Tag Archives: Saudi

Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Muslim Brotherhood, Persian Gulf, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE

In the Beginning: Shifting Dynastic Alliances in the Gulf GCC……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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In the Beginning………….

There were two major recent Middle East alliances: (1) the alliance of Qatar and Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood-MB- (that was after the MB regime in Egypt was overthrown by the Al Sisi military coup) and; (2) the alliance of military-ruled Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Now the old alliances have been shaken and jumbled so that there are, for now: (1) the alliance of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Turkey (hard to believe that five years ago the Saudis used to accuse Qatar of being allied with Iran and Iraq and Syria and Lebanon) and; (2) the alliance of the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE potentates shared an intense mistrust and hatred of the Muslim Brotherhood, while the Qatari potentates financed and supported the Brotherhood. Apparently the Qatari potentates have so much money that they are always looking for some foreign ally willing to accept some of it, including the FIFA sports officials. The Qataris still support the MB, but the Saudis have modified their view somewhat of their ancient ally and later enemy the Muslim Brotherhood. After all they are allied with the Brotherhood in both Yemen and Syria. The UAE still violently opposes the MB and has moved closer to Al Sisi of Egypt even as the Al Saud have moved closer to Qatar and Caliph Erdogan of Turkey.

Now apparently the Saudi opposition, the Wahhabi branch of it that is overseas, is confused or conflicted about the Saudi-Qatari ties. One school of thought claims that the new Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Nayef Al Saud strongly influences, nay dominates, the Qatari Emir Tamim Al Thani. Another school of Wahhabi opposition thought sees the influence reversed: it claims that it was Emir Tamim of Qatar who influenced the Saudis and talked them into easing up on the Muslim Brotherhood.
They both agree that the real power in the UAE, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed, lost out because he had betted on and was closely allied with Saudi Prince Meteb Bin Abdullah who has lost out after his father died.

P.S:So far only Oman and Kuwait have remained outside these flexible shifting sub-alliances among the potentates of the GCC. Probably wisely, for now.

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Mocha Con Kafka: Southern Arabia as a Testing Ground for Royal Weapons……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2        SaudiObama1

Finally the Saudi princes had a chance to use their hundred billion dollars of weapons stockpiles. They chose Southern Arabia, or events chose Yemen for them.

Except that they used it in their usual shadow-dancing: they used the best Western weapons that money can buy, at a huge cost of prices and bribes, but they used them in yet another Arab country. A country that has not attacked them. This time the poorest Arab country outside Africa became the testing ground. Last time it was Bahrain, but that was a security operation. This one in Yemen became a genocidal massacre of people, destruction of cities and infrastructure and food supplies. A genocide against a whole country, even as the local Yemeni factions are killing each other, largely but predictably ignored by Western media. The remnants of Arab liberals, with keen trained eyes focused on Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati money, have largely ignored the attack on Yemen.

The Saudis harkened to the simpler days of Desert Storm, when the cause was clear: Saddam’s Baathist army had occupied a sovereign country and was trounced by an American-led  Western coalition, with  a few Arab brigades for window-dressing. Never original, they came up with Decisive Storm, which has proved anything but decisive. The ragtag Houthi tribals and their Yemeni army allies withstood the air assault and forced a ceasefire. The escaped former president of Yemen, General AbdRabuh Hadi (Bin Zombie) and his foreign minister and their corrupt Islah (Muslim Brotherhood) partners kept urging more war and a land invasion, into a war they had both escaped and would not fight. The Saudis may have even used the fateful motto “Mission Accomplished”, a la George W Bush in the early days of the Iraq War.

So, will the absolute repressive tribal non-elected Saudi and Qatari potentates force a democratic elected government on Yemen? Would that be through the reinstatement of the weakling General Hadi and his corrupt Islah (local Muslim Brotherhood) allies? Oddly, or maybe not, Islah is Arabic for Reform, but it was anything but reform). Both prospects are unlikely: there an Arab saying that “one can’t bestow what one doesn’t have : فاقد الشيئ لا يعطيه“. An excellent and appropriate saying in the rich Arab tradition. But the Middle East strives to be a little bit more Kafkaesque than the rest of the world.
    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Uncategorized

BBC Applying Lipstick to the Saudi Pig in Yemen……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Certainly, Saudi Arabia has shown an ability to conduct a high volume of air strikes (sometimes as many as 125 strikes a day), proving wrong those that doubted the Kingdom’s ability to sustain complex extra-territorial operations……….. So has the Saudi operation been a success? Yes and no. If the definition of success is the removal of strategic and tactical threats to the Saudi homeland, then yes the Saudis basically achieved their aims…………”

They were using the best Western weapons, hundreds of billions of them, including billions of bribes commissions to princes, bombing an enemy that had no credible air defenses, and still they did not achieve their goals. That usually means defeat. The Houthis now control almost all of North Yemen, and they have gained more territory in South Yemen, including in Aden, since the Saudi air assault started. Al Qaeda AQAP have also expanded their zones of control since their main rivals were busy fending off Saudi air attacks.

This piece of BBC propaganda is putting a pretty face on an ugly defeat in Yemen. A pig with lipstick is still a pig. Even a Wahhabi halal pig.

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Sectarianism, US Foreign Policy

Camp David and the Nusra Front Expose the Saudi Inferiority Complex……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

The media punditry and noise about the upcoming Gulf GCC summit with President Obama at Camp David have exposed certain facts about Saudi Arabia and its relations and aspirations within the region. They have exposed a deep inferiority complex and dangerous insecurity that have exacerbated instability in the Middle East. Just look at the mess that Syria and Iraq and Yemen have become. Let us look at the few countries that the Saudis feel threatened by and create this inferiority complex:
Iran: has some 77 million native people, a diverse economy that has withstood the Western blockade for decades, despite economic mismanagement by the mullahs and lower (deliberately engineered) petroleum prices. It is relatively highly advanced in technology: nuclear and space and medical as well as other industries, probably partly a result of a self reliance forced by the blockade.
Iraq: some 30 million (now), multi-cultural with huge untapped petroleum reserves, and a diverse economy.
Egypt: some 80 million people, a potentially diverse economy and dormant technical knowledge.
Yemen: even poor Yemen has a larger population than Saudi Arabia (26 million citizens against some 16 million Saudi citizens). And an interesting ancient history.
Turkey: a relatively new state with a short history by Middle East standards, but a diverse economy and a gateway to Europe. If only the Caliph Erdogan would stop supporting Jihadi cutthroats in Arab politics.
(Israel: the outlier in the group, but militarily powerful and technically the most advanced in the Middle East. They don’t worry about it because it is non-Islamic non-Arab and hence not a rival; besides, it is either a real or a potential ally against the others).

All these countries have a long history of settled civilization, some of the oldest in the world (with the exception of Turkey).


Is it any wonder the Saudis feel insecure, when they have to rely on foreign labor and foreign products and imported mercenaries to such an extent? When the princes have to pay Sudanese and Moroccans and Senegalese to fight their wars, even against impoverished Yemen? Now they are supreme within the small club of the Gulf GCC. They are assured to remain the largest state, the big man in the club. That is why they will never accept any new members, rivals that are larger and/or more advanced. That is why they will try to make sure other larger states in the region, real and potential rivals, remain distant and weak.
That is why they do the voodoo that they do: try to keep the Western blockade on Iran, keep Egypt weak and politically divided and subservient, try to keep Iraq divided, try in vain to get and keep control of Yemen.

That is why they introduced their strongest strategic weapon so far: politicized modern Islamic sectarianism. They have (re)introduced it into the region and use it extensively to divide and weaken their rivals and maintain their power at home. The alleged Sunni-Shi’a war is in reality an attempt to extend the Wahhabi war on other Islamic sects, on other faiths.
What are ISIS and Al Nusra and Al Qaeda and AQAP and the rest of the intolerant Jihadi gangs but Wahhabism taken literally to its extreme? Speaking of which: reports now tell us that Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Turkey are backing Al Nusra Front in Syria, the certified approved Al Qaeda franchise in that country. Anything for the appearance of an elusive victory on their rivals.

Gulf GCC Comes to Camp David: the Addled, the Wretched, and Emma Lazarus………

Phony Arab Fear of the Iran Nuclear Deal: Catharsis and Kumbaya at Camp David………

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Gulf states, Iran, Persian Gulf, U.S. Foreign Policy

Gulf GCC Comes to Camp David: the Addled, the Wretched, and Emma Lazarus……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”  Emma Lazarus

The Huffington Post headlined (exaggerated) on Monday: “The Great Gulf Back-Out. Saudi King, Other Gulf Nation Rulers To Skip Camp David Summit………..”. Other US media have also repeated this idea of the hesitation of the tired, poor, huddled, wretched of the Gulf to make the trip to Washington. This is a bit of an exaggeration. There are solid non-political reasons why most of the top GCC leaders will not attend; Several of them are physically unable:

  • King Salman of Saudi Arabia: the Saudi princes are as unhappy about the Iran nuclear deal as Netanyahu claims to be. Maybe even more so, given that Netanyahu is a faker: he uses it as a red herring. Saudis want Iran under blockade, impoverished and preferably attacked by Americans or Israelis or both. Because it is the only way they can be the most important player in the Persian Gulf. The Iranian population is about 77 million, almost all native, and they sit over the world’s largest gas reserves. The Saudi population is about 16 million citizens (plus about 9 million temporary foreign laborers who rotate). Some Saudi (Wahhabi) opposition groups claim that King Salman is suffering from Alzheimer’s and that he will never attend any foreign summit anyway. This self-serving rumor has not been totally corroborated yet.
    (Bahrain doesn’t count as completely independent here. The rulers of Bahrain ape the Al Saud: with thousands of Saudi troops in their country, they do as they do and probably they do as they are told).
  • Oman: the Sultan of Oman has had surgery and lengthy medical treatment in Europe. In recent years he has had someone else represent him at all foreign summits. Besides, he maintains friendly relations with both sides of the Iranian-Saudi rivalry.
  • United Arab Emirates: the president of UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed is ill, and he has been absent from all summits. The real power is with his brothers, especially crown prince Shaikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, who will attend. Nothing new here. So, in spite of claims by some UAE minor officials and professors about a reaction to the Iran deal, this is not exactly true: the ruler has not attended any summit for several years, nor should he, and he would not attend Camp David anyway.
  • The Emir of Kuwait and Emir of Qatar apparently are the only two healthy rulers of the GCC. They will attend.

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen

Nusra Front: Are the Princes Bringing Al Qaeda Back in From the Cold?………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

Speaking of my last post on Middle East media control and its influence on Western policies. Perhaps the biggest success of the Saudi-Qatari massive media has been in Syria. They have done the unforeseen: they have managed to smooth out the transition to open support of Al Qaeda in Syria without much audible American complaint. I mean Al Nusra Front is a true-blue terrorist cutthroat group, it is the legitimate chosen local franchise of Al Qaeda, the same Al Qaeda which attacked the United States in New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Port of Aden (Yemen). Now the Saudi-Qatari axis, plus the Turks, are supporting and supplying the Jihadi groups in Syria with American weapons, and what else is new? With the alleged exception of the Caliphate of ISIS: but ISIS has been supplied and armed and enabled by the same suspects for several years.

When this topic was publicized in the media last February, there was some thinking that they will try to reset the favorite Syrian group of Arab quasi-liberals and Wahhabi-liberals- the Free Syrian salafi Army- the FSA. But now it is clear that they are trying to rehabilitate the Al Nusra Front of Al Qaeda and its allies. Which indicates that it is true: it is the same old trick tried in Iraq and Syria.  It isn’t easy to teach an old dog new tricks. You can’t teach an old Wahhabi (Saudi and Qatari) or Muslim Brotherhood (Turkish), both old dogs, new tricks.

That may also be going on for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula-AQAP. Saudi air strikes in Yemen have reportedly left the AQAP territory and operations deliberately intact. I have posted on this possibility of bringing Al Qaeda in from the cold some years ago, once the Jihadi violence in Iraq escalated. Is this following the age-old rephrase of the idea that “Me and My Fellow Wahhabi Against the Houthi“? And where does that leave the major indispensable Western ally?


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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Media, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen

Unequal Media Wars, Proxy Wars in the Middle East……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

The Saudi Wahhabi opposition (Mujtahidd and others who support ISIS) recently claimed that the new defense minister Mohammed Bin Salman, the crown prince to the crown prince, has ‘purchased’ a hundred thousand Twitter accounts, possibly other social media as well. That he plans to hire many security workers to man them and use them. It claims he plans to use them to build up himself in the media. That is not new, some of the top potentates, as well as the most vociferous fundamentalists now ‘own’ millions of followers. 

Anyway, right now the media wars for the West are being won by the Arab princes. Hands down. When it comes to media control and public opinion, billions of dollars make a big difference, especially in influencing Western opinion (but not so much non-Gulf Arab opinion). That is why the Saudi and Qatari potentates have spent billions acquiring existing major traditional Arab media outlets and establishing new ones. From Asharq Alawsat (owned by King Salman) to Al-Hayat (owned by prince Khaled Bin Sultan) to Alarabiya (Saudi royal in-law) to Al-Jazeera and Al-Quds Al-Arabi (Qatari royals) to Middle East Online (UAE) to Al-Arab (owned by Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal but searching for a home outside the Gulf after being ejected from Bahrain), to LBC, among others. And many others.

Now major Western outlets and news agencies often grab anything headlined by Saudi and Qatari networks and magnify them as ‘truths’. By the time they are bounced around the globe and return to where they started from, they ‘are’ quoted as ‘the truth’. A neat trick. It is like the claim that in Yemen, ‘loyalists’ to deposed president Hadi Al Zombie (actually mostly Southern Independence and AQAP) are fighting the Houthi-Saleh alliance on his behalf. Or the myth that Yemen’s war is a proxy war between saudi Arabia and Iran: except that it is the Saudis who are directly bombing Yemen (no proxies there) with Western munitions including cluster bombs. There are no proxies there now, unless the rented Sudanese and Senegalese and Egyptian troops land in Yemen. But then some clever reader might ask: and who are the Saudis acting as proxies for?

Initially the Houthis were not Iranian proxies or allies either: they had their own agenda. Colonel Saleh certainly is not: he was a close Saudi ally for years, even though he is a Zaidi, (or Shi’a) as Western media keep mentioning. But now the Houthis have moved closer to the Iranians for practical reasons, so they are Iranian-backed, but it is still farfetched to call them proxies or stooges.

Yet references to the legend of ‘proxy’ wars in Yemen and Syria continue in the media………

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Yemeni Monolog of the Walking Dead: Hadi’s Political Masturbation in Riyadh……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

The deposed and exiled former president of Yemen Hadi has come out publicly and announced May 17 for the start of a “dialog” on Yemen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He even almost looked official, almost serious, in the media photos.

There will be no dialog on Yemen in Riyadh. Hadi will not have the two most powerful men in Yemen to talk with: neither Houthi nor the deposed Saleh will show up. Nor the powerful Southern Independence movement, whose leaders supported the Saudi bombing and cluster munition attacks on (North) Yemen when they were mostly done over Sanaa and Saada. Nor the Al Qaeda AQAP that now controls more territory as a result of the Saudi bombing campaign.

I immediately suggested that the only “dialog” will be between Mr. Hadi and Mr. Hadi, i.e. himself. A sort of vocal political masturbation for the former runaway president. I also suggested he could install a large mirror so that he can look himself in the eyes and launch his monolog, pretending he is actually in a dialog with other than his Saudi hosts and masters.

Two things have been clear to me for at least six weeks now: (1) Abdrabuh Hadi (Al Zombie) is a walking dead politically: he will never return to Sanaa, nor will he ever rule any part of Yemen; (2) there will be no dialog in Riyadh with his participation or that of his foreign minister Yassin who has been urging more Saudi bombing of the Yemeni people. Even Mr. Bahah has almost crossed that line with his moving closer to the position of the Saudi masters.

Which means that any “dialog” on Yemen can only be held in some non-GCC country. With the possible exception of Oman which wisely avoided getting involved in this Foolish Storm over Yemen. And under the supervision of some international figure (LOL no, not Tony Blair)

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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GCC, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Foreign Policy

Phony Arab Fear of the Iran Nuclear Deal: Catharsis and Kumbaya at Camp David………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“The Obama administration is scrambling for reassurances it can present this month at a Camp David summit meeting to persuade Arab allies that the United States has their backs, despite a pending nuclear deal with Iran. Officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department have been meeting to discuss everything from joint training missions for American and Arab militaries to additional weapons sales to a loose defense pact that could signal that the United States would back those allies if they come under attack from Iran. Over mahi-mahi at the Pentagon two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter polled a select group of Middle East experts for advice on how the administration could placate Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, all of which fear the nuclear deal, according to several attendees………………..”

First (of all): it is not an “Arab” fear of the nuclear deal. Ask most Arabs from Baghdad through Amman to Algiers and Tetouan, ask 250 million of them and they will not express any fear of this deal. Arabs have lived with a nuclear and aggressive Israel for decades without expressing any fear of it either.

Second: a part of the small minority of all Arab who live on the Persian-American Gulf express disapproval of the nuclear deal (not counting the majority of the population who are South Asian expat laborers). Many of them don’t know its details and look at it from a sectarian view and in some cases whatever their government propaganda tell them.

Third: the rulers of the GCC Gulf states are not afraid of the “nuclear” deal either. They are worried about expanding Iranian influence in Iraq and Syria and Lebanon, and potentially in Yemen. A legitimate worry. Only about three of them (only about three regimes) are also afraid of lifting the Western blockade from the Iranian people which will strengthen their economy.

Fourth: These three (or four) regimes are pretending to be afraid of a nuclear deal only as a bargaining chip: the same position as Benyamin Netanyahu takes. The last time Iran attacked a neighbor was almost three hundred years ago. When was the last time Iran was attacked by a neighbor? In 1980, by Baathist Iraq with active help from others in the neighborhood. The Baathists used WMD in that war.

Fifth: the mullahs don’t directly attack a neighbor, unlike Baathist Iraq (attacked Iran and Kuwait), unlike Saudi Arabia (attacked Yemen at least three times: 1930s, 2009, 2015 and attacked Kuwait once in 1920). Even so, the Persian-American Gulf is clogged with powerful Western navies that can deter any conventional attack.

Sixth: Even if we ‘buy’ the claims about Iran’s nuclear program. When was the last time a country used nuclear weapons in ts own neighborhood? Is there a regime so stupid as to contemplate doing that, across its border? Are there regimes audacious enough to use it as an excuse to keep an economic blockade on a neighbor?

No doubt Mr. Obama knows all this, or he should know it when he sits down with his guests. Which also makes one wonder: why not also invite Netanyahu to Camp David, since he claims the same worries and concerns? Then Mr. Obama can have his catharsis with both. It should be fun: Likudniks and antisemitic Wahhabis singing Kumbaya at the camp. 

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Islamic History, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Queen Balqis Resists the Wisdom and Charm of King Solomon in Yemen………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“It may be that King Salman of Saudi Arabia and his younger son Mohammad, who is defence minister and chief of the royal court, saw the war in Yemen as a way of securing their power and removing rival factions in the royal family from power. On his throne for only a few months, King Salman has been taking a harder line in the Saudi confrontation with Iran and the Shia. He has not only started an air war in Yemen but has given stronger backing to Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qa’ida affiliate, and other jihadi groups in Syria. These have recently won several victories in Idlib province over the Syrian army and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. A problem in ending the war in Yemen is that it will be difficult for King Salman to come out of it without a success if he wishes to avoid damage to his prestige at the start of his reign. At the same time, Saudi Arabia does not appear to have a plan other than the total defeat of the Houthis and their allies, something that is unlikely to happen…………”

The American bombs, delivered by the Saudis, have been falling for over six weeks, to no avail. Except the continued destruction of the fragile infrastructure of Yemen and the increased misery of its people.

So far there has been not a sign of Brig. Qassem Soleimani in Sanaa or Aden. Not a single Iranian has been seen, apprehended, or photographed anywhere in Yemen. As I noted once “not a soldier, Revolutionary Guard, or bricklayer“. So much for the claims, and the excuse, of “Iranian incursion” in Yemen. Al Qaeda and the Southern Independence Movement (Hirak) and ISIS (Islamic State) are now the only opponents of the Houthi-Saleh alliance. The IS have made their presence felt, but they have been reduced to beheading and shooting other Yemenis since they could not find any Iranians, nor could they find any of the Iraqis or Lebanese that Gulf Salafis and Wahhabi-Liberals claim are all over the region.

This time the wisdom of King Solomon has failed, so far, in bringing the Yemeni Queen Balqis, Queen of Sheba to her knees (forgive the irresistible pun). That is unlikely to change in modern Yemen: the rugged Houthis, northern country folks that they are, are well experienced in fighting superior forces and frustrating them.
So far. But the Saudis have deep pockets, and their Western suppliers are willing to replenish the bombs, for a price……..

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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