The unraveling of Saudi Arabia and its alliances in Yemen.

On Jan 29, US conducts  special ground op in Yemen targeting alQaeda. 
Allegedly, US special ops miss their target, mainly kill civilians. Hadi gov protests the operation.

On Jan 30, Houthis torpedo a Saudi frigate.  Saudi refuse to acknowledge it was a torpedo.

On Feb 5, Houthis launch a ballistic Borkan-1 SCUD missile on Saudi military outpost near Riyadh.

On Feb 7, Saudi backed Yemen ambassador to the US implicitly states that the US is in the know about the presence of alQaeda among forces fighting Houthis in Yemen and that Saudi backed Yemen gov sees fighting Iran and Houthis as a priority, not alQaeda.

On Feb 7, Saudi Backed Yemen gov withdraws permission for US to use ground troops in special anti terror ops in Yemen. Apparently, this decision has been reversed by Feb 11.

As of Feb, 2017, relations between Saudi Arabia & allies fighting its war in Yemen have been souring.  There was infighting between Egyptian and Saudi troops, the two countries have been drifting apart after Sisi's turn to back the Syrian gov and basically gravitating in Russia's sphere of influcuence in the region. There was also fighting, more than once, between UAE backed militia and Saudi backed militia in Yemen.

As of Feb 12, the Saudi backed Yemeni gov of Hadi seems to be losing the war as the UN is cooking an agreement that will basically devolve part of his powers to a VP.

Saudi leadership is being contested by its own GCC allies and Egypt.  Saudi Arabia's regional leadership is being threatened by its Sunni allies, not by Iran. When is the international community going to open its eyes on this fact?  And why should Yemen and its people continue to pay for the decline of Saudi Arabia and the refusal to see and accept this as fact by the Saudi and the international community?

My tweets on this.

Feb 21:  Saudi and the UAE compete in southern Yemen for military, economic & religious dominance. 

March 21: Fearing a repeat of the Aden airport battle with UAE, as well as legal responsibility for the humanitarian crisis from striking Hodeidah port, Saudi ask the UN to step in.  UN refuses. 

Update August 14, 2017:  Since my last update, Saudi & UAE tried, after Trump visit to Saudi Arabia, and failed, in attempt to intimidate Qatar into total surrender, and isolate it, provoking a crisis inside the GCC.  Mohammad Bin Salman, the deputy crown prince has become crown prince, making him appear with no clothes as it is increasingly the UAE who is driving the war on Yemen.

Book Review: Les chemins de Damas

The roads to Damascus (Les chemins de Damas)

France knows Syria well.  It carved out the country from the remnants of the Ottoman empire.  But France, who opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, gambled the hard line on regime change in Syria and lost.  The recent crisis in Syria, said recently ‘Les chemins de Damas’ author to L’orient Le Jour, has been treated in France with emotions and political irrealism.

The authors of ‘Les chemins de Damas’, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, are successively Grand reporter at RTL and journalist at Le Figaro.  They were both taken hostages by an alQaida affiliated group in Iraq in 2004 for four months.  Malbrunot and Chesnot have been keen observers of the Middle East and jihadist groups.  They published on Iraq and Qatar, and Malbrunot has published on Palestine.   Malbrunot writes a blog on the Middle East for Le Figaro and he is the only French reporter to have met and interviewed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in the most critical period of the crisis in 2012.  Assad gave recently an interview to Paris Match in December 2014, and today to Foreign Affairs.

‘Les Chemins de Damas’ is an investigation into how the Syrian crisis was mismanaged by Paris, despite a deep knowledge of Syria formed by a long history of hostility and collaboration at the diplomatic and intelligence levels between the two countries.  The main sources for Chesnot and Malbrunot are the principal actors of this long history.  That’s one of the many strengths of the book.  The book has also annexes of previously unpublished intel reports and diplomatic cables, as well as a letter from Hollande to Saudi king, dated Decembre 2013, concerning the Saudi financing and buying of French military equipment destined to Lebanon and the kingdom.

The book offers a brief historical background and it is rich in historical context and covers the French-Syrian relations during a time period extending between the Lebanese civil war and the present day.  It is divided in eight sections that follow the ups and downs of the relation between France and its former colony, more exactly 'protectorate'.  The introduction is an overview of the main content while the conclusion attempts to exlain France’s attitude during the current Syria crisis suggesting France might take the road to a Damascus ruled by the Baath again.  The preface of the book is by general Philippe Rondot,  a veteran of the French secret services as well as a specialist of the Arab world.  Mr. Rondot retired only recently and he gives the authors great insight throughout the book.  His insight is informed not only by his own experience but also by his father’s legacy in the Levant. Pierre Rondot, a St Cyrien in the French army who served in Morocco and the Levant, is credited of establishing the Lebanese and Syrian secret services.  The core of the book follows the relationship during the presidencies of Mitterrand, Chirac and Sarkozy, with the greater part devoted to the current crisis.

There is a great deal of continuity and quality in what the French know about Syria, and this is reflected in Chesnot and Malbrunot’s book, which makes the main question the book addresses all the more relevant : how could the French have been so wrong on Syria recently?  So the book tries to answer this very question.

Covert wars

The book starts by detailing the covert war that France and Syria waged on each other during the Lebanese civil war, wrestling to become the main influence in Lebanon.  This covert war started with the assassination of the French ambassador in Beirut in Septembre 1981 during what might have been the most critical period in the Lebanese civil war. The assassination was blamed first on Iran, but the French suspected Syria.  There were retaliations.  A bomb explosion at a Baath party headquarters in Damascus killed 43 people, a week after the assassination of the French ambassador in Beirut.  In 1983, few minutes after the attack on the US marines, 58 French UN soldiers die from an explosion at their barracks in Beirut.  This became known as the Drakkar post attack or the Beirut barracks bombings.  In 2008, when Bashar el-Assad was on official visit to Paris, some in France protested the visit, recalling the attack on the French soldiers, but an Elysee source told Le Monde that France blamed the assassination of the French ambassador on Syria but thought that Iran was behind the Beirut barracks bombings. 

The critical years of the Lebanese civil war, which culminated with the withdrawal of the PLO form Beirut, the massacres of Sabra and Chatila, the Israeli occupation and the killing of  the US marines and French UN soldiers, convinced the international community that the situation in Lebanon couldn’t be managed but by Syria.  France then expatriated the rebel Lebanese army commander Michel Aoun, who fought the Syrian army, and made peace with Damascus.  This would lead down the road to the Taef agreement and the pax Syriana in Lebanon that will last fifteen years, between 1990 and 2005. 

The pax Syriana will be followed by a period of relatively  good relations between Paris and Damascus.  But the French didn’t wait until the end of the Lebanese civil war to mend relations with Damascus.  François Mitterrand paid a visit to Syria in Novembre 1984.  The people close to Mitterrand at the time of the visit told the authors that Mitterrand despised the methods of Hafez but held him in great respect and was impressed by him.

There is hope for western capitals to influence Syria again after Hafez's death

But the height of the French-Syrian relations will be reached when Bashar el-Assad succeeds his father at the presidency.  Hafez el-Assad’s death has been anticipated by Paris when news of his declining health were known after the Jordanian and Israeli secret services managed to take a urine sample during his visit to  Jordan to pay his respects at king Hussein’s funerals.  Hafez was feared and expectations among regional and international players to influence the future of  Syria were henceforth permitted with Bashar.  France, like others, and maybe more than others, was eager and ready for change in Syria.

When Bashar el-Assad takes over after his father’s death, there is hope in the country and hope abroad. In the country there is hope for reforms, and in France and other western countries, there is hope that the fortress Syria, built by the respected and feared Hafez, would not and cannot be maintained by his son.  France wanted Syria's influence in Lebanon diminished.  Lebanon was and still is a source of great tension between the two countries.  While close collaborations between Damascus and Paris at the security and economic levels were ongoing, a tension was building between the two countries in Lebanon, mainly thanks to Lebanon's prime minsiter, Rafik Hariri.  

Rafik Hariri worked hand in hand with both the Syrians and the French, and it is understood that it was Hariri, whom Chirac had met earlier in 1981 at a donor’s event after his failed bid for France’s presidency, who suggested to Chirac to mentor young Bashar. Hariri’s role is dissected at length in the book and he will attempt to emancipate himself from Syria by using his personal relationship with Chirac.  There is a story about Chriac visiting Damascus for Hafez’s funerals.  He pays a visit to the French embassy where he is secretly met by Hariri welcoming him on the stairs as if he were the real owner of the place.  This small event is emblematic of Hariri and of the relations between the two men.  Chirac’s Middle East policy became hijacked by Rafik Hariri who counselled Chirac on all matters related to the Middle East, to the great dismay of the Quai d’Orsay, and the French secret services, who saw in it a ‘Harirization’ of France’s foreign policy in the region.   

Chirac wanted to act as a mentor for Bashar and Bahsar granted French advisors and companies contracts in a bid to reform the state apparatus at the adminsitrative level and open the economy to foreign and private investments.  The authors speak on many occasions of Bashar’s genuine desire to distinguish his rule from his father’s.  But Bashar faced resistance at home from an anchylosed state apparatus and administration, and from old regime apparatchiks like Abdel Halim Khaddam who would later leave Syria for a Hariri paid golden exile in France.  Bashar’s willingness to reform the state had many French experts, businessmen and academics shuttling between France and Damascus, invited to evaluate and propose partnerships and solutions, including the creation of a national school of administration modeled on the French one, which produces high level civil servants and elected officials.  The authors tell the story of the French academic, responsible for setting up the Syrian school of administration, visiting Rafik Hariri in Beirut to offer him the same deal, at the behest of Chirac who wanted to please his friend Hariri.  They say Hariri wasn’t interested.  He received the Academic in his bedroom, in his pajamas, and told her that he was more interested in the creation of business opportunities, not in governance.   

The frantic collaboration in education, culture, and business investments will resume with Sarkozy between 2008 and 2011, after the relation cools between 2005 and 2008, due to the assassination of Rafik Hariri.  Syria stood accused of assassinating Hariri, but the international community later absolved Syria only to point fingers at Hezbollah.

The Harirization of France’s foreign policy meant that France was seeing the region through the lens of political Sunni Islam since Hariri’s patron is the king of Saudi Arabia.   This might have led to a de facto rapprochement between France and the US who was also close to Saudi Arabia when it came to crafting its policies in Lebanon and Syria.

But during the period between 2000 and 2005, Hariri grew frustrated with Bashar as Bashar wasn’t letting Hariri, who was a businessman more than a politician, lay hands on Syria’s new budding economy, especially the telecom sector which the Baath considered as a sector of strategic importance not to be given to outsiders.

Regime change

Hariri was the origin of UN resolution 1559 sponsored by France and for which France cooperated closely with the US to demand all foreign armies depart Lebanon.  This was a first in France's policy in the region where it previously had a policy distinctive from the US.  But UN1559 failed to weaken the Syrian influence in Lebanon after 2005.  So after what might have been considered as a last attempt to co-opt Bashar, encouraged this time by Qatar and executed by Nicolas Sarkozy, between 2008 and 2011, a decision for direct regime change in Syria was taking shape in the minds of western politicians when the 'Arab Spring' knocked at Syria's door in Deraa.  In a recent interview with Paris-Match, Bashar el-Assad confirmed that Sarkozy’s initiative to resume good relations with Damascus was at Qatar’s behest.  It is reasonable to believe that the French were surprised by what happened in Deraa. Assad was due to make a high level visit to Paris in 2011, after his highly visible 2008 visit where he attended the Bastille day parade.  Between 2008 and 2011, Assad visited Paris at least three times, two on an official schedule and once in a private capacity with his wife.  Sarkozy’s ‘Relance’ was beneficial for France.  Between 2008 and 2011, La crème de la crème of French companies were signing contracts with the Syrian state and private French entrepreneurs were opening businesses in Syria.  However, business wasn't easy for foreign companies in Syria because of the problem of state corruption.

But despite the ups and downs,  and up until the uprising, the authors write that the security collaboration never ceased between Syria and France, even after the assassination of Rafik Hariri. France honored its contracts to deliver two Helicopters for Bashar’s personal use in June 2005, 4 months after Hariri’s assassination.  And Alcatel built a secured network of telecommunications on Mount Qassioun for fourteen of the highest ranking members of the ruling Baath party.  This despite France’s deep involvment with the international justice process that accused Syria of Hariri's assassination.  Its agents were first on the ground of the explosion that killed Hariri and members of his convoy.  France was also involved in producing a witness who was later discredited.  France hosted a re creation of the Beirut explosion on its terrirory for the international tribunal, in great secrecy, allowing only Israeli planes to fly over the site two days before the reenactment took place.  This was done without even informing homeland security about the fly-over.   

Then Deraa happened.  France seems to have been caught off-guard and was wary of not repeating the mistake of being on the wrong side as with the Tunisia revolution.  Plus, France was now feeling strong, fresh from the Libya adventure.

The agenda for regime change in Syria might have been just an idea lacking serious planning and coordination, taking shape only through improvisations along the wave of the 'Arab Spring.'  What probably weighed in the decision to proceed with precipitation in Syria was the fallout of the July 2006 war in Lebanon during which Syria provided support and weapons to Hezbollah to resist the Israeli assault.  This made Hezbollah and his Syrian and Iranian allies strong and made the matter to break this alliance urgent. 

However, the Syrian uprising was unfolding on the ground in a different manner from what was described in the media and in the communiqués of the Quai d’Orsay.  The authors write that at the height of the civil non violent protests there were only 400000 present over a total of twenty two million people. French intelligence agents, who were present on the ground in Deraa and elsewhere, witnessed violent protests by Islamists early on.   We learn for example that there were French agents in Baba 'Amr in Homs when French journalist Edith Bouvier was evacuated and that they were probably the reason why Edith Bouvier refused to be evacuated by the Syrian red crescent.  Early on, the chants weren’t ‘selmiah’ (we want peace), but ‘we want to topple Assad.’  Early on, Islamists, organised and supported from the outside, were armed on the ground.  Early on, the media lied.   The French ambassador Eric Chevalier present in Syria at the time, and who famously went to Hama on his own initiative with Robert Ford when the protests started there, complained about France24 for its biased coverage, which wasn’t in his opinion close to the reality inside Syria.  Chevalier was adamant at repeating that regime change wasn't going to be easy in Syria and that Assad wasn't going to fall. 

The irreality of the Syrian war in the media

The authors critique the media when they write that, caught by a defiant international media whose coverage was about regime change, the Syrian regime didn't want to appear bent on reforms, because there was a risk of appearing soft, and losing ground.  They also argue that if the protests were only internally motivated, asking for reforms, then a simple apology for the Deraa shootings might have worked.  This is argued in a chapter titled ‘The sorcerer’s apprentices’ and validate the early assessment made by Assad of the protests, that they were the work of external actors waging war on Syria. For instance, it is obvious that the Muslim Brotherhood led the early protests and it is known that the Muslim Brotherhood had no foothold in Syria, being an external organization, not a grassroot Syrian organization.  The authors also write that the Islamist radicals, not indigenous to Syria, did not want a pacifist rebellion which was going to leave them on the side. They prepared the ground for a military rebellion very early.  There are many indications in the book that external actors wanted to militarize the crisis.  Former deputy prime minister Abdallah Dardari confided to the authors that intercepted phone communications heard Saudis saying ‘we want blood.’  There were also calls from the radical cleric Ibn Andallah al-Hosni to kill Christians, Shias and Alawites, as early as August 2011.  The same cleric also spoke of the need for an influx of foreign fighters to make jihad in Syria, adding that, following the Libyan model, Syria needs an alliance between the West and militant Islam (quoted verbatim by the authors).   This was the time when the West thought it could control Islamist fighters and use them to achieve its ends in Libya, Syria and maybe elsewhere.  Under this tacit paradigm, western media turned a blind eye on the militarization and the sectarian and extremist characters of the rebellion, and presented a pacifist rebellion oppressed by an evil regime.  Only more than a year later, early 2013,  the media came to admit that there was some armed rebellion in Syria.  By then they started to speak of a ‘mainly pacifist rebellion.’ On the other hand, the authors write that under assault, the regime hardened its stance, and from August first to August eight 2011, many prominent pacifist militants were arrested or assassinated. Syria's tragic fate was sealed early in the crisis.

Once the uprising turned to militarization, western powers, France included, who by then uttered only the usual ‘Assad must go’, delegated the management of the crisis to Qatar.  They will come to regret it later.  Contacts were taken with secular opponents of the regime to join the external opposition, which was mainly Islamist, for the sole purpose to hide both the Islamist and militaristic aspect of the uprising, to make the uprising appear as an internal one, and to provide a fig leaf to a full blown war on Syria by external powers.  But the fig leaf won’t work for long, secular figures were a minority in the opposition.  Under the patronage of Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood imposed its conditions, using secular figures without giving them support, and refusing a proposal to form an internal opposition council, which would have led to a diminished Brotherhood influence.

In octobre 2011, When Sarkozy’s foreign minister Alain Juppé meets with the newly formed opposition council, with secular fig leaves Kodmani and Ghalioun as members, he speaks of France’s support for the pacifist revolution.  But by then the ‘revolution’ was fully militarized and fully Islamist.

The drive for a war of intervention led by France and the UK with chemical weapons as casus belli

The chapter titled ‘La haine’ (the hate) exposes the attempts made by France to provoke an intervention in Syria.  Most of these attempts turned around chemical weapons' use and how France tried to pin it on the regime despite the fact that there was no hard evidence the regime used chemical weapons.  Moreover, France blatanly ignored the use of chemical weapons in the spring 2013 by the rebels in the Aleppo area.  The authors come to the same conclusion as Seymour Hersh in his two investigative reports about the subject, published in the LRB, here and here.  They detail the implication of the Élysée in doctoring a report on chemical attacks in which the informants’ note, that a gaz leak could have resulted from a regime bombardement of a secret rebels’ chemical weapons laboratory, was simply redacted. 

But another interesting story is the alleged ‘investigation’ led by a journal close to the French government line on Syria, Le Monde, on chemical weapons’ use.  Starting in May 2013, le Monde published a series of articles on chemical weapons’ use by the Syrian regime in Ghouta.  Laurent Fabius, foreign minister under Hollande, thanked Le Monde for their 'help' in a June 5th appearance on French TV channel 2.  However, Chesnot and Malbrunot reveal that Le Monde journalists who took the samples from Syria, served only as ‘mules’ carrying samples given to them by the doctors of the ‘free Syrian Army’, collected from more than one site, sites that le Monde journalists weren’t able to verify.  Le Monde photographer and journalist took the samples and handed them to French intel agents across the border in Amman, where they were stationed after the closure of their embassy in Damascus.  The samples were then given to the French embassy in Amman who sent them directly to the only Paris laboratory capable of analyzing such samples, without the knowledge of the Quai d’Orsay.  The Quai was surprised to receive a letter from Le Monde editor-in-chief, Nathalie Nougayrède, asking when she could expect the results of the analysis.  Under such circumstances, The Quai had to publish the results, which converged with earlier reports made after sample collection by French intelligence.  The results of the French investigations pointed to discrete traces of sarin used on a small scale.  It is around this time, write the authors, that Paris and London, against all other western countries, were in a drive for an intervention war on Syria. The next chemical weapons attack of August 2013 was just few weeks away and it was going to be on a larger scale.

The 'New Roads to Damascus'

The book ends with a final chapter titled  ‘The new roads to Damascus’.  In it, the auhtors conclude that Paris, among all other countries, must have known well the difficulties related to regime change in Syria because of the strength of the regime.  The Syrian government, ever since an earlier bloody revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood in the eighties, was ready for such a challenge.  The authors advise that western countries should have aimed for reform and not for regime change.  They anticipate the resumption of relations between western countries and the current regime in Damascus, and the need for security collaboration between Syria and the West to fight Islamist radicals.

The authors write that France acted with emotions and was not able to assess the reality of the uprising but rather wanted its wish for regime change to become a reality.  Not everyone saw things this way: as dissent inside the Quai d’Orsay grew on the irrealist stance France took on Syria, a personal envoy of Sarkozy was disptached to tell dissenters that one message was to be heard and followed: ‘Assad was going to fall.’  Where differences of opinions existed, they were muted.  

What emerges from the book is a relationship between France and Syria that became vassalized, subjected to other interests: the Gulf and the US.  Chirac saw Syria through the eyes of his friend Hariri and Saudi Arabia.  And Sarkozy departed from Chirac’s policy only to follow Qatar’s.  In both cases, the US, whose policies in the region have long been aligned with the Gulf's, won by rallying to its hardline on Syria, and in both cases, the formidable French diplomacy in the Levant not only became redundant, but was now working against its initial aims when it won a mandate on these countries after WWI; protecting Christian minorities.

Contrary to appearances, France didn’t lead during the Syrian crisis, it merely followed blindly, and against its own intelligence, experience and interests, policies made in the United States and the Gulf, serving as a frontline for these policies. The best proof of this is that one can look hard at a rationale, direction, and centre of decision for France's Syria policy, and yet find none.

Is Sunni Extremism Getting out of Hand? And what to do about it...

Today's Norway bombing may still turn out not to be perpetrated by Sunni Extremists, however this is the current hypothesis (the article on this link was amended later to point to what is known at this moment that the shooting and probably the bombing were all the doing of a lonely white norwegian man acting on the basis of probably right wing political motives including hatred of Islam).

Sunni extremism has a long history of being used by different countries to fulfill a political aganda. The Mujahidin were used by the west in order to oust the soviet republic from Afghanistan. But this utlimately resulted, after the end of the war in Afghanistan, with a disorientation of the goals of jihad to finally rest their sight on the US with multiple targets hit by Bin Laden and his allies over several years that culminated in 9/11. Whatever the official reasons behind 9/11, the reality is that global sunni jihad was getting out of hand the moment it losts its main enemy, the USSR. New goals were eyed by these jihadis including their own home countries, mainly Saudi Arabia and Yemen. This is probably the main reason why Saudi Arabia worked tirelessly to maintain the money flowing to the global sunni jihad while succeeding at keeping its monarchy out of its line of sight. Evidence from the 9/11 commission points to this complexe relationship between the kingdom and the global sunni jihad.

There are also many local examples in the ME of this flow of Sunni jihad from one country in crisis to another. Lebanon experienced this first hand when an extremist sunni group, Fatah El Islam, fought the Lebanese army for three months in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr El Bared which led to the total destruction of the camp in 2007. This group was formed by former Al Qaida combatants in Iraq. It infiltrated Palestinian camps in Lebanon with the financial help of local sunni politicians.

Similarly, there is a flow of sunni jihadis now from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, from where the US has been reducing its military presence and from where Nato, exhausted by the Lybian campaign, will be pulling out soon, to countries experiencing the Arab spring. The Arab spring could well be hijacked by these extremist movements. In Syria for example a genuine revolution based on specific grievances turned quickly to an organised armed revolt the Syrian government has been fighting for the last four months with these movements. There is an indication that Syrian exiles, as well as Lebanese politicians who are opposed to the Assad regime, are trying to use these movements. There is also an indication that the Lybian revolution has been infiltrated by Al Qaida.

There is actually two possibilities to contain this flow of sunni jihadis:

1. The jihadis are used in an open sectarian war against Shias and this is a prospect the neocons, Israel and Saudi Arabia have been caressing recently because it serves the immediate political goals of each of these countries or political movements. It keeps the kingdom and other Arab monarchies, for now, out of the line of sight of the jihadis for political vindication and unrest due to the fact that the Arab spring proved to be a fertile ground for Sunni Islamist groups activism, and for the neocons and Israel, it pits sunnis against shias, a strife that may keep Arabs busy and Israel safe to occupy and oppress, with its usual unrestrained will, Palestinians and the land of Palestine...The Arab spring took Arab monarchies by surprise and they are trying now to protect themselves against it while playing the counter revolution in countries where the Arab spring took hold by using Sunni extremists.

This scenario is gloomy since, even though it may cynically seem at first contained to the US, Israel and the EU, touching only middle eastern countries where citizen lives are of absolutely no importance to the west, there is no guarantee that it will not spill and materialise in terror threats in the west, since the west will be actively engaged in the political transformations and wars of middle eastern countries, as ever.

2. The west is serious about the war on terror and will work to contain the global jihadi network with its many affiliates. In this case, the west won't be fuelling sectarian sunni-shia tensions and wars in the middle east since these wars will increase the likelihood that we will not be able to get rid of this network for a long time and that the west might see some of its side effects if we are to believe that 9/11 was a side effect of the end of the war in Afghanistan against the USSR.

There are many indications now that we are heading for the first case scenario, the first of these indications is the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera's misleading coverage of Syria spilling sectarian hate through sunni tele-preacher and Al-Jazeera frequent commentator, Al Qaradawi*, from day one of the Syrian revolt. But those who think that sunni-shia tensions will somehow weaken the global sunni jihadis might just be playing with fire, because as much as they think they are using these sunni jihadis to attain their political goals, as much as those same jihadis will be using them to attain their own political goals and it will be a slow war of attrition, including many regional wars, for which Arabs and Muslims will pay a hefty price in lives, livelihood, progress and development...


*Al Qaradawi moving to Norway!

Initial claim of responsibility for the Oslo attack.

Norway charges radical cleric with death threats.

P.S. A reader commented on the term 'Sunni extremism'. He wrote that 'Salafi' would be a fairer term. I think he is right. However, I chose 'Sunni extremism' because this extremism is actually condoned by countries with a Sunni majority like Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries who finance the terrorists worldwide in their operations against western targets and direct them regionally at shias in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.
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Is the US Cowed by Saudi Arabia because of Oil?

The role of Saudi Arabia in 9/11 has never been investigated and that's not because the lack of evidence.  This evidence won't go away and is reemerging at the occasion of the10th anniversary of 9/11.

Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe?

The Kingdom and the Towers
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Outrage: UK Training Saudi Forces Used To Crush Dissent In Bahrain

Here are some gems of justification from the UK about their ministry of Defence training Saudi troops in crowd control, some of them were used in Bahrain:

“This is the shocking face of our democracy to many people in the world, as we prop up regimes of this sort,” Edwards said. “It is intensely hypocritical of our leadership in the UK – Labour or Conservative – to talk of supporting freedoms in the Middle East and elsewhere while at the same time training crack troops of dictatorships.”

The West's mission in the ME is not about demcoracy but about changing hostile regimes to friendly ones. And even if Arabs implements democracy overnight, the West won’t be pleased.

“An MoD spokesman described the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, as “key partners” in the fight against terrorism. “By providing training for countries to the same high standards used by UK armed forces we help to save lives and raise awareness of human rights,” said the spokesman.”

What? Aren’t these the same people who are portrayed by US embassy cables as cash machines for Islamists terrorists? And up until recently by the hundred millions?

And last but not least:

“Labour MP Mike Gapes, the former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said British military support for Saudi Arabia was about achieving a “difficult balance”.
“On the one hand Saudi Arabia faces the threat of al-Qaida but on the other its human rights record is dreadful. This is the constant dilemma you have when dealing with autocratic regimes: do you ignore them or try to improve them?”

Further Israeli-Saudi Links in Lebanon

The Lebanese have arrested a pro-Saudi shia cleric for spying for Israel. It seems that they have been monitoring him for some time before his arrest.

Here is a collection of the deeds of this cleric:

Lebanese Shiite Scholar Muhammad Ali Al-Husseini Criticizes Hizbullah for Threats against Israel

Mohamad Ali El Husseini/Lebanese Shi'ite Scholar Muhammad Ali Al-Husseini Slams Syria, Iran, Hizbullah

And his own page at Islamic counterterrorism.org

OBL Dead

Osama Bin Laden is dead killed by a special unit of US forces in Pakistan. He was killed in his compound located in an urban area 30 miles from Islamabad.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan must have known about his whereabouts during all these years. Saudi Arabia is in a difficult position now in the ME, with all those revolutions at its door, and badly needs US protection for the survival of its backward monarchy. Bin Laden is the price for this unconditional protection.

Bin Laden leaves behind him a trail of murders, wars, violence and multiple religious sectarianisms: Muslims versus Christians, Sunnis versus Shias. He discredited Muslims and Arabs all over the world and served well the US and Israel's imperial interests in the 'greater middle east area'.

UPDATE
US special forces told to kill, not capture, Bin Laden.

Reactions: 'Sunni Hamas condemns killing of Arab holy warrior'. Palestinian resistance movements are all corrupted by Saudi Arabia's money. Deprived of support and having to sustain a harsh occupation, Palestinian leaders turn to the wrong country, wrong ideology and wrong man...Ismail Hanyia's statement on Bin Laden is confirming what zionists say about Hamas. How dumb of him to call Bin Laden 'Arab holy warrior'. We need an Arab spring in Palestine now!
Sunni Lebanese Muslim preachers, Saudi kooks and Hariri tools, hail Bin Laden for attacking at the heart of the US. These people feel no shame. Bin Laden was fabricated by Saudi Arabia and the US, then served to us, and we should feel relieved at his death, not mournful and not a bit proud about his criminal enterprises.

Some perspective:

Angry Arab on the celebrations.

Angry Arab on OBL and his sponsors.

More from Angry Arab (this is an extract and I took the liberty to put it in paragraphs, it is known that Angry Arab doesn't like paragraphs):

Now, turning to the US, I also believe that in the wake of any US military operation, we are fed a large amount of lies, fabrication, sc fi scenarios, and exaggerations.  

I mean, other than Bin Laden has been killed by US troops, I am skeptical of the rest.  

Let us begin with the one about that Bin Laden received a "Muslim burial at sea."  I mean, do they think that Arabs/Muslims are idiots?  Burial at sea? Is that a new military term for tossing his body from the air?  Burial at sea? Who are you kidding? Just say what happened: most likely, soldiers scrawled slogans on his body, and then yelled: Allahu Akbar, you motherfucker, and then tossed his body in the water.  

Then the story that I instantly wrote about yesterday: the notion that the find was the product of painstaking hard work and research by US intelligence agents. I remember that we were told how US intelligence agents in Iraq did a family tree and complicated charts of the relatives and bodyguards of Saddam to locate him.  Later we learned that: a bodyguard of Saddam turned himself in to US troops and asked for the bounty.  There is now a beginning of insinuations US troops found him due to a tip.  Here is the beginning of the story in the US press.  First we were told that a courier was spotted by US agents.  Now we are told that Pakistani agents were the first to spot him.  

We were first told that a man in the compound took a woman as a human shield and that she was killed.  When I now hear a "human shield" story, I know that I am about to be lied to by Israeli or US military to justify yet another killing of civilians.  Later we were told that Bin Laden was the one who took a woman as a human shield.  I am sure that the human shield story will disappear later. Just remember the original early story of Pat Tillman: I mean some in the US military are experienced in movie scripts.  

To their credit, Politico has noticed the various inconsistencies and lies and the changes in the early accounts.   And `Abdul-Bari `Atwan of Al-Quds Al-`Arabi, who knew Bin Laden and liked him says in his editorial today that an aide to Bin Laden said that he requested that his bodyguards shoot him if he ever faced killing by enemies.  `Atwan leans to that theory for his killing: that his own bodyguard shot him.  I think this is very likely and may emerge later.  Is that why the body was thrown in the sea? Because Americans want to believe that an American bullet killed him?  Does this matter? Well, yes.  

The US has lied so much that it is understandable that it is not believed by Muslims especially that Arabs/Muslims can't celebrate the American celebrations of their killings, even if the person killed is Bin Laden: who may not be loved by Arabs and Muslims (and who clearly failed to win support among the masses) but any US president is hated more than Bin Laden. That is the key element to help you understand the complicated Arab/Muslim attitudes to Bin Laden and his death.  This explains the stupid foolish statement by Isma`il Haniyyah who called Bin Laden "mujahid" (holy struggler).  

Oh, and now Fox News is giving credit where it is due: it crediting torture for locating Bin Laden.  

And the stupidity can be seen in Arab media too: New TV who I generally like, yesterday aired a report on the possible successors to Bin Laden.  It said that Abu Zubayda is the most likely to emerge as the key commander of Al-Qa`idah. Can some one tell New TV that Abu Zubyayda won't be able to assume his duties because he is sitting in Guantanamo? 

Why Bin Laden might have been dead for years and why the US chose to announce his death now.

The Israeli-Saudi alliance and the counterrevolution in the middle east

Israeli officials want a public commitment from Washington to protect the Saudi regime should it come under threat.

Prospects for the sectarian terrain in the middle east

By Nir Rosen.

Part 1

Part 2

My comment on this later.

Opposition and conspiracy in Syria

When I listened to Bashar El-Assad's speech, I first thought that his outside conspiracy accusations were exaggerated. I thought this is classic talk by leaders when they are challenged by their own people.

After all, Mubarak also claimed that the Egypt uprising was also an outside conspiracy. But in his case, he could hardly blame anyone from the outside, Mubarak was like a violent man who beats his wife but is absolutely charming and docile with everybody else except of course his own people and Hezbollah whom he sees as challenging Saudi hegemony. But how could Hezbollah mobilize women and children and millions to protest against him? What we saw in Tahrir square was a genuine popular movement by all classes and age range of the Egyptian society, men and women.

I was thinking recently that this is what is exactly missing in the protests in Syria. The protests in Syria are not reaching a critical mass and are not comprised of men, women, children, and all classes of the Syrian society, from the whole age range. And they are sparse...

Moreover, when I heard recently that Syrian security were shooting at the army because the army refused to shoot at protesters, I thought this is gross propaganda. If you want to intimidate a group, you kill one of them, not in the back, but in the front, and one, not 9! And on Joshua Landis blog, there is a picture of a document supposed to be an order to shoot at the army. The document was sent to the blog's author and it has blood stain. The staging and the fabrications were becoming more and more ridiculous.

There are also the videos circulating on the web and propagated by 'protesters'. I devoted a night watching all of them. I could not believe what I saw, few agitated men shouting and very little information. Most of these videos seem staged.

I believe there is indeed an outside conspiracy in Syria and it is not difficult to imagine who is behind. There are the classic enemies of Bashar himself, Rif'at and Khaddam. There are also enemies in Lebanon who are experienced in sowing sectarian discord and financing militias to spread rumors and kill in the streets. There is also the regional context. The regional context, since the fall of Mubarak is unfavorable to the Saudi-US-Israel axis and tipping in favor of the Hezbollah-Syria-Iran axis. An overthrow of the Syrian regime might give the former axis some gains.

But beside all this, there is clear malaise in Syria and real need for reforms. I am not sure what started first, the opposition expressing this malaise or the agitators. But I believe that given the regional context for a possible sectarian flare that will certainly spread to Lebanon, the real Syrian opposition, the one that vies for reforms and not destruction, has a responsibility. It cannot sit and watch hopping for the balance to tip in their favor. This is destructive not only for Syria and the region but also for the Syrian opposition. If the true opposition in Syria makes itself passively accomplice with conspirators, it discredits itself as a movement representative of the true aspirations of the Syrian people.

The daughter of a Bahraini human rights activist on hunger strike

Zainab Al-Khawadja announced her strike to president Obama to hold him responsible for what is happening to human rights in Bahrain where the US has a military base.

She is also tweeting her hunger strike.

Zainab spoke with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now


Amy Goodman: Bahrainis are suffering the same oppression as Lybians so why does Obama have nothing to say?

The Guardian has an article on Zainab Al Khawadja today.

US mired in policy hypocrisy as interests outweigh protesters lives

Whom are they fooling with their talk on human rights?

Bahrain opposition figure dies in custody.

Saudi Arabia and the counter revolution in the middle east: Part 2

It is not only Israel that is freaking out at the thought of the Arab spring. The rulers of Saudi Arabia are in a state of panic. They invaded Bahraïn, they are maneuvering to influence the Egyptian revolution, and they are fomenting trouble through their proxy March 14 in Lebanon and they are trying their best in Syria. Saudi Arabia is leading the counter revolution in the middle east and there is so much to write about this (you can read here Part 1). However, Syria and Lebanon, because of their religious mosaics, are the sensitive part of this counter revolution. I think Saudis are playing with fire here. The fire that was ignited in Iraq will find fertile ground in Syria and Lebanon.

I don't mean here to diminish the true aspirations of the syrian people to freedom, democracy, prosperity, and more importantly, a corruption free country. However, one has to be aware that the gloves are off between Saudi Arabia and its Israel ally on one side and Syria, Hezbollah and Iran on the other side. This is very dangerous terrain that SA is willing to take in order to reign in on the aspirations of the Arab people. Remembering the king's words from the Wikileaks cable asking the US to bomb Iran and to cut the 'head of the snake', I am inclined to consider that Saudi Arabia's moves resemble a suicide mission that will bring with it the entire middle east.

Here are some links on the subject:

The Arab Spring And The Saudi Counter Revolution

From Jadaliyya: Saudi Hegemony Versus The Arab Spring

Angry Arab about the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and its subserviance to Saudi Arabia

Angry Arab about Saudi's takeover of the Egypt revolution

And finally, from Syria Comment, the story of the tragic death of the author's wife's cousin in Banyas shot by protesters in Banyas: The revolution strikes home. Nobody knows for sure who is shooting military personnel watching and monitoring the protests in Syria but this is not typical of freedom loving people, this is an indication of a civil war fomented by Saudi proxies in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria through the Syrian muslim brotherhood and through Saudi national Saad Hariri as well as the Syrian brotherhood ally in opposition to Bashar el Assad, Abdel-Halim Khaddam, and their kooks.

Wikileaks: 'King of Bahrain has links with Mossad'

How long will we continue to ignore the close and secret collaboration of some Arab states with those who butcher Arab children and steel their land and their livelihood?

4. (C) The King spoke at some length on Israeli-Palestinian developments, expressing satisfaction at the positive turn of events. This is a good moment, he said, that can be important for stability in the region. He said that he had instructed newly-appointed Minister of Information Dr. Mohammed Abdul-Ghaffar to make sure that official announcements or statements coming out of the Ministry of Information do not refer to Israel as the "enemy" or "Zionist entity." He revealed that Bahrain already has contacts with Israel at the intelligence/security level (i.e., with Mossad), and indicated that Bahrain will be willing to move forward in other areas, although it will be difficult for Bahrain to be the first.

The cable: I had to omit the term 'friendly' which was originally in the title because although the Guardian article cited below refers to the ties between the king and the Mossad as 'friendly', the term is not found in the cable. But it doesn't change the fact that the conversation recounted in the cable confirms Arab monarchies' friendly stance toward Israel and shed a crude light on the current events in Bahrain.

Another cable seen by the Guardian reveals that the King of Bahrain, whose Arab state has recently been shaken by protests, has had friendly links with the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.

The cables report a private talk between the then US ambassador, William Monroe, and King Hamad of Bahrain in the king's palace on 15 February 2005. Monroe reported back to Washington: "He [the king] revealed that Bahrain already has contacts with Israel at the intelligence/security level (ie with Mossad) and indicated that Bahrain will be willing to move forward in other areas."

Saudi Arabia and the counter revolution in the middle east: Part 1

I am no longer optimistic about what is happening in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia, who corrupted most Arab regimes, gave us Bin Laden and Sept. 11th, is leading the counter revolution in the Arab world through a rapprochement with the UAE.

In Bahrain, Lybia, and Yemen, the voices of democratic change have been and are being silenced. And in Syria, where a regime change and more democracy is necessary, things are turning very nasty, thanks to Qatar based sunni Imam Al-Qaradawi. If Saudi Arabia perseveres along this line, with the ascent of the US and the west, it will be the end of democratic change in the Arab world and the lebanonisation of the whole region.

Opposition forces and democratic forces in the Arab world need to be aware of the dangers ahead. The biggest of them being the resistance of Saudi Arabia to change and the willingness of the kingdom to adopt a Samson strategy in the face of change threatening their own rule...

Lebanon: The 'civility', and the ignorance, of March 14th.

Every time Lebanon is steered in the direction of USrael it goes in the other direction. This artificial entity that is the Lebanese state is based on two tendencies: pro-western (which is now synonymous of USrael) and anti-western (which is now synonymous of resistance to USrael). The bitter taste US policies have left in the region and in Lebanon has increased anti-western sentiment and therefore sympathy for the resistance (i.e. Hezbollah), especially among christians.

I was in lebanon recently and I noticed a clear increase in support for Hassan Nasrallah among Lebanese christians. The riots that are being held in Tripoli to protest the ousting of Hariri and March 14th from forming the Lebanese government can only reinforce this anti March 14th and anti-USrael sentiment among christians. Christians in the north for example did not forget Nahr-el-Bared and the impact of sunni radicalization and its backing by Hariri, and christians in traditionally Lebanese Forces (formerly Phalanges) dominated areas are tired of Geagea and Gemayel leading the community to disaster by forming alliances with enemies of Lebanon (Israel), they see what happened to christians in Iraq and Egypt and know that the US won't lift a finger for them.

My guess also is that, here again, the region's new political equilibrium is being played before our eyes in Lebanon. Entangled in two wars, with an economic crisis, unemployment and social unrest, and devoid of a clear Middle East policy, except the one that is dictated by Israel, the US is becoming weak in the Middle East and its allies are noticing. Pro-US dictators are increasingly fragile and Hariri was probably let down by his Saudi mentors who, in turn, fear being let down by the US if their unpopular regime is threatened by the street (as in Tunisia). Saudi Arabia has been damaged by the recent revelations of wikileaks in which it appears as a staunch USrael ally and it cannot afford right now to be seen more USrael aligned, disconnected from Arab public opinion.

Hariri ignores Lebanon's history. He should know better, and the US should know better. No one can impose a unilateral direction to politics in Lebanon. Lebanon as an artificial entity created by the post Ottoman French mandate can live only by consensus, and Lebanon has always been the mirror of the power equation in the region. Instead of going to the streets young Hariri, the leader of March 14th, should learn his lesson from playing it along the US and Israel and against national Lebanese interests (which are survival by consensus). He should accept the new power equation.

Angry Arab: Mini-Hariri self-destructing before our eyes.

Foreign Policy on Lebanese Christian community's support for Hezbollah.

Assange: Many Arab Officials Have Close CIA Links

In his second interview with AlJazeera, Assange, increasingly fearful of a US cabal against him and his organization, is threatening to unveil sensitive information that a careful editing of the cables would normally not unveil, naming Arab leaders with CIA links and Arab countries that operate torture prisons for the CIA.

I think Assange right now is entitled to any means at his disposal to protect himself and his organization. What our leaders do behind our back is our business especially when it contradicts what they say in public. Diplomacy certainly uses secrecy but it is not a tool for secrecy in democratic governance. Secrecy is merely a feature of the business but it is not a goal. And we are increasingly seeing great disparities between private and public political discourse as well as an unhealthy amount of secrecy as worrying tendencies in actual western democratic governance.

Moreover, I am not surprised by the revelations about Arab states. Any Arab with a critical mind knows this and without any doubt can list the countries with close CIA links and CIA torture chambers. Bin Laden was a close CIA ally and foreign Saudi policy in general is 100% aligned with the US.

However, I am concerned about what we as Arabs (the people, not the governments) can and will do with these revelations. I am mostly distressed by the amount of silence in the Arab press and especially in the Lebanese press surrounding Al-Akhbar's revelations about Lebanese officials' collaboration with Israel and the US* against legitimate Lebanese resistance to Israeli invasions while telling us a different story publicly (this reaction from a Lebanese blogger close to Saudi Arabia's lebanese allies is an example).

Palestinians have suffered from this irresponsible conduct by Arab governments and Politicians. Our standing in the world and estimation of ourselves as people and nations are the first victims of this autocratic attitude by Arab governments which is in contrast with the political sympathies and affinities of the people in Arab countries.

*Unfortunately I was not able to link to the original story in Al-Akhbar because their website was down for more than a week following the publication of the first Wikileaks cables which were very damaging to Saudi Arabia and its March 14th allies in Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia appears from the leaks as the biggest threat to Mideast security after Israel

Each of the above two countries is preoccupied with its own survival, Saudi Arabia is preoccupied by the survival of its ruling class and Israel is preoccupied by its legitimacy as an expansionist state. Both states have a very poor track record in human rights.

Saudi Arabia is a cash machine for terrorists

Saudi King urged US strike on Iran

Saudis proposed to the US Arab force to invade Lebanon

Saudis meddling in Pakistani affairs

US secure record 60 Billions arms sale to Saudi Arabia

Saudi prince guilty of servant's murder

The prince then spent hours on the phone to a mysterious contact in Saudi Arabia trying to decide how to cover up what he had done.

Sources said detectives in the case had received little help after requests for information were sent through Interpol to their Saudi colleagues.

Saud's lawyers also failed in a last-ditch attempt to stop details of his encounters with male escorts being revealed during the trial. In a sign of the anxiety about his sexuality becoming public...

Help Yemen, not its current government

I have always found Brian most Whitaker's middle east analyses very informed and accurate. This article on the current crisis in Yemen is no exception...

Brian Whitaker is the author of an ebook 'The birth of modern Yemen'

With Allies like these who needs terrorists ?