“The face of the rebellion has changed since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began nearly 1,000 days ago. Black flags with white calligraphy are increasingly common — a sign of the growing influence of Islamist extremists. Since Assad’s regime lost control of the northern borders in the summer of 2012, they have been streaming into the country. Now, foreigners are fighting alongside Syrians. They include Chechens, Libyans, Tunisians, Belgians and Germans — all jihadists fighting a war for Islam against what they believe is an infidel regime. Some already fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, and bring their valuable combat experience with them. Still others have spent time behind bars for their jihadist past, and from there they have found their way to the Syrian front……………………”
Yes, they come in from the North, mainly through Turkey but some through northern Iraq and some through Jordan. They are gaining valuable experience, using Saudi money and Western training and arms. And when it is all over in Syria and Iraq and Lebanon and Turkey, they will head to their homes in other Arab lands and in Europe. The oil potentates may yet regret again their dabbling in this new Afghanistan Jihad. Cheers
mhg
This French diplomat in Manama looks sober, I think. Maybe that is why he also looks unhappy, for a Frenchman in Manama.
“France supports the reforms taking place in Bahrain and backs the invitation by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa for a national dialogue as the best means to overcome obstacles and political differences, the French ambassador to Bahrain has said. “Paris also strongly condemns the acts of violence and stresses that terrorism is not a political tool,” Christian Testot said, adding that His Majesty’s call for the national dialogue, launched in February, is a significant step in the history of Bahrain. “We hope that the five coalition parties that have recently suspended their participation in the Dialogue will come back and resume their participation. It is necessary for Bahrainis to find a way to agree because there is no alternative to the dialogue to reach an agreement on a formula that allows the coexistence and satisfaction of all parties no matter how different their views are. Such a goal is achievable only through dialogue,” the ambassador told Bahrain News Agency (BNA)…………….”
To which I add, as I often do when I read a Bahrain BNA report, a hearty and loud: Hahahahahahaha………….
“Iranian financial aid to Hamas seems to have renewed after the meeting, making it a pivotal turning point in Hamas’ attitude towards the Arab Spring, and to the civil war and Syria specifically. Since war broke out in Syria over two years ago, Hamas leadership chose to stand by the rebels and against Bashar Assad’s regime; subtle at first, Hamas later publicly protested the massacre the Syrian president had committed against his country’s civilians. Meanwhile, Hamas leader left Damascus and spread out in different Arab countries, including Qatar and Egypt, and it was often reported the Palestinian group is taking an active part fighting with the rebels and against Assad. Hamas turning its back on Syria – and by proxy on Iran and Hezbollah – didn’t come without consequences. In Tehran and Dahiya, connections with the group were severed and financial and arms support were ceased. Since then, Hamas leadership realized, it seems, it put its money on the wrong horse…………..”
So much for the fixed Islamist ‘principles’ of Hamas. It has been known for a few weeks now that Hamas has reversed gear, again, back into the Iranian-Syrian-Lebanese-Iraqi(?) axis. But that is okay. The Fatah oligarchs of Ramallah and Abu Dhabi will also gladly join the Iran-Syria-Lebanon axis if their other financial sources dry up. The Palestinian leaders have the usual things in common with other Arab leaders: greed and corruption. Oh, and they avoid elections. Strange how Hamas operatives were reportedly putting out word only a few months ago that their men were helping the Syrian rebels in battle against the Damascus regime. I had my doubts about that claim, I still do. Now, is it possible they might join Hezbollah fighters in supporting Bashar Al-Assad in battle?
“A senior figure in the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party was arrested Monday on the eve of a major Muslim holiday, while the family of the organization’s jailed leader issued a defiant statement saying he wouldn’t renounce his claim to Egypt’s presidency. As Egyptians prepared to celebrate Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, which begins Tuesday, neither the Brotherhood nor the military-backed interim government showed any sign of moving toward a political compromise. Most of the Brotherhood’s leadership has been in jail for months……………”
It looks like the ruling generals may be offering Mr. Morsi a deal. It looks like they may be offering him some kind of immunity, perhaps exile in Turkey or Qatar, in exchange for renouncing his right to the presidency (forget the Bahamas in this case). But of course it is not for him to renounce any ‘right” to leadership. It is up to voters, or so the legend says. Which means General Al Sisi, if he runs and wins (of course he’ll win), will have a shadow of illegitimacy hanging over him. But then most Arab leaders have a shadow of illegitimacy hanging over them, since most are not elected. So what else is new?
“The video shows armed men in fatigues, at least one wearing the yellow arm band sported by the Lebanese Shiite movement, dragging several bloodied men out of a van and shooting them dead. The men speak in the Lebanese dialect of Arabic, and at the end of the video one man calls them over, saying: “One moment, one moment. We are doing our duty, not avenging ourselves.” The others call out: “For the sake of God, for the sake of God.” The one minute, 40 second video’s authenticity could not be confirmed, and it was unclear when or where it might have been shot. Hezbollah declined to comment on it. Al-Arabiya television said it may have been filmed during the battle for Qusayr, a strategic Syrian town near the Lebanese border that Syrian troops recaptured from rebels with the help of Hezbollah earlier this year……………. Lebanese media largely steered clear of the video, either because they were unable to confirm it or for fear of worsening tensions. But the video triggered outrage on Twitter…………”
Its authenticity could not be verified, but that is not new. There is almost no need: the real horror of Syria is that these videos can be genuine real true-blue videos. Both sides have proven they can do it, they have done that and worse. Anything is possible in Syria now, on both sides. Civil wars can get much uglier than most conventional wars, just read up on the Spanish and American civil wars and how prisoners were treated.
It is easy to trigger outrage on twitter, especially sectarian outrage. Maybe this is the second revenge of the semi-official Saudi network Alarabiya for the defeat at Qusayr. The first revenge was the gruesome video of chemical weapons victims, also initially released by Alarabiya to the world media. That one almost started a whole new regional war in the Middle East.
Egyptian media quote a campaign to nominate Generalissimo Abdelfattah Al Sisi for for President of Egypt. Calling itself “Demand by a Nation”, the campaign claims it has collected 7 million signatures, three million of it in only one day during the 40th anniversary of the alleged October “victory” (referring to what Americans and Israelis call the Yom Kippur War of 1973)………… Some media are now beginning to report that Al Sisi is leaning toward running, thus formalizing the facts on the ground. It is of course possible that he and his allies are behind the whole campaign. Except that they have to do something about that pesky Muslim Brotherhood guy named Mohammed Morsi who was elected and is still rotting in a military prison. Funny, a lot of state media don’t mention his name now, they often just refer to him as “el-m’azool=the deposed”, period.
Lately the military has been using tiny bits of its not-so-secret vast wealth, distributing cash and food and gifts on the populace, often dropping them by airplanes on villages and festivals. Even the uber-decadent Macedonian Ptolemies did not do that in their hay day in Alexandria. The Ptolemies did not have access to airplanes or chewing gum or Tutti Frutti.
“Until a few weeks ago, Saudi Arabia was riding high. Its regional policies, based on countering revolutionary fervour and containing Iran, appeared to be bearing fruit. Egypt’s army ousted the Islamist president, to plaudits and generous funding from Riyadh; the Syrian opposition elected a new pro-Saudi leadership; and the US seemed poised to launch military strikes on the regime in Damascus that Saudi Arabia has tried to dislodge. But Riyadh’s satisfaction turned to dismay as a US and Russian deal to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons removed the need for military strikes; leading rebel factions turned against the leadership of the Syrian National Coalition; and relations between the US and Iran appear to be warming as the new president, Hassan Rouhani, pledged to negotiate over Tehran’s nuclear program………………..”
Clearly the princes are pissed (to put it succinctly) about a few things. Syria is just one of them, given that they finally got their own man, Ahmed Al-Jarba appointed as figurehead chief of the Syrian National Coalition (the real head is a Saudi prince). Sure enough, within weeks of his appointment, the rebel military groups that are inside Syria put up new obstacles against the exile “leaders”( the warlords put obstacles against everybody, including each other, especially each other). Then there is the new possibility of negotiations between the Iranians and the Americans, something that would make anyone jealous: after all if your steady date starts flirting with the scowling mullahs, look out! Even the Gulf Salafis who never cared for Americans except in evil malevolent ways are upset with this turn of event. The princes are pissed enough to cancel their annual speech at the UN General Assembly. Not that many would listen to the speech by the usual prince. The usual prince, Saud Al-Faisal, has been foreign minister of his family for about forty years, appointed by his uncle who took over after his father was assassinated. Forty years seems to be the charmer for Arab potentates in high potent positions, from Colonel Gaddafi to the decrepit prime minister of Bahrain. I think the (Christian) marriage liturgy applies to most Arab potentates, the one that says “………..Till death do us part”.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is gone, and nobody seems to miss him, except maybe Benyamin Netanyahu, and nobody seems to regret his departure, except probably himself. I suspect that when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, departs he will be publicly missed, no doubt, and there will be public rituals of mourning. But the average Iranian will probably not care that much. A cult of personality is not usually encouraged in Iran, and it would be hard for one to take hold anyway. Probably the Islamic nature of the regime does not encourage personality cults, at least not lasting personality cults. After all, how can any person compete with God in people’s hearts and minds? Besides, there is surely a strong desire everywhere for change: a supreme leader lasting in office for life is the best protection against a personality cult. Just look at Bahrain: the most hated person is the prime minister who has been in office for 42 years. People get tired of the same old, same old, no matter how amenable and lovable that same old, same old is (FYI: Shaikh Khalifa Al Khalifa is not amenable or lovable, never has been). In this there is also a lesson for Arab kings, princes, and shaikhs and assorted dictators and kleptocrats (is there any other kind?). The longer you cling to power and the office, the easier the people will breathe when you are forced to leave. The louder the cheers you’ll hear when you leave office (most likely involuntarily).
“Despite all that, there has been a determined drive by Egypt’s pro-coup media to present Sisi as an independent, even anti-American, figure. There’s even an effort to link him with Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s popular Arab nationalist president of the 50s and 60s. That’s partly because Nasser repressed the then US-backed Muslim Brotherhood (along with communists). But it also reflects the fact that Nasser’s reputation as a genuinely independent and progressive leader who stood up to the west and Israel is still strong in Egypt and across the region – and the coup mongers want to use it to give themselves some spurious legitimacy. The idea that the US-dependent Sisi, whose military hierarchy controls vast commercial interests, is a new Nasser is ludicrous. But the propaganda ploy is revealing. Despite his failings and authoritarianism, Nasser is remembered as a leader who stood for regional unity and independence, economic development and social justice………….A democratic 21st-century Nasser …………..”
Al Sisi is no Nasser. Nasser was a once-in-a-century phenomenon in the Arab world. As he himself opined in his manifesto Philosophy of the Revolution, he came along and found a role seeking someone to fill it. That sounded self-serving, but he was right: he appeared at the right time and in the right place. And Nasser had characteristics that no Arab leader since has shown. He had charisma and independence and humility and a feeling of responsibility to the less fortunate masses of Egyptians. All those who came after him made their families and their cronies rich from their positions. Nasser’s family reportedly lived on his state pension. Imagine if Bill Clinton or Barack Obama had to live on their government retirements? It would cramp their lifestyles. As I said, no Arab leader ever came close to Nasser charisma and oratorical skills, not remotely close. The nearest is probably Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah, and I don’t think he comes even close to Nasser, and not only because the Lebanese, like the Syrians, make lousy crowd orators. As for Generalissimo Al Sisi, I have never heard him, but I have doubts. He is acting more like a Pinochet right now. The Arab peoples are a good and generous people and deserve much better than the blood-sucking despotic clowns who rule them from Morocco to Bahrain. Arabs deserve better than the thuggish robber clans like Al Saud, Al Khalifa, Al-Bashir, and others. They deserve better than being pushed around and manipulated by foreign powers, both regional and far away powers. But the outlook is not promising. Not yet.
The People of Bahrain will gather for huge protests on Wednesday August 14. The people of Bahrain, most of them, have been in a state of rebellion since February 14, 2011. The ruling family is determined to thwart them by imposing a lock-down across the country, especially the capital Manama. Barbed wire and tear gas and contingents of foreign mercenaries are being used to keep the people out of the capital. Much of uncooperative foreign media is being kept out. The ruling Al Khalifa clan of Bahrain have been whittling away the basic freedoms that were guaranteed under the covenant they made with the people who voted for independence and a constitutional monarchy some 42 years ago. Repression and corruption have become a hallmark of Bahrain, as the rulers and their tribal and foreign allies painted a phony picture to the outside world, focused on the capital Manama, of a peaceful progressive financial center and tourist destination. As the people protested, the rulers took a page form the Saudi book of repression and ended the experiment in parliamentary politics for a generation. Which gave them the chance to establish one of the most corrupt systems, of its size, for looting the potential wealth of any Arab country. When they finally agreed under pressure to restore some form of electoral politics, they had by that time unilaterally changed the constitution to make the elected legislature only partly elected, then they made it toothless. When the people protested, the rulers responded with an extended island-wide pogrom that has lasted since February 2011 and continues today. The politics itself angered the people of Bahrain, people of all sects, but what made this an even more serious matter was the regime policy of discrimination, in effect a form of Gulf apartheid, against a majority of the population. There can always be room for compromise over politics, but there can be no compromise over the basic human rights, especially equality. That is why all the attempts at a “dialog” have been and will continue to be fruitless. When the basic right of equality is at stake, words like “dialog” and “compromise” sound like dirty words, at least they do to me. And in the context of the basic right of equality words like “dialog” and “compromise” are in fact dirty words that lead nowhere, except maybe to more “dialog” and compromise”.
