Caliphate, Jihadists, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Speculative Chemical Assertion about Syria: Prelude to a Bombing Campaign?……..

September 5, 2014 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“Syria May Have Hidden Chemical Arms, U.S. Says. Ambassador Samantha Power asserted that Syria might not have handed over all its chemical arms supplies for destruction, and that they could fall into the hands of militants………..”

I suspect that Ambassador Power was not trained as a lawyer. The ambassador “asserted” that Syria “might” have hidden chemical weapons, and that they “could” fall into Jihadist hands. Dunno what exactly to make of this rather “speculative assertion” at the fluid court of the United Nations. That the Syrian government’s behavior raised “skepticism” (FYI: most Middle East governments’ behavior on any issue should always raise skepticism, be they Arab, Israeli, Iranian, Turkish, or Sumerian).

Could this be part of a spin, a prelude to start the bombing campaign over Syria? Will it be a bombing campaign targeting only the Wahhabi terrorist groups of ISIS and A-Nusra? Or will it, as no doubt some of the Arab princes and potentates hope, expand to target the Syrian armed forces and their facilities? Will there be a loophole in Mr. Obama’s coming “Syrian” speech that could open the door for a “Libyan” style expansion of the expected American and NATO mission over the Caliphate of Mosul and Al-Raqqa?
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Latin America, Mexico, Uncategorized

Mexico: New President, Same Old Caca del Toro……

September 3, 2014 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“Peña Nieto pushes on with change. Leader promises a Mexico ‘on the move’ despite growing scepticism…….. In a 90-minute state of the nation speech in the Palacio Nacional, where Mexico’s history is depicted in a series of murals by Diego Rivera begun in 1929, the president hit hard his message of a forward-looking Mexico that is “on the move”………….” New York Times

Ya, ya, ya. We’ve been hearing and reading this every time a new president is inaugurated. Everyone of them is a new breath of fresh air when they start: Zedillo and Calderon and Fox and this Nieto. More political caca de toro.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Caliphate, Iraq, Jihadis, Syria, Terrorism

The Murder of Steven Sotloff: What is in a Name…..

September 3, 2014 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“Steven Sotloff, the kidnapped journalist beheaded by Islamic State, was a dual Israeli-US citizen who had managed to hide his second nationality from his militant Islamist captors even while reportedly managing to fast during the Yom Kippur religious festival………..”

Clearly ISIS did not know of his dual US-Israeli citizenship (also confirmed in the Israeli daily Haaretz). They would have publicized it if they had known and they would have trumpeted the capture of a ‘Mossad agent’. What is surprising is that they apparently did not know of his Jewish faith. Salafi terrorists would not let that pass without at least acknowledging it (or worse). Right now it is a toss-up which makes a better target for the knife from the ISIS viewpoint: a Jew or a Shi’a or a Yazidi. Any of these identities could earn its owner a killing, possibly a beheading. Daniel Pearl was slaughtered by Al-Qaeda in Pakistan at least partly because he did not hide his Jewish identity.

Clearly this first Caliph of the new Hollywood Caliphate of Mosul needs to build up his secret services quickly. He has got enough former Baathist henchmen allied to him to start.

If this Guardian report is correct in claiming that Sotloff in captivity managed to observe Jewish occasions like Yum Kippur, then it was a sort of victory over his killers. You can also bet that they will now be researching the ethnic and religious background of every one of their captives. Such information is anyway important to the tribal and sectarian-minded Wahhabis of ISIS, even if they hail from London and Marseille and Chechnya.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Culture, Islamic History, Saudi Arabia

The Three Sects of Islam: the Cultural Equivalent of ISIS Yuppies……..

September 2, 2014 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“The tomb of the Prophet Mohammed is located in the Saudi Arabian city of Medina. The prophet’s remains are under the Green Dome in the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi mosque, which is visited by millions of Muslims every year. According to the U.K.’s Independent, however, a 61-page consultation document outlines plans for destroying chambers around the tomb, which are especially revered by Shi’ite Muslims, and removing the prophet’s remains to an anonymous grave. The document was exposed by a Saudi academic, the Independent said, but there is still no indication that the Saudi goverment has adopted the plans. The document was given to supervisors of the mosque in Medina……….”

Islam is often portrayed as consisting of two major sects: Sunni and Shi’a. In fact culturally Islam consists of three major sects: (1) Sunni (the largest sect), (2) Shi’a (the next largest sect), and (3) Wahhabi (now the smallest sect but it is growing fast nowadays from Indonesia to Morocco and into Europe). There are others, smaller sects and offshoots of the others.

Wahhabi doctrine, unlike Sunni and Shi’a doctrine, is set against the very survival of historic monuments of any kind (now some f them venerate princes and potentates). They are not, however, against making money at the expense of history. Many major monuments of the early Islamic period in central Mecca have been destroyed and replaced with shopping malls and 5-7-star hotels.

If this new report is true, then it represents a brazen attack on the very history of early Islam, by people who do not believe in history and seek to destroy it. Still, I am not sure they can be serious about this plan for the grave of the Prophet, knowing the possible reaction. Maybe it is a trial balloon to see the reaction, or maybe it is a cultural nod to the up and coming fellow Salafis, the new yuppies of ISIS.

If I were prone to exaggeration to make a point, and I am not, I’d say this is the Wahhabi cultural equivalent of the military drive and the massacres of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The paths of the tree and its fruit do not diverge much, to rephrase another cliché (FYI: no, that is not a cliché of a Chinese proverb, although it sounds like it).
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Cuba, Russia, U.S. Foreign Policy

Cold War Relics: from Ukraine to Cuba………

September 2, 2014 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Pundits and columnists in the West have been recently mentioning that Vladimir Putin seems to be going back to a Cold War stance (speaking especially of the Ukraine crisis). That Putin is following aggressive Soviet-like policies toward his neighbors that are similar to those of the Cold War days that ended around 1991. Mr. Putin has been in power for about 13 years. His new image of the aggressive cold warrior is more recent, a function of his recent strong objections to European Union attempts at expansion into what Russians consider their traditional sphere of influence.

Which made me think quickly of that other, more enduring even more ridiculous relic of the old Cold War. The foreign policy relic that never went away, that will likely remain in place as long as the “Cuban vote” is important for winning Florida. The unilateral and senseless U.S. economic blockade of Cuba that has been around for more than half a century, longer than the original Cold War. It will almost certainly survive Fidel Castro, it might even survive the last of the Castro brothers.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Human Right, Sectarian

Bahrain Uprising: the War on the Al Khawaja Family……….

September 1, 2014 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“Police detained Bahraini human rights campaigner Maryam al-Khawaja after her arrival in the Gulf country on Saturday, her mother said. Al-Khawaja has dual Bahraini and Danish citizenship. Her mother, Khadija al-Musawi, told The Associated Press that her daughter was refused entry after presenting her Danish passport and a Bahraini identification card, and at one point was surrounded by police. The activist has said she wanted to visit her jailed father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is on hunger strike to protest his detention. Lawyer Mohammed al-Jishi told the AP that prosecutors plan to press charges against al-Khawaja that include insulting the king and police……………”

How can anybody ever ‘insult’ that particular king and police? Is that even possible in this days and age and in that venue?

The father, Abdulhadi Al Khawaja, has been under arrest almost since the beginning of the Bahrain uprising in 2011. He is reported to have undergone torture. Another daughter was released just recently from prison but faces other charges from the ruling family. She will probably spend more time in prison. This one, Maryam, has been outside Bahrain, traveling for the cause of her country. Most Arab countries like Egypt have banned her from entering their territory, in deference to the Saudi princes and/or local Salafis. Oddly, such is the poisonous sectarian atmosphere encouraged by the Al Saud and other Wahhabi propaganda that some Arabs who have revolted against their own regimes are also against the Bahrain uprising.

She remained outside prison by remaining outside the occupied country. Now she is back home and in prison, arrested upon arrival at the airport, allegedly pending an investigation. She will probably start spending more time in prison as well. At some point the whole family will probably be in a regime prison at the same time.

The Bahrain ruling family is moving fast toward Saudi-ization of its court and legal systems. The room for dissent and criticism is narrowing by the week. As the late Egyptian poet Ahmad Fuad Negm reportedly opined once: “The poor Bahraini. He gets arrested by Pakistani or Jordanian policemen, he is tormented by Syrian or Jordanian interrogators, and he is tried and sentenced by an Egyptian judge. He, the accused native is the only Bahraini in the courtroom“. Or something to that effect.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Politics, GCC, Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

The Internal Wars of the GCC: from Al Bassous to Qatar and Egypt……..

September 1, 2014 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

The foreign ministers of the Gulf GCC members met in Jeddah Saturday, reportedly to follow up on an ‘ultimatum’ given to Qatar. The ultimatum was from the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (also Bahrain, but now only as an appendix of the Saudis).

The ultimatum itself is an interesting, and should be shocking, piece of undiplomatic diplomacy and meddling in the sovereign affairs of an allegedly independent sovereign country. The GCC right-wing group (Saudi, UAE, Bahrain) had reportedly warned, nay threatened, Qatar to basically adopt their Saudi-imposed foreign policy in regional and inter-Arab affairs, or else. At stake is continued Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood and its continued criticism of Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi regime in Egypt, mainly through the Aljazeera network. As well as Qatari refusal to push Hamas in Gaza under the bus.

The Qatari-Saudi rift goes back to long before the Arab uprisings and the Egyptian military coup of 2013 and the Syrian civil war and Hamas control of Gaza. During the 1990s, Saudi intelligence orchestrated an attempted coup in Qatar, with the goal of overthrowing the last Emir Hamad. The coup attempt, in which certain tribal elements from the border region were also implicated, failed. As a result, a large group of senior Saudi intelligence and security officers were arrested in Doha and imprisoned for years. They were released during the last decade and send back home to Riyadh.

Anyway, some GCC ministers claimed after the Jeddah meeting that ‘the issues’ are on their way to being resolved. In fact all ‘issues’ are usually on their way to being resolved, and not only because GCC functionaries and top bureaucrats habitually claim that they are. Famously, the pre-Islamic tribal Al Bassous War was also resolved after some forty years, and that one was over a camel and a cantankerous woman who owned it. Even the Israeli-Palestinian ‘issue’ may be resolved some day: it has only been, what, about 75 years or so?

If’n you ask me, if’n you do, and I am aware that you haven’t yet, I would say it is highly unlikely that the Qataris will succumb to the demands of the Saudi princes and their Abu Dhabi and Bahraini sidekicks. There have been several bilateral meetings between Saudi and Qatari leaders in recent months. A bilateral summit meeting between King and Emir was held in Saudi Arabia last July, and apparently it failed to resolve the issues. It is unlikely then that a bunch of GCC bureaucrats can solve what King and Emir could not solve.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arabia Deserta: MENA Focus

Monthly Archives: September 2014