My BFF
US State Dept tweet: “Secretary Clinton: women must participate in all aspects of political and institutional reforms….” I agree with her, although she did not specify if all the wives of the potentates are allowed to engage in such activity. I mean the king of Bahrain had three wives at last count. The potentates of Abu Dhabi keep it under wraps (one of them in Dubai is married to a Jordanian princess). As for the Saudi princes, oh boy, some of them probably don’t know the answer……. Can be costly, too bad Costco doesn’t carry wives……
Cheers
mhg
Category Archives: Arab Revolutions
Is it Syria in Exchange for Bahrain? the Arba’een………….
My BFF
The West, especially the United States government, have been quite silent over the oppression and the reign of terror going on in Bahrain. The reactions have been mild, calling for a end of violence by “both sides” and dialog. The US even accepted the Saudi invasion of Bahrain, which raises the question of what would the US say if Iranian troops had landed in Damascus at the invitation of Bashar al-Assad. Of course that will not happen.
On the other hand, the US has been almost muted about the protests in Syrian cities. Ironically, it is the Saudis, through their vast controlled media, who have been calling for reforms in Syria. The Saudis would not recognize reform if it kissed every prince on the nose (as we might say in the Gulf). They mean their kind of “reform” which means a regime that is as subservient to the al-Saud dynasty as Mubarak was, as subservient as Hariri in Lebanon or al-Khalifa in Bahrain have been (or even maybe as the al-Nahayan in Abu Dhabi seem to be nowadays).
In any case, shifts in Syria or the Gulf would be game changers in the region, and there seems to be an understanding that real change in these two regions is not acceptable, yet. Hence Syria will most likely suppress its uprising and institute some reforms with international blessing. Hence Bahrain has called in foreign invaders to suppress its uprising, with Western blessing.
I can be wrong about both: the Syrian uprising may gather steam, and the Bahrain uprising may regain its momentum as the forty-day (arba’een) anniversary of the first regime killings arrives.
Cheers
mhg
A Suspicious Saudi Confederation on my Gulf…………
My BFF
The Saudis are beginning to push the idea of a “GCC confederation” again. This time the push is directly from Saudi media (which is all official and semi-official, unless the publisher is in exile). This writer in Saudi daily al-Riyadh is making it sound urgent to establish the al-Saud hegemony over the smaller states of my Gulf, in preparation to swallowing them into the Kingdom without Magic.
As I wrote last week, the idea has been floating around the Gulf states in recent months, and it is being revived these days. Pro-Saudi Salafis and a handful of pro-Saudi media writers (some of them most likely surrogates encouraged or funded from Riyadh) are calling for a ‘confederation’ of the GCC Gulf states. One irresponsible columnist even called for a “quick confederation”, and he was covered extensively and gleefully by Saudi media. None of these worthies advises seeking people’s consent through referendums, or a vote on the issue: such is the state of watermelon opinion-makers on my Gulf. The potentates are seen as owning the countries to do with whatever they wish. One or two have become obsessive compulsive about it, repeating this frequently. They use fear of Iran as a factor, as well as stoking suspicion and fear of local Shi’as (minorities in all the GCC except Bahrain). The pro-Saudi tweeters (or possibly Saudi agents) are also pushing this idea.
I opined last year that it will not get anywhere. The Gulf states range politically from an absolute monarchy system to a partial democracy (I am not including Bahrain among the latter). The Saudis may think that this will solve the problem of pressures for democracy and accountability. A solidly despotic regime on the Saudi mold would be a strong front against Western and Arab pressures for openness, they probably think. It would also bring all other GCC states down to the Saudi and Bahraini levels in the treatment of their minority Shi’a (Shi’ites). That last point is very important for the Wahhabi Kingdom without Magic. For the Salafis around the Gulf it would mean that all GCC states become socially Saudi-like: more power for the clergy, no social reforms, women safely kept at home. And no politics: absofuckinglutely no politics! Salafis would gain more ‘political’ power as their patron regime, the Saudis, would dominate the new confederation as a prelude to swallowing it.
One early serious problem with such a scheme is that the rulers of the smaller states are not as stupid as the Salafis and Saudi surrogates in their countries think. They are all protective of their own turf and would never accept such a plan, although one or two media outlets may pay lip service to it. The al-Nahayan of the UAE are almost as autocratic as the al-Saud and would never give up one iota of power to their own people or to foreigners. As for Oman, it has always had little real interest in any form of integration, always looking across the Persian-American Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Then there are the peoples of our region who value their independence and way of life, in spite of all the media noise that hint at the sun actually shining out of the ass of some Saudi prince or another. In other words, such a plan is not only impractical, but dangerous for the peoples of the Gulf states. It is DOA. Only the al-Khalifa of Bahrain may agree to such a hegemony, but then any regime that invites occupation and torments its own people would go far to cling to absolute power. br>
Therefore, I repeat my recent fatwa that this plan is a hair-brained scheme or, as we would say on the Gulf, “مشروع بطيخ” a watermelon scheme.
Cheers
mhg
Everybody else: The Arabian Peninsula is now the home of tribalism and sectarianism. One goes back to long before Islam, the other sprung from Islamic history and goes back to the early decades of Islam. Some things have not changed in 14 centuries. This has been a signature characteristic of the region from the Persian-American Gulf to the Red Sea, especially along the Gulf. While tribalism has always been part of life, Gulf sectarianism has in recent years, nay in recent weeks, acquired a venomous quality that is almost breath-taking: Bahrain. The oligarchy in Bahrain, always sectarian and tribal, has blamed its troubles with the people on Iran mostly. If there is Iranian interference, they certainly provided the climate for it. Only recently have its propagandists started to blame drugs as well. Bahrain officialdom has been rife with corruption and sectarianism since the early 1970s when the al-Khalifa suspended the constitution and ended politics. The period since then has been one of theft and robbery of public property and of enshrining the sectarian Apartheid system. The regime even resorted to importing mercenary thugs from Pakistan and Jordan and other places to fill the security ranks because it does not want to hire Shi’as. They have now resorted to inviting foreign forces (Saudis) to crush the people for demanding their rights. In recent days the regime has started, as Time Magazine reports, a reign of terror against the people. Bahrain is becoming a carbon copy of the absolute tribal family monarchy that is Saudi Arabia: they both follow a policy of Apartheid, except in Bahrain it applies against a majority of the people. Arab leaders are not very creative. From Libya to Bahrain they have all tended to blame the uprisings on the same unlikely factors. The culprits are always a combination of: Islamists, Iranians, and drugs (one or two also added those old Arab stand-bys; Zionism and Masonism and Feminism and Trotskyism). This is not to deny that the Islamists, or Iranians, or drugs have some role in these troubles. But they are tiny influences if at all. The main influence is the regimes and their corruption and oppression. It is a reign of terror, largely sectarian, but not only that. It is also tribal. There are prominent Sunni opposition figures under detention, like Ibrahim Sharif al-Sayed who heads a secular democratic group. He may be the target of more of the wrath of the ruling despots and their Salafi allies because they have tried to make the Bahrain uprising a purely Shi’a-Sunni sectarian issue, and people like him disrupt their propaganda. He claims that what happened in Saudi Arabia has shocked and awed the whole wide wonderful world, including international correspondents who hoped to see angry demonstrations. Instead of unrest they saw a love-fest with people and king and princes (including Bandar of BAE Systems and SFO and Tony Blair fame) all making out and singing kumbaya. Literally Frenching on the streets of Riyadh, once a no-no frowned upon by the Saudi Commissions for the Propagation of Vice. He claims that with one 15 minute the king did what no leader in history has done: he defused tensions by solving all the pending problems of the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula. The exact opposite of Marcus Antonius outside the Senate on the Ides of March! And he did not even have to mention anything about democracy, freedom, and corruption among the princes! He says nothing about the Eastern province (al-‘Hasa), and the hundreds of thousands of security agents that inundated the streets, and the protests in Qatif and the hundreds taken to prison. He did not nominate any prince for the Nobel Prize for graft. The competition would be tough. Yet he may have a right to gloat (for now): if the Syrian regime falls, that would be a loss for the Iranian regime, and a gain for the Saudi regime in the short term. Provided that any new Syrian regime is not ‘too’ democratic. Syria can be a double-edged sword for the Saudis if it comes through, especially if it goes democratic. If the surrounding countries, Arabs and Iran, turn more democratic, this cannot be good for Saudi rule. The princes know this: just look at the agonies of occupied Bahrain.The Curious Council of Ministers of Bahrain……..
Bahrain cabinet:
Prime Min. KHALIFA bin Salman al-Khalifa
Dep. Prime Min. ALI bin Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa
Dep. Prime Min. KHALID bin Abdallah al-Khalifa
Dep. Prime Min. MUHAMMAD bin Mubarak al-Khalifa
Min. of Culture MAI bint Muhammad al-Khalifa
Min. of Finance AHMAD bin Muhammad bin Hamad bin Abdallah al-Khalifa
Min. of Foreign Affairs KHALID bin Ahmad bin Muhammad al-Khalifa
Min. of Housing IBRAHIM bin Khalifa bin Ali al-Khalifa
Min. of Justice & Islamic Affairs KHALID bin Ali al-Khalifa
Min. of Interior RASHID bin Abdallah bin Ahmad al-Khalifa
Min. of the Royal Court KHALID bin Ahmad bin Salman al-Khalifa
Min. of Royal Court Affairs ALI bin Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa
Min. of State for Defense Affairs MUHAMMAD bin Abdallah al-Khalifa
Min. of State for Cabinet Affairs AHMAD bin Atiyatallah al-Khalifa
Chief of National Security, Abdulaziz Bin Atiyatullah al-Khalifa
Commander of the Army, Khalifa Bin Ahmad al-Khalifa
Commander of Rapid Deployment Force (Royal Guard), Nasser Bin Hamad al-Khalifa
Chief of Royal Charity, Nasser Bin Hamad al-Khalifa
Chief of the Olympic Committee, Nasser Bin Hamad al-Khalifa
Chief of the Higher Council for youth and Sports, Nasser Bin Hamad al-Khalifa
Chief of the Royal Team for Ability, Nasser Bin Hamad al-Khalifa
(Get the picture? One of the above was changed recently).
Dep. Prime Min. Jawad bin Salim al-ARAIDH Min. of Education Majid bin Ali Hasan al-NUAYMI Min. of Electricity & Water Fahmi bin Ali al-JAWDAR Min. of Health Faysal bin Yaqoub al-HAMMER Min. of Industry & Commerce HASAN bin Abdallah al-Fakhru Min. of Labor Majid bin Muhsin al-ALAWI Min. of Municipal Affairs & Urban Planning JUMA bin Ahmad al-Ka’abi Min. of Oil & Gas Affairs Abd al-Husayn MIRZA Min. of Social Development Fatima bint Ahmad al-BALUSHI Min. of Works ISSAM bin Abdallah Khalaf Min. of State for Follow-Up Affairs Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-MUTAWA Min. of State for Foreign Affairs Nizar al-BAHARNA Min. of State for Shura Council & Parliament Affairs Abd al-Aziz bin Muhammad al-FADHIL .
(One or two of these has resigned in protest)
Cheers
mhgArabian Peninsula: She Said Kings, When they Enter a Land…….
My BFF
“She said: Kings, when they enter a land, they ruin it, and make its noble people its meanest, thus do they behave…….” Holy Quran (Saurat al-Naml)
Yemen. Abdullah Ali Saleh blamed his earlier troubles in 2009 on Iran and al-Qaeda (that was during the last Huthi War, maybe the fifth one). He has multiple foes. The Huthis are only in the far north. The people of the south, Aden and Hadramout and others, want to regain their independence that they gave up in 1990. Al-Qaeda wants to keep on using Yemen as a training ground as well as a safe haven and launching pad on the Arabia Peninsula. They are not welcome in Saudi Arabia anymore, although they apparently get all the money they want from “someone” in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Saleh has not resorted to the “drugs” charge because almost everybody in Yemen chews “qat” and effectively gets stoned at least once a day.
Saudi Arabia. The long alliance between the al-Saud princes and the fundamentalist Wahhabi clerics endures. Note how many ministers and clerics are named Al Al-Shaikh, descendants of Mohammed Bin Abdulwahhab (the Najdi shaikh and not Mohammed Abdelwahab the late great Egyptian musician and singer). Saudis pretend there are no such earthly problems in their Kingdom without Magic. Unemployment is in double digits (up to 40% among the young reported ), and the king recently announced opening tens of thousands of new jobs, all of them in the security services! They hint at some Iranian interference in the Eastern Province (largely Shi’a), but they have not blamed it on drugs yet. They certainly can’t blame it on Islamic fundamentalists, because the whole kingdom is one fundamentalist hotbed of a kingdom. Maybe the al-Saud will use the ‘drug’ card if (nay, when) the people rise in Najd or Hijaz to demand their God-given rights.
Cheers
mhg
North Africa: Some of the Usual Suspects…….
BFF
North African leaders, like other Arab leaders, are not very creative. They also have mostly tended to blame the uprisings on the same unlikely factors. The culprits are always a combination of Islamists and drugs (one also added that old Arab stand-by Zionism and the new stand-by Iran):
Tunisia. Home of the first Arab revolution (still ongoing as the people want to make sure they get the democracy they fought for). Dictator Bin Ali, to his credit, did not blame the unrest on drugs or Iran or al-Qaeda or crusaders. Not that I know of. He was more dignified than all those who followed, especially in Libya or Bahrain: he left when the people made their wish known.
Egypt. For decades Mubarak convinced the West that he was the only thing between Egypt and al-Qaeda (well, al-Zawahiri). That he stood blocking another Arab-Israeli war. He tried again last January to play the al-Qaeda card, but it was wearing thin. Maybe the dictator believed it. He had help from his Saudi allies in that task: they and the Emirati and Bahraini rulers stuck by him to the end, urging him to defy his people. He did not listen to them and in the end proved more honorable than, say, the Bahraini monarchy that chose to kill its people with foreign help. People could see that the young rebels at Tahrir did not wear Taliban Turbans or Salafi ghutra & egal, so he switched to drugs. Some of his frustrated henchmen even claimed that drugs mingled with free sex at Tahrir Square.
Libya. Qaddafi has blamed his troubles on al-Qaeda and drugs and a Western crusade. He himself looks stoned out of his head whenever he appears publicly. on the upside: he made ‘zenga zenga‘ a household word around the world.
Algeria. The French have been gone for fifty years, so Bouteflika and his generals cannot blame them. The Islamists were once a serious danger in the 1990s: they had won one election and were poised to win a bigger one, before the ruling class decided to cancel all elections. That led to a long and gruesome civil war. It can happen again if the dictatorship refuses to open up and allow competition.
Cheers
mhgProblems with al-Qaeda, Drugs, Iran: Jordan and Syria…………
BFF
“A protester died after security forces broke up clashes on Friday between supporters of King Abdullah and protesters calling for reform, and the government warned it would not tolerate “chaos.” Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit blamed opposition Islamists for the clash in the pro-Western monarchy, which has seen weeks of protests calling for curbs on the king’s powers……..”
Jordan and Syria. Both countries are police states with an important difference: in Syria you can tell you are in a police state (at least I did some years ago). In Jordan you can’t tell right away that you are in a police state, but you will when necessary. Jordan exports more security agents and interrogators than Syria, mostly to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Both regimes have blamed Islamists for their troubles. King Abdul’s thugs are as efficient as al-Assad’s (or the other Arab despots).
Cheers
mhg
[email protected]Time on a Reign of Terror in Bahrain…………..
Friend
““I need to leave Bahrain,” he says, voice shaking. “What channels can I use?” By all accounts, Bahrain’s protests have had the wind knocked out of their sails the past two weeks, as the government systematically shut down the opposition’s operations. Leading activists were arrested en masse, many in pre-dawn raids. The headquarters of opposition group Waad was torched. As Manama was put under martial law, 100 Saudi Arabian tanks arrived on March 13 to help police the streets. Salmaniya Medical Center, a main gathering point for protesters and the country’s most sophisticated hospital, was essentially locked down. At checkpoints around the city, masked thugs pulled drivers out of cars at the slightest suspicion of anti-government activity, often beating them senseless. A kingdom had imposed a reign of terror — with anecdotes and examples of how vengeance is exacted. “The injuries, the bullet holes, are always in the back — as people are leaving,” one official said. ……….”
Cheers
mhg
[email protected]What Arab Autocrats and Iranian Mullahs Want………
Media report that Arab regimes, the ones that have not been overthrown yet, are angry at French foreign minister Alain Juppe. Yesterday he warned that other Arab despots that act against their peoples can face the fate of Qaddafi unless they compromise. He mentioned several by name, including Bahrain and Yemen.
Iranians have been happy about regime change in Tunisia, Egypt (especially), and its prospects in Libya and Yemen, and the possibility of weakening the stranglehold of the al-Khalifa and their tribal cronies in Bahrain. By the mullahs do not want regime change in Syria; they worry about losing an ally of thirty year and they worry about the implications for Lebanon. They are trying to interpret the Arab uprisings as Islamic, but they are not so, despite a few fundamentalist attempts. The Iranians also may entertain ideas about controlling Middle East, with the help of the Turks.
The Saudis doesn’t want anything resembling democracy in Bahrain or Jordan or Yemen (or anywhere else in the Arab world, the Muslim world, this whole world, or the nether world). In fact the Saudis are reported to be frantically using their money, their ‘friends’ in the West, and their vast media trying to make sure the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen never lead to true electoral democracy. Like everyone else they want their friends in place.
Cheers
mhg
[email protected]From Syria with Love: the Illusion of Saudi Exceptionalism…….
This writer in the semi-official Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat starts by assaulting the Syrian regime, probably deservedly so. Then he plunges straight into his favorite topic: Saudi exceptionalism. He claims that Saudi Arabia has surpassed the current popular Arab storm with distinguished success; that Saudi days turned into a “national carnival” of renewed loyalty and trust of the princes (but nothing about Brazilian thongs here). He claims that the “storm” benefited Saudi Arabia, not only because it was not “harmed” by it, but because the fires have reached the Syrian province of Houran!
Cheers
mhg
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