Monthly Archives: March 2012

GCC, Gulf states, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, Persian Gulf, War on Iran

Nuclear Persian Gulf: Abu Dhabi Mon amour, Bushehr Mon Amour, Fukushima Mon Amour ………..

 

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“The capital is the “gold standard” on which other countries should model their quest for nuclear power, an international nuclear energy industry expert said this week. The oil-rich UAE has been forward-looking in its pursuit of nuclear power and has employed a “logical, well thought-out approach” to building the country’s first four nuclear reactors, said Dr Dale Klein, the former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the associate director of The Energy Institute at the University of Texas. Central to any new nuclear power programme is transparency, a technique that Dr Klein said the UAE has used to build both international and local trust. “The United Arab Emirates has been very good at explaining to the public what nuclear means, why it’s important for the country, and what steps it’s taking,” Dr Klein said. “It’s very important that people understand how nuclear power plants work and why they’re being built.” Dr Klein’s comments came on Tuesday as part of a lecture delivered at the majlis of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.……….”


Cute of Mr. Klein to say that “as part of a lecture delivered at the majlis of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.” Neighborly, mighty nuclear neighborly. Yet there are no nuclear reactors in the UAE, not yet.
Besides, didn’t the Gulf GCC ministers raise a concern (well, they raised a stink) about the dangers posed by Iran’s Bushehr plant right on the Persian-American Gulf? That was during one of their powwows just a few months ago, I believe. That was just before they decided that nuclear plants are kosher again, provided they are designed, built, managed, operated, and wtf else by foreign “experts” of the Western faith for our very own potentates.
Sorry about the new name of the Gulf, it should be amended to Persian-American-Nuclear Gulf. The United Nations should revisit its old resolution of some forty years ago asserting “Persian Gulf” as the official name. It should now issue a new resolution renaming the Gulf with this new name. It has a nice ring to it, très moderne, Persian-American-Nuclear Gulf
Cheers
mhg


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Middle East Focus-Arabia Deserta

Culture, GCC, Iran, Middle East Women, Muslims, Saudi Arabia

Sigheh (Mut’ah) and Misyar: Iran’s Hookup Marriage, Gulf’s Hookup Marriage………..

 

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“This week, Iran’s parliament approved a new amendment to a controversial law in the civil code that allows men to have as many sexual partners as they want – all sanctioned by sharia law under the term “temporary marriage”.
Sex outside marriage is a crime in Iran punishable by 100 lashes or, in the case of adultery, potentially a sentence of death by stoning. However, a man and a woman can marry for a fixed period of time after performing specific religious rituals, in a practice called sigheh. The marriage can last for a few minutes up to several years without need to be officially registered. The man can end the sigheh almost at any time, but there is no divorce right for women in temporary marriages.
The new amendment, passed on Monday by 104 MPs who were all male, requires registration in certain circumstances such as those leading to a pregnancy but still largely allows sigheh without formal registration. An opposing MP, Sattar Hedayatkhah, was quoted in the reformist newspaper Etemaad as saying: “From tomorrow, no woman can be sure that her husband is not in a sexual relationship with another woman. Therefore, there is now no difference between here [Iran] and the west. Anyone can have a sexual relationship………………..”


The Shi’as call it Mut’ah in Arabic and Sigheh in Persian. The Sunnis also have their own version in some Arab states, mainly Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, called the Misyar. There are also other variations of the same theme. They are based on some ‘reported’ practices in early Islamic history when men traveled far and for long periods away from their wives. Some senior religious leaders in both sects oppose these so-called marriages. They are basically sexual oriented arrangements, with little commitment between the partners. It is almost equivalent to the Western “hooking up”, but it can last longer and has a veneer of ‘legality’. All these forms of funny marriage should be banned, or called what they really are, sexual “hook-ups”.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, GCC, Human Right, Middle East Women, Polygamy, Salafi, Slavery

Tunisian Islamists, Gulf Islamists: Welcome to their Concubines?…………

 

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A Tunisian Islamist party has called for a new law allowing polygamy and/or allowing the system of concubines, just like the old days. Islam allows up to four wives, (although there is a condition of equal treatment). Islam also allowed men to have intercourse with their female slaves in addition to their wives (no, the reverse was not allowed).
The leader of the Infitah (Openness, Open-minded) Party has asked for a law allowing a man to enjoy his concubines as well as his wife. He did stipulate that only a man who has one wife can be allowed to own concubines. Tunisia’s previous secular regime had banned polygamy since the days of first president Habib Bourguiba at independence from France.
I also recall that Mustafa Abdul Jalil, head of Libya’s National Transitory Council (NTC), said a few months ago, as soon as they controlled Tripoli, that they will cancel a Qaddafi law that restricted polygamy and required permission of the first wife. The good news for Tunisians, for most of them, is that other political parties are rejecting these demands.
Look for Salafi and other Islamist and tribal types from North Africa to the Gulf to start demanding a return of concubines. A certain segment of the population on the Gulf loves polygamy, and they have been pushing incentives to encourage men to take more wives. And not just the Salafis. For the potentates, polygamy is considered de rigueur; almost as de rigueur as the jet black dyed goatee beard. I firmly believe that nobody can become king of Saudi Arabia without having a jet black dyed goatee and at least two wives, preferably more. If they had a constitution, insistence on a goatee would be the first article if that constitution. Insistence on polygamy would be the second article of the constitution.

(No, there will be no concubines, at least not yet. Even the Salafis are too worried to actually demand it, no matter how much they would love to).
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, Gulf states, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia

GCC to AGUC: Camel Gives Birth to a Mouse, Arabizing the Leaders……….

 

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تمخض الجمل فولد فأرا

تمخض الجبل فولد فأرا
“The Camel (mountain?) went into labor but gave birth to a mouse” Succinct Arabic saying


“The GCC consultative committee met here yesterday and proposed to change the name of Gulf Cooperation Council to Arab Gulf Union Council. Muhammad Al-Rasheed, chairman of the committee, proposed the new name and hoped the new move would speed up integration of GCC states. He commended Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for making his proposal at the last GCC summit to transform the council into a powerful union to confront growing challenges. The GCC leaders have instructed the consultative committee to study a new strategy for youths, ways to enhance the spirit of citizenship, a strategy for employment in the public and private sectors, formation of a united commission for civil aviation, tackling noncontagious diseases and a GCC confederation. He commended the committee for conducting studies on global warming, climate change, unification of efforts in translation and Arabization, promoting the Arabic language and alternative energy resources. He thanked GCC leaders for appointing him chairman of the committee. He commended the achievements made by the committee in the past, adding that some of its proposals have already been implemented. Al-Rasheed emphasized the need to implement the resolutions taken by the Supreme GCC Council as many of them are still awaiting execution…………”


“Still awaiting execution”: yadda yadda yadda.……..
The Arabic language is one of the most beautiful languages. It has great literature that goes back many centuries: great poetry, great prose, great old films, lousy new films, lousy newspapers, but many great and wise and clever sayings. One of these great Arabic sayings is:“the Camel went into labor but gave birth to a mouse“.
I am not sure what these sub-potentates, the flunkies of the potentates, who met in Riyadh meant by “Arabization and promotion of the Arabic language and alternative energy sources”. This is odd: all GCC citizens speak Arabic, most of them speak it much better than their leaders. The only people who do not speak Arabic are the majority of the population of the GCC who are laborers and housemaids who hail from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Philippines, Ethiopia, and other faraway lands. That means only 85%+ of the population of the United Arab Emirates don’t speak Arabic, that only one third of the people in Saudi Arabia don’t speak Arabic, that only……….. etc, etc.  But these expatriate people, the majority, are in the Gulf on a temporary basis.

Which leads to my four unavoidable WTFs:


  • WTF1:     is it possible the Mufti off Saudi Arabia, Shaikh Al Al Al Shaikh, was behind the language?


  • WTF2: what the hell did they mean by alternative energy sources? Could they mean corn ethanol or grain alcohol (100-200 proof)?
  • WTF3: now that they have promised it, how do they presume to tackle the issue of “global warming”? I mean it can’t be handled through more extensive air-conditioning.
  • WTF4: do these council members even know what they are talking about? I mean in a technical sense. I hope so, because I sure don’t. On the other hand, maybe it is better if they have no clue: they can do less damage.

Cheers
mhg


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Ali Khamenei, Human Right, Iran

A Massacre of Journalists in Iran, Ayatollah and King at the Watergate……….

 

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“The 39-year-old, the deputy head of Iran’s Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC), was taken seriously ill in 2010 after being kept in solitary confinement in Tehran’s Evin prison for a month. Since her arrest, she has developed an undiagnosed epilepsy-like disease which causes her to lose control over her muscles temporarily during the day. In September 2011, she was sentenced to 11 years after being convicted on three charges: acting against the national security, membership of the DHRC and propaganda against the regime…………. On Sunday, another human rights activist and lawyer, Abdolfattah Soltani, was sentenced to 18 years after being found guilty of anti-government propaganda. Among many of Soltani’s charges is “endangering national security” by accepting a German human rights prize. Kaleme also reported that Iranian journalist Nazanin Khosravani who has been sentenced to 6 six years went to Evin prison on Monday to endure her jail term. According to the opposition website, the Green Voice of Freedom, Khosravani has worked with banned pro-reform newspapers such as Bahar, Norooz, Dorane Emrouz, Kargozaran and Sarmayeh. Another Iranian journalist, Ali Mousavi Khalkhali, was picked up by security officials on Friday, his cousin has confirmed to BBC Persian. He is reported to have been arrested on charges related to propaganda against the regime. …………”



“Propaganda against the regime“: Iran and most of her neighbors have this one thing in common. What they all don’t want is politics, for how can there be politics without some “propaganda” against the regime?  And how can the regime, including Ali Khamenei, know they are screwing up the country without people telling it so?
Ayatollah Khamenei ought to take a sabbatical, come and spend a year or two in the United States, see how Obama gets pummeled by all the “propaganda” ads and statements against him in this election year. May he can study the “Citizens United” case and all the super PACs.
Oh, he should bring the Saudi king along; they can share an apartment at The Watergate. They can talk with Santorum and Gingrich about politics (forget Romney; he’s not interesting enough). They won’t even have to address AIPAC, not yet .

Cheers
mhg


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Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy, Wahhabi, Yemen

Of Iranian Mullahs, Saudi Princes, the Old Ikhwan, and Walled Cities on the Gulf…..

“For, since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, US and Saudi foreign policy has been almost single-mindedly dedicated to destabilising Iran. Indeed, there is a way to understand the post-1979 political history of the region stretching from Pakistan to the Red Sea as permutations of an ongoing and devastating battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The export of the battle keeps expanding: sectarian violence has become ubiquitous in countries where it had been non-existent. Colonial powers may have engineered sectarian strife into the geography of countries like Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, but what of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and even Bahrain? The expanding battle field tells us something about shifts in Saudi ambitions, and the anxieties that shape them. The Kingdom that exports terrorism is also the Kingdom of the terrified………. Saudi Arabia has never fought a war. In fact, as the embarrassing flight from Al Khafji well ahead of a badly battered Iraqi brigade demonstrated, the Saudi army is not capable of managing even a scrimmage. However, the government has been engaged in proxy wars more or less continuously since 1962……………..”

She says: “US and Saudi foreign policy has been almost single-mindedly dedicated to destabilising Iran….“  Yet that is also what the USA and the Saudi regime accuse Iran of doing around the Middle East. My humble guess: they are both doing it to each other. But the weapon of sectarian divisiveness and hatred is a specialty of the Saudi regime, and they have used it effectively in the Gulf region in the past few years.

Actually the al-Saud clan and their fanatical Ikhwan Wahhabi tribal troops initially waged wars to expand their domain and bite off big chunks of other countries early in the 20th century. They focused on countries that were not part of the British or other European empires. They preferred to attack and invade neighboring countries that were not under any foreign protection. They tried briefly to conquer one country that was part of the British Empire, Kuwait, but were disabused on the notion quickly. (For a long time the Kuwaitis had to build a wall around the old city for protection).
They conquered and annexed big chunks of Yemen, invaded Hashemite-ruled Hijaz (Mecca and Madinah), and occupied and annexed al-Ahsa’a (now part of the Eastern Province). That was early in the 20th century, before the “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” was announced.


But all that was then. The Ikhwan fanatics are long gone, disbanded long ago when their usefulness to king Ibn Saud ended. If they were around, the Ikhwan would be fighting against the princes whose corruption and opulent lifestyles would be abhorrent to them. The regular Saudi army is not a force capable of fighting wars. It is one of the best-armed, or most expensively armed, military forces in the world, but that is all. Advanced weapons alone do not make a capable military force, otherwise the UAE would be a superpower. Two years ago they were soundly defeated by the Huthi tribal clans of northern Yemen.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Libya, North Africa, Syria

From Libya to Syria: Tribes and Sects with One Flag…………

 

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“Tribal leaders and militia commanders in oil-rich eastern Libya have declared their intention to seek semi-autonomy, raising fears that the country might disintegrate following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), the interim central government based in the capital Tripoli, has repeatedly voiced its opposition to the creation of a partly autonomous eastern region, warning it could eventually lead to the break-up of the North African nation. Thousands of representatives of major tribal leaders, militia commanders and politicians made the declaration on Tuesday in a ceremony held in the eastern city of Benghazi. They vowed to end decades of marginalisation under Gaddafi and named a council to run the affairs of the newly created region, extending from the central coastal city of Sirte to the Egyptian border in the east. Al Jazeera’s Nicole Johnston, reporting from the capital Tripoli, said the announcement was only the beginning of a process………...”

That is what happens when the façade of ‘nationhood’ that Qaddafi violently maintained collapses. Yet oil, petroleum, is the one item most likely to keep Libya from breaking apart now.
Most Arab states are basically a balance of tribal, ethnic, and sectarian interests. Egypt is famously the one exception. Egypt is not a tribal society and it has historically accepted a multi-ethnic culture (contrary to common belief, Egyptian people have roots from all around the Mediterranean and the rest of the Middle East). The Christian Copts were never an “issue” until the Mubarak regime started to dismantle the secular state that was initiated in the days of Mohammed Ali (Pasha not Clay). Egyptian Jews were not an “issue” until after the first Palestine War of 1948 (what Arabs call the Nakba, catastrophe, and Jews call Israel’s War of Independence). In Egypt, Shi’as are a tiny minority that the Mubarak regime magnified and built up into an illusory threat, no doubt under Saudi Wahhabi pressure. Now, with the political system of Egypt Islamized, with the Salafis effectively sharing parliamentary power with the Muslim Brotherhood, all bets are off.
 
In Syria also sectarian, tribal, and ethnic divisions are coming out into the open. Except Syria has more of these divisions, deeper divisions, longer suppressed than either Libya or Egypt. And Syria has been under the Ba’athist rule since 1963, under effective Ba’athist ideological political influence since the late 1940s. A very long period of the denial of divisions, of sweeping things under the rug. And Syria is surrounded by states that perceive their own national interests in Syria, and they are beginning to interfere and intervene.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Salafi, Syria, US Foreign Policy

On Syrian Casualties: Caught Between the Free Syrian Army and Hezbollah………….

 

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I knew this was coming. I knew this would happen, but I didn’t expect it so soon. The Saudi semi-official Alrabiya network reports that now more than 10 thousand Syrians have been killed by the Assad regime during the past year. The network quotes ‘unofficial’ statistics of Syrian ‘activists’ that the number of those killed suddenly jumped from 7 thousand two days ago to more than 10 thousand.
I remember the days a few weeks ago when it was only 3,000 or was it 4,000. They claim that the 7,000 were only those whose death was recorded “by video” or otherwise proven (by the activists of course). The report notes that the figure does not include the thousands of regime soldiers and officers who were killed (or perhaps died of natural causes).
I expect the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is in deep discussion with the brotherly, or is it sisterly, Arab intelligence services trying to decide when is it convenient to up the figure to 20 thousand. The Salafis are probably all for pushing the number to 40 thousand, but the Muslim Brothers are probably balking: unlike the Salafis, they believe in moderation, even in lying. I a not sure that even upping the figure dramatically will get NATO to start bombing unilaterally.

On the other hand, actually on the other extreme, both Iran and Hezbollah are beginning to ‘suspect’ what they had known all along: that ‘something’ may be happening in Syria after all. They are beginning to note that life is not going on as usual, that people are actually dying in places like Homs and other towns. After all, it can’t all be made up by CNN and Anderson Cooper and Arwa Damon, can it? They haven’t yet decided on who is doing all that killing, but give them some time.
Cheers
mhg


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Bahrain, Corruption, GCC, Gulf states, Saudi Arabia

Watermelon Country: Kings and Princes and Stolen Lands on the Gulf………

 

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“Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has agreed to name Northern Waad Mining City after him, Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Naimi said yesterday. In his acceptance letter following a proposal made by Al-Naimi, the king expressed hope that the Waad City project would bring about remarkable economic progress to the Northern Border Province…………”

A heart of gold, accepting to bear the heavy burden and awesome responsibilities of yet another city to be named after him. What a nice guy!


In most Gulf states whole new cities are named after the ruling potentates and their many relatives. Most Saudi universities are named after kings and princes as well as many roads and now some towns and cities. But it is mild in Saudi Arabia; the prize goes to the ruling al-Khalifa clan of Bahrain. Every other frigging city, almost every road and highway is named either Hamad or Salman or Issa or Khalifa. 
What is truly offensive on my Gulf, what adds insult to injury is this: Some potentate takes over (steals) public land by claiming ownership, and as usual gets away with it. Eventually he sells the land to the government at a high price. The government parcels the land into a new town and often names it after the potentate who stole the land and sold it. There are whole towns on the Gulf now named after thieves who stole the land on which they are built! Talk about solid foundations.
Saudi Arabia, Weapons deals

Sweden Joins the Gulf GCC Weapons Bandwagon, Secretly………..

 

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“Sweden has in secret been helping Saudi Arabia plan the construction of an arms factory to produce anti-tank missiles, public broadcaster Swedish Radio reported Tuesday. The Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI) has helped Saudi Arabia since 2007, though construction on “Project Simoom” has yet to begin, the radio said citing hundreds of classified documents and interviews with key players. Sweden has in the past sold weapons to Saudi Arabia, but classified government documents state that Project Simoom “pushes the boundaries of what is possible for a Swedish authority,” the radio said. “The fact that an authority such as FOI is involved in the planning of a weapons factory for a government in a dictatorship such as Saudi Arabia is quite unique,” the radio said…………”


Maybe the Swedes, like the British and the Americans, are not aware of how repressive the Saudi regime is. Maybe they are not aware that only last year it invaded Bahrain to crush the people’s uprising. At least the Swedes are pretending to be embarrassed and they try doing it secretly. They agonize over it. The Western powers can’t get enough weapons deals out of the Persian Gulf states. If you think this is opportunistic, wait until they discover huge petroleum reserves in North Korea.