Category Archives: GCC

Arab Revolutions, GCC, Sectarian, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Obama Joins Middle East Sectarian Jihad: Muslim Brotherhood Elated, Salafis Hopeful, Shi’as Doubtful………..

      

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“HOOAH! Obama moves to deliver another country to Muslim Brotherhood. USA! USA!……..” Drudge Report, tweeting an understatement

“Syria’s president and his Shi’ite allies were denounced by leading Sunni Arab voices on Friday, including Egypt’s ruling Muslim Brotherhood, which had reached out across Islam’s sectarian divide but has now called for jihad. The Brotherhood accused Shi’ites of being at the root of sectarian conflicts throughout history and threw its weight behind holy war – just months after a high-profile rapprochement with Iran, which backs Bashar al-Assad and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. “Throughout history, Sunnis have never been involved in starting a sectarian war,” spokesman Ahmed Aref said, adding that Hezbollah provoked the new sectarian conflict in Syria………………..”

So Mr. Obama has been maneuvered into the Syrian sectarian war by some funny doubtful evidence produced by the French (oh so ethical in these matters) and the British (marginally better) in cooperation with Syrian “activists”, as well as some unrelenting badgering by Sen. John McCain and the taunting of Bill Clinton (who called him a “Wuss”) only two days earlier.
Now Syria is not Libya. This is not a domestic uprising anymore, it is a regional sectarian war instigated by some of the tribal absolute rulers of the Persian Gulf, mainly Saudis and Qataris, and the Salafist movement. None of the above three believe in freedom or democracy anymore than Mr. Al Assad does. The Syrian battle was joined, early on, by an influx of Jihadis as well as training and weapons from the West, Russia, Lebanon, and Iran. It has also been joined by supplies and some human assets from all the above places. So the Obama administration has now more firmly joined one side in this regional sectarian civil war. Nay, it has, by its intervention may have expanded the Syrian war from a regional proxy war in the Middle East to a worldwide sectarian war.

The Al Saud and their palace clerics and the Salafis and the Wahhabi liberals of the Gulf and Lebanon will be pleased. I imagine the tribal Salafis are praying that Allah would further guide the infidel heathens of the West toward supplying heavy weapons as well as a passel of no-fly zones, all for the glory of Allah and the Gulf potentates (not necessarily in that order).
In any case, the sectarian battle is joined and the result does not bode well for Syria or its neighboring countries.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Syria

Rocky Choices in Syria, no Hobson’s Choice in the Gulf GCC………

      

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“Hobson’s Choice:
1 an apparently free choice when there is no real alternative
2 the necessity of accepting one of two or more equally objectionable alternatives “

“Besides, the rebels are losing support, in part because the regime has had some success in stirring sectarian fears. Many Syrians originally sympathetic to the rebels have been horrified by events such as the reported execution on June 9th of a 14-year-old boy by jihadists in Aleppo, allegedly for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Downtrodden Sunnis who six months ago were the mainstay of the opposition may be thinking again. “I hate the regime,” says a woman from a poor Damascus suburb. “But if forced to choose, perhaps I would rather live under them than the rebels. I am tired of the violence.” Qatari and Saudi support for the opposition has also scared a lot of Syrians. “This is now a war in Syria, but not a Syrian war,” says a dissident artist in the capital. “I have no illusions that the Gulf backers are interested in us having democracy.”…..……….”

Also sprach The Economist. The excellent magazine’s record is not perfect. It has a past record of some quality mis-prognostications about the Middle East (Iranian Revolution, Iran-Iraq War, Battle for Basrah, Syria, Lebanon, etc, etc………). Probably not this time: it covers an aspect of the Syrian civil war that is ignored by most Western media, nay an aspect that many in the West and many Arabs would consider heresy. The choices facing the Syrians are tough.

Syrians are caught between several clichés: a rock and a hard place, the frying pan and the fire, you name it. Like most Arab peoples, they have a plethora of bad choices among clichés, to pick from. The last word up there, by a skeptical Syrian citizen, got it right: “I have no illusions that the Gulf backers are interested in us having democracy.”
In Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the financiers of Syrian ‘liberation’, states that are seemingly gung-ho on Syrian “freedom”, the people have no such choices, not even between bad alternatives. Their own peoples don’t even have a lousy Hobson’s Choice.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, GCC, Qatar

Political Rumors of Qatar: Hamad Bin Jassim de Tocqueville………

      

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Arab and foreign media are circulating stories, possibly rumors, about an imminent “transfer” of power in Qatar. They say the Emir Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani will ‘abdicate’ in favor of his son Tamim Al Thani. In the Gulf no one abdicates in favor of anyone unless forced to do so (and I mean really FORCED, dead or alive). The current Emir of Qatar came to power after overthrowing his traveling father who was sampling the Chianti and possibly other stuff in Italy. The last case of “abdication” in the Gulf was in 1966: ruler of Abu Dhabi Shaikh Shakhbut Al-Nahayan was overthrown by his brother Shaikh Zayed Al-Nahayan. Before that Saudi King Saud Bin Abdulaziz was overthrown by his brother Crown Prince Faisal Bin Abdulaziz in 1964. They also called that an “abdication”. King Faisal was shot dead by one of his own nephews in 1975.
The rumors also speculate that prime minister/foreign minister Shaikh Hamad Bin Jasim Al Thani will be replaced. There may be several explanations for this, including:

  • This could be a Saudi rumor to bring the Al-Thani down to size (they did plot to overthrow him in 1998).
  • It could be a trial balloon by one of the principals in Qatar.
  • It could even be a story planted by the Al Khalifa of Bahrain who always felt in recent years that the Qatari royals treat them like the shit they are.
  • Or it could be part of a dastardly plot by Hezbollah sow confusion in Qatar and win the civil war in Syria.

My Qatari claims that the prime minister is all set for retirement. She says his original plan was to travel in ‘liberated’ Syria, observing and writing on its Salafi democracy. Now, for some reason she claims she can’t understand, he has decided to change plans. He will retire in New York. That explains, she added, his purchase of a huge condo overlooking Central Park. She says he plan to start from NYC and roam America, writing his observations and impressions of its development and its democratic institutions (including the lobbyists). To do that comfortably he will purchase a huge Winnebago and drive around with a coterie of 100 men, women, and children. Since he like to be discreet and inconspicuous, he will go under the name of Hamad Clérel Bin Jassim de Tocqueville.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab League, Cairo, GCC

Competing Arab Capitals: from Repression to Tear Gas to Proxy War to Starvation to Compensating Towers………

         

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“On behalf of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Naif delivered a message conveying the challenges facing the region in terms of development and humanitarian issues. The realization of security in the region necessitates an integrated and all-encompassing vision to enable this area to deal with the rising problems and to boost religious, educational and social institutions and security organs. King Abdullah called for the enhancement of joint Arab security cooperation and coordination, adding that Saudi Arabia has supported all Arab, regional and international efforts in combating crimes, notably terrorism. It has also contributed to maintaining international peace and security, he said. Secretary-General of the Council of Arab Interior Ministers Mohammed Ali Kuman said the late Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif played a key role in boosting the council and enhancing Arab security cooperation……………….”

This is one issue that all Arab regimes, be they absolute monarchies, dictatorships, or elected schmucks agree one. The security issue (code word for repression) is the one issue that they meet on smoothly and agree on. The meetings of the ministers of interior, the men in charge of police, mercenaries, prisons, torture, interrogation, executions, and the like always reach agreement. I suspect if the Arab states ever unite, the best start would be to unite their ministries of interior. United Arab repression as a first step toward everything else. Come to think of it: once there is united repression, there will be no need for anything else. Even the lousy Arab League can be renamed the League of Arab Police States (which it almost is), or some other Conan-Doyle kind of name. Then they might want to move the headquarters from Cairo to Riyadh, where the atmosphere is more amenable, more conducive to repression. In that case Riyadh will become the capital of the United Arab Ministry of Interior without missing a beat: it already is the capital of Arab repression. Don’t get me wrong, there will be plenty of titles for other Arab capitals:


  • The Arab Ministry of Proxy War and Destruction can me moved to Damascus.
  •  The Arab Ministry of Tear Gas can be moved to Mamana (Bahrain).
  • The Arab Ministry of Sectarian Confusion can be moved to Baghdad.
  • The Arab Ministry of Political Confusion can be moved to Cairo.
  • The Arab Ministry of Being on the Verge of Something can be in Beirut.
  • The Arab Ministry of WHoGivesAFuck can be moved to Khartoum (Sudan).
  • The Arab Ministry of Ignored Starvation can be moved to Mogadishu (Somalia).
  • The Arab Ministry of Compensating Phallic Tall Towers can be moved to Abu Dhabi.
  • There is more for the rest of them………….

Cheers
mhg

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Arab League, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Syria

Shimon Peres Blows a Shofar: Calls on Free Democratic Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and UAE and Qatar to Liberate Syria…………

         

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“The free world “cannot stand by when a massacre is carried out by the Syrian president against his own people and his own children. It breaks all our hearts,” the Zionist leader said, who launched the 16-day April attack on Lebanon in 1996 when he was a prime minister. Saying “the intervention of Western forces would be perceived as foreign interference,” Peres proposed the best option to end the conflict in Syria “might be achieved by empowering the Arab League, of which Syria is a member, to intervene.” “The Arab League can and should form a provisional government in Syria to stop the massacre, to prevent Syria from falling to pieces,” Peres advised the 754-member European Parliament!! “The United Nations should support the Arab League to build an Arab force in blue helmets,” he said…………………”

Also sprach that old warrior, Shimon Peres. Essentially blowing the shofar for the Arab despots to take up arms against their fellow Arab despot. That should be exciting. The Saudi National Guard, fresh from their defeat by the Huthis in Yemen, and Bahrain’s imported Pakistani and Jordanian mercenaries, and the UAE mercenaries imported from Colombia and Australia and the Qatari fishes from my Gulf. I doubt he meant Egypt or Libya or Tunisia or Yemen which haven’t stabilized yet. Being composed of international mercenaries, they ought to get their ‘blue helmets’ free from the UN. We could call it the Twelfth Crusade, undertaken by the democratic free illusory world of the absolute tribal oligarchs of the GCC to free Damascus from Baathist rule. Yet he ought to know better, Perez, he has defeated enough of his stronger neighbors to know better.
If I were rude and crude I’d say “it takes a thief to catch a thief”, except that the Al-Assad are amateurs in thievery and corruption compared to these would-be prince liberators of Syria.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC

Exciting News from Bahrain: Royal Games of Number One and Number Two………

         

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“Bahrain dailies issued the other day focused in their principal headlines on the main local, Arab and international events which happened over the past 24 hours.
The following are the main topics:
-HRH Premier (Shaikh Khalifa Al Khalifa) receives cable of thanks from Thai monarch.
-HRH Crown Prince (Shaikh Salman Al Khalifa) receives new Italian ambassador to the kingdom of Bahrain.
-Deputy Premier Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al-Khalifa receives former US Ambassador to Bahrain Ronald Neumann.
-Deputy Premier Shaikh Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa receives Kuwaiti Ambassador.
-Deputy Premier Shaikh Khalid bin Abdulla Al-Khalifa receives Sudanese ambassador and discusses bilateral relations
Foreign minister (Shaikh Khalid Al Khalifa) attends the meeting of the Friends of Yemen Group in London.………………..” Bahrain News Agency

Now ain’t that sweet? Feel out-Khalifa’d yet?
The good news is, at least good news for the crown prince of Bahrain since it makes him seem more relevant than last week, is that they have appointed the crown prince as (First) Deputy Prime Minister. The PM, the hugely unpopular uncle of the king, has had his own son as the only deputy prime minister until yesterday. Which makes the son a ”number two” as of now: the father, the PM, has been “number two” for decades since the king is his boss. This alters things within the ruling Al Khalifa, but I am not sure how it helps the people of Bahrain achieve their rights in equality and justice and freedom. Don’t break out the sharbat, or whatever it is you prefer, yet.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Britain, GCC, Persian Gulf

Sandhurst on the Persian Gulf: Shaikh of Bahrain and the Battle of Mons Hall and Tending Bar at Claridge’s………….

         

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“Britain’s top military academy, Sandhurst, has come under fire for renaming a sports hall commemorating a First World War battle after the King of Bahrain. The Mons Hall – named after the 1914 battle where thousands died – will have its name changed to honour the Bahraini monarch who has given millions in funding to the Army’s officer training college. The building will now be called King Hamad Hall and will reopen next month after being refurbished thanks to a £3 million donation from the king, who is the patron of the Sandhurst Foundation but is known for brutally repressing demonstrators at home. Sandhurst has also accepted a £15 million donation from the United Arab Emirates to build a new accommodation block, raising questions about the college’s links with authoritarian Gulf states accused of human rights abuses………….”

Shaikh Hamad Bin Issa Bin Salman Al Khalifa, by the Grace of Al Saud arms and money and imported mercenaries from Pakistan and Jordan and Syria and and other places, King of Bahrain. Most of his people live in poverty since the resources of the state are taken by the rulers and their retainers. The regime now depends on financial aid from the richer GCC potentates. They use the money to import weapons and foreign mercenaries and to fund an expensive PR campaign centered in London and Washington. Notice how most of our Gulf potentates prefer PR and lobbying campaigns to reform and election campaign?
His un-majestic shaikh-king of Bahrain is reported to have bribed donated GBP 3 million to rename a sports hall at the British Sandhurst Military Academy, so that it will be named after himself. The name Mons Hall of the battle where so many died in the trenches will be removed, in favor of the name of a chubby little tribal despot.


I have read that Sandhurst has a special “soft” program for the sons of Arab kings, shaikhs, and other potentates who wish to be “graduates of Sandhurst”. It does not prepare them to tend bar at Claridge’s, but it gives their families the excuse to make them Field Marshals and Generals within a few months.
Why doesn’t Sandhurst follow in the footsteps of such other cash-strapped Western institutions of higher learning? Why not establish a branch in the Persian-American Gulf region for the scions of the potentates? If the Sorbonne and NYU can pretend that it has a “branch” on the Gulf, why not a Sandhurst on the Gulf?
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Persian-American Gulf

Bahrain Uprising: Revolting Authorities, People in Revolt, Writing on the Wall………

         

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“The Information Affairs’ Authority (IAA) has issued a statement today in which it revealed that some internet webpages and social media accounts in Bahrain circulated news about direct threats being sent by terrorist gangs and saboteurs to various individuals, groups, families, workers, shops and companies intended to compel citizens and residents to stay at home and refrain from going to work or business as usual on Thursday February, 14, 2013 in a desperate bid to forcibly impose a de facto public strike in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Such threatening calls have been circulated in various foreign languages and posted alongside roads, streets and electric power pylons and included frightening images in order to scare citizens and residents and compel them to stay at home. The Information Affairs’ Authority has urged all Bahraini citizens and residents to cooperate with the relevant authorities in order to tackle these gangs of outlaws by reporting any threat received by citizens and residents intended to forcibly restrict their freedom……. The IAA urges all citizens and residents to report to the competent authorities ……………”

So said the Bahrain authorities request.
Yes but when there are no ‘competent authorities’, what are people to do? Clearly there are no competent authorities in Bahrain, only a ruling clan of despots and thieves and their security agents and imported foreign mercenaries and assorted minions. Revolting for certain, but not competent. So what are people to do? When the authorities are truly revolting, as is the case in Bahrain, then the people end up revolting.
Normally under these circumstances, people try to create their own “competent authorities”. People have have tried this throughout history: from the Abbasid Revolution to the American and French and Russian and Iranian Revolution(s). They are trying this method now in Arab states from Tunisia and Libya and Egypt and Syria and Yemen and Bahrain. It takes time, but the writing is on the wall.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, GCC, Iran, Iraq, Islam

Gulf Purification: De-Baathification, De-Despot-ification, De-Salafi-cation, De-Tribi-fication, De-Stupification…….

         

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I wrote in my previous post that de-Baathification in Iraq after 2003, like German de-Nazification after World War II, was not a bad idea to start with. It was overdone, though, and became sectarian. It was a logical policy to start with, although many typically sectarian-focused of our Gulf potentates complain about it: maybe they’ll be more eager for the de-Baathification of Syria?
Personally, I would love to see other versions as well: De-Khalifa-cation in Bahrain and De-Saudi-fication on the Arabian Peninsula some day, and maybe a few other De‘s. Natural ‘evolution’, mind you. Just to make it even and complete: how about de-Mullah-fication in Iran as well? De-tribe-fication and de-sect-ification in the Gulf GCC would be even greater for our whole region’s detoxification.
The best first step would be de-Salafi-cation which would also entail, nay require as a precondition, de-Wahhabi-fication. After that, we can all start the de-Stupification of the region.
That leaves Israel and Turkey. but I am not touching either one of those. Not yet, but de-stupification is a universal need.
Cheers
mhg

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Bahrain, Corruption, GCC, Persian-American Gulf, Weapons deals

Bahrain Navy all Set to Defend the Gulf against NBC and CNN …………

         

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“A special committee at the General Staff of the Bahraini Navy is said to have recommended the necessity of buying advanced defensive systems to confront nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) threats in the Gulf region. The following 358-word report sheds light on the Bahraini Navy’s recommendation and tells what about the Bahraini plans to buy the necessary NBC equipment and………………”

Field Marshal Admiral Shaikh Bin Technocrat Al Khalifa von Rommel Al Nelson Hornblower getting set to defend the Persian-American Gulf against all comers. Now we can all rest assured. Ever try some of all that teargas you guys have been using every day for two years on your people and their villages?
(Okay, so which Al Khalifa shaikh will get the commission for this purchase? Unless they have a common fund that the whole family shares, just like they do for waiters at restaurants).

Cheers
mhg

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