Monthly Archives: July 2013

GCC, Persian Gulf

Owning the GCC: What is in a Name? Burj WTF and Al Einstein……..

      

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My last post about Saudi Arabia.

That is a common phenomenon all over the Gulf GC states. Most streets are named after members of the ruling families, dead or alive. Most public institutions like hospitals, schools, airports, etc, are named after members of ruling families, dead or alive. Most new townships and suburbs are starting to be named after members of the ruling families, dead or alive. Sometimes, when they run out of names of family members, they name them after their in-laws, usually those who supplied them with wives. Dead or alive.
They have even resorted to naming some buildings after the potentates: remember when Burj Dubai was changed to Burj Khalifa? I know somebody who now privately calls it Burj WTF.

If things get really tough and they can’t find enough family names for all the streets and highways, they discover brotherly and sisterly love toward neighboring ruling families. They name a lot of streets after rulers and crown princes and other potentates of other Gulf GCC countries.
A lot of streets and highways are named Al Saud, Al Khalifa, Al Capone, Al Gore, Al Kapong, Al Einstein. But since the Al Saud have more kings and crown princes and princes, they tend to get the most names. Who knows, some day their might be a street named prince Bandar Bin Sultan Al Yamama Avenue.
The people have no chance, do they?

Cheers
mhg

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GCC, Saudi Arabia

On King Abdullah Strasse: What is In a Name……………

      

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“The King Abdullah Sport City Stadium will be completed by the end of this year, said Ahmad Abdul Aziz Al Al-Salem, engineering support supervisor at Saudi Aramco. “More than 8,400 workers are working on the project, clocking around 12 million working hours on construction activity,” he said at a press conference. “They are working day and night to complete the project as per schedule.”……………..”

King Abdullah Sports city is not too far from King Abdullah Avenue (or Avenida el Rey Abdullah). It is within driving distance from King Abdullah Township (or KönigAbdullahStadt). You can even easily get to King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KönigAbdullahHochschule). On the way, you probably pass near King Abdullah Mosque (definitely NOT KönigAbdullahKirche), which is on the edge of King Abdullah Shopping Mall. Across the street you’d pass near King Abdullah Elementary School.
And all that is only in Saudi Arabia: wait till you get to Bahrain.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Egypt, ethnic cleansing, Muslim Brotherhood, Nazism

Egypt’s Wayward Liberals: New Arab Fascism, Arab Neo-Fascism…………..

      

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“Liberal talk-show hosts denounce the Brotherhood as a foreign menace and its members as “sadistic, extremely violent creatures” unfit for political life. A leading human rights advocate blames the Brotherhood’s “filthy” leaders for the deaths of more than 50 of their own supporters in a mass shooting by soldiers and the police. A hypernationalist euphoria unleashed in Egypt by the toppling of Mr. Morsi has swept up even liberals and leftists who spent years struggling against the country’s previous military-backed governments. An unpopular few among them have begun to raise alarms about what they are calling signs of “fascism”: the fervor in the streets, the glorification of the military as it tightens its grip and the enthusiastic cheers for the suppression of the Islamists. But the vast majority of liberals, leftists and intellectuals in Egypt have joined in the jubilation at the defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood, laying into any dissenters. “We are moving from the bearded chauvinistic right to the clean-shaven chauvinistic right,” said Rabab el-Mahdi…………….”

Egypt’s “liberals”, who are not necessarily secularists or ‘democrats’, are on a fake roll, and on a rampage. They are savoring the demise of their Muslim Brotherhood rivals, and they are not taking any prisoners. Nor is the military junta that is ruling Egypt now (not that it ever stopped ruling). The language of Egypt’s so-called liberals, so long cowed under Mubarak, has been of Nazi (as in 1930s Germany) quality. They are using the same language the Nazis used against the Communists and the Social Democrats (and, incidentally, the Jews). They are hinting, not too subtly,  at something like “ethnic cleansing”: ‘eradication’ of the Muslim Brotherhood. Turning a blind eye to mass arrests of members who were not part of the government, turning a blind eye to proscriptions and property-confiscation, even as Mubarak fuloul are immune (some of them actually brag of having helped with the military takeover).
Egyptian media normally do not believe in gray areas. They often go over the top, exaggerate the goodness of one side (the ruling side) and evil of another side (the side that is out of power). I never cared for the Muslim Brotherhood, although I never equated them with the truly evil Salafists (so much for my objectivity). Now, after following the current hysteria in Egyptian media, they seem more honest to me than many of their current rivals. After all, they never censored or banned or closed the media of their rivals (or maybe they did not have the time). Their own media has been shut down by the military, with the enthusiastic approval of their “liberal” rivals.
Cheers
mhg

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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Pakistan, Syria, Taliban

Taliban Join FSA in Syria: There is No Bombing Like Drone Bombing……

      

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“The Pakistani Taliban have set up camps and sent hundreds of men to Syria to fight alongside rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, militants said on Sunday, in a strategy aimed at cementing ties with al Qaeda’s central leadership. More than two years since the start of the anti-Assad rebellion, Syria has become a magnet for foreign Sunni fighters who have flocked to the Middle Eastern nation to join what they see as a holy war against Shi’ite oppressors. Operating alongside militant groups such as the al Nusra Front, described by the United States as a branch of al Qaeda, they mainly come from nearby countries such as Libya and Tunisia riven by similar conflict as a result of the Arab Spring……………….”

It was a natural step, given the variety of Arab, Chechen, Bosnian, and other cutthroats fighting the regime and each other in Syria. With Al-Qaeda and several of its franchises doing what they consider God’s murder in Syria, it was only a matter of time before the Taliban showed up.

Or maybe it is a trick by the Pakistani Taliban to drag Mr. Obama into the Syrian trap. It is no secret that the Taliban love Mr. Obama about as much as they would love any Shi’a ayatollah (which is slightly less than they approve of a bare-faced woman who can read). Given that the drones are attacking gatherings in Pakistan on a regular basis, it is natural for the Taliban to expect the drones to also enter the fray in Syria. On the other hand, that may fall in nicely with some neoconservatives who have been pushing for the US to bomb someone or something or somewhere in Syria. After all, drone bombing is still a from of bombing. It beats no bombing.
Cheers
mhg

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Africa, Arab Revolutions

Syrian Chemical Confusion, Middle East Political Confusion, Omanis to Zanzibar……

      

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“Syria’s main Western-backed opposition group on Wednesday denied Russian accusations that rebels had manufactured sarin nerve gas and used it in a chemical attack outside Aleppo in March. Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin on Tuesday said Russian scientific analysis strongly indicated a projectile containing sarin that hit Khan al-Assal on March 19, killing 26 civilians and military personnel, was fired by rebels. But the Syrian National Coalition said the charges from Moscow, a key ally and arms supplier to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, were “desperate” and “fabricated”. “The Free Syrian Army strongly condemns all usage of chemical weapons against a civilian population and denies Russia’s allegations about the FSA using chemical weapons in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo,” Khalid Saleh, a spokesman for the coalition, said in a statement……………..”

Damn confusing, although to be expected. Western powers (mainly Britain and France) claim the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons in the civil war. Russia claims the Syrian opposition militias have used chemical weapons.
These claims and suspicions are common in the region:

  • Benjamin Netanyahu (of Israel and Palestine) probably believes the Iranians are using chemical weapons all over the world. He would like to convince everybody else of that.
  • Some Egyptian shaikhs (and a few others) probably believe the Israelis are using some special kind of special undetectable chemical weapons that weakens the male drive and reduces the fertility rate.
  • Some Turks claim local Jews are behind the popular uprising in Istanbul and other cities (I think it is just Turks who are bored stiff with seeing Mr. Erdogan on television every day).
  • The Iranian mullahs believe that almost everybody in the Middle East yearns for a theocracy like theirs. They believe the West (mainly the British for some reason) is conspiring to keep the rest from discovering the joys of Islamic theocracy.
  • The Saudi princes pretend everyone everywhere loves them for who they are and not for how much they spend. Some probably believe that they could get elected to their current offices if they have to run (or stand if they were British) for office.
  • The Bahrain shaikhs believe that tough love, real tear gas and torture and bullets and sexual assault, will teach their people to love them, or to grow up and behave like Saudis do.
  • The Syrians, some of them, pretend to believe the Saudi princes and Qatari shaikhs and Lebanese warlords and North Africans Wahhabis are dying to show them the joys of democracy and the freedom of expression.
  • The Omanis, well, the Omanis seem like they wish they could lease their whole country and move everybody to faraway a place between Austria and Switzerland. Or maybe they can lease Zanzibar again……………



Cheers
mhg

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GCC, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Weapons deals

German Leopards: Qatari Panzers Facing Saudi Religious Police…….

      

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“Qatar aims to buy 118 more Leopard tanks from Germany before the football World Cup championships in 2022 for several billion euros, a German newspaper reported on Sunday. It also plans to buy 16 tank howitzers, Bild am Sonntag reported citing government sources in Qatar. The equipment is made by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall. Spokesmen were not immediately available for comment in Qatar or at Krauss-Maffei or Rheinmetall. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government approved the purchase of 62 Leopard tanks and 24 howitzers in the spring..……….”

I can’t believe the Qataris need the 118 tanks and howitzers for the FIFA World Cup of 2022. Some football (soccer) fans can be rowdy, but not that rowdy. Even the worst of them, the English fans, are not rowdy enough for tanks and howitzers. North Korea is unlikely to invade Qatar if they get to the World Cup and get knocked out.
Qatar is a small peninsula that is surrounded by Gulf waters on all sides except for one unfortunate side. That one side is the border with Saudi Arabia. The Qataris can’t be afraid of little Bahrain with whom they have had offshore territorial disputes (which they won). The Bahrain regime can’t even put down its own people’s uprising without foreign mercenaries and Saudi troops. The other Gulf GCC states are too far for any border disputes with Qatar. The Qataris share a huge offshore natural gas field with Iran, but they seem to get along with that. The Iranian mullahs, contrary to Saudi and some Western propaganda are not likely to storm across the Gulf and attack Qatar. Besides, they would have to deal with the huge American armada in the Persian Gulf before crossing the water. Not easy, going through the U.S. Navy.
Which brings me back to the Qatari border with Saudi Arabia.
Of course Gulf GCC countries often purchase expensive weapons that they could never use. They do that partly for the fat commissions (kickbacks) some of their influential potentates get. Or maybe they like having the most advanced weapons sit in their warehouses.
Or maybe in case they need their Panzers to liberate Syria from the Al Assad regime, single handed and without any help from NATO.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Egypt

Liberated Egypt: Military Junta to Start New Kangaroo Courts………

      

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“Egypt announced a criminal investigation on Saturday against deposed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi, with prosecutors saying they were examining complaints of spying, inciting violence and ruining the economy……………..”

This is becoming like a kangaroo court, complete with show trials. Call it revenge of the Mubarak feloul, fully paid by Gulf petroleum princes and shaikhs. They plan to try him for espionage, apparently spying for some foreign party. You’d think they were talking about General Sisi. They also plan to try him for economic crimes.
The military junta does not see the irony here: the Egyptian military controls so much of the economy, from industries to land and agriculture, that they had more influence on the economy that Mohammed Morsi did. If anybody should be tried for messing up the economy, it should be both of them.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Sectarian, Syria

Syrian Tunnel: What Two Years of War and Foreign Intervention Have Done………

      

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“The last time I came here, much of the rebel fury was reserved for Alawite Muslims, the minority offshoot of Shiite Islam from which the Assad family and many of the regime’s senior functionaries and paramilitaries are drawn. This year, however, the Shiites themselves are the enemy. A television in the corner is blaring footage of the daily sectarian violence in neighboring Iraq, most of it directed against Shiites, and I ask Aleh, a wiry young man sitting beside me, whether he really wants Syria to end up like that. “I want it and I don’t want it. I don’t want it because it will kill very many. But the Shiites must understand that they don’t own Syria or Iraq. A very bad war is coming.” But surely, I say, he’s only talking about the irregular paramilitaries of the shabiha and not an entire religious group? “We don’t like all the Shiites, because all of them are killing us,” he insists. “They say bad things about our Prophet. When I kill a man in the Syrian Army, I am sad. But I enjoy killing Shiites or Alawites.”……………….”

Before Iraq and before this so-called misnamed Arab Spring, our region has not heard or practiced such sectarian venom in more than a thousand years. Killing by identity was limited to brief spurts of civil strife in places like Lebanon. Slitting of throats and beheading by identity is almost like something new from the 21st century.
That is what foreign intervention, all foreign intervention, on both sides, has done to Syria.
That is what foreign money and fighters and ideology and hatred and weapons have done. And the end is not in sight. The Syrian tunnel is dark and it is growing longer as it twists until it becomes a dark regional tunnel.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Egypt

Egypt Upside Down: Mubarak’s Military and Mubarak’s Courts to try Morsi for Escaping Mubarak’s Prison ………..

      

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“Prosecutors will investigate allegations that Egypt’s ousted president escaped from prison during the 2011 revolution with help from the Palestinian militant group Hamas, officials said Thursday. Chief prosecutor Hesham Barakat has received testimonies from a court in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia that will be the base for an investigation by state security prosecutors into the jailbreak by Mohammed Morsi and more than 30 other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media..…………….”

I have suspected that the military junta would never release Mohamed Morsi. Coup leaders usually have three alternatives for legitimate leaders whom they overthrow: (1) Death as in the case of Allende in Chile (1973) or the Hashemite royal family of Iraq (1958) or Lumumba in the Congo (1961); (2) Exile as in the case of the bloodless coup by Nasser and Naguib in Egypt (1952), Juan Peron of Argentina (1955), and many others; (3) prison or house arrest, as in the case of Mossadeq of Iran (1952), Naguib of Egypt (1954), and Morsi of Egypt (2013). Among others.
Morsi looks like he is headed for prison or house arrest. Most likely prison, unless he accepts to go out into foreign exile. The military junta and the Mubarak-istas would love for him to accept foreign exile, but he probably will refuse because it might absolve them of the coup (which might be considered a crime against the people at some future date). After all, Morsi was elected legally.
That is why they seem to be planning to charge him for escaping from Mubarak’s prison during the uprising of January-February 2011. Imagine, a post-Mubarak revolutionary regime charging him for escaping the dictator’s prison during the revolution. Except that this latest regime in Egypt is a Mubarak regime in almost everything but in name (and its alliances).
So, Mr. Morsi is now back under arrest by Mubarak’s military, one year after he was elected president of Egypt.

Cheers
mhg

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Demographics, Economics, GCC

GCC Population Restructuring Calls: Mostly Illusory, or Dishonest, or Both…………

      

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“Abu Dhabi is not the only place in the region to be pushing more locals into the job market. Kuwait announced earlier this year that it would reduce by a million the number of foreign workers in the country over the next ten years. More drastically, it has begun to deport foreigners for traffic violations, though it has denied that that is part of a policy to reduce their number. Saudi Arabia has also long pursued “Saudi-isation”, whereby firms are made to replace foreigners with Saudi workers. Under the current law, known as nitaqat (“categories”), companies are classified by green, yellow and red labels that denote the extent to which they have complied with employment quotas. All firms, even those with fewer than ten employees, are supposed to hire at least one Saudi citizen. The three other members of the Gulf Co-operation Council—Bahrain, Oman and Qatar—have their own variations on the theme of making their citizens work. Across the region, a further cull of jobs for foreigners looks likely……………”

Also sprach The Economist.
All this talk in the Gulf GCC countries over the past decades of changing the demographic structure is either illusory or insincere, most likely both. Talk of Saudi-ization, Emirati-zation, Kuwaiti-ization is basically wishful thinking or propaganda beyond the public sector. Here is why the potentates and those that control economic power are not sincere about this goal even as they repeat it:


  • A serious move to reduce the population of expatriate labor would wreak havoc with commercial real estate. Many thousands of apartment buildings and rental property have been built specifically with a certain level of demand in mind. They are mostly owned by influential potentates and merchant families and they are mainly rented to expatriates. Imagine commercial property prices from Dubai all the way to Kuwait, imagine what would happen to them with a few million less expatriates. Imagine the population of, say, the UAE cut back by 40% (assuming about half the foreigners remain).

  • The same applies to trade, the import business. Goods are imported and ports and airports are designed to meet a level of demand that includes millions of foreign workers. Reducing the level of foreign labor would cause demand for goods and services and airline traffic to crash. Merchant families, close partners of the ruling families would not, cannot, allow that to happen.

  • Other businesses, especially services like restaurants, have been established to serve a certain population. Reducing the population would cause a severe recession, nay depression, in these sectors. On the other hand, these sectors employ mostly cheap foreign workers, and would suffer increased costs.

  • Public policy of the GCC states encourages native population growth through subsidizing births. This has led to even more demand for foreign labor. Every new citizen born will require the services of some foreign labor, from nurses to housemaids to cooks, etc. The policy has caused the share of foreigners in the total population to grow.

  • This is seen as more a cultural issue than an economic one. Most GCC countries have more foreigners than citizens. In the UAE and Qatar foreigners form about 90% (more than 80% are non-Arab), and the ratio for Kuwait is more than 60%. Even Bahrain has seen an explosion of foreign residents mainly because the rulers are importing foreign mercenaries and security agents instead of giving jobs to their own Shi’a citizens. Even Saudi Arabia has somewhere between 7-8 million foreigners among its people.

  • Import of foreign labor to the Gulf serves to create a balance within the Middle East, where some states now have labor shortages and others have high unemployment. Ironically, some Gulf states with labor shortages also have very high native unemployment (Saudi Arabia, UAE). Any major policy shift would impact other regional economies and probably impact GCC foreign relations as well.

A tough problem with solutions that are either not feasible or not desirable or both. I expect we will be still reading promises (or threats) about it twenty years from now…………

Cheers
mhg

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