March 29, 2007, 3:40PM
By LEE KEATH and DONNA ABU-NASR Associated Press Writers
© 2007 The Associated Press
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — King Abdullah's harsh — and unexpected — attack on the U.S. military presence in Iraq could be a Saudi attempt to signal to Washington its anger over the situation in Iraq and build credibility among fellow Arabs.
The kingdom has taken an aggressive leadership role to quiet Mideast troubles, and wanted to show other Arabs it was willing to put their interests above its close ties to the United States.
The White House, in a rare public retort Thursday, rejected the king's characterization of U.S. troops in Iraq as an "illegitimate foreign occupation," saying the United States was not in Iraq illegally.
"The United States and Saudi Arabia have a close and cooperative relationship on a wide range of issues," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "And when it comes to the coalition forces being in Iraq, we are there under the U.N. Security Council resolutions and at the invitation of the Iraqi people."
"We disagree with them," Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told senators. "We were a little surprised to see those remarks."
The king made his remarks Wednesday at the opening session of the two-day Arab summit his country hosted in Riyadh. It was believed to be the first time the king publicly expressed that opinion.
"In beloved Iraq, blood is flowing between brothers, in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and abhorrent sectarianism threatens a civil war," said Abdullah, whose country is a U.S. ally that quietly aided the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The next day, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani bristled at the comment in his speech to the summit, saying the term occupation has "negative implications" and is "in contradiction" to the vision of "Iraqi patriotic and national forces."
A Saudi official said the king was speaking as the president of the summit and his remarks reflected general frustration with the "patchwork" job the Americans were doing to end violence in Iraq.
The king also wanted to send a message that Iraq is an issue that Arabs cannot turn their back on, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
It was not clear what kind of diplomatic fallout could result — but the comments did nothing to help bring Arab nations closer to the government of Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.
The summit has taken a tough line on Iraq, demanding it change its constitution and military to include more Sunnis and end a program of uprooting former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party.
The Sunni-led governments of the Arab world have long been suspicious of Iraq's Shiite leadership, blaming it for fueling violence by discriminating against Sunni Arabs and accusing it of helping mainly Shiite Iran extend its influence in the region.
Abdullah's remarks came at a time when the kingdom is taking a more public role in efforts to defuse crises threatening to engulf the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia sponsored a reconciliation accord between Palestinian factions, has engaged Iran about its nuclear program, and has tried to settle simmering tensions in Lebanon. And the kingdom has been talking to various factions in Iraq.
Writers in some Arab media suggested before the summit that Saudi Arabia would seek solutions that would cater to U.S. interests.
"The king's remarks are the biggest proof that those accusations were false," said Dawood al-Shirian, a Saudi analyst. "In the issue of Iraq, Saudi Arabia went far beyond most other Arab countries. It went beyond the details and right to the cause."
Al-Shirian said he expected other Arab countries to take Saudi Arabia's lead in considering the presence of U.S. troops an illegal occupation.
"If Saudi Arabia didn't blame the occupation, the blame would fall on the Iraqis, who are victims. How can you blame the victim?" he asked.
The U.S. called its presence in Iraq an occupation until the June 2004 handover of sovereignty to the Iraqis. U.S. troops remained in Iraq with permission from the Iraqi government and a mandate from the United Nations.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal stood by the king's remarks Thursday — and his defense had hints of the Arab nation's attitude that the Shiite-led government doesn't have the legitimacy to approve the U.S. presence.
"If that country had chosen to have those troops, then it's something else. But any military action that is not requested by a specific country — that is the definition of occupation," al-Faisal told reporters.
____
Donna Abu Nasr reported from Beirut, Lebanon.
Showing posts with label Saudi Arabia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saudi Arabia. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Here comes the flood: Tsunami in Gaza, Celebration of peace in Jerusalem
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
By Gilad Atzmon
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced yesterday the decision of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas to meet bi-weekly with the US mediating. Indeed ‘great news for the Palestinians and the Israelis’.
More or less at the same time at least five Palestinians drowned in a “sewage Tsunami” when a water treatment reservoir burst, flooding Umm Naser, a village in the northern Gaza Strip.
While in a peaceful news conference in Jerusalem Rice once again said NO to the democratically elected Hamas referring to the PA chairman as a “partner for peace”, a Bedouin village in Gaza was submerged in sewage.
This devastating picture of total surreal detachment between the two events, between a meaningless political intercourse and a devastating destruction on the ground is the true reality of the Palestinian disaster. This reflects upon the zero Western political leadership’s commitment to humanist and ethical thinking, it reflects upon our abandonment of the Palestinian people, it is a reminder of our general negligence towards people who are mercilessly dispossessed for six decades, our blindness towards what seems to be a suffering with no end and no limit.
Rice called on regional Arab states to “participate actively in the peace process”. She welcomed as well the Saudi peace plan as “an example of such new thinking.” And I end up asking myself when was the last time Rice or the Saudi Crown family had been submerged in Sewage? Rice probably failed to realise that people, who happen to be flooded by ‘treated water’, want something slightly more significant than a mere ‘peace process’. Ms Rice, shouldn’t we better start with food? In case you didn’t realise, your embargo on the Hamas government has led to unprecedented starvation in Gaza. Some 80% of Gaza’s population relies upon WFP’s aid and on that from the UNRWA, the UN agency for refugees.
More or less by the time the US Secretary of State concluded that the two leaders would discuss a “political horizon,” it was clear that dozens of residents of Umm Naser were still unaccounted for.
By late afternoon, receding floodwaters had left a foul-smelling muck. Village children clung to wooden doors floating on the putrid waters. Rescuers were paddling through the village searching for victims. Frantic goats and cows were seen swimming in the mud searching for safe ground.
By the time Rice left the region it was revealed that the ‘negotiations’ between Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas will not include the three core issues - Jerusalem, refugees and borders. How surprising.
Instead of going from Jerusalem to Riyadh, Rice went back to Washington. She realised that she had nothing to offer the Arab leaders summit. She has nothing to offer almost as much as the people of Umm Naser have nothing to lose.
By Gilad Atzmon
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced yesterday the decision of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas to meet bi-weekly with the US mediating. Indeed ‘great news for the Palestinians and the Israelis’.
More or less at the same time at least five Palestinians drowned in a “sewage Tsunami” when a water treatment reservoir burst, flooding Umm Naser, a village in the northern Gaza Strip.
While in a peaceful news conference in Jerusalem Rice once again said NO to the democratically elected Hamas referring to the PA chairman as a “partner for peace”, a Bedouin village in Gaza was submerged in sewage.
This devastating picture of total surreal detachment between the two events, between a meaningless political intercourse and a devastating destruction on the ground is the true reality of the Palestinian disaster. This reflects upon the zero Western political leadership’s commitment to humanist and ethical thinking, it reflects upon our abandonment of the Palestinian people, it is a reminder of our general negligence towards people who are mercilessly dispossessed for six decades, our blindness towards what seems to be a suffering with no end and no limit.
Rice called on regional Arab states to “participate actively in the peace process”. She welcomed as well the Saudi peace plan as “an example of such new thinking.” And I end up asking myself when was the last time Rice or the Saudi Crown family had been submerged in Sewage? Rice probably failed to realise that people, who happen to be flooded by ‘treated water’, want something slightly more significant than a mere ‘peace process’. Ms Rice, shouldn’t we better start with food? In case you didn’t realise, your embargo on the Hamas government has led to unprecedented starvation in Gaza. Some 80% of Gaza’s population relies upon WFP’s aid and on that from the UNRWA, the UN agency for refugees.
More or less by the time the US Secretary of State concluded that the two leaders would discuss a “political horizon,” it was clear that dozens of residents of Umm Naser were still unaccounted for.
By late afternoon, receding floodwaters had left a foul-smelling muck. Village children clung to wooden doors floating on the putrid waters. Rescuers were paddling through the village searching for victims. Frantic goats and cows were seen swimming in the mud searching for safe ground.
By the time Rice left the region it was revealed that the ‘negotiations’ between Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas will not include the three core issues - Jerusalem, refugees and borders. How surprising.
Instead of going from Jerusalem to Riyadh, Rice went back to Washington. She realised that she had nothing to offer the Arab leaders summit. She has nothing to offer almost as much as the people of Umm Naser have nothing to lose.
Bush Alienates Closest U.S. Allies
Bush's Royal Trouble
Why Is King Abdullah Saying No to Dinner?
Why Is King Abdullah Saying No to Dinner?
By Jim Hoagland
Wednesday, March 28, 2007; A15
President Bush enjoys hosting formal state dinners about as much as having a root canal. Or proposing tax increases. So his decision to schedule a mid-April White House gala for Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah signified the president's high regard for an Arab monarch who is also a Bush family friend.
Now the White House ponders what Abdullah's sudden and sparsely explained cancellation of the dinner signifies. Nothing good -- especially for Condoleezza Rice's most important Middle East initiatives -- is the clearest available answer.
Abdullah's bowing out of the April 17 event is, in fact, one more warning sign that the Bush administration's downward spiral at home is undermining its ability to achieve its policy objectives abroad. Friends as well as foes see the need, or the chance, to distance themselves from the politically besieged Bush.
Official versions discount that possibility, of course. Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser, flew to Washington last week to explain to Bush that April 17 posed a scheduling problem. " 'It is not convenient' was the way it was put," says one official.
But administration sources report that Bush and his senior advisers were not convinced by Bandar's vagueness -- especially since it followed Saudi decisions to seek common ground with Iran and the radicals of Hezbollah and Hamas instead of confronting them as part of Rice's proposed "realignment" of the Middle East into moderates and extremists.
Abdullah's reluctance to be seen socializing at the White House this spring reflects two related dynamics: a scampering back by the Saudis to their traditional caution in trying to balance regional forces, and their displeasure with negative U.S. reaction to their decision to return to co-opting or placating foes.
Abdullah gave a warm welcome to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Riyadh in early March, not long after the Saudis pressured Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas into accepting a political accord that entrenches Hamas in an unwieldy coalition government with Abbas's Fatah movement.
"The Saudis surprised us by going that far," explained one White House official in a comment that reached -- and irritated -- Saudi officials. So don't count on Abdullah to put new force behind his long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative at the Arab summit scheduled this week in Riyadh.
Rice had hoped the summit would provide a boost in her current proximity talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials, but she appears to have struck a dry well. "She is conducting crisis management, not grand diplomacy," a European official who talked to her recently said disappointedly.
Adds an admirer who tracks Rice's intentions and assessments in the Middle East: "Condi is doing everything she can. But she is dancing with a corpse that just keeps flopping over in another direction every time she tries to move it."
A few months ago, Bandar was championing the confrontational "realignment" approach in Saudi family councils: Iran's power would be broken, the Syrians would have to give up hegemonic designs on Lebanon, etc., etc. Now the Saudi prince visits Tehran and Moscow regularly. He helped set the stage for the Palestinians' Mecca accord, which has caused Israel to reduce what little cooperation it felt it could extend to Abbas.
And he delivered the king's regrets about dinner. (The White House declined all comment about the April 17 dinner and Bandar's visit.) This is less a clear strategic reversal than a tactical adjustment for the Saudis: They remain frightened of the expanding ambitions of Iran. And the personal bond between the Saudi royals -- especially Bandar -- and Bush and his father remains strong.
But the Saudis, too, know how to read election returns. They see Bush swimming against a tide of scandal and stench that engulfs his most trusted aides. In the traditional Saudi worldview, this is a moment to hedge, not to indulge in the kind of leadership needed to break the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock or the deadly morass of Iraq.
It could be less calculated than that. Part of the royal family was unhappy with Bandar's earlier break-their-bones realignment rhetoric. Abdullah would not want to come to Washington to front for a divided family. He may need more time to patch things.
But Rice will get no relief when she returns to Washington. She will have to deal with more depressing society news: Jordan's King Abdullah, who has spent more time in George W. Bush's Washington than any other foreign leader, has let the White House know that he can't make that state visit discussed for September. Can you do 2008? the king asks instead.
Who won the 'war on terror'?
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Zbigniew Brzezinski writes about the ‘war on terror’. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for Americans to understand that the entire concept is Israeli, invented by Israeli strategists, and promulgated mainly by Benjamin Netanyahu (and his agents working within the highest levels of the American government), to provide a rationale for the peculiar against-interest continued American sponsorship of Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union (sponsorship needed for Israel to continue to build its empire after the loss of the concept of Israel as the bulwark in the Middle East against Soviet influence). Brzezinski is aware of this, or course, but can’t say it, although you can get hints of what he is talking about by the Islamophobia examples that he gives.
There were terrorist attacks in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, but nobody thought about responding with a ‘war on terror’. The concept is absurd. You fight wars against countries. We’re told that a bunch of guys, mostly Saudis, directed by a fellow closely associated with the Saudi power elites, attacked the United States. What is the response? The United States attacked Afghanistan, the whole country, because the guy the FBI claims directed the attack was living in a cave somewhere there! Before the concept of the ‘war on terror’ was invented by the Israeli right this would have been regarded as sheer lunacy, but Americans swallowed the whole thing. At the time, many people made the sane suggestion that, since the terrorist attacks were a criminal act, the appropriate response would be to send some FBI agents to Afghanistan to conduct an investigation, find the guilty parties, apprehend them, and bring them back for trial (had the United States asked nicely the Taliban would have consented to this). Instead, the United States decided to fight a war – a war which it and its allies are losing rather badly – in order to clear the way to place some pipelines and prepare the intellectual climate in the United States for the war that was really the main neocon agenda item, the attack on Iraq.
The assassination of JFK contained big pointers leading you to think that either Cuba or the Soviet Union was behind the crime. These pointers were all bogus, manufactured by whoever planned the murder. The idea was to leave options open for a right-wing goal of attacking either the Soviet Union or Cuba. The back-up plan, if something went terribly wrong (which it did, when Oswald wasn’t killed at the scene – note how the 9/11 planners avoided the problem by killing the perpetrators off in the act of committing the terrorism), was to leave the threat of a ruinous war out there to scare reasonable people in Washington to assist in covering up the crime. The cover-up by the war-avoiding Washington establishment would also provide cover for the real forces behind the assassination (I’m following Peter Dale Scott on this, although I think that the 9/11 conspiracy is much different that the JFK assassination conspiracy, as conspirators learn from their mistakes, as well as by reading commentators on their mistakes like Peter Dale Scott!).
The big pointers from September 11 directed attention to places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, obviously not practical places for an American attack. Yet it seemed that the American government had to do something, and the main pointer to Afghanistan, Osama himself (a guy who denies having had anything to do with the attack), together with the illogic of the ‘war on terror’, led directly to the attack which had been pre-planned by the Bush Administration before September 11 (along with the attack on Iraq which was intended to be prepared by the introduction to the American people of the ‘war on terror’ concept in Afghanistan). I really have to wonder if the cover-up, with enthusiastic if somewhat incompetent assistance of the Washington elite, was motivated by threats to reveal manufactured evidence connecting the attacks to the Saudi royals (Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Midhar look more and more like double agents, explaining how they moved through and into the United States unimpeded, ended up living in a house in San Diego owned by an FBI informant, and even attended the Malaysia meeting) leading to the threat of a war which the American Establishment would do anything to prevent (Senator Graham seems to a pointer, and I’d be looking for people connected to him very suspiciously).
The Israeli extreme right won the ‘war on terror’. Who lost? Besides the obvious victims in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine, the losers are the people who are now subjected to the regime of fear caused by the ‘war on terror’, in the United States and its allies.
UPDATE: Accept peace plan or face war, Israel told
Israel abruptly cancels Vatican negotiating session.
Has Israel changed it's position and aligned with Islam?
Islamic Leader makes last minute cancellation of visit to Vatican Pope Benedict.
Saudi king slams 'illegitimate occupation' of Iraq
Israel snubs Condoleezza Rice
US open to separate dialogue with Arabs
Bush Alienates Closest U.S. Allies
---
By David Blair, in Riyadh
Has Israel changed it's position and aligned with Islam?
Islamic Leader makes last minute cancellation of visit to Vatican Pope Benedict.
Saudi king slams 'illegitimate occupation' of Iraq
Israel snubs Condoleezza Rice
US open to separate dialogue with Arabs
Bush Alienates Closest U.S. Allies
---
By David Blair, in Riyadh
Last Updated: 1:38am BST 28/03/2007
The "lords of war" will decide Israel's future if it rejects a blueprint for peace crafted by the entire Arab world, Saudi Arabia's veteran foreign minister warned yesterday. As leaders began gathering in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, for today's summit of the Arab League, Prince Saud al-Faisal told The Daily Telegraph that the Middle East risks perpetual conflict if the peace plan fails.
Under this Saudi-drafted proposal, every Arab country would formally recognise Israel in return for a withdrawal from all the land captured in the war of 1967. This would entail a Palestinian state embracing the entire West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. Every Arab country will almost certainly endorse this blueprint when the Riyadh summit concludes tomorrow. Prince Saud said Israel should accept or reject this final offer. "What we have the power to do in the Arab world, we think we have done," he said. "So now it is up to the other side because if you want peace, it is not enough for one side only to want it. Both sides must want it equally." Speaking inside his whitewashed palace, surrounded by luxuriant lawns and manicured flower beds resembling a green oasis in the drabness of Riyadh, Prince Saud delivered an unequivocal warning to Israel. advertisement "If Israel refuses, that means it doesn't want peace and it places everything back into the hands of fate. They will be putting their future not in the hands of the peacemakers but in the hands of the lords of war," he said. Prince Saud dismissed any further diplomatic overtures towards Israel. "It has never been proven that reaching out to Israel achieves anything," he said. "Other Arab countries have recognised Israel and what has that achieved? "The largest Arab country, Egypt, recognised Israel and what was the result? Not one iota of change happened in the attitude of Israel towards peace." Israel has numerous reservations about the Arab peace plan - which was previously proposed at a summit in 2002. Israel fears any hint that Palestinian refugees would have the right to return to their homes in the event of a peace settlement. Prince Saud is the 66-year-old son of the late King Faisal. Relieved of the need to seek re-election, he has held office for 32 years. Flush with oil money, Saudi Arabia is playing a more assertive role in Middle Eastern diplomacy. As well as securing the Arab peace plan, the Kingdom brokered the agreement between Hamas and Fatah - the two Palestinian factions - to form a unity government. But western diplomats in Riyadh believe this resurgence in Saudi diplomacy stems from more than the kingdom's oil boom. The menacing spectre of Iran, the rising Shia power with nuclear-tipped ambitions for regional dominance, looms large across the waters of the Gulf. Saudi Arabia is quietly moving to contain its bellicose neighbour. Prince Saud offered conciliatory words to Iran, laced with coded criticism. "We have no inhibitions about the role of Iran," he said. "It is a large country. It wants to play a leading role in the region, and it has every right to do so. It is an historic country. But if you want to reach for leadership, you have to make sure that those you are leading are having their interests taken care of and not damaged." Saudi Arabia has privately urged Iran to stop enriching uranium, in compliance with United Nations resolutions and lay to rest any suggestion that it is seeking nuclear weapons. Prince Saud called for a "Middle East free of nuclear weapons" with "no exceptions for anybody, be it Israel or Iran". Asked whether the kingdom would consider seeking nuclear weapons of its own if Iran managed to acquire a bomb, Prince Saud replied: "We have made it very clear that we are not going down that road under any circumstances." He paused for a moment, before adding, "under any foreseeable circumstances". |
Accept peace plan or face war, Israel told
Israel abruptly cancels Vatican negotiating session.
Has Israel changed its position and aligned with Islam?
Islamic Leader makes last minute cancellation of visit to Vatican Pope Benedict.
Saudi king slams 'illegitimate occupation' of Iraq
Israel snubs Condoleezza Rice
US open to separate dialogue with Arabs
Bush Alienates Closest U.S. Allies
---
By David Blair, in Riyadh
Has Israel changed its position and aligned with Islam?
Islamic Leader makes last minute cancellation of visit to Vatican Pope Benedict.
Saudi king slams 'illegitimate occupation' of Iraq
Israel snubs Condoleezza Rice
US open to separate dialogue with Arabs
Bush Alienates Closest U.S. Allies
---
By David Blair, in Riyadh
Last Updated: 1:38am BST 28/03/2007
The "lords of war" will decide Israel's future if it rejects a blueprint for peace crafted by the entire Arab world, Saudi Arabia's veteran foreign minister warned yesterday. As leaders began gathering in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, for today's summit of the Arab League, Prince Saud al-Faisal told The Daily Telegraph that the Middle East risks perpetual conflict if the peace plan fails.
Under this Saudi-drafted proposal, every Arab country would formally recognise Israel in return for a withdrawal from all the land captured in the war of 1967. This would entail a Palestinian state embracing the entire West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. Every Arab country will almost certainly endorse this blueprint when the Riyadh summit concludes tomorrow. Prince Saud said Israel should accept or reject this final offer. "What we have the power to do in the Arab world, we think we have done," he said. "So now it is up to the other side because if you want peace, it is not enough for one side only to want it. Both sides must want it equally." Speaking inside his whitewashed palace, surrounded by luxuriant lawns and manicured flower beds resembling a green oasis in the drabness of Riyadh, Prince Saud delivered an unequivocal warning to Israel. advertisement "If Israel refuses, that means it doesn't want peace and it places everything back into the hands of fate. They will be putting their future not in the hands of the peacemakers but in the hands of the lords of war," he said. Prince Saud dismissed any further diplomatic overtures towards Israel. "It has never been proven that reaching out to Israel achieves anything," he said. "Other Arab countries have recognised Israel and what has that achieved? "The largest Arab country, Egypt, recognised Israel and what was the result? Not one iota of change happened in the attitude of Israel towards peace." Israel has numerous reservations about the Arab peace plan - which was previously proposed at a summit in 2002. Israel fears any hint that Palestinian refugees would have the right to return to their homes in the event of a peace settlement. Prince Saud is the 66-year-old son of the late King Faisal. Relieved of the need to seek re-election, he has held office for 32 years. Flush with oil money, Saudi Arabia is playing a more assertive role in Middle Eastern diplomacy. As well as securing the Arab peace plan, the Kingdom brokered the agreement between Hamas and Fatah - the two Palestinian factions - to form a unity government. But western diplomats in Riyadh believe this resurgence in Saudi diplomacy stems from more than the kingdom's oil boom. The menacing spectre of Iran, the rising Shia power with nuclear-tipped ambitions for regional dominance, looms large across the waters of the Gulf. Saudi Arabia is quietly moving to contain its bellicose neighbour. Prince Saud offered conciliatory words to Iran, laced with coded criticism. "We have no inhibitions about the role of Iran," he said. "It is a large country. It wants to play a leading role in the region, and it has every right to do so. It is an historic country. But if you want to reach for leadership, you have to make sure that those you are leading are having their interests taken care of and not damaged." Saudi Arabia has privately urged Iran to stop enriching uranium, in compliance with United Nations resolutions and lay to rest any suggestion that it is seeking nuclear weapons. Prince Saud called for a "Middle East free of nuclear weapons" with "no exceptions for anybody, be it Israel or Iran". Asked whether the kingdom would consider seeking nuclear weapons of its own if Iran managed to acquire a bomb, Prince Saud replied: "We have made it very clear that we are not going down that road under any circumstances." He paused for a moment, before adding, "under any foreseeable circumstances". |
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Inshallah
March 18, 2007
By Uri Avnery
NOT ONLY the Palestinians must be breathing a deep sigh of relief after the swearing in of the Palestinian National Unity Government. We Israelis have good reason to do the same.
This event is a great blessing, not only for them, but also for us - if indeed we are interested in a peace that will put an end to the historic conflict.
FOR THE Palestinians, the immediate blessing is the elimination of the threat of civil war.
That was a nightmare. It was also absurd. Palestinian fighters were shooting at each other in the streets of Gaza, gladdening the hearts of the occupation authorities. As in the arena of ancient Rome, gladiators killed each other for the amusement of the spectators. People who had spent years together in Israeli prisons suddenly acted like mortal enemies.
That was not yet a civil war. But the bloody incidents could have led there. Many Palestinians were worried that if the clashes were not stopped immediately, a fully-fledged fratricidal war would indeed break out. That was, of course, also the great hope of the Israeli government - that Hamas and Fatah would annihilate each other without Israel having to lift a finger. The Israeli intelligence services did indeed predict this.
I was not worried on that account. In my view, a Palestinian civil war was never in the cards.
First of all, because the basic conditions for a civil war are absent. The Palestinian people are unified in their ethnic, cultural and historical composition. Palestine does not resemble Iraq, with its three peoples who are distinct ethnically (Arabs and Kurds), religiously (Shiites and Sunnites) and geographically (North, Center and South). It does not resemble Ireland, where the Protestants, the descendents of settlers, were fighting the Catholic descendents of the indigenous population. It does not resemble African countries, whose borders were fixed by colonial masters without any consideration of tribal boundaries. It certainly had no revolutionary upheaval like those that brought on the civil wars in England, France and Russia, nor an issue that split the population like slavery in the USA.
The bloody incidents that broke out in the Gaza Strip were struggles between party militias, aggravated by feuds between Hamulahs (extended families). History has seen such struggles in almost all liberation movements. For example: after World War I, when the British were compelled to grant Home Rule to the Irish, a bloody struggle among the freedom fighters broke out at once. Irish Catholics killed Irish Catholics.
In the days of the struggle of the Jewish community in Palestine against the British colonial regime ("the Mandate"), a civil war was averted only thanks to one person: Menachem Begin, the commander of the Irgun. He was determined to prevent a fratricidal war at all costs. David Ben-Gurion wanted to eliminate the Irgun, which rejected his leadership and undermined his policies. In the so-called "season", he ordered his loyal Haganah organization to kidnap Irgun members and turn them over to the British police, which tortured them and put them in prison abroad. But Begin prohibited his men from using their weapons to defend themselves against Jews.
Such a struggle among the Palestinians will not turn into a civil war, because the entire Palestinian people oppose this strenuously. Everybody remembers that during the Arab Rebellion of 1936, the Palestinian leader at that time, the Grand Mufti Hadj Amin al-Husseini, butchered his Palestinian rivals. During the three years of the rebellion (called "the Events" in Zionist terminology) Palestinians killed more of each other than they killed of their British and Jewish opponents.
The result: when the Palestinian people came face to face with their supreme existential test, in the war of 1948, they were split and splintered, lacking unified leadership and dependent on the mercies of the bickering Arab governments, who were intriguing against each other. They were unable to stand up to the much smaller organized Jewish community, which rapidly set up a unified and efficient army. The result was the "Naqba", the terrible historic tragedy of the Palestinian people. What happened in 1936 still touches the life of every single Palestinian to this very day.
It is difficult to start a civil war if the people are against it. Even provocations from outside - and I assume that there has been no lack of these - cannot ignite it.
Therefore I did not doubt for a moment that in the end a Unity Government would indeed come about, and I am glad that this has now happened.
WHY IS this good for Israel? I am going to say something that will shock many Israelis and their friends in the world:
If Hamas did not exist, it would have to be invented.
If a Palestinian government had been set up without Hamas, we should have to boycott it until Hamas was included.
And if negotiations do lead to a historical settlement with the Palestinian leadership, we should make it a condition that Hamas, too, must sign it.
Sounds crazy? Of course. But that is the lesson history teaches us from the experience of other wars of liberation.
The Palestinian population in the occupied territories is almost evenly divided between Fatah and Hamas. It makes no sense at all to sign an agreement with half a people and continue the war against the other half. After all, we shall make serious concessions for peace - such as withdrawing to much narrower borders and giving East Jerusalem back to its owners. Shall we do so in return for an agreement that half the Palestinian people will not accept and will not be committed to? To me this sounds like the height of folly.
I shall go further: Hamas and Fatah together represent only the part of the Palestinian people that lives in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. But millions of Palestinian refugees (no one knows for sure how many) live outside of the territory of Palestine and Israel.
If we strive indeed for a complete end to the historic conflict, we must reach out for a solution that includes them, too. Therefore I strongly question the wisdom of TzipI Livni and her colleagues, who demand that the Saudis drop from their peace plan any mention of the refugee problem. Simply put: that is stupid.
Common sense would advise the exact opposite: to demand that the Saudi peace initiative, which has become an official pan-Arab peace plan, include the matter of the refugees, so that the final agreement will also constitute a solution of the refugee problem.
That will not be easy, for sure. The refugee problem has psychological roots that touch the very heart of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict, and it concerns the fate of millions of living human beings. But when the Arab peace plan says that there must be an "agreed upon" solution - meaning agreed upon with Israel - it transfers it from the realm of irreconcilable ideologies to the real world, the world of negotiations and compromise. I have discussed this many times with Arab personalities, and I am convinced that an agreement is possible.
THE NEW Palestinian government is based on the "Mecca agreement". It seems that it would not have been possible without the energetic intervention of King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia.
The international background has to be considered. The President of the United States is now busy with desperate efforts to bring his Iraqi adventure to a conclusion that will not go down in history as a total disaster. For this purpose he is trying to bring together a Sunni Front that would block Iran and help to put an end to the Sunni violence in Iraq.
That is, of course, a simplistic idea. It disregards the enormous complexity of the realities of our region. Bush has presided over the setting up in Iraq of a government dominated by the Shiites. He has tried to isolate Sunni Syria. And Hamas is, of course, a pious Sunni organization.
But the American ship of state is beginning to turn around. Being a giant ship, it can do this only very slowly. Under American pressure, the Saudi king has agreed (perhaps unwillingly) to take upon himself the leadership of the Arab world, after Egypt has failed in this task. The king has persuaded Bush that he has to speak with Syria. Now he is trying to persuade him to accept Hamas.
In this picture, Israel is a hindrance. A few days ago Ehud Olmert flew to America and told the conference of the Jewish lobby, AIPAC, that a withdrawal from Iraq would be a disaster (contrary, by the way, to the opinion of more than 80% of American Jews - who support early withdrawal.) This week, the US ambassador in Tel-Aviv hinted that from now on the Government of Israel is allowed to conduct negotiations with Syria - and it may be assumed that this hint will turn into an order before long. In the meantime, no change in the position of the Israeli government is noticeable.
UNFORTUNATELY, JUST at this moment, with a newly formed Palestinian government that has a good chance of being strong and stable, the government of Israel is becoming more and more destabilized.
Olmert's support rating in the polls is approaching zero. The percentage points can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Practically everybody speaks about his political demise within weeks, perhaps after the publication of the interim report of the Vinograd commission on the Second Lebanon War. But even if Olmert manages to survive, his will be a lame duck government, unable to start anything new, and certainly no bold initiative vis-Ã -vis the new Palestinian government.
But if Bush supports us on one side, and the Saudi king on the other, perhaps we shall after all take a few steps forward. As people in this region say: in sha Allah, if God wills.
An Israeli author and activist. He is the head of the Israeli peace movement, Gush Shalom.
By Uri Avnery
NOT ONLY the Palestinians must be breathing a deep sigh of relief after the swearing in of the Palestinian National Unity Government. We Israelis have good reason to do the same.
This event is a great blessing, not only for them, but also for us - if indeed we are interested in a peace that will put an end to the historic conflict.
FOR THE Palestinians, the immediate blessing is the elimination of the threat of civil war.
That was a nightmare. It was also absurd. Palestinian fighters were shooting at each other in the streets of Gaza, gladdening the hearts of the occupation authorities. As in the arena of ancient Rome, gladiators killed each other for the amusement of the spectators. People who had spent years together in Israeli prisons suddenly acted like mortal enemies.
That was not yet a civil war. But the bloody incidents could have led there. Many Palestinians were worried that if the clashes were not stopped immediately, a fully-fledged fratricidal war would indeed break out. That was, of course, also the great hope of the Israeli government - that Hamas and Fatah would annihilate each other without Israel having to lift a finger. The Israeli intelligence services did indeed predict this.
I was not worried on that account. In my view, a Palestinian civil war was never in the cards.
First of all, because the basic conditions for a civil war are absent. The Palestinian people are unified in their ethnic, cultural and historical composition. Palestine does not resemble Iraq, with its three peoples who are distinct ethnically (Arabs and Kurds), religiously (Shiites and Sunnites) and geographically (North, Center and South). It does not resemble Ireland, where the Protestants, the descendents of settlers, were fighting the Catholic descendents of the indigenous population. It does not resemble African countries, whose borders were fixed by colonial masters without any consideration of tribal boundaries. It certainly had no revolutionary upheaval like those that brought on the civil wars in England, France and Russia, nor an issue that split the population like slavery in the USA.
The bloody incidents that broke out in the Gaza Strip were struggles between party militias, aggravated by feuds between Hamulahs (extended families). History has seen such struggles in almost all liberation movements. For example: after World War I, when the British were compelled to grant Home Rule to the Irish, a bloody struggle among the freedom fighters broke out at once. Irish Catholics killed Irish Catholics.
In the days of the struggle of the Jewish community in Palestine against the British colonial regime ("the Mandate"), a civil war was averted only thanks to one person: Menachem Begin, the commander of the Irgun. He was determined to prevent a fratricidal war at all costs. David Ben-Gurion wanted to eliminate the Irgun, which rejected his leadership and undermined his policies. In the so-called "season", he ordered his loyal Haganah organization to kidnap Irgun members and turn them over to the British police, which tortured them and put them in prison abroad. But Begin prohibited his men from using their weapons to defend themselves against Jews.
Such a struggle among the Palestinians will not turn into a civil war, because the entire Palestinian people oppose this strenuously. Everybody remembers that during the Arab Rebellion of 1936, the Palestinian leader at that time, the Grand Mufti Hadj Amin al-Husseini, butchered his Palestinian rivals. During the three years of the rebellion (called "the Events" in Zionist terminology) Palestinians killed more of each other than they killed of their British and Jewish opponents.
The result: when the Palestinian people came face to face with their supreme existential test, in the war of 1948, they were split and splintered, lacking unified leadership and dependent on the mercies of the bickering Arab governments, who were intriguing against each other. They were unable to stand up to the much smaller organized Jewish community, which rapidly set up a unified and efficient army. The result was the "Naqba", the terrible historic tragedy of the Palestinian people. What happened in 1936 still touches the life of every single Palestinian to this very day.
It is difficult to start a civil war if the people are against it. Even provocations from outside - and I assume that there has been no lack of these - cannot ignite it.
Therefore I did not doubt for a moment that in the end a Unity Government would indeed come about, and I am glad that this has now happened.
WHY IS this good for Israel? I am going to say something that will shock many Israelis and their friends in the world:
If Hamas did not exist, it would have to be invented.
If a Palestinian government had been set up without Hamas, we should have to boycott it until Hamas was included.
And if negotiations do lead to a historical settlement with the Palestinian leadership, we should make it a condition that Hamas, too, must sign it.
Sounds crazy? Of course. But that is the lesson history teaches us from the experience of other wars of liberation.
The Palestinian population in the occupied territories is almost evenly divided between Fatah and Hamas. It makes no sense at all to sign an agreement with half a people and continue the war against the other half. After all, we shall make serious concessions for peace - such as withdrawing to much narrower borders and giving East Jerusalem back to its owners. Shall we do so in return for an agreement that half the Palestinian people will not accept and will not be committed to? To me this sounds like the height of folly.
I shall go further: Hamas and Fatah together represent only the part of the Palestinian people that lives in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. But millions of Palestinian refugees (no one knows for sure how many) live outside of the territory of Palestine and Israel.
If we strive indeed for a complete end to the historic conflict, we must reach out for a solution that includes them, too. Therefore I strongly question the wisdom of TzipI Livni and her colleagues, who demand that the Saudis drop from their peace plan any mention of the refugee problem. Simply put: that is stupid.
Common sense would advise the exact opposite: to demand that the Saudi peace initiative, which has become an official pan-Arab peace plan, include the matter of the refugees, so that the final agreement will also constitute a solution of the refugee problem.
That will not be easy, for sure. The refugee problem has psychological roots that touch the very heart of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict, and it concerns the fate of millions of living human beings. But when the Arab peace plan says that there must be an "agreed upon" solution - meaning agreed upon with Israel - it transfers it from the realm of irreconcilable ideologies to the real world, the world of negotiations and compromise. I have discussed this many times with Arab personalities, and I am convinced that an agreement is possible.
THE NEW Palestinian government is based on the "Mecca agreement". It seems that it would not have been possible without the energetic intervention of King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia.
The international background has to be considered. The President of the United States is now busy with desperate efforts to bring his Iraqi adventure to a conclusion that will not go down in history as a total disaster. For this purpose he is trying to bring together a Sunni Front that would block Iran and help to put an end to the Sunni violence in Iraq.
That is, of course, a simplistic idea. It disregards the enormous complexity of the realities of our region. Bush has presided over the setting up in Iraq of a government dominated by the Shiites. He has tried to isolate Sunni Syria. And Hamas is, of course, a pious Sunni organization.
But the American ship of state is beginning to turn around. Being a giant ship, it can do this only very slowly. Under American pressure, the Saudi king has agreed (perhaps unwillingly) to take upon himself the leadership of the Arab world, after Egypt has failed in this task. The king has persuaded Bush that he has to speak with Syria. Now he is trying to persuade him to accept Hamas.
In this picture, Israel is a hindrance. A few days ago Ehud Olmert flew to America and told the conference of the Jewish lobby, AIPAC, that a withdrawal from Iraq would be a disaster (contrary, by the way, to the opinion of more than 80% of American Jews - who support early withdrawal.) This week, the US ambassador in Tel-Aviv hinted that from now on the Government of Israel is allowed to conduct negotiations with Syria - and it may be assumed that this hint will turn into an order before long. In the meantime, no change in the position of the Israeli government is noticeable.
UNFORTUNATELY, JUST at this moment, with a newly formed Palestinian government that has a good chance of being strong and stable, the government of Israel is becoming more and more destabilized.
Olmert's support rating in the polls is approaching zero. The percentage points can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Practically everybody speaks about his political demise within weeks, perhaps after the publication of the interim report of the Vinograd commission on the Second Lebanon War. But even if Olmert manages to survive, his will be a lame duck government, unable to start anything new, and certainly no bold initiative vis-Ã -vis the new Palestinian government.
But if Bush supports us on one side, and the Saudi king on the other, perhaps we shall after all take a few steps forward. As people in this region say: in sha Allah, if God wills.
An Israeli author and activist. He is the head of the Israeli peace movement, Gush Shalom.
New Palestinian government marks collapse of Israel's Middle East positions
From Debka, the unofficial voice of Mossad.
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New Palestinian government marks collapse of Israel's Middle East positions
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New Palestinian government marks collapse of Israel's Middle East positions
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
March 18, 2007, 10:10 AM (GMT+02:00)
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The Hamas-Fatah government taking office Sunday, March 18, is more than a policy failure by prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni; it is another milestone on the road to the collapse of Israel’s Middle East positions at large, on a scale comparable to the setback to its deterrence from the mismanaged war against Hizballah last summer.
This fiasco is reflected in the horrified outcry across the board, from members of the Olmert government coalition and the opposition alike, as Israelis woke up Sunday, March 18, to face a hostile Palestinian government led by a terrorist organization, godfathered by Saudi Arabia, armed by Iran, and blessed by Western powers.
Exactly a week ago, on March 11, the Israeli prime minister said he was positively reviewing sections of the Saudi Arabian 2002 “peace plan.” He did not waver when Riyadh declared the hard-line text would not be modified when it is re-launched at the Arab summit in ten days’ time.
That afternoon, Olmert had his second interview with Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority and leader of Fatah. He stressed the importance of “staying in touch with positive Palestinian elements.” This was also Livni’s mantra during her recent travels to the US and European capitals.
They both fell into the Palestinian trap, effectively sanctioning the seal of moderation with which Abbas and Fatah stamped a Palestinian government dominated by the Hamas terrorists.
Even more dangerously, the two Israeli leaders failed to question the covert Yalta-type understanding reached by Riyadh and Tehran. They ought to have grasped that when the Saudis and Iranians stuck their deal to preserve the Siniora government in Lebanon, as DEBKAfile revealed in late February, they must also have come to terms on the Palestinian issue.
And so they did. It was a package: Tehran called off the campaign led by its patsy Hizballah against the anti-Syrian Lebanese government, gaining stronger representation – at Syria’s expense, while the rival Palestinian factions were told in Mecca to share power – at Israel’s expense.
Olmert and Livni forgot a permanent Middle East axiom: Israel’s neighbors can always set aside their differences for common action against the Jewish state. Therefore, Sunni princes and Shiite clerics easily agreed on a Palestinian formula that would imperil Israel’s most vital interests.
They figured that, just as Syrian president Bashar Assad is too isolated to challenge his dependence on Tehran, so too Israel is too dependent on Washington to complain about Saudi under-the-table transactions with Iran for the sake of a deal on Iraq.
In the past year, Olmert-Livni policies have been so closely synchronized with Washington’s, that many of Israel’s vital interests have gone by the board.
It was their vain hope that Arab governments in fear of Iran’s ambitions would come to terms with Israel and move the Middle East closer to peace. This misreading was shared by opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. What happened instead was that the so-called moderate Arab camp stood aside when Tehran focused its attention on building up the menace to Israel on the backs of the now-kosher Palestinian radicals.
Iran not only gave them arms, ordnance, cash and training, but also strategic depth. Its Revolutionary Guards have spread their wings into Gaza through Sinai up to the Suez and Mediterranean, and built up a war menace to Israel from the south, as well as the north. The realistic prospect is therefore closer to war rather than peace, the culmination of a process which the prime minister, his foreign minister and their advisers consistently missed or misread.
Addressing the Washington pro-Israel lobby AIPAC’s annual conference last week, Olmert and Livni both came out in support of the Bush administration’s military strategy in Iraq. Since that strategy hinges largely on covert Saudi-Iranian diplomacy in Washington’s name, Israeli government spokesmen implicitly gave America a blank check to pay for an Iraq accommodation at Israel’s expense.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Enemies at the borders
Right Web | Profile | Iran Policy Committee: "...the IPC paper maintains that the Bush administration should find a role for “the Iranian opposition in Iraq to build a national compact among the Iraqi factions.” For the IPC, the “Iranian opposition in Iraq” is represented by the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a group that has been identified by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist group. "
---An explosion in the south-eastern Iranian city of Zahedan should give pause for thought about wider instability in the Middle East.
It's bombs in Baghdad that tend to hit the headlines these days, but a deadly explosion in the south-eastern Iranian city of Zahedan should give pause for thought about wider instability in the Middle East, who is targeting whom and why.
Reports from the scene, close to the Pakistani border, confirmed at least 11 revolutionary guards killed by a car bomb that destroyed their bus. Iran's official media reported that the attack had been claimed by a Sunni group called Jundullah (Soldiers of God), which Tehran has linked both to al-Qaida and the Baloch insurgency in Pakistan. Zahebad is the capital of the province where Iran's own Baloch minority is concentrated.
Predictably, given current tensions over Iraq and Iran's nuclear ambitions, an official Iranian source was quick to charge that the attack had been perpetrated by a group "with support from the US."
It's hard to be certain about the truth of these claims in the swirl of propaganda and misinformation that surrounds such incidents, always grist to the mill of conspiracy theorists. But there is common sense in the view of one strategic analysis website that this is part of a much wider conflict.
"The US-Iranian standoff over Iraq has reached a high level of intensity," commented (subscription only) Stratfor, supplier of intelligence to the international business community. "While the hard-line rhetoric and steps toward negotiations absorb the media's attention, a covert war being played out between Iran on one side, and the United States and Israel on the other, will escalate further. While Israel appears to be focused on decapitating Iran's nuclear programme through targeted assassinations, the United States has likely ramped up support for Iran's variety of oppressed minorities in an attempt to push the Iranian regime toward a negotiated settlement over Iraq."
Much hangs on that tentative word "likely".
Jundullah has been blamed in the past for kidnappings and killings in this wild border area, where drug-smuggling is a big preoccupation for the Iranian security forces. It was accused last year of killing 12 people as well as a security guard protecting the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The alleged al-Qaida connection also makes nonsense of the occasional suggestion in the west that Tehran is somehow in cahoots with Osama bin Laden.
It is not the first time that Iran has linked trouble in its border regions to its enemies. Tehran regularly accuses the US and Britain of fomenting separatism in Khuzestan, the oil-rich, ethnic Arab majority area in the south-west. That was where, on the eve of the 1980 war, Saddam Hussein backed the young men who took over the Iranian embassy in London - triggering the famous siege by the SAS in 1980.
And there have been unsubstantiated claims that the US is using the Iranian exile group the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) - banned as a terrorist group in the US and EU - as a proxy to mount attacks in both Baluchistan and Khuzestan.
Iran's Balochs form part of the country's 9% Sunni Muslim minority, so it was heartening to see a swift appeal from a local religious leader to avoid sectarian revenge attacks. Sunni Saudi Arabia, banging the drum over the "Shia crescent" and rising Iranian influence in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, has repeatedly made clear in recent days that fomenting sectarianism can cut both ways. The Zahedan bombings might have been an illustration of that point.
Ian Black is currently the Guardian's leader writer on foreign affairs and has previously been its European editor in Brussels (2000-2004), diplomatic editor in London (1993-2000) and Middle East correspondent based in Jerusalem. (1984-1993).
Friday, February 9, 2007
Text of Mecca Accord for Palestinian coalition government
Now Israel will get it's double agents in Gaza to reignite the Fatah-Hamas conflict. This will be Israel's pretext to send in the Military and pacify those naughty Palestinians. The U.S, U.K., Saudi Arabia, etc. can say, "See our intent was to broker peace, but the Palestinians screwed it up. The Israelis are big hero's saving the day." And the same shit goes on and on... After all, got to have a pretext to maintain and expand one of the world's most powerful militaries in the region.
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Text of Mecca Accord for Palestinian coalition government
Text of the Palestinians' Mecca Accord, which came in the form of a letter from President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, designating Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of Hamas, to form the government:
"In my capacity as the head of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the president of the Palestinian Authority ...
a) I designate you to form the upcoming Palestinian government within the time specified under the basic law (five weeks.)
b) After forming the government and presenting it to us, it should be presented to the Palestinian Legislative Council for a vote of confidence.
c) I call upon you as the head of the upcoming Palestinian government to commit to the higher interests of the Palestinian people, to preserve its rights and to preserve its achievements and to develop them, and to work in order to achieve its national goals as was approved by the Palestine National Council, the clauses of the Basic Law and the National Reconciliation Document ... Based on this, I call upon you to respect international resolutions and the agreements signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (referring to peace accords with Israel)."
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Text of Mecca Accord for Palestinian coalition government
Text of the Palestinians' Mecca Accord, which came in the form of a letter from President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, designating Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of Hamas, to form the government:
"In my capacity as the head of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the president of the Palestinian Authority ...
a) I designate you to form the upcoming Palestinian government within the time specified under the basic law (five weeks.)
b) After forming the government and presenting it to us, it should be presented to the Palestinian Legislative Council for a vote of confidence.
c) I call upon you as the head of the upcoming Palestinian government to commit to the higher interests of the Palestinian people, to preserve its rights and to preserve its achievements and to develop them, and to work in order to achieve its national goals as was approved by the Palestine National Council, the clauses of the Basic Law and the National Reconciliation Document ... Based on this, I call upon you to respect international resolutions and the agreements signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (referring to peace accords with Israel)."
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
The USA and Saudi Arabia Combat the Axis of Oil - Iran, Russia and Venezuela
Commodities / Analysis & Strategy
Feb 05, 2007 - 01:27 AM
By Gary_Dorsch
Crude oil is the key weapon in the battle between Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE, aligned with the United States, against the “Oil Axis” of Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. The Persian Gulf Oil kingdoms fear the emergence of a Tehran-led axis linking Iran, Iraqi Shiites, Syria, Lebanon's Hezbollah, Palestinian Hamas in Gaza, and Islamic militants linked to al Qaeda trying to topple the Saudi royal family.
Earlier this month, Riyadh fired the first shot in the war against Iran, by knocking the price of crude oil to as low as $50 per barrel. The goal is to squeeze Iran's budget and wreck havoc on its economy, as much as possible, before the Ayatollahs can get their hands on the nuclear bomb. According to a Jan 24th report in the UK Telegraph, that indicated North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year.
Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their successful test last October with Teheran's nuclear scientists, to assist Teheran's preparations to conduct its own test, possibly by the end of this year.
--MORE--
Feb 05, 2007 - 01:27 AM
By Gary_Dorsch
Crude oil is the key weapon in the battle between Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE, aligned with the United States, against the “Oil Axis” of Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. The Persian Gulf Oil kingdoms fear the emergence of a Tehran-led axis linking Iran, Iraqi Shiites, Syria, Lebanon's Hezbollah, Palestinian Hamas in Gaza, and Islamic militants linked to al Qaeda trying to topple the Saudi royal family.
Earlier this month, Riyadh fired the first shot in the war against Iran, by knocking the price of crude oil to as low as $50 per barrel. The goal is to squeeze Iran's budget and wreck havoc on its economy, as much as possible, before the Ayatollahs can get their hands on the nuclear bomb. According to a Jan 24th report in the UK Telegraph, that indicated North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year.
Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their successful test last October with Teheran's nuclear scientists, to assist Teheran's preparations to conduct its own test, possibly by the end of this year.
--MORE--
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Iran, Saudi Arabia Ignore U.S. To Work Towards Regional Stability
Related
Europe Resists U.S. Push to Curb Iran Ties
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January 30, 2007
U.S. Ally and Foe Are Trying to Avert War in Lebanon
Europe Resists U.S. Push to Curb Iran Ties
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January 30, 2007
U.S. Ally and Foe Are Trying to Avert War in Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 29 — In an unusual collaboration that could complicate American policy in the region, Iran and Saudi Arabia have been mediating an agreement to end Lebanon’s violent political crisis.
Leaders of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed party trying to overthrow Lebanon’s government, have recently visited the Saudi king in Riyadh, according to officials who attended the meeting. And Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi chief security adviser, has met with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Larijani, in Riyadh and Tehran to try to stop Lebanon’s slide into civil war.
“The only hope is for the Iranians and Saudis to go further in easing the situation and bringing people back to the negotiating table,” said Radwan Sayyed, an adviser to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
The Saudi-Iranian efforts have put Washington in an awkward position, since it is trying to reduce Iran’s regional influence. But since a stable Lebanon is also an American priority, American officials have watched the efforts without interfering.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Palestinian factions agree to talks in Mecca
MIDDLE EAST: Saudi Arabia yesterday invited feuding Palestinian factions to urgent talks in Islam's holy city of Mecca to try to end the fiercest internal fighting since Hamas's election victory a year ago.
Saudi Arabia yesterday invited feuding Palestinian factions to urgent talks in Islam's holy city of Mecca to try to end the fiercest internal fighting since Hamas's election victory a year ago.
Both sides agreed to attend the meeting, but no date was set as the death toll from three days of Gaza infighting rose to 23 with the killing of a Hamas police force member.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Saudis consider sending troops to Iraq
Government ‘deeply skeptical’ al-Maliki can make Bush surge plan work
EXCLUSIVE
By Alex Johnson and Andrea Mitchell
MSNBC and NBC News
Updated: 3:01 p.m. MT Jan 16, 2007
Saudi Arabia believes the Iraqi government is not up to the challenge and has told the United States that it is prepared to move its own forces into Iraq should the violence there degenerate into chaos, a senior U.S. official told NBC News on Tuesday.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal made no effort to mask his skepticism Tuesday about President Bush’s proposal to send 21,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq to stem sectarian fighting.
“We agree with the full objectives set by the new plan,” Saud said at a joint news conference in Riyadh with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is traveling in the region selling Bush’s plan. “We are hoping these objectives can be accomplished, but the means are not in our hands. They are in the hands of the Iraqis themselves.”
In fact, Saudi leaders are privately “deeply skeptical” that the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki could implement the U.S. plan, the senior U.S. official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell, who is traveling with Rice.
The Saudi government has signaled in the past that it would oppose an early withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, fearing it would leave minority Sunni Muslims at the mercy of Shiite Muslim militias.
The Saudis’ primary concern is the Sunni population of Anbar province, the senior U.S. official. The official said the Saudis had informed Washington that they were considering a plan to send troops into the province if Bush’s plan failed.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the report, which Rice downplayed during a briefing for reporters. She said such a scenario was why it was important for the U.S. plan to produce a unified Iraq.
Rice seeks support for plan
Rice is in the region to lobby Egypt, Jordan and the six moderate Arab states in the Persian Gulf for a statement of support for Bush’s plan.
“I’ve briefed the president’s plan on Iraq at all the different stops,” Rice told reporters. “There is, I think, very good support for the American commitment there, very good support for the objectives the president wants to achieve.”
Bush’s proposal has met with wide skepticism as sectarian violence has deepened in Iraq. The United Nations reported Tuesday that more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians died last year; at least 109 people were killed or found dead Tuesday, the bloodiest day in weeks.
Bush acknowledged frustration at the turn of events in an interview Tuesday with PBS’s Jim Lehrer.
“I’m frustrated at times about Iraq because I understand the consequences of failure. I want the Iraqis to succeed for our own sake,” the president said, according to a transcript of the interview.
“This is a war, part of a broader war, and if we fail in Iraq, there is a better likelihood that the enemy comes and hurts us here.”
Saudis pledge no interference with Iran
While the focus of Rice’s tour is to drum up support for the U.S. initiative in Iraq, she was also seeking to put out a diplomatic brush fire over Iran after a top Iranian diplomat visited Riyadh to meet with King Abdullah to complain about the U.S. military build-up.
Saudi officials reassured Rice on Tuesday that they had no intention of getting in the middle of the dispute between Iran and the United States. Rice emphasized that the U.S. campaign to disrupt Iranian networks threatening U.S. forces in Iraq would be confined within the boundaries of Iraq, officials said.
During the meetings, Saud, the foreign minister, also welcomed Rice’s initiative to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, U.S. officials said.
NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell reported from Kuwait City. NBC News’ Kim Sneed reported from Washington.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
The US-Saudi-Wahabi Nexus
Jan 2, 2006
"History is ruled by an inexorable determinism in which the free choice of major historical figures plays a minimal role", Leo Tolstoy
By K Gajendra Singh
When the powerful US Vice-President Dick Cheney made a rare long haul to Riyadh in November , reportedly it was to create against Iran , Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon , a new US led Sunni alliance in the region, composed of the six Gulf Co-operation Council states, pro-US Arab governments in Cairo and Amman and willing NATO allies with covert support from Israel.
On 12 December the New York Times claimed that according to US and Arab diplomats, Cheney was told that Riyadh might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq's Shias if the United States pulled out its troops. The Saudi King Abdullah also expressed strong opposition to any diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran and demanded that Washington encourage the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Saudi position reflected fears among USA's Sunni Arab allies at Tehran's increasing influence in Iraq with its ally the Lebanese Hezbollah getting the better of Israeli ground forces coupled with Tehran's nuclear ambitions. King Abdullah II of Jordan had earlier expressed concern about the rising Shia influence and warned of the emergence of a Shia crescent from Iran via Syria to Lebanon .Riyadh also warned of the prospect of a Shia dominated Iraq government using its troops against the Sunni population. Saudi Arabia supports a Government of unity in Baghdad. The New York Times added that the Saudi King told Cheney: "if you retreat and it comes to an ethnic cleaning against the Sunnis, we will feel like we are being dragged into the war".
Saudi officials and the White House both denied the reports. "That's not Saudi government policy," the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, told reporters. "The Saudis have made it clear that they're committed to the same goals we are, which is a self-sustaining Iraq that can sustain, govern and defend itself, that will recognise and protect the rights of all, regardless of sect or religion," he added , "And furthermore, they share our concerns about the role the Iranians are playing in the region."
But Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution told CNN that Saudi Arabia had strong motivation to take sides in a civil war. "They're terrified that civil war will spill over into Saudi Arabia. But they're also terrified that the Iranians, backing the various Shia militias in Iraq, will come out the big way"
A more muscular Saudi role to counter Iran ?
Soon after Cheney's visit ,writing in Washington Post of 29 November ,Nawaf Obaid , a senior National Security Adviser to the Saudi Ambassador in Washington ,Prince Turki al-Faisal, cited a February 2003 letter from the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, which had warned President George Bush that he would "solve one problem and create five more" by ousting Saddam Hussein by force and referred to a recent statement by Ambassador al-Faisal, that "since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited."
Obaid argued that this view was based on requests to the Saudi leadership from senior Iraqi tribal and religious figures, along with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and other Arab and Muslim countries (Sunnis ) to provide Iraqi Sunnis with weapons and financial support and a more muscular role for the Kingdom in the region. "As the economic powerhouse of the Middle East, the birthplace of Islam and the de facto leader of the world's Sunni community (which comprises 85 percent of all Muslims) , Saudi Arabia has both the means and the religious responsibility to intervene."
If it does, one of the first consequences will be massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shia militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis.
Options included the establishment of new Sunni brigades and providing Sunni military leaders (primarily ex-Baa'thist members of the former Iraqi officer corps, the backbone of the insurgency) with funding, arms and logistical support -- that Iran has been giving to Shia armed groups for years. Saudi Arabia could throttle Iranian funding of the militias by boosting oil production and cutting the price of oil in half, which would be devastating to Iran, and its ability to finance Shia militias in Iraq and elsewhere. ( Kuwait's flooding of oil market at western behest and throttling Iraq's revenues led to Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait in 1990. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia paid heavy financial , political and other costs. This time around it would be fatal with USA caught in Iraqi quagmire. US public has little stomach for the Iraq war and US Army as many generals have proclaimed has almost broken down.)
"Remaining on the sidelines would be unacceptable to Saudi Arabia. To turn a blind eye to the massacre of Iraqi Sunnis would be to abandon the principles upon which the kingdom was founded and would undermine Saudi Arabia's credibility in the Sunni world and would be a capitulation to Iran's militarist actions in the region."
Obaid concluded "To be sure, Saudi engagement in Iraq carries great risks -- it could spark a regional war. So be it. The consequences of inaction are far worse."
In Saudi tradition, the Kingdom denied that Obaid's Oped in Washington Post represented their view point and he was dismissed. Soon there after Ambassador Turki al-Faisal , a former Saudi Security Chief returned home after 15 months only, where as his predecessor had served for 20 years. The Ambassador was not present in Riyadh during Cheney's visit.
Keeping low profile and denial plausibility is a common Saudi policy. The representatives of over 7000 princes who rule Saudi Arabia by seniority and consensus may have differences on policy specially between the aged conservative old guard and the younger princes, but the dynasty is in a bind and faces the greatest ever challenge in its history.
Other moves;
In general after 119 and anti-Saudi tirades in USA, the Kingdom has looked around for other anchors .Saudi relationship with China, beginning with the purchase of CSS-2 missiles in 1989, has developed steadily with Beijing identified as a big future market for Saudi oil . Relations with Moscow have improved .King Abdullah also visited New Delhi, a first. Both Tehran and Riyadh took measures to ease relations but the fall out from the quagmire after the US invaded Iraq has made the situation very tricky which can not be muddled through by old methods of patience or cheque book diplomacy.
Recognising Turkey's importance in the region, Saudi King Abdullah visited Ankara in end November , first such visit in 4 decades . With a secular constitution , Turkey with a majority Sunni population ( 15% are Shia Alevis ) is also deeply worried about the possible break up of Iraq and its consequences and Iran's rising profile , its historic enemy .While exchanging views with Jordan , Syria ,Iraq , Qatar, Bahrain, Pakistan and Russia, Ankara has shared worries with Tehran about an independent north Kurdish Iraq. NATO allies Ankara and Washington have quite different views on Middle East.
In early December Turkish Prime minister Recep Erdogan expressed opposition to redeployment of U.S. troops in northern Iraq, "I personally find the redeployment of U.S. troops in northern Iraq wrong since there is no security problem in the region. The U.S. should keep its soldiers on the problematic areas in Iraq," Erdogan told journalists on his way to Tehran. Both Ankara and Tehran have troublesome relations with their Kurdish people. Ankara received a Hamas delegation much to US chagrin .Erdogan condemned Israel attacks on Lebanon in deeply emotional terms. He would soon hold talks with the Arab League in Cairo, another first.
Like the camel and the Arab in the fable , apart from its front feet firmly planted in the Iraqi tent, through Shia SCIRI and Dawa Party and even factions in the Mahdi Army .Tehran financed , trained and arms supplied Hezbollah in Lebanon gave a bloody nose to the famed Israeli commando units in ground warfare in the last July-August war in south Lebanon , for ever denting the so called aura of Israeli invincibility built after the 6 day Arab defeat in 1967 war and later built up on threats to use nuclear bombs and total US led western support ;financially ,militarily and politically.
Israel possesses hundreds of nuclear bombs and has means to deliver them. Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert even admitted as much publicly, though inadvertently. New US Defence Secretary Robert Gates , during the Congress hearings for his confirmation also referred to Israeli Nukes . But Israeli ( & US) opposition to Iran even enriching Uranium for power generation is almost fanatical. According to Tel Aviv propaganda Iran creating a Nuke is just a matter of time while US estimates range from 5 to 10 years.
Teheran is sitting pretty. Iranian leaders are gloating at US entrapment in Iraq. "The kind of service that the Americans, with all their hatred, have done us — no superpower has ever done anything similar," Mohsen Rezai, secretary-general of the powerful Expediency Council that advises the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei, boasted on state television recently.
"America destroyed all our enemies in the region. It destroyed the Taliban. It destroyed Saddam Hussein… The Americans got so stuck in the soil of Iraq and Afghanistan that if they manage to drag themselves back to Washington in one piece, they should thank God. America presents us with an opportunity rather than a threat — not because it intended to, but because it miscalculated. They made many mistakes".
US and the West did persuade Russia and China on milder sanctions against Iran in a UN Resolution on 23 December on Iranian enrichment of Uranium , which Iran has rejected. But it is Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 's 5 recognised nuclear armed powers with veto in the Security Council who have killed the treaty, having taken no steps towards disarmament, its first objective and violating other articles against UN General Assembly resolutions and the opinion of the Hague International Court .
Instead , they are building a new range of nukes for 'conventional 'use . North Korea's nuclear bomb only proves the disarray in NPT and its irrelevance. Elder US statesman Jimmy Carter squarely blames US for this situation. Now the Gulf Council and other Arab countries like Egypt and Algeria want to embark on uranium enrichment like Iran .Their decades long fears and opposition to Israeli Nukes ,developed with French and British help and US acquiescence if not support are vetoed by US both in New York and Vienna . Bullies rule the world on an increasingly lawless planet.
The long and bloody 1980-88 Iraq- Iran war was basically a Sunni Shia conflict , in which Saddam Hussein was encouraged , supported , financed by all Sunni Arab governments( except Syria ), specially Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Emirates and Western powers to neutralise the awesome rising Shia power and its aspirations to transform the Islamic world in the wake of the 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini led revolution in Iran. Millions of Iraqi and Iranian Muslims were killed in that war. Compared to that war , the coming Shia-Sunni conflagration , which could be encouraged by a desperate US led West would be a veritable holocaust for the region and Muslims. And Washington could even succeed but it would be a catastrophe for the world including the energy dependent West.
The Sunni- Shia divide is too deep rooted and plays out daily in most Muslim countries. Shias . form the underclass in most Sunni ruled states , but after 1979 have felt inspired and aided by Iran ,have become empowered in Lebanon and elsewhere .The oil rich western Saudi Arabia , adjoining Shia Southern Iraq ,is populated by Shias, who have remained very much repressed up to now.
The Shia Sunni conflict can not be stopped by Fatwas .One was issued last October in Mecca, where a 10-point "Makkah Document" was issued by 29 clerics from both sides of Iraq's religious divide when they gathered during Ramadan under an initiative by the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Drawing on the verses of the Quran and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, the Fatwa declared that "spilling Muslim blood is forbidden". It also called for safeguarding the two communities' holy places, defending the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq and the release of "all innocent detainees".
But , even then most experts, including Muslims were not optimistic about the efficacy. Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, said that the religious leaders' appeal for the bloodshed to cease was likely to fall on deaf ears. It can be seen in daily blood bath in Iraq, in the Islamic world and through out its history.
Middle East Oil History ;
A study of western imperialism since end 19th century underlines the importance of oil and wars waged to acquire and protect these wells of power. The secret British 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France divided the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East with the British cleverly keeping oil producing territories and even creating an artificial state like Kuwait. In 1945, before a declining Britain was divested of its colonies, USA signed a memo with the British: "Our petroleum policy towards the United Kingdom is predicated on a mutual recognition of a very extensive joint interest and upon control, at least for the moment, of the great bulk of the free petroleum resources of the world. The British government noted that the Middle East was "a vital prize for any power interested in world influence or domination", since control of the world's oil reserves also meant control of the world economy. After the decline of UK and France, US stepped in as the dominant neo-colonial power in the region and elsewhere.
"One of the basic policies of the United States in the Near East is unqualifiedly to support the territorial integrity and political independence of Saudi Arabia". Its goals were expressed in a 1953 internal U.S. document: "United States policy is to keep the sources of oil in the Middle East in American hands." ( quoted in Mohammed Heikal in 'Cutting the lion's tail'.) In 1958, a secret British document described the principal objectives of Western policy in the Middle East "to ensure free access for Britain and other Western countries to oil produced in States bordering the Gulf; (b) to ensure the continued availability of that oil on favourable terms and for surplus revenues of Kuwait; (c) to bar the spread of Communism and pseudo-Communism in the area and subsequently to defend the area against the brand of Arab nationalism.
Chomsky states that western energy corporations have flourished with "profits beyond the dreams of avarice" with "the Middle East (ME) their leading cash cow." It was part of grand US strategy based on control of what the State Department described 60 years ago as the "stupendous source of strategic power" of ME oil and the immense wealth from this unparalleled "material prize"? US has substantially maintained that control -- -- (but) those extraordinary successes had to overcome plenty of barriers: as elsewhere in the world, what internal documents call "radical nationalism," meaning independent nationalism.
US-Ibn Saud family–Wahabi nexus;
The Saudi state, proclaimed by Abdulaziz in 1932 was in fact the third al-Saud Kingdom. The first Saudi "state" was founded in 1744 by the first great al-Saud leader Muhammad ibn Saud who made the historic alliance with the religious reformer Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab, the founder of "Wahabism"). After its defeat by Egyptian forces in 1818, it rose anew in 1822 and survived as the dominant power in central Arabia. Of 14 successions within the al-Saud dynasty between 1744 and 1891, only three were peaceful. The transfer of power now a days is more peaceful.
Abdul Aziz was encouraged by the British to take over Mecca and Medina as Sharif Hussain the ruler of Mecca , great grandfather of King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan ,was not so pliable to the British demands and interests. Remember the Arab revolt led by Sharif Hussein and his sons , Emirs Faisal and Abdullah , as depicted in film 'Lawrence of Arabia', which helped the British forces under Gen Allenby to defeat the Ottoman forces in the region ,So much for the British gratitude , Of course when Kemal Ataturk abolished the Caliphate , Sharif Hussain offered to take over the mantle.
Abdulaziz took many brides to co-opt one or another tribe or to mend relations with them. A sternly devout Muslim he never had more than four legal wives at a time. The pact between Wahab clan and the house of Saud was sealed with multiple marriages. The links between Saudi family and Wahabi followers have remained durable. The Saudi minister of religion is always a member of the Al Sheikh family, descendants of Ibn Abdul Wahab. The Wahabis' sway over mosques is undoubted with their own religious police .They have extended their reach via networks of Madarsas and mosques throughout the Muslim world.
Wahabism is extremely austere and rigid. It tolerates little dialogue and even less interpretation, frowns on idolatry, tombstones or the veneration of statues and artworks. Followers prefer to identify themselves as muwahiddun, which means "the unifiers." Wahabis forbid smoking, shaving of beards, abusive language, rosaries and many rights for women. They regard all those who don't practice their form of Islam, including other Muslims, as heathens and enemies.
The Saud-Wahab nexus was simple when the Kingdom was poor. I saw some old files of 1920s and 1930s in External Affairs Ministry in New Delhi prior the oil era , when petty Indian Muslim Nawabs from Pataudi, Loharu and Chhatari statelets gave petty sums to top office holders in Jeddah, Mecca, Medina and Riyadh .The revenues earned from the annual Hajj pilgrimages was a major source of livelihood for the Kingdom's citizens and rulers .Some Arabs from the Gulf Kingdoms , who worked as porters at Mumbai ports and were engaged in gold smuggling to India , jumped bail when convicted. They have became multi-millionaires after the oil wealth and commissions from arms , expatriate workers deals and trade.
Saudi Arabia is a large country covering an area of 2.14 million sq. kms. Its population is nearly 22 million with a growth rate of 3.49 percent and life expectancy of 71 years. Over 50 percent of the population is below 20 years and 80 percent of the population lives in urban centers, consuming colossal amounts of power in air conditioning. It is no longer a Bedouin nation. The adult literacy rate is 75 percent but the antiquated education system has little relevance to the job market. Nearly 30 percent of the workforce is of foreign origin. With the recent increase in oil prices its financial situation has improved compared to a few years ago when it had the highest indebtedness in the Gulf: $ 171 billion in domestic loans and $35 billion in foreign credit, or 107 percent of its GDP.
Saudi anthropologist Mai Yamani 's survey of the views, hopes and fears of the 15-30 age group in 2000 found that the theme of identity "came increasingly to dominate and permeate the entire study". While remaining well embedded in religion, culture and traditions, most young people have been affected by the rapid transformation around them and question different aspects of the status quo. An identity of views has emerged "on the perceived shortcomings of the state" and the desire of the new generation "for space within Saudi society to develop their own attitudes and opinions without the overbearing presence of the state and the ulema". The overall picture is one of uneven progress and of complex emerging problems.
Saudi Arabians, like others, have been affected by imports from the West with many ardent advocates of modernization running headlong into problems of identity and authenticity, which generates a strong reaction strengthening the conservative elements who dominate the Kingdom. " The Saudi dilemma, of finding a balance, is therefore a real one and is compounded by the desire to protect the privileges of the royal family and their version of Islamic traditions,' says M.H. Ansari, former Indian Ambassador to Riyadh.
"In a monarchic system, national security has been synonymous with regime security and, for the greater part of a century, the continuity and stability provided by the Al-Saud family was viewed in benevolent terms by the public at home and by neighbours and friends abroad. The Saudi monarchy withstood the onslaught of Arab nationalism and radicalism, helped sustain the anti-communist crusade in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Ethiopia and elsewhere and used its enormous influence in the OPEC to keep the production and the price of crude oil at a level acceptable to the developed world. It also provided one of the biggest markets for the armament manufacturers of the western world, principally the United States "
Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938 by Standard Oil of California under a 50 year concession granted by Abdulaziz for an immediate payment of 30,000 gold sovereigns, veritably one of history's greatest bargains. When the extent of breathtakingly large reserves became evident, others like Exxon, Texaco and Mobil joined in to form the mighty Aramco consortium.
Since then a critical development has been the curious nexus between US ,the extravagantly rich Saudi ruling elite and by extension the puritan Wahabis, In exchange for security of the dynasty the peninsula's oil wealth and revenues have been handed over for exploitation and benefit of the West led by USA. This nexus has stood the test of time with Washington doing everything possible to maintain the feudal regime with mediaeval practices. The regime controls "the largest family business" in the world without any popular mandate or accountability.
The Saud family-US nexus was anointed following President Franklin Roosevelt's meeting with the Saudi King aboard a warship in 1945, who said "I hereby find that the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States." Jimmy Carter, a later day saint, in 1980, put it even more forcefully: "Let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States."
Washington backed that commitment with military treaties safeguarding the Middle East. Apart from NATO and CENTO, U.S. military bases are stretched into east Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the Gulf to protect Middle East oil. Then came the Rapid Deployment Force and the U.S. Central Command and the U.S . 5th Fleet, now based in Bahrain. The 1991 Gulf War led to a massive expansion of the U.S. military presence in the region, including US troops on the sacred Saudi soil , a major cause of anguish and deep resentment among conservative Saudi Muslims led by Osama ben Laden. US troops were shifted away only after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Massive Saudi Arms Purchases;
Between 1990 to 2004, Saudi Arabia spent a whopping $ 268.6 billion dollars on Arms (United Arab Emirates; $38.6 billion with population of 2.6 million.)The Saudi arsenal has more than 1015 Tanks including 315 high quality M1A2s, over 5000+ APCs/ AFVs, 780 artillery pieces, over 2000 anti-tank missile launchers, over 340 high quality combat aircrafts including F15S/C/Ds and Tornados, with 48 Typhoons (Euro -fighter) to be delivered in 2008. On top of this they own over 228 helicopters, 160 training and liaison aircrafts and 51 transport aircrafts. Saudi navy operates over 27 major combat vessels including missile frigates and missile corvette.
Kuwait spent $ 73.1 billion dollars (population 1.1 million ), but writes Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar , a consultant and a former associate professor at Nord land University, Norway, " When Iraqis crossed the border on August 2, 1990, the Kuwaiti generals used their mobile phones to gather all the top ranking military officers in a convoy and drove to Saudi Arabia. The only soldiers who actually put-up some resistance were the military students who had not been warned." Similar stories were heard in Amman where I was then posted (1989-92).
In 1979 when the holy Mecca mosque was taken over by Islamic militants, it were the French commando who took them out.
These three countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait) combined, have spent over $380 billion dollars in 14 years. Iranian military expenditure was $49.5 billion dollars for the same period and India's; $156 billion dollar, with a population of over 1 billion people and with unsettled borders and other problems with Pakistan and China.
Anthony H. Cordesman and Arleigh A. Burke of Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in a report on Saudi security problems (2002), stated:
"There should never be another set of massive arms package deals with the US or Europe of the kind that took place during the Gulf War or a purchase like Al Yamama. Barring a future major war, purchases should be made and justified on a case-by-case basis, off budget and oil barter deals should be illegal, and all offset deals subject to annual public reporting with an independent accountant and auditor. Saudi Arabia must also take every possible step to eliminate the waste of funds –"
On December 2005, The Guardian reported the signing of a multi-billion dollar sale contract for the Typhoons or Euro-fighters. The interesting thing about the sale was the reference to global terrorism. The British MoD claimed that the key objectives of the two governments were with regard to national security and actions to combat global terrorism."
In 2005 out of its income of $133.5bn from the oil business Saudi Arabia spent $38.5bn on defence. Some of the $57.1bn surplus went to pay off the enormous 1991 Gulf War debt Saudi to the West. The rest into US Treasury bonds and other capital markets in the West. The media reported that the princes take personal commissions on big arms and trade deals and their money - estimated in total at $ one Trillion - is invested mostly in the West. By some estimates, as much of 40 percent of Saudi Arabia's oil revenues go straight into the pockets of the ruling family. Tariq Ali called it institutionalized loot of public funds.
UK's Serious Fraud Office has been stopped in its tracks when it unearthed huge bribes paid to Saudi intermediary princes in UK-Saudi defence deals by Prime Minister Tony Blair and UK's Chief Law officer Goldsmith , who can be relied on a government dictated verdict whether on corruption or the legality of US –UK invasion of Iraq. Because the Saudis simply threatened to cancel billions dollars Al Yamama deals . Transparency International, while listing corruption in poor countries around the world says little about big bribe givers and takers.
It is true that the Americans fiddled with aerial photographs of Iraqi troops dispositions in 1990 to frighten the Saudis that Saddam Husain planned attacking the Kingdom, but perhaps it was the pervasive feeling of insecurity which made the Kingdom to let in the Americans with permanent adverse consequences for the region .Saudi efforts to later find a peaceful withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait were brushed aside by USA. They had come to stay on for a long time .
Western governments , banks and oil corporations have got used to playing around with the Arab oil wealth , which they called recycling and charged for it , while 'recycling' of their own funds becomes investment .When a resurgent Russia under Vladimir Putin now wants to control its oil resources with Gazprom acquiring a stake of 50 percent plus one share in the $20 billion Sakhalin-2 gas project from Shell, Mitsui, and Mitsubishi, and flush with petro-money Moscow wants to invest in downside business in Western Europe and perhaps USA ( the Chinese were not allowed to buy into UNOCAL- what shall China do with its one Trillion US dollars - or Dubai based company in running of US ports ) there is chorus of protests and hue and cry from the West .
When Russia wants to charge market price for its gas piped to Ukraine and Georgia , who have gone out of their way to hurt Russian interests and worse ,the free marketers from the West say 'not done '.Why! Or if a Pro Western Russian Oligarch is asked to pay taxes , western media is let loose against Russia , its democracy and human rights .Why !.It is not hypocrisy but sheer chicanery. Russia refuses to become like USA , which is not a republic of the people but a corporation , where the ruling military-industry complex is leading to its Enron-isation –bankruptcy.
At the same time secrecy and fear permeate every aspect of the state structure in Saudi Arabia, and most Gulf Kingdoms .They lack political parties, trades unions, workers safety or immigrant rights advocates, women's groups, or other such democratic organizations. There are few legal associations or organizations to ensure a fair and independent judicial process. So, political and religious opponents can be detained indefinitely without trial or imprisoned after grossly unfair trials. Torture is endemic, and foreign workers, particularly non-Muslims are most at risk. UK government has kept quiet when many of its citizens have been judged to be tortured, for the sake of profits from oil and military sales. And bribes ( also across the Atlantic in USA so it was openly claimed by last Saudi Ambassador )
Threats from Within;
Actually the threat to Saudi Arabia emanates from within with many attacks by Al Qaeda with large segments of a conservative population sympathetic to its cause. And the threat does not come only from the Jihadists. There are other sources of threat from within the general population. There were rebellions against the House of Saud by various Saudi groups in 1969, 1972, and 1979. Only approved loyal tribes can enter the military. Until late 1980s Pakistan provided a protection force of 11000 to 15000 troops to the Saudi government. After the relocation of US troops from Saudi Arabia to Qatar and elsewhere, the Saudis are again looking to Pakistan for troops as reported in the Financial Times. The military cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan old and broad based.
Majority of planes and other equipment is kept in order by Pakistani personnel with whom the Kingdom has very close defense relations. There have been many reports of Pak Saudi cooperation in the nuclear bomb technology .If Sunni Pakistani metallurgist Dr AQ Khan could peddle nuclear bombs know how to Libya and Shia Iran among others then why not to Saudi Arabia . There have been many such reports in the German media.
Saudi volunteers and finance are seen behind attacks on US from Iraq to North Africa. Saudi nationals have been active in the Iraqi resistance and have been involved in operations targeting the US-led coalition forces, the ragged Iraqi security forces, and Iraq's majority Shia population. The presence of Saudis in Iraq is of deep concern not just for Iraq and US , but also for the future security of Saudi Arabia and the smaller Persian Gulf states. The return of Saudi jihadis would revitalize the insurgency in the Kingdom. Experience in Iraq could alter the insurgent landscape in Saudi Arabia by introduction of new techniques, methods and operations. But the Saudis claim time and again after each Al Qaeda violence that it was the last one.
Yes, Saudi - and other Persian Gulf Arab Jihadis are highly sought after in Iraq as they bring large sums of cash. Recruiting affluent Saudis is a good method to finance terrorist operations. A confidential US report identified a Saudi participation in excess of 50%, while a jihadist Internet forum said that Saudis make up 44% of insurgents.( But US blames Syria all the time) What is extremely worrying is that of those Saudis who were detained and questioned on their return from Iraq, about 80% were unknown to the security services. So much for efficiency of the Saudi intelligence and security services. They will be a significant contributor to greater violence and domestic insurgency in Saudi Arabia. The Iraq war and the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan have polarized large segments of the Saudi population.
High watermark of the alliance;
With the inflow of big oil money into Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region after 1973 oil prices jump, the balance in religious matters and beliefs shifted away from the progressive versions of Islam that existed in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Algeria, to Saudi Arabia's Wahabis' rigid version and tendencies. During my diplomatic posts in Cairo and Algeria in first half of 1960s, they were cosmopolitan tolerant Muslim societies. But after mid-1970s, it changed with the return of orthodoxy and veils and headscarves even among their diplomats. Thus regression to Wahabi way of life among Muslims can be traced to the power and use of Saudi oil wealth to pander to Jihadis.
The high watermark of this unholy alliance reached full bloom when it was joined by most Muslim countries and many western Christian powers and even China to oust the Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1980s. Between $6 to $10 billion was spent in providing arms, training and other equipment by USA, Saudi Arabia and Gulf states and many others to train Mujahaddins, Jihadis , militants and terrorists ( Some were later taken by USA to Albania and Kosovo in 1990s and thus given international exposure.)
Pakistan President Zia-ul- Haq was a pariah till 1979 for having ousted Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and hanged him. But suddenly he became the darling of the West when he offered Pakistan space , facilities and soul for the Jihad in Afghanistan . To strengthen his position , Zia used the opportunity to Islamise Pakistan's polity for all time to come. Conservative and fundamentalist elements now dominate all aspects of Pakistan and have infiltrated in its Armed Forces with the experience and association during training and organising Mujahaddin , Jihadi and terrorist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan ,specially by its Inter-services-intelligence (ISI) in collaboration with CIA and other intelligence agencies from Muslim countries and the West .A state within a state, ISI established in depth and broad relations with Mujahideen leaders, Al Qaeda and later Taleban leaders which will transform the course of history in Pakistan and the region , with long lasting ramifications for the world . Talebans were created by Pakistan , with help and open recognition by Saudi Arabia and encouraged by USA to pacify Afghanistan after the chaos in the wake of withdrawal of Soviet troops .US was interested in its UNOCAL using Afghan territory for gas and oil pipe lines to transport central Asian energy to the Arabian Sea coast and beyond and to energy hungry fast developing India
Al Qaeda and Arab and Muslim Mujahaddin leaders and cadres trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan on return to their countries in Middle East spread that culture, which now threatens most of them and has seeped even into Europe , which hosts tens of millions of Muslims .
Saudi Arabia has always sent funds directly or through its charities to build mosques , aid and establish Madarsas spewing hate against non-Muslims , specially against Christians and other non-Muslims and even Shias. The great Jihad in Afghanistan was a big opportunity for Wahabis . The Jihadis and Al Qaeda, created by Osama ben laden , have got it into their head that they alone defeated USSR , the number two Super power and now aim at taking on USA ,the hyper power.The animus against Washington was made easier to take roots after the stationing of US troops in conservative Saudi Arabia following the 1991 war which liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.
Nexus under stress;
This incongruent nexus has survived many stresses and strains like in 1970s when Saudi led Opec quadrupled the oil prices after the Egypt led 1973 Yom Kippur war on Israel .Washington even toyed about landing troops to take over oil wells in Saudi Arabia .Relations between USA and the Kingdom were really strained when Osama ben Laden , a representative of Saudi Kingdom in Pakistan to lead a Jihad against USSR in Afghanistan , after creating Al Qaeda ,carried out attacks on US embassies in east Africa. But the real denouement exploded on TV screens around the world when 15 of the hijackers who took over 4 US planes and attacked US symbols of power , the Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon thus breaching the virginity of security of the US mainland . Even at that time with close entanglements between US energy interests led by the Bush family and others in the US ruling class , members of Osama ben Laden family were clandestinely evacuated from USA within hours of the 119 attacks .
In general , most Americans and US media seethed with fury with a storm of hostile articles against the Saudi Kingdom. They forgot that the chickens nurtured in Pakistan and Afghanistan had come home to roost .Instead of learning from 911 , Bush led administration in USA , driven by racist Staussian philosophy of Neo-Cons , first bombard Afghanistan , already destroyed - a victim of US-Soviet rivalry and battle field ,to establish US bases in Afghanistan , Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan ostensibly to counter terrorism .. US and UK with some other western nations then invaded Iraq to take control and exploit its oil resources and control the energy rich region from Baghdad ( now all that US controls is the Green Zone) .But US has built bases in Iraq for long term stay.
It was all part of Neo-cons plan called 'The New American Century ', whose bankruptcy has been exposed as conceived by arm chair experts ,most of whom happen to be Jews and basically promote Israeli interests. The Israelis to whom this kind of vision of domination was peddled had refused to buy it .They are happy that US lives and treasure is being spent to make Israel 'safer and secure' as it was after the earlier the 1991 war against Iraq .
Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to US President Jimmy Carter's, now morphing into a saint, had gloated in Nouvel Observator of Paris that US plan to support the religious extremists in Afghanistan against the leftist government had brought in the Soviet troops leading to their defeat, and had revenged US defeat in Vietnam .It led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. He then added that if it produced some 'stirred Muslims 'so what '.That was , until the 'stirred Muslims' attacked US on 119 and London on 77 apart from terror attacks against Australians in Bali , in Spain and other places .India which was not part of the axis led by US-Saudi-Pak against Afghanistan and USSR , continues to suffer . Others not involved are also paying the price for the consequences of that unholy nexus and would continue to do so.
Washington has exploited the scare of Al Qaeda, which hardly existed in USA, to roll back freedom and democracy. While black Muslims did not go Pakistan for training for Jihad in Afghanistan , but they have many grievances , specially those in US prisons in large numbers.
Pakistan has been most affected .When Omar Sheikh was accused in the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl, who getting too close to perhaps discovering the connection of Jihadis, Al Qaeda and others with ISI and the Pakistan establishment , his father bemoaned that till the Jihadis were fighting against USSR , they were heroes , but now they have become terrorists and enemies .Yes , if you align with a big power , then follow its dictates other wise you would bombed to the stone age , as publicly confessed by Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf in USA .So threatened US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage Pak ISI chief soon after 11 9 , leaving Pakistan no option but to join USA in bombing and killing of Al Qaeda, Jihadis and Taleban leaders and cadres, Pakistan's own creations .
Yes , to keep Pak military on its side and happy, billions of dollars of military aid has been poured into Pakistan , including sophisticated naval arms and equipment ostensibly to fight Talebans in the Afghanistan mountains . Seeing US getting deeper into the Iraqi quagmire , Pakistan has made up with its own Talebans in its border areas and even asked NATO to do the same .As Afghanistan President Hafiz Karzai has said repeatedly the attacks against NATO and Afghan forces are organized from inside Pakistan .
The Pak based Talebans and conservatives elements have taken over North West Pakistan to train terrorists from the region including from Uzbekistan and China's Turkic region Xinjiang under Beijing's repressive rule. These cadres and volunteers now go to fight inside Afghanistan .Pakistan now wants to fence and mine the Durand line dividing Pushtoons in Pakistan and Afghanistan . But the elephant in the room for the Pakistanis remains the Durand line which Pushtoons have never recognized .
Pakistan has been severely infected with Jihadi virus and other ills .With record opium production in Afghanistan and traded via Pakistan , from a few thousand the number of opium addicts has up to many millions .It has brought in the Kalashnikov based culture of violence to the country.
Comments and Conclusions;
Following the First World War and creation of states by capricious British and French colonial masters, very little has changed in the arbitrary borders of the countries in the Middle East, except for the creation of the state of Israel, basically a compensation to the European Jewry at the cost of Palestinians, for the crimes in which the majority of European states led by Nazi Germany participated. After the 1949 Arab Israel war and the 1967 six day war, Israel continues to hold onto occupied Arab territories.
After the opening of the Pandora's box in the wake of 2003 invasion of Iraq, bottled up historic , ethnic , religious and other forces have now been unleashed which would play out and change the geography and history of the region, beginning with Iraq, where three ethnic and sectional based entities are already emerging. The invasion has sucked in Iran and other neighbours too are likely to be even more openly embroiled whether they like it or not.
Except in the desert warfare long time ago , since its oil wealth Saudis have become too blase to fight , some what like the Abbasid Arabs who in ninth century began enjoying the fruits from its empire and left the fighting to imported Turkish slaves from central Asia . Soon the Turkish swords took over power as Sultans and became the protectors of the now hapless Caliphs, some of whom were even forbidden to recruit Turkish slaves.
Attracted by Gamal Nasser's Arab nationalism and socialism , when in next door Yemen ,the military officers over threw the King and Egyptian troops moved in early 1960s , the Kingdom did not send its troops in support. It only provided funds to the Royalist forces .Later when Egypt left Yemen, the Saudis mediated among the warring factions.
When central Asian Turkic republics emerged after the break up of the Soviet Union, as usual Saudi Arabia sent money for Mullahs and madarsas and for construction of mosques and dispatched millions of Quran. Former Communist but secular apartchiks , who took over as the new rulers have come down heavily against Jihadis trained in and around Pakistan . Muslim extremists and militants in central Asia are called Wahabis.
During the Cold War , Saudi Arabia and other conservative and religious Muslim regimes were supported and used by the West to counter communism, socialism and nationalism basically to protect US led western economic , political and strategic interests. Saudis obeyed US dictates to nominate prices of oil in US petrodollars and manipulated oil price to suit western interests. Thus US can run a massive current account deficit , which almost fully finances it military budget now , equal to the rest of the world put together .
The Wahhabis had a free run of the country keeping it backward and in a mediaeval time warp where hands of thieves are amputed and adulterous couples stoned to death . This model with Wahabi restrictions is sought to be imposed on other Muslims too, where ever extremists take control. Like Talebans in Afghanistan or in northwest Pakistan.
Compared to Saudi Arabia , Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, whose King derives direct descent from Prophet Mohammad , is almost a modern nation . There are modern laws , freedom for women in dress , education and employment unlike in Saudi Arabia.
It is worth pondering why has the vast oil wealth of the peninsula not used to uplift Muslim Ummah , Saudis claim to represent and nurture by virtue of its control over the holy shrines in Mecca and Medina. There has been no massive Marshall Plan , which US used for Europe's economic growth after it was devastated in the 2 nd world War. Yes, there have been palliatives but always linked to promote Wahabi Islam.
The oil generated wealth has primarily benefited Western powers , who have protected the Ibn Saud family so that thousands of princes and princesses could wallow in luxury and worse . It doesn't need a Sophocles to conclude that the Saudi dynasty has directly or indirectly set back economic , political and social development and progress of the Muslim Ummah , of which it claims ' to be the de facto leader and for whom it feels religious responsibility ' in Obaid's words.
In one looks at the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire which lasted for five centuries and covered an area longer and larger than of the empires of the Arabs , its decline started when the Ottoman Sultan became the guardians of Mecca and Medina and took over the Caliphate . The resulting influx of conservative clerics and religious sheikhs and Mullahs into ruling elite in Istanbul ensured rule of obscurantism and fierce opposition to any modern ideas and technology even in military matters making Turkey the sick man of Europe.
Turkish Republic based on modern ideas and education can match Europeans in economic development and progress . Ten years ago it entered into a Customs accord with the Europe Union and its manufactured goods outmatch the best produced in Europe .With almost no oil , its GDP is half of all Arab states put together .Of course the so called secular Europe would not accede to full membership to Ankara, because 99% of Turks are Muslims.
The Abbasid Caliphate expanded and progressed based on ideas taken from everywhere and new inventions in science. But conservative ideas specially Wahabi philosophy has kept the Muslim Ummah backward , unable to match the rising scientific and military power of the West and keeps it in Western chains. Yes , there is lot of glitter of the gold , glass and aluminum in oil rich Gulf states.
This nexus funneling wealth into Madarsas with rote learning of Quran , little mathematics or science and barring new ideas can not face the increasing complex problems of modern times and have kept Muslims backward. It has and can produce only Al Qaedas, Jihadis and destruction but not a scientific and well thought out response to oppose the relentless US led Western consumerism , exploitation , and daily humiliation heaped on Arab and Muslim world.
Yes , some spectacular 911 like attacks in US or 77 attacks against UK would be mounted but this will not liberate the Ummah and roll back western Christian domination and exploitation of last two centuries . There is a lesson from the current misery and the hell like suffering of the hapless people of Iraq under US heel and military occupation, during which more than half a million Iraqis have lost their lives since March 2003.
Take Iran, where US policies which have only strengthened conservative elements .Still there is freedom and education for women, who can work in offices and drive cars .The modern process started with the election of a moderate President Khatami was stopped with the country going on the defensive following US invasion next door . The Iranian people have learnt that going backwards did not resolve old , new and complex problems of the modern era . They want a change from Mullah's suffocating yoke.
The break up of US-Saud-Wahab nexus will release the Muslim masses kept chained to backward ideas and usher in modern education, science , new ideas and progress to face the West.
But the upheaval brought by the Khomeini revolution in Iran would be a picnic compared to what the revolution in Sunni Islam would bring as the obscurantist and vested interests in and from outside will not give in easily. But perhaps the time beckons such a cataclysmic change.
Before the first world war, the Germans had visions of reaching Basra by rail with help from Ottomans and outflank the British Empire in India as the prize , the jewel in the British crown .The Ottomans then under the influence of the Young Turks led by maverick Enver Pasha had visions of stopping Russia and creating a pan Turkic empire extending into Russian Turkestan. The results were quite different and laid the foundations for a destructive 2nd world war , rise of Nazi Germany, holocaust against Jews in Europe and genocide against Gypsies . It led to decolonisation and the end of the British , French and other European empires.
K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Copy right with the author. E-mail: Gajendrak@hotmail.com .
"History is ruled by an inexorable determinism in which the free choice of major historical figures plays a minimal role", Leo Tolstoy
By K Gajendra Singh
When the powerful US Vice-President Dick Cheney made a rare long haul to Riyadh in November , reportedly it was to create against Iran , Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon , a new US led Sunni alliance in the region, composed of the six Gulf Co-operation Council states, pro-US Arab governments in Cairo and Amman and willing NATO allies with covert support from Israel.
On 12 December the New York Times claimed that according to US and Arab diplomats, Cheney was told that Riyadh might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq's Shias if the United States pulled out its troops. The Saudi King Abdullah also expressed strong opposition to any diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran and demanded that Washington encourage the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Saudi position reflected fears among USA's Sunni Arab allies at Tehran's increasing influence in Iraq with its ally the Lebanese Hezbollah getting the better of Israeli ground forces coupled with Tehran's nuclear ambitions. King Abdullah II of Jordan had earlier expressed concern about the rising Shia influence and warned of the emergence of a Shia crescent from Iran via Syria to Lebanon .Riyadh also warned of the prospect of a Shia dominated Iraq government using its troops against the Sunni population. Saudi Arabia supports a Government of unity in Baghdad. The New York Times added that the Saudi King told Cheney: "if you retreat and it comes to an ethnic cleaning against the Sunnis, we will feel like we are being dragged into the war".
Saudi officials and the White House both denied the reports. "That's not Saudi government policy," the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, told reporters. "The Saudis have made it clear that they're committed to the same goals we are, which is a self-sustaining Iraq that can sustain, govern and defend itself, that will recognise and protect the rights of all, regardless of sect or religion," he added , "And furthermore, they share our concerns about the role the Iranians are playing in the region."
But Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution told CNN that Saudi Arabia had strong motivation to take sides in a civil war. "They're terrified that civil war will spill over into Saudi Arabia. But they're also terrified that the Iranians, backing the various Shia militias in Iraq, will come out the big way"
A more muscular Saudi role to counter Iran ?
Soon after Cheney's visit ,writing in Washington Post of 29 November ,Nawaf Obaid , a senior National Security Adviser to the Saudi Ambassador in Washington ,Prince Turki al-Faisal, cited a February 2003 letter from the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, which had warned President George Bush that he would "solve one problem and create five more" by ousting Saddam Hussein by force and referred to a recent statement by Ambassador al-Faisal, that "since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited."
Obaid argued that this view was based on requests to the Saudi leadership from senior Iraqi tribal and religious figures, along with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and other Arab and Muslim countries (Sunnis ) to provide Iraqi Sunnis with weapons and financial support and a more muscular role for the Kingdom in the region. "As the economic powerhouse of the Middle East, the birthplace of Islam and the de facto leader of the world's Sunni community (which comprises 85 percent of all Muslims) , Saudi Arabia has both the means and the religious responsibility to intervene."
If it does, one of the first consequences will be massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shia militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis.
Options included the establishment of new Sunni brigades and providing Sunni military leaders (primarily ex-Baa'thist members of the former Iraqi officer corps, the backbone of the insurgency) with funding, arms and logistical support -- that Iran has been giving to Shia armed groups for years. Saudi Arabia could throttle Iranian funding of the militias by boosting oil production and cutting the price of oil in half, which would be devastating to Iran, and its ability to finance Shia militias in Iraq and elsewhere. ( Kuwait's flooding of oil market at western behest and throttling Iraq's revenues led to Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait in 1990. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia paid heavy financial , political and other costs. This time around it would be fatal with USA caught in Iraqi quagmire. US public has little stomach for the Iraq war and US Army as many generals have proclaimed has almost broken down.)
"Remaining on the sidelines would be unacceptable to Saudi Arabia. To turn a blind eye to the massacre of Iraqi Sunnis would be to abandon the principles upon which the kingdom was founded and would undermine Saudi Arabia's credibility in the Sunni world and would be a capitulation to Iran's militarist actions in the region."
Obaid concluded "To be sure, Saudi engagement in Iraq carries great risks -- it could spark a regional war. So be it. The consequences of inaction are far worse."
In Saudi tradition, the Kingdom denied that Obaid's Oped in Washington Post represented their view point and he was dismissed. Soon there after Ambassador Turki al-Faisal , a former Saudi Security Chief returned home after 15 months only, where as his predecessor had served for 20 years. The Ambassador was not present in Riyadh during Cheney's visit.
Keeping low profile and denial plausibility is a common Saudi policy. The representatives of over 7000 princes who rule Saudi Arabia by seniority and consensus may have differences on policy specially between the aged conservative old guard and the younger princes, but the dynasty is in a bind and faces the greatest ever challenge in its history.
Other moves;
In general after 119 and anti-Saudi tirades in USA, the Kingdom has looked around for other anchors .Saudi relationship with China, beginning with the purchase of CSS-2 missiles in 1989, has developed steadily with Beijing identified as a big future market for Saudi oil . Relations with Moscow have improved .King Abdullah also visited New Delhi, a first. Both Tehran and Riyadh took measures to ease relations but the fall out from the quagmire after the US invaded Iraq has made the situation very tricky which can not be muddled through by old methods of patience or cheque book diplomacy.
Recognising Turkey's importance in the region, Saudi King Abdullah visited Ankara in end November , first such visit in 4 decades . With a secular constitution , Turkey with a majority Sunni population ( 15% are Shia Alevis ) is also deeply worried about the possible break up of Iraq and its consequences and Iran's rising profile , its historic enemy .While exchanging views with Jordan , Syria ,Iraq , Qatar, Bahrain, Pakistan and Russia, Ankara has shared worries with Tehran about an independent north Kurdish Iraq. NATO allies Ankara and Washington have quite different views on Middle East.
In early December Turkish Prime minister Recep Erdogan expressed opposition to redeployment of U.S. troops in northern Iraq, "I personally find the redeployment of U.S. troops in northern Iraq wrong since there is no security problem in the region. The U.S. should keep its soldiers on the problematic areas in Iraq," Erdogan told journalists on his way to Tehran. Both Ankara and Tehran have troublesome relations with their Kurdish people. Ankara received a Hamas delegation much to US chagrin .Erdogan condemned Israel attacks on Lebanon in deeply emotional terms. He would soon hold talks with the Arab League in Cairo, another first.
Like the camel and the Arab in the fable , apart from its front feet firmly planted in the Iraqi tent, through Shia SCIRI and Dawa Party and even factions in the Mahdi Army .Tehran financed , trained and arms supplied Hezbollah in Lebanon gave a bloody nose to the famed Israeli commando units in ground warfare in the last July-August war in south Lebanon , for ever denting the so called aura of Israeli invincibility built after the 6 day Arab defeat in 1967 war and later built up on threats to use nuclear bombs and total US led western support ;financially ,militarily and politically.
Israel possesses hundreds of nuclear bombs and has means to deliver them. Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert even admitted as much publicly, though inadvertently. New US Defence Secretary Robert Gates , during the Congress hearings for his confirmation also referred to Israeli Nukes . But Israeli ( & US) opposition to Iran even enriching Uranium for power generation is almost fanatical. According to Tel Aviv propaganda Iran creating a Nuke is just a matter of time while US estimates range from 5 to 10 years.
Teheran is sitting pretty. Iranian leaders are gloating at US entrapment in Iraq. "The kind of service that the Americans, with all their hatred, have done us — no superpower has ever done anything similar," Mohsen Rezai, secretary-general of the powerful Expediency Council that advises the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei, boasted on state television recently.
"America destroyed all our enemies in the region. It destroyed the Taliban. It destroyed Saddam Hussein… The Americans got so stuck in the soil of Iraq and Afghanistan that if they manage to drag themselves back to Washington in one piece, they should thank God. America presents us with an opportunity rather than a threat — not because it intended to, but because it miscalculated. They made many mistakes".
US and the West did persuade Russia and China on milder sanctions against Iran in a UN Resolution on 23 December on Iranian enrichment of Uranium , which Iran has rejected. But it is Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 's 5 recognised nuclear armed powers with veto in the Security Council who have killed the treaty, having taken no steps towards disarmament, its first objective and violating other articles against UN General Assembly resolutions and the opinion of the Hague International Court .
Instead , they are building a new range of nukes for 'conventional 'use . North Korea's nuclear bomb only proves the disarray in NPT and its irrelevance. Elder US statesman Jimmy Carter squarely blames US for this situation. Now the Gulf Council and other Arab countries like Egypt and Algeria want to embark on uranium enrichment like Iran .Their decades long fears and opposition to Israeli Nukes ,developed with French and British help and US acquiescence if not support are vetoed by US both in New York and Vienna . Bullies rule the world on an increasingly lawless planet.
The long and bloody 1980-88 Iraq- Iran war was basically a Sunni Shia conflict , in which Saddam Hussein was encouraged , supported , financed by all Sunni Arab governments( except Syria ), specially Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Emirates and Western powers to neutralise the awesome rising Shia power and its aspirations to transform the Islamic world in the wake of the 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini led revolution in Iran. Millions of Iraqi and Iranian Muslims were killed in that war. Compared to that war , the coming Shia-Sunni conflagration , which could be encouraged by a desperate US led West would be a veritable holocaust for the region and Muslims. And Washington could even succeed but it would be a catastrophe for the world including the energy dependent West.
The Sunni- Shia divide is too deep rooted and plays out daily in most Muslim countries. Shias . form the underclass in most Sunni ruled states , but after 1979 have felt inspired and aided by Iran ,have become empowered in Lebanon and elsewhere .The oil rich western Saudi Arabia , adjoining Shia Southern Iraq ,is populated by Shias, who have remained very much repressed up to now.
The Shia Sunni conflict can not be stopped by Fatwas .One was issued last October in Mecca, where a 10-point "Makkah Document" was issued by 29 clerics from both sides of Iraq's religious divide when they gathered during Ramadan under an initiative by the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Drawing on the verses of the Quran and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, the Fatwa declared that "spilling Muslim blood is forbidden". It also called for safeguarding the two communities' holy places, defending the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq and the release of "all innocent detainees".
But , even then most experts, including Muslims were not optimistic about the efficacy. Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, said that the religious leaders' appeal for the bloodshed to cease was likely to fall on deaf ears. It can be seen in daily blood bath in Iraq, in the Islamic world and through out its history.
Middle East Oil History ;
A study of western imperialism since end 19th century underlines the importance of oil and wars waged to acquire and protect these wells of power. The secret British 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France divided the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East with the British cleverly keeping oil producing territories and even creating an artificial state like Kuwait. In 1945, before a declining Britain was divested of its colonies, USA signed a memo with the British: "Our petroleum policy towards the United Kingdom is predicated on a mutual recognition of a very extensive joint interest and upon control, at least for the moment, of the great bulk of the free petroleum resources of the world. The British government noted that the Middle East was "a vital prize for any power interested in world influence or domination", since control of the world's oil reserves also meant control of the world economy. After the decline of UK and France, US stepped in as the dominant neo-colonial power in the region and elsewhere.
"One of the basic policies of the United States in the Near East is unqualifiedly to support the territorial integrity and political independence of Saudi Arabia". Its goals were expressed in a 1953 internal U.S. document: "United States policy is to keep the sources of oil in the Middle East in American hands." ( quoted in Mohammed Heikal in 'Cutting the lion's tail'.) In 1958, a secret British document described the principal objectives of Western policy in the Middle East "to ensure free access for Britain and other Western countries to oil produced in States bordering the Gulf; (b) to ensure the continued availability of that oil on favourable terms and for surplus revenues of Kuwait; (c) to bar the spread of Communism and pseudo-Communism in the area and subsequently to defend the area against the brand of Arab nationalism.
Chomsky states that western energy corporations have flourished with "profits beyond the dreams of avarice" with "the Middle East (ME) their leading cash cow." It was part of grand US strategy based on control of what the State Department described 60 years ago as the "stupendous source of strategic power" of ME oil and the immense wealth from this unparalleled "material prize"? US has substantially maintained that control -- -- (but) those extraordinary successes had to overcome plenty of barriers: as elsewhere in the world, what internal documents call "radical nationalism," meaning independent nationalism.
US-Ibn Saud family–Wahabi nexus;
The Saudi state, proclaimed by Abdulaziz in 1932 was in fact the third al-Saud Kingdom. The first Saudi "state" was founded in 1744 by the first great al-Saud leader Muhammad ibn Saud who made the historic alliance with the religious reformer Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab, the founder of "Wahabism"). After its defeat by Egyptian forces in 1818, it rose anew in 1822 and survived as the dominant power in central Arabia. Of 14 successions within the al-Saud dynasty between 1744 and 1891, only three were peaceful. The transfer of power now a days is more peaceful.
Abdul Aziz was encouraged by the British to take over Mecca and Medina as Sharif Hussain the ruler of Mecca , great grandfather of King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan ,was not so pliable to the British demands and interests. Remember the Arab revolt led by Sharif Hussein and his sons , Emirs Faisal and Abdullah , as depicted in film 'Lawrence of Arabia', which helped the British forces under Gen Allenby to defeat the Ottoman forces in the region ,So much for the British gratitude , Of course when Kemal Ataturk abolished the Caliphate , Sharif Hussain offered to take over the mantle.
Abdulaziz took many brides to co-opt one or another tribe or to mend relations with them. A sternly devout Muslim he never had more than four legal wives at a time. The pact between Wahab clan and the house of Saud was sealed with multiple marriages. The links between Saudi family and Wahabi followers have remained durable. The Saudi minister of religion is always a member of the Al Sheikh family, descendants of Ibn Abdul Wahab. The Wahabis' sway over mosques is undoubted with their own religious police .They have extended their reach via networks of Madarsas and mosques throughout the Muslim world.
Wahabism is extremely austere and rigid. It tolerates little dialogue and even less interpretation, frowns on idolatry, tombstones or the veneration of statues and artworks. Followers prefer to identify themselves as muwahiddun, which means "the unifiers." Wahabis forbid smoking, shaving of beards, abusive language, rosaries and many rights for women. They regard all those who don't practice their form of Islam, including other Muslims, as heathens and enemies.
The Saud-Wahab nexus was simple when the Kingdom was poor. I saw some old files of 1920s and 1930s in External Affairs Ministry in New Delhi prior the oil era , when petty Indian Muslim Nawabs from Pataudi, Loharu and Chhatari statelets gave petty sums to top office holders in Jeddah, Mecca, Medina and Riyadh .The revenues earned from the annual Hajj pilgrimages was a major source of livelihood for the Kingdom's citizens and rulers .Some Arabs from the Gulf Kingdoms , who worked as porters at Mumbai ports and were engaged in gold smuggling to India , jumped bail when convicted. They have became multi-millionaires after the oil wealth and commissions from arms , expatriate workers deals and trade.
Saudi Arabia is a large country covering an area of 2.14 million sq. kms. Its population is nearly 22 million with a growth rate of 3.49 percent and life expectancy of 71 years. Over 50 percent of the population is below 20 years and 80 percent of the population lives in urban centers, consuming colossal amounts of power in air conditioning. It is no longer a Bedouin nation. The adult literacy rate is 75 percent but the antiquated education system has little relevance to the job market. Nearly 30 percent of the workforce is of foreign origin. With the recent increase in oil prices its financial situation has improved compared to a few years ago when it had the highest indebtedness in the Gulf: $ 171 billion in domestic loans and $35 billion in foreign credit, or 107 percent of its GDP.
Saudi anthropologist Mai Yamani 's survey of the views, hopes and fears of the 15-30 age group in 2000 found that the theme of identity "came increasingly to dominate and permeate the entire study". While remaining well embedded in religion, culture and traditions, most young people have been affected by the rapid transformation around them and question different aspects of the status quo. An identity of views has emerged "on the perceived shortcomings of the state" and the desire of the new generation "for space within Saudi society to develop their own attitudes and opinions without the overbearing presence of the state and the ulema". The overall picture is one of uneven progress and of complex emerging problems.
Saudi Arabians, like others, have been affected by imports from the West with many ardent advocates of modernization running headlong into problems of identity and authenticity, which generates a strong reaction strengthening the conservative elements who dominate the Kingdom. " The Saudi dilemma, of finding a balance, is therefore a real one and is compounded by the desire to protect the privileges of the royal family and their version of Islamic traditions,' says M.H. Ansari, former Indian Ambassador to Riyadh.
"In a monarchic system, national security has been synonymous with regime security and, for the greater part of a century, the continuity and stability provided by the Al-Saud family was viewed in benevolent terms by the public at home and by neighbours and friends abroad. The Saudi monarchy withstood the onslaught of Arab nationalism and radicalism, helped sustain the anti-communist crusade in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Ethiopia and elsewhere and used its enormous influence in the OPEC to keep the production and the price of crude oil at a level acceptable to the developed world. It also provided one of the biggest markets for the armament manufacturers of the western world, principally the United States "
Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938 by Standard Oil of California under a 50 year concession granted by Abdulaziz for an immediate payment of 30,000 gold sovereigns, veritably one of history's greatest bargains. When the extent of breathtakingly large reserves became evident, others like Exxon, Texaco and Mobil joined in to form the mighty Aramco consortium.
Since then a critical development has been the curious nexus between US ,the extravagantly rich Saudi ruling elite and by extension the puritan Wahabis, In exchange for security of the dynasty the peninsula's oil wealth and revenues have been handed over for exploitation and benefit of the West led by USA. This nexus has stood the test of time with Washington doing everything possible to maintain the feudal regime with mediaeval practices. The regime controls "the largest family business" in the world without any popular mandate or accountability.
The Saud family-US nexus was anointed following President Franklin Roosevelt's meeting with the Saudi King aboard a warship in 1945, who said "I hereby find that the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States." Jimmy Carter, a later day saint, in 1980, put it even more forcefully: "Let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States."
Washington backed that commitment with military treaties safeguarding the Middle East. Apart from NATO and CENTO, U.S. military bases are stretched into east Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the Gulf to protect Middle East oil. Then came the Rapid Deployment Force and the U.S. Central Command and the U.S . 5th Fleet, now based in Bahrain. The 1991 Gulf War led to a massive expansion of the U.S. military presence in the region, including US troops on the sacred Saudi soil , a major cause of anguish and deep resentment among conservative Saudi Muslims led by Osama ben Laden. US troops were shifted away only after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Massive Saudi Arms Purchases;
Between 1990 to 2004, Saudi Arabia spent a whopping $ 268.6 billion dollars on Arms (United Arab Emirates; $38.6 billion with population of 2.6 million.)The Saudi arsenal has more than 1015 Tanks including 315 high quality M1A2s, over 5000+ APCs/ AFVs, 780 artillery pieces, over 2000 anti-tank missile launchers, over 340 high quality combat aircrafts including F15S/C/Ds and Tornados, with 48 Typhoons (Euro -fighter) to be delivered in 2008. On top of this they own over 228 helicopters, 160 training and liaison aircrafts and 51 transport aircrafts. Saudi navy operates over 27 major combat vessels including missile frigates and missile corvette.
Kuwait spent $ 73.1 billion dollars (population 1.1 million ), but writes Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar , a consultant and a former associate professor at Nord land University, Norway, " When Iraqis crossed the border on August 2, 1990, the Kuwaiti generals used their mobile phones to gather all the top ranking military officers in a convoy and drove to Saudi Arabia. The only soldiers who actually put-up some resistance were the military students who had not been warned." Similar stories were heard in Amman where I was then posted (1989-92).
In 1979 when the holy Mecca mosque was taken over by Islamic militants, it were the French commando who took them out.
These three countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait) combined, have spent over $380 billion dollars in 14 years. Iranian military expenditure was $49.5 billion dollars for the same period and India's; $156 billion dollar, with a population of over 1 billion people and with unsettled borders and other problems with Pakistan and China.
Anthony H. Cordesman and Arleigh A. Burke of Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in a report on Saudi security problems (2002), stated:
"There should never be another set of massive arms package deals with the US or Europe of the kind that took place during the Gulf War or a purchase like Al Yamama. Barring a future major war, purchases should be made and justified on a case-by-case basis, off budget and oil barter deals should be illegal, and all offset deals subject to annual public reporting with an independent accountant and auditor. Saudi Arabia must also take every possible step to eliminate the waste of funds –"
On December 2005, The Guardian reported the signing of a multi-billion dollar sale contract for the Typhoons or Euro-fighters. The interesting thing about the sale was the reference to global terrorism. The British MoD claimed that the key objectives of the two governments were with regard to national security and actions to combat global terrorism."
In 2005 out of its income of $133.5bn from the oil business Saudi Arabia spent $38.5bn on defence. Some of the $57.1bn surplus went to pay off the enormous 1991 Gulf War debt Saudi to the West. The rest into US Treasury bonds and other capital markets in the West. The media reported that the princes take personal commissions on big arms and trade deals and their money - estimated in total at $ one Trillion - is invested mostly in the West. By some estimates, as much of 40 percent of Saudi Arabia's oil revenues go straight into the pockets of the ruling family. Tariq Ali called it institutionalized loot of public funds.
UK's Serious Fraud Office has been stopped in its tracks when it unearthed huge bribes paid to Saudi intermediary princes in UK-Saudi defence deals by Prime Minister Tony Blair and UK's Chief Law officer Goldsmith , who can be relied on a government dictated verdict whether on corruption or the legality of US –UK invasion of Iraq. Because the Saudis simply threatened to cancel billions dollars Al Yamama deals . Transparency International, while listing corruption in poor countries around the world says little about big bribe givers and takers.
It is true that the Americans fiddled with aerial photographs of Iraqi troops dispositions in 1990 to frighten the Saudis that Saddam Husain planned attacking the Kingdom, but perhaps it was the pervasive feeling of insecurity which made the Kingdom to let in the Americans with permanent adverse consequences for the region .Saudi efforts to later find a peaceful withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait were brushed aside by USA. They had come to stay on for a long time .
Western governments , banks and oil corporations have got used to playing around with the Arab oil wealth , which they called recycling and charged for it , while 'recycling' of their own funds becomes investment .When a resurgent Russia under Vladimir Putin now wants to control its oil resources with Gazprom acquiring a stake of 50 percent plus one share in the $20 billion Sakhalin-2 gas project from Shell, Mitsui, and Mitsubishi, and flush with petro-money Moscow wants to invest in downside business in Western Europe and perhaps USA ( the Chinese were not allowed to buy into UNOCAL- what shall China do with its one Trillion US dollars - or Dubai based company in running of US ports ) there is chorus of protests and hue and cry from the West .
When Russia wants to charge market price for its gas piped to Ukraine and Georgia , who have gone out of their way to hurt Russian interests and worse ,the free marketers from the West say 'not done '.Why! Or if a Pro Western Russian Oligarch is asked to pay taxes , western media is let loose against Russia , its democracy and human rights .Why !.It is not hypocrisy but sheer chicanery. Russia refuses to become like USA , which is not a republic of the people but a corporation , where the ruling military-industry complex is leading to its Enron-isation –bankruptcy.
At the same time secrecy and fear permeate every aspect of the state structure in Saudi Arabia, and most Gulf Kingdoms .They lack political parties, trades unions, workers safety or immigrant rights advocates, women's groups, or other such democratic organizations. There are few legal associations or organizations to ensure a fair and independent judicial process. So, political and religious opponents can be detained indefinitely without trial or imprisoned after grossly unfair trials. Torture is endemic, and foreign workers, particularly non-Muslims are most at risk. UK government has kept quiet when many of its citizens have been judged to be tortured, for the sake of profits from oil and military sales. And bribes ( also across the Atlantic in USA so it was openly claimed by last Saudi Ambassador )
Threats from Within;
Actually the threat to Saudi Arabia emanates from within with many attacks by Al Qaeda with large segments of a conservative population sympathetic to its cause. And the threat does not come only from the Jihadists. There are other sources of threat from within the general population. There were rebellions against the House of Saud by various Saudi groups in 1969, 1972, and 1979. Only approved loyal tribes can enter the military. Until late 1980s Pakistan provided a protection force of 11000 to 15000 troops to the Saudi government. After the relocation of US troops from Saudi Arabia to Qatar and elsewhere, the Saudis are again looking to Pakistan for troops as reported in the Financial Times. The military cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan old and broad based.
Majority of planes and other equipment is kept in order by Pakistani personnel with whom the Kingdom has very close defense relations. There have been many reports of Pak Saudi cooperation in the nuclear bomb technology .If Sunni Pakistani metallurgist Dr AQ Khan could peddle nuclear bombs know how to Libya and Shia Iran among others then why not to Saudi Arabia . There have been many such reports in the German media.
Saudi volunteers and finance are seen behind attacks on US from Iraq to North Africa. Saudi nationals have been active in the Iraqi resistance and have been involved in operations targeting the US-led coalition forces, the ragged Iraqi security forces, and Iraq's majority Shia population. The presence of Saudis in Iraq is of deep concern not just for Iraq and US , but also for the future security of Saudi Arabia and the smaller Persian Gulf states. The return of Saudi jihadis would revitalize the insurgency in the Kingdom. Experience in Iraq could alter the insurgent landscape in Saudi Arabia by introduction of new techniques, methods and operations. But the Saudis claim time and again after each Al Qaeda violence that it was the last one.
Yes, Saudi - and other Persian Gulf Arab Jihadis are highly sought after in Iraq as they bring large sums of cash. Recruiting affluent Saudis is a good method to finance terrorist operations. A confidential US report identified a Saudi participation in excess of 50%, while a jihadist Internet forum said that Saudis make up 44% of insurgents.( But US blames Syria all the time) What is extremely worrying is that of those Saudis who were detained and questioned on their return from Iraq, about 80% were unknown to the security services. So much for efficiency of the Saudi intelligence and security services. They will be a significant contributor to greater violence and domestic insurgency in Saudi Arabia. The Iraq war and the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan have polarized large segments of the Saudi population.
High watermark of the alliance;
With the inflow of big oil money into Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region after 1973 oil prices jump, the balance in religious matters and beliefs shifted away from the progressive versions of Islam that existed in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Algeria, to Saudi Arabia's Wahabis' rigid version and tendencies. During my diplomatic posts in Cairo and Algeria in first half of 1960s, they were cosmopolitan tolerant Muslim societies. But after mid-1970s, it changed with the return of orthodoxy and veils and headscarves even among their diplomats. Thus regression to Wahabi way of life among Muslims can be traced to the power and use of Saudi oil wealth to pander to Jihadis.
The high watermark of this unholy alliance reached full bloom when it was joined by most Muslim countries and many western Christian powers and even China to oust the Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1980s. Between $6 to $10 billion was spent in providing arms, training and other equipment by USA, Saudi Arabia and Gulf states and many others to train Mujahaddins, Jihadis , militants and terrorists ( Some were later taken by USA to Albania and Kosovo in 1990s and thus given international exposure.)
Pakistan President Zia-ul- Haq was a pariah till 1979 for having ousted Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and hanged him. But suddenly he became the darling of the West when he offered Pakistan space , facilities and soul for the Jihad in Afghanistan . To strengthen his position , Zia used the opportunity to Islamise Pakistan's polity for all time to come. Conservative and fundamentalist elements now dominate all aspects of Pakistan and have infiltrated in its Armed Forces with the experience and association during training and organising Mujahaddin , Jihadi and terrorist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan ,specially by its Inter-services-intelligence (ISI) in collaboration with CIA and other intelligence agencies from Muslim countries and the West .A state within a state, ISI established in depth and broad relations with Mujahideen leaders, Al Qaeda and later Taleban leaders which will transform the course of history in Pakistan and the region , with long lasting ramifications for the world . Talebans were created by Pakistan , with help and open recognition by Saudi Arabia and encouraged by USA to pacify Afghanistan after the chaos in the wake of withdrawal of Soviet troops .US was interested in its UNOCAL using Afghan territory for gas and oil pipe lines to transport central Asian energy to the Arabian Sea coast and beyond and to energy hungry fast developing India
Al Qaeda and Arab and Muslim Mujahaddin leaders and cadres trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan on return to their countries in Middle East spread that culture, which now threatens most of them and has seeped even into Europe , which hosts tens of millions of Muslims .
Saudi Arabia has always sent funds directly or through its charities to build mosques , aid and establish Madarsas spewing hate against non-Muslims , specially against Christians and other non-Muslims and even Shias. The great Jihad in Afghanistan was a big opportunity for Wahabis . The Jihadis and Al Qaeda, created by Osama ben laden , have got it into their head that they alone defeated USSR , the number two Super power and now aim at taking on USA ,the hyper power.The animus against Washington was made easier to take roots after the stationing of US troops in conservative Saudi Arabia following the 1991 war which liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.
Nexus under stress;
This incongruent nexus has survived many stresses and strains like in 1970s when Saudi led Opec quadrupled the oil prices after the Egypt led 1973 Yom Kippur war on Israel .Washington even toyed about landing troops to take over oil wells in Saudi Arabia .Relations between USA and the Kingdom were really strained when Osama ben Laden , a representative of Saudi Kingdom in Pakistan to lead a Jihad against USSR in Afghanistan , after creating Al Qaeda ,carried out attacks on US embassies in east Africa. But the real denouement exploded on TV screens around the world when 15 of the hijackers who took over 4 US planes and attacked US symbols of power , the Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon thus breaching the virginity of security of the US mainland . Even at that time with close entanglements between US energy interests led by the Bush family and others in the US ruling class , members of Osama ben Laden family were clandestinely evacuated from USA within hours of the 119 attacks .
In general , most Americans and US media seethed with fury with a storm of hostile articles against the Saudi Kingdom. They forgot that the chickens nurtured in Pakistan and Afghanistan had come home to roost .Instead of learning from 911 , Bush led administration in USA , driven by racist Staussian philosophy of Neo-Cons , first bombard Afghanistan , already destroyed - a victim of US-Soviet rivalry and battle field ,to establish US bases in Afghanistan , Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan ostensibly to counter terrorism .. US and UK with some other western nations then invaded Iraq to take control and exploit its oil resources and control the energy rich region from Baghdad ( now all that US controls is the Green Zone) .But US has built bases in Iraq for long term stay.
It was all part of Neo-cons plan called 'The New American Century ', whose bankruptcy has been exposed as conceived by arm chair experts ,most of whom happen to be Jews and basically promote Israeli interests. The Israelis to whom this kind of vision of domination was peddled had refused to buy it .They are happy that US lives and treasure is being spent to make Israel 'safer and secure' as it was after the earlier the 1991 war against Iraq .
Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to US President Jimmy Carter's, now morphing into a saint, had gloated in Nouvel Observator of Paris that US plan to support the religious extremists in Afghanistan against the leftist government had brought in the Soviet troops leading to their defeat, and had revenged US defeat in Vietnam .It led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. He then added that if it produced some 'stirred Muslims 'so what '.That was , until the 'stirred Muslims' attacked US on 119 and London on 77 apart from terror attacks against Australians in Bali , in Spain and other places .India which was not part of the axis led by US-Saudi-Pak against Afghanistan and USSR , continues to suffer . Others not involved are also paying the price for the consequences of that unholy nexus and would continue to do so.
Washington has exploited the scare of Al Qaeda, which hardly existed in USA, to roll back freedom and democracy. While black Muslims did not go Pakistan for training for Jihad in Afghanistan , but they have many grievances , specially those in US prisons in large numbers.
Pakistan has been most affected .When Omar Sheikh was accused in the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl, who getting too close to perhaps discovering the connection of Jihadis, Al Qaeda and others with ISI and the Pakistan establishment , his father bemoaned that till the Jihadis were fighting against USSR , they were heroes , but now they have become terrorists and enemies .Yes , if you align with a big power , then follow its dictates other wise you would bombed to the stone age , as publicly confessed by Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf in USA .So threatened US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage Pak ISI chief soon after 11 9 , leaving Pakistan no option but to join USA in bombing and killing of Al Qaeda, Jihadis and Taleban leaders and cadres, Pakistan's own creations .
Yes , to keep Pak military on its side and happy, billions of dollars of military aid has been poured into Pakistan , including sophisticated naval arms and equipment ostensibly to fight Talebans in the Afghanistan mountains . Seeing US getting deeper into the Iraqi quagmire , Pakistan has made up with its own Talebans in its border areas and even asked NATO to do the same .As Afghanistan President Hafiz Karzai has said repeatedly the attacks against NATO and Afghan forces are organized from inside Pakistan .
The Pak based Talebans and conservatives elements have taken over North West Pakistan to train terrorists from the region including from Uzbekistan and China's Turkic region Xinjiang under Beijing's repressive rule. These cadres and volunteers now go to fight inside Afghanistan .Pakistan now wants to fence and mine the Durand line dividing Pushtoons in Pakistan and Afghanistan . But the elephant in the room for the Pakistanis remains the Durand line which Pushtoons have never recognized .
Pakistan has been severely infected with Jihadi virus and other ills .With record opium production in Afghanistan and traded via Pakistan , from a few thousand the number of opium addicts has up to many millions .It has brought in the Kalashnikov based culture of violence to the country.
Comments and Conclusions;
Following the First World War and creation of states by capricious British and French colonial masters, very little has changed in the arbitrary borders of the countries in the Middle East, except for the creation of the state of Israel, basically a compensation to the European Jewry at the cost of Palestinians, for the crimes in which the majority of European states led by Nazi Germany participated. After the 1949 Arab Israel war and the 1967 six day war, Israel continues to hold onto occupied Arab territories.
After the opening of the Pandora's box in the wake of 2003 invasion of Iraq, bottled up historic , ethnic , religious and other forces have now been unleashed which would play out and change the geography and history of the region, beginning with Iraq, where three ethnic and sectional based entities are already emerging. The invasion has sucked in Iran and other neighbours too are likely to be even more openly embroiled whether they like it or not.
Except in the desert warfare long time ago , since its oil wealth Saudis have become too blase to fight , some what like the Abbasid Arabs who in ninth century began enjoying the fruits from its empire and left the fighting to imported Turkish slaves from central Asia . Soon the Turkish swords took over power as Sultans and became the protectors of the now hapless Caliphs, some of whom were even forbidden to recruit Turkish slaves.
Attracted by Gamal Nasser's Arab nationalism and socialism , when in next door Yemen ,the military officers over threw the King and Egyptian troops moved in early 1960s , the Kingdom did not send its troops in support. It only provided funds to the Royalist forces .Later when Egypt left Yemen, the Saudis mediated among the warring factions.
When central Asian Turkic republics emerged after the break up of the Soviet Union, as usual Saudi Arabia sent money for Mullahs and madarsas and for construction of mosques and dispatched millions of Quran. Former Communist but secular apartchiks , who took over as the new rulers have come down heavily against Jihadis trained in and around Pakistan . Muslim extremists and militants in central Asia are called Wahabis.
During the Cold War , Saudi Arabia and other conservative and religious Muslim regimes were supported and used by the West to counter communism, socialism and nationalism basically to protect US led western economic , political and strategic interests. Saudis obeyed US dictates to nominate prices of oil in US petrodollars and manipulated oil price to suit western interests. Thus US can run a massive current account deficit , which almost fully finances it military budget now , equal to the rest of the world put together .
The Wahhabis had a free run of the country keeping it backward and in a mediaeval time warp where hands of thieves are amputed and adulterous couples stoned to death . This model with Wahabi restrictions is sought to be imposed on other Muslims too, where ever extremists take control. Like Talebans in Afghanistan or in northwest Pakistan.
Compared to Saudi Arabia , Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, whose King derives direct descent from Prophet Mohammad , is almost a modern nation . There are modern laws , freedom for women in dress , education and employment unlike in Saudi Arabia.
It is worth pondering why has the vast oil wealth of the peninsula not used to uplift Muslim Ummah , Saudis claim to represent and nurture by virtue of its control over the holy shrines in Mecca and Medina. There has been no massive Marshall Plan , which US used for Europe's economic growth after it was devastated in the 2 nd world War. Yes, there have been palliatives but always linked to promote Wahabi Islam.
The oil generated wealth has primarily benefited Western powers , who have protected the Ibn Saud family so that thousands of princes and princesses could wallow in luxury and worse . It doesn't need a Sophocles to conclude that the Saudi dynasty has directly or indirectly set back economic , political and social development and progress of the Muslim Ummah , of which it claims ' to be the de facto leader and for whom it feels religious responsibility ' in Obaid's words.
In one looks at the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire which lasted for five centuries and covered an area longer and larger than of the empires of the Arabs , its decline started when the Ottoman Sultan became the guardians of Mecca and Medina and took over the Caliphate . The resulting influx of conservative clerics and religious sheikhs and Mullahs into ruling elite in Istanbul ensured rule of obscurantism and fierce opposition to any modern ideas and technology even in military matters making Turkey the sick man of Europe.
Turkish Republic based on modern ideas and education can match Europeans in economic development and progress . Ten years ago it entered into a Customs accord with the Europe Union and its manufactured goods outmatch the best produced in Europe .With almost no oil , its GDP is half of all Arab states put together .Of course the so called secular Europe would not accede to full membership to Ankara, because 99% of Turks are Muslims.
The Abbasid Caliphate expanded and progressed based on ideas taken from everywhere and new inventions in science. But conservative ideas specially Wahabi philosophy has kept the Muslim Ummah backward , unable to match the rising scientific and military power of the West and keeps it in Western chains. Yes , there is lot of glitter of the gold , glass and aluminum in oil rich Gulf states.
This nexus funneling wealth into Madarsas with rote learning of Quran , little mathematics or science and barring new ideas can not face the increasing complex problems of modern times and have kept Muslims backward. It has and can produce only Al Qaedas, Jihadis and destruction but not a scientific and well thought out response to oppose the relentless US led Western consumerism , exploitation , and daily humiliation heaped on Arab and Muslim world.
Yes , some spectacular 911 like attacks in US or 77 attacks against UK would be mounted but this will not liberate the Ummah and roll back western Christian domination and exploitation of last two centuries . There is a lesson from the current misery and the hell like suffering of the hapless people of Iraq under US heel and military occupation, during which more than half a million Iraqis have lost their lives since March 2003.
Take Iran, where US policies which have only strengthened conservative elements .Still there is freedom and education for women, who can work in offices and drive cars .The modern process started with the election of a moderate President Khatami was stopped with the country going on the defensive following US invasion next door . The Iranian people have learnt that going backwards did not resolve old , new and complex problems of the modern era . They want a change from Mullah's suffocating yoke.
The break up of US-Saud-Wahab nexus will release the Muslim masses kept chained to backward ideas and usher in modern education, science , new ideas and progress to face the West.
But the upheaval brought by the Khomeini revolution in Iran would be a picnic compared to what the revolution in Sunni Islam would bring as the obscurantist and vested interests in and from outside will not give in easily. But perhaps the time beckons such a cataclysmic change.
Before the first world war, the Germans had visions of reaching Basra by rail with help from Ottomans and outflank the British Empire in India as the prize , the jewel in the British crown .The Ottomans then under the influence of the Young Turks led by maverick Enver Pasha had visions of stopping Russia and creating a pan Turkic empire extending into Russian Turkestan. The results were quite different and laid the foundations for a destructive 2nd world war , rise of Nazi Germany, holocaust against Jews in Europe and genocide against Gypsies . It led to decolonisation and the end of the British , French and other European empires.
K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Copy right with the author. E-mail: Gajendrak@hotmail.com .
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