Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Middle East Page 11 of 20

The Banal Hypocrisy of the Western Coverage of Israel

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On May 10, 2018

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So, I see the usual suspects, in response to a large attack by Israel on Iranian targets in Syria, are saying the usual, “I support Israel’s right to defend itself.”

Really what they mean, of course, is “I’m scared of the Israeli lobby in my country, and of being called an anti-Semite if I dare say the truth.”

The truth is that Israel attacks other countries far more than other countries attack Israel.

The truth is that the Iranian missile attack the to which the Israelis were responding was actually in response to routine Israeli attacks on Syria.

The truth is that Iran is an invited guest in Syria and Israel is not.

Modern Iran has not attacked multiple neighbours over the course of its history. Israel has, and taken territory from them to boot.

The Golan Heights was taken from Syria, by Israel.

And, of course, Iran has no nukes, and Israel, which claims Iran wants them, does have nukes.

Our entire “conversation” about Israel and the region around it is based on hypocrisy, fear and guilt over the holocaust, as if because Germany killed millions of Jews, it’s ok for Israel to treat Palestinians and everyone else in the neighbourhood monstrously.

Israel should remember that “the powerful do as they will, the weak suffer what they must” was replied to “what you do to us, will one day be done to you, because seeing how you treat us, no one will trust you or have mercy on you.”

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Trump Pulls Out of the Iran Deal

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On May 8, 2018

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Yeah, so, it was a good deal and one of the very few real accomplishments of Obama’s foreign policy, possible only after Clinton was no longer Secretary of State.

The fear here is that this is part of a march to war against Iran, something many in the Republican party want, and something pushed hard by Israel and Saudi Arabia.

This was the danger of Republican win: Clinton was deranged about Syria, Trump is deranged about Iran. Both are allies of Russia, and Russia will not want to allow Iran to be destroyed by an American coalition. While the risk of a confrontation between the US and Russia is not as severe over Iran as it was over Syria, it is still very real.

Plus, of course, the Iranians don’t have nuclear weapons and just making enriched uranium didn’t mean they wanted nuclear weapons.

Fortunately, the Europeans are pushing back hard against this, and are willing to just cut their own deal. That may help somewhat.

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The Push for War with Syria (and Russia?)

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On April 12, 2018

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So, we have another allegation that Assad has used chemical weapons. I’ll be straight: The guy has everything to lose by doing so, and nothing important to gain, so I doubt it.

Virtually all the pundits are crying for war; Marcon is onside (and claims to have proof of the chemical attack), Tony Blair is onside, and so on.

Trump, having learned from past attacks that the only thing the media almost-universally likes that he does is bombing people, seems to be considering attacking, despite his past avowals that America shouldn’t be in Syria. For example:

Attacking Syria is insanity. Even if chemical weapons were used, it’s none of the US’s business, and yeah, as noted many times before, Russia is there, and war with Russia should be avoided.

The main reason that I didn’t endorse Clinton was that she was deranged on Syria and Russia, wanting a no-fly zone after the Russians intervened, appearing to personally hate Putin, and so on.

The Republicans and Trump, of course, are deranged on Iran instead.

Joy.

So, it’d be nice if the US would not overreact here. Syria’s been a nasty, unpleasant war, which is almost over now. Let’s keep it that way. The US should never have been involved in the first place, as they have no important interests in Syria and, well, war is bad and should be avoided in most cases.

Perhaps Americans could, in general, learn to mind their own goddamn business? The world, and the US, would both be better places.

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China and Saudi Arabia Show Anti-Corruption Is Often About Seizing Power

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On March 26, 2018

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Recently, the Chinese Communist Party proposed removing the normal ten year limit on how long someone can stay President. Xi Jingping looks likely to be President for life.

Xi is notable for a massive anti-corruption drive, which put a lot of senior party members in jail and terrified many others.

Anti-corruption is good, of course, but in nations where, well, essentially everyone is corrupt, one must watch who is hit for corruption charges and who isn’t. Somehow Xi’s enemies seemed to get hit disproportionately.

Meanwhile, Xi put himself as the leader of every committee of any significance, and lo and behold, he is the indispensable leader now.

And in Saudi Arabia, we have Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Salman is the designated heir, and has been replacing everyone who isn’t loyal to him. Last year, bin Salman took over a Four Seasons hotel, “invited” a number of his relatives and other important people to stay there, then by at least one account (which I find credible) tortured some of them.

Even very powerful Saudi princes, like Alwaleed, the most personally rich of the princes, were not entirely immune.

His release came hours after he told Reuters in an interview at Riyadh’s opulent Ritz-Carlton hotel that he expected to be cleared of any wrongdoing and be freed within days.

A senior Saudi official said Prince Alwaleed was freed after he reached a financial settlement with the attorney general.

“The attorney general has approved this morning the settlement that was reached with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and the prince returned home at 1100 a.m. (0800 GMT),” the official told Reuters, without giving details of the terms.

The decision to free him, and the release of several other well-known tycoons on Friday, suggested the main part of the corruption probe was winding down after it sent shockwaves through Saudi Arabia’s business and political establishment.

Alwaleed was careful to make his bow:

Prince Alwaleed, who is in his early 60s, described his confinement as a “misunderstanding” and said he supported reform efforts by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. (my emphasis)

Mohammed has taken some actions that Westerners approve of, like somewhat improving rights for women, but he is also busily committing genocide in Yemen, screwed up by trying to blockade Qatar (which did not bring Qatar to its knees), kidnapped the President of Lebanon, and is proceeding with a vast privatization of money-earning Kingdom assets, which will earn Saudi Arabia money (but which will be insufficient to offset the loss of earning power).

But it appears as though the Crown Prince is more of a dictator than any ruler in ages (even if he isn’t officially king yet). He has the power, internally, to do things that were simply not possible when some consensus was expected among the royal family.

All of this should be reminiscent of what Putin did when he gained power: He broke a number of oligarchs, sent them to jail or into exile, and took most of their fortunes. But he made deals with others, so long as they were loyal. As a result, his “anti-corruption” efforts weren’t about eliminating corruption at all, they were about loyalty to Putin and the state. Russia continues to be a corrupt mafia state (mafia states have rules, they are just mafia rules). This corruption has hurt its economy, though Putin’s policies are still better than those that came before.

In India, what Modi has been doing bears some resemblance to this pattern as well: Consolidating control disguised as anti-corruption.

Anti-corruption is rather different from seizing power by using corruption charges to break one’s enemies or bring them to heel as new, terrified, allies while warning everyone else not to get out of line.

Real anti-corruption goes deep, hits almost everyone, and generally comes with increases in the wages of bureaucrats at the lower and middle levels, as much corruption is a result of inadequate compensation leading to bribes replacing the actual salary.

Much of this critique, minus the strong man bit, could be applied to the US, I might add, but perhaps another day. In the meantime, appreciate the good those seizing power do, when it exists, but recognize their motives and the dark side, as displayed in Yemen, or when Putin very likely set up the second Chechen war.

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Egypt’s a Disaster: A Totally Expected Disaster

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On December 1, 2017

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So, there’s a lot  of terrorism in Egypt these days.

Since 2013, terrorism has increasingly disrupted life in Egypt, especially in the Sinai. The Egyptian hinterland has witnessed more than seventeen hundred attacks over the past four years, according to a tally by the Washington-based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. The Sinai Province, the local ISIS affiliate, has claimed credit for some eight hundred of them. Lately, the attacks have been creeping closer to Cairo and targeting more civilians.

This is NOT A SURPRISE.

The Muslim Brotherhood won the Egyptian elections fair and square. Then, the military overthrew them in a coup, outlawed them, seized their territory, and locked up or killed a pile of them.

The Muslim Brotherhood, whatever one thinks of their ideology, was basically peaceful: They took care of the poor. They were popular because they cared for people.

At first, the violence hit mostly military and police targets, but as it has been taken over by people far nastier than the Muslim Brotherhood, the violence has hit civilians far more.

This should not be a surprise. If you prove that peaceful elections don’t work and subsequently outlaw the most successful, peaceful Muslim organization, they aren’t going to be replaced by nice people. You’ve just proved that “nice does not work.”

Now you get to deal with the unpleasant people.

And, hey, it turns out the military can’t run the economy well, either. What a surprise.

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Saudi Arabian Crown Consolidates Control as War Looms

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On November 5, 2017

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Right, so there is a purge in Saudi Arabia, with princes arrested for “corruption” (they’re surely corrupt, but in Saudi Arabia that’s like saying they drink water), but more importantly, the National Guard commander was arrested and replaced with the Crown Prince, and the navy commander was also replaced.

A new anti-corruption committee led by the Crown Prince will continue the purge.

This has shades of what’s been going on in China, where Xi Jinping is called the “Chairman of Everything,” because he’s in charge of every important committee. In Saudi Arabia, his counterpart is the Crown Prince.

Power is being consolidated. It is true that Saudi Arabia has unavoidable problems and larger challenges coming down the pike. The most important should be the price of oil, which can be expected to continue its relative decline over the next couple decades as electric cars and so on come online.

But they’ve also chosen many of their problems: The war in Yemen is a self-inflicted wound, as is the (related) confrontation with Iran.

The latter confrontation is barrelling ahead, and it is likely to be the next significant war, not North Korea. The resignation of Lebanese PM Saad Hariri (who lives part time in Saudi Arabia) is part of the clearing of decks for the next phase, which will be another attempt to take out Hezbollah.

We can expect the US to impose significant sanctions on Lebanon as part of this, justified by Lebanon supposedly being insufficiently democratic (it was Hariri’s job to make this plausible).

Lebanon not being Venezuela, this will likely not be sufficient and military action will be required.

Note that, in this effort, Israel, the US, and Saudi Arabia can be expected to act in cooperation.

This can and may well easily escalate into an actual war with Iran. As in Iraq before, the Saudis will want the US to do the actual dirty work, and Trump is eager to do it.

Iran is increasingly a Russian ally, and, as for Hezbollah, they appear to expect Syria to support them in any war with Israel, which is not unreasonable: Without Hezbollah support, Syria would have lost its war. Additionally, the usual reason for not fighting Israel doesn’t particularly apply any more: Syria is a smoking ruin already, though I’m sure Israel will try to demolish the capital. However, one suspects it will be heavily defended by Russian air defenses, however.

The entire mess is a clusterfuck waiting to happen. Absolute stupidity: Israel would be better off leaving Hezbollah alone (they have a lot more missiles than last time and are even more battle hardened); Iran is not an existential threat to Saudi Arabia, and; the US would have to be crazy to start another major war in the Middle East or even become involved in another one as it has done in Yemen (which should be none of the US’s business).

A lot of countries are acting directly against their own self interest. The only thing Saudi Arabia should be concerned with right now is handling the end of oil, and the prestige they might gain from defeating Iran will not be sufficient to save them from the consequences of a complete economic meltdown.

So this entire mess is, again, worth keeping an eye on.

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The Death of Saudi Arabia

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On July 16, 2017

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The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole

The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain recently cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar and launched an embargo, stating that they wanted the media outlet Al Jazeera shut down, and support for the Muslim Brotherhood ended.

Or, more colloquially, and good for a belly laugh, for these entities to “stop supporting terrorists,” which coming from any of those countries–and especially Saudi Arabia–is so flamingly hypocritical it puts the sun in shadow.

Oh my God.

Unfortunately for Saudi Arabia and its allies, Qatar has yet to give in, and it has been backed up by Turkey (who sent troops), and Iran (who is sending food).

Then we have the war against Yemen. Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen, with a huge coalition, and US support, and, well, what have they accomplished? I suspect the main accomplishment will be crippling Yemen’s next generation by starving them when they were young.

And, some time back, Saudi Arabia decided to lower oil prices to push out Western producers and…Oh, look! Oil prices are too low to support Saudi Arabia.

The joke in Saudi Arabia, I understand is, “My grandfather rode a camel, I drive a car, my grandson will ride a camel.”

Saudi Arabia is doomed. The current king is an incompetent, thrashing around trying to solve problems and making them worse.  He, as with his forbears, sees foes everywhere; unlike his predecessors, he isn’t willing to simply sit and let sores fester. He wants to do something about them, and so far, what he’s done has made them worse.

This is fairly standard: All dynasties go bad eventually because the kings-to-be grow up in wealth and power and think their privilege is the natural state of things. They believe they are brilliant and deserve it all, when it was handed them on a platter. Perhaps they are good at palace intrigue and think that extends beyond the palace.

It doesn’t.

But this is worse than that; Saudi Arabia is just an undeveloped country sitting on oil. It’s that simple. Their particular ideology did not allow them to control their population, and the source of their power, oil, was always going to be replaced as the world’s most important energy source at some point. That “some point” is now close.

Electric cars are coming. It is that simple. And when they do, oil will never recover.

As with all such windfalls, the only correct way to deal with resource windfalls is to siphon them off from the regular economy and develop the new economy. That is almost never done, and the story is always the same. Sometimes it takes decades, sometimes centuries, but the resource is always either replaced or depleted and the country or area, never having developed an actual economy, goes into terminal decline.

I live near one such place: the Canadian Maritime provinces. Once, this was the main supplier of ships’ masts in the British Empire. As the entire empire ran on sailing ships, this made it important. When steam took over, there were no ship masts left, and the Maritimes have never recovered.

Alberta, Canada’s oil patch, will likely experience the same story, with the added problem of having destroyed much of its soil, so that it cannot even go back to its full, agricultural roots.

Saudi Arabia is DONE. Like other rich and powerful countries, and Saudi Arabia has been a great power (though not a super power), its death throes will be terrible. Yemen is collateral damage; part of the early collapse. Likewise, Qatar. From the long point of view, this all just has to play out; for those on the ground, it will be ugly.

There are good Saudis, even as there are good Americans, and they have my sympathy, but I have little hope to offer them. Saudi Arabia is a classic example of over-development, on top of resource sickness: The land cannot support the population, and relatively soon, in historical terms, it will not be able to afford the necessary imports.

Civil war and implosion, famine and catastrophe are all next to certain. If you live in Saudi, it is probably time to get out. What is to come is unlikely to be avoided; it would take vast amounts of luck. Luck Saudi Arabia, in making so many enemies, has made unlikely to occur.

And a lot of people, close or far from Saudi, will suffer as it destructs.

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Turkey’s Purge

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On July 19, 2016

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turkish-flagErdogan was gleeful during the coup, and he has used it to clean house.

The number of people arrested with alleged links to the plot reached 7,543. They included more than 6,000 soldiers, 100 police officers, 755 judges and prosecutors and 650 civilians.

Earlier Monday, a senior security official told the Reuters news agency that 8,000 police officers, including those based in the capital Ankara and the biggest city Istanbul, had been removed from their posts on suspicion of links to last weekend’s abortive government takeover.

It seems very unlikely to me that all these people were linked to the coup. Instead most of them were probably on lists of enemies that Erdogan already wanted to get rid of.

Turkey’s remaining secular culture will now be strangled.  Erdogan wants to bring back capital punishment for those “involved” in the coup, saying his followers demand it.

The world continues to darken.  The great project for a secular Middle East, which was championed by many who lived there, appears dead and the Islam that is replacing it, with a few exceptions, tends not to be particularly humane.

This is far more important than whether Melania Trump plagiarized part of her speech, a sin which most ordinary people (contra the media) consider venial at best.

Update: the resignation of all public university Deans in Turkey has now been demanded.

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