Sic Semper Tyrannis

"HOUTHIS STRIKE RIYADH WITH MISSILES AND DRONES..."

"Late on September 10, the Saudi capital of Riyadh came under a missile and drone attack from the Ansar Allah movement (more widely known as the Houthis).

The Yemeni missile and air forces, loyal to the Houthi government, announced that they struck a “high-value target” in Riyadh with a Zulfiqar ballistic missile and three Samad-3 suicide drones.

“The attacks are a response to the enemy’s permanent escalation and its continuing blockade against our country,” Brig. Gen. Yahya Sari, a spokesman for the Armed Forces of the Houthi government, said in a statement promising more attacks on Saudi Arabia if the Kingdom “continues its aggression and siege” on Yemen.

The Houthis revealed the Samad-3 combat drone, which also can be used as a loitering munition, in 2019. At that time, they claimed that it has a range of up to 1,500km. As to the Zulfiqar ballistic missile, it is one of a variety of ballistic and even cruise missiles widely employed by the Houthis against Saudi-affiliated targets.

Commenting on the September 10 attack, a spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition said that Houthi forces launched the missiles and drones at civilian targets in Saudi Arabia, without giving more details.

Every Houthi strike on a target inside Saudi Arabia is a painful blow to the Kingdom. Even without the almost lost war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has been passing through an economic and political crisis. So, it prefers to deny any damage or casualties as a result of such attacks, simultaneously censoring and silencing reports in social media."  SF

-----------

I wonder if Pompous the Great is still mocking and menacing analysts in State INR when they try to tell him that the Yemenis are the people shooting up Saudi deep targets and not the Iranians?  The Iranians have trained a number of Houthi and Yemeni Army engineers but they are building on skills that were already there.  When I was DATT in the YAR in the early 80s, the Yemen Air Force had SCUDS that they operated successfully against rebel targets in the SE quadrant of North Yemen. 

Marib Province is the eastern, desert  region of norther Yemen.  It extends for some distance into the Rub al Khali (Empty Quarter) desert of Saudi Arabia.  Some of the most recent Houthi missile and drone attacks were directed at Saudi sponsored military activities in that region even as the Ansar Allah (Houthis) advance into that region.  There are important oil/gas deposits in the province and the Houthis could use the money.  pl

https://southfront.org/houthis-strike-riyadh-with-missiles-and-drones/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%CA%BCrib

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samad_(UAV)

Saudi Arabia is insolvent? --- Foreign Affairs

"An ambitious leader never lets a crisis go to waste, and MBS is nothing if not ambitious. During the early days of the pandemic, he increased the kingdom’s value-added tax from five percent to 15 percent, and the government earmarked $1 billion in stimulus payments to Saudi businesses struggling with the economic downturn. MBS directed his sovereign wealth fund to shop for bargains on global stock markets. He even went nose to nose with Russian President Vladimir Putin on oil prices: when Russia refused to respect production limits set in 2017, Saudi Arabia opened the spigot, driving the price of oil down, very briefly, into negative territory. Even with oil prices back around $40 per barrel, the Saudis are left with only half the revenue they need to balance the government’s books. " FA

--------------

Well pilgrims, Trumpy and Jared may love the Saudis and the murderer MBS, but I do not.   I was the Defense Attaché there for three years.  It was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my army career.  The level of social and legal restriction imposed by the theocracy was stifling.  Normal life was simply impossible.  Even as a diplomat I felt imprisoned in the embassy. For a foreigner to speak Arabic in public was most unwise because the immediate suspicion, often voiced, was that the foreigner was a SPY!

The one thing the Saudis have historically had "going for them" was the money that flooded the country from the ever flowing oil and gas stream.  Now, that is largely finito.  Good!  That means less money to use in spreading the Wahhabi cult, and less money to spend on futile fantasies like the war against the Zeidi mountaineers in Yemen.

A million gastarbeiters have left the country?  Good!  Perhaps the Saudis will learn how to do actual work.  Perhaps.  pl

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/saudi-arabia/2020-08-04/end-saudi-arabias-ambitions

Macgregor got it part right on Carlson's show last night

Colonel (ret.) Douglas Macgregor was on Tucker Carlson's show last night.  He is a smart man.  Tucker is a smart man. Carlson's show is an outpost of sanity in a neocon run US foreign policy establishment (the Borg).  Carlson deserves the ratings he gets.  I hope those will insulate him from the trepidation that his honesty must inspire in the Murdoch brothers.  The rest of Foxnews is much like a clown car show with the clowns clamoring for the approbation of the White House in their eagerness for a neocon war of conquest in the ME.  Some people never learn.  the last 20 years of disaster in the face of Islamic resistance to Western cultural imperialism have taught them nothing.

Trump started his term as an empty headed business hustler eager to make deals wherever he could and who correctly did not see much of anything to be gained by fighting endlessly all over the Islamic World to impose Israel's 1% policy of eliminating all possible threats from the Muslims.

Trump offered Iran peace negotiations in his post Iran strike speech?  No.  He did not.  He once again offered them the opportunity to surrender to Israeli demands relayed to them by the US.

Now, he is transformed into just another neocon, in fact the neocon in chief.  His foreign policy team is run by neocons and bootlickers who fear Pompeo's scorn.  The Defense part of that team is dominated by the Pompous one and his West Point classmate Esper at DoD.  General Milley and the other present chiefs of staff are carefully chosen to eliminate the possibility of "push-back" from the military. I retract anything bad I ever said about Joe Dunford.  I wish he were still here.

Trump is following the neocon/Ziocon line now.  He evidently believes any silly thing they tell him.  I understand that he has said that Soleimani was engaged in beheading Christians.  Well, pilgrims, if you look below about three posts you  will see a video of Soleimani and al-Muhandis being mourned by Christian clergy and congregations in Aleppo.  Of course, you actually have to understand some Arabic to get that from the video.  These Christians mourn these men as being among those who came to fight the Sunni jihadis at Aleppo.

Macgregor rightly understands that there is no there, there for the USA in the Middle East and Central Asia.  He correctly understands that to try to sort out all the intra-regional ethnic and sectarian rivalries is a fool's errand.  He correctly advocates complete withdrawal from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan as does Tulsi Gabbard who was on the same show.

What Macgregor got wrong is that he wants to remain engaged in; Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the GCC generally.  Well, Doug, there is no there, there either.  There is no Soviet threat.  The USA is a net oil and gas exporter.  The Iranians have enemies and quarrels with the Saudis and the Israelis, but, so what?  We are not Israelis.  Neither are we Saudis.

You want to stay engaged in Yemen?  the country is full of nasty little hill men who live to fight.  This is a Saudi problem.

Let all the crazed creatures of that part of the world fight it out.  along the way they will come to muddled partial solutions that will last until the next round of hostility begins.  Tant pis pour eux.  pl

https://www.foxnews.com/media/tucker-carlson-iraq-iran-donald-trump-leave-war

"The Middle East is a complicated place" - SWMBO

This is the Iranian government erected memorial to Jewish Iranian soldiers who were killed  fighting in the Iranian Army in the Iran-Iraq War. 

According to the latest data there are still about 8,500 Iranian Jews resident in the country and quite a few synagogues. 

As a reminder, there are no Jewish "citizens" of Saudi Arabia and of course there are no synagogues there.  pl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Iran#Islamic_Republic_(since_1979)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_synagogues_in_Iran

Soleimani and Al-Muhandis are being mourned in Aleppo churches

(Tehran Armenian Cathedral)

Mike Pompeo was on the TeeVee today scoffing at those who do not agree with him and the Ziocon inspired "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran.  It must be a terrible thing for intelligence analysts of integrity and actual Middle East knowledge and experience to have to try to brief him and Trump, people who KNOW, KNOW from some superior source of knowledge that Iran is the worst threat to the world since Nazi Germany, or was it Saddam's Iraq that was the worst threat since "beautiful Adolf?"

The "maximum pressure" campaign is born of Zionist terrors, terrors deeply felt.  It is the same kind of campaign that has been waged by the Israelis against the Palestinians and all other enemies great and small.  This approach does not seem to have done much for Israel.  The terrors are still there.

Someone sent me the news tape linked below from Aleppo in NW Syria.  I have watched it a number of times.  You need some ability in Arabic to understand it.  The tape was filmed in several Christian churches in Aleppo where these two men (Soleimani and al-Muhandis) are described from the pulpit and in the street as "heroic martyr victims of criminal American state terrorism."  Pompeo likes to describe Soleimani as the instigator of "massacre" and "genocide" in Syria.  Strangely (irony) the Syriac, Armenian Uniate and Presbyterian ministers of the Gospel in this tape do not see him and al-Muhandis that way.  They see them as men who helped to defend Aleppo and its minority populations from the wrath of Sunni jihadi Salafists like ISIS and the AQ affiliates in Syria.  They see them and Lebanese Hizbullah as having helped save these Christians by fighting alongside the Syrian Army, Russia and other allies like the Druze and Christian militias.

It should be remembered that the US was intent on and may still be intent on replacing the multi-confessional government of Syria with the forces of medieval tyranny.  Everyone who really knows anything about the Syrian Civil War knows that the essential character of the New Syrian Army, so beloved by McCain, Graham and the other Ziocons was always jihadi and it was always fully supported by Wahhabi Saudi Arabia as a project in establishing Sunni triumphalism.  They and the self proclaimed jihadis of HTS (AQ) are still supported in both Idlib and western Aleppo provinces by the Saudis and the present Islamist and neo-Ottoman government of Turkey.

Well pilgrims, there are Christmas trees in the newly re-built Christian churches of Aleppo and these, my brothers and sisters in Christ remember who stood by them in "the last ditch."

"Currently there are at least 600 churches and 500,000–1,000,000 Christians in Iran." wiki below.  Are they dhimmis?  Yes, but they are there.  There are no churches in Saudi Arabia, not a single one and Christianity is a banned religion.  These are our allies?

Mr. Jefferson wrote that "he feared for his country when he remembered that God is just."  He meant Virginia but I fear in the same way for the United States.  pl

https://twitter.com/i/status/1214223383635857409

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Iran

Trump moves to unite the Middle East! (irony)

Teevee coverage of the recent events in the ME has been predictable.  Those who hated Trump continue to hate him, etc. 

A few observations:

1. I had hoped that Trump's decision to kill an Iranian general engaged in a diplomatic mission (among other things) while the man was on the soil of a supposed ally of the US was something Trump pulled out of his fundament either inspired by war movies or on the recommendation of "our greatest ally" but I am informed that in fact some idiot in the DoD included this option in the list of possibilities that was briefed to the CinC in Florida.  The decision process in such matters requires that when options are demanded by the CinC the JCS prepares a list supported for each option by fully formulated documentation that enables the president to approve one (or none) and then sign the required operational order.  Trump himself chose the death option.  I would hold General Milley (CJCS) personally responsible for not striking this option from the list before it reached the CinC. 

2.  The Iranians are a subtle people.  IMO they will bide their time whilst working out the "bestest" way to inflict some injury on the US and/or Israel.  When the retaliation comes it will be imaginative and painful.

3.  Trump is  now threatening the Iraqis with severe sanctions if they try to enforce their parliamentary decree against the future presence of foreign (US mostly) troops on their soil.  IMO a refusal to leave risks a substantial Shia (at least) uprising against the US forces in Iraq.  We have around 5,500 people there now spread across the country in little groups engaged in logistics, intelligence and training missions.  They are extremely vulnerable.  There are something like 150 marines in the embassy.  There are also a small number of US combat forces in Syria east and north of the Euphrates river.  These include a battalion of US Army National Guard mechanized troops "guarding" Syria's oil from Syria's own army and whatever devilment the Iranians might be able to arrange.

4.  This is an untenable logistical situation.  Supply and other functions require a major airfield close to Baghdad.  We have Balad airbase and helicopter supply and air support from there into Baghdad is possible from there but may become hazardous.  Iraq is a big country.  It is a long and lonely drive from Kuwait for re-supply from there or evacuation through there.  The same thing is true of the desert route to Jordan.

5.  Trump's strategery appears to be based on the concept that the Iraqis will submit to our imperial demands.  "We will see."  pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iran-strike-live-updates/2020/01/06/3b5451f2-3024-11ea-9313-6cba89b1b9fb_story.html?rand=4

Saudi Arabia - a family holding company, not a friend.

I speak fluent Arabic.  I was the first professor of the Arabic Language and Middle East Studies at West Point where I was twice judged best classroom teacher and was offered permanent tenure which I declined not wishing to become a permanent school teacher rather than a soldier.

I have spent 40+ years working on or in the Middle East as an active duty US Army officer, diplomat, senior civilian DoD official responsible for intelligence on the Middle East, and South Asia and a business executive directly involved with places like Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia was created by the conquest of the Arabian Peninsula after 1900 by tribes loyal to an extreme form of Wahhabi fanatic Islam based on the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam as reinforced by the extremist medieval scholar Ibn Taimmiya.  For him the only good non-Muslims were either slaves or corpses whose women had been taken as booty and distributed among the true Muslims.

The Saudi pseudo state remains largely motivated by the same ideas.  There is no constitution but Sunni Hanbali religious law.  There is no toleration of other than the official cult.  There are Shia Muslims in the Eastern Province but they are in constant danger from the regime.

The Al-Saud family (thousands great and small) run the place as their private holding.  Any talk of Saudi citizenship is a bad joke.  In SA there are; The Family, their toadies and flunkies, the Wahhabi Ulema, foreign guest workers and tribal, rural Arabs some of them migratory and others small town people.  This melange is held together by an effective police state that is restricted in power only by the royal prerogative.

Modernization? Hah! MBS has confessed to the brutal murder of Kashoggi.  The native masses, to the extent that they exist, have been intensively and exclusively conditioned with Ibn Taimmiya's views on the inherent enmity between the Faithful Wahhabi Sunni and the Kuffar (infidels, i.e. us).  The number of Saudi subjects of the king who are not horrified and disgusted by the West is trivially small.

The US has maintained a relationship with this conglomeration since 1944 when FDR met aboard a US cruiser in the Gulf with the creator of The Kingdom.  This symbiosis used to be justifiable on the basis of containment of the USSR and the oil of Arabia.  Neither of those necessities exist any longer.

Donald Trump is driven by  desire to sweeten the balance sheet of the US as well as a deluded belief in whatever it is that he thinks Israel stands for.   Israel seeks to manipulate the medieval barbarism of Saudi Arabia to further its fantasy of regional hegemony.  They should "wise up."

The Saudi who killed three people at Pensacola is representative of the breed.

It is time for a basic re-appraisal of our relationships in the ME.  pl

Several Things - December 6 2019

Joe Biden   I keep saying that Joe Biden is IMO a nasty bully masquerading as a benevolent, highly experienced and wise curmudgeon with deep roots in the Labor Unions.  He is none of those things.  In evidence of that he yesterday advanced menacingly toward a man who had the audacity to challenge the "Joe Biden" show and narrative.  This was in Iowa.  The man told him he (Biden)  was too old to be president (He is). The man questioned the probity of Joe's narcotics addled son''s appointment to the board of directors of  a corrupt enterprise in Ukraine.  Joe was visibly enraged and it seemed for a minute that he would attack this citizen.  Really, Democrats?  Really?  Him?  Bloomberg? Hilly?  Booker?  Castro? Warren?

Jobs.  The Labor Department employment report released today states that the US economy added 266,000 new jobs in November rather then the expected 186,000.  The unemployment rate fell to 3.5 %.  This is full employment because there is a certain amount of structural unemployment inherent in any economy.  "Impeachment?" What's that?

St. Nancy the hypocrite a reporter asked Pelosi yesterday if she acts from hatred of Trump.  She responded that having been raised as a Catholic she does not hate anyone because we are taught to hate the sin and love the sinner. Well, pilgrims, Catholics are expected to practice their religion through both faith and deeds and to accept the teaching of the Church.  In spite of the hopes of some, this is not a cafeteria operation.  One does not pick and choose among the Church's teachings. If you can't accept them, you leave.  Pelosi is in spiritual rebellion against the Church's teaching on abortion.  Catholic teaching is that abortion is murder plain and simple.  There are some Catholic politicians who claim to compartment their personal beliefs and actions from their responsibility to their non-Catholic constituents.  I do not challenge that having done much the same as a government servant but that is not the case with St. Nancy who is an ardent advocate for abortion.  BTW if the US government had sought to require me to do something immoral I would have refused and taken the consequences.

Riots in Paris  I like France, the French language, their wine, their cheese, their women and their style of life, but I am not blind to the faults of the French.  One of these is a tendency to take to the streets over grievances or perceived grievances  in society.  France has a highly regulated economy that does not particularly favor growth of the kind now being experienced in the US.  "Bureaucracy" as a word is French in origin.  At the same time the welfare state is massive and all pervasive.  In fact the welfare state with its early retirements and cradle to grave benefits is just too big to be sustained by the economy of the country.  This conflict of means and ends is strangling the country's ability to function.  Macron knows this and has been trying over the last year or so to "whittle down" the outputs enough to have them align with the inputs in the economy.  The result has been the "Yellow Sweaters" street riots and now a new wave of riots resisting attempts to change retirement laws.  This street activity will burn itself out but the  riots are likely to be prolonged. 

 The Shooting In Pensacola  A Saudi military trainee went shahiid (berserk)today and killed three people.  The naval aviation center there routinely trains foreign aviators.  There was nothing unusual in the man's presence on base.  He had been in training for a year.  King Salman sent his condolences supposedly saying to Trump that he and the Saudi people love the US and the American people.  Well, pilgrims, I lived in The Kingdom for several years and have visited many times and I do not remember indications of their love for us.  It will be interesting to learn if the student just ran amok crying Allahu Akbar! or couldn't make it in class or both.  pl

 

A useful map

More on the Yemeni triumph.

(These are ours now ...)

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/09/30/three-saudi-brigades-annihilated-in-devastating-houthi-offensive-in-saudi-arabia/

pl

"Nasr min Allah! Nasr min Allah!" (a victory from God Almighty) Somebody show this to Trump!

One of our correspondents was kind enough to send me this link.  We should all watch it.  It has a quality much like "The Battle of San Pietro,"  a film from the Italian Campaign in WW2.

It depicts a running battle through the mountains along the excellent road from Najran City as the Saudi and and allied Yemeni forces (referred to as traitors in the film) flee to the east trying to escape the giant, well laid ambush that was set as a trap by the Houthis and the Salih loyalist part of the Yemeni Army.

Evidently the senior Saudi commanders mostly deserted their men and fled early and swiftly.  As a result the Saudi forces surrendered en masse, abandoning armored vehicles and civilian type trucks stuffed full of weapons, supplies and ammunition.  Many of the vehicles, including armored vehicles are in running condition and in the film one can see Yemeni soldiers mount the vehicles and drive them off  Among these vehicles are fully tracked M-113 US made APCs that are carriers for radar trained air defense Gatling guns,   These will be very useful in the future.

Some of the vehicles are marked in Arabic as belonging to the Saudi National Guard (SANG) and from their condition I suppose that these troops were from the Modernized SANG that the US has worked hard to train and equip for fifty years or more.  The easy surrender of these beduins is very bad news for the Saudi monarchy.

The many, many prisoners seem to be humanely treated.  There are Houthi medical personnel on the scene treating enemy wounded.  If I were the Rebel commander I would truck all these prisoners down to Sanaa and invited the International Red Cross and UN in to register them and start a stream of food, water and shelter supplies coming in to care for all these men.

Someone please show President Trump this film.  It makes the lies of creatures like Pompeo obvious.

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/09/29/607432/Yemeni-Army-release-footage-of-Victory-from-God-Almighty-offensive-against-Najran

[Yemeni] Armed Forces spokesman: Saudi Brigades Destroyed, Scores of Mercs Captured in Najran Offensive - TTG

Many of you have already passed the word of the Yemeni defeat of three Saudi brigades. Here is the description of this victory from the English edition of the Yemeni Almasirah Media Network.

————

News - Yemen 

The spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces says three Saudi military brigades were completely destroyed after Yemeni Army troops, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, mounted a large-scale military offensive in the kingdom’s southern border region of Najran. 

Speaking at a press conference in the capital Sana’a on Saturday evening, Brigadier General Yahya Saree described the major and efficient operation, dubbed Victory from Allah, as the biggest-ever since Saudi Arabia and some of its allies embarked an atrocious military campaign on Yemen more than four years ago, noting that the offensive lasted several months and inflicted dramatic losses – both in terms of military hardware and personnel – upon the enemy, the media bureau of Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement said in a statement.

“The operation resulted in the complete destruction of three military brigades of the enemy (Saudi) forces, seizure of large quantities of military equipment, including hundreds of vehicles and armored vehicles, capture of thousands of enemy forces, mostly traitors and the beguiled (Saudi sponsored Yemeni militiamen loyal to Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi). Hundreds more were killed and wounded in the process as well,” Saree pointed out.  (Almasirah English)

————

The Arabic language version of Almashirah had a few more details. I got these details only through Google Translate. This was another well planned operation aimed to lure the Saudis into a trap before annihilating them within 72 hours of the commencement of the operation. In other words, the Saudi forces were not only out-fought by the plucky little hill people, but they were out-witted, out-planned and out-campaigned by the Houthis. The Houthis employed “specialized” units of the Yemeni Army including “rocket power and air force marching and defense Aerial” [Google translate results]. I'm sure Colonel Lang or another Arabic speaker here can give a better translation.

The Houthi forces had to protect their prisoners from ensuing Saudi airstrikes. I suspect the captured Yemeni militiamen loyal to Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and other mercenary prisoners will no longer be supporting the Saudi Royals after being targeted by the Saudi Air Force. Many may decide to come over to the Houthi side rather than remain POWs.

This same Yemeni Army brigadier general speaking today mentioned Yemeni Armed Forces possessed enough drones, rockets and cruise missiles to last two years when he introduced these weapons several months ago. Between this fact and today’s Houthi ground victory, it is no surprise the Saudis are accepting the ceasefire. 

Spin that, you miserable royal bastards! 

Almashirah said there will be a more in depth briefing on Operation Victory from Allah tomorrow. 

TTG

http://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=9020&cat_id=1

(The Arabic language version)

https://almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=45411&cat_id=3

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/houthi-forces-capture-saudi-army-officers-in-big-attack-along-yemeni-border/

Saudi Arabia accepts cease fire in Yemen

"Saudi Arabia has agreed to a limited cease-fire in several areas of Yemen including the capital Sana’a, which is controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, as part of broader efforts to end a four-year conflict that has threatened to escalate into regional war.

A Yemeni government official and a diplomat said attempts were underway to expand the truce. Saudi officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Last week, the Houthis announced a unilateral halt to the hundreds of drone and missile attacks that have targeted OPEC’s largest producer in recent years.

The apparent breakthroughs follow a devastating attack on major Saudi oil facilities that briefly halved the country’s output and rattled global markets this month. Yemen’s Houthis said they carried out the attack using a swarm of unmanned aircraft, but the U.S. has said Iran was responsible."  yahoo, Bloomberg, etc.

--------------

This doesn't fit the US government BS narrative in which it was IRAN who attacked at Abqaiq and Khareus.  Pompeo scoffed the other day at the idea that the Yemeni rebels could have done the deed, but here we have the obvious truth.

Saudi Arabia would not have negotiated a cease fire with the Yemeni rebels if it had not been the Yemenis who attacked them.  They know that if there is not a cease fire there will be more attacks against their petroleum infrastructure and possibly their desal plants without which they cannot survive.

Remember this the next time Pompeo tells you anything.  He evidently forgot the word "honor" in the West Point motto.  pl

https://www.yahoo.com/news/saudi-arabia-agrees-limited-cease-134703209.html

Experience Saudi Arabia! Don't do it...

"Tourism chief Ahmed Al Khateeb said abayas will not be mandatory for women tourists but modest dress is, including at public beaches.

Visas will be available online for about $80 (Dh294), with no restrictions for unaccompanied women as in the past. Access to the Muslim holy cities of Makkah and Medina is restricted.

Further details of the new visa rules will be announced on Friday evening at 10.30pm UAE time during an unveiling ceremony scheduled to take place at Ad Diriyah, a Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Site in Riyadh."

Currently only citizens of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the UAE can travel freely to the country."  Gulf News

--------------

What a treat! A visit to a theocratic police state where religious volunteer police wander the country looking for sinners as defined in the Hanbali sharia law code of the country.   There is no civil law code, none, and the Hanbali school of Sunni law restricts the basis of judicial decisions to Qur'an and Hadith.  This last  is the Hanbali accepted corpus of traditions of the practice and utterances of the Prophet and the early Muslim community living in the Mecca/Medina area.  This excludes the mass of case law consulted by judges in the other three Sunni "schools" of law and the entire Shia world. 

Once you enter SA as a tourist you will be be completely at the mercy of the Bone Saw Man's whims.  Women alone will be looked at by the populace as whores who have not yet been punished.  Relationships between members of tourist groups will be carefully scrutinized.  Public displays of affection will be noted.  A woman emerging from a hotel in a short sleeved dress or God Forbid! in shorts will be reminded of her lack of modesty and doubtful morality.  Blasphemous utterance questioning the Way of God will have to be corrected.

And what is there to see, "Meda'in Salih?  This was a frontier outpost of the Nabataean state.  Go to Jordan and see the Nabataean capital at Petra AND have a G & T at the end of the day in a government run hotel.  In Jordan on Sunday you can go to church.  In SA there  are not churches and Christians who pray together in secret are arrested and imprisoned.

Go to a decent place like; Jordan, Oman, Morocco, Turkey  pl

https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/saudi/its-official-saudi-is-open-to-tourists-from-around-the-world-1.1569496913496

“Military experts believe Iranian-made drones set off from Yemen to strike Aramco" ra'i al yowm

I was provided this translation by Alastair Crooke's  "The Raw and the Cooked" on line magazine published from Crooke's location in Beirut.  This a very fine subscription service and I recommend it highly.   [email protected]  is their contact e-mail address.  pl 

--------------

“Military experts believe Iranian-made drones set off from Yemen to strike Aramco

Rai al-Youm daily, 17 Sept 2019

The military commanders in the USA are keeping silent with regards to the source of the attacks that targeted the Aramco oil facilities last Saturday and that caused some serious damages there. It seems that the Houthis have used Iranian-made modern drones and that a commando unit from Saudi land served to steer the drones at the last few minutes prior to the strikes.
“So far, the statements of the American politicians are leading the list of accusations directed at Iran for allegedly being responsible for the attacks... The American politicians are speaking about Iran’s responsibility although the Houthis have released a statement where they stressed that they stand behind this operation knowing that the Houthis have always been honest in their military statements in order to gain the trust of the international media outlets.

“The odd part consists of the silence of the American military commanders. Indeed, there has been no official report released by the Pentagon that accuses Iran. Furthermore, no senior military officers made any statements to accuse Iran. The senior officers and military experts are actually cautious and not taking the risk of making any incorrect statements. They realize that the arsenal of the American radars at the Arabian Gulf including the land and the ship-mounted radars have recorded at least half the drones’ flight, which is enough data to tell the source.

“The Abqaiq station is geographically close to Bahrain and Qatar. It is thus close to the American Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, which is equipped with modern radars. It is also close to the Al-Udeid base in Qatar, which is home to the most modern radars of the American military industry. These radars are capable of monitoring the activity of the rockets and drones coming from Iran or Iraq. If these radars failed to do that, then this constitutes a scandal for the American military industry knowing that the radars are pointed at Iran.

“The secret behind the US military commanders’ silence and them abstaining from mentioning the source of the drones is because they don’t wish to admit that the drones are Iranian-made and were able to dodge the radars that are deployed in the region. Iran might have smuggled these drones to the Houthis... Iran possesses advanced drones that are capable of flying for long distances while loaded with explosives. These include drones that can carry out suicide missions by striking fixed targets such as the Muhajir, Raad, and Karrar drones. These have succeeded in the past to fly above the American aircraft carriers. Some comments are circulating at the American military chat rooms that go: “If Iran is capable of shooting down a Global Hawk, and if it was able to take photos of the aircraft carriers in the Gulf, then this means that its drones are as advanced as its missiles. This is something that one must admit.”””

“Breaking: Houthis to halt missile strikes after Saudi Arabia offers peace deal” says Al Masdar News - TTG

Earlier today Al Masdar News ran a story that caught my eye. If true, it was an acknowledgement by the Saudis that it was the Houthis who droned the shit out of their oil facility and were clearly capable doing it again.

—————

BEIRUT, LEBANON (9:10 P.M.) – The Houthi Movement (var. Ansarallah Movement) announced on Friday that they are halting their missiles strikes on Saudi Arabia after the Gulf kingdom offered them a peace deal. According to the Houthi Movement, the Saudi Coalition offered to halt their airstrikes over Yemen in exchange for the halting of all Houthi missile strikes.

This announcement from the Yemeni group comes just days after the Houthi forces bombed one of the largest Saudi Aramco oil facilities inside Saudi Arabia. (AMN)

—————

However, no other news agency has repeated the line about the Saudis offering a peace deal. All other accounts speak of a Houthi offering of a mutual ceasefire in the air war. The Almasirah Media Network, a Yemeni TV channel affiliated with the Houthi Movement, ran the following story concerning the peace offer.

—————

Follow - ups September 20 | In a speech marking the fifth anniversary of the September 21 revolution, President of the Supreme Political Council Mehdi Mashat launched a peace initiative in which he called on all parties from all sides of the war to seriously engage in serious and genuine negotiations leading to comprehensive national reconciliation that does not exclude anyone from injecting blood. In the interest of the remaining bonds of brotherhood and to overcome the higher national interests.

He announced the cessation of the targeting of Saudi territory by flying planes, ballistic missiles, wings and all forms of targeting. "We are waiting for the same or better greetings in a similar announcement to stop all forms of targeting and aerial bombardment of our Yemeni territory and reserve the right to respond if this initiative is not met," he said. (Google translation)

—————

Did Al Masdar get it wrong? Perhaps the Saudis are trying to keep any ceasefire offer on the down low. They have demonstrated that the very idea that the Houthis carried out the successful strike on Aramco facility is beyond embarrassing. They are loath to admit it and offering peace to the Houthis is doing just that. How can those uncouth hill people do such a thing to the royal sheiks, the guardians of Mecca? We’ll have to see what happens next. Will there be an unannounced lull in the Saudi air campaign against the Houthis or will there be another Houthi drone strike on a Saudi target. In my opinion it could go either way.

TTG

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-houthis-to-halt-missile-strikes-after-saudi-arabia-offers-peace-deal/

https://www.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=45095&cat_id=3

Iran, We Got to Do Something? by Larry C Johnson

Like a Japanese Kabuki dance Washington is in the grasp of War theater. Many pundits and members of Congress are filling the airwaves and offering up quotes demanding action. Demanding retaliation. We have to stand up to Iran. Only one little problem, the intel on the attack on the Saudi oil installations remains sketchy and hidden.

If the missiles were fired from Iranian territory then our intel collection certainly captured the launch or tracked the origin of the drones or missiles used in the attack. So where is it? I have heard from reliable sources that the info is being kept behind a highly classified wall and only those with access to this particular compartmented info can see it.

I only see four possibilities:

1. The missiles/drones were launched from Iran.
2. The missiles/drones were launched from Yemen.
3. The missiles/drones were launched from a maritime platform in the Persian Gulf
4. The missiles/drones were landed from a country that borders Saudi Arabia, such as Iraq.

Hmmm. I do not believe that if we had solid proof the attack came from Iranian territory that the United States would keep that info behind a Top Secret wall. I also doubt that we would try to hide the fact that the missiles/drones came from Yemen.

What if the missiles/drones came out of Iraq? That is something we would try to keep quiet. Having to admit that our "ally" (Iraq) was the origin of the attack brings with it a whole host of foreign policy problems. 

Meet the Quds1 cruise missile. Made in Yemen?

"On September 14, several explosions rocked the Khurais oilfield as well as the Abqaiq refinery, one of Saudi Arabia’s most vital petrochemical installations. Several hours later, the Houthis claimed that they had targeted both facilities with ten drones as part of their “Balance of Deterrence” campaign.

What made this attack different from other recorded Houthi drone attacks was not only the unprecedented amount of material damage caused but also lingering doubt about the nature and the attribution of the attack. First, a video allegedly showing flying objects entering Kuwaiti airspace led to speculation that like a previous “Houthi” drone attack this strike might actually have originated in Iraq or even Iran. While the video remains unverified, the fact that the Kuwaiti government launched a probe into the issue lends some credence to the idea that something might have happened over Kuwait that day. Speculation about the origins of the attack was further fueled by a tweet by Mike Pompeo in which he claimed that there was no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.

Then the question arose whether drones had been used at all, or whether the attack might in fact have been a missile strike. Previous Houthi drone strikes against oil facilities tended to result in quite limited damage which could be an indication that a different weapons system was used this time. Indeed, Aramco came to the conclusion that its facilities were attacked by missiles. Even more curious, several pictures began to emerge on social media purportedly showing the wreckage of a missile in the Saudi desert. While the images appear real, neither the date the photos were taken nor their location can be verified. Social media users quickly claimed the images showed a crashed Iranian-made Soumar cruise missile. The Soumar and its updated version, the Hoveyzeh, are Iran’s attempts at reverse-engineering the Soviet-designed KH-55 cruise missile, several of which the country illegally imported from Ukraine in the early 2000s. Others claimed it was the Quds 1, a recently unveiled Houthi cruise missile often claimed to be a rebranded Soumar."  armscontrolwonl

---------------

TTG raised the issue of whether or not this wave of strikes was done by UAVs or cruise missiles.  IMO this cruise missile could be built in Yemen with Iranian assistance.   I am very interested in the question of what the actual vector of the attacks was in this case.  pl

/www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1208062/meet-the-quds-1/

Houthi UAVs set big Saudi refinery alight. al-jazeere, etc.

"Saudi Arabia is shutting down half of its oil production after drones attacked the world’s largest oil processing facility in the kingdom, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The closure will impact almost five million barrels of crude production a day, about 5% of the world’s daily oil production, the WSJ reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Early Saturday, an oilfield operated by Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant, was attacked by a number of drones, which sparked a huge fire at a processor crucial to global energy supplies.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was one of their largest attacks ever inside the kingdom, the WSJ reported.

“We promise the Saudi regime that our future operations will expand and be more painful as long as its aggression and siege continue,” a Houthi spokesman said. The attack deployed 10 drones, the Houthis said."  CNBC

-------------

Watch the al-jazeera video linked below. 

Some time ago, an "expert" on toy UAVs expressed an opinion on my FB page that the Houthis must be trucking these drones up to within a few miles of the target before flying them.  This attack would seem to exclude this possibility.  The question of the size of the payload also is intriguing because of the amount of damage inflicted, and then there is the matter of the guidance system. 

This is a game changer.  pl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6BgA54VZBk

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/14/saudi-arabia-is-shutting-down-half-of-its-oil-production-after-drone-attack-wsj-says.html

Will Saudi Arabia survive the Yemen War? - Re-published 2 September 2016, Republished again 30 August 2019

(In light of; the decline in the economy of SA, the apparently successful Yemeni guided missile attack on Taif, SA (700 Km from the Yemen border), and the presence of Yemeni forces in the Asir Province of SA it seems appropriate to re-publish this post.  It was originally posted in April, 2015)

"Pakistan's parliament voted on Friday not to join the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen, dashing Riyadh's hopes for powerful support from outside of the region in its fight to halt Iranian-allied Houthi rebels.

Saudi Arabia had asked fellow Sunni-majority Pakistan to provide ships, aircraft and troops for the campaign, now in its third week, to stem the influence of Shi'ite Iran in what appears to be proxy war between the Gulf's two dominant powers.

While Saudi Arabia has the support of its Sunni Gulf Arab neighbors, Pakistan's parliament voted against becoming militarily involved.

"(Parliament) desires that Pakistan should maintain neutrality in the Yemen conflict so as to be able to play a proactive diplomatic role to end the crisis," it said."  Reuters 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/10/us-yemen-security-idUSKBN0N10LO20150410

-------------------

IMO Saudi Arabia lacks the military capability to intervene successfully in Yemen.  This is equally true in what was North Yemen (YAR) and also in the former PDRY.  SA's armed forces were always built for show with a lot of expensive equipment that they were never capable of employing except at the elementary "stick and rudder" level of operations.  The maintenance contracts for all that equipment have always been impressive.   On the ground the Saudis possess a Wahhabi beduin manned force in the SANG that is designed to maintain population and territorial control and in its more modern parts to overawe the Twelver Shia majority population of the Eastern Province (where the oil and gas is located).  The rest of the Saudi Land Forces are pretty much a jobs program for poor people from the Asir and Najd regions.  In its warlike pronouncements thus far SA is mimicking the PR employed by he US, but such PR methods do not win wars against determined opponents.  Egypt is dragging its feet.  The coalition allies have contributed little except for the US.  pl

***********

"Ground troops would certainly face stiff resistance from the Houthi militiamen. Seasoned guerrilla fighters, they seized parts of southern Saudi Arabia during a brief war in 2009, killing over 100 Saudi troops.

Saudi Arabia has not ruled out a ground attack, but its allies appear wary of such a move. The kingdom has asked Pakistan to commit troops to the campaign, but that country is deeply divided over participating in an operation that could anger its own Shiite minority.

Though fraught with risk, continued airstrikes and a possible ground incursion may be the only choices that Saudi Arabia sees itself as having, said Imad Salamey, a Middle East expert at Lebanese American University. He said that officials in Riyadh probably are concerned that relenting could be perceived as weakness, especially by Iran."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/saudi-air-war-struggles-to-make-gains-as-yemen-fragments/2015/04/09/1a045766-ddf6-11e4-b6d7-b9bc8acf16f7_story.html

-----------------

IMO Saudi Arabia is headed for an embarrassing failure in Yemen, one that will reveal its true nature as a gang of nepotistic hedonists sitting on immense wealth.

What could be more tempting?  pl 

Gabbard was right about the USG and al-qa'ida

Tulsi Gabbard is being thrashed today in the Trump Is Always Perfect camp for saying that He is supporting AQ.  If she had expanded the accusation to include actions taken in the Obama administration she would have been exactly correct.

The Saudis, the Israelis and their acolytes among American neocons like the late, sainted John McCain, Sheldon Adelson, Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman, John Bolton and Pom Pom have long succeeded in using the madcap US policy of regime change in Syria as an excuse to fund jihadi groups in Syria.  There is a wide variety of these but the most obvious are the al-nusra front and hayat tahrir al-sham, both of which are branches of AQ in Syria.

Both CIA and the US armed forces have been and still may be supplying and funding these groups.  She was right.  She simply needed to explain herself better and not try to pin the blame solely on Trump who is largely an "absentee landlord" with regard to policy in the ME.  He has no policy in the ME.  Adelson, Natanyahu and Lindsey Graham have policy in the ME, but not Trump. pl

https://www.foxnews.com/media/tulsi-gabbard-defends-debate-claim-that-trump-supports-al-qaeda-to-shannon-bream

A collapse in the House of Bolton?

"The Baghdad Summit is scheduled to take place on April 20th with several Middle Eastern countries set to participate in this conference organized by Iraq.

The list of countries participating in the Baghdad Summit are as followed: Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, and Syria."  AMN and Reuters

------------

Unless I am seriously mistaken, this meeting is a major setback for the John Bolton view of "the direction" of history in the ME.  These countries are supposed to be obeying Bolton's rules of international order in which peoples and governments are easily manipulated through intimidation and/or bribes to line up neatly into blocs that are on one side stooges of the US and on the other implacable and deadly enemies who must be pursued across all the world's oceans until they "spout black blood and roll fin out."  They can then be added to the US controlled blocs.

Perhaps I have missed something here but these folks do not appear to be playing their assigned roles.  pl

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/iran-turkey-syria-saudi-arabia-set-to-meet-for-first-time-at-baghdad-summit/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-parliament/iraq-to-host-regional-rivals-iran-and-saudi-arabia-at-conference-idUSKCN1RW08B

Should the resolution on Yemen under section 1544(c) of the War Powers law be faithfully executed by the president rather than be subject to a veto?

By Robert Willmann

On 4 April 2019, Congress passed a resolution under the War Powers Act, officially known as the War Powers Resolution, Public Law 93-148, to stop most operations by U.S. Armed Forces in Yemen.  This was noted here on SST [1].  On 16 April, president Trump vetoed the resolution, which was Senate Joint Resolution 7 (S.J.Res. 7)--

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-veto-message-senate-accompany-s-j-res-7/

The section of the War Powers Resolution/Act applied in this instance is section 1544(c), "Concurrent resolution for removal by president of United States Armed Forces" [2]--

"(c) Notwithstanding subsection (b), at any time that United States Armed Forces are engaged in hostilities outside the territory of the United States, its possessions and territories without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization, such forces shall be removed by the President if the Congress so directs by concurrent resolution."

The War Powers law was passed during the time of the Vietnam War to try to give Congress more specific control over actions amounting to war because the Vietnam conflict was not conducted pursuant to a declaration of war by Congress under Article 1, section 8 of the constitution.  President Richard Nixon vetoed the bill, arguing that Congress could use its power to appropriate money and stop funding the war.  However, Congress overrode his veto by at least a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate, and the War Powers Resolution became law on 7 November 1973. 

 

Congress finally uses the War Powers law to try to stop involvement in Yemen

By Robert Willmann

While the mass media tries to distract and influence the people by using topics on the federal income tax returns of Donald Trump's numerous limited liability companies and corporations, and what the Robert Mueller group might have said in its "report", something of real importance happened yesterday.  Congress as a whole finished passing a resolution under the War Powers Act, also called the War Powers Resolution, to stop involvement in the Yemen war without further authorization.

Senate Joint Resolution 7, first introduced in the Senate on 30 January 2019 by co-sponsors Bernie Sanders (Independent [Dem.] Vermont) and Mike Lee (Repub. Utah), is entitled:  "A joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress" [1]--

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/7/text

It passed the Senate by a 54-46 vote, and in the House by 247-175 (voting present, 1; not voting, 9).  A few Republicans joined the Democrats to push it through [2].

The War Powers Resolution/Act was passed in 1973 in the context of the Vietnam War to try to boost the power of Congress to decide whether war will exist or not, by adding specific language in a statute in addition to the Constitutional statement in Article 1, section 8:  "The Congress shall have Power ... To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water".  The Vietnam War was a full-fledged, real war, but it was not authorized by a Congressional declaration of war pursuant to the constitution.

 

Yet another piece of Kushner's "Deal of the Century"

"The king said that the plan was dangerous and not simple to implement, in particular the part relating to the land swaps in Tzofar, a moshav in the Arava desert, and Naharayim, where Jordan conquered in 1948 the Island of Peace and a hydroelectric power-plant that belonged to Israel. According to the Trump proposal, Jordan would receive from Saudi Arabia an area equal in size to these territories which Israel would reacquire.

In addition, Jordan has been asked to take in a million “Palestinian” refugees in several stages, in return for $45 billion in investments. Jordan’s entire GDP is only $40 billion. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states will finance these investments."  Jewish Press

--------------

The full "good deal of the century" will evidently be revealed after the Israeli election. 

Pieces of the "good deal of the century" have previously been revealed.

The move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem has been followed by endless Palestinian waves of self immolation along the Gaza "dead line."  This will continue indefinitely unless the Beebster or his successor decide to  re-occupy Gaza to stop Palestinian rockets reaching Tel Aviv.  Now, that  would be a spectacle.

Another piece of "The Kushner Plan" was the cession by the US of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to Israel.  The justification for this was that the Israelis hold it by force of arms.  Syria, of, course does not accept the US transfer of title deed to part of its territory.

These two things are typical of Trump's NY City real estate methodology.  In his mind he is systematically taking points of contention off "the bargaining table" so that he can "close" over what's left.

This latest "offer" made to Jordan is part of what is left.  Perhaps some savant can explain what the various parts of this "partial good deal" mean. " A million Palestinians?"  Where would they come from?  Would they be round up for transportation to The East?  Saudi Arabia would transfer land to Jordan?  Where?  On the Gulf of Akabah coast near Tabuk?  Really?  The Saudis and Gulfies would cough up $45 billion for investments in Jordan?  To do what?  Tourism?  Really?  And who would own these enterprises?  Lebanon will give its citizenship to the hordes of Palestinian descended people who inhabit the country?  They have firmly resisted this for decades. 

Explain all this, someone.  pl

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/al-akhbar-trump-wants-jordan-to-take-in-1-million-palestinians/2019/04/05/

Saudi Arabia - an absolutist tyranny

"The Rapid Intervention Group also appears to have been involved in the detention and abuse of about a dozen women’s rights activists, who were detained last spring and summer. The activists, who had campaigned for lifting the kingdom’s ban on driving by women, included several well-known figures: Loujain al-Hathloul, who had been jailed for trying to drive her car into the kingdom from the United Arab Emirates; Aziza al-Yousef, a retired computer science professor; and Eman al-Nafjan, the linguistics lecturer.

At first, the women were not held in a prison, but were detained informally in what appeared to be an unused palace in the Red Sea port city of Jidda, according to Ms. al-Hathloul’s sister, Alia. Each woman was locked in a small room, and the windows were covered. Some of the women were frequently taken downstairs for interrogation, which included beatings, electric shocks, waterboarding and threats of rape and murder.

In an Op-Ed article for The New York Times, Alia al-Hathloul wrote that Mr. al-Qahtani was “present several times” when her sister was tortured, and that he threatened to kill her and throw her body in the sewer.

Loujain al-Hathloul, who was jailed for trying to drive her car into the kingdom from the United Arab Emirates.CreditReuters

Image

The treatment was so harsh that Ms. al-Nafjan tried to commit suicide, according to a United States intelligence assessment.

The women were later moved to the Dhahban Prison in Jidda, where the physical abuse stopped and their relatives were allowed to visit, Ms. al-Hathloul said.

Their trial opened in Riyadh on Wednesday, but journalists and diplomats were not permitted to attend, and the government did not announce the charges against them."   NYT

-------------

Hello?  Trump thinks that a government that treats women like this is a desirable ally?  I understand that the Israelis will stop at nothing in seeking allies against their favorite demons, the Iranians.  You remember them, pilgrims, they haunt the dreams of Israelis, neocons and evidently the Trump family.  Should they so haunt the dreams of us ordinary folk that we link our fates to that of a medieval tyranny like Saudi Arabia?  I think not.  pl

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/world/middleeast/khashoggi-crown-prince-saudi.html?emc=edit_th_190318&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=4051510318

Let the Russians or the Chinese fight over Saudi money, not us!

Mister President, in the patois of your native New York City, pull your head out of your ass concerning the Middle East.  The Saudis AND their government are nearly all religious fanatics of the Wahhabi, Sunni variety.  The Al- Saud family run an absolute tyranny justified by their defense  of the fanatic, medievalist brand of Islam that they live by as well as by the support of tribal groups who keep the Al-Saud secure as they always have.

Wake up!  All the world is NOT a market place.  Some things that cannot have dollar signs attached to them are more important than money.  The men who fought in The Bulge, on Okinawa or in the Ia Drang Valley knew that.  Why do you not know that?

Iran is not Nazi Germany any more than Saddam Hussein's Iraq was Nazi Germany.  You have been sold a bill of goods by the lying ignorant imperialist neocons and the Zionists who care nothing except for Israel.  Your son in law, a White House counselor and US government employee, supports the theme music played by today's Israel.  He sold MBS to you?  Well, he betrayed you and the US in seeking to drag us down the road of absolute support of a country that openly stands for religious identity as a basis for first class citizenship and who are currently mad about Saudi Arabia.  Is that really what you stand for?  Or is it simply a matter of the money given to you to run your political efforts by the Zionists, money that you yourself do not have to cough up?

Even Lindsey Graham, a hard core neocon, understands that to excuse MBS' authorization of the murder of a US legal resident, with three US citizen children is not only to give the Saudis a free run at killing Americans who displease them, but also to give a free run to any government who are displeased by the utterances of dissidents.  After all, there might be business to be had in those countries.

Drop the Saudis.  Drop the relationship.  Save yourself before this destroys you.  Forget Mueller.  This is a real threat.  pl

HARPER: SAUDI PATRONS OF KHASHOGGI RALLY BEHIND MBS

Some things in Saudi Arabia don't change.  Jamal Khashoggi is dead, clearly the victim of a premeditated assassination ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  The latest evidence leaked from the CIA to the Wall Street Journal is that MBS sent eleven text messages to the top aide who was running the torture murder of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.  But MBS remains in charge, and so it is no surprise that two of the former leading patrons of Jamal Khashoggi--Prince Turki bin Faisal and Prince Al Waleed bin Talal--have both come out as full-fledged MBS loyalists, denouncing US allegations that the Crown Prince had any involvement.  Prince Turki issued a statement on November 24, declaring that the CIA should not be trusted or believed in their conclusion that MBS ordered the Khashoggi hit.  "The CIA is not necessarily the highest standard of veracity or accuracy in assessing situations.  The examples of that are multitude."  Speaking at the Beirut Institute, the former head of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Directorate (GID) cited the US CIA claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as the best recent example of the CIA getting it all wrong.  "That was the most glaring and inaccurate of wrong assessments, which led to a full-scale war in which thousands were killed.  I don't see why the CIA is not on trial in the United States.  This is my answer to their assessment of who is guilty and who is not and who did what in the consulate in Istanbul."

The Faisal clan, including Prince Turki and his brother Saud bin Faisal, former Foreign Affairs Minister, have real estate holdings and other assets inside the Kingdom.  Maybe that's one of the concerns behind the former Saudi intelligence chief making such preposterous statements to rally behind MBS.  Within the Saudi Royal Family, everything is transactional, and as Col. Lang recently noted, the Saudi Royals believe that they are the true chosen people.  Lying to infidels is part of the outlook.

Prince Turki was Jamal Khashoggi's patron for decades.  Khashoggi was Turki's liaison to Osama bin Laden for many years (Khashoggi and bin Laden joined the Muslim Brotherhood at the same time in the late 1980s, in the midst of the Afghan Mujahideen operations.  Khashoggi was an "imbedded journalist" with bin Laden's fighters, and Khashoggi's reporting put OBL on the map).  When Prince Turki quit as GID head weeks before 9/11, Khashoggi accompanied him to London and then Washington when he was named Saudi ambassador to the Court of St. James and the United States.  When Turki returned home, he resumed control over Al Watan newspaper and made Jamal Khashoggi the editor-in-chief.

While Turki's criticisms of the CIA WMD blunder on Iraq is correct to some extent, making the leap to denounce the myriad evidence of MBS's hand behind the Khashoggi murder is more an act of survival and opportunism than truth.  So long as MBS remains on top, the surface loyalty will remain.  Until it's not.

The Saudis will not accept punishment.

I have been asked to give my view as to whether or not the Saudi theocracy would accept punitive measures in response to their confessed murder by government personnel of Kashoggi. 

In my opinion they will not.  They believe that they, not the Jews, are the chosen people of God and that it is their destiny to establish the dominance of the 'Umma  (God's community) over the Peoples of the Book (Ahl al-kitab) and the other assorted populations of the earth.  To accept punishment for killing the apostate Kashoggi would be to deny the Ummah' its place in God's plan for mankind.

John Abizaid is nominated to be ambassador to Saudi Arabia.  His "legend" holds that he is a miracle worker with the Arabs, but that is all BS.  He is a descendant of Christian Lebanese.  Such people are servants of the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia.  He learned his Arabic in the US Army.  I would love to test his actual proficiency.  The Saudi establishment welcomes his appointment.  They think that enough money, offered in various paths will deal with him.

What do I think we should do about MBS?  IMO we should use every possibility to turn the royal family against him.  He has alienated many.  Gina Haspel should get busy using wusta (intermediaries) across the world to tell the Saudi nomenklatura that their financial interests will suffer mightily if he is allowed to continue as effective head of government.  pl

The mukhtar DJT, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel - reposted 21 November 2018

On the occasion of trump's remarkably frank admission of Saudi Arabia's power over the US it seems appropriate to re-post this.  In Trumpworld Israel's fantasy of the overarching Iranian menace creates a need for an alliance of steel to combat this threat to the world and that alliance must include Saudi Arabia.  Why that is so is not clear to me.  Saudi Arabia has no armed forces that possess real combat power to do anything but bomb civilians and oppress the Shia of the Eastern Province.  Possession of military equipment does not equal combat power.  A more convincing feature of theTrumpish view is the economic bit.  DJT wants the Saudis'money for the US economy.  Like any businessman/trader at that elevated level he is loathe to surrender market share to his competitors who in this case are Russia and China.  He is also quite grateful that SA has pumped enough oil and gas to depress prices.  All in all, I would say that he was quite considerate in his forthright explanation to us all that he really IS the Saudi mukhtar of the United States.  pl

**********

Old Post
 

"I call upon Salman, the King of Saudi, to invite the prime minister of Israel Netanyahu to visit Saudi Arabia,” Katz said on Thursday speaking at the Herzliya conference. “We saw what a wonderful host you can be… when President Trump was there. You can also send your heir, the new one, Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He’s a dynamic person. He is an initiator. And he wants to break through.”"  SF

--------------

OK, Yisrael Katz, the intelligence minister of Israel has asked the present king of Saudi Arabia to invite Benjamin Natanyahu to a state visit in Riyadh.  What a great idea! (irony)  IMO there is nothing that would be more likely to trigger a revolt within and without the SA royal family against King Salman and his son, the new crown prince.  People just don't understand that the Saudi population and the royal family (thousands of people in various factions) continue to regard Israel as the ultimate enemy.  For all these carefully indoctrinated Wahhabis, Israel is an abomination that occupies a portion of the territory of the 'umma, God's territory on earth.  To invite Israel's prime minister to Riyadh for a state visit or, indeed any kind of visit, would be to recognize Israel as a state legitimately and perpetually occupying Palestine.  The behind the scenes  machinations of various acculturated princes like Muhammad bin Salman mean nothing to the people of the Saudi kingdom.  What we are talking about in such a demand is an invitation to blasphemy and apostasy.  It is typical of the vast majority of Israelis that in their contempt for non-Jews and especially their neighbors, they remain ignorant of such realities.  A truce would be possible but not permanent recognition.  pl 

https://southfront.org/israeli-intelligence-calls-saudi-king-invite-netanyahu-riyadh/

********

" ... it is unlikely in the extreme that Saudi Arabia would have undertaken something so drastic without coordination with the US, particularly since this action comes literally on the heels of President Trump’s high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia.  While initially silent, President Trump ultimately took to Twitter to back Saudi Arabia against Qatar, even as the US still maintains major military presence in that country."

... the nature of the accusations leveled at Qatar is nothing short of extreme. Both US and Saudi leaders accused Qatar of about the worst offense currently available, namely supporting violent Islamic extremism. Trump went so far as to say that Qatar’s change of policies would be a major step toward resolving the problem of terrorism." SF

----------

 Saudi Arabia is a larger sponsor of Sunni jihadi movements than Qatar.  That has always been true.  The "kingdom" is a state built on Sunni fanaticism.  There are no churches, no synagogues, no legally resident ministers of other faiths than Islam in the country.  Mukhtar (appointed head man and tax farmer) Donald Trump swore allegiance to his Saudi pals in Riyadh.  He did that before an army of witnesses from across the Islamic world.  The Saudis have always sought to impose their sphere of influence upon all Muslims within their reach.  They understandably think that mukhtar Trump gave them an extended reach as their henchman.  The air base at al-odeid  in Qatar is a Qatari base in which the US has been allowed to position the forward element of US CENTCOM's headquarter, the US air operations center for the whole region and ten thousand bird men. (and women).  Arabs do not do things like that from altruistic love.  The Qataris expected protection from Iran and Saudi Arabia and have not gotten much of anything in return.   Now Turkey , pursuing its Turanian destiny (on hold since the Ottoman collapse) is building a military position as an ally of the al-thani  family rulers of Qatar.  SA and its pipsqueak Gulfie allies are now threatening Turkey with - what? Unhappiness if it does not abandon Qatar.? Did mukhtar Trump understand any of this before he swore fealty to King Salman?  I doubt it.  pl

it is unlikely in the extreme that Saudi Arabia would have undertaken something so drastic without coordination with the US, particularly since this action comes literally on the heels of President Trump’s high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia.  While initially silent, President Trump ultimately took to Twitter to back Saudi Arabia against Qatar, even as the US still maintains major military presence in that country.

The nature of the accusations leveled at Qatar is nothing short of extreme. Both US and Saudi leaders accused Qatar of about the worst offense currently available, namely supporting violent Islamic extremism. Trump went so far as to say that Qatar’s change of policies would be a major step toward resolving the problem of terrorism.

The nature of the crisis suggests it represents tensions that long bubbled under the surface but now have finally burst into the open.  The Qatari-Saudi falling out, and the make-up of the pro-Saudi faction, suggests that several factors at work here.

it is unlikely in the extreme that Saudi Arabia would have undertaken something so drastic without coordination with the US, particularly since this action comes literally on the heels of President Trump’s high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia.  While initially silent, President Trump ultimately took to Twitter to back Saudi Arabia against Qatar, even as the US still maintains major military presence in that country.

The nature of the accusations leveled at Qatar is nothing short of extreme. Both US and Saudi leaders accused Qatar of about the worst offense currently available, namely supporting violent Islamic extremism. Trump went so far as to say that Qatar’s change of policies would be a major step toward resolving the problem of terrorism.

The nature of the crisis suggests it represents tensions that long bubbled under the surface but now have finally burst into the open.  The Qatari-Saudi falling out, and the make-up of the pro-Saudi faction, suggests that several factors at work here.

it is unlikely in the extreme that Saudi Arabia would have undertaken something so drastic without coordination with the US, particularly since this action comes literally on the heels of President Trump’s high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia.  While initially silent, President Trump ultimately took to Twitter to back Saudi Arabia against Qatar, even as the US still maintains major military presence in that country.

The nature of the accusations leveled at Qatar is nothing short of extreme. Both US and Saudi leaders accused Qatar of about the worst offense currently available, namely supporting violent Islamic extremism. Trump went so far as to say that Qatar’s change of policies would be a major step toward resolving the problem of terrorism.

The nature of the crisis suggests it represents tensions that long bubbled under the surface but now have finally burst into the open.  The Qatari-Saudi falling out, and the make-up of the pro-Saudi faction, suggests that several factors at work here.

 https://southfront.org/qatar-crisis-consequences/

The Entry of the Commoner Scapegoats in Wahhabeeland

"Adel should be very, very, careful.  Commoners are a dinar a dozen in Wahhabeeland and MG al-asiri may not be a big enough sacrificial camel to mollify the kuffar   Asiri looks to me to be a typical shirt-tail boy from the boondocks who joined the Royal Saudi Forces long ago looking for a steady job that did not involve sheep or goats.  The Asir Province in the SW of The Kingdom is the very definition of The Boondocks in Saudi Arabia and al-asiri is a commoner like al-jubeir."  SST 21 October2018

******

"Saudi prosecutors said Thursday they would seek the death penalty for five people allegedly involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The Saudi Public Prosecutor's office added that former Saudi deputy intelligence chief, Ahmed al-Assiri, ordered a mission to force Khashoggi to go back to Saudi Arabia and formed a team of 15 people.

 

They were divided into three groups, it said: a negotiation team, an intelligence team and a logistical team.

 

Read More  It was the head of the negotiating team who ordered the killing of Khashoggi, the prosecution said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has called the Saudi Public Prosecutor's statement "unsatisfactory," reiterating a call for the culprits to be prosecuted under Turkish laws.

"They say (Khashoggi) resisted going back to their country and was killed. However, this murder was premeditated as we had announced before," Cavusoglu told reporters.

"The dismembering of the body is not an instant decision. They brought the necessary people and tools to kill him and dismember the body in advance," he added."  CNN

 

----------

 

This is all nonsense of course. 

 

The only question really is whether or not Assiri will get the chop himself or if they can let him off by saying that the leading choppee will be some less useful creature.

 

Almost any fool can understand that in the absolute monarchy of Saudi Arabia the servants of the king would not dare to undertake such an operation without the royal assent and in this case that means the crown prince, the king being presently reduced to the kind of person who finds his lost car keys in the refrigerator.  Or, that would be true if he had ever had any car keys. 

 

So, what will the Donald do?  My WAG would be that Trump will avert his eyes from the obvious falsehood and accept the head choppings as sufficient explanation.  There is just too much at risk in financial "pork" available in SA for American industry for him to do anything else.  pl 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/15/middleeast/jamal-khashoggi-saudi-prosecutor-death-penalty-intl/index.html

Turkey has given the Khashoggi tapes to the US, UK, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia

 "Turkey has given recordings on the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul to Saudi Arabia, the US, Germany, France and the UK, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on November 10.

Speaking before his departure for France to attend commemorations to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, Erdogan stated that the killer of Jamal Khashoggi is among a group of 15 Saudi citizens who arrived in Turkey one day ahead of the October 2 murder.

Previously, Ankara claimed to have had audio of the murder ever since the journalist went missing on October 2, after going inside the Saudi consulate, never to be seen again.

Initially, Saudi Arabia denied that Khashoggi was killed inside the building, insisting that he left it. Later, Riyadh changed its story to say the journalist was accidentally killed in a fist fight with consultate workers. Latr, the Saudi story was changed again. Now, Riyadh insists that the killing was carried out in a rogue operation unbeknownst to the leadership.

In turn, Erdogan has stated that that Khashoggi had been killed on order from the “highest levels” of the Saudi government."  SF

-----------

It is clear that Turkey is intent on discrediting Saudi Arabia in the Muslim World and also with the rest of us.  One might argue that they were already in low repute, but every little bit helps.

Trump, Macron and the other boys and girls can add this to their agenda for the present meeting about the end of WW1.  pl 

https://southfront.org/erdogan-turkey-gave-khashoggi-death-recordings-to-saudi-arabia-us-uk-france-germany/

Gina Haspel "heard Khashoggi audio"

 

"CIA director Gina Haspel has heard audio recordings that are believed to capture the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, media reports say.

They say Ms Haspel was allowed to listen to the audio during a visit to Turkey earlier this week.

Khashoggi, a US-based critic of the Saudi government, was killed during a visit to its consulate in Istanbul.

Saudi Arabia has blamed the killing on "rogue agents". The case has strained relations with the US and other allies.

Soon after the murder on 2 October, Turkish media quoted officials as saying they had audio recordings of Khashoggi's interrogation and death, but gave no details about the contents or how the audio had been obtained."BBC

--------------

Someone asked on SST what the purpose was of DCIA's trip to Turkey.  My suggestion was that she was there as another pair of eyes for Trump.

Well, pilgrims, Gina Haspel has a reputation as a hard nosed fact oriented intelligence pro.  There are not a lot of those around any longer.  Hiring and promoting policies over the last 30 years have changed the nature of the work force at the national level.  The Cold War era IC work force was a lot like a monastic order.  It was devoted to the trade of espionage and to analytic studiousness in modern scriptoria.  They were intensely proud of the often elegant results of the work.

In the era of identity politics and political correctness the emphasis in hiring and firing has been on things like gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.  The old breed are largely gone.  "Showboats" are everywhere.

In that context Haspel stands out as an exception.  Trump will listen to Haspel on this.  pl  

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45977041

Bezos' blog (Washington Post) does not love Saudi Arabia. Who knew?

"The Saudis say they are countering Iran, which backs the Houthis. But the Houthis are an indigenous group with legitimate grievances, and the war has only enhanced Iranian influence. As has been obvious for some time, the only solution is a negotiated settlement. But the Saudis have done their best to sabotage a U.N.-led peace process. Talks planned for Geneva in September failed when Saudi leaders would not grant safe travel guarantees to Houthi leaders."  Bezos' editorial board at WaPo

---------------

 Beneath the largely specious argument that Saudi Arabia has the US by the cojones economically lies the true factor that has caused the two countries to be glued together. 

This factor is the Israeli success in convincing the US government, and more importantly, the American people, that Iran is a deadly enemy, a menace to the entire world, a reincarnation of Nazi Germany, and that Saudi Arabia, a country dedicated to medieval methods of operation, is an indispensable ally in a struggle to save the world from Iran.  The successful effort to convince us of the reality of the Iranian menace reflects the previous successful campaign to convince us all that Iraq was also Nazi Germany come again.

The Iran information operation was probably conceived at the Moshe Dayan Center or some other Israeli think tank. and then passed on in the form of learned papers and conferences to the Foreign Ministry, the Mossad and the IDF.  After adoption as government policy the Foreign ministry and Zionist organizations closely linked to media ownership in the US and Europe were tasked for dissemination of the propaganda themes involved.  This has been a brilliantly executed plan.  The obvious fact that Iran is not presently a threat to the US has had little effect in countering this propaganda achievement.

Last Saturday morning, the Philadelphia based commentator Michael Smerconish openly asked on his popular talk show why it is that US policy favors the Sunni Muslims over the Shia. i.e., Saudi Arabia over Iran.  To hear that was for me a first.  This was an obvious defiance of the received wisdom of the age.  I can only hope that the man does not lose his show.

It is a great irony that the barbaric murder of a personally rather unpleasant but defiant exiled journalist has caused re-examination of the basis and wisdom of giving strategic protection to a family run dictatorship.  pl    

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/this-is-the-first-step-to-recalibrating-us-saudi-relations/2018/10/22/fb9eb598-d61f-11e8-a10f-b51546b10756_story.html?utm_term=.f3a1169429e7

Germany bans arms sales to SA.

 

"In the United States, a bipartisan group of senators triggered global Magnitsky Act sanctions procedures two weeks ago, forcing Trump to determine possible punishments against Saudi Arabia or Saudi officials over Khashoggi’s killing. If the United States imposed sanctions on Saudi Arabia, other major arms exporters such as Britain would probably also be forced to take similar measures. But in Berlin, top officials hope that their move to suspend future sales could pressure other European allies into following suit, even if the United States refrained from doing so.

Germany’s export stop will have little impact “if at the same time other countries fill this gap,” Merkel’s ally Altmaier acknowledged Monday."

--------------

Germany has gone "anti-medieval" on Saudi Arabia.  Who knew this would happen?

This should be an example for all the neocons and hyper-nationalists in the US.  The wahabbiyeen are playing them for suckers over the promised contracts.  So far the "contracts" are just promises of contracts.  That is not an unusual way to proceed in big business contracting; first the promise, then the contract, but nevertheless, the contracts do not exist as yet.

We can survive without Saudi money.  So can the rest of NATO.  If the Russians and/or the Chinese really want to be stuck with this Tar Baby, let them try it on!

But!  But!  The Iranian threat!  The Iranian threat! 

Threat to what?  Israel?  pl 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/22/germany-its-allies-well-halt-future-arms-sales-saudi-arabia-until-we-have-clarity-khashoggi-so-should-you/?utm_term=.58c7030d046b

Was the Chihuahua the chief rogue?

According to TS Eliot in "Murder in the Cathedral,"  Henry II (an English king) supposedly asked "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" and then, what, forgot about his remark?  Having heard the king's perhaps absent minded wish expressed, three knights mounted their steeds (horses) and rode hell bent for the French coast to board ship intent on ridding the world of Thomas à Becket.  Was this a rogue operation?

Now, Adel al-Jubeir (aka The Chihuahua) hath spake from beside the golden throne of the Al as-Saud (Custodians of the two holy mosques as Jubeir described King Salman) in Riyadh.  Adel is Foreign Minister of The Kingdom.  He spake today to an American TV newsie from Fox News.   Adel's spakeings included assertion of royal innocence and ignorance of the deed as well as a statement that The Kingdom knoweth not the last resting place of the aforesaid Kashoggi.

Adel should be very, very, careful.  Commoners are a dinar a dozen in Wahhabeeland and MG al-asiri may not be a big enough sacrificial camel to mollify the kuffar   Asiri looks to me to be a typical shirt-tail boy from the boondocks who joined the Royal Saudi Forces long ago looking for a steady job that did not involve sheep or goats.  The Asir Province in the SW of The Kingdom is the very definition of The Boondocks in Saudi Arabia and al-asiri is a commoner like al-jubeir.

Careful, Adel, careful  pl

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-exclusive-bret-baier-grills-saudi-foreign-minister-over-death-of-us-based-columnist-in-consulate 

Jack Keane doesn't know that the Al as-Saud ARE the Wahhabis

 

"Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab had concluded a formal agreement in 1744: according to one source, Muhammad ibn Saud had declared when they first met,

"This oasis is yours, do not fear your enemies. By the name of God, if all Nejd was summoned to throw you out, we will never agree to expel you." Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab replied, "You are the settlement's chief and wise man. I want you to grant me an oath that you will struggle with me against the unbelievers. In return you will be imam, leader of the Muslim community and I will be leader in religious matters."^[12]

Ibn Saud accordingly gave his oath.^[12] The descendants of Muhammad ibn Saud, the Al Saud, continued to be the political leaders of the Saudi state in central Arabia through the 19th and into the 20th centuries, and eventually created the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.^[9] The descendants of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, on the other hand, have historically led the ulema, the body of Islamic religious leaders and scholars,^[13] and dominated the Saudi state's clerical institutions.^[14]

The agreement between Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad ibn Saud of 1744 became a "mutual support pact" and power-sharing arrangement between the Al Saud and the Al ash-Sheikh, which has remained in place for nearly 300 years.^{[15][16][17][18]} The pact between the two families, which continues to this day,^{[citation needed]} is based on the Al Saud maintaining the Al ash-Sheikh's authority in religious matters and upholding and propagating the Wahhabi doctrine. In return, the Al ash-Sheikh support the Al Saud's political authority ^[19] thereby using its religious-moral authority to legitimize the royal family's rule.^[20] In fact, each legitimizes the other.^{[citation needed]}This alliance formed in the 18th century provided the ideological impetus to Saudi expansion and remains the basis of Saudi Arabian dynastic rule today.  ^{[21]  wiki on Wahhabism}

 -------------

General (ret) Jack Keane Fox News' "Senior Strategic Analyst" said on the air yesterday that the Saudi government "needs to distance itself from the Wahhabis."  this statement displayed a breathtaking lack of knowledge and understanding of Saudi history and actual religiopolitics.

 A few thoughts:

1.  Islam as an idea system does not recognize the legitimacy of secular rule.  Most majority Islamic countries have secular government of some sort.  These governments are the result of exposure to Western political thought through colonial experiences or prolonged exposure to such thought by education in Europe or America.  That admixture of ideas does not replace the ideal of theocracy in Salafi (purist) Islamic thought which continues to hold secular rule to be impious.

2. Islamic culture does not normally legitimize the concept of kingship. (malikiya) or rule by a sultan or shah (Iran).  Islam as such seeks a worldwide Islamic community ruled by scholars and judges of the Islamic law (sharia).  A sultan is someone who merely holds actual power to control land, population and territory.  The term does not denote legitimacy from the Islamic point of view.  Islamic history is dotted with individuals with title of secular rule who claimed Islamic legitimacy because they were also head of some dissident Islamic sect. An example would be the Sultan of Oman who protects the dissident and from the Sunni point of view heretical and apostate Ibadhi sect.  The Jordanian and Moroccan kings are generally accepted as legitimate rulers only because they are believed to be Alids, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, and endowed with a special barakat (grace) from God.  The Ottoman Sultan derived his supposed legitimacy from being both sultan and caliph (commanders of the faithful)  The Ottomans created this dual status in the 16th Century CE precisely because they sought a plausible claim of Islamic legitimacy as head of the 'umma.  The lack of a plausible claim to Islamic legitimacy was IMO the major weakness of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran This weakness made possible effective resistance to them that eventually resulted in the rule of the mullahs and wilayet al faqih (rule of the scholars).

3.  The Al as-Saud (the Saudi royal family) have none of that.  As stated in the text quoted above, their claim to Islamic legitimacy derives entirely from their 300 year old relationship with the Wahhabi cult.  They and the Wahhabi 'ulema are locked in an embrace that has been until now utterly unbreakable because the general internal consent to their "kingship" is based altogether on the Al as-Saud's role as protectors of what has been seen among the Wahhabi masses as the only true form of Islam.  They and the Al as-Sheikh family are a kind of moiety, a duopoly related by function and often marriage in the control of what became Saudi Arabia in the early 20th Century.

4.  Saudi Arabia is a medieval state adorned with modern infrastructure.  Their society never experienced anything like the Renaissance that brought Europe out of the medieval mindset.  The Saudi rulers think the ideas of statehood that emerged following the Treaty of Westphalia to be a joke that the Europeans and Americans claim to believe in.  They see the rest of the world, including non-Wahhabi Muslims as "the other," enemies to be thwarted, tricked ad exploited .  The notion that they will be shamed by what Mister Bone Saw did is ludicrous.

5.  IMO Trump, Pompeo et al are seeking a way to preserve the relationship of the US with this demoniacal relic of the medieval past.  My WAG on this is that MBS and company will construct a suitable fall guy group from whom confessions will be extracted claiming them to be "rogues" and then the "conspirators" will be executed, probably in public.

6.  The Al as-Saud will then wait to see if the West is mollified.  IMO they will not accept any form of punishment for what they see as just retribution visited upon Khashoggi.  If threatened they will try to retaliate.

For those who would actually wish to understand all this I would recommend "The Social Structure of Islam" by Reuben Levy and "The Venture of Islam" 4 vols. by Marshall Hodgson.  Both these works are concerned with the high culture of Islam.

pl 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_ash-Sheikh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanbali

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism

The demise of Davos in the Desert - TTG

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin just announced he will not be attending the Future Investment Initiative Summit in Saudi Arabia next week. Obviously he didn’t decide this on his own. His announcement stated that this was done after consultation with Trump and Pompeo. Given that this “Davos in the Desert” summit is the brainchild of MbS, this official and personal snub by the Trump administration could be a sign of future sanctions… or it could be an effort to get through this crisis with the issuance of a wrist slap. A lot will depend on how MbS reacts. Judging by his reaction to a mean tweet by the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister earlier this year, it would not surprise me if MbS goes ballistic over the collapse of his summit. 

***********************

Last summer, a standoff between Saudi Arabia and Canada gave us a window into how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman deals with critics — but most of the world looked away. It started with two tweets. On Aug. 2, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland wrote on Twitter that she was alarmed by the detention of Samar Badawi, a Saudi human rights activist whose brother, Raif Badawi, was arrested in 2012. Raif Badawi’s family lives in Canada. The next day, Global Affairs Canada weighed in, urging Saudi authorities to release civil and women’s rights activists.

Saudi Arabia was not having it. In a blustery Aug. 6 tweetstorm, the country’s Foreign Ministry announced that it was recalling its ambassador to Canada and gave the Canadian ambassador to Saudi Arabia 24 hours to leave. The state airline said it would stop flying to Toronto. Saudi scholarship students were told to pack their bags. Trade and investment were frozen.

Pulling ambassadors and threatening to suspend investment was a “massive overreaction” and offered an important lesson, said Thomas Juneau, assistant professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa. “The lesson was that MBS is reckless and completely overreacts to threats,” he added, using the crown prince’s nickname.  (Washington Post)

***********************

Trump and Pompeo are now pushing for more time for the Saudis to investigate the disappearance of Khashoggi, essentially stalling for time. I doubt Pompeo’s recent trip to Riyadh and Ankara was a search for the truth. It was a desperate effort to coordinate a way out of this mess and preserve the existing Saudi-US relationship. I’d like to know what Pompeo promised Erdogan in an effort to make this all go away. Was it enough? I doubt it. This situation is absolute gold for Erdogan’s dreams of a renewed Ottoman Empire.

How about MbS? Did Pompeo convince him to meekly accept whatever slap on the wrist is on the way? I doubt that as well. The Trump administration pretty much destroyed what was left of “Davos in the Desert.” If I had my family stationed in the Kingdom, I’d get them out right now and have my go bag within arm’s reach at all times. Without any degree of hyperbole, I predict MbS is about to get medieval on someone’s ass… someone beyond an aging expatriate reporter. The chessboard of the Middle East may be about to change dramatically. The result will be a lot of crying in Tel Aviv and Washington and a lot of smiling in Ankara and Tehran. And maybe an end to the needless dying and suffering in Yemen.

TTG   

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/17/saudi-arabias-spat-with-canada-was-lesson-trump-ignored-it/

"Who needs Saudi Arabia?" Washpost editorial

 

"As for arms sales, someone needs to brief Mr. Trump on the actual results of the promises made to him when he visited Riyadh last year. As Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution sums it up, “The Saudis have not concluded a single major arms deal with Washington on Trump’s watch.” Moreover, an end to supplies of U.S. spare parts and technical support, something Russia cannot provide, would quickly ground the Saudi air force. That would have the welcome effect of ending a bloody bombing campaign in Yemen that a U.N. investigation concluded was probably responsible for war crimes."  Washpost

-----------

Once again, I am not a great fan of Bezos or his blog, but two days in a row they have printed something I can agree with.  Something has changed for him.

It has become a meme in the blather that runs shrill and shallow in the US media, that Saudi Arabia is a faithful, and indispensable ally of the US in the ME.  Bezos disputes this and so do I. 

A few points:

Yes, they chop heads off after Friday prayers outside the local mosque.  They also do hands and feet.  They stone to death women found guilty of adultery.  They sew them in bags before the men present throw handy five pound rocks at them.  The government is deeply approving of this.  Sound familiar?  Yes, it should. The jihadis whom the Saudis sponsor in Syria do the same things.  The Sunni jihadis  are nearly defeated in Syria and it has become clear that the Saudi government has been evacuating their leaders, probably with US connivance, so that they can pursue greater visions of jihad elsewhere.

The importance of Saudi Arabia in the world oil market is IMO now much exaggerated.  They can undoubtedly do some damage by manipulating the short term contract (spot) market but this is something they would pay for heavily.  The Kingdom is cash strapped.  It was not for nothing that MBS turned the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh into a prison for the wealthy including many of his own kin in order to squeeze and in some cases torture them into handing over a lot of their cash to the government.  Depressed petro sales at artificial prices will only further reduce revenue to the government.

The notion that Saudi intelligence contributes much to the GWOT is a joke.  Saudi intelligence competence is something that exists only in pitchmen's claims voiced by TV touts.  In fact, they get almost everything they have from the US and are like greedy baby birds always looking to be fed.  They cannot organize a trip to the gold plated toilet.  It took 15 of them to ambush Khashoggi, well, OK, 14 of them and a doctor to carry the electric bone-saw.

We need to sell them more equipment that they cannot use?  It does not appear to me that any of the contracts that they promised to DJT has been signed.  Their technique is simple.  Keep the hope of profit for the US alive as leverage.

Lastly, the chimera of a great Arab alliance (a la NATO) is delusory.  The Saudis lack both the organizational ability for such a thing and significant military power. They possess one of the world's largest static displays of military equipment.  They have neither the manpower nor the aptitude to use such equipment effectively.  As I have written previously, the Gulf Arabs have long had such an alliance.  It is the GCC and it has never amounted to anything except a venue for the Arab delight in meetings and blather. 

The basis for the desire for such an alliance is the Israeli strategic objective of isolating Iran and its allies; Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas with an eventual hope of destroying the Iranian theocracy.  Israel is frightened of a possible salvo of many thousands of missiles and rockets into Israel from Lebanon as well as an eventual successful creation of a missile deliverable nuclear weapon by the Iranians.  These are real and credible threats for Israel, but not for FUKUS.  Israel has only two really valuable counter-value targets; Haifa and Tel Aviv.  A hit on one or both with a nuclear weapon would be the end of Israel.  The Israelis know that.

Adroit information operations carried out over generations by the Israeli government and its supporters have created in the collective US mind an image of Iran as a disguised 3rd Reich.  This was well done.  The same operation was run against Iraq with magnificent results from the POV of Israel

Saudi Arabia is a worthless ally.  pl 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/who-needs-saudi-arabia/2018/10/15/3ebe473c-d0a1-11e8-8c22-fa2ef74bd6d6_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a339b03b5abf

Did you sell yourself to murderers, daddy?

 

"“Why do you work for a murderer?”

Increasingly, it seems that is a question many Americans should be preparing themselves to answer.

Each year, Saudi Arabia employs, through consultants or otherwise, a host of retired American generals, diplomats, intelligence experts and others. Until now, they could assure themselves this was a win-win: lucrative for them, to be sure, but also enhancing mutual understanding with an important U.S. ally.

Now, as more and more evidence implicates Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in the reported murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Saudi diplomatic property in Istanbul, the equation has changed.

So how might, say, a retired Air Force colonel explain his work when his daughter asks, “Daddy, why do you work for a murderer?”

“Well, it helps to pay your future college tuition,” he might answer. “And besides, I finally get to fly business class. Riyadh is no picnic, but they always spring for a couple of nights in a five-star hotel in London or Abu Dhabi on the way over and the way back. . . . And if I don’t do it, someone else will.”"  Hiatt

-------------

As H. Rap Brown would have said, "the chickens are coming home to roost."

Fred Hiatt is the neocon editorial page editor of Jeff Bezos' blog AKA the Washington Post.  I seldom agree with anything that he and his henchpersons write but this time he has it right.

I never had anything to do with "The Kingdom" except in so far as it was an intelligence collection or analytic target of the US.  I never worked in retirement for any company that did contract work for Saudi Arabia.  That was a deliberate choice for me.  I know the place well and it has ALWAYS been a sinkhole of medieval theocratic barbarism adorned with modern infrastructure that was constructed by foreign contract "slaves."

When I arrived in SA many years ago to be the military attaché in the US Embassy, I discovered that my five immediate predecessors were all retired from the US Army and working in SA for "big bucks."  How could it be I thought that the chief US military intelligence officers in the embassy who had been Counselors of Embassy could be doing that?  Simple, they had all been bought and paid for.

I did not follow that path.  Throughout my tour of duty there I relentlessly told the story in my office's reporting of the military ineptitude of the Saudis and the corrupt practices common in the awarding of all foreign military sales contracts to The Kingdom.  The goal of these hard money purchases from the US, the British, the French, etc. was always the same.  It was the enrichment through "commissions" of all Saudi and foreign agents in the transactions.  In the case of the foreigners the "pay off"was often made after retirement from government service.

I made this clear in my office's reporting, and the DIA of that time stood bravely behind me even as they were threatened by the "friends" of Saudi Arabia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  I, personally, was threatened with career destruction by several seniors including the USAF major general who headed the US Military Training Mission (USMTM) established in country if I did not desist from exposing the situation.  I did not desist.

It is nevertheless true that many, many retired senior military officers and diplomats have sold themselves either directly to Saudi enterprises in that country or to foreign companies which represent the House of Saud.  Their contribution to the enabling of the spread of Wahhabi fanaticism throughout the world is immeasurable.

It should be noted that this enabling persisted under both Democratic and Republican Administrations.

I am sorry for the self-referential nature of this post but I felt I must speak out.

For shame!  pl 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/are-we-willing-to-sacrifice-our-moral-standing-for-this/2018/10/12/baf7bff6-ce42-11e8-a3e6-44daa3d35ede_story.html?utm_term=.0dfcbe07696f

“Enemy of the People” - TTG

Jamal Khashoggi went missing on 2 October after entering the Saudi Embassy in Ankara. His fiancee was left waiting outside the embassy entrance. That much is fact… and only that much. Turkish authorities, including Turkish Intelligence, believe Khashoggi was interrogated, tortured, murdered and dismembered by a Saudi assassination squad sent by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). They say there is video and audio evidence of this. Pretty damning if true. The Saudis claim Khashoggi left the Embassy under his own power shortly after he entered. If that’s the case, where is he? Perhaps the Saudis snatched him and whisked him off to Riyadh. That's possible, but so is the grim prospect of a Saudi hit team torturing and dismembering an enemy of MbS. My gut tells me that’s exactly what happened.

But let’s put this in perspective. The Saudis have arrested maybe hundreds of their writers, journalists and clerics. The Saudis chop heads. They chop hands. They lock up and torture members of their own royal family. It's their nature. A lot of countries come down hard on their enemies. They even whack their enemies, including their own citizens. Obama whacked Anwar al-Awlaki with a drone. I bet that dismembered his ass. And the USG declared that a righteous kill. So, the torturing and dismembering of Khashoggi as horrible as it is (and it is horrendous), is not without precedent in the game of nations.

How did Khashoggi get on the wrong side of MbS? He was once a favorite of the Saudi royal family. In 2017, Khashoggi became disillusioned with MbS and his promises of reform and modernization. In September of that year, he announced his break with MbS in a piece for the Washington Post. He remained a vocal critic of MbS since then and recently broke with Saudi policy in Yemen. The final straw may have been Khashoggi’s work to launch an NGO, called Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), to boost democracy and human rights in the Arab world. The idea that this criticism and resistance was coming from a respected insider was too much for the notoriously thin-skinned MbS to stomach. Thus the fifteen man snatch/assassination team (with bone saw) was dispatched from Riyadh to Ankara.

Reactions to the disappearance of Khashoggi may threaten MbS's plans for an economic renaissance in the Kingdom. Richard Branson pulled back from two projects, a billion dollar investment in Virgin Galactic and a project to develop Red Sea tourism. Many CEOs have said they will pull out of MbS’s futuristic mega city project. A number of journalists and media CEOs have also pulled out of a major investment conference in Riyadh later this month. However Steve Mnuchin, Dina Powell and Thomas Barrack still plan on attending this event. This is in line with the Trump administration’s reaction to the Khashoggi affair.

Trump’s reaction can be summed up in this one quote from a recent White House photo op.

“ I will not be in favor of stopping a country from spending 110 billion dollars which is an all time record and letting Russia have that money and letting China have that money because all they have to do is say that’s okay we don’t have to buy it from Boeing. We don’t have to buy it from Lockheed. We don’t have to buy it from Raytheon and all these companies. We’ll buy it from Russia. We’ll buy it from China. So what good does that do us? There are all these other things we can do. Khashoggi is not a US citizen, is that right? He's a permanent resident, okay. We don’t like it. We don’t like it even a little bit, but as to whether we should stop 110 billion from being spent in this country, knowing they have four or five alternatives, two very good alternatives, that would not be acceptable to me."

This is what we should expect with a businessman as President, a laser focus on profit with no concern for other factors. MbS knows this and acts accordingly. This 110 billion arms deal is from Trump’s first overseas trip as President to Saudi Arabia back in May 2017. This deal is similar to Trump’s deal with Kim Jong Un to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons. Neither is likely to come to fruition anytime soon. Congress is in no mood to approve any more of those arms sales and seems to be willing to work in a bipartisan manner to ensure further deals do not go through. They also seem ready to halt support for the war in Yemen. We’ll see how that shakes out.

There is also the matter of optics for Trump. The relationship between the royal family and the Trump family is unnaturally close. There is still no US Ambassador in Riyadh. The relationship seems to flow directly through Jared Kushner and MbS. There are also sizable Saudi investments in various arms of the Trump Organization. To be fair, the royal family has done this with many US presidents. Look at Saudi investments in the both the Bushes and the Clintons.

I do not think Trump can wait out the Khashoggi affair until it fades from the headlines. The growing Congressional distaste for the war in Yemen will keep the pot stirred as will the Media for losing one of their own. Add to that the still unhealed wound of 9/11. Last March a US District Court judge in Manhattan ruled that 9/11 victims' lawsuits against Saudi Arabia under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) have standing and will go to trial. This is bad timing for MbS and the rest of the royal family.

I have long thought our relationship with the Saudis not to be in our best interests. My first assignment after being pulled into the Defense HUMINT headquarters was as the Regional Desk Officer for the Arabian Peninsula. After working for years against the Soviet and Russian target, I discovered what a hostile place the Peninsula was for people in my line of work. The Saudis are not our friends or even allies. It is as cold a transactional relationship as can be. I don’t want war. I don’t want the royal family to be violently overthrown. What may come out of that chaos could be far worse. But we shouldn’t be enabling them to the extent we have done so for decades.

TTG 

A "Tour d'horizon" of the ME - Lang's opinion

1.  Saudi Arabia has expelled Canada's ambassador and recalled its own for consultations.  It has halted any new business with Canada and stopped giving any new Saudi scholarships to its nationals for study in Canada.  'Adil Jubair (aka The Chihuaha, FM of THE KINGDOM) has taken umbrage with the statements of Chrystia Freeland and Le Petit Justin.   This happy couple said they were unhappy at Saudi governmental nastiness to women's rights activists.  Good heavens!  How dare the Saudis act like that in this modern age, an age filled with Canadian liberal values and Chrystia's well known disdain for local governments.

2.  The SAA is mopping up the jihadi population in east Suweida province.  These jihadis will probably be processed locally into soil enrichments as part of the Greater Syrian Desert Soil Bank program.  Their attack on several Druze villages this weekend with attendant rapine and massacre sealed their fate.

3.  At the same time the SAA and friends (R+6) continue to deploy to the north for the soon to be general offensive against NE Latakia and all of Idlib Province.  Air preparation of key terrain and targets is underway.  This will intensify as D-Day approaches.  At the same time assassinations of key jihadi figures is occurring all over the Idrib-Latakia-Afrin District area.  Some of this is murderous cannibalistic rebels.  Some is Kurdish in nature, but IMO a lot of these are operations of the commando units of Syrian military intelligence who have been more and more active in enemy occupied territory both in ambushes and reconnaissance.  The troop list for the big push is going to include kampfgruppen made up of tailored combinations of most of Syria's quality units and it will be armor heavy.  Tiger Forces teams, 4th Armored Division. Republican Guard, Syrian Marines,  these will all be represented.

4. China is teasing us all with the idea that it may send troops to participate in the Idlib offensive.  Their twin objectives would probably be to insure a foot in the door with the SAG for contracts in reconstruction as well as a desire to kill as many Uighur Muslims as possible in Idlib before they escape and return to western China.

5.  Trump's faithful execution of Israeli policy will result in re-imposition of US sanctions on Iran tomorrow.  The UK, France and Germany have announced that they will not be governed by these sanctions and IMO Trump will not have the stones to sanction these actual American allies. This will be another instance of Trump learning that intimidating countries is a different game than making hotel project deals.  In the case of tariffs the EU caved in what can be seen as bi-lateral negotiations but in this case accepting American orders to reimpose sanctions will be  seen as acceptance of a servile position.  The US position with regard to desired Iranian concessions includes acceptance of a statehood bereft of foreign policy or foreign interventions of any kind.  This is a maximum Israeli position that has been sold to Trump ,the real estate guy, by his donors and family.  Pompeo and Bolton, the neocons, are fully on board as well.  DoD is supportive.  Mattis is always seeking a childish revenge against the Iranians for their actions in Iraq.

6.  On the Palestine Front Jared has been swanning around the Arab World seeking to have them all accept an end to Palestinian support by UNWRA.  He, and the Israelis want the Palestinians deprived of the status of refugees so that they can be said to have no right of return to their ancestral homes in Palestine. With the exception of Jordan, the Arab States have always refused to make the refugees citizens of their countries.  The Palestinians are a distinct ethnic group among the Arab Peoples.  The Israelis hate that idea and have always insisted that the Palestinians could be easily absorbed in the Arab countries.  In fact, they have always been a profoundly disruptive political group in the Arab countries and are not desirous of absorption.  The general ignorance in the Trump Administration of anything resembling the history and nature of the ME continues to make ridiculous all the efforts of Trump & Co. to make peace among peoples of whom they know nothing except whatever the neocons and Zionists tell them  King Salman of Saudi Arabia has rejected the Jared Peace Plan and he is only the first to do so.  There will many.

7.  Trump, Mattis and Co. want to form a Sunni Arab version of NATO united against Iran.  This would include the GCC plus Egypt and Jordan.  Words fail me at the blind ignorance of this idea.  All these countries will gladly accept Saudi money.  That does not mean they will accept Saudi leadership in anything.  This has been proven over and over again.

8.  Yemen? We are assisting a genocidal war.  What else can be said?  pl

King Salman "walks" on Jared's "good deal"

"Saudi Arabia has reassured Arab allies it will not endorse any Middle East peace plan that fails to address Jerusalem’s status or refugees’ right of return, easing their concerns that the kingdom might back a nascent U.S. deal which aligns with Israel on key issues. "  Reuters

 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-paelestinians-usa-saudi/as-u-s-pushes-for-mideast-peace-saudi-king-reassures-allies-idUSKBN1KJ0F9

******

I published the  following post on 3 January 2018:  It is as true now as it was then that man does not live by bread alone.

"... we have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table.  We pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don't even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel," Trump tweeted. "We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?" CNN quoting DJT

 

"We are not taking a position on any of the final status issues including the final boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem," Trump said last month as he made his Jerusalem announcement. "Those questions are up to the parties involved. The United States remains deeply committed to helping facilitate a peace agreement that is acceptable to both sides."  Quoting DJT

 

Trump's statement at the announcement was intended to reassure Palestinians and the broader Arab and Muslim world that the US was not giving away control of Jerusalem to Israel or forsaking Palestinian claims to the holy city."  CNN

 

---------------

 

DJT's statements concerning the effect of his recognition of the Holy City as Israel's capital are nonsensical.   The Israelis, the Palestinians, the Europeans and every Muslim in the world understand that by taking Jerusalem "off the table" DJT has effectively eliminated the possibility of a negotiation over the city that would in any way relate to the real world.

 

Evidently DJT thinks that an issue like this that concerns the essential identity and self image of millions and millions of Muslims can be handled as though the adversaries in this dispute are business people in a contract discussion.  In that setting a feature of the proposed contract that cannot be agreed on is removed from consideration so that closure can occur on the rest.

 

Well, pilgrims,  the ownership of Jerusalem is not a hotel or skyscraper deal.  Trump's evident belief that the US has hired the Palestinian people through USAID projects and budget support is altogether incorrect.  His belief that the Palestinians are effectively his employees and therefore must settle for a Bantustan created out of some part of what is left without Jerusalem is delusional.

 

The Israelis and other Zionists, like Kushner and Ivanka, have long held the Palestinians in contempt as inferior beings fit only to be cheap labor in the Israeli economy.  That they could have sold that idea to Trump is the measure of the man.  pl"

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/02/politics/trump-palestinian-aid/index.html 

 http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/01/httpwwwcnncom20180102politicstrump-palestinian-aidindexhtml.html

What is John Bolton's role in Trump's ME drama?

(editorial)

On a gestalt basis it seems to me from all the bits and pieces of information and rumor that DJT is attempting "The Deal of the Century!" (an episode or two of his soon to be award winning series, "The Greatest President.")

Russian cooperation in this is clearly needed.  Trump is blessedly lacking in ideological fervor.  His Deplorable base is also a bit short on ideology being focused on wages, prices, taxes and other everyday living issues.  Their patriotism expresses itself in devotion to the flag and the anthem and a willingness to serve in the armed forces, something increasingly absent in the "resistance."

Trump has a free hand from his base to negotiate peaceful coexistence with Russia, but he nevertheless must successfully deal with the passion of the neocon wing of the Borg (foreign policy establishment).  They still swoon at the thought of the ongoing renewal of the Cold War.

John Bolton is an arch-neocon, a neocon's neocon.  Trump has sent him to Moscow to arrange an agenda, date and location for a meeting with Vladimir Putin.  IMO this is a stroke of genius.  What it does is put an enemy of good US-Russia relations in charge of arranging the schedule for discussions to improve US-Russia relations.  In LBJ's vulgarism, Bolton is going to be inside the tent peeing out rather than outside peeing in.  Having arranged the meeting, he will be personally invested in its success.  How sweet that is!

Trumps is IMO trying for a grand ME bargain to be achieved with Russian help:

1.  Peace in Syria in the context of abandonment of regime change.  Trump the pragmatist recognizes that the R+6 forces have won the civil war and, therefore he wishes to accept the sunk costs of previous American ineptitude in Syria and to walk away.  US Embassy Amman has signaled to the FSA rebels in SW Syria that they should not expect the US to defend them.  This is a traditional American stab in the back for guerrilla allies but the warning indicates to me that some group in the US Government (probably the CIA) has enough conscience to want to give warning.  As soon as that warning was issued the rate of surrenders to the SAA rose.

2.  The US has thus made it clear that the SAA and Russian forces in Syria have a free hand in the SW and it seems that Israeli air and missile attacks are unlikely against the SW offensive.  This has been insured through a Russian mandate that Hizbullah and IRGC dominated Shia militias stay out of the fight in Deraa and Quneitra Provinces.

3. The Egyptians have been talking to Hamas about their willingness to enter into a hudna (religiously sanctioned truce) with Israel.  Hamas has frequently offered this before.  Such truces are renewable and are often for 10 years.  Kushner's team thinks it has attained Natanyahu's support for this.  The deal would supposedly include; a Gaza-Egyptian industrial zone in the area of Raffa, an airport, a seaport.  In return Hamas would be expected to police the truce from their side of the border.  People on SST who have deep access in Israel doubt the sincerity of apparent Israeli assent, but there is little doubt I think that DJT considers this part of the Grand Bargain he is attempting to forge.  

Nowhere in any of this is anything concerning Iran and I assume that regime change remains the policy.  Nor is there anything about Saudi Arabia and the UAE's mercenary manned war in Yemen.  Ah, well, pilgrims, everything in its time.  pl  

Battle for Hodeidah - Part 2

 

"A military operation of the Saudi-UAE-led coalition and its proxies to capture the Yemeni port city of al-Hudaydah from the Houthis is crumbling.

The coalition’s forces have failed to establish full control of the al-Hudaydah airport south of the port city itself. They have also not been able to outflank the city from the eastern direction. The problems in this advance are mostly linked to the problems of the coalition-led forces’ supply lines."  SF

*****

"On June 21, the Houthis carried out another attack on the coalition’s forces at their supply line in the western Yemeni coast. Houthi forces attacked positions of the coalition in the areas of Mdjelis and Makhliki cutting off a force of the coalition involved in the battle for al-Hudaydah from the rest of the coalition-occupied area.

According to pro-Houthi sources, at least 7 armoured vehicles were destroyed and about 30 fighters of the coalition-led forces were killed or injured in this attack.

If Yemeni forces are able to keep their gains in the coastal area, the coalition-led forces will not able to develop an advance in the al-Hudaydah countryside. Furthermore, the force involved in the operation may be eliminated.

Meanwhile, the Houthis increased their cross-border attacks against Saudi forces. They have carried out a series of attacks on positions in the Saudi provinces of Jizan and Najran."  SF

-------------

These ragged assed Houthi tribesmen are men their grandfathers would have been proud to acknowledge as their own.  With a minimum of equipment they are fighting off the Saudi hired coalition in a way that reminds of Lt Col Owen Thursday in "Fort Apache" when he asked at which staff college Cochise had studied.

These qat chewing, Scotch guzzling little hill men are among the great martial peoples of the world.  They live at war all their short lives.  They fight each other over traditional goods; honor, water and land.  When they are not doing that they fight the government, whatever government there be at any time.  I used to visit the tribes from which they come in the territory between Saadah and Sanaa.  They observed a careful code of hospitality and were cautiously welcoming.

Long ago I asked if Saudi Arabia in its present form would survive this war.  I ask it again.  pl 

https://southfront.org/battle-for-yemens-al-hudaydah-on-june-22-2018-map-video/

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/09/will-saudi-arabia-survive-the-yemen-war-first-published-.html

Fees are Driving Expat Familes Out Of Saudi. by J

 

A new fee for expats’ dependents in Saudi Arabia will be paid in advance at the time of residency visa issuance from July 1 this year. 

According to the Saudi Gazette, the fee would be paid annually when a residence visa is sent for renewal, or a new visa issued.  It will start at SAR100 ($26.66) for each individual per month before increasing to SAR200 ($53.32) for each dependent from July 2018, SAR300 ($79.98) in 2019 and SAR400 ($106.64) in 2020.  The fees go to the State Treasury.

Private sector companies will also still have to pay the SAR200 a month levy for each foreign worker at the end of the current year.  This will double to SAR400 a month per expat worker in January 2018 and then increase to SAR600 ($159.97) in 2019 and SAR800 ($213.29) in 2020.

The fee increases come as the Saudi Kingdom seeks to diversify their economy away from oil as a result of the hard hit received from price decreases that began in the summer of 2014.  The Saudi Government has promised to provide SAR200bn ($53bn) of incentives to the private sector over the next four years to aid in this effort,  however there are concerns that investments will be impacted by increasing costs for businesses.

Global Investment House cited the fees and decreases to subsidies on electricity, water and fuel would increase input costs for corporates.  

Expats fear that the Saudi Government will tax remittances next. 

Now to the 64 dollar question:

Will expats have to pay for the privilege of cleaning their bathrooms? 

J.

 

Yemen as exemplar - Re-published 7 June 2018

"Yemeni Shi'ite Muslim Houthi fighters backed by government forces drove the local wing of al Qaeda from one of its last strongholds in central Yemen on Friday in intense fighting that killed at least 35 people, tribal sources said.

The Houthis' Ansarullah movement has become the main political force in Western-allied Yemen since capturing Sanaa in September and then pushing south and west into the Sunni Muslim heartland of al-Bayda province, where Ansar al-Sharia has allied itself with local tribes. 

Yemen has been in turmoil since 2011, to the dismay of neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, and of the Western powers who want to prevent instability in the Arabian peninsula threatening their crude supplies or giving al Qaeda a base for overseas attacks. 

Tribal sources said the Houthis had met stiff resistance as they pushed towards the village of Khobza district using Katuysha rockets and heavy artillery. 

They said at least 25 Houthis and 10 Ansar al-Sharia and tribal fighters had died in the fighting, which began on Thursday afternoon. Ansar al-Sharia and its allies withdrew to Yakla district, on the border with Maarib province."  Reuters

-----------

Full disclosure - I was once DEFATT in Yemen at Sanaa.

 A primer on some aspects of Yemen:

- Zeidi (fiver) Shia  Muslims are so conservative (restrained) religiously that they are sometimes thought of as a fifth Sunni mathab.  Their theology and general view of the religious sciences follow the mu'tazilite tradition.  They are quite distinct from and have little allegiance to the 12er Shia in Iran, Lebanon and other scattered places.

- From a few miles south of Sanaa to the northern reaches of the country where it "borders" Saudi Arabia the country is almost altogether Zeidi Shia in population.  Those people are tough little mountaineers, who are extremely tribal in their lives and who are generally aligned in two major tribal confederations, the Baqil and the Hashid.  These tribal confederations are the real power in Yemen north of Sanaa.  they possess a lot of military equipment that was mainly stolen from the government when officers who are members of these confederations defected back to their true allegiance taking their gear and often soldiers with them.

- The former president, Ali Abdullah Salih, was a Zeidi tribesman of the Sanhan minor tribe of the Hashid confederation.

 - From Sanaa south, Yemen is primarily inhabited by much less tribal villagers who are Sunni and usually of the shafa'i mathab.  These folks are the recruiting ground for AQAP, Ansar al-Sharia and similar Sunni salafi jihadi groups for whom the Zaidi tribesmen of the north are just another kind of murtadoon (heretics) to be fought to the death.

- Further complicating the mozaic of groups that is Yemen is the lingering effect of British possession of the Aden crown colony for many years.  In the course of that period a lot of Yemenis from Aden attended such schools as the London School of Economics where they became  both atheistical  and left wing politically.  Such people are still on the scene in the cities and continue to be active in the government of a united Yemen.

- The Houthis are a Zeidi Shia reformist movement that draws solely on the Zeidi population of the north.  It does not have and cannot have any friendly relations with the Sunni jihadi groups of the south.  The movement started in the al-houthi clan and has since spread to the two major confederations of Zeidi tribesmen.  The Houthis as a cult prefer not to fight if it can be avoided and captured the capital, Sanaa, with very little violence.  Salih, a Zeidi tribesman understandably sides with the Houthis as opposed to the Sunni, left oriented people now running the government of the United Yemen.

- A government of national unity has been formed among; the Houthis and their army, the national army and the nationalist/left dominated functionaries now in office in Sanaa.  This coalition is actively and successfully fighting the Sunni jihadis.

The US government response to all this is to denounce the Houthis and Salih as interfering with stability and the integrity of the Yemeni state.  This reflects the ignorant, obsessive, insistence of the American foreign policy establishment that "one size fits all" in terms of the norms of governance across the world with the implication that the US embassies in such countries as Yemen are actually pro-consular outposts from which the ambassador/governor guides and controls the province/country in which he/she is located.  When this attitude, derived from notions of "exceptionalism," is accompanied by the IR/Poly Sci paradigm of foreign relations now so evident in the US government, the result is the noxious self-defeating  environment in which US decisions are now made.  pl  

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/us-yemen-security-idUSKCN0IY1Q120141114

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Sharia_(Yemen)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthis

 

Translation of the Houthi logo:

"God is Great

Death to America

Death to Israel

Rejection by God of the Jews

Victory for Islam."

 

You should not take the words in this too seriously.  This is standard populist cant in the Muslim World.  pl

 

Mookie and Nasrullah, a tale of two Shia

(editorial comment)

Muqtada al-Sadr.  When he led the Army of the Mahdi against US occupation of Iraq, American troops called him Mookie.  He was a nasty fat fils a papa and spawn of a distinguished Shia scholar.  In those days he  had very little in the way of religious credentials, but he summoned many who hoped for the return of the Shia Mahdi (perhaps the occulted Imam himself?) . The summoned 12ers often followed him and for a time his followers were a major problem for the US mission civilisatrice in the ME.  After all, how could one "get on" with the region-wide campaign to geld forces hostile to Israel when this pest with his "simple minded" fanatics opposed.  Sooo, a solution was devised.  The US Army and USMC massed their highly trained enlisted snipers against those awaiting the Mahdi and killed near on a thousand of them.   Mookie understood that it was only a matter of time for him personally.  When that happened he decided that Western style politics were not as bad as he had thought and went to Iran to work on his religious qualifications pending a return to politics in Iraq.  Babak will know but I recall that he became something like a Hojjat al-Islam.  Now he is back and somehow unaccountably at least mildly anti-Iranian.  He is the principal winner in the recent parliamentary election along with his communist party allies.  He now has the problem of finding enough coalition partners to form a government.  He cannot be PM because he did not win a seat himself, but will dictate the identity of the victim.  I would not be surprised if the US courts him, seeking a good relationship.  After all, he is supposedly anti-Iranian and that is the touchstone of American policy in the region, that, and indifference to the Palestinians.

Hassan Nasrullah.  Since the last Lebanese general election the US has steadfastly sought to obey Israeli guidance in opposing the presence of the Hizbullah Party, as opposed to the Hizbullah Army in the government of Lebanon.  Feltman and Satterfield were ambassador there throughout that period.  Feltman is a "coach" for Nikki at the UN and David Satterfield is now acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Near Est.  They brought him back from retirement for that.  He must have done an effective job in Lebanon.  In the recent election the March 8 Alliance (Hizbullah, Amal, Aounists, Druze, and various cats and dogs) seem to me to have 55 seats in parliament.  That appears to be a majority, and that coalition will dominate the new parliament.  This is a big problem for the US.  Hizbullah sits on Israel's northern border poised to rain fire and death on a wide range of Israeli targets of both the counter-value and counter-force types.  A big enough bombardment could cripple Eretz Israel for a long time.  Ah, no, I forgot.  Trump and the US branch of the Knesset would immediately vote an immense amount of borrowed money for Israel.  Ah, no, I forgot again. B-52s over the Tabbouleh Line would be another likely response.  pl

Neocon Jack Keane wants a permanent US presence in Syria

 

"Keane retired from military service in 2003. He now works as a national security analyst for Fox News. He has served an advisory role in the management of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, as a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. In January 2007, Keane and scholar Frederick W. Kagan released a policy paper, entitled "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq",^[7] through the American Enterprise Institute that called for bringing security by putting around 30,000 additional American troops there for a period of at least 18 months. In part convinced by this paper, President George W. Bush ordered on January 10, 2007, the deployment of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, most of whom would be deployed to Baghdad, this deployment has been nicknamed the 2007 "surge".    wiki on Keane

--------------

I watched this man hold forth this morning on Varney and Company a business and politics show hosted by Stuart Varney a fervently American immigrant from England who apparently never saw a jingo he didn't like.

General Keane is a close associate of the Kagans, Victoria Nuland, Petraeus and the like.  He has consistently pressed in policy circles for aggressive foreign policy ventures including the Iraq "Surge" that helped secure the Baghdad area from Iraqi insurgents.  In fact the security situation markedly improved across Iraq because Petraeus was smart enough to encourage the work that had been done by Green Berets and junior USMC people in encouraging the Sunni Arabs to abandon support of the jihadi guerrillas.

On Varney's show today Keane pushed for a US policy in Syria that would establish a "security zone" in Syria east of the Euphrates and in the Kurdish areas east of Manbij.  He was clear that he believes that this "security zone" should be held indefinitely, in other words, permanently.

He said that such a zone would prevent the western expansion of Iran through northern Iraq and then Syria westward to the Mediterranean thus completing the dreaded Shia Crescent.  The fact that the Iraqi sovereign government might object to such Iranian expansion did not seem to occur to him.  Perhaps he has taken note of the condemnation by that Shia Arab dominated government of the FUKUS missile strikes in Syria.

To help the FUKUS forces hold this enclave indefinitely, he repeated the notion that the Sunni majority countries in the region should contribute armed forces to the Sunni Enclave.  DJT has recently said much the same thing.  This raises the possibility to me that his "thinking" on this matter originates with the arch neocons and their favorite vehicle the Institute for the Study of War, a Kagan operation through and through.  Well, pilgrims, I am here to tell you that the Sunni Arab countries are not going to do that,  Apart from Jordan's small but competent forces, the rest have no armed forces capable of doing anything but oppress civilian populations.  Saudi Arabia's indefensible war against the people of Yemen is a perfect example of the military ineptitude of the Sunni Arab states.  Repeatedly defeated by the Houthis and the rump of the Yemeni Army the Saudi have resorted to employing African and other mercenaries against the Yemenis as well as pursuing a savage campaign of aerial bombing against Yemeni civilians.  Perhaps they were inspired to do this by the courses of study of RSAF officers at the US Air Force "University" at Montgomery, Alabama.  the Strategic Bombing theories of Douhet are still much admired there.

Toward the end of his discourse this morning, Keane, came to the crux of his argument.  He said that a war is coming in which Iran, Hizbullah and the Syrian government will fight Israel and that the US must be in a position in Syria to defend Israel when that happens.  Thus it is revealed that the source of Keane's (and now DJT's) thinking is simply Israel's obsession with the hostility of the Gentile World to include all those Muslims surrounding them.  In other words, Keane's neocon pitch is based on Zionist fear.

Keane several times repeated a line to the effect that no US combat brigades or regiments would be committed to the Sunni Enclave.  To believe this magical thinking is to believe that no real fighting would eventually have to be done.

I have seen a poll today that indicates that 61% of the American people approve of the FUKUS missile strikes against the fictional chemical weapons target set in Syria.  The gullibility involved in that is impressive.  pl  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Keane

Not a bad outcome, but ... (editorial comment) by PL

 

The Melkite Cathedral in Damascus 

Whether or not DJT has a private channel of communication to the Russian leadership remains an open question for me.  Those who love to think of history as an endless series of conspiratorial meetings favor the idea that DJT and VP agreed on the level of damage that would be acceptable given the fury of the gas hysteria of the last week.  There well may be such a link conducted through US Embassy Moscow.  I hope there is such a link.

In any event, Trump obviously chose one of the more inoffensive options offered to him by the JCS and James Mattis.  Was this always going to be the case in a Trumpian display of manipulation of the neocons, the brass and the media?  Or did Mattis successfully wrestle Bolton for control of Trump's decision?  The truth is concealed behind DJT's grin and somewhat obscured  by his low hanging locks. 

These targets were not derived from some wonderful feat of intelligence collection and analysis.  These facilities were in DIA's data base 23 years ago when I left DIA.  On a visit to Syria way back then, I drove around the country with the US military attache to these and a number of other facilities so that I could see them myself for future reference in a crisis.  We gave data on these targets to the Israelis as part of our ongoing cooperation.

So far, so good, but there is a built in future menace in what is being said of this attack program.  It is that an absence of future attacks is contingent on an absence of supposed future chemical attacks.

Therefore it is easy to see that whenever the rebels/jihadis want the government attacked they can stage manage more chemical attacks.

IMO if that occurs there would be an inevitable escalation of targeting until the core combat assets of the R+6 are the targets.  pl