Category Archives: Arab Counterrevoltion

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey

Syria and Iraq and the Arabs: the New Iranian-Turkish Regional Rivalry………….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls for dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition and urges the government to respect people’s rights. “We are of the opinion that that nations and governments should resolve their problems with each other (through dialogue),” Ahmadinejad tells Portugal’s Radiotelevisao Portuguesa when asked about Iran’s position toward uprisings in Syria. Ahmadinejad adds, “Governments and nations should respect rights and freedom.”……….” Mehr News Agency (Iran)

“Iran criticizes Turkey for agreeing to host NATO’s missile defense system, saying Iran does not expect Turkey as a neighbor and friendly country to adopt policies that would create tension in the region. “We expect our friendly countries and neighbors to show more vigilance and by considering the region’s security interests do not pave the way for policies that create tension that will definitely lead to ‘complicated consequences’,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast says. Turkey has recently agreed to host an early warning radar as part of NATO’s missile defense system which is allegedly aimed to counter missile threats by Iran. Mehmanparast says Iran believes the deployment radar system in Turkey will not serve “regional stability and security” even for the host country……….” Mehr News Agency

These two news items from Iran reflect newly reshuffled cards in the game of musical chairs in our region. There is no doubt now that the Iranians are bracing for change in Syria. Even if the protests in Syrian cities are crushed, regimes like the Ba’ath one in Syria are considered an anomaly now (as are other regimes, but that is for another post). Change is coming and not just in Syria, but whether it is ‘change you can believe in’ depends on your view and your politics.
The Iranians have looked at the players in Syria and probably decided to get ready for any eventuality. It is likely that they have decided to adopt their own Syrian faction: everyone else seems to have their own “Islamist” factions in Syria these days. Sect is not an issue when it comes to politics: the Iranian mullahs are not as ‘pure’ as the Wahhabi potentates in Saudi Arabia, or maybe they can’t afford to be that pure given the demographics of most countries in the region by sect. They may be getting ready to throw the secular Ba’ath regime under the bus, hoping for another “Hamas”. What favors this tack is that the mullahs also know that they have one important card in Syria no matter who comes to power in Damascus: the Golan Heights. The Likud or Kadima will never give up the Golan, which means any new Damascus regime will probably keep its Iranian (and hence its Lebanese) options open. The Iranians invented the game of chess and that is how they play the regional politics, yet they are not immune to the unrest.
Then there is Turkey, which had been sympathetic to the Iranian position on the nuclear issue. Until now. The Arab Spring has reshuffled the regional cards and created new opportunities, and it is not done yet. Silent and latent rivalries, dating back to the Persian-Ottoman struggle over Arab territories like Iraq, are warming up. This is exacerbated by the total paralysis of the Arab system and the inability of the Arab oligarchs to shape events in the region. Despite the billions spent on weapons and on international networking, the region’s fate is still determined by three non-Arab parties and the West. Egypt may regain its pre-Mubarak role as a major regional player, as “the” Arab player, but that depends on how things develop in Cairo. The Iranian-Turkish rivalry in Iraq is more commercial than political since the Iranians seem to have an overwhelming political and cultural and geographic advantage. The Iranian hand in Iraq has been strengthened by the loud disapproval of some Arab regimes of the new order in Iraq.
Syria is another matter: it is a smaller and poorer country. But Syria also has its own issue with Turkey: the small region of Alexandretta that the Syrians claim should be theirs.
When the dust settles on this new Arab Spring, and that may be a few years from now, what we shall see will most likely be quite different from what we now expect. This also includes developments inside Iran.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Culture, Mercenaries, UAE, Weapons deals, WTF

UAE: Politics, Devilish Violent Crimes, Generals and Potentates with Missiles……..

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

The following were recent headlines of the “Courts” page of a daily newspaper in the United Arab Emirates:


  • “Man says devil made him molest girl”
  • “
    Boys accused of raping man”

  • “Fake officer kidnapped, raped woman, court told”

  • “Army clerk forged signature of Chief of Armed Forces, court told”

  • “Student claims cousin raped her”

  • “Former footballer appeals against conviction in Dh5.5m citizenship scam”  

  • “Man threatened to drink woman’s blood, court told. She says he was trying to force his way into her apartment”

  • “Woman charged with illicit sex says partner was husband”

These are all ‘exotic’ crimes by any standard I can think of. This is what happens when there are no real politics to keep them busy, as in the UAE. The next most exciting thing apparently is violent sex and murder and robbery. Which reminds me: there is even less politics in Saudi Arabia, and I wonder what their police reports are like.

As for that army clerk who forged a general’s signature: I hope he has no access to all those fancy missiles the Abu Dhabi has been buying from around the world. The UAE is the second largest importer of weapons in the whole wide world and aims to be the first largest importer of weapons in the whole wide world. The import-deprived Iranian IRGC generals probably drool every time they read about all these advanced Western goodies landing in the warehouses of Abu Dhabi (I assume the mullahs also drool, just like all clergy including the Catholics). Now we don’t want some dipshit army clerk to start a missile war across the Gulf, do we? Only dipshit generals and potentates should be able to start a missile war.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions

German Cows Catch Arab Spring Fever, May Return Favor……….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“German animal rights activists captured a runaway dairy cow named Yvonne on Friday, three months after her escape from the farm where she was to be slaughtered captured nationwide attention. The bovine had become a media star, with helicopters and infrared used in a search across the southern state of Bavaria after she bolted in front of a police car. Authorities from Muehldorf, the town near the farm where she broke through an electric fence, had deemed Yvonne a security risk after her encounter with the squad car and had given hunters permission to gun her down. Activists from the Gut Aiderbichl animal sanctuary had tried to lure Yvonne from a forest where she was holed up with a variety of enticements — including one of her calves at one point and a breeding bull named Ernst. Capturing the cow was not easy………….”

I am sure glad the German cow’s break for freedom did not precede the Arab uprisings. Otherwise, it would be said that our region is finally learning to revolt against repression, from a cow, albeit a German cow. The uprisings in most Arab states preceded the Cow’s insurrection: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, even a mini-uprising in Oman. That leaves one large Arab state, among others, that has had no uprising there. Which can only mean one of two: either they are content with the way things are or, some misguided heretics may argue, it takes more than one German cow to teach them.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Al-Qaeda, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Libya, North Africa, Qatar, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

Muslim Brotherhood Colors: Qatari, Saudi, Iranian, Chinese……….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“The Islamists seem to have the upper hand, enjoying the patronage of Qatar, the boiling-rich little Gulf emirate that hosts Yusuf Qaradawi, an influential mentor of the global Muslim Brotherhood, and Al Jazeera, the satellite-television channel that shapes perceptions across the Arab world. Qatar, some surmise, could yet play the part in nurturing Islamists in Libya that Pakistan played in Afghanistan. Mosques are already influencing the new order—often for the good. Within days of the rebel victory in Tripoli, imams broadcast calls for gunmen to stop firing in the air. They have used Friday prayers to tell looters to register their weapons with local offices answerable to the national council and have distributed reminders to be pinned to lampposts. In many districts the mosque is the seat of the new local council, receiving alms to subsidise its activities. Many have wells, and the national council has declared that supplying fresh water is a top priority. Tripoli’s new military commander, Abdel Hakim Bel Haj, once belonged to the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group, regarded as an affiliate of al-Qaeda, which he subsequently renounced. His deputy, Mehdi Herati, sailed with a fiercely Islamist Turkish group in last year’s flotilla to break the siege on Gaza. Ali al-Salabi, a Muslim Brotherhood scholar, has returned from Qatar. Assorted Islamists are suspected of killing Abdel Younis Fattah, the rebel commander who died outside Benghazi in late July in mysterious circumstances……………..”

I told you so about two weeks ago. All Arab uprisings (none are true revolutions yet) end up with more power for the Islamists. That is the natural order now, if only because the dictators and despots had made sure there is no real political life other than in exile or in prison. That leaves out the mosque, in most Arab countries the only place where people can gather without police violence being visited upon them. Unfortunately for the regimes, they could not close down the mosques (most Arab regimes are not nearly as good in controlling the mosques as, say, the Saudis are).
The Qataris have for years had their own favorite Islamists, and they usually tended to be the ones the Saudis disliked: branches of the Muslim Brothers in various places like Egypt and Gaza. The Saudis mistrusted the Egyptian MB, the “Mother of all Muslim Brothers”, especially, partly because they were against Mubarak and partly because they did not think much of the Saudi system as an example to follow (unlike the Salafis).
That is a far cry from some years ago, when Egyptian MB’s found refuge and support in Saudi Arabia against the secular leftist regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser. This is not to say the Saudis don’t have their own favored Muslim Brothers: they do, especially in the Gulf region and parts of Iraq and Syria. Hell, even the Iranian (Shi’a) mullahs have managed to have their own (Sunni) Muslim Brothers in Gaza. (No, I don’t think the Chinese have their favorite Muslim Brothers, not yet, although I suspect that the West does).
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, ethnic cleansing, Gulf states, Human Right, Mercenaries, Saudi Arabia

The Battle of Bahrain, the Battle of Algiers…………

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“It’s become a nightly duel in Bahrain: Security forces and anti-government protesters waging hit-and-run clashes in one of the simmering conflicts of the Arab Spring. So far, the skirmishes have failed to gel into another serious challenge to the Gulf nation’s Western-backed monarchy after crushing a reform rebellion months ago. But there are sudden signs that Shiite-led demonstrators could be poised to raise the stakes again on the strategic island, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Hundreds of demonstrators Wednesday made their boldest attempt in months to reclaim control of a central square in the capital Manama, which was the symbolic hub of the protest movement after it began in February. Riot police used buses to block roads and flooded streets with tear gas to drive back the marchers before dawn. Hours later, mourners gathered in a Shiite village in another part of Bahrain for a 14-year-old boy they claim was killed by security forces. Clashes flared until early Thursday across the oil hub area of Sitra before the boy’s burial. “Down with the regime,” chanted some of hundreds of people…………Bahrain remains the outlier of the Arab revolts. Its Sunni rulers have managed to hold their ground – and even tighten their grip with military help from neighboring Saudi Arabia……….”

It is not exactly a Battle of Algiers, mainly because the violence is decidedly one-sided. But it is as persistent as the struggle of Algeria, understandably so given that the same principles of equality and justice and freedom are at stake. And it is bloody, involves attacks on civilians and their neighborhoods, and midnight raids, and arrests, and torture, and threats of, and actual, assault on men and women. And so it continues, until the system of Apartheid is dismantled, the original constitution is restored, the foreign mercenaries and occupation forces sent packing. It is a tall order. A tough one for an island that is now effectively a Saudi province.

Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, CIA, Libya, NATO, North Africa, Racism, US Foreign Policy, WTF

Gallicus Sarkozicus Africanus: Who Said the New Libya is Not Independent?………..

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“Nicolas Sarkozy, of all people, is trying to put to rest the controversy over Abdelhakim Belhadj, the head of Tripoli’s military council. Belhadj rings alarm bells because of his past association with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and later on fought in Iraq and again in Afghanistan. In other words, they had been among Ronald Reagan’s “Freedom Fighters.” Belhadj was captured by the CIA and reportedly turned against terrorism while imprisoned. The CIA helpfully released him to Qaddafi, which is surely a crime of some sort (civilized countries do not send even enemy prisoners to countries where they might be killed or tortured by the government on arrival). Sarkozy has been anything but nice to French Muslims (who mostly voted for a Socialist woman in the last election precisely because Sarkozy he was the alternative), and he has been accused of legitimating the racist anti-Muslim discourse of Marie LePen. So if Sarkozy is vouching for Belhadj, then I’d bet that Belhadj is not a danger to the West. And, of course, the members of the Transitional National Council, the leadership of the new Libya, have been carefully vetted by the US, Britain and France……………”

Libya is, will remain, independent. Its ‘new’ government will have the freedom to make independent decisions. Its ‘new’ government can be relied upon to make the right decisions. Its new government has been carefully “vetted” by the three leading powers of NATO (make that OTAN). The Libyan people have progressed from a repressive dictatorial dynasty to a government “vetted” by the democracies of NATO. It is a testimony to the truly screwed up state of the Arab world that a NATO-vetted government is an improvement. The sad thing is that it is a step forward: an improvement over the Qaddafi dictatorship, and probably an improvement over most other Ara regimes.

Sarkozy (a k a Le Weasel) is now the Western Gauleiter for Libya. As Cole says “Sarkozy has been anything but nice to French Muslims (who mostly voted for a Socialist woman in the last election precisely because Sarkozy he was the alternative), and he has been accused of legitimating the racist anti-Muslim discourse of Marie LePen…………” Gallicus Sarkozicus Africanus, indeed.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Ali Khamenei, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Syria

From Tehran to Riyadh: of Revolutions and Selective Memories………

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei announced on Wednesday that “we are very worried about situation in Bahrain.” The Leader made the remarks as he addressed worshippers at prayers marking Eid ul-Fitr. The Leader called on people in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen to vigilantly guard their revolutions so that the arrogant powers would not hijack their revolutions. “Muslim nations whether in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, and in the rest of countries need to be vigilant today. They should not allow the victories they have gained to be hijacked by enemies.” The Leader also pointed to NATO attacks on Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, saying those countries which consider themselves as owners of the Libyan revolution are those past colonial powers who helped suppress the Libyan nation………….”

I agree with the ayatollah about Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, and Bahrain, especially Bahrain. But he forgot all about the protests and the repression in Syria. Must have been a simple lapse; people do forget one or two countries sometimes. That is also the reason why Saudi media focus on Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Syria, and forget all about the struggle and the repression in Bahrain.
And about those parliamentary elections next March: it would be interesting to see who is allowed to run and who isn’t.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Libya, North Africa, WTF

Three Goals of the Libyan (Rebel) TNC, Schmucks Watching Pinocchio……….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

So far the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC) has focused on tow main goals: (1) Securing Tripoli and the rest of Libya from the Qaddafi loyalists and cronies (although many of the TNC were Qaddafi cronies until this year) and, (2) Killing Khamis Qaddafi, if only because they have claimed killing him so many times, like every two days, then denying it. It looks like securing Libya (from the Qaddafi loyalists should be easy, there aren’t many of the left). Securing the death of Khamis Qaddafi, which the TNC rebels seem obsessed with, will be difficult.

Aljazeera quoted a TNC military leader today that over 50 thousand Libyans have been killed since the beginning of the uprising. He may be a military leader and I am not, he may be inside Libya and I am not, he is a Libyan and I am not, but I doubt very much that anywhere near that number were killed. I just KNOW it, as he should, except that he uses his emotions instead of his brain.
I suggest a third goal for the TNC: (3) Telling the truth and nothing but about what goes on inside Libya.Watching Pinocchio might help.

Oh, and make sure you add term limits in the new Libyan constitution: no more president for more than eight years. No more of the usual Arab lifetime schmucks.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, France, India, Mercenaries, US Foreign Policy, Yemen

Africa, the Arab World, the (New) New Colonialism………….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“The African strongmen are going the way of Nkrumah, and in extreme cases Gaddafi, not Nyerere. The societies they lead are marked by growing internal divisions. In this, too, they are reminiscent of Libya under Gaddafi more than Egypt under Mubarak or Tunisia under Ben Ali. Whereas the fall of Mubarak and Ben Ali directed our attention to internal social forces, the fall of Gaddafi has brought a new equation to the forefront: the connection between internal opposition and external governments. Even if those who cheer focus on the former and those who mourn are preoccupied with the latter, none can deny that the change in Tripoli would have been unlikely without a confluence of external intervention and internal revolt. The conditions making for external intervention in Africa are growing, not diminishing. The continent is today the site of a growing contention between dominant global powers and new challengers……. The contrast with Western powers, particularly the US and France, could not be sharper. The cutting edge of Western intervention is military. France’s search for opportunities for military intervention, at first in Tunisia, then Cote d’Ivoire, and then Libya, has been above board and the subject of much discussion. Of greater significance is the growth of Africom, the institutional arm of US military intervention on the African continent………………” China and India intervene in Africa in an economic and commercial capacity. They are militarily to weak (compared to Western powers) and too ‘distant’. And they are too ‘new’ to the region, as world powers and not ethnically. The West, especially the French have always intervened militarily in Africa, except for a hiatus of a couple of decades. That hiatus was only Anglo-American: the French never stopped, as French presidents continued to send expeditions to prop up their favorite dictators. The West is back in force now, from Somalia, to Libya, to Cote D’Ivoire, to other spots overtly or covertly. Is it a new age of colonialism for the “Dark Continent”?
And speaking of Western intervention: the Arab World is not exactly free of it. From Iraq to Libya to Yemen to Lebanon to Sudan to Somalia and other places, the West is engaged against a host of foes, real or perceived. Like Africa which it overlaps, the feeble and corruptly managed Arab world can’t seem to get its (shit) act together, persistently inviting outside intervention: intervention from the West, Israel, Turkey, and Iran. The whole region is like a vacuum wittingly or unwittingly begging for intervention (prostrate and legs wide open, I’d say if I were rude and crude, which I ain’t). Some of the potentates even hire foreign mercenaries from South Asia and form foreign legions of Colombians and Australians and Blackwater denizens, among others. The Arab world is supposed to have been educating at least three generations since the wave of independence in the 1940s. Yet in the past several decades the Arabs have never been less independent than they are now and arguably never less ably led.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Corruption, Economics, Human Right, Libya, Saudi Arabia

Common Arab Epitaph: Brother Leader, Very Rich but Very Cheap…………

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“His name of choice was the Brother Leader, though his nearly 42 years of rule were rarely brotherly, and his leadership left a country with plentiful oil in shambles……… Given Colonel Qaddafi’s noted flamboyance, the residences of the House of Qaddafi were not quite as grand as people might have supposed. They lacked the faux grandeur of Saddam Hussein’s marbled palaces. There are no columns that bear the colonel’s initials, or fists cast to resemble his hands or river-fed moats with voracious carp. But in Baghdad and Tripoli, the physical remains of the leader’s rule still projected the distance between power and powerlessness. As rebels and residents started to pick through the detritus of the Qaddafis’ lives in recent days, there was a sense of laying claim to a country commandeered by the Arab world’s longest-ruling leader…………“For somebody who’s very rich, he was very cheap,”……..”

“For somebody who’s very rich, he was very cheap”, he said: one can say that about others: the Bin Ali, Mubarak, the al-Assad, al-Khalifa and other potentates not yet faced with the moment of truth.
Of course, many Arab “brother leaders” or “their majesties” are so rich mainly for the same reason that most of their people are poor: they need more of the resources for themselves, their extended families, and their cronies. I mean, for example if everybody in, say, Saudi Arabia was above poverty level then someone like Prince al-Waleed would be unlikely to be on the Forbes list of the richest billionaires. When there are so many thousands of princes and their supporting retainers and sycophants, well, there will be less for the rest.
(FYI: Forbes Magazine every year lists the source of the prince’s wealth as “Self-Made”. You’d think he flipped burgers are the DQ or started in the royal mail room).
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]