Category Archives: Iraq

Iraq, Jihadis, Sectarian, Terrorism, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy, Wahhabi

War for Iraq: the Middle East as a Jealous Mistress……..

  

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter When it comes to American world attention the Middle East is a jealous wife. Or maybe just a high-maintenance mistress. Ukraine and Crimea barely had a few short weeks of attention before our region reasserted its place in the sun, in the limelight of misery and hatred and blood. Its supremacy as ‘the trouble spot’ of the world:

  • Pivot to Asia? Maybe so, but you would never know it from the headlines and media coverage. Hillary Clinton came close but fell way short of the Middle East in American media coverage this past week. But that was mainly because she has yet another book out explaining her positions over the past six years.
  • Benyamin Netanyahu? Who is he: we rarely saw his name this past week in U.S. media, and what little we saw was due to the disappearance of three young Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank (the shooting of several Palestinian Arabs got very little coverage: dead Arab youths are of no interest to the West).
  • Snowden and NSA and all that? No doubt the beat goes on on that one, but all is now kosher with Merkel and the Germans.
  • Obamacare, ACA, Benghazi, and Snowden? Maybe in 2016.
  • Pervasive Chinese cyber espionage? Don’t be so rude.

Iraq: the one country the American people, and many American pundits (but not the damaged war veterans), had thought they had left behind, has reared its head again. It was weird, like going back in history. Like going back to Vietnam after 1975. As if D-Day had left some loose ends that needed to be retied a couple of years later. Suddenly Iraq has become a major American concern again. 

Wahhabi Jihadists of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or Levant), a.k.a. ISIS or ISIL or WTF and allies had blitzkrieged the Sunni parts of western Iraq, beginning with Mosul and through to Tikrit. Apparently they did it in cahoots with remnant Baathists: to the barely-concealed cheers of the former victims of the Baathists on the Gulf. Blitzkrieg is supposed to be un-Islamic, a heathen style of war only reserved for non-Muslims. Only Germans and Israelis are supposed to wage such heathen war. But the Salafi terrorists, flush with money from the Persian Gulf princes and oligarchs and volunteers from Arab and Western countries, went on a rampage. They took several Sunni towns and performed the obligatory mass killings, lining up thousands of Shi’a (and likely some Sunni) soldiers and employees of the Iraqi state, having them dig up their own mass graves, and mowing them down with very un-Islamic machine guns. In the best tradition of the German Nazi SS and their auxiliaries of World War II. 
We don’t know anymore of what else is happening now in Mosul and other places where the terrorists have taken over. There has been direct media silence for a few days since the early Wahhabi surge (not a pun). There is no first-hand media presence. Which might mean the new ghazis, the conquerors are taking the next logical step: ‘cleaning house, ethnically or otherwise’.
Cheers
mhg
GCC, Iraq, Syria

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

      

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“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

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GCC, Iraq, Islam, Jihad, Sectarian

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

      

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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

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Arab Elections, GCC, Iraq, US Foreign Policy

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


      

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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

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Iraq, Jihad

Iraq: Rumors of War and Politicking at a Convenient Time……

      

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CNBC reporter this morning in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan: the Obama administration is trying to pick an alternative to Al Maliki to be Iraq’s next prime minister.
It does seem suspicious all his recent flurry of military and terrorist and political moves, the timing of it all. That the terrorists of the ISIS and Baathist remnants in northern Iraq started their assault on Iraq just after the elections. Just as they were haggling to pick a new government. Was it time to affect the politics? Was it aimed to get rid of Al Maliki? Did they coordinate it with brotherly and sisterly (and maybe motherly) neighboring despotic Arab regimes who facilitate the financing and pull their strings? You betcha…………

Saudi-backed Iyad (or is it Ayad) Allawi, the perennial quasi-Baathist candidate is out in public again. He is publicly pissed at the Americans for not making him prime minister of Iraq in 2009-10 when he could not get enough parliamentary votes to form a quasi-Baathist government. That Saudi-Qatari-UAE attempt at a political coup in Baghdad failed, as I had fatwa-d that it would. Allawi is railing at foreign (meaning Iranian) influence in the Iraqi government, even as he has been trying to get foreign powers, the U.S. and Gulf princes, to get him the job of prime minister of Iraq. His chances of ever getting the job would almost certainly require another American invasion of Iraq: that is how he got appointed to the (unelected) job last time.

 

Cheers

mhg

[email protected]

Al-Qaeda, GCC, Iran, Iraq, Syria

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

      

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“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]

Arab Politics, GCC, Iraq, Jihadis

Iraq: Rumors of War and Politicking at a Convenient Time………

      

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CNBC reporter this morning in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan: the Obama administration is trying to pick an alternative to Al Maliki to be Iraq’s next prime minister.
It does seem suspicious all his recent flurry of military and terrorist and political moves, the timing of it all. That the terrorists of the ISIS and Baathist remnants in northern Iraq started their assault on Iraq just after the elections. Just as they were haggling to pick a new government. Was it time to affect the politics? Was it aimed to get rid of Al Maliki? Did they coordinate it with brotherly and sisterly (and maybe motherly) neighboring despotic Arab regimes who facilitate the financing and pull their strings? You betcha…………

Saudi-backed Iyad (or is it Ayad) Allawi, the perennial quasi-Baathist candidate is out in public again. He is publicly pissed at the Americans for not making him prime minister of Iraq in 2009-10 when he could not get enough parliamentary votes to form a quasi-Baathist government. That Saudi-Qatari-UAE attempt at a political coup in Baghdad failed, as I had fatwa-d that it would. Allawi is railing at foreign (meaning Iranian) influence in the Iraqi government, even as he has been trying to get foreign powers, the U.S. and Gulf princes, to get him the job of prime minister of Iraq. His chances of ever getting the job would almost certainly require another American invasion of Iraq: that is how he got appointed to the (unelected) job last time.

Cheers
mhg

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Al-Qaeda, Finance, GCC, Iraq, Jihadis, Syria

Economics of Terrorism in Iraq and Syria: Follow the Money if You Can………

      

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“The extremist group that is threatening the existence of the Iraqi state was built and grown for years with the help of elite donors from American supposed allies in the Persian Gulf region……….. But in the years they were getting started, a key component of ISIS’s support came from wealthy individuals in the Arab Gulf States of Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Sometimes the support came with the tacit nod of approval from those regimes; often, it took advantage of poor money laundering protections in those states, according to officials, experts, and leaders of the Syrian opposition, which is fighting ISIS as well as the regime. “Everybody knows the money is going through Kuwait and that it’s coming from the Arab Gulf,” said Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. “Kuwait’s banking system and its money changers have long been a huge problem because they are a major conduit for money to extremist groups in Syria and now Iraq.”…………..”


The money, it all comes down to the money. Any army or militia needs a source of money: zealotry alone is useless. God will surely not help an army or militia that is flat broke. Thousands of Wahhabi terrorists in Iraq and Syria would not function long without money, a lot of money. It is not money from captured oil fields in Iraq and Syria. It is not from taxes in impoverished western Iraqi regions. It is not locally printed money. It is not from ransoms paid for hostages: most of the hostages are poor pilgrims or soldiers who can’t afford a ransom. It is hard currency, mainly U.S. dollars. I have posted on this in the past, more than once. Yet nobody seems able to discover the exact source and route of the money. Correction: we can guess the sources of the money, but nobody wants to come out and say it publicly and do something effective about it. And who has that kind of money, to spend many millions without having to get anyone’s approval?

 

In the case of Kuwait the writer exaggerates: it has been the pro-Wahhabi elements of the private sector that aid and abet the Jihadis, rather than the government. In the case of Qatar and Saudi Arabia (and possibly the UAE) the situation is different: the princes and potentates started throwing money and weapons at the Jihadis in Syria early on. Some of the same princes and potentates are still at it, financing the terrorists even as official policy seems to be against it. Instability in Iraq has always been part of the strategy of the princes and oil potentates.………… 



Here is what I posted one year ago about The Economics of Jihad in Syria:



“Local Kuwait media report that the tribal Islamist opposition has called for a mobilization for war in Syria (they called it for Jihad in Syria). A bunch of former opposition tribal Islamist MP’s held a sort of tribal charity ball but stag, a large gathering of men to start a campaign to raise money to equip and arm 12 thousand ghazis (ghazi is Arabic for invader, raider, meaning here Jihadi) for Syria. They have called for every family (that listens to them) to equip and arm one Mujahid to go to Syria to fight. One of them suggested that 700 Dinars (about US $2400) would prepare and send a Jihadis to battle in Syria. (No idea if this amount covers one or multiple multiple wives). That of course does not cover the current cost of operations: food, bullets, shelter, bribes, booze, weed, women, etc. All that minus current revenues: whatever can be looted as war booty or obtained as ransom for hostages the FSA and Jihadist militias like to take (they are avid hostage-takers and are still holding two Christian bishops and two other priests hostage, in addition to many Alawis and Shi’as). Some of the well-heeled tribal Islamists at the gathering contributed new non-Islamist cars. One gave a new heathen-made Chevrolet Suburban, another donated a new infidel-made Mercedes-Benz. One former member of parliament got a family to pay for the arming and equipping 28 ghazis (raiders or Jihadis) for Syria. Another former member deposited funds to cover three Jihadis………………”
If $2,400 will send one terrorist fighter to Syria or Iraq. One thousand jihadis would cost $ 2.4 million (as a starting fixed cost, not counting current expenses). Add all other expenses over time, and you do the rest of the math. Take into consideration that the $2,400 might just be a ‘teaser’, a hook, to get things started.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, Iraq, Jihadis, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sectarian, Zeitgeist

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

      

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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

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GCC, Iraq, Sectarian

Sectarian GCC, Delusional GCC: Third Battle of Qadisiyyah, Second Battle of Karbala…….

      

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In the year of Our Lord 15 Hijri (about 636 AD), the Muslim Arab fighters won a big victory at the Battle of Qadisiyyah in what is today’s Iraq. That opened the door for the spread of Islam to Mesopotamia and Persia and beyond.



In September of 1980, while Iran was in revolutionary turmoil, Saddam Hussein’s army invaded the Iranian province of Khuzistan (a.k.a Arabistan). Saddam made several demands and goals for his invasion, none of which were met at the end of the war. Seeing the dire situation inside Iran, he had expected a quick victory, as did most Arabs and many in the West (even the once-venerable The Economist wrote stupidly in 1980 that Iran might become an Iraqi satrapy). Saddam got the support of all the GCC states of the Persian Gulf, moral support, propaganda support, money support, and weapons. He also got the support of all the Western powers: weapons, intelligence, even some limited military action. As well as supplies of chemical weapons and overlooking his use of WMD against Iraqi Kurds and Iranian soldiers. 
Not all Arabs sided with him: Syria, Libya, and Algeria among the Arab states, and a faction of the PLO, did not side with Saddam. The late King Hussein of Jordan, the man who lost Jerusalem and the whole West Bank to the Israeli IDF in one single day, even went to the front and fired some symbolic shots at the Iranians. Iraqi propaganda and Persian Gulf supporters called the war Qadisiyyah of Saddam. In the end Iraq came out of this war a financially broken country. That was when he turned his guns against the Gulf people who had stood by his side. He invaded Kuwait in August 2, 1990 and the rest is history.


Now we have the Wahhabi terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, ISIL) sweeping across northern Iraq. The same great Gulf GCC tribal sectarian minds that cheered Saddam before 1990 are now cheering ISIS. Many of them are claiming that ISIS is really a nationalist rebirth of the Baath Party, apparently a softer Iraqi Baath Party that can now get along with the absolute tribal rulers of the Gulf. Maybe it is not the same Baath Party that invaded Kuwait and threatened the terrified Saudi princes until the Americans showed up and chased them out. Now they claim they are cheering for the disenfranchised Sunnis of Iraq, the 20% who have not reconciled to losing power. 
Diehard sectarians in the Persian Gulf region are coming out of the closet, out in the open; not that they were ever well hidden. From tribal academics to media stars to liberal-Wahhabi-men-and-women-about-town to the clownish chief of the Dubai Police Dhahi Khalfan, they are all in justification mode, using crass sectarian terms. The same crass sectarian terms they used in the 1980s until Saddam’s tanks moved toward the south in 1990.
Now they see this new turmoil in Iraq as a third Battle of Qadisiyyah, or maybe as a second Battle of Karbala, as the Wahhabi invaders in Iraq are hinting at.
 

It is as if on my Gulf they have not learned any lesson from the past few decades. It is as if delusion is like an heirloom handed down from foolish fathers to foolish sons and daughters in the GCC countries of the Gulf.

Cheers
mhg

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