Category Archives: US Foreign Policy

Arab Elections, GCC, Iraq, US Foreign Policy

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


      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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

[email protected]

Iraq, US Foreign Policy

The Myth of the Iraqi Baathist Army Endures……

      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter


Whenever things heat up in Iraq, as they are these days, most Western and Arab media types and ‘analysts’ fall back on an old and mistaken argument. That argument is: that disbanding the old Baathist army was a big mistake by the Bush administration. Oh, yes, if only the old Baathist army ‘was not disbanded’. Yet it is arguable how and when the old army was ‘disbanded’ and by whom.

During the start of the last Iraq war in 2003, the Iraqi army vanished. Its men just shed their military uniforms and melted away. They deserted rather than defend Iraq’s borders. They did not even defend their capital Baghdad, which lay open for the coalition invaders (or liberators, if you will). The army that tormented its own native people could not face foreign forces, sadly a typically common Arab phenomenon.

The old Iraqi army vanished, deserted at the start of the war, long before Paul Bremer arrived in Baghdad. The myth that Bremer made a mistake by “disbanding” it continues. The myth is dusted up periodically by media and analysts and pundits and many Arab apologists, then shelved until the next Iraq crisis. 

Yet, with or without Bremer, would the Shi’as and Kurds of a new Iraq have accepted continued domination by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist army? The same army that was so good at gassing and repressing them?
In fact Bremer just formalized a fact that existed: the old Iraqi army had deserted, refused to fight, and effectively disbanded itself.

Cheers
mhg

[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Elections, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, US Foreign Policy

America on the Nile, Whining on the Nile: Time to Grow Up on the Nile?……..

      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter 

“These discredited Egyptian liberals made their bed with the generals, now they are being forced to sleep in it. So just relax and enjoy it for the next thirty years: you’ve earned it……………” Me

Here is my broad-brush take on political developments in Egypt since 2011:


  • In February 2011 during the uprising against the regime of Hosni Mubarak, many of his Egyptian opponents claimed that the Obama administration was trying to shore up his position, to keep him in power. 
  • On the other hand, many of his supporters complained that the United States was trying to overthrow him, by not helping him. Saudi King Abdullah, who famously claimed the protesters at Tahrir were foreign agents, is still pissed upset at Obama for not helping Mubarak crush his people.

  • After Mubarak fell, almost everybody in Egypt who was not an army general claimed the Obama administration was keeping the SCAF military junta in power. Some among the military probably suspected that Obama was ready to throw them under one of those crowded Cairo buses.

  • In the summer of 2012, Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood won the presidency in free and fair close elections. His domestic and Arab opponents mostly acted as if the Obama administration had somehow helped him win the election. The Islamists claimed that he won in spite of American plots against him. Persian Gulf princes and potentates who could not tell an election from the proverbial ‘hole in the ground’ apparently suspected foul play. Egypt’s liberals joined forces with the oligarchs and the Mubarakistas and the Wahhabis to call for ‘restoration’ of the feloul.
  • In July of 2013 General Al Sisi, whom Morsi had promoted to minister of defense, stabbed him in the back by staging a military coup that overthrew the elected president. Al Sisi was urged to act by three factions: Egypt’s deluded liberals, the feloul, and the Gulf princes and potentates. The Muslim Brotherhood -MB- claimed the Americans were in cahoots with the military. Admittedly that was a very tempting suspicion, given the history. 
  • At the time U.S. congressional delegations to Cairo had divergent opinions: McCain/Graham said correctly that July 3 of 2013 was a military coup; Bachmann/Gohmert (the idiot delegation) praised the military coup even as they told Egyptians of the joys of American electoral democracy. 
  • The other side in Egypt, the liberals and oligarchs and feloul, claimed the Americans had made a deal with the MB and had wanted them in power. Egypt’s ‘liberals’, most of whom had urged the military to stage a coup and supported it, now proceeded to whine that the military had made plans with Washington to take power (after a coup that these same liberals pushed for and supported).

  • Now that the military has resumed its overt role as the absolute rulers of Egypt, these liberals, the few who have not remained on the Sisi bandwagon, are back doing what they do best these days: whine. They are blaming you-know-who for it. Western powers and most Arab oligarchs no doubt are happy with the outcome of the Egyptian non-election. But it is not as if the CIA and the U.S. State Department carried people by force, bused them by force, to vote 97% for Generalissimo Field Marshal Al Sisi. These discredited Egyptian liberals made their bed with the generals, now they are being forced to sleep in it. So just relax and enjoy it for the next thirty years: you’ve earned it.

Now it must be time for some of these people to grow up and look for the real culprits where they are, among themselves……………

Cheers
mhg

[email protected]

Israel, Syria, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

Defining an Enemy: Torn Between Syria, Israel, and a Skunk……..

      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Watched a morning CNN show. They had two U.S. senators, a Democrat from the Northeast and a Republican from the West. Senator Barrasso of Wyoming is a former doctor and seems like a reasonable man. No doubt he is. Yet he kept doing a common (but stupid) senatorial thing: he kept making assertions that simply are not supported by any facts. He kept saying things like “Syria is an enemy of the United States”. Now calling some country “an enemy” has big implications and should not be used cavalierly as many U.S. senators do, especially when the senator is not up for reelection. 

Which started me wondering: how do you define “an enemy”? Which raised a few questions as I tried to figure out an appropriate definition:

  • When was the last time Syria was at war with the United States (the traditional ‘official’ definition of ‘an enemy’)? 
  • When was the last time Syria attacked the United States? 
  • When was the last time the United States attacked Syria?
  • When was the last time Syria took American hostages? 
  • When was the last time Syria arrested any American? 
  • When was the last time Syria was caught sending spies into the United States? (It does, but less than the Chinese).
  • When was the last time any Syrian who is not a Wahhabi committed violence against American personnel or property?
  • When was the last time Syria said that Mr. Obama’s days are numbered? (Even though in this case the days are numbered and well-known).


The immediate tempting conclusion is that an “enemy” to the U.S. Senate and Congress is someone who disagrees with U.S. government policy. But no, that is not quite correct, not in all cases. Mr. Netanyahu disagrees vigorously with United States policy in the Middle East, yet he is a hero to the U.S. Senate and Congress. Mr. Al Assad also disagrees vigorously with United States policy in the Middle East, and he is considered an enemy (and a skunk to boot).

Economics, Europe, NATO, Russia, Sanctions, SCO Shanghai Cooperation Organization, US Foreign Policy

Ukraine Fallout on an Arizona Gas Station: Union of Sanctioned Pariah States……

      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter


“Even as the crisis in Ukraine continues to defy easy resolution, President Obama and his national security team are looking beyond the immediate conflict to forge a new long-term approach to Russia that applies an updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment. Just as the United States resolved in the aftermath of World War II to counter the Soviet Union and its global ambitions, Mr. Obama is focused on isolating President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood and effectively making it a pariah state………………”

A pariah state: it sounds ominous. The list is already long and can get longer. Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, etc. Now the mother of all sanctions: a possible creeping economic blockade of the huge Eurasian mass of Russia, with spillover into other countries. Mr. Putin may be excused if someday he makes a famous Reagan-esque speech outside the IMF building, with a great sound bite: “Mr. Obama (or Mrs Clinton or Mr. Bush III) tear down this blockade………” 

Provided he can get a visa to get to the IMF building. And it would be more effective if he could keep his shirt on during that speech.


Yet a blockade against Russia invites blockades against many others, if the Iranian example is to be imitated. Russia is huge; it is still that ‘other’ world (bigger than an Arizona gas station). Many countries, from Asia through Latin America and Africa, and even Europe, will not go along with sanctions against (Mother) Russia. But even if they do, we will have two new definitions of nations. Now we have: First World and Third World, Developed World and Underdeveloped World, Industrial and non-Industrial World (the last one is not as sharp anymore). SCO (Shanghai) countries are highly unlikely to comply. Countries like India and China and Brazil may straddle the two as they are partially blockaded by the “international community”, meaning by the Western powers of North America and Europe. Of course, India and China represent many more people than all of the “international community” of North America and Europe.  


Soon we may have new blocs of nations: Sanctioned or Blockaded Nations and Non-blockaded Nations; Blockading nations and Blockaded Nations, etc. Sounds almost like a new Cold war of “beggar they neighbors across the vast oceans”.

Cheers
mhg

[email protected]

GCC, Russia, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

After Crimea: Will a Lonely Star Opt to Live with Mexico? How about the GCC?………

      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter


“This wouldn’t be the first time Crimea has changed hands, though. The peninsula became part of Ukraine only in 1954, and before that it had a bewildering number of owners, including the ancient Greeks, the Scythian Empire, Rome, the Goths, the Huns, the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, Venice, Genoa, Imperial Russia, Soviet Russia, and, briefly, Nazi Germany. Still, for the last 60 years it has been part of Ukraine, and having it ripped away would be quite shocking…………. Like Crimea, Texas has been part of many other nations and was once its own sovereign republic — the six flags at the famous Texas-based amusement park represent those various countries: Spain, France, Mexico, the U.S., the Confederate States of America, and of course the Republic of Texas. And although 97 percent of Texans wouldn’t vote to secede from the U.S. today, the Lone Star State has a sizable separatist movement. Texas and Crimea are also both situated at the bottom middle of their respective nations, and in similar proportion.………..”

The Mexicans are unlikely to do a Putin and storm across the Río Bravo del Norte to reclaim Texas. At least not in the same way. Although the governor of Texas has been threatening secession, again, and the history of Texas tells us the Lonely Star state would be seeking another domestic partner to shack up with again. And who is there in a convenient location to open their arms (not weapons) and welcome it back? The Mexican oligarchs and ruling classes may not want that. They probably know they’ll screw it up just as they have their other states from Chiapas to Baja California: soon Austin may look like Tijuana.

Speaking of a partner to shack up with: the Saudi king is perennially seeking new additions to the Gulf GCC. If he ever got wind of the restlessness of Texas, the potential of a Lonely Star, he might come a-courting. Seeking to get it to join the Gulf GCC (not the Gulf of Mexico, that other Gulf).

Cheers
mhg

[email protected]

Iran, Russia, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Nuclear Campaign 2016: Hillary Clinton Covering her Right Flank, Smilin’ Joe Biden………

      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter


“Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed doubt about the possibility of reaching a deal to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities, one of the only instances in which she has not given her full-throated support to President Obama since leaving her post early last year. “The odds of reaching that comprehensive agreement are not good,” Clinton said in an address at the American Jewish Congress gala, according to the Washington Post. “I am also personally skeptical…………….”

It might be just a precaution, in case the nuclear talks somehow fail. Then a loud: “I told you so!” at the Iowa debates. Odd how the U.S. has pushed harder for solutions to issues with Iran, Israel, and Palestine now that Clinton is out of the State Department. Could be partly the political changes inside Iran. It would have been impossible for Obama to take a call from Ahmadinejad as he sped out of New York City (‘Oh, by the way Mr. Obama, I did not really mean all that stuff about the Holocaust‘). I don’t hold much hope for the Israel-Palestine approach at this time, but the Iran issue seems to be moving smoothly. Seems to be making a lot of progress. It must take more than ‘celebrity star power’ to deal with world problems.
 
Fresh from calling Vladimir Putin a new ‘Hitler’, or was it ‘like Hitler’? (Silly cliches always make it to the evening news). The Russians must be getting wary of Hillary (well, Gillary in Russian, not even Khillary). She is only covering her ‘right flank’ for 2016. Republicans will keep squawking “Benghazi, Benghazi!”, and Hillary will keep calling for tighter screws on Iranian thumbs as she tries to cover her right flank with the Democrat war bloc for the primaries and with others for the general elections. (The Democrats are missing a left flank for now: Bernie Sanders is not even in the Party). Like two kids, toddlers playing around each other rather than with each other. Interesting debate that will be, it already is, no?
Then there is “Smilin’ Joe” Biden, her main fear and worry right now. So far possibly the most qualified man (or woman) in the potential presidential field. So far. That includes both parties: Democrat, Republican, plus Communists and even AJC.

Cheers
mhg

[email protected]

GCC, Russia, US Foreign Policy

A Russian Gas Station? Senator Unwittingly Disses Sputnik and Many OPEC Countries………

      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter


““Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country,” McCain told Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It’s kleptocracy, it’s corruption, it’s a nation that’s really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy.”………………..”

I must admit it is a great sound bite. He is right about the corruption and kleptocracy and the funny political game that keeps Putin and his sidekick Medvedev in power forever. But, ah, Senator McCain, suppose next time you fly into Riyadh or Doha or a couple of other cities in our region and you are asked about this funny statement? I mean especially about that oil and gas station and the corruption and kleptocracy?

“Masquerading as a country”? Which reminds me of a long history, of a few dead gentlemen and ladies like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Pushkin and Turgenyev and Borodin and Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov and Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin (look him up) and Valentina Tereshkova (look her up), and some others. And a few places that probably suffered more than any other places in the last century: Stalingrad, Leningrad, Crimea (when it was Russian), Smolensk, etc, etc.……..
And then there were the soldiers who liberated Auschwitz: they were not from the EU (many of those were helping round up the victims) or from France or Saudi Arabia.
Then there was the Okhrana and the Gulag. And there was Stalin, but he was not Russian, he was a Georgian. No, not Dixie or CSA, the other Georgia, the one Senator McCain said “We are all Georgians” about.

Cheers
mhg

[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, GCC, Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy

GCC Egyptian Hook-Up Game: Saudis Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places……

      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter



“Saudi Arabia is also now bruiting the induction of Egypt into the Gulf Cooperation Council, presumably with the proviso that Egypt will be allowed to extract enormous strategic rent from the GCC. In return, Egypt will protect the very wealthy but very weak GCC from Iran and Shiite Iraq, and from the Brotherhood. Anonymous Egyptian sources I saw quoted in the Egyptian press when I was there last week were speculating that if al-Sisi becomes president, he can bring in $240 billion in investments and aid from the Gulf………………..”

“PAMP (Polygamous
Arab Male Potentates), seeking poor family-ruled Arab country that does
not believe in democracy, and is willing to send troops and security
agents when needed. Money is no object, up to a point. Preferably no
Shi’as or Hasidim or Haredim among the population.” Possible GCC Personal Want-Ad


That PAMP mock want-ad reflects the state of Gulf GCC regimes since 2011. It is actually the state of the Saudi royal family, since it is the princes who have been flailing to grasp some accommodating Arab regime that can be invited to keep order when needed in exchange for money. From Jordan to Morocco, and now to Egypt.
 

Perhaps they are better off staying with the U.S. Navy for external protection from any real or (more likely) imaginary foe. Whoever heard of the Egyptian navy? Or the Jordanian navy? Or the Moroccan navy? But protection from whom? What the princes really want is a land force for protection from their own people, protection from change: that is why they have hired mercenaries from Asia and Arab countries (Bahrain) and even Latin America and Australia (UAE).

Modern Egyptian military history, its effectiveness, is very iffy (I am being polite here). In spite of the heroics of Al Sisi. After all, the four wars with Israel were not exactly ringing victories, starting with the first defeat at the hands of the ragtag Haganah bands in 1948, what we call the Palestine War. Actually in that war five Arab armies were defeated by graduates of the European concentration camps and survivors of the butchery of the civilized world. It was all downhill from then.
They may have won their last campaign at home: the war Mr. Mubarak declared on Egyptian swine in 2009, the so-called War on Pigs. Egypt’s native swine, the country’s largest minority for thousands of years seem to have all but disappeared, reportedly eliminated. Long before anyone ever heard of Mohammed Morsi. Although some of them are probably hidden inside the government and the military, sanctioned within the bureaucracy.
 

The Saudi princes are notoriously unstable (or maybe just stupid). They surprised everyone, perhaps even each other, by unilaterally inviting Jordan and Morocco to join the GCC in 2011. Then they spent the next couple of years trying to walk back from that stupid proposal.
Now they are toying with economically strapped Egypt, a country that keeps getting more crowded along the banks of the Nile. Egypt needs to stop and then reverse its population explosion, otherwise no GCC money can help. Besides, dreams of tens of billions are just that: dreams. They will get a few billion, but at a price of letting the Gulf princes and potentates pick their leaders (as they did in 2013 and 2014), and at the price of deciding their foreign policy. At the price of turning the country even more into a ‘watering’ hole for hungry and thirsty and, er, ‘socially’ frustrated and repressed Wahhabi men.
Here are some links to previous postings on this topic:

GCC Summit in December: Auld Lang Syne and L’Internationale

Bahrain Poised to Import Even More Jordanian Mercenaries?

Morocco and Jordan and GCC Constitutional Monarchy

Moroccans are from Mars, the GCC from Venus? Democracy and Humor

Saudi Leadership of GCC: Three Major Failures, Three Strikes but not Out, not yet

Gulf GCC: on Jordanian Accession, Roman Dinarius, Israeli Shekel, and Kosher Currency

Saudis in Denial: Expanded GCC? What Expanded GCC?

Expanded GCC? Picking Security over Economics, More on Black Magic

Gulf GCC: Moroccan Couscous Controversy, Jordanian Humor Controversy

Riyadh Marriage Proposal: GCC, Morocco, Jordan……

Freedoms the GCC will Bring to Morocco and Jordan……

Fatwas on GCC Expansion: Jordan, Morocco, and the Muftis

Cheers
mhg

[email protected]

Europe, Finance, Russia, Sanctions, US Congress, US Foreign Policy

Bipolar Economics and Hypocrisy in Pусский язык: Sanctions on Putin’s Minions?……….

      

 Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter


The media and halls of Congress are full of
talk about economic sanctions, talk of plans to impose American
sanctions against Russia. Sanctions
are in the cards for some Russians who are deemed responsible (or not) for ‘something’ in Crimea, but guess what? The man who ordered
the troops into Crimea will not be sanctioned. Putin is not being
sanctioned, just some hapless underlings. Now how do you spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y in русский язык?
There are some stronger threats from U.S. law-makers (a few of them like Senator Bob Menendez are also suspected of allegedly being law breakers themselves) to impose tougher sanctions on Russia and on (former) Ukrainian officials. But not on Putin. On the senate floor, Senator McCain even expressed a burning desire to ban select Russians from going to Las Vegas. LasFuckingVegas? That is what he said (minus the expletive). Is that the best these august men can come up with? And what happened to the wonders of unfettered unregulated unsanctioned free markets?

Europeans are deemed too hesitant, considered wimpy by U.S. senators and Obama bureaucrats already tested and blooded in the battles for media sound bites and in the battles of other sanctions. The EU itself is almost certainly threatening more punishment than it is willing to actually apply.

Just think of the company (some) Russians will be keeping among the targets of Western sanctions: Cuba, Iran, Syria, Iraq (once), Lebanon (a big chunk of it anyway), Russia, North Korea. A gaggle of West African leaders and warlords. Probably others I can’t recall.

And suppose India and China and Pakistan and Indonesia and Brazil and Argentina and Algeria and Egypt and several other countries refuse to respect these expanded Western global sanctions? Which they almost certainly will. Would new sanctions be applied to these countries as well? Then will we have two worlds? Those sanctioned by the Western Powers and those not sanctioned by Western Powers? And how will this impact the love affair between extremely patriotic U.S. corporations and cheap Chinese (and Indian) labor and possibly Russian oligarchs, among others?

And if half the world is ‘sanctioned’ how does this affect the effectiveness of the sanctions being bandied about?


Cheers
mhg

[email protected]