Tag: Arabian Peninsula

A Divided Yemen

Yemen has been in the news a bit for the last couple of years…..since the days of the bombing of the USS Cole Yemen has been of interest to the US and for the last couple of years it has been in the news because of the air campaign against the country by the Saudis.  This conflict is a typical Middle East conflict….a powerful country with a massive military against a smaller country with little military…..

But first a little background into the country of Yemen…..North Yemen became independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1918. The British, who had set up a protectorate area around the southern port of Aden in the 19th century, withdrew in 1967 from what became South Yemen. Three years later, the southern government adopted a Marxist orientation. The massive exodus of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis from the south to the north contributed to two decades of hostility between the states. The two countries were formally unified as the Republic of Yemen in 1990. A southern secessionist movement and brief civil war in 1994 was quickly subdued. In 2000, Saudi Arabia and Yemen agreed to delineate their border. Fighting in the northwest between the government and the Huthis, a Zaydi Shia Muslim minority, continued intermittently from 2004 to 2010. The southern secessionist movement was revitalized in 2007.

Yemen is moving toward the past where there were two countries within the borders of Yemen…..

US policymakers have long been split over how far to support the Saudi-led campaign against Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis.

Now that debate is about to get even more complicated as southern secessionists from the port city of Aden take their grievances against the US-backed government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi straight to Washington. The so-called Southern Transitional Council (STC) hired Grassroots Political Consulting earlier this month for $15,000 a month to “solicit support for the STC and the people of South Yemen to regain their sovereignty and independence,” according to newly filed disclosure forms.

A return to the Cold War days in Yemen…..if so what was the point of unification in the first place?

The US has shown little to NO leadership in the region and especially in Yemen….the US basically has allowed the Saudis to create a humanitarian nightmare in Yemen…famine and disease…..

“American leadership” is one of a long list of vague, seemingly benign pseudo-concepts our media throw around to justify increased spending on soft power and military adventurism. It’s a difficult concept to pin down, but it’s almost always presented as something the United States is “failing” to do when it doesn’t “engage” the world with enough war, sanctions or arbitrarily applied human rights scolding.

Lamenting a “lack of American leadership” is, therefore, a time-honored Serious Person cliche for those operating at major US papers, and one Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl phoned in Sunday with his op-ed “Genocide, Famine and a Democratic Retreat—All After One Year of US Inaction” (1/21/17).

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/01/24/wapo-editor-blames-lack-us-leadership-famine-caused-us-leadership

AS much as I would love to blame Trump for the situation in Yemen I cannot for this whole enchilada began with the Obama administration…..but Trump has done NOTHING to change the direction of events in Yemen.

The longer the Trump foreign policy circles the crapper the further into darkness the country of Yemen goes and as usual the people suffer the most for Americaa’s inactivity.

The Qatar Crisis–Update

The mash-up between the Saudis and the Qataris are still going full blast….the “demands” by the Saudis have been toned down a bit…but they are still demanding some unreasonable things from Qatar…

The US has their largest military base in the Middle East in Qatar and the Saudi coalition has been trying to persuade the US to close it down and move it elsewhere…..

The latest in a series of moves by President Trump that appeared to throw a wrench into State Department efforts to calm the Qatar blockade situation saw him telling the Saudi King today that the US could well just abandon their largest military base in the Middle East, the al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar.

Officials from the blockading states have previously suggested that the US ought to consider finding an alternative to the Qatar base, as State and Pentagon officials express concern the protracted blockade could start impacting US wars in the region, which are run out of the base.

This is a hugely important base for the US, and that’s a big part of why State Department officials have been so desperate to try to resolve the dispute. President Trump, however, has treated this base with relative ambivalence, and in his talk with King Salman today said he was confident other countries in the region would “gladly” build the US a replacement base if they abandoned Qatar.

(antiwar.com)

This seems like a bit of an overreach by the Saudis…..they want that cash from the US and will do whatever it takes to see the base closed….even helping in the hack that started this whole affair….at the time Qatar said they were hacked and the accusations were untrue…..and then they were vindicated….

In a stunning turn of events, the Washington Post is quoting US intelligence officials as saying that the “fake news” hack which started the Qatar blockade was actually the product of a plot concocted by top leaders of the United Arab Emirates, one of the blockading states.

The officials say US intelligence agencies were able to confirm a May 23 meeting by UAE leaders discussing the plan, and that the very next day, a Qatari state media outlet was hacked, and false quotes attributed to the Qatari Emir were planted there. The quotes praised Hamas and talked up Iran as an “Islamic Power,” and fueled an immediate backlash from Saudi Arabia, as well as its allies.

Qatari officials were quick to note the hack at the time, and brought in the FBI to help. At the time, there was speculation in the media that the US involvement meant Russia was suspected of involvement, though there was never any plausible reason why this might be the case.

The UAE, however, has long-standing grievances with Qatar, as do the other three blockading states, as all object to Qatari media outlets’ coverage offering more conflicting viewpoints than is common within the Middle East.

(antiwar.com)

Pres. Trump has been ignoring the evidence to make the Saudis happy….why?

While it is true that Qatar allows some factions to run an office out of their territory…

It wasn’t accidental, or surprising. Qatar has historically been very open to allowing controversial foreign factions to run offices out of their cities, with groups like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood finding a welcome in Qatar that simply doesn’t exist elsewhere.

This is also a big part of the foreign blockade against Qatar, as more restrictive nations like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the Egyptian junta don’t take kindly to Qatar playing host to their (often banned) opposition parties, and treat their permission to operate as tantamount to Qatari “support.” With openness to dissenting opinions also pervasive in Qatari media, but literally nowhere else in the Middle East, it’s turned them into something of a pariah.

Another thing to consider is that during the “Arab Spring”…while the more restrictive countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and UAE were scrambling to protect their authoritarian rule, Qatar was often on the side of the protesters….thus began their fall from grace among the “kingdoms”.

For this reason should put the US squarely on the side of the Qataris……that is if we truly stand for democracy and freedom…but it appears that the opposite is becoming the norm under the Trump admin.

Time to make a stand!

The Axis Of Tyranny

We have had the Axis Powers from World War 2…….we then had the Axis of Evil from the Bush years of pushing crap on the American people and the world…..the Axis of Evil was Iran, Iraq and North Korea…..and now with the mash up between the Saudis and their monarchical allies and Qatar we have an new “Axis”….the Axis of Tyranny.

It began in 2011…..what the media named the Arab Spring.

That was a mere 6 years ago and yet it is mostly forgotten…..so I will refresh one’s memory if you so desire…..

The Arab Spring was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across the Middle East in early 2011. But their purpose, relative success, and outcome remain hotly disputed in Arab countries, among foreign observers, and between world powers looking to cash in on the changing map of the Middle East.

Source: What Is the Arab Spring? A Definition

That was a historic battle between the forces of oppression and the forces of democracy.

Saudis and the other monarchs in the region began to sweat that it might spill over into their realms….and have been working ever since 2011 to curb any and all democratic movements…..

The Qatar-Gulf crisis is a battle rooted in the aborted first wave of the Arab Spring. So far, Arab despots have succeeded in curbing democratic change in the region, but their latest tactics come with much higher risks

The current Gulf Crisis that threatens to destabilise the whole region didn’t pop out of thin air. Its origins lie in a much deeper rivalry rooted in the geopolitics of the Arab Spring, when people rose up and threatened to overthrow an existing order that favoured the preservation of tyranny.

Authoritarian rulers in the region took this as a direct threat to their power and thus began to invest their resources in a counter-revolutionary effort led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Their neighbour, Qatar, home to the Al Jazeera news network, however, chose a different direction and decided to embrace change. Thus began a vicious contest in one of the world’s most strategic locations.

Source: Democracy and the Arab axis of tyranny | Middle East Eye

Of course Qatar will be the poster child of this assault on events from the past….the biggest “threat” is that they, Saudis, say that Qatar is harboring “terrorists”….and I say what like the US did with Operation Paper Clip?

All this is the Saudis setting themselves up as the “ruler” of the Middle East….what they say is the word of “God”…..keep in mind that the radical Islam of ISIS is a direct descendant from the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia…..when you understand that then you can better understand this situation…

My problem is the mash up between Saudi and Iran…..the split between Sunni and Shia…..but if push comes to shove and the Saudis in bed with the US any conflict will involve the US and possibly its military.

Even now while this situation with Qatar is in its infancy there are indicators that something between the US and Iran are brewing……

The Saudi war in Yemen is really directed at…Iran. Donald Trump’s first overseas visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel was specifically targeted at…Iran. The Saudi-led isolation of Qatar is actually about…Iran.

The escalation of U.S. military actions against the Syria government is… well, do I really need to spell this out any further?

Donald Trump has identified several number-one enemies to target. Throughout the campaign, he emphasized the importance of throwing the full weight of the Pentagon against the Islamic State. More recently, his secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, identified North Korea as “the most urgent and dangerous threat to peace and security.”

Source: All Signs from Trump Point to a Coming Conflict with Iran

All this could be solved if only we had a State Department and a cadre of diplomats….all we have now is a pile of yes men that will do whatever their “fearless leader” wants them to do without any concern for the future and its meaning.

Why?

Donald J. Trump and Mohammed bin Salman have a similar outlook when it comes to Iran. Both see the Islamic Republic as a threat that needs to be contained. What then does the elevation of Mohammed bin Salman, commonly known as MBS, to the role of crown prince of Saudi Arabia mean for the Sunni kingdom’s relationship with Shi’ite Iran?

“Nothing good,” said F. Gregory Gause III, head of the international affairs department at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service.

Source: Saudi Arabia and the United States Are on a Collision Course With Iran | RealClearDefense

This conflict can be avoided….that is if that is what we actual want.

I am not so certain that a peaceful way out is desirable to the Trump people.

My Advice For The Saudis–“Bite Me”!

I have been writing a lot on the Saudi-Qatari mash up recently.

Does the Arab League still exist?

Where is the mediation by the League?

Questions for another post no doubt.

The Saudis have released their demands for this situation to be over…..

Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries that have cut ties to Qatar issued a steep list of demands Thursday to end the crisis, insisting that their Persian Gulf neighbor shutter broadcaster al-Jazeera, cut back diplomatic ties to Iran, and sever all ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. In a 13-point list—presented to the Qataris by Kuwait, which is helping mediate the crisis—the countries also demand an end to Turkey’s military presence in Qatar. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain broke ties with Qatar this month over allegations the Persian Gulf country funds terrorism. Those countries have now given Qatar 10 days to comply with all of the demands, which include paying an unspecified sum in compensation.

According to the list, Qatar must refuse to naturalize citizens from the four countries and expel those currently in Qatar, in what the countries describe as an effort to keep Qatar from meddling in their internal affairs. They are also demanding that Qatar hand over all individuals who are wanted by those four countries for terrorism and provide detailed information on opposition figures it has funded. Qatari officials in Doha did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the AP. But the list included conditions that the gas-rich nation had already insisted would never be met, including shutting down al-Jazeera. A day earlier, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned the demands must be “reasonable and actionable.”

What are the specific terms issued by the Saudis?

1) Scale down diplomatic ties with Iran and close the Iranian diplomatic missions in Qatar, expel members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and cut off military and intelligence cooperation with Iran. Trade and commerce with Iran must comply with US and international sanctions in a manner that does not jeopardise the security of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

2) Immediately shut down the Turkish military base that is currently being built, and halt military cooperation with Turkey inside Qatari territories.

3) Sever all ties to all the “terrorist, sectarian and ideological organisations,” specifically the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIL, al-Qaeda, Fateh Al-Sham (formerly known as Nusra Front) and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Qatar needs to formally declare those entities as terrorist groups based on the list of groups that was announced by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE and Egypt, and concur with all future updates of this list.

4) Stop all means of funding for individuals, groups or organisations that have been designated as terrorists by Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, US and other countries.

5) Hand over “terrorist figures,” fugitives and wanted individuals from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain to their countries of origin. Freeze their assets, and provide any desired information about their residency, movements and finances.

6) Shut down Al Jazeera Network and its affiliate stations.

7) End interference in sovereign countries’ internal affairs. Stop granting citizenship to wanted nationals from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain. Revoke Qatari citizenship for existing nationals where such citizenship violates those countries’ laws.

8) Qatar has to pay reparations and compensation for loss of life and other financial losses caused by Qatar’s policies in recent years. The sum will be determined in coordination with Qatar.

9) Qatar must align itself with the other Gulf and Arab countries militarily, politically, socially and economically, as well as on economic matters, in line with an agreement reached with Saudi Arabia in 2014.

10) Submit all personal details of all the opposition members that Qatar supported and detail all support that Qatar has provided them in the past. Stop all contacts with the political opposition in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain. Hand over all files detailing Qatar’s prior contacts with and support for those opposition groups.

11) Shut down all news outlets that it funds, directly and indirectly, including Arabi21, Rassd, Al Araby Al Jadeed, Mekameleen and Middle East Eye, etc.

12) Agree to all the demands within 10 days of it being submitted to Qatar, or the list becomes invalid.

13) Consent to monthly audits for the first year after agreeing to the demands, then once per quarter during the second year. For the following 10 years, Qatar would be monitored annually for compliance.

Okay now we know what the Saudis want.

MY advice to the Qatari government is to issue a two word statement…..”BITE ME!”

Saudis want to control the press…..they made no mention to Saudi citizens that have supported terrorism (start at home before you demand of others)…..Qatar should counter with reparations for the blockade…..Saudis want to pick Qatar’s friends…..Saudis want open access to Qatari monetary books…..Saudis are not concerned with rights and freedom of self-determination of Qatar……they want control.

In essence….BITE ME!

Qatar’s Ambassador to the United States Meshal bin Hamad Al-Thani writes: Qatar’s policies are rational, moral and just, and our efforts to foster dialogue and oppose tyranny will lead to a better future not only for our people but also for the world. Qatar has the right to chart its own course, without the interference of other nations, and that is what we can and will do. The door to the negotiating table will stay open.

The UN needs to step up and act like the governing body they are suppose to be……Saudis are acting like the bully in the school yard…the world should not allow this to continue….it could have far reaching consequences.

Qatar: The Rest Of The Story

 By now if you are an IR geek then you are scratching your head about the situation in the Persian Gulf region……Qatar and Saudis are having a  moment of dispute…..Trump has weighed in on Saudis side and condemned the Qataris for their support of terrorism…..debate lines (for now) are being drawn…..

After his, Trump, scathing condemnation of Qatar abd then he authorizes a sell of weapons to the very same country……

Defense Secretary James Mattis and his Qatari counterpart, Defense Minister Khalid al-Attiyah have signed a $12 billion arms deal today in Washington, a move made particularly high-profile because of the ongoing blockade imposed on Qatar by its Gulf Arab neighbors.

The agreement is for the purchase of a number of F-15 fighter jets, a sale which the Pentagon says will ensure that Qatar has “state-of-the-art” defensive capabilities. Qatar is the richest nation on the planet in per-capital GDP, but a very small nation to be spending $12 billion on warplanes.

Over the past couple of decades, oil-rich Gulf Arab states have used some of their massive oil revenue to buy US warplanes as sort of prestige pieces to trot out during parades and the like. That tensions are rising between Qatar and the other nations, who have their own large fleets of US warplanes, but this purchase in a totally different context.

(antiwar.com)

So what is the rest of the story?

Ambassador from the United Arab Emirates suggested the US should move their base out of Qatar to “pressure” them. That, it seems, is not under serious consideration from the Pentagon.

So is it about the US base location?  Or about the support for terrorism?

Could it be more geopolitical than we are told?

The intra-Arab rift that has set Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt against Qatar is now in its second week. A feud that seemed to begin as a principled stand against Doha’s support for terrorism—one flash point was Qatar’s recent payment of nearly $1 billion to Iran and to Sunni extremists to liberate a hunting party held captive in Iraq— now appears to be something else.

The diplomatic crisis splitting the Gulf Cooperation Council isn’t really about Sunni extremism, or Qatar’s easy flirtation with Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Thus it has nothing to do with the larger issues shaping American foreign policy and the role of our GCC allies in implementing it. No, it’s just Abu Dhabi waging political warfare against Doha with a specific goal in mind—to get the United States to move its military base from Qatar to the UAE.

Source: The Real Story Behind the Diplomatic Crisis With Qatar | The Weekly Standard

As an IR geek this is just too damn interesting to pass up.

The question now is….will this situation have a possible diplomatic solution?

If it does then the US may well not have anything to do with the solution…..the top US diplomat in Qatar has resigned because of the wonky Trump foreign policy.

Confrontation appears to be in the wind…will calmer heads prevail?

Destabilization of the Persian Gulf

The situation between Qatar and the Saudis is starting to destabilize the Middle East….a region that does not any more help in doing so.

That “Arab NATO” didn’t last very long, did it? The break with Qatar by some of its Arab brethren, including its nearest neighbors, is impressively comprehensive, involving a breach of diplomatic relations and an economic and transportation embargo. It reflects sharp divisions not only within the Arab world but even among the half dozen monarchies that constitute the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The break is a resounding refutation of the notion, which was a leitmotif of President Trump’s recent trip to the region, that significant lines of conflict in the region can all be reduced to some simplistic grand division, such as of evil versus good, Shia versus Sunni, or Iran versus everyone else.

Source: Trump’s Destabilization of the Persian Gulf | The National Interest Blog

Nothing good can come from the Trump admin taking sides in this situation….

A lengthy New York Times article over the weekend touches on a contradiction in the U.S. strategy against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Even as the United States cooperates in a de facto tactical alliance with Iran against ISIS, we’re engaged in a longer-term strategy against Iranian influence in the Middle East. U.S. and Iranian-backed forces have even clashed in battlefield skirmishes in recent weeks.

Picking a fight with an implicit ally is problematic for many reasons. Perhaps most worryingly, such clashes risk sucking U.S. forces deeper into Syria’s civil war.

The article quotes Lebanese scholar Kamel Wazne’s argument that the Trump administration, with encouragement from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, is “turning up the heat against Iran,” and eager to prevent it from establishing “’Shiite crescent’ of influence from Iran to Lebanon” when the Islamic State is defeated. This stance, we’re told, “puts the United States at loggerheads with the pro-government alliance in Syria.”

Source: Placating the Gulf States Distorts Middle East Policy | Cato @ Liberty

The first causality of this incident is America’s top diplomat in Qatar…..

The U.S. ambassador to Qatar reportedly resigned on Tuesday over President Trump’s criticism of the Persian Gulf nation.

CNBC’s John Harwood reported that Ambassador Dana Shell Smith resigned over Trump’s attacks. Harwood cited Trump’s recent comments about Qatar, saying they undermined State Department efforts to ease tensions.

Source: US ambassador to Qatar resigns: report | TheHill

Some see a failure of this Saudi attempt…….

It has been apparent for some time that the war against the Islamic State (IS) group and its forebear al-Qaeda is by no means the only show in town in the Middle East. In fact, for most of the time, the war on terror has been a sideshow.

The attempt to bring Qatar to heel by closing its borders and effectively laying siege to it has shed light on the real forces competing for dominance of the region in the post-Western world in which we live today.

Three regional blocks are vying for control.

Source: Why the campaign against Qatar is doomed | Middle East Eye

This situation is fascinating to observe……just how it plays out is still up in the ether…..

I know it is giving me sleepless nights on the PC and the cel…but it is worth it!

Qatar: The War Of Words

Most people know of the problems that are brewing on the Arabian Peninsula between the Saudis and Qatar…right now it is a war of words and diplomatic BS.

I read a horrible story the other day about the poisoning of some Iraqi refugees…..

Iraq’s Health Minister and the UN refugee agency have confirmed that there was a mass food poisoning at the Hasansham U2 camp, located between Mosul and Irbil, and at least one person has died. Health Minister Adila Hamoud said the meal that was served as Iftar affected around 800 people, with at least 300 in critical conditions.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was “really concerned” by the events at the camp. Its staff are coordinating with other agencies and authorities to provide swift medical treatment and transport the seriously sick to nearby hospitals.

Source: Iraq: Around 800 people poisoned at refugee camp | Myinforms

I know…what has this got to do with the back and forth between the Saudis and Qatar?

Easy peasy.

Food poisoning at a camp for displaced residents of Mosul has made more than 700 people sick, with hundreds hospitalized, Iraqi officials said Tuesday. The incident at the Hassan Sham U2 camp, about 13 miles east of Mosul, has become part of the ongoing dispute between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Saudi media accused a Qatari charity of supplying tainted food to the residents of the desert camp. Iraqi Health Minister Adila Hamoud told the AP that 752 people in the camp became ill following a Monday night iftar—the meal breaking the dawn-to-dusk fast by Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan. At least 300 people remain in serious condition, he said. Various reports have put the number of related deaths between zero and three.

Amira Abdulhaliq of the UNHCR said it was unclear when the meals had become contaminated, whether it was during preparation, packaging, transportation, or distribution. “So far, we have received around 800 cases. Around 200 have been transported to the hospitals in Irbil,” she said. Irbil Gov. Nawzad Hadi said the food was prepared in an Irbil restaurant by a local NGO, Ain el Muhtajeen, and funded by a Qatari charity known as RAF. In Saudi Arabia, which has been leading a recent campaign to isolate Qatar, state media quickly seized on the issue with coverage that implied Qatar was poisoning refugees deliberately. The Hassan Sham U2 camp houses thousands who have fled their homes in and around Mosul after a US-backed Iraqi offensive was launched in October to dislodge the Islamic State group.

I see the usual tactic…..grab onto something in the news and turn it into a justification for action…..(and that Irene is how propaganda works)…it was successful in the first Gulf War as well as the return trip to Iraq.

And now more weapons will flow into Saudi Arabia…..

The Senate on Tuesday narrowly turned back a bipartisan bid to rebuke Saudi Arabia and reject President Donald Trump’s plan to sell the kingdom more than $500 million in precision-guided munitions, sparing the new Republican administration an embarrassing defeat.

The vote Tuesday was 53-47, clearing the way for the sale to be finalised. The precision munitions are part of Trump’s proposed $110 billion arms package to Riyadh, which the administration said would create US jobs while also improving a key ally’s military capability.

(alArabya.co.uk)

Where will these weapons be used?  Yemen….Qatar?  This is what happens when your ambassador takes a hike…..no one there to try and end the posturing.

Maybe this is what was wanted all along……I mean would not be the first time.

Qatar Mess Heats Up

The situation involving the Saudis and the Qataris is still raging…. and of course the president has to mouth his opinion, which does not help the situation….after all Qatar was considered a source of investment not long ago fpr the Trump Group…..

Donald Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner all repeatedly sought financing for various investments in recent years from leading figures in Qatar, according to sources with direct knowledge of the meetings.

Those previously unreported overtures have taken on new relevance as a diplomatic crisis aggravated by President Trump has left the small Gulf nation blockaded and isolated by its rivals, with tensions in the Middle East reaching historic highs.

President Trump on Friday characterized Qatar as “historically” a “funder of terrorism at a high level,” an accusation that came just an hour after his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appealed for “no further escalation” in the Gulf Cooperation Council squabble, urging dialogue to quickly resolve the crisis, which pits Qatar against Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, and Bahrain. Tillerson noted the Qatari emir “made progress in halting financial support and expelling terrorist elements from his country,” comments echoed by the U.S. ambassador to Qatar, Dana Smith, who tweeted “Qatar is a strong partner in combating terrorist financing.”

Source: Trump Says Qatar Funds Terror. Here’s His Record Of Trying To Get It To Fund Him. | HuffPost

The problem is, with the president’s help, the Saudis are a destabilizing force, more so than normal….forcing countries to basically….pick sides…..in essence they, the Saudis, are trying to set up a hegemonic control of the region….

Saudi Arabia is making a drive to become a regional hegemon. It has long used its oil wealth to achieve a great deal of influence among neighbors, of course. But it is now flexing military muscles. From a Saudi point of view, they have suffered decades of dangerous reversals, and they are determined to push back foes and ensure not just their security but their control.

The dangers the Saudis see include the revolutionary, Shiite Islam of Khomeinist Iran. It is not only a hated rival branch of Islam but Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who came to power in 1979, said “there are no kings in Islam.” It is republican with a small ‘r.’ The Saudis hate it just as the Austro-Hungarian emperors hated the French Revolution. Inasmuch as Hizbullah in Lebanon adopted Khomeinism and is close to Tehran, it is also seen as a threat by the Saudis. The anti-Wahhabi, Zaydi Shiite Houthi movement in Yemen has made the error of imitating Hizbullah and speaking of overthrowing the House of Saud in Riyadh, and Saudi Arabia has gone to war against the Houthis in Yemen. The Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, dominated by Alawite Shiites who are secular socialists, is seen as an enemy mostly because it is allied with Iran (the Saudis used to support the al-Assads back in the 1970s and 1980s). The Saudis have supported radical fundamentalist guerrillas in Syria such as Jaysh al-Islam.

Source: Trump’s Ally: Saudi Arabia’s drive for Aristocratic Hegemony in the Middle East

This embrace of the Saudis as the “power” of the Middle East could prove to be a dangerous move for the US……Hell even conservatives see the problems brewing…..

Emma Ashford notes Trump’s obliviousness to the costs of siding with the Saudis and Emiratis in the Qatar crisis:

Indeed, despite these concerns – and despite the efforts of Tillerson, Mattis and others to mediate the dispute, and to walk back the President’s rash tweets – Trump himself appears determined to publicly take the Saudi side in this dispute and force unity within the GCC. In doing so, he risks raising regional tensions, and complicating the anti-ISIS campaign that was the cornerstone of his campaign.

Foreign policy often requires trade-offs. It is no doubt possible that long-term pressure from regional states may induce Qatar to scale back the scope of its foreign policy. But this will come at the cost of other U.S. foreign policy objectives in the region.

Source: The Qatar Crisis and Trump’s Dangerous Embrace of the Saudis | The American Conservative

How all this shakes out is still up to speculation….but I see nothing good coming from this silliness.

Yemen And The Attacks

I am always writing and the good people at Ace News Room seem to always want an op-ed from me…..this is one I wrote awhile back when the news that missiles had been fired at a US Naval vessel…..

I could go into the barbaric conflict that the Saudis are forcing on Yemen….or I could write about the Yemeni deaths, the starvation, the destruction….but no….I want to talk about…

Source: Yemen And The Attacks

After I wrote this op-ed more news has come out….

US warships have once again attacked Yemen’s Red Sea coast after reporting for the third time in a week that they came under fire from the area by anti-ship missiles, a large number of which were fired but none of which actually hit anything. At least, that was the story initially.

After once again attacking Houthi targets along the coast, in spite of any evidence that the Houthis fired the missiles at them, officials are now saying they’re not even sure about the missiles, and are looking into the possibility that the USS Mason, which has claimed all the attacks, has a radar malfunction which is generating ghost signals.

This raises the possibility that the US warships are not only retaliating against the wrong people, but that there was nothing to retaliate against in the first place. Though there was some speculation that remnants of the Yemeni military were involved in firing missiles, by way of explaining why the Houthis were denying it, this must inevitably raise questions if anything happened at all other than the heavy-handed US reaction.

(antiwar.com)

If there was NO proof on who launched the missiles then why did we attack?  Did we attack to help the Saudis in their destruction of Yemen?

Oops will not get it!  Time for someone to answer some tough questions….questions that will never be asked.

Wassup in Yemen?

The big news in the MSM is that 3 inmates have escaped and NO one has any idea where to look for them…….then a minor story was the death of the AQAP leader in Yemen killed by a drone strike……….

Al-Qaeda has confirmed that Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of its offshoot in the Arabian Peninsula, has been killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.

Nasser al-Wuhayshi was a major global figure among jihadists – even supporters of al-Qaeda’s rival Islamic State viewed Wuhayshi with respect.

According to reports, in August 2013 Wuhayshi was appointed deputy of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, a sign of the extent of his influence.

As well as creating AQAP itself, Wuhayshi also played a major role in forming the AQAP off-shoot, Ansar al-Sharia, in 2011, to appeal to disaffected youth in Yemen at the time of the Arab Spring.

Let me be one of the first to introduce my readers to the next leader of AQAP……….

The newly appointed leader of al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate is a senior commander whose longstanding devotion to jihad landed him on the United States’ “Most Wanted” list of terrorists with a $5 million bounty on his head.

Qassim Al-Rimi was named Tuesday as the new head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) following the death of Nasir al-Wuhayshi in a U.S. strike.

I do hope that that may be of some assistance to our intel agencies……we try to be helpful whenever possible……..

Now with that news there is another question that is bugging me……Saudis are still bombing the crap out of Yemen……… back into the Stone Age to get at the Houthi rebels and yet the US had to use a drone strike to kill a terrorist…….why is that?

I thought that the Saudis were our allies and that we depend on them for cooperation in the Arabian Peninsula….are they truly fighting terrorists or are they just killing a rivals?

Since the Saudis seem to be ignoring AQAP in their attacks in Yemen are they in fact helping AQAP get stronger in the region by ignoring them?

Maybe it is time to re-think this whole Saudi-US alliance….apparently they will be of NO help in fighting AQ…..then why do we need them?  What part do they play in the grand scheme of the War on Terror?

I know I am a pain in the butt…..but should not someone, anyone be asking these questions?