Category Archives: Arab Revolutions

Arab League, Arab Revolutions, Yemen

From Yemen to Somalia: Failed Arab States and the Sectarian Tribal Narrative…….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“The capital of Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest and perhaps most chronically unstable nation, has new masters. Anti-American Shiite rebels man checkpoints and roam the streets in pickups mounted with anti-aircraft guns. The fighters control almost all state buildings, from the airport and the central bank to the Defense Ministry. Only a few police officers and soldiers are left on the streets……….”

This title of “Arab world’s poorest and perhaps most chronically unstable nation” is debatable. The Arab world includes other candidates for this honor that are also members of the Arab League: Somalia, Mauretania, Sudan, Djibouti, the Comoros. So, there are several candidates for this honorary title. And if the unrest and war and mayhem continue to spread, several more Arab states may also join the competition. Libya, liberated by NATO and Bernard-Henri Levy and John McCain in 2011, may be well on its own merry way toward that list.
This piece looks like it could have been edited by Saudi and UAE censors before its final version was approved. I like the part about “Anti-American Shiite rebels“: a cute but useful touch. They tend to use the “sectarian” angle whenever they can, these Persian Gulf princes and potentates. I am not sure the Houthis actually think of imitating Hezbollah, they have their own very complex Yemeni issues to deal with. The sectarian narrative is not as powerful or clear-cut in Yemen as it is in Lebanon and Iraq and Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, for example. It is complicated by tribal and regional issues. And they don’t have the Israeli military on their border as a further distraction.
But I can see the temptation, at least from a Western point of view, to simply declare them the “new Hezbollah”. One size fits all: it is simpler that way.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, GCC, U.S. Foreign Policy, Yemen

Can the US Save Saudi and UAE Nuts in Yemen and Syria?………..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“The United States condemns ongoing hostile and aggressive actions against the Yemeni government and political targets and calls for all parties to implement all aspects of the Peace and National Partnership agreement, in particular the turning over of all medium and heavy weapons to the State…….We commend and support President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s efforts as he leads Yemen in implementing the Peace and National Partnership Agreement that builds on the GCC Initiative and National Dialogue Conference Outcomes…… The United States remains firmly committed to supporting President Hadi and all Yemenis in this endeavor and to our enduring partnership with the Yemeni government to counter the shared threat from al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula…………”

Imagine this impossible and unlikely alternative statement: “The United States condemns ongoing hostile and aggressive actions against the Syrian government and political targets……….”

But then again, there is an issue of serious electoral legitimacy here, Arab style. And there is the issue of keeping the focus on AQAP terrorists. General President Hadi (I wouldn’t add Al Zombie this time) won his GCC-arranged election by 99.8% of the vote, beating fellow Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi who could only eke out 97+% of the scant Egyptian vote. They both beat Herr Doctor Bashar Al Assad, who received barely 88%, a resounding defeat by the standards of Arab leaders, be they dynastic or military or both. Still, none of them could match the victory margin of Kim Jong-Un or of some of the kings that litter our region.

Of course more blood, much more blood, has been shed in the international butchery that we now call the Syrian civil war. Which may explain the lower margin of, er, ‘victory’ in Damascus.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Al Aqeda, Arab Revolutions, Islamic History, Jihadists

Ancient Black Flag Revolutionaries: Abu Muslim of Khorasan and Marwan the Jackass………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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A bit of high school history here:
Why is no leader of this Wahhabi “Khorasan” group called Abu Muslim Al Khorasani? Given their penchant for noms de guerre starting with Abu and their use of Khorasan (a province in northeastern Persia/Iran)?
Abu Muslim Al Khorasani (also reportedly a nom de guerre) was the original man behind the original ‘black flag’. A Persian, he led the forces of the Abbasid, the original black flag revolution that overthrew the Umayyad dynasty which ruled from Damascus, in the eighth century (A.D.). The last Umayyad Caliph was named Marwan, he was nicknamed by some Al Homar (the Jackass) for obvious reasons.

After the Abbasids took power and started their dynasty, they started to eliminate their former allies and potential future rivals. They started by beheading the man who made their revolution possible, Abu Muslim Al Khorasani.


The Abbasids ruled for five centuries, often through Persian and Turkish surrogates and top ministers. The Abbasids were more cosmopolitan than their predecessors: they intermarried extensively with other ‘subjected’ peoples. They also shared administrative duties, unlike the extremely tribal Umayyads who kept power and influence within their own tribal kin.

The Abbasid rule was ended by the Mongols who sacked Baghdad and trampled the last Caliph, al-Must’asim, to death under their horses hoofs (reportedly after rolling him inside a nice Persian carpet).
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, GCC, Yemen

Battle for Yemen: Houthis vs. Muslim Brotherhood……….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“In a harbinger of things to come, a UNICEF employee told me that the only way he could get supplies to Saada was by partnering with the Islah Charitable Society (ICS), a local aid agency tied to Yemen’s largest Islamist party. He complained that ICS was padding the books and inflating the numbers of people who had been displaced to gain resources for its wider evangelical work…… It was in ways like this that the Saleh regime manipulated the “sectarian” politics of Northern Yemen, seeking to ensure that the two groups were too distracted by each other to turn their attention elsewhere……….So, why think of this as sectarian war? The Houthi’s march on Sanaa in September cannot be easily glossed as “sectarian” just because they are Zaydi Shiites, and most (though not all) Islahis are Sunnis…………”

So the Islah are as corrupt as anyone else in power in Yemen, which makes sense. Islah means “reform” in Arabic, clearly a misnomer now. Very Orwellian use of language in this case, as in most cases in Arab politics.

The Houthis were the rustic country folks who did not have the slick region-wide organization like the Muslim Brotherhood (or the Persian Gulf Salafis) to support them. They could not have taken Sanaa so easily if the ret of Yemenis were not fed up with the Islah corruption and the impotent president General Ab Rabu Hadi Al Zombie, the former vice president of Mr. Saleh, who was given the job by the princes and potentates of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi and Doha. Of course the Yemeni scene is more complicated than that: AQAP and the Southern (Aden) independence movement complicate the mix.

These Gulf worthies and princes are now screaming their old tried and true tactic: they are crying “sectarian”. But then, nobody is as responsible as these same potentates for the current rabid sectarianism in our region.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, GCC, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy

Mr. Obama’s New Syrian Alibi: a Pig With Lipstick………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Mr. Obama has now got his Arab alibi. He has got the Arab, actually GCC, cosmetics he thinks he needs to expand the war into Syria:

  • The rulers of tiny Bahrain, which need foreign mercenaries and Saudi troops to keep their own rebellious people at bay and repressed, are allegedly bombing the Hollywood Caliphate of ISIS.
  • The United Arab Emirates, a country so full of foreign military bases it looks like Persian Gulf Swiss cheese, is also doing likewise. No news yet if their Blackwater-modeled mercenary army of Colombians and Australians and other foreigners will be involved.
  • Ditto for the rulers of Qatar, who don’t have enough troops to fill two World Cup stadiums in 2022. Let alone wage war on anybody.
  • Apparently Saudi Arabia is also involved, somehow although it is not clear how and in what capacity are the oily slippery princes involved.

So, Mr. Obama has got his “Arab” alibi, his GCC fig leaf, although we all know the ‘real’ war will be American, with some French huffing and puffing. But at what price this GCC alibi? He must have promised a deeper American involvement in Syria, well beyond attacking the Wahhabi Jihadist cutthroats of ISIS. He must have promised something beyond ISIS and Al Qaeda: something like a repeat of NATO’s Libyan adventure in 2011. The results of which we are now enjoying from Tripoli to Benghazi. The temptation and the push by the Wahhabi camp for Mr. Obama to get deeper into the Syrian “civil war” will be strong.

Yes, there is something about cosmetics nagging at the back of my mind. I recall what Mr. Obama famously said during the 2008 campaign for president. Something about “a pig with lipstick is still a pig“. Even if we call it a coalition.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, GCC, North Korea, Yemen

Yemeni Elections and Swiss Cheese from North Korea……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Speaking of Houthis and Yemen (my last post): In 2012 General Hadi won the presidential election arranged and supervised by the freely-elected Saudi princes and UAE Emirati rulers. He won by 99.8% of the vote: my Sana’a source reports that the other 0.2% voted for Minnie Mouse (she seemed serious). She also claims Kim Jong-Un called Hadi immediately after the election results came out to ask how he did it, speaking technically not politically. He reportedly offered to send Hadi a huge box of his favorite snack: Swiss Emmental cheese in exchange.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Economics, GCC, Iran, Iraq, US Foreign Policy, Wahhabi

Power of Economic Assumption: How to Defeat ISIS with Gulf Princes and Iranian Mullahs……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“Iran’s supreme leader said on Monday he had personally rejected an offer from the United States for talks to fight Islamic State, an apparent blow to Washington’s efforts to build a military coalition to fight militants in both Iraq and Syria. World powers meeting in Paris on Monday gave public backing to military action to fight Islamic State fighters in Iraq. France sent jets on a reconnaissance mission to Iraq, a step towards becoming the first ally to join the U.S.-led air campaign there. But Iran, the principal ally of Islamic State’s main foes in both Iraq and Syria, was not invited to the Paris meeting…………..”

Mr. Kerry said only last weekend that having Iran attend the Paris meeting on confronting the murderous Caliphate of ISIS was “inappropriate”. Iranian officials were reported in the media as wanting to attend, and the French seemed amenable. Mr. Kerry vetoed Iranian attendance in Paris last week mainly because two of the main sources and financers of ISIS and other Wahhabi terrorist groups, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, reportedly objected and exercised their monetary veto.

Now Mr. Kerry wants to have Iran participate in the deliberations, but “unofficially”. He wants them to be part of the anti-Caliphate dialog, but not in the open, just behind the scenes. That is mainly because he tested the Arab waters in Paris and realized that the current Middle East equivalent of Rhett Butler was also needed for this new version of GWTW. To use a crude and possibly immoral but nevertheless succinct example: he is sort of like seeking the Saudi princes and Emirati shaikhs as legal (but polygamous) wives and courting the Iranian mullahs only as potential mistresses. As usual it will be American resources and pilots (and others) bearing the brunt, not Europeans who are the nearest target of the terrorists. Maybe with some Arab monetary support. Maybe.

So, what to do? This is the easy part: as I learned in economics, we use the power of ‘assumptions’. We make assumptions that fit our conditions and our needs: in this case we make assumptions about the Syrian opposition groups. Many in the U.S. administrations are already making certain correct assumptions. The mythical moderate Syrian opposition, those that live on the Turkish border or in Rive Gauche apartments and Persian Gulf five-star hotels. They, with the cooperation of the absolute Wahhabi tribal princes, can do the job and bring democracy and cultural tolerance to a once-very-tolerant Syria. Or, we can start by assuming that for now.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Iraq, Jihadists, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy, Weapons deals

Mulling ISIS Supply Routes and Friedman’s Arab Taxis on a Pacific Northwest Trail………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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I though I’d write a Friedman-esque (as in Thomas not Milton) post today. I am not starting it upon arrival at some Arab airport and a ride into town in a taxi driven by Abdu (in Cairo) or Abed (in Beirut) or Abul-Abed (in Amman). Funny, when Friedman goes to Beijing, the inscrutable Chinese taxi drivers (Abu Wong, et al) never share their local wisdom with him. Only Arabs do: blab and share their apparent wisdom with Western journalists.

No, I was thinking about that yesterday, Saturday. As we biked the twenty mile round trip along the Sammamish River Trail, past a couple of vintners joints and at least one hbrewery, towards the Burke-Gilman Trail. On an unusually cloudless warm morning of the Pacific Northwest. Here goes: 

I saw a retired general (USMC) state that ISIS controls the upper rivers (Euphrates and Tigris) and roads from Syria to resupply their forces in Iraq. Which made me wonder, as I pedaled along that peaceful bike trail:

  • Where do ISIS get these supplies and volunteers from Syria (as the general said)?  Why is Syria their main supply route into Iraq? And from where and how do these weapons and the money and volunteers flow into Syria then into Iraq? And how would increasing the supply of weapons to the useless Syrian opposition groups affect the flow of weapons to the ISIS Caliphate? Should we ask Turkey or Saudi Arabia or Qatar or Jordan about this? They certainly don’t flow from Cyprus (no, Israel is also an unlikely source).
  • From which Syrian (FSA, Ansar-Al-WTF, etc, etc) “relatively moderate” opposition groups and gangs did ISIS purchase some of these Western hostages (journalists and aid workers) that were so horribly beheaded on camera? And they were no doubt purchased from some of the other would-be liberators of Syria.

Before I had finished, er, mulling this last question, it was time for us to hydrate and turn around. Sort of like what happens when Thomas Friedman’s Arab taxi, driven by Abdu (in Cairo) or Abed (in Beirut) or Abul-Abed (in Amman), or Abu-Wong (in Beijing) drives up to the hotel entrance. Before he finishes sharing his strategic and cultural gems with us.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Caliphate, Culture, GCC, Islamic History

What’s in a Name? the Jihadi Invasion of American Politics and Media……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Americans are learning a whole new type of names, or noms de guerre. While the earlier PLO and Fatah celebrities like Arafat (Abu Ammar) and his pals made the “Abu” a familiar term to some Westerner media types, they were few and far between. That is because the honorific Abu is socially mostly common in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf, as well as Iraq and parts of Jordan and Syria. In our region (that I mentioned), almost everybody who is adult male is Abu somebody or something, even if he is not really Abu anybody or anything biologically.
ISIS leaders and fighters apparently have adopted this naming system, an imitation of the very early Muslims from the Hijaz part of the Peninsula many of whom often went by such names. Here are some real and suggested such noms de guerre for the IS denizens, announced and unannounced:

Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi
Abu Khalid Al Canadi
Abu Bieber Al Canadi
Abu London Al Crazy
Abu Qutada Al Polygami
Abu Goatee Al Horni
Abu Al ‘Alaa Al Mo’arri
Abdul Salam Al Nabulsi
Abu Brood Al Saudi
Abu Al-Saud Al Abiari
Abu Jumbaz Al Aflangi
Abu Sisi Al Masri
Abu Assad Al Souri
Abu Zayed Al Dhabiani
Abu Muslim Al Khorasani Al Wahhabi
Abu Thani Al Qatari
Abu Turkey Al Saudi
Abu Prince Al Harami
Abu Izzat Al Douri

Americans celebrities who might consider adopting some Jihadi noms de guerre and the most likely acquisition:

Abu Bama Al Hawaii
Abu Bo Al Amriki
Abu Biden Al Delawari
Abu Nancy Al Pelosi
Abu Kerry Al Bostoni
Abu Hegel Al Nebraski
Abu Clinton Al Chapaqui
Abu Petraeus Al Spooki
Abu Mitch Al Kentucki
Abu Badhair Al Trumpi
Abu Sarah Al Alaski Al Wasilli
Abu Kim Al Kardashi

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, Barack Obama, Caliphate, Wahhabi

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

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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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]