy Town is Doomed……….

Destroyers of Islamic Heritage, Looters of Mecca………

Birthplace of Islam: Where Dogma and Greed Face History…………

Buying the Soul of Britain, Raping the History of Islam, Sacking Mecca……………

Cheers
M. Haider Ghuloum

Arab Politics, GCC, Iran, Islam, Middle East, Muslims, Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Trump, US Foreign Policy

Arab Leaders Blowing in the Wind: Torn Between Many Lovers…….

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The Arab regimes that care, mainly in the Gulf region, have failed to devise and implement a strategy against the expansion of Iranian influence in the Middle East. Military attempts in Iraq and Syria (via insurgent Jihadi proxies) have failed. An extended and ferocious destructive bombing campaign with Western help seems to have failed against the fierce Yemenis. Attempts at forging various reliable foreign alliances, from Turkey to Africa, have failed. Now they think they have a chance at a reset with the Trump administration, but that is probably just another illusion.

A leading Saudi newspaper editor, Mr. Turki Al Dakhil who is close to some potentates, has asked Saudis to launch a campaign on Twitter and other social media praising Donald Trump’s criticism of Iran. In the process also exaggerating it. Many, including the huge official Saudi Electronic Army have been tweeting hashtags (most common hashtag has been #TrumpWarnsIranianTerrorism or something like it) supposedly egging Mr. Trump on, pushing him toward a confrontation with the Iranian regime.

Wahhabi extremists, Salafis, ISIS fans, Al Qaeda fans and other assorted fans of Jihadi cutthroats are all suddenly tweeting in praise of the new President of the United States.

Remember when President Obama complained to the Atlantic Magazine last year that some Arab oligarchs in the Persian Gulf were trying to get the USA to join their regional sectarian conflicts? They are now trying to egg Trump on to fight their sectarian war in the Gulf region and possibly beyond. Only a few weeks ago they were blasting Trump as an Islamophobic racist, now they are clinging to him as a potential war ally. The last great (very) white hope.

Of course this is not new. After the fall of Baghdad in 2003 some Arab autocrats tried with George W Bush to provoke yet a new Gulf war. But he turned out smarter than that, less cooperative. Obama was even more skeptical of the Arab oligarchs, especially after the uprisings of 2010/2011 started. So, the oligarchs soured on Obama and hitched their wagons to Benyamin Netanyahu of Israel. As they waited for their old Clintonista friends to retake the White House.

Netanyahu talked tough against the mullahs, but he would not go to a risky war for the sake of Wahhabi kings and princes who don’t even recognize his country. You see, I suspect that much of Netanyahu’s bluster about the Iranian regime was to divert attention from the settlements in the West Bank (he has been warning since 1995 that Iran will have a nuclear weapon within six months). Some Iranian leaders helped him along with their absurd and bigoted comments about the Holocaust and their silly “Death To” slogans. The Iranian hardliners are good at milking these hostile slogans to their advantage in the Middle East, even if they harm their country’s interests in the halls of power in the West.

Enter Donald Trump and his frustrated hawkish former generals and cultural religious racial warriors.

So that is where it stands now. The Arab oligarchs are suddenly admirers of the American leader they called a clown only a few weeks ago. They think they have a chance against Iranian expansion with Trump, given that the president is surrounded by hawks and by cabinet members and advisers who have been close to the Iranian Mujahideen-Khalq opposition group.

Trump promised to avoid foreign wars and focus on America, but he is now making ominous noises. Will he go to war for his new autocratic admirers? Hopefully not: the Middle East has had enough of foreign meddling and Western wars.
Just help defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda, Mr. Trump, then get the hell out. You don’t belong in the Middle East permanently. The Iranians and the Arabs (and Kurds and Jews and others) belong there, and they have for thousands of years.

Cheers

M. H. Ghuloum

Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Islam, Saudi Arabia, Sectarian, Shi'as, Wahhabi

Muslim Wars: Mufti Condemns Iranians and Catholics as Descendants of the Magi…….

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The name-calling between the regimes in Riyadh and Tehran has escalated. It has also spread to large segments of the populations of the two countries.

The Saudi Mufti has recently declared or fatwad (again) that Iranians (and almost certainly Arab and other Shi’as) are not Muslims, that they are enemies of Islam. The Mufti, like most good Wahhabis and Salafis, has called Iranian Muslims “Majus“, meaning the Magi. (It will be a shock to many in the West that the term “Magi” can be considered derogatory by anybody. He is referring to the ancient Zoroastrian faith of ancient Persia, before the spread of Islam).
To many Wahhabis, and some other modern Arab, er, thinkers(?), these are considered “fire warshipers” because some of their rites involve using fire. This is equivalent to calling Catholics “candle worshipers” because they light and use candles in their churches. It reflects a shallow and often deliberate attempt to insult and distort the history of “others”.

Some Iranians and other Shi’as have pointed out that the Peninsula tribal Arabs who are now ruled by the Al Saud and their palace muftis were in pre-Islamic times worshipers of idols, many little statues that occupied the Kaaba at Mecca. That the ancient Egyptians used to worship their kings, the pharaohs who married their own sisters, until the Persian conquest about twenty-five centuries ago. That in the Levant they worshiped Baal and Astarte and others

No doubt the Mufti and most Wahhabi Salafis believe that all Shi’as are not Muslims, including a majority of Iranians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Bahrainis, Azerbaijanis, as well as tens of millions in other countries like Turkey and Pakistan.

The Wahhabis have always used the Iranians’ ancient empire and culture as an indication of the aspirations of the current theocratic regime in Tehran. That is also part of the Salafi war on everything that is ancient and predates Islam. In fact, even early Islamic monuments and historic sites have been destroyed in Saudi Arabia as idolatry (as they are under ISIS) .

The Iranian mullahs have retaliated by Ayatollah Khamenei calling for the Holy Places to be placed in other non-Saudi hands. An unrealistic proposal that is politically and emotionally motivated.  Some mullahs were reported to have now created a newer category of their favorite epithet “Satan”. Perhaps calling the Saudis a “smaller Satan”. We all know whom they name the two bigger Satans.

So, the war of words goes on. As do the wars of proxies in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon. And in other Muslim and non-Muslim lands.

Some Arab media now report that the Mufti Shaikh Al Shaikh is being eased out of his job as a result of his latest sectarian tirade. This would be an unusual development since he is a direct descendant of Mohammad Bin AbdulWahhab, after whom the Wahhabi sect was named. They have been co-rulers with the Al Saud family for along time.
Some radical Wahhabi elements among the exiled Saudi opposition have been claiming for some time now that the new regime of King Salman & Son are trying to ease Wahhabism out of mainstream Saudi life, pushing the Saudi state away from its traditional theocracy.
That would be an improvement, but only a small step.
Cheers

M.H.Ghuloum

 

9/11, Al-Qaeda, Saudi Arabia, September 11, Terrorism

America is Blackmailed Again by Former Allies (and Its Own Leaders)……

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” Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage……………..“It’s stunning to think that our government would back the Saudis over its own citizens,” said Mindy Kleinberg…….”

This will probably become a hot election issue. Obama supports the Saudi position, so reportedly does House Speaker Paul Ryan. Hillary Clinton is practically clinging to the Obama coattails to win the nomination and the election. This may be handing the Republicans a new issue to beat the Democrats with. Maybe.
The New York Daily News already festooned its cover today with a photo of the wayward “allies” and a huge headline: ROYAL SCUM. No doubt Barack Obama and both Clintons cringed at that picture.
RoyalScum

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum