Senate The Middle East Discussion Thread

Seems like a coup is taking place.

 

Here you go...

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/29/politics/kushner-saudi-arabia-trip/index.html

All of the other action -- Saudi crackdown, Lebanese PM resigning in Riyadh, and the Riyadh "airport attack" all happening on the same day with Iran being blamed for the latter two -- happened less than one week later...

 

Actually I wonder if the current Saudi King might be near-death (he's seemed healthy but he is 81), and the Crown Prince wants to consolidate power first.

Because every King of Saudi Arabia has been a son of the first king (besides the first, obviously). Not descendent... son.

It just so happens than Father Time is basically done with the sons of the First Saudi King, and it's time for one of the grandsons to be the next King... and this Crown Prince, the 32-year-old, wants to make sure he isn't killed or otherwise deposed since there's even more grandsons than sons.

 

An opinion/news article about the latest developments:

A chilling message to foreign investors and dissidents

 

That is pretty damn scary to read.

 

A nice hour-long radio feature from this Monday to listen to while doing other things, about the recent developments in the region: the resignation of Lebanese PM Hariri, the Saudi domestic purge against "corruption", the ongoing war and famine in Yemen and the Kushner effort of restarting talks between Israel and the Palestinian authority, all with a broader regional view.

https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2017/11/...prime-minister-still-missing-in-saudi-arabia/

 

What has the Middle East done to deserve this punishment?

 

It's actually a joint Saudi-Kushner project. Who knows who's the real mastermind behind it? It might in reality be more of a Saudi initiative being branded as a Kushner-led effort.

 

235 people killed in attack on Mosque while at Friday prayers in Egypt.

 

Thomas Friedman Is An Idiot

What does it take to make a lover of the FREE MARKET celebrate? Has the country undergone some substantive, lasting reform?

No. But apparently all it takes to be celebrated as the "real" Arab Spring is a couple stupid buzzwords. The language of high tech! Digitized text books! He goes on to naively celebrate the power grab of last month because apparently "arresting" people without any clear charges or any process rights represents a huge victory for the rule of law. Likewise, literally forcing the resignation of Lebanon's prime minister is celebrated as somehow heroic because of. . .something.

This is disgusting. The world is terrible enough without people making up terrible lies in support of it. I hope he felt some sense of shame writing that "article."

 

This was horrendous and appalling. Yet it's not getting enough coverage. I heard that Palestinians supported the protesters at Standing Rock last year. I'm sure they would, given what they've been through. This should not be allowed.

 

UN just voted overwhelmingly to condemn Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

 

So now he'll withdrawn US financial aid to deserving people as a protest to the protest because he's the worst...

 

Probably. Surprised he hasn't tweeted about the "Loser UN!" yet.

 

Satele: That is heartbreaking; thank you for posting.

Unspeakably evil--like my own government's actions.

 

I was sorry to have to do it, but that's one reason I completed a twenty-eight-page research paper about the crimes of Hitler and Stalin for my White Collar-Corporate Crime class during 2010. Some of the most heartrending crimes are perpetrated by governments with no regard for human life.

Also, I find it embarrassing that the UN has to condemn the actions of a United States president like this. Trump has no respect for the rest of the world. He's an embarrassment.

 

Satele: It's not entirely rare for the U.S. to be this isolated. I keenly recall Bush's refusal to join the International Criminal Court in his first term--for reasons that are damn near self-evident--and the outcry that followed.

So long as we're the dominant empire, our leaders will be deafened to world opinion. With an emphasis on so long...

 

Iran and Saudis’ Latest Power Struggle: Expanding Rights for Women

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/world/middleeast/iran-saudi-women.html

 

This is a month old now, but...
Saudi Arabia and the UAE announce plan to form new alliance that will undermine the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

In an apparent bid to form a Gulf Arab coalition that will bend entirely to their will, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will be forming a new partnership group in the region separate from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — and Qatar’s influence. The U.A.E.’s foreign ministry on Tuesday announced the intention to form the “joint cooperation committee,” the Associated Press reports, but offered no details on how the new group would work with the GCC, a union that was formed in 1981 to counter Iran’s influence in the region. The ministry statement only said that the new committee would “cooperate and coordinate between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in all military, political, economic, trade and cultural fields, as well as others, in the interest of the two countries.”

The new committee, said Tamara Kharroub, assistant executive director and senior Middle East analyst at Arab Center, is “intended by the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia to establish a unity, parallel to the Gulf Cooperation Council,” with the intent being “the same as the original objectives of the GCC … the purpose is to antagonize the GCC as an organization.” It’s not clear which countries will be part of the group. Countries in the GCC include Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait. Oman has good relations with Iran, often striking a neutral tone in Gulf disputes, while Kuwait has tried to mediate an end to the Gulf Crisis with Qatar.

The U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia have led the charge against Qatar in the months-long blockade of the country dubbed the Gulf Crisis. With cooperation from Bahrain and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. in June issued a list of 13 demands that Qatar would have to meet before the blockade could be lifted. Although the country’s reserves have dropped in value by 20 percent since the start of tensions, Qatar has not met the demands, which include shutting down state-funded news outlet Al Jazeera and distancing itself from Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional rival. It has been coping with the blockade by flying in food and other supplies from Iran and Turkey.
​

Saudi Arabia is becoming ever more assertive with its own hegemonic designs for the region, even going so far as kidnapping the prime minister of Lebanon and forcing him to announce his resignation on television. Further down from the same article:

With Washington’s support, Saudi Arabia has been fighting a war of diminishing returns against Iran in the region on several fronts. It has, thus far, failed to drive a wedge between Iran and Qatar. If anything, the crisis appears to have brought the two countries closer to each other. And in trying to lessen Iran’s influence in Lebanon, where the Islamic Republic backs Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia in early November summoned Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri to Riyadh. Hariri, a dual Lebanese-Saudi citizen backed by the House of Saud, issued a stilted speech on Saudi TV, resigning from his post, citing dissatisfaction with Iranian influence in his country.

Hariri’s resignation was not accepted by the country’s president, Michel Aoun, who is backed by Hezbollah. What followed was a baffling period during which Saudi Arabia accused Hezbollah of declaring war and Hezbollah accused Saudi Arabia of the same, claiming that the Gulf Arab Kingdom had “kidnapped” Hariri, who remained almost incommunicado for two weeks. He has since returned to Lebanon and rescinded his resignation on Tuesday.

In Yemen, where Saudi Arabia plays up the extent of Iran’s support for the Houthi rebels, the Saudi-led coalition has so far failed to defeat the Shia fighters, who are currently fighting to retake the country’s capital, having killed former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in his home on Monday. (...) Plus, Saudi Arabia is in the midst of its own internal turmoil, with Mohammed bin Salman ordering the arrests of over 300 high-level businessmen and officials in what the government has called an “anti-corruption” operation.​

More about that plot in this NYT article:
Why Saad Hariri Had That Strange Sojourn in Saudi Arabia

Lebanon’s prime minister, Saad Hariri, was summoned at 8:30 a.m. to the Saudi royal offices — unseemly early, by the kingdom’s standards — on the second day of a visit that was already far from what he had expected. Mr. Hariri, long an ally of the Saudis, dressed that morning in jeans and a T-shirt, thinking he was going camping in the desert with the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. But instead he was stripped of his cellphones, separated from all but one of his usual cluster of bodyguards, and shoved and insulted by Saudi security officers. Then came the ultimate indignity: He was handed a prewritten resignation speech and forced to read it on Saudi television.

This, it seemed, was the real reason he had been beckoned to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, a day earlier: to resign under pressure and publicly blame Iran, as if he were an employee and not a sovereign leader. Before going on TV, he was not even allowed to go to the house he owns there; he had to ask guards to bring him a suit. As bizarre as the episode was, it was just one chapter in the story of Prince Mohammed, the ambitious young heir apparent determined to shake up the power structure not just of his own country but of the entire region. At home, he has jailed hundreds of fellow princes and businessmen in what he casts as an anticorruption drive. Abroad, he has waged war in Yemen and confronted Qatar. The day Mr. Hariri was ordered to report to Riyadh, he was just a pawn in the crown prince’s overall battle: to rein in the regional ambitions of Saudi Arabia’s longtime rival, Iran.
​

 

So news is coming out this morning that Turkey has launched an offensive against Syrian Kurds (the YPG) and the town of Afrin. Right now only twitter and some Middle Easter news sources have reported on this, but I expect it'll hit mainstream western news sometime soon.

https://al-sura.com/turkey-invades-syria-goal-to-destroy-ypg/

http://www.dw.com/en/turkey-launches-offensive-against-kurdish-held-afrin-in-syria/a-42223622

Earlier the US announced that it intended to back a Kurdish border protection force, I wonder how much that had to play in this.

 

Deutsche Welle is a Middle Eastern source? You're linking to a mainstream Western source in your own post.

 

I found that after I had written out my post and was using the first link. I simply didn't edit that out after finding the second link.