Monthly Archives: September 2014

Arab League, Caliphate, U.S. Foreign Policy, Uncategorized

ISIS and the Arabs: a Standing Joke of a League…….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2One

Back to my last post about President Obama’s ISIS speech:
One or two of the experts, in their post-speech comments, lamely suggested the Arab League, a useless gathering of mostly dictators and absolute tribal kings with little moral standing. It is now dominated by the same princes and potentates who spawned and nurtured groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS and their ilk.

Among many ordinary Arabs, the only standing the Arab League bureaucracy has is as a standing joke. A place to bury aging senior Arab (especially Egyptian) bureaucrats before they die. Only Western, specifically American politicians and pundits would suggest the Arab League as a mover and shaker, and with a straight face. But that is probably only because it can be useful to them as a fig leaf.

Don’t get me wrong, the idea of an Arab League can eventually be a good one, nay a necessary one. But that can be only after all member states hold free and unfettered elections. You figure out the timetable.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Barack Obama, Caliphate, Wahhabi

Obama’s Slow ISIS War: an Obligatory Coalition of the Usual Suspects……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2

I watched Mr. Obama’s speech on dealing with the Islamic State of ISIS (he calls it ISIL). I thought he was smart enough to leave the details vague, no “mission accomplished” and no details of any incursion into Syria. He even seemed to push forward into the future any possibility of arming the fractured disintegrating border groups that call themselves the Free Syrian Salafi Army. He promised some help for ‘some’ of them, probably to preempt the usual expected heckling noises from Senators McCain and Graham. And to keep the Arab princes and potentates content. He also mentioned the obligatory international ‘coalition’ of the usual suspects.

What was shocking to me was the number of American pundits and opinion-ators, including some generals and former officials who should know better, who suggested that foreign “Sunni Arab” forces be used in Iraq and Syria. But Iraq and Syria are already full of armed foreign “Wahhabi Arabs” and “Wahhabi Europeans” seeking to liberate them from all non-Wahhabis for the Caliphate. These liberators either came from or were armed or financed by the elites of the same “Arab forces” these experts now want to send into Iraq and Syria. Not one of them bothered to suggest seeking approval of the Iraqi and Syrian peoples or governments. We should not overlook that these two governments, with all their shortcomings, are at least as representative as the Saudi and Qatari governments. At least.

Arab forces? What Arab forces? A couple of experts mentioned specifically Saudi and United Arab Emirates (UAE) forces. WTF? The UAE apparently does not have enough citizens (barely 10% of the population) to police its own streets, let alone face the fierce Jihadi terrorists. The Saudis are reportedly periodically negotiating with Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Egypt for military and security help if and when needed.
And why would Iraq and Syria allow these tribal ruling families to send more of their mercenary forces inside their countries? Even as their Wahhabi ideology and money and weapons and volunteers are wreaking havoc in both countries with kidnappings and bombings and massacres. And why would these same Arab rulers send their hapless troops to be sitting ducks, picked off by all sides of these conflicts?
Which confirmed to me that Mr. Obama is smarter than most leaders of his own party and the opposition party. Which makes sense, otherwise he would not be speaking to them from the other side of the television cameras and microphones.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab Politics, France, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy, Weapons deals

Holy Royal Blackmail! French American War in Lebanon Over Saudi Money……

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15   OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2

“On a visit to Paris, the Saudi crown prince is said to have ironed out most obstacles to a multi-billion-euro plan to equip the Lebanese army with French weapons in the face of regional instability, but one final signature is still missing. Sources with knowledge of the talks told FRANCE 24 on Wednesday that the absence of the finance minister among the group of Saudi officials accompanying Defence Minister and Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud to Paris was the official reason for the delay…………”

“According to a March 8 source, the closure of the Ersal-Qalamoun front “will reflect positively on the operations the Syrian army and its allies are carrying out in the Damascus countryside against armed extremist groups, which is something that Saudi Arabia and other countries supporting the Syrian opposition groups will never allow to happen.” Other sources added that “Saudi Arabia has put the $3 billion donation to the army on hold because of the presidential vacuum and also because of Washington’s opposition to this donation for many reasons including Riyadh’s intention to sign a $25 billion arms deal with Paris………..”

The Saudis have been trying for years to find a formula to weaken the grip of Hezbollah over Lebanese politics. Ever since Hezbollah defeated the occupying Israeli IDF in a long guerrilla war and forced it to withdraw from southern Lebanon in the year 2000. The Saudi campaign escalated after Hezbollah again defeated the IDF and forced it to abort its incursion into Lebanon in the summer of 2006. The only times an Arab army or armed group has ever defeated the IDF.

The Saudis’ best Lebanese man, the late Rafiq Hariri, was assassinated in 2005 by parties still unknown (and I mean truly unknown). Their second best man Saad Hariri decamped quickly for Paris after a short stint as prime minister (the job is part of the Sunni share of power). He is now reported by the media to have flown back to Paris after a short visit to Beirut. The rest, the Druze and the Falangist rightist warlords, represent smaller balancing factions within their own ethnic/confessional communities.

Money has not worked, mainly because money, even holy petroleum money, cannot overcome confessional and sectarian passions. Not even in Lebanon. Then the princes resorted to an explosive weapon: they have worked to escalate sectarian tensions in Lebanon. And they have succeeded spectacularly in that. They lit some fires in Beirut and especially in Tripoli and a few other places. Thanks to their efforts, Tripoli and regions near the Syrian border are now a hotbed of Salafi Jihadi activity. There are now also pockets of such activity in parts of Beirut and in some southern townships. That explains the increase in periodic attacks on army posts by armed Salafi groups.

Desperate times provoke desperate measures. They are now targeting the Lebanese army as the last Achilles Heel of Lebanese politics. Or, to continue with Greek mythology/history, as a possible Trojan Horse. They have settled on the Lebanese Army as a possible way to outflank Hezbollah. Except that the Lebanese army represents the demographic mix of Lebanon, its various religions and sects. At best that army can stay out of politics and remain united, at worst it can meddle in politics and break up into its ethnic and sectarian components. Back to the drawing board.

Targeting the army has started another external war. An apparent battle for weapons deals, and the conditions attached to them, between France and the United States. The original Saudi deal, announced months ago through Saad Hariri, was to pay for only a specific deal of French weapons to Lebanon (somewhere between $ 3-4 billion). Yet that deal, like all Saudi offers of foreign aid, has stalled as Riyadh tries to use it as leverage and to blackmail all parties with it. It is like a case of double or multiple  blackmail. The Saudis often try to pressure several foreign parties with one deal. They are now using this potential arms deal to influence the following: (1) French Middle East policy, (2) Lebanese internal politics, and (3) American Middle East policy.

Stay tuned for more on this battle for Saudi weapons deals.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy, Wahhabi

Hobson’s Choice in Syria: Bad, Badder, or Baddest?…….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15           DennyCreek2

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2

“HOBSON’S CHOICE:
1. an apparently free choice when there is no real alternative
2. the necessity of accepting one of two or more equally objectionable alternatives.………”                                                                                                     Merriam Webster

“The jihadi group surging through Iraq and Syria is using large captured US-made weapons and has access to anti-tank rockets supplied by Saudi Arabia to a moderate rebel group, according to a report published on Monday. The study by the London-based Conflict Armament Research consultancy found that Islamic State (Isis) militants had access to large numbers of US weapons, which they were shifting to key battlefields……..The report was compiled from a list of weapons captured from Isis by Kurdish militias over a 10-day period in July. Of most interest was the capture of two M-79 rockets that were identical to a batch of such weapons supplied by Saudi Arabia to rebels………”

So this report seems to corroborate what we have all been saying for some time: it is almost impossible to keep weapons from being transferred among Syrian Jihadis. There is an active Syrian market for them and they get taken and sold and gifted between the hundreds of Jihadi groups and gangs that seek to liberate Syria for the Saudi and Qatari princes and take it back to their distorted vision of the seventh century (AD). ISIS and Al Nusra and all the other “Jabhats” and “Ansars” and myriad groupies get enough money from their well-known sources to be able to ‘buy’ whatever weapons they want from other Syrian ‘freedom fighters’, including the Free Syrian Salafi Army.

The fact is that within Syria there are no real non-Jihadi rebels anymore. This has been the case since late 2011, after the Wahhabis of the Persian Gulf region mobilized their vast financial, media, and volunteer resources and deployed them, armed with a strong dose of deep sectarian hatred, to commandeer a nascent uprising in Syria. Just a few years after deploying the same murderous resources to massacre Iraqi civilians in their towns and cities.

Within Syria the choice among rebels is between the following: (a) plain bad Wahhabis, (b) badder Wahhabis, and (c) the baddest Wahhabis. The crucial battles with Syrian regime forces in the past year or two saw all these various tiers of Wahhabi Jihadist groups join forces. Join forces and share weapons before the baddest of them, ISIS, started to push the others to the margins, to the periphery of history. Building up new mildly Wahhabi groups inside the Humorless Kingdom of Jordan and sending them into Syria to keep the civil war going will not do the trick either. The Jordanian Front is not likely to fare better than the Turkish front has done.

Or maybe the plain bad Wahhabis are the only palatable Hobson option available for the Western powers. They can appoint French pop-philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, co-liberator of Libya, as NATO high commissioner for Syria, to keep them from going badder and baddest. It did not work in Libya, but it might in Syria: hope springs eternal when supported with tribal petro-money.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

GCC, Saudi Arabia, Think Tanks, U.S. Foreign Policy, UAE

Oil Financed Lobbying Think Tanks of America………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15           DennyCreek2

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2

“Money is increasingly transforming the once-staid think-tank world into a muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington. Most of the money comes from Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere in Asia, particularly the oil-producing nations of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Norway, and takes many forms. The United Arab Emirates, a major supporter of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, quietly provided a donation of more than $1 million to help build the Center’s gleaming new glass and steel headquarters not far from the White House. Qatar, the small but wealthy Middle East nation, agreed last year to make $14.8 million, four-year donation to Brookings, which has helped finance a Brookings affiliate in Qatar and a project on United States relations with the Islamic world. Some scholars say the donations have led to implicit agreements that the research groups would refrain from criticizing the donor governments……….”

There is nothing implicit or subtle about it: tis the season now to exchange objectivity for some oil money. Did you ever believe that the princes and potentates of the Persian Gulf states would finance and host Western think-tanks because they love objective unbiased analysis?

When was the last time a Brookings paper publicly criticized the government of Qatar? Don’t we read Brookings-Doha ‘analysts’ peddling Qatari and Muslim Brotherhood policies every day in American and other Western media? Don’t we read almost every day Western ‘analysts’ attached to “think-tanks” in Abu Dhabi and Dubai peddle Saudi and UAE interests and regional policies and positions?

Petroleum money has been making deep inroads not only into the Western political classes, but also in some aspects and activities of academic and research institutions. The trend extends beyond think-tanks and opinion-makers.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Iran, Iraq, Jihad, POTUS, US Foreign Policy

Mr. Obama’s ISIS Speech: Ottomanesque Caliph Al Samarrai to Request Equal Time……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15           DennyCreek2

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2

President Obama is expected to go on television (and other media) Wednesday to explain his strategy for dealing with the Wahhabi Islamic State of ISIS (he calls it ISIL). He will explain what he has in mind (most of it) to the American people, to the world, and to the terrorist Jihadis of ISIS. Including one Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi who has appointed himself the Caliph (follower or heir of the Prophet) of the Islamic State. In its more modern incarnation, any Caliphate would not be anything like the those of the early one: Abu Bakr (the First), Omar (the First), Othman, or Ali. He would probably be more like something between one of the mad early Ottoman sultans and Kim Jong-Un (there goes my never-planned trip to Pyongyang down the drain). He has also decided to attach Al Husseini Al Quraishi to his nom de guerre, but don’t let it fool you: his real name is Ibrahim Al Samarrai.
This Al Samarrai dude (a k a Abu Bakr the Second) has his own plans for later this week. My incredible ISIS source claims that the Caliph plans to respond to Mr. Obama within hours at most. She claims he will demand equal time from the major networks in order to refute Mr. Obama’s speech point by point. Sort of like Republicans do every time and every Saturday. She swears the Hollywood-ish Caliph will not insist on responding to all Obama’s Saturday radio (and video) addresses, claiming he has better things to do.

In the unlikely event that the networks refuse his request, he plans to file a complaint with the FCC and whatever other appropriate authorities he might think of.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Caliphate, Europe, GCC, Germany, Iraq, Qatar, Wahhabi

Friends of the Caliph: Germans Single Out Qatar!……

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15       DennyCreek2
Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

“German Development Minister Gerd Mueller accused Qatar on Wednesday of financing Islamic State militants who have seized wide areas of northern Iraq and have posted a video of a captive American journalist being beheaded. “This kind of conflict, this kind of a crisis always has a history … The ISIS troops, the weapons – these are lost sons, with some of them from Iraq,” Mueller told German public broadcaster ZDF. “You have to ask who is arming, who is financing ISIS troops. The keyword there is Qatar – and how do we deal with these people and states politically?” said Mueller, a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the center-right Bavarian sister party of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Mueller did not elaborate and presented no evidence of a Qatari link to Islamic State………….”

ISIS or ISIL or IS are Wahhabi terrorists who got their start with help from many sources, especially in the Persian Gulf states. Not sure why the Germans singled out Qatar for criticism and ignored the others. Could be that Qatar is still funding and arming them while the others claim they are trying to crack down. Could be that the Turks are still allowing all comers access through their neighborly borders with Syria.

Could it be that the prospects of lucrative weapons deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are too tempting for the Germans to openly criticize them? They are for most other European countries: Francois Hollande would easily convert to Wahhabism, if he could still have his wine. The Al Saud princes and others have mastered the art of economic blackmail against greedy European powers. To the extent that British prime minister David Cameron has authorized an absurd investigation to decide whether the Muslim Brotherhood can be listed as a “terrorist” organization. The same Brotherhood whose government in Egypt he recognized before the military coup of July 2013. That is obviously groveling to the financial power of tribal potentates and their petro-money.

The culprits who helped ISIS rise in Iraq, grow in Syria, and then expand into Iraq are hiding in plain sight, and they are not only in Qatar.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

 

 

Arab Politics, Education, Egypt, Saudi Arabia

Arab King May be the Most Educated Human in the World……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15           DennyCreek2

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2

Egypt‘s Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi has issued a farman decision bestowing an Honorary Doctoral (Honorary Internatonal) degree in Humanities on Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The degree will be from Al Azhar University, at no cost to the king. Egyptian media report that the Al Azhar Board took the unanimous decision to award the king his new degree based on his services to Islamic and Arab causes, and his “principled” stances regarding the recent historic events in Egypt.

Among those principled stances was the king’s famous claim during the January-February 2011 Tahrir uprising that the protesters were “trouble-makers and agents of foreign powers“. That uprising forced Mr. Mubarak out of power, elected Mohammed Morsi, then brought Generalisimo Al Sisi to power in a military coup d’etat, financed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

This new award/degree probably makes the Saudi king among the most educated in the world, at least among humans. On paper at least. So far he has received degrees from several (possibly all) Saudi colleges, from Pakistani and Indonesian and Malaysian and other Arab and Muslim colleges. Without so much as a GRE or Quals Exams or Dissertation or the rest of the bureaucratic steps needed by mortals. The guy is loaded with knowledge. He has never received any degree from the favorite military academy of Arab kings and potentates, Sandhurst in Britain. But no fear, that can be remedied in exchange for a small nominal weapons deal.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Al-Qaeda, Caliphate, GCC, Iraq, Jihadis, Syria

Tribal Sectarian Roots of the ISIS Caliphate……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15                   DennyCreek2
Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

“The rise of ISIS is a stark reminder of Bush and Obama’s failure to help create a modern democratic state in Iraq. But to be fair, other elements were responsible for the new nightmare that has descended upon innocent Iraqis……… The key to the existence of ISIS lies not inside the CIA in Langley, Virginia, as some conspiracy theorists have proposed, but rather in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who have long feared the “rise” of Shia Islam in the region. They are the ones who have been financing their Sunni brethren within ISIS………..”

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Caliphate, Hezbollah, Iraq, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy, Uncategorized

Wall Street Journal Continues its Own Middle East Wars……

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15                   DennyCreek2

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2


“Well, this is a little scary. U.S. intelligence intercepted messages from Iran to militants in Iraq ordering attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad if America strikes Syria. U.S officials say they’re preparing for Iran’s fast boats in the Persian Gulf, and military resources, including Marines, have been moved to the area. The message came from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard leader Qasem Soleimani and instructed Shiite groups to respond with force if the U.S. strikes Syria………..”

I didn’t know a U.S. attack ‘on Syria’ was in the cards these days. Unless the Wall Street Journal writer knows something no one else does.

Could he mean extending the current bombing attack against the Wahhabi Caliphate of ISIS into Syria? But then why would Iran retaliate in the Persian Gulf and why would Hezbollah retaliate in Beirut for any attack on the ISIS den of terrorists? Especially if the target of the Syrian campaign is NOT to alter the military balance in the Syrian civil war and tilt it toward the strategic goals of the Wahhabi oil princes. Provided Syria approves of any operations over its territory.

An attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut by Hezbollah? That would be a stupid thing for them to do these days, and they know it. Only some media types and propagandists would think of it as probable. No doubt Hezbollah planners are more intelligent than many Wall Street Journal opinion-ators who write this kind of nonsense. They read as if written by some Likud or AIPAC functionaries.

More likely any attack on the U.S. embassy anywhere and not just in Beirut, if it ever happens, would come from Wahhabi terrorists nurtured for years by allied oil princes and by money from elements of Lebanon’s right-wing blocs.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum