Category Archives: GCC

Arab Revolutions, Death Penalty, GCC, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Shi'as, US Foreign Policy

A Kingdom of Beheading and Crucifixion: Wahhabi ‘Justice’ Rides a Tiger in Qatif………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“A well-known Shiite cleric was sentenced to death Wednesday by a court in Saudi Arabia, sparking fears of renewed unrest from his supporters in the kingdom and neighboring Bahrain……….. Al-Nimr had faced charges that include disobeying the ruler, firing on security forces, sowing discord, undermining national unity and interfering in the affairs of a sisterly nation. A statement by the cleric’s family described the verdict as discretionary, saying the judge had the option of ordering a lighter sentence. The family said the verdict sets a “dangerous precedent for decades to come. Prosecutors asked for execution followed by crucifixion…………”

Mr. Obama famously claimed last month that he was “proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with allies in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, etc, etc……….” That is what we can politely call doublespeak: I doubt that privately he is really proud of it: no American can or should be.

So, maybe he will get an invitation to attend this execution of Al Nimr, this beheading and crucifixion, in a public square. It is, after all, a moderate Arab execution, carried on by a tolerant freedom-loving, democracy-seeking family oligarchy that is trying hard to liberate Syria (and probably Iraq) for the joys of Wahhabism. And, more important in this case, it is tinged with the aroma of petroleum and lucrative weapons deals and not an insubstantial dose of the odor of corruption.

Al-Nimr was arrested under suspicious and almost certainly phony pretexts, a common practice of Saudi internal security services. His will be only the latest of many executions by beheading and crucifixion in the Kingdom Without Magic. Yet his case sets a terrible precedent: he is an activist cleric who avoided violence and is very popular with the native Shi’as of the Eastern Province. I have heard and watched him in action: he may be the best and most-stirring Arab orator of recent times. Perhaps that dangerous charisma, so different from the distinctly un-charismatic and uninspiring Al Saud, is what made him such a target of their malevolence. No doubt his harsh sentence also somehow fits into the power struggle raging between Saudi princelings over who will inherit the throne and the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula from the current elderly rulers.

Al Nimr‘s name means Tiger in Arabic. It could be an omen: the princes could be riding a wilder tiger than they think.

(FYI: Death by beheading is the method used in the Wahhabi kingdom. This year so far more than 50 people have been reported beheaded by the sword. Sometimes the convict is also crucified, depending on the crime. So the regime must be truly angry with cleric Al-Nimr. The biggest one-day ‘batch’ of Saudi executions by beheading that I know of occurred in September of 1989. That was when 16 young Kuwaiti Shi’as were executed by beheading in the kingdom. Probably all in one day. It was done North Korean style: there was no prior media report of a trial or an appeal. They were accused of plotting bombings in Mecca, a strange and blasphemous thing for any Muslim to plot. Nobody knows what happened to them after that. To this day the Saudis insist on keeping their remains. They refuse to send the bodies, the remains, back home to their families. The dead remain in forced exile among their executioners).

Cheers
MHG

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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, GCC, Iraq, Jihadis, Syria

Final Iteration of the Free Syrian Army: End of a Wahhabi Shill in Syria……….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“For most of the three years of the Syrian conflict, the U.S. ground game hinged on rebel militias that are loosely affiliated under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, or FSA. Their problems were no secret: a lack of cohesion, uneven fighting skills and frequent battlefield coordination with the al Qaida loyalists of the Nusra Front. This time, Allen said, the United States and its allies will work to strengthen the political opposition and make sure it’s tied to “a credible field force” that will have undergone an intense vetting process. “It’s not going to happen immediately,” Allen said……………..”

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) was from the beginning mainly a creation of foreign Arabs. Almost like the various iterations of the Syrian National Coalition (or Council) that hung around the luxury hotels of Istanbul and Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Keeping close to the sources of money, close to the royal forces of absolute counter-revolution and intolerance in the Arab world.

I called it in 2011 the Free Syrian Salafi Army, knowing were the support and the money and eventually the flow of men was coming from. As the Syrian conflict continued, it became clearer what the FSA was, in spite of royal Arab media on the Persian Gulf raising it to the level o a “liberation” army. They celebrated every colonel and sergeant and corporal who “defected” and hung around the Turkish border.

Yet the FSA became a shill for the true goal of the Wahhabis, and that became clearer with every passing month. It was the others that dominated the field with the FSA doing the cheerleading and excusing. The Jabhat Al-Nusra (I called them from the very beginning Jabhat Al-Qaeda) and the Ahrar Al-Sham, and all the Abu Al-WTF, and Jaish Al-Salafi and Ansar Al McCain, among others. FSA was ineffectual in the field. It became more like a Public Relations arm of the Salafis, defending acts of beheading and desecration and kidnappings of civilians.

Of course, the frustrated Saudis tried a ‘reset’ in Syria in 2013, when they attempted  to create their very own Army of Islam in Syria, along the (humorless) Jordanian border. Probably something like the old Ikhwan Wahhabi militias of their father Sultan King Andulaziz Ibn Saud. But it is hard to imagine any Islamist ‘zealots’ anywhere fighting for the glory of the Al Saud princes and princelings, even if they were well-paid. Predictably it did not get anywhere, so they reportedly focused again on a Jordanian (hence also by necessity also humorless) option.

This is apparently the last and final iteration of the FSA. I am doubtful that this new American ‘reset’ can be as effective as needed against ISIS, especially if the Saudis and Emiratis and Qataris are part of the game, the ‘ground’ game. It is like resorting to “a bit of the hair of the dog that bit you” but much less reliable. They will screw it up again, as only they know how to do, speaking militarily.

Logically, strategically, but probably not politically, the best allies to encircle and defeat the Caliphate of ISIS are the Iraqis and the Syrians. I mean the official armed forces. Do I here a collective gasp from Washington to Riyadh?

Imagine, General Whatishisname, formerly of West Point and Army War College, calling up former enemy Brigadier Qassem Suleimani of Al Quds Brigade and discussing campaign strategy in Iraq and Syria! Suleimani, assuming his pious masters are amenable, will also do as his American counterparts will do. He will grimace and take the call.

Enough to give any potentate in Riyadh or Abu Dhabi a royal tribal kleptocratic infarct. Enough to give many in the newly-to-be-elected U.S Congress some lobbyist-financed and inspired palpitations.

It is unlikely to happen, but the sheer amusement of thinking about it……………

Cheers
MHG

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Bahrain, GCC, Kuwait, Sectarian, Wahhabi

Hypocrisy and Chutzpah on the Gulf: Sectarian Opposition Tokers of the GCC………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“Bahrain witnessed mass pro-democracy protests against the royal family of King Hamad Al-Khalifa in February 2011 before authorities, backed by neighboring countries, crushed the uprising. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf neighbors sent troops into Bahrain in March, reinforcing a crackdown that led to accusations of serious human rights violations…………….”

The Bahrain uprising of 2011-14 and its suppression continue to create tensions among the GCC countries and around the Gulf region. Initially, only the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to a lesser extent Qatar joined the Saudis in sending forces to crush the uprising in 2011. Kuwait, given her own recent experience of foreign invasion and occupation, declined that invitation. That has created a certain amount of tension between certain elements within the two countries.

A certain section of the population in Kuwait, mainly but not exclusively the Shi’as, sympathized with the Bahrain uprising, but the so-called main opposition forces sided firmly with the regime and with the Saudi intervention. By the end of 2011 support for regime or opposition in both Bahrain and Syria were firmly largely based on sectarian factors. This is probably not so surprising, given the strong tribal and Wahhabi and sectarian factors at work.

Now a Shi’a member of the Kuwait parliament has drawn the ire of the Bahrain authorities for making critical statements on the social media. The same assembly member was also reported to support the Syrian Al Assad regime even before the Wahhabis took over the Syrian opposition. Which makes him also somewhat hypocritical. He sparred briefly on Twitter with the corpulent foreign minister of Bahrain (another of the Al Khalifa), and this has displeased the Bahrain potentates. So they reportedly complained to the local authorities about this parliamentarian. The local authorities are making the right polite noises about respecting the brotherly and sisterly and neighborly state and by implication its brotherly and sisterly and neighborly little potentates.

So far, so good. Kuwait is one rare Gulf state were political debate and controversy have been usually a guaranteed part of public life since before independence. So far without much sisterly or brotherly or neighborly interference. But another interesting factor has been the position of the Kuwaiti ‘opposition’. What I would call the tribal Islamist Wahhabi-liberal opposition, because these three strains dominate and lead it.
They have been noisily demanding more rights of free speech in front of the world media, right? No, not so fast. Many of their more prominent members have always supported the repression in Bahrain and the absolute Saudi oligarchy. Now they have sprung again on social media to demand that the government crack down on those who criticize these foreign governments. (Some but not all of their influential members are also sympathizers and supporters of such humanitarian groups as Al-Nusra and ISIS and other assorted cutthroats in Iraq and Syria. But that is another issue).

Cheeky monkeys: they want the same government that they complain is stifling their own right of dissent to ban criticism of foreign governments, albeit sisterly and brotherly and neighborly governments. Can it be the tribal factor? Can it be the Wahhabi factor? Can it be the sectarian factor? Can it be all of the above? Yes, it can………….
It could be hypocrisy and chutzpah, probably on both sides, rolled in one joint and smoked with regional prejudice……….
Cheers
MHG

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Arab Revolutions, France, GCC, NATO, Syria, US Foreign Policy

France Joins McCain and Arab Qumquats: Libyan Strategy to be used in Syria……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“(French President Francois Hollande backed the idea following a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier in the day. “(The president) insisted on the need to avoid massacres in the north of Syria. He gave his support to the idea proposed by President Erdogan to create a buffer zone between Syria and Turkey to host and protect displaced people,” read a statement from Hollande’s office. It added that the two countries also agreed on the need to give more support to the moderate Syrian opposition to fight Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State group (IS), also known as ISIS or ISIL………………”

Remember that old song that goes “A Fool Never Learns…….“?
NATO created such a bloody Jihadi mess in Libya, while abusing a loophole in the UN Security Council resolution about that country in 2011. Libya is out of the clutches of the Gaddafi police state, but it is now a divided excuse for a country with multiple little civil wars, complete with various Wahhabi Jihadi cutthroats vying for power. Courtesy of France and other NATO powers and the ruling brothers of the United Arab Emirates of Disneyland (UAE) and the Qumquats of Qatar. What can you expect when you invite absolute tribal ruling families to help “liberate” a country and bring it the freedom and democracy that they never allow within their domains?
Now the Arab potentates and their eager Western arms merchants want a repeat in Syria. Only a bloodier and messier one and in the heart of the more vital Eastern Mediterranean. A no-fly zone that will almost certainly be expanded and used to favor the “moderate Wahhabis” among the Syrian opposition. Which is why it will never pass a United Nations smell test, a vote: it will have to be unilateral NATO action with some trumped-up foreign Arabs for window-dressing.
FYI: effectively there are now only three classes of Syrian opposition: bad plain-vanilla Wahhabis, badder Wahhabis, and the baddest (truly murderous) Wahhabis. Remember the Hobson’s Choice analogy.

Brilliant, Francois, you deserve to be up there with Sarkozy and Hillary and Blair and McCain and the oil princes. I would have thought you were concerned about the new crop of Beaujolais Nouveau arriving next month more than about Gulf royal weapons contracts.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Cinema, Finance, GCC, History, New York, Waldorf Astoria

From Beijing and the Gulf to Manhattan and Paris and Rocky Mountains: Look Who is Coming………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Agence France-Presse and other agencies reported this morning that Hilton Hotels is selling sells the Waldorf Astoria to a Chinese firm for $1.95 bn. It took a (proverbial? cliche?) few seconds to register, but the Waldorf? I mean you can’t get any more historical American than John Jacob Astor and the mountain men and the Fur Trade. Who would have thunk only a few years ago that the venerable (that is what they call them now) Manhattan institution will be sold to a bunch of Chinese oligarchs and People’s Liberation Army functionaries.

Then only a couple of years ago reports came out of some Saudi prince buying the Le Crillon in Paris. I had stayed there once for three days, and of course I did not pay for it: it was a paid official business trip, otherwise I could not have afforded it. Then the Qataris have been buying other Paris properties even before they were admitted into the Francophone countries (about two or three Qataris probably speak French but money makes up for any deficiency).

Not to be outdone, the Emirati (UAE) potentates have been buying British sports clubs and any horses and mules and stables that are for sale across England. Come to think of it, Abu Dhabi has been buying almost anything else that is English and for sale (be it nailed or not). Even the upstart robber shaikhs of Bahrain have been known to use their ill-gotten loot to dabble in British properties.

All this is against the trend in the past couple of decades. Even the Mafia’s hold on Las Vegas gambling has faded in recent years, or so the reports say. At least since Francis Ford Coppola wisely gave up on a fourth sequel of the Corleone saga (the third one stank to Sicily and back).

Speaking of oligarchies and potentates and globalization. How come the Russians and their fabled petroleum and gas oligarchs have not been snapping up Western hotels and sports clubs and horses and department stores? Could it be that they knew ‘the sanctions’ were coming?

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Britain, GCC, Yemen

Caledonia and Yemen and GCC: Of Petroleum and That Other Amber Liquid……….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Scotland voted last month to remain within the United Kingdom. Financial markets and governments sighed of relief. President Obama and European leaders sighed of relief. Imagine the demands and pressures Catalonia and Corsica and Texas and possibly Mississippi would have made and escalated in order not to secede? Think of Texas applying to rejoin Mexico and Mississippi reviving some old, er, local ad hoc non-laws.

But the most affected potentates were not in Europe. They were disappointed in the Middle East. The Saudi princes were hoping that an oil-rich independent Scotland would make a good replacement to reinvigorate the failed projects of joining improbable states like Morocco and the Humorless Kingdom of Jordan to the Gulf Cooperation Council.

My unstable Riyadh reporter claims the king was ready to dispatch a gaggle of princes, led by the trio of Saud and Turki and Bandar to meet with Mr. Salmond. She claims they were to extend an invitation for the new State of Caledonia to join the Saudi club, after appointing an appropriate monarch from among the right tribe, of course. And they would have to settle a thorny issue of a certain amber liquid product that Scotland is famous for. The good news is that many of the princes and potentates are closet fans of the same amber liquid, even if they flog citizens who are caught with it.

For some reason they never think of Yemen, right next door, now dubbed a failed country in which they have invested millions in aid and other types of expenses. Not when they seek marriage partners, or maybe it is just domestic partners. It is now debatable whether Yemen is now a failed state in spite of the money the princes and potentates poured into it, or because of it. Did they pour in too little too late? Was the money too little for the people of Yemen but too much for the tribal elders like the Al Ahmar and others to ignore?

How about extending royal invitations to Malaysia or Maldives or Vanuatu? I mean, with these new additions, who needs the troublesome Qatari upstarts and their Muslim Brotherhood appendix?

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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

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

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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

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

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

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

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, GCC, Yemen

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

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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

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

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

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

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

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

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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

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

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

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

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, GCC, North Korea, Yemen

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

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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