“Bahrain’s crown prince met the Shi’ite Muslim opposition leader on Wednesday in search of a way out of a three-year political deadlock, a week after reconciliation talks were suspended in a setback for efforts to stabilize the U.S.-allied Gulf state. The breakdown in the reconciliation process raised jitters in the tiny Gulf Arab island monarchy in the middle of a regional tussle for influence between Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Muslim powerhouse Saudi Arabia. The meeting between Crown Prince Salman al-Khalifa and opposition chief Sheikh Ali Salman was the first since shortly after major unrest among majority Shi’ites demanding democratic reforms and a bigger say in government broke out in early 2011….…………”

The Bahrain uprising will be three years old on St. Valentine’s day in about two weeks. From the outset in February of 2011 there have been various reports and occasional speculation in Western media about Bahrain and its ruling family. One argument has been that the ruling Al Khalifa family are divided among ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’. The ‘hawks’ want to keep chipping away at what little freedoms (very little) remain from Bahrain’s original post-independence constitution. Their goal, presumably, is a Saudi-style form of democracy where the ruling family senior shaikhs are the only voters (they are almost there). The ‘doves’ presumably want to limit that ‘chipping away’. The two sides of the ruling family have at least one thing in common: they both have no respect for their original post-independence covenant with the people.

The Crown Prince Salman is reportedly listed as one of the ‘doves’. So, they report a meeting with some of the opposition as the Bahrain uprising enters its fourth year next month. Too close to the anniversary and to another round of the Formula One Grand Prix event next spring.

This is all useless, all this talk about a dialog between the ruling family and the opposition who, as a group, represent the majority of the people of Bahrain. The crackdown on opposition protests at Lulu (Pearl) Square started with the Saudi invasion of 2011 under the guise of the GCC Peninsula Shield. The Peninsula Shield was supposed to help member countries against foreign aggression, not help the regimes against their peoples. The only opportunity it had to do so was when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait: but at that time the Saudi princes were quaking in their boots (I wouldn’t be so rude as to say they were soiling their underpants) until U.S. forces arrived.

Anyway, the Saudi entry in Bahrain started the ratcheting up of the repression that continues to this day. That is because the Saudi princes have a certain view of what should be ‘allowed’ in Bahrain, and they will veto everything else. Anything too divergent from the Saudi-style absolute tribal family rule will not be acceptable to the foreign Wahhabi overlords of Bahrain. They “own” the regime of Bahrain now, and no solution is possible as long as Saudi forces and security agents occupy the country.

Since it is unlikely that the Saudis will withdraw willingly, well, then you can draw your own conclusion as to how this will go in the coming months. Maybe more Saudi forces and agents to bolster the thousands of foreign mercenaries the regime keeps importing from places like Pakistan and Yemen and Jordan and Syria. Which will make it even harder to reach a compromise.

And the beat goes on……….

Cheers

mhg

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“Al Qaida’s central command publicly has disowned its Iraqi affiliate over that group’s brutal activities in Syria in an unprecedented break that analysts say may weaken the Syrian insurgency and impact al Qaida’s operations across the Middle East. In a statement posted on jihadist forums late Sunday, al Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahiri and other commanders formally declared the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, not an al Qaida affiliate over its defiance of an order last year to limit its operations to Iraq and to leave operations in Syria to the official al Qaida affiliate there, the Nusra Front……………”

Remember when the Syrian “opposition” groups protested when Washington, correctly, declared Al Nusra Front a terrorist group? Even the so-called “secular” opposition leaders and thinkers and theoreticians ensconced in five-star exile objected. The usual Wahhabi enablers and financiers of Al Nusra and its ilk also objected at that time. Now Al-Qaeda HQ, if there is such a thing anymore, has come out that, yes, Al Nusra is its franchise in Syria.

Cheers

mhg

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“Iraq is poised to flood the oil market by tripling its capacity to pump crude by 2020 and is collaborating with Iran on strategy in a move that will challenge Saudi Arabia’s grip on the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. “We feel the world needs to be assured of fuel for economic growth,” Hussain al-Shahristani, Deputy Prime Minister for Energy in Iraq told oil industry delegates attending a Chatham House Middle East energy conference. Al Shahristani said on Tuesday that Iraq plans to boost its capacity to produce oil to 9m barrels a day (bpd) by the end of the decade as Baghdad rushes to bolster its economy, which is still shattered by war and internal conflict. Iraq was producing 3m bpd in December, according to the International Energy Agency. Iraq’s intention to challenge Saudi Arabia’s status as the “swing producer”……………..”

This was bound to happen. With thirty-five years of wars and unrest and Western blockades, it is a wonder Iraq and Iran have produced as much oil as they did. It was normal that the sharp reduction of Iraqi and Iranian production and exports led to a sort of Saudi hegemony of the Middle East petroleum equation, at least in the Persian Gulf region. This has been the case for about 35 years. Not only the damage to oil facilities and the boycotts, but also the lack of adequate new exploration and the updating of actual total reserves for so long. All this seems about to change; it already has in the case of Iraq.

The Saudi princes are aware that their influence and leverage around the world depends on their perceived role as the “swing” producer of crude. Their political leverage in the capitals of Europe and Washington is at stake. That explains the real main motive behind their frantic push for a continuation of the Western economic blockade of Iran. It even explains their “Wikileak-ed” past push for a new American war on Iran. It has nothing to do with any nuclear program, real or imagined: it is the petroleum, stupid; it is the influence, stupid.

I list here a few other links on this possibly exciting topic:

Beggar Thy OPEC Neighbor: Oil and the Economics of Nuclear Programs……

Impact of Lower Oil Prices on Gulf Potentates, Gross Princely Product………

Huffington on Iraq and Iran: Flawed Path to a Good Conclusion……

Drill Baby Drill: OPEC Quotas, Iranian-Saudi Oil Rivalry, and the Obama Blockade……..

Will Iraq Revise the Gulf Oil Equation?……….

Petroleum Chat: from Tehran through Baghdad to Riyadh and Caracas………

Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia: Coming Oil and Gas Wars and Regional Hegemony…….

Petroleum Rivalries Turning OPEC Upside Down………

Cheers

mhg

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“The United Arab Emirates has summoned Qatar’s ambassador to formally protest against criticism of the Gulf country by a prominent religious leader who has lived in Qatar for decades, the UAE’s official news agency has said. Fares al-Nuaimi, Qatar’s ambassador to the UAE, was summoned to the foreign ministry in Abu Dhabi and handed “an official letter of protest” over “insults” by Muslim leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, WAM news agency reported on Sunday. In a sermon two weeks ago delivered at a mosque in the Qatari capital, Doha, and broadcast by state television, Qaradawi condemned the UAE as a country which was against Islamic rule, UAE media reported. His comments came just days after the UAE jailed a group of 30 Emiratis and Egyptians to terms ranging from three months to five years for forming a Muslim Brotherhood cell, AFP news agency reported. “We have waited for our neighbour to express a clear rejection of this insolence and to offer sufficient clarifications and assurances for this misrepresentation and incitement against the UAE,” WAM quoted UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash…………..”

The potentates of our Gulf region are at it again. Here is a summary of where they are and how some of them got there:

• Qatar’s regime is known to support the Muslim Brotherhood ( MB ). The Qataris were close to the Egyptian MB and its ruling classes; they even poured a few billion dollars in foreign aid into the country. They also aspired for a while in 2011-2012 to become the king-makers in a new Islamist Syria.

• The ruling Saudi princes favorite allies and their favorite proxies and fifth column are the Salafis who are basically Wahhabis. They profess that any Muslim ruler is sacrosanct, no matter how corrupt he is, as long as he remains “Muslim”: just what the princes love. The Al Saud are solidly against the Muslim Brotherhood although they were their close allies against the secular pan-Arab tide of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Many of the Muslim Brotherhood sought asylum with the Al Saud during the secular leftist Nasserist era in Egypt. Some of them converted from Sunni Islam to Wahhabism but most did not, and the Al Saud never forgave those. Yet a strain of Wahhabism has also seeped into and influenced the Egyptian Brotherhood.

• The ruling family of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Al-Nahayan brothers who own Abu Dhabi and its suburbs, have also started their own war against the Muslim Brotherhood/MB. It is related to the fact that elements of the MB have thrived in the UAE, especially in some of the emirates. Some of them have called for ‘reform’ and political participation. Those were promptly thrown in jail and their citizenship revoked by the ruling family, not necessarily in that order. The UAE, as well as the Saudi princes, were no doubt instrumental in the movement that led to the military coup by Generalisimo Al Sisi that overthrew the elected Morsi government in July of 2013. Yet the relentless campaign against the MB by the UAE officials and media has been surprising, perhaps because they had earlier underestimated the strength of the MB within their realm.

• Which brings us to Kuwait. Nobody underestimated the strength of the MB in Kuwait. From early on, from several decades ago, the Muslim Brotherhood were allowed freedoms that were denied any other group, except for the Salafis who also benefited. In exchange, both Islamist groups turned a blind eye to certain ‘irregularities’, be they constitutional or political or financial. Their influence even grew after the country was liberated by U.S. forces from the Iraqi occupation in 1991. Both the Salafis and MB formed strong political alliances with tribal elements which also have strong Wahhabi leanings. But the Islamists and their tribal allies overreached after they decided to jump ship and form the main political opposition, openly calling for what would be a Wahhabi theocracy. They dominated the ‘opposition’ in 2012, selectively calling for an elected government in Kuwait even as they strongly opposed any such calls for democracy in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Their political clout is weaker now than it was two years ago. This link here leads to other links and posts on this particular topic.

• Which brings us to Bahrain and its continuing uprising that is entering its fourth year. The official trend in Bahrain is toward Wahhabism, with both the Salafis and MB elements literally praying toward Riyadh. As do their potentates. It is almost correct to say that in the Manama of the rulers, the city of imported Asian and Arab mercenaries and complacent Western expatriates, it is cool to be Wahhabi, it is hip to be Wahhabi, it is chic to be Wahhabi. That is, if you disregard the majority of the people who beg to differ. Hell, given where the money comes from, I’d say it is smart to be Wahhabi. For now.

• Which still leaves Oman. But I have written before that the Omanis do not cotton up to their Wahhabi neighbors and resist their influence. They prefer to look away across the seas, not necessarily toward the frowning mullahs, but across the Gulf and the Indian Ocean; to face the seas and forget about their unsavory brotherly neighbors. That has been their history for centuries. And who can blame them?

Cheers

mhg

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“FOR a country reputed to be dry and dull, Saudi Arabia is surprisingly awash with news. The good old broadsheet newspaper, dying out elsewhere, thrives. The kingdom boasts more than a dozen fiercely competing national dailies. The newest, called Mecca after the holy city where it is published, was launched this month. Not so long ago it was rare to find the front page of a Saudi paper unadorned with a picture of His Majesty King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Places, or at least of some lesser prince with an equally quaint title. Now, in the year 1435 by the Muslim calendar, the chronicling of princely doings, though still de rigueur, tends to be relegated to the inside pages, above advertisements promising cheap, reliable Asian workers or promoting scientifically proven erectile enhancement………………….”

Also sprach the Economist, a fatwa if you will. I wrote only last week that the once venerable The Economist is beginning to act/read/sound more and more like it has been bought by some Saudi princes. That it was now like Alarabiya, Asharq Alawsat (Crown Prince Salman), Al-Hayat (Prince Khalid Bin Sultan), and others owned by Prince Al-Waleed and many other potentates and their retainers.

Now The Economist asserts and seeks to prove that Saudi media is lively and thriving. Nay, it is almost wild and free (which reminds me of the naughty joke about the nervous bishop, the crazy nun, and her wild burro). Maybe fewer photos of the princes on the front page. That is probably because these are unstable times: they are not sure which prince is ascendant and which is on the way down each day. Besides, they are owned either by the princes or their partners, and they have rigorous pre-publication self-and-other censorship. It is like holding a gun to a thief’s head and calling him honest for not robbing the bank.

Cheers

mhg

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Just when many thought the Kangaroo Courts of Egypt’s military rulers couldn’t get any more absurd, they prove everyone wrong. They have done it again and again, just as I had suspected they are capable of. It is becoming almost like watching a show trial in a North Korean court (I think, since I have never been in a North Korean court). In fact these are show trials being staged in Cairo.

The charges against deposed former president Mohammed Morsi keep piling up, aided and abetted by gleeful Mubarak-appointed judges and bureaucrats. The earlier charges ranged from murder to prison escape to drunk-driving to wife-beating to terrorism and treason and rape and sorcery. Now they have added plotting with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah and Hamas. I fully expect the funny court to add new charges soon, including joining the Bolshevik Party, the Black Panthers, the Viet Cong, and selling state secrets to Donald Trump and possibly Ted Nugent. It is getting too lengthy to list all the charges. I am listing here links to some of the earlier posts on this interesting topic of Morsi on trial:

Egyptian Kangaroo: Dr. Morsi in a Glass Cage, Field Marshal Sisi Soars into the Sky

Morsi’s Houdini Moment: Charges Expanded by Military to DWI, DUI, Drugs, Wife-Beating, Defiling the Nile

Egypt: Regime Charges Morsi with Murder, Treason, Espionage, Witchcraft, Rape, Smuggling, Terrorism, Piracy, etc…..

‘Field Marshal’ Sisi Outranks ‘Colonel’ Nasser, Equals Montgomery, Rommel, Zhukov, Al Khalifa

Religion in Egypt: from Saladin to Sisi, from Jerusalem to Beckett

Cheers

mhg

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Cheers

mhg

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They are raising the issue of GCC confederation and expansion again. Bahrain shaikhs and elites, their country already almost annexed by Saudi occupation forces and having nothing to lose, are also pushing for it publicly and on social media. Wahhabi liberals on the Persian Gulf, who look to the absolute Saudi princes for Liberté etEgalité et Fraternité, are as excited about it as they probably can get excited about anything (save perhaps for one other thing). But as I have been saying since 2011 the Saudi idea ploy of confederation has always been DOA.

There is even a revival of the idea of expansion, even as some claim the original GCC may be unraveling, well maybe at least weakening. At least the long-existing differences cannot be swept under the rug anymore. Just as a couple of GCC countries seem ready to bolt out of the stifling Saudi embrace. Yet there is new absurd talk of Egypt being asked to join: the media told us Al Sisi and a gaggle of Al Nahayans had some sort of joint Jane Fonda military exercises last week.

We know that the Saudi princes have been seeking pliable partners to expand the Gulf GCC. Except that there are no more pliable partners left. They have tried with <href=”http:> Jordan in 2011, but then King Abdul in Amman called one of his funny but humorless elections, and the princes don’t cotton up to elections, even funny humorless elections in Jordan. Some GCC potentates quickly and untruthfully claimed they were postponing Jordanian accession until after Ramadan (of 2011). They also invited faraway Morocco to apply for membership, but that was before the King of Morocco called elections which were won by what passes for the Moroccan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Alas, Morocco has no Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi who can set things right after undesirable election results.

Now rumors have it that the princes have been toying with reliably counter-revolutionary Egypt as a possible member, initially that was on the table in 2012 as a ploy to keep the Muslim Brotherhood from winning the last election. Some wags have even claimed that since Crimea voted for secession the princes had thought that maybe they can get that region to join the GCC, but Vladimir Putin quickly beat them to it with this annexation thing.

Back to the drawing board. Morocco and Jordan and Egypt may still look good as targets of Saudi wooing. But speaking of wooing: the Saudi princes are notorious polygamists, much more so than any Westerner, even a French president like Francois Hollande. Polygamy can be added as their middle name: Polygamous Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sounds correct while “Polygamous French Republic” sounds so wrong even if true, especially in French.

I suspect, nay I know, that all of these one-night-stand candidates have less chance of joining the GCC than Turkey has of joining the European Union. Less chance now than the State of Mississippi has of joining the Organization of Islamic Countries. All of them together have about as much chance of becoming GCC members as I have of becoming the next Mufti of Saudi Arabia (or a mufti of anywhere else for that matter).

Cheers
mhg

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So whatever happened to Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Where is the favorite bête noire of the Western world for the past decade? The favorite son of New York City every late September? He has gone awfully and uncharacteristically quiet. Almost like any former U.S. president, with the exception of Clinton. We mostly know where former leaders are in the West (not necessarily where they should be) and what they are doing (or trying to do):

• 
  Write s book or two (memoirs to make a lot of money and explain their lousy policies.

• 
  Give speeches and lectures (mainly to make a lot of money).

• 
  Start some institute (to stay out of trouble, like Clinton).

• 
  Appear a lot on TV (like Clinton).

• 
  Appear a lot on media wherever someone interviews you (like Clinton.

• 
  Have a lot of fun, and I mean fun (like Clinton).

• 
  Start work on a (Walter Mitty?) presidential library. All US presidents do that since it is funded by the public and through donations.

• 
  In France former presidents don’t have time to waste on libraries. They must quickly start collecting lawyers for the upcoming inevitable investigations and possible trials for financial corruption. From accepting cash bribes to accepting diamonds from West African dictators.This has always been the case after de Gaulle.

• Russia hasn’t had a former president for almost two decades. So we don’t really know what happens to them. Wait, I know: they become prime minister and are recycled again through the merry-go-round.

• 
  Start collecting money quickly by working as adviser for foreign potentates and unsavory dictators as well as working as a lobbyist for corporations. Tony Blair of Britain is the only one that fits this bill so far: Churchill and Wilson and Thatcher would not think of it, the fools.

• 
  In Lebanon, nobody gives a f-ck what a former president says or does. Come to think of it, in Lebanon nobody gives a f-ck what a current president says or does.

• 
  In Syria and Egypt and Algeria and Libya and other Arab countries there is no such thing as a former president. If they don’t kill him quickly, they put him on trial for real or (mostly) trumped up charges. They end up hanging him or keeping him in prison for life. Probably serves them right in most cases.

• 
  Retire to the French or Italian Riviera (usually former kings are entitled to do that).

• 
  Host a talk show?

• 
  Die quickly.

Mr. Ahmadinejad has done none of the above, yet. He may start teaching at the university again. I did read somewhere that he is pushing a new college (no, not for Holocaust Studies and Verification). Then there is the Iranian Space Program and the promise to send a human into space within the next two years. He has expressed a desire to think about it.

Too bad no Arab country has a manned space program. I wish they all did, the whole Arab League from Syria down to Riyadh and through Somalia: imagine the possibilities. One can dream………..

mhg

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