Ian Welsh

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

Category: Middle East Page 14 of 22

Saudi Arabian Crown Consolidates Control as War Looms

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On November 5, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Death of Saudi Arabia

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On July 16, 2017

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The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole

The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole

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

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

Oh my God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It doesn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Turkey’s Purge

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On July 19, 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Russia Sells Six to Seven Billion Dollars of Planes After Syria

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On March 28, 2016

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Not a bad return indeed:

What I wrote November 13th, 2015:

What is happening in Syria is a demonstration that Russia can be counted on to help its allies—meaning its customers. It is a demonstration that Russia’s new weapons, and particularly its cruise missiles and airpower, are comparable to US product, and maybe, even in the case of its most advanced fighter/bomber, better.

It is a demonstration that if you buy Russian you aren’t buying crap that US-supplied forces can roll right over any more.

Putin: If he’s not the world’s most capable leader, he’s certainly in the running. One doesn’t have to like him, or approve of him, to acknowledge this.

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Guardian Pushes for Western Countries Involvement in Invasion of Syria

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On February 15, 2016

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So, Michael Clarke in the Guardian writes that the Saudi Arabian threat to invade Syria isn’t credible (it isn’t, if acting alone, but Saudi Arabia claims Turkey is onside, and Turkey is a credible threat.)

He then goes on as follows:

Militarily, the Saudi threat issued at Munich has to be made credible. If a ceasefire does not materialise soon, the Russians, Iranians and Assad himself have no incentives to quit while they are ahead. Only the possibility of Arab ground forces, from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE, heavily backed by western logistics and intelligence, air power and technical specialists, could force Assad and his backers to make a strategic choice in favour of cessation. Only the US could make that work for the Saudis and others – and only Britain could bring along other significant European allies.

So, he wants America involved in this invasion in a big, visible way, along with Europe.

The sheer crazy here is awe-inspiring. Clarke believes that a “vengeful Assad” would be a huge problem for the West if he reconstitutes Syria.

Big enough to risk nuclear war?

Why?

It’s a small country, destroyed by war, run by a pragmatist. I suppose it is possible Assad could sponsor terrorism, but he’s unlikely to risk anything truly large that would entail risking his own life in retaliation, nor could he expect Russia to defend him if he was truly sponsoring terrorism.

There is nothing in Syria, and never was, that was worth a war there, at least not for the West. Destabilizing Syria has caused nothing but headaches for the West, including the current refugee crisis, which is likely to seen, historically, as one of the causes of the EU either breaking up or becoming a largely toothless and ceremonial organization.  (The main cause will be that the EU cripples its own members economically.)

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I am shocked at the level of political thinking which the Guardian considers worth publishing. Truly shocked, not just rhetorically. Insane NeoCon warmongering is one thing when you’re dealing with countries like Iraq and Libya, it is another when you are dealing with a country where one of the world’s great nuclear powers is currently fighting.

Stupidity like this could get a lot of people very dead, and not just Middle Eastern people the West doesn’t care about.

Nothing in Syria is worth risking a war with Russia over. Nothing.

 

 

Saudi Arabia & Turkey to Invade Syria?

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On February 15, 2016

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It’s hard for me to credit anyone for being so careless, but the Independent reports that:

Saudi Arabia is sending troops and fighter jets to Turkey’s Incirlik military base ahead of a possible ground invasion of Syria.

…

“At every coalition meeting we have always emphasised the need for an extensive result-oriented strategy in the fight against the Daesh terrorist group.

“If we have such a strategy, then Turkey and Saudi Arabia may launch an operation from the land.”

So… they will claim that they are fighting ISIS, which is, by this point, I suppose, traditional. Turkey is already shelling Kurdish positions in northern Syria.

Of course, Saudi Arabia is not credible on this (at least with regards to a large commitment), with their involvement in Yemen, especially as they are also considering invading that country.  But Turkey is. I hope this is just bluster, intended to sway negotiations.

If it isn’t, this is a fiasco, a catastrophe, waiting to happen. Unlike the other foreign forces with boots on the ground (Iraq, Iran, Hezbollah, Russia), these forces would obviously not be invited by the Syrian government.

Syrian forces, backed by Russian airpower, are now fighting quite close to the Turkish border. Their aim has been to close that border so that various rebels (including ISIS) can’t receive supplies from Turkey.

It should be pointed out that if Daesh/ISIS has a government ally in the world, it is Turkey. As for Saudi Arabia, well, Daesh’s theology is a very close descendant of their branch of Islam.

Perhaps more to the point, all those armies tromping around in a rather small country risks war between Russia/Syria/Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia/Turkey.

Russian supply lines to Syria are not the best, to put it mildly. Turkey can close the direct sea route from Sevastopol, and alternative routes require going through some dangerous territory.

I wonder what Russia would do in such a situation. The Turkish military is very large and right on the border. A Turkish attack on Syria can’t be considered an existential threat to Russia, so Russian nuclear doctrine doesn’t call for use of battlefield nukes, but… I get twitchy when a NATO member goes up against Russia, and Turkey is a member of NATO.

Russia created “facts on the ground,” which have led to a realization that Assad will probably survive and that the rebels are doomed.

It seems those who wanted Assad gone the most now want to create their own “counter-facts” on the ground. Either they get rid of Assad in peace deals (assuming they avoid outright conflict), or they divide up Syria, with Turkey getting a good chunk of it.

That’s the plan. If they do invade, I find myself almost hoping the plan “works,” because if it doesn’t “work” that will most likely be because of general war between the powers.

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This is an absolute catastrophe waiting to happen. I find it unlikely this could be done without the US’s approval, and, given Obama’s recent statement about how Russia should stop hitting “moderate” opposition targets in Syria, I can only assume he’s greenlighted this.

Were I in the White House, I’d be telling Saudi Arabia and Turkey not to. If they insisted on doing it anyway, I’d go public with a warning not to, and a UN Security Council motion with the US voting against Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

And let’s be perfectly, brutally frank here: If they want to do this, I’d tell Turkey that NATO’s “an attack on one is an attack on all” principle will not apply here. You do this, we’re not getting into a nuclear war for you. This is not self-defense.

As for Saudi Arabia, I’d have a pointed conversation about the price of oil and their budget. However, as much as they think the price of oil will increase if there is a war in Syria, their economy is still in bad shape, and the US could total it tomorrow if they chose to–simply through Treasury sanctions. Likewise, an end to parts and ammunition for their military would curtail them.

These are stern, even radical steps. Avoiding a war with Russia justifies them. There is nothing in Syria worth the risk of having all these armies stomping around, especially after Turkey has already shot down one Russian plane.

Jeremy Corbyn and the Syrian Bombing Vote

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On December 2, 2015

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So, today there will be a vote in the UK House of Commons to determine whether the UK should bomb Syria.

The Conservatives and the Liberal-Democrats will vote yes. The SNP will vote no. And Corbyn has allowed Labour party members to vote according to their consciences.

This is a close vote, but even if every Labour party member voted no, the motion would fail.

Nonetheless, much of the media is blaming Corbyn for the possibility of bombing.

Seventy-five percent of Labour party members are against bombing Syria, and the logic on the side of not bombing Syria is strong; interventions in the Middle East since 9/11 have seen an inexorable rise in terrorism rather than a decrease.

But there is more to consider. Corbyn has always said he would bring more democracy to Labour, and this is in line with that promise. This is a case of one principle “no war” going against another principle “more democracy.”

Also, letting Labour MPs vote against bombing Syria, when the majority of Labour party members are for it, may be very smart politics. Smoke the pro-war MPs out, let them run up their flags, and when the time comes for candidate selection, well, everyone will know who is for war. The majority of voters selecting candidates are free to use the next election to ensure that Corbyn has a party of MPs who are anti-war. This gives him a much stronger hand.

The Labour party has been rife with backbiting since Corbyn won. The majority of MPs did not want him as leader, do not want him as leader, and have been doing what they can to weaken him.

Corbyn cannot deal with this alone. It must be dealt with by the membership, who must get rid of those members. Corbyn does have limited ability as leader to flush them out, but he can hardly refuse to sign nomination papers from 60 percent of MPs. They have to be sent packing by the membership.

So, if you are a British Labour member, remember who voted for war and turf them.

Correction: I had the math wrong on the vote. If every Labor member voted “nay,” it would not make a difference without a lot of Conservative members also voting against.

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Examining Turkey’s Shoot Down of a Russian Jet

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On November 24, 2015

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First, the ostensible reason for this incident is the Turkmen rebels in Syria. Erdogan summoned the Russian ambassador earlier this week to warn against strikes against the Turkmen in Syria.

Second, it’s worth considering that much of this is about Turkish domestic politics. Erdogan is playing to the crowd, in the same way done by jingoistic politicians all over the world.

Then there is Putin’s statement:

This event is beyond the normal framework of fighting against terrorism. Of course our military is doing heroic work against terrorism… But the loss today is a stab in the back, carried out by the accomplices of terrorists. I can’t describe it in any other way. Our aircraft was downed over the territory of Syria, using air-to-air missile from a Turkish F-16. It fell on the Syrian territory 4km from Turkey.

…

We will analyse everything, and today’s tragic event will have significant consequences, including for Russia-Turkish relations. We have always treated Turkey as a friendly state. I don’t know who was interested in what happened today, certainly not us. And instead of immediately getting in contact with us, as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from Nato to discuss this incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours.

So, Putin is saying that Turkey is the “accomplice of terrorists.” Because the preponderance of evidence is that Turkey has been keeping supply lines open for ISIS, I would tend to agree. But something being true, and something being stated by the leader of a Great Power are two different things. Putin calling Erdogan an accomplice of terrorists is a big deal.

Russia can retaliate in a number of ways, from the obvious (shooting down a Turkish jet in a “tit-for-tat”), to the brutal (cutting Turkey off from natural gas this winter) to the subtle (taking the Turkish PKK under wing and becoming their new sponsors, while providing the Turks in general with equipment such as man portable anti-air missiles and anti-tank weapons).

Bear in mind that the Turkish military is very large, with a pile of tanks. They have, however, spent their recent history mostly in anti-insurgency efforts (burning Turkish villages, rape and torture, the usual), and anti-insurgency tends to degrade militaries.  It is also an open question how much the purges of the officer corps have affected the military.

NATO and President Obama have both made supportive sounds, so Russia and Putin are likely to lump in the West with Turkey in this matter.

I feel I should point out the obvious, once more. Russia is still a nuclear armed state with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world multiple times over. A confrontation between NATO and Russia is not acceptable to anyone even remotely sane.

Finally, there is the question of whether or not the Russian jet was in Turkish airspace. The Turks claim it was (for a few seconds), the Russians claim it wasn’t. I certainly don’t know which is true.

But over-fussiness about a few seconds strikes me as absurd. The US routinely violates virtually every country in the world’s airspace. Turkey and everyone else in the region routinely violates Syrian airspace, while Russia actually has permission to be there.

I believe that countries should not violate each other’s airspace. And I would be willing to support that principle in a world where that was the practice, but it is not.

That said, the real rule of airspace is: “Can you shoot me down?” And Syria’s answer is: “No.” But Russia’s answer Russia is: “Yes,” and Russia could decide to defend Syria’s airspace from Turkey at the request of the Syrian government.

All of this is vastly complicated by geography. Turkey can close off the Black Sea from the Mediterranean any time it wants. This means that Russia’s supplies to Syria must go through either Iran and Iraq, or it must come the long way around from the Baltic Sea.

By and large, however, this entire exercise stinks of hypocrisy. The fact is that despite all the screaming and the rhetoric almost no one actually wants to defeat ISIS. Turkey definitely doesn’t want to, the US doesn’t want to because its allies like Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Israel in varying degrees support ISIS, and the West in general doesn’t want to (as with France bombing empty depots in response to the Paris attacks; sound and fury accomplishing nothing.)

Russia wants to support the Syrian government, and the first thing Russia wants to do is seal the Turkish border in order to cut off ISIS’s main supply line and source of recruits.

That is what this is really about. Turkey wants what remains of the Syrian state to collapse or to become a puppet (thus “Assad Must Go”).  The goals of the two states are in direct opposition. And Erdogan has just made it clear in how much direct opposition.

This particular incident is about ISIS only indirectly, but be clear: The only people who really want to defeat ISIS are Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, the Kurds, and Iraq. No one else of significance does.

Your deaths in Paris and elsewhere, children, whatever hypocrisy Western leaders like Hollande may spew, are acceptable collateral casualties to your masters. They will turn Europe into a police state in an attempt to root out ISIS cells (and because they wanted a police state already and this is a great excuse), but they are not actually serious about defeating ISIS.

(Addendum, Obama’s statement:

President Obama noted that it was important to ensure that Russia and Turkey continue to talk to each other, but went on to say: “This points to an ongoing problem with the Russian operation, in the sense that they are operating very close to the Turkish border and going after moderate opposition supported by Turkey and a wide range of countries.”

Anyone who says “moderation opposition” is either abysmally stupid or lying. (Again, no Western country is serious about defeating ISIS.))

(Addendum , Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoy:

Now the General Staff is elaborating additional security measures for the Russian airbase.

First: All the activities of the attack aviation will be carried out only under cover of fighter aircraft.

Second: Air defence will be reinforced. For that purpose, the Moskva cruiser equipped with air defence system Fort analogous to the S-300 one will go to the shore zone of Latakia. Russian Defence Ministry warns that all the potentially dangerous targets will be destroyed.

Third: Contacts with Turkey will be terminated at the military level».)

Ouch. AKA, “Don’t try that again unless you want an actual fight.”)

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