Category Archives: Arab Counterrevoltion

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Human Right, UAE, Weapons deals

Disgruntled Bins of a Feather: UAE in the Footsteps of Bahrain?………….

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“But it has tolerated little dissent during the regional upheaval, trying and sentencing at least five pro-reform activists and stripping the citizenship of another seven last year on charges that they represent a threat to state security. It also disbanded the elected boards of two of the UAE’s most prominent civil society groups, Human Rights Watch said. “Unfortunately, we saw last year that the United Arab Emirates decided to suppress freedom of expression in the country by harassing and trying a number of activists, and by attempting to limit freedom of association in the country,” HRW’S deputy Middle East head Nadim Houry told the conference. Subsequently a group of men dressed in traditional Emirati clothing burst into the conference and demanded it end because Human Rights Watch did not have a permit to host such an event. Attendees heard the men identify themselves as officials of the Ministry of Economy. They flashed an identification card, HRW researcher Samer Muscati, one of the conference’s organizers, told Reuters, but they could not see it long enough to determine who had issued it. “We speculate that these guys are not who they claim to be. They seem to be state security, not from the Ministry of Economy,” he said. Officials of the UAE Interior Ministry and the Dubai government’s press office declined to comment on the identity of the men…………..”

They are all the same, really. If they feel threatened by dissent, the Bin Technocrat Bin Zayed al-Nahayan act no different from the slimy Bin Technocrat al-Khalifa potentates of Bahrain. No different from the Bin Technocrat al-Saud princes. They crack down and arrest and gas and imprison and torture and, if they have to, they kill.
Why else do you think they are buying all these American JDAM bunker-busters? Did you thing it was to attack China or Iran or North Korea? No, it is to bunker-bust the shopping malls if they are ever taken over by irate citizens. Correct that: there are only about 12% or so in the UAE who are citizens” They can’t possibly fill a shopping mall. Only the citizens are entitled to feel disgruntled, if done silently. Citizens are allowed to be disgruntled silently only, but the almost 88% who are temporary foreign laborers are not allowed to be disgruntled even silently.
It is not clear how they monitor and prevent silent disgruntlement. They can’t just send their flunkies with ID’s to stop it. These security goons aren’t smart enough to tell who is disgruntled and who is not, especially when nobody is supposed to smile in public anyway.
Maybe the potentates have purchased some new equipment from the helpful Western government (possibly the eager British) or North Korea for that.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, GCC, Humor, Jordan, Muslims, religious police, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Funning about the Princes and the Muftis: Obama for Crown Prince or Jordanian Gauleiter……………

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“SAUDI ARABIA’s response to the Arab spring might be described as allergic. The tiniest whiff of protest last March prompted the government to outlaw demonstrations. Even as women, in effect, continue to be banned from driving, and dissidents jailed or banned from travelling, a new media law has clamped tighter restrictions on the press. Echoing events in tiny Bahrain, where the ruling family crushed Shia protests, Saudi security forces have responded to rising unrest in their country’s east, among the kingdom’s own 10% Shia minority, with blunt measures, including live gunfire that killed five protesters in recent months. Instead, the immediate beneficiaries of the Arab spring in Saudi Arabia may be a new generation of comedians and artists. They certainly stole the limelight on 19th January, at the opening of “We Need to Talk”.…..…” The Economist

I think they need to smile and laugh more than they need to talk. I will believe that Saudi comedy (an oxymoron?) has arrived if they start some joke with “Prince Nayef and the Mufti walked into this bar and…………” or “The Mufti stumbled into a Hussainiyah thinking it was the mosque and…………”
 
More seriously, I am not familiar with Saudi humor. I have known Saudis, mostly in business, but none of them ever cracked a joke within my earshot. Or maybe they did and I didn’t recognize it as a joke. I had thought joking was frowned upon over there: sort of like women driving, laughing in public, smiling in public, dressing different, thinking different from everyone else, thongs, tank-tops, mentioning the words ‘freedom’ or ‘protest’ or ‘Shi’a’, among other things.
Actually once in a shopping mall in Riyadh I tried smiling (in the United States I got used to the nasty habit of smiling at people in public, except in NYC subways). It was close to the noon prayer time, and the shaggy religious cops (Commission for the Propagation of Vice) were waving their (khaizaran) bamboo sticks ominously. They were coming toward me as they scowled at shoppers, hinting that soon all men should be inside a mosque and all women at home awaiting their pleasure. I flashed a smile at the nearest hairy one. His scowl deepened as he got closer. I decided that I had made a mistake and focused on a shop window: unfortunately it was a women’s lingerie shop with an Asian salesman behind the counter. I will write more about that later.
Back to the humor: Yet the Mufti of Saudi Arabia is often smiling in his photos. Shaikh Al Al Shaikh almost smiles as often as Ahmadinejad, and both smile much more than either crown prince Nayef or Ayatollah Khamenei (not that hard). It is possible that Saudi humor is a bit more ‘discernible’ than, say, Jordanian humor. I have never seen or heard any of the latter. I think they ought to openly outlaw humor in both countries: that way everyone, especially visitors, will know where they stand. In some Gulf places like the UAE, it is not illegal to laugh or even smile in public, especially if one is a man. Yet if you look directly at someone they would quickly scowl. Once you look at them, the face loses that ‘neutral’ inexpressive vacant look and a scowling (also vacant) mask covers everything. I suspect it is an attempt at showing some gravitas under scrutiny: it is a common Gulf issue.
I bet Obama could never get elected shaikh of Abu Dhabi or crown prince of Saudi Arabia (or Gauleiter of Jordan): he smiles too much in public.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Bahrain, Britain, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Weapons deals

David Cameron as Gulf Mercenary, Potentates Impotent with Greed, and Judy Collins……….

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“Don’t you love farce?
My fault, I fear
I thought that you’d want what I want
Sorry, my dear.
But, where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.
Don’t bother they’re here…….” Judy Collins (Send in the Clowns)

“The trouble is that Iran has won almost all its recent wars without firing a shot. George W and Tony destroyed Iran’s nemesis in Iraq. They killed thousands of the Sunni army whom Iran itself always referred to as “the black Taliban”. And the Gulf Arabs, our “moderate” friends, shiver in their golden mosques as we in the West outline their fate in the event of an Iranian Shia revolution. No wonder Cameron goes on selling weapons to these preposterous people whose armies, in many cases, could scarcely operate soup kitchens, let alone the billions of dollars of sophisticated kit we flog them under the fearful shadow of Tehran. Bring on the sanctions. Send in the clowns…………..”

This is what Fisk wrote, and it is worth a read. I suppose when he quoted Judy Collins “send in the clowns” he was referring to David Cameron. Cameron and his ministers have gone completely mercenary, just the way the Gulf potentates like their associates. They have thrown all pretenses at democracy and freedom to the wind as they fly to the dens of repression and despotism in Riyadh and Manama. And as they receive the bloody potentates at Downing Street. There is a matter of mutual interest: the British regime has its hand (or hat) extended for some of the oil money, while the potentates have their hands extended for the fat bribes commissions they would get from the weapons deals. They can always hire Pakistani or Western mercenaries to use these weapons, most likely on their own people, on our people.
(FYI: the Obama administration is no better. They are fully behind the repression in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, even as they falsely claim to support freedom and liberty. They must mean the freedom of these Arab regimes to repress their peoples, and the liberty of the potentates to loot their countries. And the liberty to sell weapons to regimes that will probably never know how to use them).
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Human Right, Muslims, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, WTF

Middle East Worst Four for Freedom and Civil Liberties: Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, and Sudan……….

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“A total of 26 countries registered net declines in 2011, and only 12 showed overall improvement, marking the sixth consecutive year in which countries with declines outnumbered those with improvements. While the Middle East and North Africa experienced the most significant gains—concentrated largely in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya—it also suffered the most declines, with a list of worsening countries that includes Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Syria and Saudi Arabia, two countries at the forefront of the violent reaction to the Arab Spring, fell from already low positions to the survey’s worst-possible ratings…….Worst of the Worst: Of the 48 countries designated as Not Free, nine have been given the survey’s lowest possible rating of 7 for both political rights and civil liberties: Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan………”

Always the majority of the worst in Freedom House ratings are Arab and/or Muslim countries. The worst declines were in the Middle East. Of the last ones up there, the worst of the worst, seven of the nine are Muslim states, and four of those worst are Arab states (Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, and Sudan). We all knew that most these states were not sweethearts, but the worst of the worst? The Worst-est? Way down there with North Korea? And they all start with S? Which deserves a resounding: WTF!
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Europe, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey

On Israelis, Turks, Kurdish Rebels, Iranians, and Arab Oligarchs without Vision…………..

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“According to reports by Turkish intelligence agencies, Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operated by Israel that have been observed in Hatay and Adana provinces in recent months spied for the terrorist Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). Turkish intelligence agencies prepared a report after the detection of two Israeli Herons in Hatay and Adana roughly two months ago, claiming that the Herons are collecting intelligence on Turkish military units in order to aid PKK operations in those regions. The report asserts that the PKK’s training camps in northern Syria, near Turkey’s Hatay border “where Turkish military border posts are relatively weak” were established in those locations based on intelligence collected by the UAVs. The report also claims that Kenan Yıldızbakan, a PKK member who commanded an assault against a Turkish naval base in İskenderun in 2010, has made repeated trips into Israeli territory, reinforcing suspicions of a possible link between Israeli and the PKK………….”

This was bound to happen. Once the Turks realized how racist the European Union feels toward them and their application for membership. Once they realized that they are the last on the list of countries that would be admitted, if they are ever admitted. Once the Turks realized that their usefulness to the Europeans as an anti-Soviet base and as a source of scarce labor has expired. Once they realized that they do need need Europe as much as they had thought. They turned their attention back to the Middle East, which includes Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

The Turks are in Syria now, more or less, possibly in rivalry with Iran for influence over Damascus now that the Arab leaders are helpless and have no independent vision for dealing with the situation. So far the only Arab vision seems to be pushing for the West to “liberate” Syria from its regime, just as the West “liberated” Iraq and Libya. The Turks are also in Iraq, possibly seen by some Arabs as their last hope to limit Iranian influence, at least in the north and west of Iraq. Odd, a new Turkish-Iranian rivalry over Iraq, just like the old Ottoman-Persian rivalry over Iraq.

All that because the stagnant Arab oligarchs, mainly the Saudis, decided to give up on Iraq because they did not like the way Iraqis chose their government (or maybe because the Iraqis actually had some choice, no matter how imperfect).
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Human Right, Iran, Muslims, Salafi, Saudi Arabia, Theocracy, US Foreign Policy

Mullahs, Princes, and Islamist Potentates: Prince Turki and Fitna……….

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“Prince Turki al-Faisal, chairman of the board of the King Faisal Center for Islamic Research Studies called on Iran to stop spreading sectarian divisions (Fitna) among Gulf GCC citizens. He emphasized that these countries are not part of any dispute with the “international community” about its nuclear program. He made his statement in a speech to the Conference on National Security and Regional Security in the GCC, held in Bahrain………..”

I don’t know about this. No doubt the Iranian mullahs have pursued their own goals toward influence through interference in some Arab states: mainly in Iraq and Lebanon. Like all theocrats, the mullahs are no sweethearts in the pursuit of their goals. But the prince is being deliberately unfair and misleading toward the Shi’a citizens of the Gulf states. Prince Turki is hinting here that Iran is responsible for the popular uprisings in Bahrain and in Qatif. He is using the discredited al-Khalifa excuse of painting the peoples of Bahrain and Qatif as Iranian agents simply because they refuse to accept the current apartheid policies of the al-Saud and the al-Khalifa despots.
Yet no regime in the Middle East is as sectarian as the Saudi and Bahraini regimes, no regime has resorted to as much sectarian divisiveness and hatred as the Saudi Arabian. The vast semi-official Saudi media (all owned by princes and their retainers and tribal in-laws) has waged a campaign of several years spreading sectarian hatred wherever they could. No other regime in recent history has spread so much suspicion and hatred. Especially in the Gulf GCC states, but they have also tried well beyond the Gulf from Syria and Lebanon to Egypt and North Africa. All with the help of their local Salafi fifth columns and their Muslim Brotherhood tribal allies. (Most Gulf Muslim Brothers are very close to the Saudi princes, unlike those in Egypt and other places. Some like the demagogue Yusuf al-Qaradawi are close to the Qatari shaikhs, a few others are close to the UAE Abu Dhabi shaikhs).
It is the old divide-and rule policy once attributed to the British imperial power.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Britain, GCC, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy

A Gulf Love Affair: Mr. Cameron the Democratic Traveling Salesman……

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“The Foreign Office currently warns all Britons travelling to Saudi Arabia to exercise vigilance: “Any increase in regional tension might affect travel advice,” its website says. It is a warning that David Cameron could do well to heed when he flies to the kingdom today. Saudi Arabia might seem an ideal customer to a British prime minister keen to win contracts. If Barack Obama can sell the kingdom nearly $30bn of F-15 fighter jets, Britain can surely flog its armoured personnel carriers, sniper rifles, small arms ammunition and weapon sights………. However, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are fast learning to play another role in the region. The kingdom is branding itself as a bulwark not just against the Revolutionary Guards in Iran and despots in Syria, but against the Arab spring itself……… Internally, the most authoritarian regime in the Arab world has much to fear from demonstrations – which are illegal…………”

The Conservative (Tory) British prime minister likes to claim his coalition government’s love of democracy and spreading it around the world. His government participated in the NATO bombing and ground campaign for the liberation of Libya from Mu’ammar Qaddafi. Colonel Qaddafi was formerly a dear and near friend of Britain and the U.S. government in the last decade. They liberated Libya, just as they helped in the liberation of Iraq eight years ago. Just as they might help in the ‘liberation’ of Syria if the absolute ruling oligarchies on my Gulf, and their Salafis and the Wahhabi faux-liberals have their way.
The British government, like the United States government, like the Iranian government, like the French and Saudi governments, doesn’t give blanket support to all movements for freedom and dignity. If it truly believed in democracy before self-interest it would not do the following, and more:

  • The Crown Prince of Bahrain invited to visit the UK and was feted at No. 10 Downing St and other places.
  • The King of Bahrain to UK invite to visit the UK, where he was feted even as his mercenary forces were, are, busy gassing and killing and arresting protesters. Even as his local and imported Jordanian torturers are busy in the cells.
  • Prince Edward and the Countess of Wessex last week visited Bahrain where they reportedly received gifts of jewellery and watches. Gifts usurped by the ruling al-Khalifa clan from the poor people of Bahrain.
  • Now Mr. Cameron is visiting the most repressive regime in the Middle East, which also makes it the second most repressive regime in the whole world (thank God for North Korea). That would be the Democratic People’s Kingdom of (Saudi) Arabia, which is dangling the prospect of fat contracts in return for turning a blind eye, nay two blind eyes.
  • British governments since the days of Tony Blair have become good at the two-faced game. Pushing democracy while pushing weapons that repress democracy. Pushing transparency in other countries while suppressing investigations at home of massive bribery to Saudi princes like Bandar Bin Sultan (as in BAE Systems and Saudi al-Yamama and Tony Blair and British SFO).
  • Just before the Riyadh visit, Mr. Cameron loudly and noisily sent a new British warship to the Persian-American Gulf. The goal was likely to show the al-Saud princes who their true friends are; that it is not only the Obama administrations, and whoever follows it into the White House.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab League, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, NATO, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Shaikh of Qatar and the Liberation of Syria: about a Piss-Up in a Brewery….………..

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Media report that the Emir of Qatar has called for an Arab force to intervene in Syria. Arab forces do not have a good history of intervention in other Arab states, unless they are led by a Western general (or colonel or major). Remember, Europeans (T.E. Lawrence and others higher above him) actually led the “temporary” liberation of Jerusalem and Damascus in WWI. Commanders of regular Arab armies, like Arab leaders in general, can’t organize the proverbial-American ‘piss-up in a brewery’ as far as war is concerned. What they can organize is repression of their peoples, and occasionally of other Arab peoples (as the Saudi princes are doing in Bahrain). If Desert Storm were Arab-led (as some Saudi regime journalists occasionally try to claim), Iraqi Ba’athist forces would still be sitting in Khafji, and most likely beyond.

No, an Arab force in Syria would have as much success as the Arab League observers have had. Not only will both the Syrian regime and the ‘opposition’ run rings around them: it would also be a bloody fiasco. As one example: the Saudi military, armed with the best American weapons that petro-money can buy, could not subdue a small group of Yemeni clans (the Huthis) armed with primitive guns just a couple of years ago. They had to leave in defeat. Imagine what the well-armed Syrians can do to these same forces, led by the same inept princes.

I suspect that some of the Arab oligarchs of the Gulf look toward an eventual Western intervention and “liberation” of Syria. Just as the West liberated Iraq and Libya. That is probably their goal, something they have in common with many leaders of the fractured Syrian ‘opposition’. The people who excoriated the West for ‘liberating’ Iraq, after helping it ‘liberate’ Iraq, now want more of the same. Assuming they will end up in control, a tough thing.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Culture and Sports, GCC, Gulf states, Persian-American Gulf, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

Qataris and Saudis: is it a New Misyar Marriage? a Sober FIFA……..

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“Qatar, the wealthy Persian Gulf state that will host the 2022 World Cup and shot to prominence last year as a bankroller of the Arab Spring, is experiencing a small counterrevolution at home.
In recent weeks the government has suspended alcohol sales on the Pearl-Qatar, a man-made island close to the capital, Doha, that is popular with expatriates and boasts a string of international chain restaurants. An outdoor weekly party on the Pearl with loud music and free-flowing alcohol has also been closed down. The moves represent a small but significant challenge to one aspect of Qatar’s ambitions for the emirate, which also has drawn global attention by winning the staging rights to soccer’s World Cup and for funding and supporting the revolution in Libya. Some say the tiny Middle Eastern country must overcome huge cultural and social hurdles before it is able to successfully stage soccer’s marquee event in 10 years. Part of the vision is to turn Doha into a leading cultural, financial and sporting center to rival neighboring Dubai……………”

It is not
clear if this small move is part of this new return by the al-Thani to their
Wahhabi roots. Over the past few weeks the Qatari royals have
accelerated their new common-law marriage to the Saudi royals and their
Wahhabi clergy. This could be just a temporary part-time purely-for-sex “misyar”
marriage that many Saudis are so fond of. The Qataris have also named the
main state mosque in Doha after Mohammed Bin Abdulwahhab, the founder of
the Wahhabi faith and an early ally of the al-Saud. The Qatari
potentates have opined publicly and effusively on the “virtues” of Wahhabi
teachings and returning to them. Maybe it is just that the Qataris feel squeezed between the two regional theocracies: Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis are much closer and hence much more menacing.
But ruler of Qatar is probably not ready yet to unilaterally declare himself the “Servant of the Doha Wahhabi Mosque”.

Some European soccer (football) fans will complain that alcohol may not be available for the FIFA world cup games. In fact some Saudis and Kuwaitis will probably be even more disappointed about that than Europeans. On the bright side: the Qataris may be able to keep out the beer-sodden British hooligans who call themselves fans. Anything that can keep these fuckheads away from any sports tournament is a good and healthy move.

(For my new readers: Shaikh Mohammad Bin Abdulwahhab of Nejd must not be confused with the late Egyptian singer and musician and film star Mohammed Abdel Wahhab, who was not a Wahhabi nor a Salafi).


Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Iran, Lebanon, NATO, Persian-American Gulf, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Turkey and Iran and the West: Containment from the Gulf to the Mediterranean…………..

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“Iran and Turkey said Thursday they planned to double their trade volume despite having political differences on Syria and a NATO radar shield on Turkish soil. “Our annual trade volume currently stands at 15 billion dollars but we hope to double it in the near future,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said in a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu in Tehran. Despite the plan to increase trade, the two sides did not seem to have settled political differences, especially on the situation in Syria. ……….”
 
“Middle East powerhouse Turkey on Wednesday warned against a sectarian cold war in the region and said rising Sunni-Shiite tensions would be “suicide” for the whole region. “Let me openly say that there are some willing to start a regional Cold War,” Foreign Minster Ahmet Davutoglu told state-run Anatolian news agency before heading to Shiite Iran. “We are determined to prevent a regional Cold War. Sectarian regional tensions would be suicide for the whole region,” Davutoglu said, adding such effects would last for decades. “Turkey is against all polarisations, in the political sense of Iran-Arab tension or in the sense of forming an apparent axis. This will be one of the crucial messages that I will take to Tehran.”…….. Davutoglu is expected to hold talks in Tehran later on Wednesday on Iran’s nuclear programme and developments in neighbouring Iraq and Syria………..”

Davutoglu, with the talk of “Sunni-Shiite tensions”, seems to be jabbing the Saudis and their allies who have been stoking sectarian hatred for a few years now, especially along the Gulf. For a while there was talk, mostly in some Arab oligarchy media, of an Iranian-Turkish-Qatari-Syrian alliance. The Turkish role was exaggerated: after all Turkey is an old NATO member and a longtime friend of Israel. The Qatari role was also exaggerated: Qatar shares a huge offshore gas field with Iran and is also wary of Saudi attempts at hegemony over the GCC states. A Saudi-sponsored coup attempt against the Emir was thwarted in the late 1990s, with several high Saudi security officials arrested and jailed in Doha (they were released last year). Saudi media and the Wahhabi faux-liberal media on the Gulf were full of condemnation of a mythical Qatari-Iranian-Syrian-Iraqi-Hezbollah axis. It was supposed to be an “axis of evil” as opposed to the “axis of goodness and democracy” of Saudi Arabia-Bahrain-UAE-Taliban-Mubarak-Wahhabi shaikhs.
Now the Turks and Iranians are on opposite sides in Syria. Now the Saudis and the Turks and the Qataris are on the same side in Syria (almost on the same side: the Salafis and Wahhabiized Muslim Brothers of Syria are not exactly what the Turks like). The Turks are now seen by some Arabs as a counterweight to Iran, a NATO and a Muslim counterweight in Syria. There may be some complications: the Syrians and the Arabs have always claimed that the Turkish region of Iskandaruna (Alexandretta) is part of Syria and that it is occupied territory, just like the West Bank. That is another issue to ponder as the Turks and some Arabs get close enough to each other to start disliking each other again (all that stuff about familiarity breeding contempt). The West probably sees a two–pronged approach to contain Iran:

(1) The Persian-American Gulf to be “defended” by the Western forces, mainly the US Navy, that are clogging it now. Of course Iran has not attacked anyone in the Gulf yet, nor does it have any intention of attacking anyone “first”, Saudi and Salafi propaganda and fear-mongering by the Bahrain satraps notwithstanding.
(2) The Eastern Mediterranean to be “defended” by NATO, with the Turks as the main player. Lebanon is probably considered, wisely, very iffy: a majority of the people want no Western military forces, certainly no Israeli forces or outside Arab forces either. Lebanon was tackled with Western “intelligence” operations and Saudi money (a lot of Saudi money for such a small country). So far it has failed: Saudi princes are not exactly lovable, charismatic, or principled creatures. They can never buy love with money (not that kind of love), nobody can. This is not to say that the Iranian mullahs, or other Arab leaders, are very lovable either. Many are barely more lovable than Netanyahu or Lieberman (Avigdor not Joe).
 
Breaking Syria away from its Iranian alliance is the main prerequisite for success in the Eastern Mediterranean now. The pro-Saudi Syrian opposition (the Salafis, Muslim Brothers, some former military officers, even others, now seem to want Western (NATO) intervention against the regime. They want to be liberated by the West just as Iraq was liberated in 2003 and Libya was liberated in 2011.
After that, the Saudi camp hopes their Israeli allies will be able to soften Hezbollah and Lebanon.
More on this later……
Cheers
mhg


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