Category Archives: GCC

Anti-Semitism, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, US Foreign Policy

Human Rights and GCC Bureaucrats: Bahrain Rulers and Mr. Malinowski and Mr. Hood………

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter “The US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor has been slammed by GCC Secretary-General Abdullatif Al-Zayani, for his interference in Bahrain’s internal affairs. Al-Zayani voiced his “dismay” over the attitude of Tom Malinowski, who met with only one segment of political society during his official tour of duty to Bahrain this week. “This kind of interference in the GCC’s domestic affairs is a violation of diplomatic norms and the principles of good neighborliness,” said Al-Zayani in a statement. GCC officials said that safeguarding Bahrainis’ rights is the responsibility of its leaders…………”

This Al-Zayani chap said: “safeguarding Bahrainis’ rights is the responsibility of its leaders.” This is like saying that safeguarding the chickens in the coop is the responsibility of the fox. That safeguarding the wounded man is the responsibility of the hungry vultures flying circles over him. The top bureaucrat of the GCC, who is a Bahraini nominee with the right tribal and sectarian credentials, is dutifully angry with Mr. Malinowski. The regime in Bahrain is angry with Mr. Malinowski, as are the Saudi princes and the whole Wahhabi establishment. So he was invited to leave the captive island country in the Gulf. Last time they were angry publicly with a U.S. official, it was an embassy official who talked about ‘human rights’ a couple of years ago. Ludovic Hood was harassed and attacked publicly by regime minions and propagandists for having “Jewish roots” and a “Jewish wife”. Mr. Hood was also charged by regime minions with the standard charge used by the Al Khalifa family against all dissidents: being a supporter of Hezbollah and an enemy of their version of Motherhood and Apple Pie and the Despotic Way of Life.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab League, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, GCC, Humor, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

The Case for Splitting the Arab States: Wahhabistan and Huthistan and Rafidhistan……….

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Much has been written and said in the past ten years about the potential for splitting Iraq. The argument is mainly that the sects and ethnic groups cannot reach a deal to remain together peacefully within the British-created borders of Iraq. The Kurds want to split away, they are just waiting for when the moment is right (to quote the famous TV ad). The Sunni southwest region is in many ways more like northern Saudi Arabia than Iraq, at least in a tribal sense. There has also been talk of a split of Syria into Alawi, Sunni, and Wahhabi parts (perhaps a Kurdish one as well). We can extend that to some other Arab states; why only Syria and Iraq and Sudan (as happened a couple of years ago) or Somalia (which is bound to happen)? Let us explore a few other cases:

  • Saudi Arabia: King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud invaded and annexed several regions to his own Nejdi kingdom in the 20th century. His kingdom can now be divided into three states. The Nejd area will form a Wahhabistan which will keep the current name of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (if they don’t like Wahhabistan). The Hijaz will form another state where they all speak the same dialect of Arabic and say things like ‘ya shaikh’ and ‘ikhtishi’ and ‘koweyiss’ (meaning ‘good’). The smallest state will be along the coast of the Persian-American Gulf, where most of the Shi’as live. The southern part will join the next state on my list in northern Yemen.
  • Yemen: the northern most part of Yemen will annex the southern regions that had been usurped by Saudi King Abdulaziz in 1930s. It will be renamed Huthistan. The central part, the rest of the old Yemen will become “Yemen”. Southern Yemen which lost its independence in 1990 to become part of Yemen will regain its freedom and will be renamed the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen Southern Arabia.
  • Bahrain: Shi’as and some others have been in protest mode for more than three years, seeking equality in politics and economics. The Al Khalifa rulers and their tribal and Salafi allies are determined to deny them that right. So why not divide Bahrain into two mini parts: Manama and Muharraq to become one country (perhaps forming one new Saudi province), and the rest, including the neglected villages and townships could become another state of its own. This Shi’a part could be called the Rafidhi State and join the GCC as such. Or maybe it can join the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the eighth emirate. Okay, maybe I will send a text message to the shaikh, sorry king, suggesting it (with a copy forwarded to the Saudi king since it will be his decision to make).
  • Libya: is already divided into at least two parts: let us keep it that way.
  • Morocco: no change, except that the king will have to give up the Sahrawi region.
  • Egypt: Egypt has had nearly the same borders for thousands of years, the only Arab country to have this distinction. There are no major tribes or tribal divisions, although there are now deep religious divisions. So Egypt will probably remain the same: bored to death under a boring military ruler presiding over the same old bureaucracy, but united. The Sinai will remain a wild violent outpost and the south a place of violent clashes among the clans over women and cattle and religion.
  • UAE: the Abu Dhabi shaikhs have got the rest of them by the balls. Only Dubai is rich enough to draw the line.
  • Qatar: maybe it will join Turkey as a new Ottoman outpost.

(The Arab League will them change from a league or 20 some despots to a League of Forty Thieves. And I am almost serious about this, almost).

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, US Foreign Policy

Bahrain: the Usual Arab Tale of Corruption, Repression, and Sectarianism………

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

“Black and yellow concrete barricades block the roads entering this wealthy Sunni enclave, where foreign-born Sunni soldiers in armored personnel carriers guard the mansions of the ruling family and the business elite. Beyond the enclave are impoverished villages of Shiites, about 70 percent of Bahrain’s more than 650,000 citizens, where the police skirmish nightly with young men wielding rocks and, increasingly, improvised weapons like homemade guns that use fire extinguishers to shoot rebar.…………. Pearl Square, where demonstrators staged a weekslong sit-in three years ago, has now been turned into a permanent military camp, its namesake statue demolished, in a grim memorial of the day in March 2011 when vehicles and troops from the neighboring Sunni monarchies rolled across the causeway from Saudi Arabia to crush the Shiite-dominated movement for democracy……………”

The turmoil in Bahrain is not just about discrimination and what many locals consider a form of apartheid: all that could be taken care of by an elected parliament, something that Bahrain does not have. Another major motivator is unchallenged corruption by the Al Khalifa ruling clan and their tribal and business partners. Bahrain is a small island country that had an oil boom before the other Gulf countries, even before Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. But the oil resources of Bahrain are limited and there is now less for the ruling oligarchs to control and abuse. A real estate boom tied to the finance and tourism industries made many of the potntates and their cronies rich. But that has slowed down in recent years, forcing the Saudis to encourage a move by some GCC and Arab institutions to Manama.

Now there is intense competition as the rulers use more of their limited resources to import thousands of foreign mercenaries from places like Pakistan, Jordan, Syria, and others to augment the Saudi forces dealing with the continued uprising (now in its fourth year). The fact that the U.S. Fifth Fleet continues to be stationed in Manama is now widely taken as an implicit approval by Washington of the repression: a Saudi military base and an American naval base in the same restless neighborhood may inevitably lead to certain conclusions. There are now signs that some fringe elements of the opposition may be meeting regime violence with their own low-level sporadic violence.
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Saudi Arabia

Political Instability and Musical Chairs in Riyadh: Erratic Saudi Royal Chess……

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
“Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has tapped the former deputy defense minister to lead the kingdom’s intelligence services and revitalized the political career of a former spy chief and longtime ambassador to the United States by naming him to a new senior advisory post. The moves come as the world’s largest oil exporter watches the rapid military gains made by al-Qaida-inspired militants in neighboring Iraq with growing concern. The king named Prince Khalid bin Bandar to the post of chief of general intelligence in a decree Monday, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. Khalid was relieved of his post as deputy defense minister on Saturday, barely six weeks after he was appointed. Khalid was previously the governor of the Riyadh region, an important post he assumed in February 2013 that involves overseeing the capital and provides opportunities for direct contact with top officials and visiting dignitaries. He is the son of Prince Bandar, one of the eldest surviving sons of King Abdulaziz……………”

The Saudi government used to be considered one of the most stable in the Arab world. Not anymore: it has become quite unstable in the past two years. The instability among the top royal officials is partly related to the continuous death of the elderly princes (and kings). The kingdom has had three crown princes in about as many years. This also partly reflects a jockeying for position among the rival branches of the Al Saud family (eventually at some point in the future they will be called thighs and bellies and whatever).

The current King Abdullah, possibly on his last leg, has been moving his relatives, nephews, even brothers about like so many pawns on a chess board, (but perhaps more dispensable). The Chief of Intelligence position especially has been moved around a lot, and within short periods. The troublesome Prince Bandar has also been moved around a lot, a reflection of their belief that he might be useful somewhere, in spite of his past failures in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Prince Turki is now also used as a kind of unofficial roving ambassador to send out ‘harder’ messages from the Al Saud family to the outside world. Messages about their positions regarding Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Israel. The quick return of Egypt to the Saudi sphere has been the one singular success in the past year.

Many believe that King Abdullah is positioning things and personalities in order to enhance the chances of his son Met’eb of becoming a future king. Met’eb is reported to be in intense rivalry for the prize with Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, who inherited the Interior Ministry which was the private fiefdom of his late father. No doubt crown prince Salman is also pushing for his own side of the family, but his is perceived as the weaker side.

These internal Al Saud moves are making an interesting game to watch. An interesting subplot of the unfolding Arab history of this decade.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Economics, Egypt, GCC

Will Tony Blair get The Prize for Advising Sisi on the Economics of Counter-Revolution?……..

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

“Tony Blair has agreed to advise the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who came to power in a military coup last year, as part of a programme funded by the United Arab Emirates that has promised to deliver huge “business opportunities” to those involved, the Guardian has learned. The former prime minister, now Middle East peace envoy, who supported the coup against Egypt’s elected president Mohamed Morsi, is to give Sisi advice on “economic reform” in collaboration with a UAE-financed taskforce in Cairo – a decision criticised by one former ally. The UAE taskforce is being run by the management consultancy Strategy&, formerly Booz and Co, now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers, to attract investment into Egypt’s crisis-ridden economy at a forthcoming Egypt donors’ conference sponsored by the oil-rich UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia…………..”

Mr. Blair, the Old New Labor Neoconservative leader, has a knack for attracting dictatorial and oligarchy talent. Not only does he find them, but he can also press the right buttons on them. You can say if you were rude and crude, which I am not, that he knows how to find their G-spot. From the Persian Gulf to Central Asia and North Africa, he has been advising them and lobbying on their behalf. Remember his famous squashing of British Serious Frauds Office (SFO) investigation into the $2 billion bribe paid by BAE Systems to Saudi Prince Bandar for a weapons deal? Remember his dealings with the Lat Colonel Gaddafi on behalf of J P Morgan? All these and more were IOUs that he collected from the potentates.

All that and his saying the right words, his incessant warmongering in the Middle East, from Syria through to Iran and beyond. The kind of talk that makes the Wahhabi princes and their Salafi allies salivate at the prospect of American boys and girls going to war on their behalf.

Well, like yet another bad dream he is back in the Middle East, after years of pretending to be looking into the Palestinian-Israeli issue but achieving nothing. He has been selected by the Saudi and Emirati and other Gulf overlords of Egypt to advise the newest strongman of Egypt on the ‘economy’. Who knows, maybe Tony will get a Nobel Prize in Economics: anyone who can solve or reduce or ease Egypt’s economic problems would deserve the prize. And if he doesn’t, there is always the King Whatishisface and Shaikh Whatishisass prize as consolation.

And you know what I think? I think we will see riots back on the streets of Cairo, once the people realize that they have been robbed of ll what they thought they had gained in 2011. That they have been led by their political leaders and opinion-makers on a circle back to where they started in January 2011. That what they experienced has not been a revolution but a cruel hoax.

(FYI: Here is what I tweeted when I read about it last night: ” Oh sh-t, oh sh-t, oh sh-t…………. hired to advise Generalisimo Al on economic matters. Poor Egypt………” )

 

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Al Aqeda, GCC, Iran, Jihad, Saudi Arabia, Sectarian, Terrorism, Wahhabi

A Wahhabi Neocon Explanation for the Rise of ISIS and other Terrorists…………

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

“There has never been any doubt in my mind that elements within Iran’s security services have facilitated ISIS,” Col. Derek Harvey told Foreign Policy, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, a terrorist network-cum-jihadist army that has now taken over territory in Syria and Iraq that, when combined, is roughly the size of Jordan. “When given opportunities to interdict, or have an effect, [the Iranians] have refrained.” Harvey, a retired Army intelligence officer and senior Central Command advisor, was emphatic that any solution for containing the rising threat of ISIS, an al Qaeda breakaway group, must foreclose on the possibility of U.S.-Iranian collusion. ………… Intelligence reporting during this period, Welch added, suggested that Iran was indeed funding “al Qaeda-type elements” in Iraq as well as Shiite militias such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah, both of which are now said to be playing a major role in fortifying central Baghdad and Shiite-predominant cities and towns in southern Iraq. Iranian documents captured by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2007 did indeed state that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force (IRGC) was helping Sunni jihadists along with Shiite militias ……………”

This Neocon piece is closely following the Saudi Wahhabi marketed script on Iraq and Syria and the origins of the ISIS and al-Nusra Front. The Saudi strategy has been to divert attention from the fact that these terrorist groups and militias are Wahhabi movements with roots close to the power structure in Riyadh. The fact that they are the products of the triple alliance of: the Wahhabi religious doctrine which distorts Islam, the Saudi educational system, and Saudi oil money.

The extensive campaign to absolve Wahhabism from the modern rise of terrorism has been so audacious as to try and blame some of its primary victims. Some elements of American media and retired former officials and generals have been pushing this as well. Some Neocons are happy to adopt this even if it rewrites the history of Al Qaeda to blame anyone but their Arab allies.

Sectarian fault lines in the Arab world should exist, if they must, only in a few countries of the region from the eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf. That is where the populations are divided, that is where Iranians have made political and economic inroads into Arab territory. That is also where the Wahhabis have counterattacked with the only weapon they can rely on: the sowing of sectarian division and hatred. That is why the Wahhabi Salafis and their allies quickly took over the Syrian uprising in 2011 and made it into a sectarian civil war, drawing in Lebanese factions from both sides (and not only Hezbollah as is commonly misrepresented in Western media). That is also why the Wahhabis sent their mercenary forces to help crush the Bahrain uprising and worked hard to paint it as a sectarian movement inspired by Iran. That is also why the Wahhabi princes early on painted Iraqi politics as purely sectarian (they are sectarian but no more so than in most other Arab countries, and less than in some like Saudi Arabia for example). In doing so, and in sending their money and terrorists to commit mass murder in Iraq, they helped widen the Iraqi sectarian and political divide.

Even in the countries of North Africa, where the sectarian issue should be irrelevant, where there are few Shi’as and the population is mainly divided among Sunni Muslims and some recently converted to Wahhabism. In Egypt, now fully back under the Saudi sphere of influence, much of the political and religious classes occasionally tend to ignore their serious major problems and go sectarian: they profess that they are facing a Shi’a threat. That is the way to conform to this new Wahhabi Arab age. That same trend now extends west from Libya to Morocco.

Is this Wahhabi sectarianism spreading to Washington? Congressmen and senators and (mostly former) generals are eagerly taking sides. Will we soon hear senators discussing comparative Shi’a and Wahhabi theology like so many mullahs and shaikhs and imams?

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Economics, GCC, Labor, Qatar, Trafficking, United Arab Emirates

Middle East Focus: Asian Dreams and Labor Nightmares on an Asian Gulf………

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

“He could hardly wait to leave Qatar. Ganesh has promised himself to never again set foot in the desert. On this spring evening, though, Ganesh’s trip back home still lies before him. He is sprawled out exhausted on his bed on the outskirts of Doha after finishing his shift. The room is just 16 square meters (172 square feet) — and provides shelter to 10 workers. With the fan broken and the window sealed shut with aluminum foil, the air is thick and stuffy…………. On the map, the area is simply labeled “industrial zone.” But it is home to the thousands of faceless workers, the place where they eat and sleep. In Ganesh’s building, 100 workers are housed on three floors, far away from the glittery hotels in the city center. They live on the edge of a dream that the sheikhs want to make reality……………….”

The same also applies to laborers from other places, like Egypt and the Sub-continent and East Africa. Temporary foreign laborers form about 90% of Qatar’s population: almost the same percentage that they form of the population of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). So you see why they are indispensable to these countries. Not only do these foreigners work on creating buildings and roads, on the supply side: they are also needed to create the demand for the goods and services. They are needed to buy much of the consumer goods the local merchants import, they are needed to transfer in remittances billions of dollars that keep the local banks operating, and foreigners are needed to fill these buildings that are owned by the princes and potentates and their business allies. Otherwise the newly erected towns between Doha and Abu Dhabi will look like ghost towns; they did not exist a couple of decades ago.

Cheers

mhg

[email protected]

GCC, Iraq, Syria

Delusions about Syria and Iraq: Should Ignatius Stick to Writing Novels?………

      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

“Political cover for the campaign to co-opt the Sunnis and defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria could come from the Gulf Cooperation Council. This alliance of Gulf monarchies has sometimes been toothless in the past, but recently it has worked effectively to keep Yemen from splintering, and it can play a key role now, working in tandem with fellow monarch King Abdullah of Jordan. The GCC should call for an immediate summit with Iran to discuss the crisis in Syria and Iraq. At the same time (hopefully with Iranian acquiescence), it should call for a GCC or Arab League stabilization force to be deployed in Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria. As the coalition broadens to include the United States (and hopefully Russia and China, whose anti-ISIS sentiments match America’s), this stabilization force can resemble the broad coalition that liberated Kuwait from Iraq in 1991, or the so-called “Arab Deterrent Force” that stabilized Lebanon after the worst years of its civil war in 1975 and ’76……………..”

FYI: that “Arab Deterrent Army” he refers to was the Syrian Army, which stayed in Lebanon until a few years ago. He should just call it by what it is: the Syrian Army of Hafez Al Assad.

I don’t know what kind of sense of humor David Ignatius has. But he is pushing to get the Saudis and Qataris and the Emiratis into Syria and Iraq ‘to keep order’, and with Iranian blessing. That is a no go, DOA. Imagine any Iraqi (or Syrian) government welcoming these clowns into its territory, after all they have done to destabilize their regimes and after sending and funding thousands of Jihadist terrorists to kill their civilians.

And here is why I mentioned the ‘sense of humor’: several of these regimes engage foreign mercenaries to maintain the internal security in their own countries (and repress their peoples). They can’t even form a reliable police force. How can one expect them to help pacify Iraq or Syria? Would they send their imported foreign mercenaries? And how would they fare in battle against the Wahhabi Jihadists and Hezbollah?

Would the Iranians accept a summit with the GCC over Syria and Iraq? Shouldn’t the Iraqis and Syrians be behind all this? The
Iranians will more likely prefer to discuss such matters with the
parties that really count, the United States, not some strutting
potentates.


I must agree that Ignatius certainly thinks outside the box here. But the best “thinking outside the box” is the work of fiction. Maybe he should stick to fiction as far as the Middle East is concerned. Didn’t he write some fiction a couple of years ago about Mr. Arbabsiar, the Texas Iranian who conspired with the Mexican Drug Cartels and Hezbollah and Colombians to blow up the not-so-important Saudi ambassador in Washington? I recall Ignatius was reassured that the plot was wider and spread all the way to the Persian Gulf. I recall that he was reassured of the extension of the plot by security officials of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. No LOL is needed on that last one.

Cheers
mhg

[email protected]

GCC, Iraq, Islam, Jihad, Sectarian

New Muslim Zeitgeist: Iraq and Saudi Arabia Wage a Sectarian War……

      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   
  
لماذا يموت العراقي حتى يؤدي الرسالة؟؟ 

و أهل الصحارى سكارى وما هم بسكارى ؟؟ 

يحبون قنص الطيور ولحم الغزال ولحم الحبارى !! 

لماذا يموت العراقي والآخرون يغنون هندا ويستعطفون نوارا ؟؟ 

 
“Iraqi government on Tuesday accused Saudi Arabia of financing terrorism committed by Takfiri insurgents of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, a day after Riyadh blamed “sectarian” policies by Baghdad. Comments from Riyadh indicates it is “siding with terrorism”, the cabinet said in a statement issued by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s office.
“We strongly condemn this stance,” the statement read. “We hold it (Saudi Arabia) responsible for what these groups are receiving in terms of financial and moral support.”
“The Saudi government should be held responsible for the dangerous crimes committed by these terrorist groups,” the statement continued. Earlier on Monday, Saudi Arabia and Qatar blamed “sectarian” policies by Iraq’s government for the unrest that has swept the country………………”

That came one day after Saudi media quoted King Abdullah, from an undisclosed location in Morocco, ordering his cabinet to call Iraq ‘sectarian’, and demand they change their sectarian policies of the past few years. No doubt Iraq has become much more sectarian over the past ten years, but I have three points about that:


  • Now we are all sectarians, from Shi’a-dominated Iraq to Wahhabi-dominated Saudi Arabia to military-dominated Egypt. Even places like Morocco that can’t tell a Shi’a from a plate of coucous are going sectarian. That is an unfortunate spirit of our time, our Zeitgeist. In the sense that we are now all so aware of each other’s sect and wary of it. So aware and wary that it affects our behavior and our opinions on regional issues. It even affects how we respond to politics in our blog comments (take my blogs for example).

  • Nobody is as responsible for the worsening of sectarianism in our region, and inside Iraq and Syria and the rest of the Gulf, as the Saudi princes and their media and their policies. That is why they have spent billions of acquiring Arab media outlets, which they dominate now. That is how they keep the allegiance of their (Wahhabi) people, by raising the specter of a Shi’a threat. That is why they keep and pamper their palace clerics: they come in very handy in issuing appropriate fatwas.

  • There is sectarianism in Iraq, but it pales compared to sectarianism in Saudi Arabia. Iraq is not nearly as sectarian as Saudi Arabia where it is institutionalized in the bureaucracy and in the theocracy. At least all Iraqi sects get to vote in elections: nobody except the princes in their palaces gets to vote in Saudi Arabia. Besides, the percentage of Shi’as (among citizens) in the Kingdom Without Magic is close to the percentage of (Arab) Sunnis in Iraq, yet there is no minister, deputy minister, or even a deputy to an assistant to a deputy minister (possibly not even a proverbial official dog-catcher) who is Shi’a in the kingdom.



Cheers
mhg

[email protected]

Arab Elections, GCC, Iraq, US Foreign Policy

Al Maliki as Unlikely Soft Villain Du Jour?………


      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Western media, and many Western politicians, like to simplify things when it comes to the Middle East. This is also mutual: Muslims and Arabs tend to simplify things Western, often engulfing them in conspiracy stories real or imagined. Western media is used to picking one or two villains from the ‘opposing camp of the season’, and vilify them. The easiest form of vilification, the best sound bite, the cheapest shot is the “Hitler” comparison. It has been used by the media, by politicians, even recently by Hillary Clinton (about Putin in Ukraine). To his credit President Obama has not stooped down to using the Hitler comparison yet.
 
Suddenly there is a potential new Arab leader being slowly groomed in the media for the ‘villain’ role. Actually an unlikely one: that is why he is considered a rather ‘soft’ villain, perhaps a bumbling one. That is Nouri al Maliki of Iraq, the man who won the job through parliamentary votes. I know, I know, the Iraqi parliament is divided along sectarian and ethnic lines and probably needs a stiff kick in the derriere, but name one Arab parliament (of those few who have parliaments) where it is not divided along sectarian or tribal or ethnic lines? Lebanon? You can’t get more sectarian than that, with hereditary warlords thrown in for good measure. Egypt? You’d probably get chased out of town if you try to run as member of a smaller Muslim sect (not to mention a Muslim Brother). Gulf GCC? Most members of the GCC have appointed legislatures that the kings or shaikhs appoint and dis-appoint (Kuwait being the only GCC country where the legislature is really elected, although along tribal and sectarian lines). Talking the eastern Arab countries: the western part from Libya to Morocco is somewhat more complex. In Iran candidates require approval to run (or stand if you are British or sit if you are Arab) for office.

So back to al Malilki. The vast media of the kings and princes and potentates of the Gulf are already setting the tone for the next attempted political coup in Iraq. They tried it once before a few years ago, when they sought to push Saudi agent Iyad Allawi to the leadership post. Against the opposition of a majority of Iraqis, but he had no real hope of getting a parliamentary majority. I agree that Al Maliki should not seek a new term, not because of the self-serving claims made in the media of the despotic Saudi and Qatari and UAE potentates. He should not be reappointed for two reasons: (1) because as leader he has failed to keep all Iraqis peaceful and prosperous, (2) a new term would be like clinging to power, almost what all Arab leaders do for too long. If he should go, that would be to set a precedent for rotation of leadership. A good democratic thing to do.
As for Mr. Allawi, Saudi Arabia’s man in Iraq, his name is not even under consideration anymore, which is very realistic indeed.

Cheers
mhg

[email protected]