Category Archives: Arabian Peninsula

Arabian Peninsula, Corruption, Justice, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Justice: Chopping Hands for a Small Theft While Ignoring Billions Stolen……….

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KuwaitCox2     ChristmasPeanuts

Have Yourself a Merry Little——-> Kenny G. Holiday 

“Saudi authorities on Monday severed the hand of a Yemeni national convicted of repeated theft, under the medieval interpretation of Islamic law enforced in Saudi Arabia. A court had ordered the amputation of Ibrahim Abdulrahman Hazbar’s right hand after convicting him of a “series of thefts,” the interior ministry said. The punishment was carried out in the western city of Mecca, home to the holiest sites in Islam. US-ally Saudi Arabia implements a wide range of brutal punishments, including flogging, hefty fines and exaggerated prison sentences, for minor crimes……………”

This sounds fair and square. You rob a few Rials, get your hand chopped, especially if you are a poor Yemeni or another foreigner. The princes and princelings steal and embezzle and expropriate billions of public property, and it is okay. It goes with the job of being a prince and a potentate.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Qatar

The Most Recent GCC Drama Swept Under: Sugar and Spice and Dancing Goatees………

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It seems that the most recent Gulf GCC dust-up has been settled, for now. The Persian Gulf media, official and unofficial versions, are gushing orgasmic with all the talk of sweetness and sisterly states and brotherly love. Something they usually do publicly even as the knives are being sharpened. Enough to make me look around for a barf bag.

This means the absolute tribal ruling oligarchs of Saudi Arabia and the UAE (Bahrain’s rulers act as a Saudi appendage and don’t count) have reached a deal with the errant wayward Wahhabis of Qatar. Sugar was oozing through the grease at the little summit in Riyadh yesterday. The goatees were practically dancing, mainly for the benefit of the media and the saps watching it on television at home.

No doubt a temporary deal which, like previous temporary deals, will last as long as it is not seriously tested. We have seen this drama film before. Enforced hegemony and conformity never last, which means these most boring potentates of the GCC will have some more drama to share with us in the future. Get the popcorn ready,
And don’t forget a new bag……….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia

Selling a Saudi Prince to America: Lobbyists and Academics………..

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“Yet Prince Miteb’s influence is not merely owing to the number of appointments he enjoys, but rather the actions he has taken over the past few years. These actions are grounded in four fundamental principles. The first is the importance of stability within the broader Middle East. Prince Miteb understands that stability in countries such as Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen or Egypt prevents subversive regional actors from gaining undue influence. For example, in 2011 he ordered the National Guard to intervene in Bahrain, thus preventing an American ally (Bahrain is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet) from slipping away to Iranian influence and from creating further instability in the Persian Gulf……….”

Sobhani is a former academic who has also dabbled in oil consultancy as I recall. He also seems to specialize in writing glossy extremely-flattering books about Saudi royals. He wrote a book a few years ago about Saudi King Abdullah (King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia: A Leader of Consequence). A glossy gushing propaganda book that Saudi embassies and institutions distributed widely around the world. I believe the Saudi embassy in Washington gave a special reception or party on its publication. I doubt that anybody else paid their hard-earned or embezzled or stolen money to buy it.

Now he is doing the same for the king’s son, Met’eb, in this article in the conservative Washington Times. Extolling his virtues against other rivals in the Al Saud family, mainly Interior Minister Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef and possibly others lurking in their palaces.
(FYI: the Al Saud are known as avid and generous buyers of glossy propaganda).
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Qatar, Wahhabi

GCC Summit: Brotherly and Sisterly Problems Between Little and Big Wahhabis……..

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The Gulf GCC heads of state are supposed to hold their summit for this year next month in Doha, Qatar. No, the Saudis did not pick December for the annual meeting because of Christmas or Hannukah. They just happened to pick this cool month.

Anyway, this year’s meeting, if it is held, will be different. Syria, Iraq, and Yemen are not the main entree on the menu. The Big Wahhabi Brother (Saudi Arabia) is seriously angry at the Little Wahhabi Brother (Qatar). The two ruling families often support and finance rival Jihadis in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere where Jihadis roam. The Al Nahayan Brothers who own Abu Dhabi and rule the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are in the Saudi camp for now. The poorer Bahrain rulers usually follow the Saudi orders and do as they are told. Anyway, the two regimes would probably like to ex-communicate Qatar, unless they can force the Doha regime to change its foreign policies. I doubt they have any hope of instigating another palace coup attempt in Doha as the Saudis tried in the 1990s.

Odd, these princes and potentates can force the prime minister of Great Britain to seek an excuse to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, but they can’t force little Qatar to do the same. But then David Cameron is after their money and he’d do almost anything to get some of it. The Qatari rulers don’t need any more money, not from the Saudis and Emiratis.

The other two GCC members who are not parties to this dispute, Kuwait and Oman, have reportedly been trying to mediate and resolve this issue, but without success so far.

One promising fact is that Gulf media have not started to claim that Iranian Brigadier Qassem Suleimani of Quds Force is a regular visitor to Doha. Not yet. I recall how they started making fantastic claims and allegations about his secret visits to Cairo hotels just months before the military coup be Generalisimo Al Sisi against Morsi.

Will the GCC summit be held in Doha as scheduled? That depends on the mediations going on and on the caprice of the suddenly-insecure Saudi princes. A possible alternative is to go ahead with the non-summit but with lower rank representatives from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arabian Peninsula, Humor, Saudi Arabia

Oh Clap! Clapping to be Allowed in Saudi Council………..

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Great breakthrough in Saudi Arabia. The Shura Advisory Council, appointed by the king, has struck a bold blow for the freedom of clapping (with an “l“).

Kuwait News reports that the appointed Saudi Shura Advisory Council has met and voted to allow ‘clapping’ in its chambers. Yes, you read it right: that is clapping (with an “l“) and not to be pronounced the Japanese way. Clapping (with an “l“), as in applauding. Members and guests will be allowed to clap ((with an “l”)) right inside the august chamber. They are not, however, expected to bring along whatever it is they will be clapping for. Whatever they will all be clapping for must come out of the members of the Shura who are all appointed by the king for whom they will always clap so long as he reappoints them.

No word yet about allowing drums, cymbals and the guitar.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Yemen

Islamist Reform: Joking with the Arabic Language in Yemen……..

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Until a few weeks ago the main party or bloc that wielded power in Yemen, actually mostly in Sanaa, was called “Islah”. Islah is dominated by the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, along with some other tribal and Islamist allies. So far so good, but the real joke starts with the word “Islah” which means “reform” in Arabic (when you reform or repair something you are doing Islah: got that?). No reform was seen in Yemen under Islah and its allies. Now the Houthis and allies are also talking reform, no doubt according to their own definition of reform.

In politics and business, poor Yemen is not different from much of the rest of its neighborhood. In the usual Orwellian Arab fashion, reform means corruption, patriotism means acquiescing in repression, unity means tribalism, stability means stagnation. The de facto ruling family of the capital of this Yemen were the Al Ahmar, from one of the largest tribes in Northern Yemen. President Generalisimo Abd Rabu Hadi (a.k.a Al Zombie) was as much a figurehead leader then, a few weeks ago, as he is now under the Houthi militias. Even with his 99.8% of the vote in 2012. (He still beat Egypt’s Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi who could only eke out 97.5% of the vote, still beat the hapless Morsi who had won only about 51% against a Mubarak crony, and he even beat the recent bete noir of the West, Bashar Al Assad and his paltry 88%).

Yemen is like Afghanistan: political matters are inevitably settled (or unsettled) in their own fashion. Foreign intervention, be it Saudi, Iranian, or American can only influence developments, not shape them. Foreign intervention is not decisive beyond the short term. Egyptians learned that costly lesson in the 1960s and the Saudis have learned it again and again in recent years. Ancient Ethiopian and Persian invaders also learned that lesson many centuries ago. The GCC-Western arranged transfer of power in 2012 has apparently failed as much as any other foreign intervention. It was never taken much seriously, and now it is dead even in Sanaa.

Yemen, the alleged source and genesis of the original Arabian tribes is largely ignored and shunned by its closest Arab neighbors. The Saudis, in a moment of royal madness, briefly invited faraway Morocco and Jordan to join the GCC in 2011. But not Yemen. Yemen is best left alone by outsiders.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Yemen

A Tale of Two of the Wars in Yemen……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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I saw the following two headlines on Twitter this morning. I believe they were about the same clashes in the multifaceted multipronged civil wars of Yemen:

  • Alarabiya (Saudi news and propaganda network) headline:  “BREAKING- Dozens killed in clashes between Houthis and tribesmen in Yemen’s Ibb, Al Arabiya correspondent reports”.
  • Press TV (Iranian news and propaganda network): “At least 250 people are killed in fighting between Houthis and al-Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen”.

So, one side’s Al-Qaeda is the other side’s tribesmen.
The truth? The Saudis and their allies were never comfortable with the Islah-tribal regime. Even though they helped set up the sham elections of 2012 that set up the not-so-new regime. Generalisimo Abd Rabu Hadi Al Zombie won an astounding 99.8% of the votes, embarrassing even by Arab standards (Al Sisi won less than 98% in Egypt). The Saudis like the tribal part: they have spent decades bribing tribes and their elders across the Arab world, from Yemen to Iraq and Syria. They don’t like the Islah part and not only because the word means “reform” in Arabic, which means that it is in reality meaningless in Arab politics.

The Islah is also dominated by the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood, MB. The MB have bad relations with almost all Gulf GCC rulers now, except for some ambiguity with the Bahrain ruling family. Now the Saudis also worry about their “own” who have set up shop in Yemen, the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

But I suspect that the Saudis worry the most now about the Houthi “rebels”, as the media calls them. They worry about them mainly because they are an offshoot but divergent branch of the Shi’a sect. Saudis have never cottoned up to Shi’as getting involved in politics (not that they like anybody other than princes in politics). They have had past clashes with the Houthis in which the superbly-armed but battle-incompetent Saudi armed forces were trounced. And they worry about an Iranian connection, about being pressured by the mullahs from the south. The Iranians, for their part, have been crowing about the Houthi ‘victories’. Which raises Saudi suspicions about Tehran’s ties with the new masters of Sana’a. But things are fluid in Yemen, too many variables working there, too many local and foreign forces. Nothing is certain.

There has been some propaganda ‘stuff’ in the media about risks to the Bab El-Mandab and Red Sea maritime traffic. But that is probably just propaganda to get Western ‘special’ attention focused more on the Houthis and less on AQAP (or the tribals as Alarabiya calls them these days).

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Uncategorized, Wahhabi

Paranoid Gulf Opposition: Dastardly Secret Alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean…..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Following the currents of Saudi opinion on the media and especially the more spontaneous social media is becoming more interesting than ever. The traditional media is not as important anymore, since it is owned, controlled, or otherwise preempted by the rulers and their oligarchy allies. This applies to other Gulf countries as well.

The various shades of the Wahhabi opposition in Saudi Arabia are now very active on social media. They are now the most active, more active than the ‘traditional’ liberal (or the Wahhabi-liberal?) opposition. For one, the Wahhabi opposition are more driven and more ambitious, as more extreme groups often are, than the traditional opposition. They are more absolutist and more active, which sometimes makes them the ‘main opposition’ by sheer noise and default. Remember Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks? Or Khomenie and the Tudeh Communists and the Mujahideen-e-Khalq? Or Hitler and von Hindenburg?
And the educational system and the theocratic bureaucracy still reinforce their ideology of excommunicating and killing the ‘others’.

The Saudi Wahhabi opposition has lately been trying to make a case for the existence of a secret alliance between the Al Saud and the resurgent Houthis in Yemen. They also try to make a case for a secret alliance between the Al Saud and Bashar Al Assad, between the Al Saud and the ruling Shi’a-Kurdish blocs in Iraq: plotting against the ISIS Caliphate and, in their words, “against the Sunnis”. During moments of wild clarity they even tie the Al Saud to Hezbollah of Lebanon, their main nemesis in the eastern Mediterranean. Need I elaborate on where this is leading? No, it it clear that this all leads to Tehran and Qom, via Karbala and Najaf.

To wit: the Al Saud, alleged guardians of the Wahhabi right, are in fact secret allies of the Shi’a left. But the Wahhabi and no-so-Wahhabi argument is commonly heard along the Paranoid Persian Gulf that the mullahs of Iran and their allies from Baghdad to Damascus to Beirut are secret allies of the United States. Hence, they are secret allies of Israel (to the delusional faithful it is a.k.a. TZE: The Zionist Entity).

This paranoia is more frenzied than ever these days, as the nuclear talks move on and the U.S. Knesset Congress has calmed down about its idiotic lobbyist-driven drive to bomb and maybe invade Iran. (BTW: how come the U.S. Congress never threaten to bomb North Korea, for example? Is it because it is not Muslim? Is it because of the aforementioned TZE? Is it both?)

One conclusion drawn by some of the leaders of this Wahhabi opposition is that “the Al saud will never execute Shaikh Nimr Al Nimr” (the Shi’a cleric who was sentenced to be beheaded and crucified). They opine this conclusion:”the Al Saud will never dare execute  him“, they write regretfully. This is supposed to be proof that they are in cahoots with the ‘unbelievers’. Or maybe they are just trying to dare the rulers into chopping the head of Al Nimr and crucifying him.

Cheers
MHG

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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Caliphate, Human Right, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Rainbow Opposition: Reactions to Regional Turmoil and ISIS………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Saudi Arabia has several different kinds, actually strains, of opposition to the Al Saud rule and policies. It is a diverse rainbow of opposing opposition groups. There are three main strains:

  • There are relatively liberal human rights advocates among the educated city folks, but they are mostly heavily monitored and repressed. These are focused on the domestic issues of freedom and corruption and advocating for a civic society. Often they are thrown in prison on trumped up charges, as many ACPRAHR leaders are.
  • There are the marginalized restive Shi’as in their native homeland of the Eastern Province who have been restless and in an uprising mood for years.
  • Then there is a more interesting but growing animal, the relatively recent Wahhabi opposition. A Wahhabi opposition to a Wahhabi theocratic monarchy. Needless to say, these latter are groups that were born of the domestic and foreign efforts of the Saudi system itself.

This last one is a bit odd, since the Salafis, like the rest of the Saudi political and religious establishment, believe in obeying the Wahhabi ruler no matter what. In that they rely on an old Hadith, or a quote that alleges to quote the Prophet Mohammed about obedience to a ‘Muslim’ ruler. By their doctrine they can justify it only by insisting that a particular ruler is “not Muslim”, which these days means “not Wahhabi enough”. Of course they believe that anyone who i not a Wahhabi/Salafi is not a Muslim: that is how they justify blowing up Iraqi and Syrian civilians and beheading them and enslaving their women as sex concubines.

Needless to say much of this last Wahhabi opposition supports the more extremist groups like Al-Qaeda, AQAP, and especially the Caliphate of ISIS and Al-Nusra Front and their ilk in recent years. They focus exclusively on aiding these Jihadist groups from Yemen to Syria and Iraq and beyond. Yet like some other tribal/Salafi opposition movements on the Persian Gulf these latter are violently against the continuing Bahrain protests and are happy to have the Al Saud help crush them. These groups are also very active on the Internet social media. Some of their top “activists” have followers in the millions. They seem to have three main complaints:

  1.  the Al Saud are not following the true Salafi line of Islam. That is the only way a Salafi can justify disobedience;
  2. the Al Saud are too nice to the local Shi’as (as well as to those in Iran and Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen);
  3. the Al Saud are plotting with all of the above as well as with Al Assad of Syria against the true faithful of the ISIS Caliphate and Al Qaeda. Occasionally they throw in Israel and the United States, probably just to cover all their bases. This line in support of ISIS is also taken by other such Gulf groups, including much of the Kuwait opposition which also, oddly, rejects any local criticism of the Al Saud even as they blast the local ruling family.

These are Wahhabi ‘activists’ on the social media, although I believe the more prominent ones are doing it from the safety of Western capitals. None of them, as far as I know, has offered to relocate in Raqqa (Syria) or Mosul (Iraq). Mostly the more prominent among them comment openly under their own names. One of the most popular of them goes under the nom de plume of Mujtahidd (various meanings in Arabic: hard working, originator of ideas, interpreter of Shari’a, etc). He is not shy to comment freely, but is too ‘shy’ to write under his own name, which some might think makes him a bit less “hammam” than he claims to be in his brief Twitter bio. But he claims to have access to insider information deep within the Saudi power structure, sort of like those Hollywood gossip columnists of a bygone pre-Internet era.

Good news for the Al Saud: these various ‘opposition’ groups seem like young children, playing around each other rather than with each other. Studiously avoiding crossing paths. Ideological, tribal, and sectarian factors keep them separate and that keeps the Al Saud happy. This division of the opposition is certain to continue. 
Cheers
MHG

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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Lebanon, Uncategorized, Yemen

Revenge of Yemeni Nerds? New ‘Liberators’ Trounce Old Guard Tribal Islamists………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“The Houthis’ rise to power reached a new peak in September, when the group successfully seized control over the capital, Sanaa, following a seemingly effortless armed campaign. Prior to the group’s arrival in Sanaa, the Houthis trailed across Northern Yemen, dislodging and challenging Yemen’s main powerhouse, Islah — a faction that acts as a political umbrella for several groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis — at every corner of every road. Yemen’s former undesirables accomplished what no one thought possible when they defeated Islah’s founding tribal family, the Ahmars, in their ancestral home of Amran, thus throwing the country’s balance of power off its axis. Endowed with a new sense of power, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi presented himself as the vessel of Yemenis’ discontents, the spokesperson of the weak and the poor, the liberator of Yemen…………”

This article makes it seem as if the Houthis were the classic unpopular abused ‘nerds‘ of Yemen who got their revenge in the end. Sort of like some people might think of Hezbollah compared to the bygone Lebanese society preceding the civil war years. Maybe it was so, but it is too early to tell in Yemen. It is always too early to tell how things will turn out in Yemen, just as it is in Afghanistan.

Yemen has had close tribal and trade ties with the Hijaz region of the Arabian Peninsula since pre-Islamic days. It is all mentioned, nay recorded, in the Holy Quran. The Al Saud invaded the country in the 1930s but wisely pulled back after annexing a huge chunk of the northern part of that country.

In 1962 the Imamate monarchy of Hammediddeen was overthrown by military officers, after failed earlier attempts. The new and newly-deposed Imam started a lasting Arab tradition: he sought asylum and military help from his family’s old enemies, the Al Saud. Among those the Saudis enlisted to help reverse the order in Yemen were the predecessors of the Houthis (or now Ansarallah). With Nasserist Egyptian forces helping the Republicans on their border, the Al Saud struck back. The British who were worried about their colony in Aden and the ever-willing humorless Jordanians also helped. Nasser did not win the Yemen war of attrition, but he managed to salvage a compromise out of it: a republican regime in Sana’a, but a conservative one. That Yemen War degraded and tied down the Egyptian military, and any fighting experience gained did not benefit it in facing the shocking Israeli blitzkrieg of 1967.

Saudi media that are owned by the royal princes like Asharq Alawsat, Al-Hayat, and Alarabiya, have now dug up photos and other material from those 1960s days to show that the Houthis are a bunch of savages. Except that they were doing then what the Al Saud have always done, what they still do.

More than forty years later the Al Saud tried for a repeat, sending a military incursion into Yemen for the third time since their kingdom was established. They tried to intervene militarily on the Yemeni border against a Houthi rebellion in 2009. The lightly-armed Houthis handed a resounding defeat to Prince General Field Marshal Khalid Bin Sultan Al Saud and his superbly-armed but inept military. Which means the Saudis and their Emirati sidekicks will now probably limit their intervention to what they can do best: pump more money and sponsor acts of political and other disruption.

But we know that Yemen is not hospitable territory for outside invaders and meddlers. The current Yemen conflict is further complicated by Al-Qaeda (AQAP) imported from Saudi Arabia, local Wahhabis nurtured by Saudi money and ideological education, and Southern separatists. Any foreign power that thinks it can tame the country by military force will be disappointed: just as the Egyptians and the Saudis were disappointed in the past. That is why Arab media speculation on the Gulf about a coming Iranian intervention is mostly propaganda aimed at discrediting the Houthis and their allies. They know that nothing can excite and motivate American policy-makers more than mentioning the dual threats of Al-Qaeda and growing Iranian influence.

Yet the Iranians have had an interest in Yemen in the past, the Persians even controlled the country in ancient times, appointing satraps to rule it. The mullahs know that Yemen pokes uncomfortably right into the Saudi ribcage, so it might be tempting for them. Last year Gulf media reported that a ship carrying weapons from Iran was apprehended off Yemen. But they are probably not reckless enough to intervene in Yemen directly, at least they are not that reckless yet. So far they have avoided direct military intervention even in the more vital conflicts in Syria and Iraq. And it is not clear how things will settle down in Yemen, if and when they do settle down.

But then wars and revolutions and military incursions have their own logic: they can take you in directions you had never intended to go…………

Cheers
MHG

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