Category Archives: Arabian Peninsula

Anthropology, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Iran, Tribes

Clarification of the Gruntgrunt Tribe (With No Flag) of the Gulf……….

   

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Re. my earlier post on Anthropology and the stone-age weapons trade between Europe and the Persian Gulf. I just want to emphasize that this was just fanciful speculation. There is no such tribe as the Gruntgrunt tribe in the Gulf region, not that I know of. It is a generic “tribe” name that does not refer to any existing tribe that I know of, not necessarily. I apologize if I stepped over any tribal sensibilities (or on any tribal senselessness or insensibility, which is probably more likely).
FYI: the largest tribe in the Gulf region is not on the Arabian Peninsula. It is the Bakhtiari tribe in Iran that numbers more than a million. This is true, although Iran is not a ‘tribal’ society, except for the ruling Mullah tribe. I was not referring to them either with the Gruntgrunt thingy.
Cheers
mhg

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Anthropology, Arabian Peninsula, Weapons deals

Stone-Age Military Industrial Complex: Eurpeans and Gruntgrunt Tribe of the Gulf…………….

   

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“The date when stone-age humans first invented the lethal technology of spears and arrows has been set back many thousands of years with the discovery of small stone blades dating to 71,000 years ago. Archaeologists believe the “bladelets” were used as the sharp tips for arrows or spears and were made by a relatively sophisticated technique involving the heat treatment of stone before shaping the final cutting edges. The fine stone blades were excavated from a prehistoric site called Pinnacle Point on the southern coast of South Africa and are between 6,000 and 11,000 years older than the previous oldest known samples of spear and arrow blades, scientists said. The discovery suggests that the invention of lethal projectile weapons came far earlier in the course of human prehistory than previously realised and that, once invented, the knowledge was passed down the generations, according to a study in Nature led by Curtis Marean of Arizona State University..……………..”

Everybody loves Anthropology, no matter what their major. Well, maybe there are exceptions: some ayatollahs, Wahhabi clerics, Orthodox priests, Salafis, Muslim Brothers, and most U.S. Republican Congressmen, among others.
Do you think they did in those days what they do now? Do you think leading Western cavemen from Europe traveled to the Middle East peddling their axes and stone (obsidian) spears to our leading cavemen of the ruling “Gruntgrunt” tribe? Is it possible that someone who looked like Mr.Cameron, all hairy and clad in animal skin (no underwear of course) walked to the Gulf to sell sharpened stones attached to pieces of wood as well as rock-encrusted clubs as defensive weapons? And what about ‘crowd control’? There was no tear gas in those days, no stun weapons. Did he advise the use of human waste as the second best thing to tear gas? Use of “stink bombs” as opposed to the modern version of crowd control weapons?
Did he advise the leading cave-men that, after bashing their fellow cave–men’s (and cave–women’s) brains with his clubs, they ought to start thinking about considering the possibility of looking into the idea of perhaps allowing them to entertain thoughts of being allowed to tell them that they stink and perhaps ought to dunk themselves in the Gulf waters once in a while.
Fanciful but interesting speculation. No?
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC

GCC Politics and Economics: the Visionary and the Petty and the Corrupt, the ‘Nahasa’ Mindset………….

   

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“Indications of Qatar’s influence continued to surface after the fall of the regime. In March 2011, Khairat al-Shater—then the Muslim Brotherhood’s nominee for president—visited Qatar for several days to discuss “coordination between the Brotherhood, the Freedom and Justice Party, and Qatar in the upcoming period,” according to the Egyptian Independent, implying that Doha had vested interests in the outcome of Egypt’s democratic elections. Additionally, a popular Al Jazeera television host—Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Qatari national of Egyptian origin—is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood……….. In Tunisia, too—the birthplace of the Arab Awakening—many have attributed the Islamist Ennahda party’s success to an infusion of Qatari petro-dollars. The fact that Prime Minister Rashid al-Ghannouchi’s first post-election international visit was to Qatar—and that his son-in-law, formerly a researcher for Al Jazeera in Doha, became his Foreign Minister—has further stoked suspicions about ties between the Gulf emirate and the Ennahda party. The speculation has even led to protests in Tunisia against Qatari interference in Tunisia’s affairs. By contrast, Ghannouchi is not even allowed in Saudi Arabia………..”

The Qatari rulers can finance all the Muslim Brotherhood movements they want: they have a lot of money and only a few hundred thousand people who never question them. Financially, Qatar is the super-power on the Arab side of the Gulf now.

Qatar is like Kuwait used to promise to be a few decades ago, but never delivered. Except much more so. The Kuwaiti elite (both the political elite and economic elite, both private and public sectors) were always “small” and “petty” and have always thought small and petty. They were never generous with ideas, never bold and never visionary and were stingy with development projects. The local term for this ubiquitous “smallness and pettiness” is “Nahasa“. The political classes are still short on vision and boldness: in fact it may be worse now than decades ago. To this day Kuwait City, my birthplace, is full of huge vacant tracts of undeveloped land and hardly anyone lives in the center. Unfortunate for a country with financial resources and a large educated class.

Saudi Arabia has the size and the population but Qatar has a huge money advantage over Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are hard pressed to meet the needs of their 14-15 million citizens (the rest of the 24 million are temporary expatriates). The Saudis have too many princes, thousands of them, who have first call on the country’s resources, whether oil revenues or land. There is little left to save for the post-oil era and to satisfy the people’s needs and satisfy the greed of the many princes. (Do I need to refer you to my post on the example of the fortune left by the late Prince Sultan Bin Self-Made?). Hence the Saudi hands in spending money abroad are restricted by their fear of domestic unrest. They need to spend more on the people and less on the princes, but who is brave enough to propose that to the elderly king? Who will “bell the cat”? Personne! They keep spending on the increasing number of princes and princesses and they keep spending on their Salafi outposts in the Middle East and around the world.
At some point things will boil over, the people will explode. There are already signs of rebellion, and not just in the Eastern Province (Qatif, Awamiya). It is a matter of time: the fear is receding in the Arabian Peninsula. People will feel free to speak  again, just as Arabs were for thousands of years in the Peninsula before this theocratic monarchy took over less than a century ago.

Both the Qataris and Emiratis are claimed by some Arab autocrats have one “advantage” over a place like Kuwait (it is also a disadvantage): the Saudi king and the Qatari Emir are truly absolute monarchs. They can decide whatever they please. They can vote on their own projects and approve them. They can also screw up royally and steal (which they do) without anyone questioning them. Nice racket, no?
Cheers
mhg
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Arabian Peninsula, Corruption, Saudi Arabia

Revisiting “Gangs of Arabia: Oil Fiefdoms and Turf Wars, Ivanhoe and Isaac of Qatif”……………

   

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I posted about this last year. I am reproducing part of it here although there have been some “cosmetic” changes of names. The main thrust of what I wrote then remains, the repression goes on, the robbery endures. The Crown Prince at the time, Prince Sultan is dead, I should say the “former former” crown prince is dead. The former next in line to be crown prince, Prince Nayef, in fact became crown prince for a few months. Then he died too. He was the former crown prince. The former next in line at the time was Prince Salman; now he is the current crown prince. Nobody has been yet appointed as a second next in line, or a third next in line. The princes are positioning themselves and their sons for the fight over the throne, and it will be a hell of a fight. Get your popcorn and soda, turn off your cellphone, and wait. And enjoy it unfold over the next few months, when King Abdullah dies and the struggle intensifies for power and for the billions of dollars of money that are annually stolen from the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula:
 “Gangs of Arabia:
Oil Fiefdoms and Turf Wars, Ivanhoe and Isaac of Qatif………

The clock is ticking and time is running out for the combatants to position themselves. Here is a summary of the turf wars and how the Saudi pie is being split now among the “next” generation (meaning those in their 70’s and up):
1. The crown prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz is seriously ill and highly unlikely to become king. He spends his time between an undisclosed location at home and American hospitals and Moroccan recuperation. He has appointed his son Khaled as deputy defense minister, meaning he is to inherit the ministry as well as becoming the minister of aviation and inspector general (recalling Danny Kaye now).
2. Prince Nayef Bin Abdulaziz is next in line and almost certainly the next king. He is a seriously conservative man and is against any type of elections. He famously said a couple of years ago that “Elections can never produce good people of the quality that we appoint” (and that was long before the Tea Party gained control of the U.S. Congress!). He is the minister of interior, in charge of police and security and secret police and terrorism and arrests and prisons and prisoners without charges and whatever goes in the dark cells. He has appointed his son Mohammed as a deputy minister, meaning he is to inherit the ministry when the father either becomes king or dies, whichever comes first.
3. Then there is the king himself and he is no slouch when it comes to his interests and the interests of his children. Abdullah was head of the National Guard, a parallel army, since forever. Last year he appointed one of his sons to replace him as head of the Guard. Thus the king has staked the permanent claim of ‘his’ branch of the al-Saud clan.
4. That leaves the Foreign Ministry, forever headed by Prince Saud al-Faisal. He is reportedly ailing without a clear heir. At one time there were two apparent claimants competing for the ministry, or at least there seemed to be, until King Abdullah appointed his son Abdulaziz as Deputy Foreign Minister, thus staking the claim of his own ‘branch’ of the al-Saud clan. Now Abdulaziz has the inside track as compared to Prince Turki al-Faisal brother of the current minister (and the wittiest prince, at least in public) and Prince Bandar Bin Sultan (of the famous BAE Systems bribery case that Tony Blair covered up). The foreign ministry is interesting because has become an area of unexpected competition and turf war. I had assumed it was the private reserve of the al-Faisal clan until Bandar made his move and then Abdullah appointed his own son. Apparently Bandar is a restless type, for he has reportedly made many moves inside and outside the kingdom and was allegedly involved in some palace plots. Apparently all the BAE Systems bribe money has given him more time and funds to pursue his ‘hobbies’. He was even reported at one time to be active in Iraq (not physically, but financially among the Sunni tribes and others). The foreign ministry truly reflects the current territorial infighting among the al-Saud branches: if Abdullah dies before the minister leaves, his son is not guaranteed the top job.
What is at stake is:……………………………..”
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Corruption, GCC

Arab Forum on (Selective) Asset Recovery: Gorillas and Chimps and Grand Robberies…………..

   

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“Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs Michael Froman and Attorney General Eric Holder will lead a high level delegation consisting of officials from the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and the National Security Staff to Doha, Qatar from September 11-13, for the inaugural Arab Forum on Asset Recovery. The United States is co-organizing the Forum with the government of the State of Qatar………. Corruption has been a core public grievance in the region, and the United States has worked closely with the new governments and citizens of Arab countries in transition as they fight corruption and seek justice by recovering stolen assets….…………..”

“The inaugural meeting of the Arab Forum on Asset Recovery will be hosted in Doha, Qatar on September 11 to 13, 2012. The meeting is co-organized by Qatar and the United States presidency of the G8, with technical support from the StAR initiative. The Forum will bring together the G8, Deauville Partners and Regional countries for a multi-faceted effort that raises awareness of effective measures for asset recovery, provides a forum for regional training and discussion of best practices on cases, and identifies country-specific capacity building needs………. The primary objective of the Forum is to start a process of collaboration on the issue of asset recovery in the region, through periodic meetings and other activities……….. provide regional training to practitioners engaged in tracing, freezing, and
recovering the proceeds of corruption.……………..”


Are they serious? Is the purpose to help recovery of stolen assets or is the purpose to teach the attending regimes and rulers how to better hide the assets they have stolen, are still stealing, from their peoples? They invite regimes from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Russia, Lebanon and others to discuss recovery of assets stolen by other despots and oligarchs.
What about billions stolen by absolute tribal ruling clans and their retainers in the Gulf GCC countries? Por ejemplo, just one example, the (very) late Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud left a fortune reported (check my past postings for sources, and also here earlier) at around US $ 220-230 billion (BILLION), give or take a few billions. Forbes Magazine would call it “self-made”: as if he made that fortune from his piggy bank change or from flipping falafel in Riyadh? How about recovering the many other billions stashed by the princes, potentates, and shaikhs?

Are these people out of their collectivefuckingminds? Meeting with the biggest Arab thieves to discuss recovery of money stolen by the smaller Arab thieves of poorer places like Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Libya? The international bureaucrats and Western governments (including the European Union, Canada, and the USA) can sit with straight faces with the grandest thieves of history in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian-American Gulf and discuss recovery of a few millions or maybe a billion stolen elsewhere. What about right there within a short distance from their forum where the potentates of the UAE and the shaikhs of Qatar and other states continue to usurp the people’s wealth? That, the robbery of the peoples of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula by their rulers, is almost certainly the grandest robbery in history.

Yet these organizations and governments ignore the huge smelly gorillas sitting with them in the same room and search for the little chimpanzees and their peanut stash. In that they, the Western powers and the international financial organizations they control, are accomplices in the grandest of robberies.
Maybe it is true: it takes a (big) thief to catch a (smaller) thief.
Cheers
mhg
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Arabian Peninsula, Culture, Saudi Arabia, Science

Saudi Manhattan Project, Tectonic Plates to Hibernate for 100 Years………..

   

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“JEDDAH: An expert ruled out the occurrence of devastating earthquakes in Saudi Arabia over the next 100 years. “Seismic activity underneath Saudi Arabia will remain normal and if any disturbances do occur over the next 100 years, they will not pose any danger as their magnitude will never exceed 4.5 on the Richter Scale,” said Ali Al-Shukri, head of the Astronomical Sciences Department at King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals. The latest tremor registering a magnitude of 4.5 near the Kingdom occurred at an undersea location 181 km off Farasan Island in the Red Sea on Sept. 2.
Satellite images showed that the Arabian tectonic plate and the African plate were moving away from each other, stretching the Earth’s crust and widening the southern end of the Red Sea……………”

Odd, but it almost never quakes in the Arabian Peninsula. It falls just outside the “Seismic Hazard Zone”, although the tip of the UAE is the only exposed part of as an extension of the active Iranian zone (speaking geological, not political). Surrounding regions, like Iran and Turkey get hit frequently and hard, but the Peninsula (and East Africa) is not affected.
This I couldn’t resist: I suspect they are setting the ground for skyscrapers in Mecca and Madinah. And maybe in Jeddah, of course. Manhattan in Hijaz is a possibility, and the potentates are probably salivating at how many pious pilgrims they can squeeze in every year. They have already razed all the historic monuments of Mecca, like the homes of the Prophet and the Sahaba they claim to love and venerate, and replaced them with lucrative hotels, five-six-seven star hotels and shopping malls.
Cheers
mhg
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Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Politics

Bandar the Romantic Royal Jeffersonian: from the Kingdom of Fear to the Home of the Brave…………..

   

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“Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar bin Sultan, 62, fell in love with the United States when he was still a pilot in his country’s air force and took aerobatics training on an American air base. The romance was renewed several years later when he was named his country’s ambassador to Washington, a tenure that lasted 22 years, during which he was a regular guest of both George Bushes and was the only ambassador who was guarded by the U.S. Secret Service. Last week King Abdullah named him director-general of the Saudi Intelligence Agency, replacing Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, on top of his post as secretary general of the National Security Council, which he’s held since 2005. Bandar’s appointment to the most important position in the Saudi security echelons is no coincidence. Aside from the fact that he is very well connected to the kingdom’s leaders (his wife, Haifa, is the daughter of King Faisal who was assassinated in 1975, her brother, Turki al-Faisal, was once head of Saudi intelligence and another brother, Mohammed al-Faisal, is one of the kingdom’s richest men), it seems that the primary reason for his appointment now is that Saudi Arabia is preparing for the next stage in Syria………..” Haaretz (This link was through Google webcache , but it has been rendered in-operable as well)

This WAS a gushing tribute to Prince Bandar Bin Sultan al-Saud (I am so tempted to add ‘al-Yamama al-Money‘ to his name, but that may be seen as disrespectful, so I won’t). It was posted in the Israeli daily Haaretz briefly yesterday, then pulled out quickly. But there is no going back on the Internet, as they say (I am not sure who the hell said that, but somebody must have said it, or ought to have said it).
The piece starts with Bandar “falling in love with America”. That part is easy to understand: I fell in love with America from my first day, nay first hour, as a teenager student arriving in New York City. But I doubt that Bandar fell in love with American values. He did not, of course. You’d think from the piece that he has become such an avid Jeffersonian democrat, which may explain why he seeks to convert his country from the ‘kingdom of fear and no magic” into an imitation of the “land of free and home of the brave”. Except that he and the other princes have no use for a Land of the Free nor for a Home of the Brave in the Arabian Peninsula. They rule and prosper by fear, and fear is becoming a rare commodity in the Arab world these days, from Tunisia all the way to Syria and Bahrain. (No doubt Bandar will also fall in love with Bibi Netanyahu as soon as he meets him, possibly, nay very likely, he already has. By Arab standards Israel is no doubt a free democracy, except that Bandar, being an Arab prince, confuses the leader with the country).
It is possible the piece was pulled because it has many serious errors and omissions. The impression it gives that Bandar helped set American foreign policy is ridiculous, although I have facetiously called him a National Security Adviser of the Bush administration. (There are other reasons as well for pulling the piece, but that is for later). Of all the reasons given in the article for Bandar’s “promotion”, the most important is not mentioned: he is the son of the late crown prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, and in the division of spoils among the elderly al-Saud princes and their clans, this is part of his share of the spoils of the kingdom.
As I sagely clarified in another posting, the kingdom is fast becoming a land of turfs, fiefdoms, and princely principalities. I had succinctly explained the issue in an earlier posting, and in some older writings. I also had posted something about his famous American connections here.

Cheers
mhg
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Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia

The Coming Brawl for Saudi Succession: a Kingdom of Principalities…..……….

   

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“Sons of Princes Sultan and Nayef hold the main posts in the ministries of defence and interior, respectively. The National Guard, which protects oil installations, is a purview of King Abdullah’s own branch; the governorship of the Eastern Province, a giant territory that contains nearly all the kingdom’s hydrocarbons, has been held by a son of King Fahd (Abdullah’s predecessor) for three decades. The recent reshuffle among King Abdullah’s siblings went more smoothly than many had feared; the shift to this next generation will surely be trickier. The kingdom is now a complex, diverse country far removed from the Al Sauds’ Bedouin origins. Lineage and loyalty cannot trump competence for ever. “The Al Sauds’ central nervous system has grown weak,” says a Riyadh lawyer. “They can respond to pain, but not to stimuli like complaints or new ideas.”……… There was no Saudi spring …….…”

Last year I wrote here on Saudi succession in a posting titled: “Saudi Legs and Bellies: Roots of Instability, the Coming Age of Warlord Princes”, sagely noting that:
“All this is part of maneuverings by various branches of the vast Al-Saud clan to position themselves for the coming death of the sons of old king Abdulaziz (Ibn Saud). Besides the various ministries, the senior princes have also staked out the various provinces as their personal fiefdoms. This province system also creates the potential for an eventual “soft” division of the country among the various branches (fukhooth “legs” and butoon “bellies”) of the al-Saud clan. Even the armed forces, the traditionally unified force within the Arab states, are divided into spheres of princely influence (Defense vs. National Guard). The Saudi system of power transfer is inherently unstable, and is very likely to become more so. The “commission of allegiance” (Bay’a) that was supposed to select the rulers reflects the rivalries within the family, which means it is as unstable as the family relations and rivalries. Once the last…….”

This is an ongoing process, with the balance of power shifting with each death of an old king or an octogenarian prince and his replacement with another octogenarian prince. With time the turfs are solidified, the borders of the fiefdoms become semi-permanent. The Arabian Peninsula will eventually become like a confederation of principalities each ruled by the sons and grandsons of one of the sons of the late Ibn Saud. Assuming they will last in power, of course (perhaps a big assumption beyond the medium term). Yet who will dominate the two biggest prizes: the oil-rich Eastern Province on the Gulf and the Hijaz, homeland of the prophet and birthplace of Islam?
Cheers
mhg
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Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabian Royal Foreplay: Money and Power but No Glory……….

    

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Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz died in Switzerland where he had gone for medical treatment. He was also minister of interior and his son was deputy minister of interior. Previous Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz had died eight months earlier while abroad for medical treatment. He was also minister of defense and his son Khalid was deputy minister of defense while his other son Bandar was chief of National Security. Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz is the new Crown Prince and Minister of Defense, one of his sons runs the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat for him. Look for other sons of his to rise in the hierarchy. King Abdullah was lucky in that he did not go abroad for medical treatment while crown prince (I believe he went as king which apparently makes a difference). Salman was overseas in Europe when Nayef died and had to rush back home. I bet Salman will never go overseas for medical treatment, not until after the mandatory dangerous first eight months have passed.
This is all a warm up, the foreplay for the real engagement to come. That is when all the older sons of Abdulaziz have died off and the next generation of these thousands of princes face off over who gets to control the money and the power (sorry, no glory there).
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Middle East Women, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Election Debates, Wild Women Drivers, the Mufti and a Catholic Riyal…….

 

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Egypt held its first ever presidential debate this week. I watched part of it on the internet. Many Arabs watched, fascinated by this very first election debate in any Arab state. The excitement was so widespread that many Saudis wished they could have their leaders debate before they take whatever office they inherit.
The so-called “liberal” wing of the al-Saud dynasty were also excited. So-called “liberal” because they think that eventually women should be able to drive cars, as soon as the king and the mufti agree that: (a) they have enough brains to handle it (I know women in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf region have more or better brains than men: that is why university requirements are much lower for men), and (b) that they have enough sense not to have intercourse with the first driver who blows his horn at them on the road, they all hasten to add.
Meanwhile it is possible that the princes are discussing borrowing the Egyptian experience by having them debate each other to decide who gets what job (king, first prime minister, second prime minister, minister of defense, interior, etc etc). The idea is that the princes would debate each other behind closed doors, that ordinary mortal folks will not get to watch their betters vie for the jobs they were born to get. If no one is voted to have won a debate, rival princes being rival princes, they would flip a riyal coin (head or tail) to decide the winner. The Mufti (Shaikh Al Al Shaikh) would flip the coin according to Wahhabi tradition, just to make it all legit and kosher.

(The Mufti Al probably hasn’t a clue as to the infidel origins of the Riyal. He probably doesn’t know that the “Riyal”, as well as the “Rial” come from the Spanish “Real” meaning “Royal”. He probably rather not know that the coin of the Wahhabi realm bears a Catholic name, that it refers to one or two of their Most Catholic Majesties of Spain (could even be Fernando y Ysabel).
Cheers
mhg


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