Category Archives: Iraq

Arab Revolutions, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy

Iraq and Libya: Nearing a Deal on Salafi Terrorists? Giving up Virgin Houri Dreams for a Wife…………..

         

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“It was signed yesterday, Friday, in Tripoli by the Minister of Justice, Salah Al-Marghani, and his Iraqi counterpart, Hassan Shimari. Attending the ceremony were the Deputy President of the General National Congress, Juma Ateega, the Third Deputy Prime Minister, Abdussalam Al-Qadi, Minister of State for GNC affairs Muaz Khoja, Ministry of Justice Undersecretary Sharif Zahri, and the administrator responsible for the file of Libyan prisoners abroad, Sulaiman Al-Fortia. Also attending were the families of Libyan prisoners in Iraq as well as a number of Iraqi businessmen in Libya. The deal is seen as being crucial to improving Libyan-Iraqi relations. “This does not mean that Libyan prisoners will be transferred straightway,” said Taha Shakshuki of the Libyan Group for Demanding Libyan Prisoners Abroad. He said the group has been told by the Justiec Ministry that the agreement is in effect a memorandum of understanding which still requires to be approved by the Iraqi parliament. Nor will Libya prisoners be automatically transferred, he explained. Each case will to be approved by the Iraqi authorities………………”

In some ways Libya hasn’t changed that much in terms of relations with other countries. Under Muammar Qaddafi, Libya used to send weapons and money and occasionally ‘volunteers’ to commit acts of violence in other countries. That was especially true until a decade or so ago, when Qaddafi became a close friend of France and Britain and Italy and the United States. That was sometime before the colonel met Condi Rice and very likely made what he would call an “African” pass at her.
Now the new Libya sends the same bounty abroad, except the combination has changed. They send more people and weapons now than money. But the operation is not as centralized as under Qaddafi. They have also sent a lot of weapons and volunteers to the Salafi terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. I suspect the same is true of Lebanon and other places. Now the Libyan have formed some group called Libyan Group for Demanding Libyan Prisoners Abroad to try to release those terrorists captured by Iraqi and other security authorities. Interesting that the
Libyan group does not specify Iraq or any one specific country:
apparently now they have many in various countries.
The Saudis also have a group advocating on behalf of their Salafi terrorists held in Iraq: there are many Saudi prisoners in Iraq, and you can bet none of them went there as tourists or pilgrims. Other Gulf governments, at least one that I know of, have negotiated with Iraq for the release of some prisoners, mainly tribal youth who were encouraged to go by Salafi clerics. They are given a hero’s welcome by their tribe and hopefully married off quickly to some tribal girl so that they would forget about rejoining Al-Qaeda and the dreams of all those virgin houris and wine in the afterlife.

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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Britain, Iraq, Islam, US Foreign Policy

If the British Misunderstood Islam: then Who in the West Can? Zionists for Arabists …….

         

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“Labour has conceded for the first time that a “primitive understanding” of the Islamic world caused some of the problems faced by the west in Iraq and Afghanistan, and warned David Cameron his response to the terrorist crisis in north Africa shows he has not learned the painful lessons from those conflicts. In a speech on Thursday, Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, will suggest the Blair government did not appreciate what it was getting itself into after the September 11 attacks, as British forces joined the international effort to overthrow the Taliban and hunt down Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network……….. In Iraq, he will say, “there was a serious deficit in Western comprehension of the Sunni-Shia or intra-Shia dynamics. We know that de-Baathification left a lethal vacuum.”………..…”

It said: “a primitive understanding of Islam”!
The British created modern Iraq, patched it together with a view toward their own control of it, as part of their empire. Gertrude Bell, Percy Cox, Churchill, and others decided early on to hand power to the same class of natives (Sunni Arabs) who had served the Turkish Ottoman occupation well both in the bureaucracy and in the military. They thought the same class would serve British interests well, which they did for a while. Of course there was the small matter of the restive Kurds, who were in fact reportedly gassed by the Royal Air Force, and the majority Shi’as, who were disregarded as ‘hostile to British interests’. Iraq has been unstable ever since 1917.
Now if the British can’t understand Islam and the nuances of its various sects, then how could other Westerners think they could unravel that complex (to Western eyes) issue? Certainly not the Israeli lobbyists that have edged out the old Arabists in the U.S. State Department and other policy-making institutions and think-tanks. They have no interest in delving deeply into Arab or Muslim culture: they seem to be limited by the motto of “Israel right or wrong“, as shown for example by Susan Rice at the UN. It is almost correct now to say that the Arabists have been almost completely replaced by Zionists in the American foreign policy establishment and the institutions that feed it with advice.

De-Baathification, like de-Nazification after World War II, was not a bad idea to start with. But that policy in Iraq was carried too far beyond the senior level of bureaucrats, which created political, economic, security, and other problems. Besides, all the Baathist military and security services melted away before the fall of Baghdad. They went AWOL, like deserters during war. The military and security did not even bother to defend its capital against invasion. So how much good could it have been: it was good at repressing the people but not to face a foreign attack.
Cheers
mhg

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Al-Qaeda, Cinema, Iraq, Saudi Arabia

Zero Dark Baghdad? Saudi Detainees in Iraqi Guantanamo………….

         

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“Twenty Saudi detainees in Iraqi prisons were tortured after the Iraqi national team lost the Gulf Cup football tournament to the UAE in a match supervised by a Saudi referee, according to Thamer Balheed, head of the Saudi detainees in Iraq. Balheed told Al Arabiya TV that the Saudi prisoners were severely beaten and insulted by Iraqi prison guards who blamed the Saudi referee for their national team’s 1-2 defeat to the UAE. A sport commentator on an Iraqi television network lost his temper during the match, issuing live prayers against Saudi referee Khalil al-Ghamdi and accusing him of being unfair to Iraq. Iraq and Saudi Arabia have recently resumed security cooperation talks, including discussion on a prisoners exchange deal. This came after a Saudi man was released from an Iraqi jail and said he was tortured by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Balheed has previously stated that up to 60 Saudi detainees are being held in Iraqi prisons. He noted that they are being kept in different prisons and are all staying in deplorable conditions and exposed to various forms of torture…………….”


This would be a terrible story, if it were (completely) true. Yet it is hard to credit a story of Iraqis torturing Saudi prisoners because they lost a game to Emiratis. Especially if the source is the Saudi semi-official Alarabiya network. I am against both torture and the death penalty: they are both barbaric no matter who inflicts it and who is at the receiving end.

I doubt that any of these Saudis entered Iraq to visit the shrines in Karbala. The Iraqis suspect that most of them snuck (okay, sneaked) in illegally to bomb and murder Iraqi civilians. As they and their other Al-Qaeda colleagues from various Arab states have been doing in Iraq for 12 years. I also suspect that the headlining is partly aimed at creating more hostility toward Iraqi Arabs inside the Arabian Peninsula. However, I can be wrong: torture has been common in Iraq for decades, its art perfected by the Baath Party. So have executions, and the new regime in Baghdad is an avid executioner: as avid as Iran and Saudi Arabia and Texas. It is hard to give up old habits.

Of course, the Saudis automatically quickly behead any foreigner they suspect of plotting terrorism on their soil. I can give a long list of that. I can also give a long list of those beheaded on charges of witchcraft and sorcery and magic and fortune-telling and interpreting dreams (both dry and wet), among other things. And the regime, and the system, are have been at it longer.

On the other hand I saw the film Thirty Dark Zero yesterday. It is about the CIA allegedly torturing its way throughout several little Guantanomos around the world. Torturing its way toward Osama Bin Laden and his merry little band of terrorists (and a bunch of their poor innocent children) in AbbottAndCostelloAbad, Pakistan. 
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, Egypt, Iraq, Israel

Muslim Brothers and Israelis: Their Land from the Tigris to Beyond the Nile……….

   

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                             Neck of the woods

“A delegation from the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood and its political party visited the headquarters of the Freedom and Justice Party Saturday to meet with FJP leaders. The meeting was attended by Ayad al-Samarrai, secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic Party; Saad al-Katatny, former speaker of Egypt’s People’s Assembly; and Essam al-Erian, acting head of the FJP. Samarrai, who also serves as the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, said he came to Egypt to visit a number of political leaders, including President Mohamed Morsy, as well as Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb and Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie……… He added that the delegation explained to the FJP the Iraqi initiative to resolve the crisis in Syria…..……”

There is allegedly a quote, an alleged quote, supposedly inscribed outside the Israeli Knesset that says something to the effect that (roughly): “Your land, O Israel, is from the banks of the Nile to the Tigris River (or is it the Euphrates, or both?)……” This quote has been widely repeated for decades in the Arab world to indicate that Israel has expansionary ambitions that includes territory well beyond the historic land of Palestine. I have never seen this quote so I can’t vouch for it, but it has been quoted by Arab politicians frequently, especially by the late Yasser Arafat.
 
This Iraqi visit to Cairo was a sightseeing one, for other Muslim Brothers to inspect their new Egyptian acquisition. Now there is no doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood is realizing its own long ambitions to control the Arab lands well beyond this Euphrates-Nile boundary. In fact it is trying to, maybe it is poised to, control the Arab world from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian-American Gulf. With a few exceptions in Iraq and Lebanon and maybe Syria, maybe.
Now, to be truly Iraqi the delegation should have included representatives of the Sadrist current, the Da’awa Party, the KDP (Kurdish), PUK (without an “E” but also Kurdish), the Kurdish Donkey (Ass) Party (it exists but is widely ignored for some reason), PKK, and the Emir of the Un-Islamic State of Iraq  who can be Saudi or Egyptian or Libyan or Sudani…………

(These Samarrais, several of them, and other Islamists, served the Baath Party under Saddam quite well, thankyouverymuch. Now that the dictator is dead they, are suddenly rediscovering that they are really Muslims. Not just any Muslims, but Sunni Muslims. Not just any Sunni Muslims, but Muslim Brothers, with a few wild bomb-strapping Salafis thrown in for flavoring).
Cheers
mhg
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Iran, Iraq, Syria, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

Oracles of War or Junket Kings: Three U.S. Senators Declare Two New Middle East Wars…………

   

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                          Neck of the woods

“U.S. Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham on Friday urged Washington to help arm Syria’s rebels with weapons and create a safe zone inside the country for a transition government. They also called for a far tougher position against Iran over its suspected, and seemingly inexorable, drive toward acquiring nuclear weapons capability. McCain blasted President Barack Obama, who defeated him in the 2008 presidential election, for recently setting the “red line” for Syria at use of chemical weapons. “If you’re (Syrian President) Bashar Assad, maybe you interpret that to mean that you can do anything short of chemical weapons before the United States will intervene,” the Republican from Arizona told the Ambrosetti Forum, a gathering of political and business leaders on the shores of Lake Como in Italy…………”

These three U.S. senators seem to spend more time in our region, the Middle East, than in the USA. More time than even some of us spend. They gave up on their early plan to establish their own private base in Iraq after the American (early) withdrawal. They would have called that a ‘settlement’: McCain and Graham violently opposed Lieberman’s suggestion of the term “Kibbutz”: they said it sounded socialistic and un-American; ditto for shtetl. They threatened to storm the beaches of Libya (along with Bernard–Henri Lévy) but were beaten by NATO. They have been trying to liberate Syria and Iran for several years (and Lebanon), but have been frustrated.
Remember: McCain had originally wanted to remain in Iraq for one hundred years (a hundred year Reich?) if necessary, and to retire after that to Arizona where he would run for the job of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Now they are all waiting for Mr. Obama to be defeated in November so that General John Bolton can march through the Middle East with his terrible swift sword again, making it the New New Middle East again.
Cheers
mhg
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Iraq, Media, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Media Worried about Press Freedom in Iraq………..

   

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                          Neck of the woods
Saudi media editors and owners, all freedom lovers, are deeply worried that “Iraq press freedom is threatened”.
Saudi media freedom itself, however, is not threatened for two reasons: (1) There is no Saudi press freedom to be threatened. You have no press freedom, ergo: you don’t have to worry about a press freedom that does not exist, and, (2) Saudi media are all owned and/or operated by the princes and their kin, from Asharq Alawsat (Crown Prince for the Next Few Months Salman) and al-Hayat (Prince Khaled Bin sultan) to Alarabiya to Al-Arab Network (Prince Al-Waleeed) all the way down to the local newspapers. We know nobody would restrict the freedom of princely press because princes are fierce defenders of press freedom and will not stand for it.
Cheers
mhg
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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Iraq, Syria

The Wahhabi Spring: Al-Qaeda Multitasking in the Levant and Yemen and North Africa and……

   

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                       Neck of the woods
“al-Qaeda for the first time came out and openly announced its participation in battles in Syria. They even raised the al-Qaeda flag at the Bab el-Hawa border crossing. A Jordanian security source stated that more than six thousand al-Qaeda fighters have entered Syria in recent months. Most of them are non-Syrian Arabs, according to the al-Sharq Saudi daily. The newspaper reports that two factions of al-Qaeda are competing for supremacy in Syria, one led by Saudi Emir Majid al-Majid and the other led by al-Fatih Abu Mohammed al-Golani………….”

Al-Fatih is the Arabic term for “conqueror”: this al-Golani guy is optimistic. His last name al-Golani, like the rest of his name, is fake (nom de guerre). It implies something about the Golan Heights should al-Qaeda prevail in Syria.
The terrorist group has moved thousands of its fighters into Syria, yet it has enough terrorists left inside Iraq to continue slaughtering civilians in that country. No wonder the Iraqi government refused to support the Arab League call for regime change in Damascus. Considering that the same organization killing Iraqi citizens is now part of the group that the Arab Saudi League wants to take power in Damascus. Not that it matters anymore: no doubt the current regime in Syria is on its way out and it is a matter of when.
Al-Qaeda’s old leadership has been decimated by American firepower in the past few years. Yet al-Qaeda has managed to expand its operations in new parts of the Arab world. It is now more active than ever in Yemen and North Africa and still active in Iraq and making an important grab for a piece of Syria as well as northern Lebanon (thanks to the Hariri alliance). Who would have thunk it, as the funny man in the movies said? The Wahhabi terrorist group has been as much a beneficiary of the so-called Arab Spring as the Saudi and Qatari regimes: both have expanded their influence, and they are ALL three Wahhabis.
The Saudis seem to have maintained their influence in the “New” Egypt and they may be on the verge of expanding their sphere into Syria (replacing Iran and handing it a major diplomatic and logistic defeat). Syrian rebels are often seen raising the photos of Saudi King Abdullah and even the Qatari Shaikh Hamad. Some revolutionaries against despotism, raising photos of the most absolute rulers in the world. But all that is for the short term, of course.
Cheers
mhg
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Al-Qaeda, Iraq, Libya, Terrorism

Coming Home: Libya Seeks Release of its Terrorists in Iraq, May Recycle them to Syria…..

   

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“A Libyan delegation is in Baghdad to negotiate the release of countrymen detained in Iraqi prisons, senior officials said on Thursday, adding that eight prisoners have been pardoned. “We will receive some of the (Libyan) prisoners that are in Iraq,” Justice Minister Hmeida Ashur told AFP. “The order for the release of eight prisoners in Iraq was signed yesterday and they will be transferred to Libya in the next couple of days,” he added, without elaborating. He was speaking during a visit to a freshly built courthouse and prison complex in the suburb of Tajura, east of Tripoli, which the interim authorities say reflect broader efforts to revive the judiciary and conduct fair trials. Interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil had said on Wednesday that negotiations were under way with Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon to secure the handover of Libyan prisoners there. On Thursday, the head of the Libyan delegation to Baghdad, Suleiman Fortia, said that there are “about 20 Libyan prisoners” being held in Iraq’s penitentiary system……………”



Several Arab countries have sent their Wahhabi Salafi youth to Iraq to join al-Qaeda and mainly to kill Shi’as. Initially I had thought these Salafi terrorists mostly came for Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states and Jordan, but there seem to be many of them from Libya, among other places. There apparently are many now in Syria as well and possibly in northern Lebanon.

The “new” Libya, liberated by NATO bombs and GCC money, seems to be stuck in the old Qaddafi mode of exporting terrorists and weapons and trouble to other lands. Once these terrorists are caught, the Libyan regime seeks to get them released, perhaps so that they can go to Syria and fight with al-Qaeda against the al-Assad regime. Once these terrorists are killed and their souls sent to hell, the new Libyan regime seeks to repatriate their bodies, which makes a lot of political sense now that armed Islamists hold sway over the new democratic Libya.
If I were in charge of Iraq (not that anybody is fully in charge in Iraq) I would insist that they be tried according to the laws of the land. After all, their al-Saud sources of ideology insist on trying suspected foreigners in their kangaroo courts and end up chopping their heads off. The Saudis even refuse to send their bodies back home to their families, and everybody is entitled to go home.
Cheers
mhg
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Ali Khamenei, Iran, Iraq, Muslims, Saudi Arabia

Iraq: Ali Sistani’s Successor, Iranian Mullahs, and the Saudi King in Bahrain………

 

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“As the top spiritual leader in the Shiite Muslim world, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has instructed his followers on what to eat and how to wash, how to marry and to bury their dead. As a temporal guide, he has championed Iraqi democracy, insisting on direct elections from the earliest days of the occupation, and warned against Iranian-style clerical rule………… Frail at 81, he still greets visitors each morning at his home on a narrow and sooty side street here, only steps from the glimmering gold dome of the Imam Ali Shrine. But the jockeying to succeed him has quietly begun, and Iran is positioning its own candidate for the post, a hard-line cleric who would give Tehran a direct line of influence over the Iraqi people, heightening fears that Iran’s long-term goal is to transplant its Islamic Revolution to Iraq………..”

This is truly nonsense, and shows complete Western ignorance of the degree of independence the Shi’a Hawza has of any government. Even the intrusive Baathist regime could not meddle directly in its affairs. Even Ayatollah Ali Khamenei can’t intervene in the selection of Iranian religious leaders, let alone the Hawza in Iraq. The Najaf Hawza selects its own top Marj’e, the top Shi’a theologian, based on his scholarship, seniority, and how other clerics judge him. It is completely independent of any regime. This is not like the Saudi king appointing and firing his own palace Mufti at will or appointing the members of the Ulema (senior clerics) Council.
 
FYI- speaking of the Saudi king: soon he may be able to appoint the king of his new province of Bahrain and fire him at will.
Cheers
mhg


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