Category Archives: Russia

China, Donald Trump, Israel, Russia, U.S. Congress, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, USA

An Illegal Martian in America: the Party of Russia vs the Party of China…….

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A Martian who has just arrived in the United States (either a legal or an illegal alien) would think American politics are divided into two major parties:

  • The Party of Russia. We are told across much of the media to believe that the Republican Party (GOP) is the Party of Putin and Russia (with all the unpleasant accoutrements: Gulag, KGB, other extremely un-American behavior like guzzling Vodka and eating Pirozhky). Suddenly the Democrats, big losers of this election year, have developed a strange zeal for fending off a Russian quasi-Bolshevik takeover of the USA.
  • The Party of China (Chi-Com, PLA, Robber Oligarchs, Generals snapping up US real estate, industrial espionage, job-stealers, unfair Trade Surplus, Cyber Espionage, North Korea, etc). That would be the Democrat Party, and not only by default.

To complicate matters, many people in the Middle East, and in the wider Islamic world have a different view on this. They also have their own notion about US politics. Many, nay actually most people in the region, believe that both major American political parties are the Party of Israel. Or, more precisely, the Party of Likud right-wingers.
Cheers

M Haider Ghuloum

 

Arab Politics, Egypt, France, GCC, Russia, Weapons deals

France Ships Vladivostok to Egypt: How the Saudis Financed Gamal Abdel Nasser….

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There was once a huge French-made naval vessel: a huge helicopter carrier of the Mistral class. It was ordered from France by Russia in 2011, but with Russia producing a large portion of it.
Then the Ukraine crisis occurred and the West initiated a boycott of Russia. France under pressure decided not to deliver the Mistral, to be named The Vladivostok, to Russia as scheduled in late 2015.

It had a bit of a problem finding a home, a paying home, meaning somebody to pay for it more than Euro 1.2 billion.
It looks like now the Saudis (and very likely their Emirati rivals) have paid for it to be sent to Egypt. Who else, since the Egyptian economy is in no position to buy rice.
So the princes and potentates on the Gulf have financed a new Egyptian battleship named after their toughest historic rival, the secular leftist strongman who sought to overthrow their regime. Another irony of modern Arab history…..

But who will Egypt be fighting in the near future in the Mediterranean or Red Sea that it keeps buying so many weapons with Gulf money (or plentiful Gulf “rice” according to Al Sisi)?


Cheers
M Haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, California, Iran, Jihadis, Petroleum, Russia, Syria, Turkey

The Strange Turkish Russian Iranian Syrian Oil and Pistachio Deals with DAESH…….

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When news seeped out about ISIS/DAESH selling and exporting oil over a year ago, I suspected a Turkish connection, even though Western and Saudi/Qatari media claimed there were deals between ISIS and the Assad regime. After all, the weapons, volunteers, and possibly much of the money for the Jihadis in Syria flowed through the long Turkish border. And ISIS/DAESH controls areas along the border.  And there have been credible reports of cooperation between Turkish military and intelligence and the Jihadists in Syria. These days, when a terrorist or accomplices escape from a European country, they head for Turkey: that is the trailhead to lands controlled by ISIS.
Now the Russians have come out and said it openly, with claims of documentation. Iranian media have also carried and seemed to support the Russia claim.
The Turks could not be original, so what did they do? A day or two later they made their own claim of Russian-ISIS oil deals. I didn’t know Russian needed Syrian or Iraqi oil.
Wait, there is more. To make matters more entertaining, there are now reports on the social media of Turkish claims that Iranians also made oil deals with ISIS/DAESH. Tit-for-tat, since the Iranians seemed to support the earlier Russian claims. I didn’t know that the Iranians also needed Syrian or Iraqi oil. I had thought they spent the past few years trying to sell more of their own oil, not buy foreign oil from their Wahhabi enemies.
What next? Turkish claims of Iranian deals to buy Aleppo pistachios from ISIS? Iranian claims of Saudi oil deals with ISIS? Qatari claims that the Bahrain regime imports some of its nasty interrogators from ISIS? Oh, wait……….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Jihadis, MENA, Russia, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Syrian War: the Advantage of Gospodin Putin, Poisonous Straws for the West………

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Almost everybody who is anybody is involved in Syria now. Plus a few nobodies. The Western powers have been ‘in’ Syria since long before they started their tepid bombing of the terrorists of ISIS (DAESH, ISIL). Some Republican senators have also crossed the Turkish border into Syria for photo-ops, Western trained fighters have crossed from Turkey and Jordan, before handing their weapons to ISIS or Jabhat Al Nusra (I called them Jabhat Al Qaeda three years ago) and defecting to one or another Wahhabi Jihadist groups. Now we also have Jaish Al-Fath, whose name translates correctly into Army of Islamic Conquest, which some Westerners seem to pin their dwindling Syrian hopes on. A poisonous straw to cling to.

The Arab oil potentates of course entered Syria from the beginning in 2011, with money, weapons, and Wahhabi jihadists from the Persian Gulf states and now from across the globe. That is how the early Syrian protests were quickly taken over by the Islamist jihadists. The West commenced its own bombing campaign after the fall of Mosul and other towns in Iraq and the consequent piling up of mass sectarian and religious atrocities in Iraq and Syria.
But the Western bombing campaign has been “measured”, a polite way of saying it was half-assed (which is how I would describe it if I were rude and crude, which I’m not). It is seemingly aimed only at preventing the expansion of ISIS (DAESH), perhaps rolling it back in Iraq. But the goal in Syria seems to be to keep the status quo: for if ISIS is pushed back in Syria, only Assad and his foreign allies would gain. Or, worse, the Al Qaeda allies and offshoots among the various Jaish Al or Jabhat Al or Ansar Al. Keeping the status quo in a civil war and in a multi-faceted international proxy war is nearly impossible. Hence the tepid air campaign that failed to alter the situation on the ground in Syria. Until a few days ago, when Russia decided to upend this strategy which Mr. Putin probably sees as either wimpy or sly.
Now Gospodin Tovarish Putin has decided to join everybody else and also interfere into the Syrian War, but in his case more decisively and with some authority. He has the luxury of knowing who he supports and who he opposes. He wants to defeat the Syrian opposition, most of whom are genocidal Jihadists with many Russian Chechens among them. He wants a victory for the Assad regime and its allies, if he can get one.


Unlike the Western powers, his campaign is straightforward and focused because it does not seek to mollify rich Arab allies, oligarchs whom he needs to mollify with an indecisive and week air campaign. And unlike Mr. Obama, Mr. Putin has a tame Doma (house or parliament) that does not pounce on every move he makes.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
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Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Cinema, GCC, Jihadis, Russia, Syria, Yemen

New Folly of Charlie Wilson and his Mistress: from the Stinger to the TOW………..

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In the 1980s the Reagan Administration decided to supply the Afghan Mujahideen with ground-to-air Stinger missiles with which to shoot down Soviet (Russian) helicopters/aircraft. Years later Hollywood gave “credit” for that policy, and presumably for the fall of Afghanistan to the Jihadists, to a Texas Congressman named Charlie Wilson and his influential Texan mistress (and to Tom Hanks).

The film Charlie Wilson’s War was made just a few years after the terrorist attacks of September 2001, but Hollywood has its own tunnel vision and did not see the irony lurking somewhere in the background of that story. Or, most likely, it was seen as inconvenient to paying suburban movie-goers to bring out the connection that was screaming out of the large screen. After all, that Stinger policy may have contributed to the eventual Soviet withdrawal and handing Afghanistan to a bunch of Islamist terrorists.
The civil war that ensued between the Mujahideen factions and Islamist tribal warlords destroyed more of Afghanistan than the Russian incursion/occupation. It culminated in the takeover of the Taliban and their Arab Wahhabi (Al Qaeda) paymasters. We all know the rest: the switching off the lights all over Afghanistan, terrorist attacks in Africa, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, other places, then in the USA, Europe, and Asia.


That was the Stinger. Now the Russians and Iranians are in Syria, in the air and on the ground. Just as the Saudis and their partners are in Yemen, in the air and on the ground. Now the TOW is being supplied to what are called “moderate” Syrian rebels. And I had thought all moderate Syrian rebels resided in Europe and North America by now. The American TOW is being supplied to counter a possible Russian-Syrian (and possibly Iranian) assault on the strongholds of the Jihadis in northern Syria. If this new weapon works, the likely beneficiaries will be the Jihadis of ISIS and Al-Nusra allies. It is almost certainly too late to revive the old moderate Syrian opposition in-country: the Wahhabi princes and petroleum potentates saw to that three years ago. With crucial Turkish cooperation by Caliph Erdogan, of course.
No doubt the Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati potentates are footing the massive bill.

But does history repeat itself? Can it be repeated? I know that mistakes can and are repeated, and too often.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, MENA, Russia, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy

New Umayyad Dilemma: From Russia to Syria with Love and Bombs?……….

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We have been ranting for almost four years here that the foreign Arabs have subverted the early Syrian uprising and contributed to turning it into a religious and sectarian bloodbath. That especially includes some Arab governments: Wahhabi regimes like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and other non-Wahhabi Persian Gulf governments that bowed to Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood pressure.
So Western powers and Persian Gulf potentates kept picking successive new leaders of Syrian “rebels”. These leaders kept failing, as expected here on these posts. Their early followers usually ended up joining the Wahhabi Jihadist cutthroats with their Western weapons.

The Turkish government was happy to help the growth of the Jihad in Syria (and Iraq) by expediting the flow of foreign weapons, money, volunteers, and accommodating women (harems). Now we have ISIS (DAESH) and Al-Nusra Front (Al Qaeda franchise) and Army of Islamic Conquest (Jaish Al Fath), among others as the only credible opposition in Syria.


So, the choice now is: serious negotiations with the Al Assad regime or the continued Jihad. Make no mistake about it: the Syrian struggle is now completely a “Jihad” to establish an Islamist Caliphate in Damascus. Except it will not be like the Umayyads who joined Islam out of political necessity after Mohammed (the original one) conquered Mecca. They will be true blue puritans: more doctrinaire, more corrupt, and less open than the early Islamic state.
Many foreign powers and regimes and forces are involved in Syria, from Americans to Europeans to small Arab states to Iran and Lebanon. So, why not Russians? Especially if they are sanctioned by Damascus? After all, the Russian Chechen Jihadis are among the leaders of the Jihadist side in Syria and Moscow does not look forward to their possible return home.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Humor, Islamic History, Mexico, Russia

Humor and Aguafiesta Violence in History: from Early Islam to Trotsky in Mexico to Sisi……..

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“In Egypt, the attorney general for Bani Suwaif has ordered a high school Coptic student to be held for 15 days pending investigation. The teenager is accused of making anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim comments on Facebook and other Internet media in a foreign language. In addition, security sources have divulged that the Coptic church and ‘security authorities’ have agreed to expel a Christian family of four from their village of Miyana in Ehnasia district. This came after Muslims accused the teenage son of the family of publishing comments harmful to Islam on Facebook. Sources added that a settlement meeting was held between the Church, high security officers, and some village Muslim families. As a result the Priest Butros G presented an official apology of the Coptic church for the insult published by the teenager against Islam and Muslims. The Coptic family had already abandoned its home and left their village since May 14………..”

This was a brief of the report from Egyptian media. Egypt used to be quite a cosmopolitan and tolerant country. All this started to change after the death of Nasser in 1970. Under Anwar Sadat, Islamist influence started to grow. Under Hosni Mubarak, Islamists grew stronger, Wahhabism started to creep into religious, political, and social conversation. Under Morsi, the first elected leader of Egypt, sectarian and confessional conflict broke out into the open. Salafis  were emboldened. Christians were attacked, Shi’as were lynched.

Under Al Sisi, Egypt is even more divided than ever. There is a mini-civil war in the country where both sides, Islamists and the military rulers, are ruthless: no quarter given and none expected. Parts of northern Sinai are almost attached to the Caliphate of ISIS rather than to Cairo. Other parts look like the hangout of the Hole in the Wall Gang. In villages from the Nile Delta to Upper Egypt (Al Saeed) there is a slow movement of religious displacement and confessional concentration. Egypt’s Copts are almost as grim these days as Egypt’s Islamists.

The once famous Egyptian sense of humor is moving dangerously close to that of Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and Israel. Which means it is at the dangerous level of near extinction, what I would call pre-war or pre-civil war levels of humor. Germans, for example, lost any meager sense of humor they had quickly after 1933, not that they had much before that, not that they have much now. Attila and von Bismarck never laughed and seriously frowned upon humor. The Russians lost the remnant of their sense of humor right after Trotsky was expelled, and we all know why. Mexico, another place with a mostly humorless tradition, proved a fatal exile for Trotsky. The Russians still have to regain it.

Even the early Muslims, they come across as angry zealots. Which by definition they should have been. I believe the Prophet was almost the only one with any sense of humor among them. The rest, the Sahaba and later converts, come across as grim aguafiestas, which they mostly were. That state of grimness lasted until the Abbasids discovered the joys of humor, after the death of their founder Abul Abbas the Butcher.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Europe, Russia, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Senate

The Foreign Oligarchs’ Demand for Senator McCain………

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There have been some reports that president Poroshenko of Ukraine has appointed Sen John McCain as an adviser. I commented on Twitter that maybe now the Nusra Front , the Al Qaeda franchise that leads the Syrian opposition, is trying to recruit him for Syria.

But wait, there may be more: new rumors that the Saudis are vying with the escaped general Hadi, former Yemeni president, to get the senator. They were all impressed with his travel prowess………

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Healthcare, Russia, Uncategorized

What Next? Putin too has Asperger’s……..

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“Vladimir Poutine serait-il atteint du syndrome d’Asperger, une forme d’autisme qui l’oblige à exercer un “contrôle maximum” de lui-même lorsqu’il traverse une crise? C’est ce que pointe du doigt un rapport du Pentagone rédigé en 2008 et publié ce jeudi. En étudiant les expressions et les mouvements du visage du président russe dans des vidéos, des experts militaires ont conclu que le développement neurologique de Poutine avait été perturbé dans son enfance……………”

According to the U.S. Defense Department…….
Which should go some way in improving relations in these early stages of this new Cold War that almost everybody on all sides seems eager to have continue and develop. Not that Asperger’s is anything that reflects a human shortcoming. It is just a human condition, like many others. I know, or I should know.
Could it have been a vaccination that did it? Will Putin’s case become an issue in the 2016 election caucuses and primaries now? Will some brilliant scientific candidate for president wonder aloud if Putin is responsible for “spreading” Asperger’s (High Functioning Autism, Autism Spectrum) in the U.S? …………..
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Economics, Russia, Sanctions

Russia: an Economic Barbarossa? Une Grande Armee économique?……….

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Have Yourself a Merry Little——-> Kenny G. Holiday 

“Russia Reels” screams the headline in the Huffington Post. With similar headlines in other media. An old headline that goes back to another world…….
 You’d think we were back to Barbarossa and June 22, 1941. But perhaps with expectations of different results this time…...

Or perhaps a financial version of La Grande Armee of Napoleon, an economic assault. Which might have better luck, better results this time around, given the interdependence of the world economies.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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