The talk and white noise about the Iranian nuclear issue seems to focus on such factors and clichés as “security”, “existential threat”, “Persian Gulf stability”. I said it “seems”. There is another factor that is huge, probably bigger and more legitimate than the excuse of security. I am not talking about the well-known strategic factors like the desire of Israel and Saudi Arabia to be the top powers east of the Mediterranean (well, maybe not Saudi Arabia, which is not really a military power by any measure, except maybe around places like Bahrain and Qatar).
The other issue that is not talked about so often is economics, as in petroleum, as in oil, as in even gas. The Western blockade of Iran and her oil has been a bonanza for the princes and potentates. As Iranian exports were reduced and the cost of delivery to consumers increased (insurance, etc), Saudi Arabia has become even more important for the oil market. It is a repeat of what happened during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s when exports of both warring countries were reduced and the other regional countries benefited. It is like the old depression-era idea of “beggar thy neighbor”, but with a Wahhabi twist.
That is the nightmare that worries the absolute tribal princes. Iranian oil fields have not been growing fast in the past years for obvious reasons. Whenever the blockade is lifted, Iranian oil will start making up for the big reduction and stagnation in output in the past three decades. Then there is the Iranian natural gas, possibly the largest reserves in the world. All that, coupled with the rapid recovery of Iraqi oil production, will reduce the importance of Saudi oil and weaken crude prices. It will also reduce the political leverage (call it blackmail power) the princes have over the industrial countries.
That is the gorilla in the palaces of Riyadh and Taif that is not talked about much openly in the royal media. I posted on this in the past, including in the post titled “Will Iraq Revise the Gulf Oil Equation?” , and a post titled Petroleum Chat: from Tehran through Baghdad to Riyadh and Caracas.

Cheers
mhg

“But there’s an intriguing upside: The Israeli-Saudi mutual dislike of the Iran nuclear deal, and their de facto alliance against it, may weirdly prove one of the “silver linings” of this negotiation. Indeed, if the Israelis become a protector and defender of the Sunni Muslim countries, that could have lasting security benefits for Israel and might even open the way for progress on the Palestinian issue — without the usual American mediation…………………”

David Ignatius is, almost certainly again, repeating a common mistake of Western media and pundits. They all seem to believe, or want to believe, that the controlled Saudi media and those of a couple of Gulf countries and the Hariri clan in Lebanon represent all Arab opinion. A self-satisfying oversimplification of the Muslim and Arab worlds. He apparently buys the idea that Saudi regime opinion, as expressed in media owned by Saudi princes (Alarabiya, Asharq Alawsat, Al-Hayat) reflects broader Arab opinion. Not so.
Just ask the man and woman in the street all across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and not just the Gulf states or some neighborhoods of Beirut and Tripoli. Most Arabs (Sunni, Shi’a, or Vegan) do not have the same opinion of the Iranian nuclear program as the Saudi princes and their Wahhabi loyalists and the Wahhabi quasi-liberals of the Persian Gulf region.
So, if some 250 million in the MENA region have a different opinion, how can Israel become “protector” of all Sunnis (he means Sunni Arabs)? How about Israel becoming protector of only Wahhabis and Salafis and Wahhabi quasi-liberals among Gulf Arabs?

Cheers
mhg

My cynical Saudi source reports that the princes are not totally displeased with the reaction to their decision to reject a seat on the UN Security Council. Even if they don’t take the seat that they had campaigned so hard to get. They are already campaigning for that seat to go to Jordan, she claims. That way the Saudis can still speechify and vote but through the mouth of the Jordanian ambassador who will get the blame for whatever ‘stuff’ comes out of his mouth. All for a substantial fee, of course. Too bad the Jordanian ambassador, being who he is, has no sense of humor to help him appreciate the situation.
She reports that the princes have developed an appetite for more brinkmanship. The senior princes feel they need to send a stronger message to let Uncle Sam know they are displeased. Thus she report that the next man to be named Crown Prince (after Salman) will shock the world, and please the rival princes, by announcing publicly that he rejects the position of Crown Prince until the UN starts doing its job of liberating Syria from Al Assad and handing it over to the tribal Salafi forces established by Saudi Arabia for that purpose. She claims the princes will also demand that the UN give Hezbollah and its local supporters, all 2-3 million of them, an ultimatum to depart Lebanon and hand it over to Saad Hariri who will govern it from Paris and Riyadh alternately.
She tells me to wait, there is more: that will not be all. Their next target after that will be their old and current target: Iraq…………..

Cheers
mhg

       
“UNESCO has suspended the voting rights of the United States and Israel, two years after both countries stopped paying dues to the U.N.’s cultural arm in protest over its granting full membership to the Palestinians. The U.S. decision to cancel its funding in October 2011 was blamed on U.S. laws that prohibit funding to any U.N. agency that implies recognition of the Palestinians’ demands for their own state. Israel also pulled its funding, objecting to what it called unilateral attempts by the Palestinians to gain recognition of statehood…………….”

Ref. my Saturday posting on Saudi Arabia.
I pointed to my Saudi source that her government is not unique in that respect, in getting upset and walking out screaming when it doesn’t get its way. I suggested the Al Saud may have learned this from Western governments in recent years. I reminded her of past threats to stop funding the UN and the decision to stop funding UNESCO if it upsets Israel and hence AIPAC, which it apparently did when it granted the Palestinians member status. I especially reminded her of the UNESCO episode and how the Obama administration now regrets losing its vote and influence in that organization after withdrawing funding (which they now realize means Israel losing its influence as Susan Rice hinted).

I also reminded her of Western media and thinkers and pundits complaining that sometime the international organizations seem to take into account the rest of the world, all 5-6 billion of it, more than the Western governments that represent about 600 million. I reminded her of the famous French pop-philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy who said earlier this year that a “bunch of gangsters control the UN Security Council”, that was when China and Russia and others refused to vote for military action in Syria. She agreed with me that it is likely the princes have learned a lesson from that on how to have an international tantrum when they don’t get their way.

I forgot to tell her that the Obama administration withdrew its funding of UNESCO in 2011, only about one year before the 2012 general elections (elections in the USA not in Israel). At that time, it seemed like a good idea, electorally if not from a principled point of view.

Cheers
mhg

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“The Syrian terrorists abducted 12 nuns from Mar Takla monastery, which lies in the historic town of Maaloula in Damascus, and moved them to the nearby town of Yabroud. The Papal ambassador to Damascus Mario Zinara said that the 12 nuns were obliged by the terrorists to leave the monastery in order to follow them to the nearby town of Yabroud. “I think that the twelve nuns are in Yabroud.” There is a fierce battle in Maaloula, and it is hard to determine the exact information,” he added, “We are not familiar with the reasons that pushed the terrorists to force the nuns to leave the monastery.” SANA confirmed that the militants, who belong to al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, entered the Orthodox monastery of Mar Takla in the center of Maaloula……………”

Maaloula has been a point of contention between regime forces and Jihadist rebels for months now. The various groups and militias of Syria’s rebels are predictable, be they simple plain Salafis or die-hard Wahhabi Takfiris. Their second instinct after capturing a village or hamlet or neighborhood is to round up people of other faiths, those who are not Wahhabis, and take them captive as war hostages. Some might add to that last sentence “if they are lucky”, and that ‘luck’ is related to their ‘first’ instinct. Be they Alawis (Alawites), Shia’s, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, or Vegans. They would also no doubt love to grab some Jews, who are still the Wahhabis’ preferable hostages (more prized than the Shi’as as hostages, but more elusive). I know some who would dispute this last assertion.

So, two years ago the putative liberators of Syria captured a bunch of Lebanese Shi’a pilgrims, anointed them Hezbollah and Quds Force fighters, and held them captive. Some months ago they got more ambitious, they captured and took hostage a couple of priests and an archbishop (presumably all Christians since neither Muslims nor Wahhabis have archbishops nor priests as far as I know, and I should know). Then last summer they captured an Italian priest (Father Paolo Dall’Oglio) who was trying to ‘talk to them’. Reports a month later claimed he was killed by the liberators, they probably Daniel Pearled him (most Western media ignored the story).
Now the Jihadis have  a bunch of nuns from an ancient held captive. Let us see how closer that brings them to the liberation and capture of Damascus promised by the unelected GCC potentates, the Arab League, and a gaggle of traveling U.S. senators.
Cheers
mhg

         
                                Video:
A Kenny G Holiday

“Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad…………..”

The story of Sarin use in at least two cases this year was broken through the semi-official Saudi Alarabiya network (a network that is owned and operated in Dubai by an in-law of the late King Fahd). These stories always came out at critical times for the Syrian opposition groups, usually after big defeats on the battlefield: for example one story broke out just after the regime victory as Qusayr. Saudi Alarabiya as usual broke the story through an interview with “activists” who supplied a video. Western media adopted the story with gusto: CNN practically declared its own war. The governments of the USA, Britain, and France jumped on the story, again. The French, always good at cooking food and occasionally cooking up evidence, quickly confirmed the use of Sarin. The French and British governments immediately implicated the Assad regime. The Obama administration seemed more doubtful and was relatively more honest: it often avoided pointing the finger at any one side, merely saying that “Sarin was used in Syria”.

Cheers
mhg

         
                            Video:
A Holiday Song

“Bahrain, where a Sunni monarchy has long ruled over a Shia majority, saw a brief flickering of Arab spring protests in February 2011. The biggest were brutally put down with the help of troops from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. Yet smaller protests have continued……….. Protesters are especially resentful that the government employs many non-Bahrainis in the police. The ranks of the well-paid security forces include many Yemenis and Pakistanis; Shia applicants for police jobs are usually turned away. The extensive use of tear gas has become another bone of contention; a document leaked in October exposed plans by the interior ministry to buy 1.6m additional rounds of the stuff. So far the Khalifas have been able to keep the protests under control, helped by the Saudis and reassured by the presence of America’s Fifth Fleet.…………”

The late Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm once tweeted summarizing the situation in Bahrain, succinctly:
“The neglected Bahrain revolution: in Bahrain you are arrested by a Pakistani, your arrest report is written down by a Yemeni, then you are tortured by a Syrian, after which you are tried in court presided over by an Egyptian judge. You are the only Bahraini among them”.
Cheers
mhg

         
                             Video:
A Holiday Song

“Lebanon has long been a playground for spies from across the Middle East. But in 2011, it appeared that U.S. intelligence services were getting badly outplayed by their rivals. More than a dozen informants recruited by the CIA were reportedly captured by Hezbollah and Iran, after the groups learned where the American spies were meeting their agents. The CIA officers made Hezbollah’s job easy by employing shockingly sloppy tradecraft. According to current and former U.S. officials, two Hezbollah agents posing as potential recruits learned the location where the CIA officers met their informants — a Pizza Hut in Beirut. And the code word that the CIA allegedly used to set a meeting? “PIZZA.” From there, Hezbollah’s internal security only had to observe the Pizza Hut………….”

I recall sometime after the September 11 attacks reading a media report about the FBI seeking “Iranian” terrorists in the United States. Apparently they sought to uncover “Iranian” terrorists in the USA by having their agents hanging around “Falafel” joints in San Francisco. Iranian “Falafel” joints? And most sensible people in this country believe Falefel is an Israeli dish (it is now, maybe more so than Pirozhki). This was like seeking Arab terrorists by hanging around Chelo Kebab joints, or kosher delis (a possibility). I posted some advice on that at the time.

Which all reminds me: WTF happened to all these Iranian plotters, like that Jack Arbabsiar of Texas who allegedly plotted with the Mexican drug cartels to blow up the powerless Saudi ambassador in Washington? I recall pundits and columnists rushing to identify the target as Cafe Milano in Georgetown. And I wondered t the time why anyone would want to blow up a restaurant just because the food is mediocre and overpriced. Many in Georgetown are mediocre and overpriced: I would just stay away.
Cheers
mhg

Video:
A Holiday Song

“Egypt’s interim government and the Muslim Brotherhood traded fresh blows Wednesday, with the prosecutor general announcing serious new charges against deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and the Brotherhood declaring a boycott of next month’s vote on a new constitution. The developments appeared to harden the months-long standoff between the army-backed administration and followers of Morsi, a confrontation that has left thousands of Brotherhood members dead or in jail and harmed the international standing of the government that supplanted his rule. The new charges against Morsi, which could conceivably carry the death penalty, include assisting in terrorist acts and espionage ………….”

The current rulers of Egypt are laying it on thick. They are throwing everything but the ‘kitchen sink’ at Mohammed Morsi, and the kitchen sink may be next.

In some countries they would arrange for a deposed leader to “commit suicide” or to appear to commit suicide. That is what the brutal military junta did in Chile for elected President Salvador Allende after their coup d’etat. In other cases they arrange for him to escape and shoot him while trying to escape. Others arrange helicopter crashes for him.

Egyptians don’t have a history of murdering their deposed leaders; they usually send them into exile or put them under house arrest. They used to be more benign coup-makers. Yet deposed President Morsi might be a first: the military rulers seem intent on hanging him, with all these absurd frivolous charges they keep inventing. They keep adding new charges every few months to the list of crimes he is alleged to have committed, the worst of which is probably getting elected.

Cheers

mhg

[email protected]

         
                               Video:
A Holiday Song

“Louis the Sixteenth was the King of France in 1789.

He was worse than Louis the Fifteenth.

He was worse than Louis the Fourteenth.

He was worse than Louis the Thirteenth.

He was the worst, since Louis the First…………….” Alan Sherman song

I posted and tweeted yesterday about all the charges being concocted by the military regime in Egypt against deposed President Mohammed Morsi. Not even King Louis (seizième) faced similar charges, and he was guillotined.
I mentioned some of the charges being trumped up against Morsi: Murder, Treason, Espionage, Witchcraft, Rape (statutory and otherwise), Terrorism, Piracy, plus contacting Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, AIPAC, Hillary Clinton (he did), Dracula, and Yoda. Now my special source reports that Morsi will also be charged with the additional crimes of: contributing to the delinquency of minor army officers, DUI, DWI, Substance Abuse, Dealing Drugs, Beating his Wife above the neck (banned by the NFL), Urinating in the Nile, Contributing to Global Warming, and Working against World Sustainability……….
Let’s see him get out of all these. He ain’t no Houndini: in fact Harry Houdini (born Erik Weisz) would not a lift a finger to help a Semitic Muslim Brotherhood anti-Semite who has called him some nasty Animal Planet types of names on You-Yube.

Cheers
mhg