In what is an extremely rare rebuke, the House of Representatives voted to invoke the War Powers Act to prevent further aid to the House of Saud’s brutal war in Yemen.
It’s good policy, and good politics: The actions in Yemen are indefensible, and it shows Trump’s pretense of opposition to foreign wars to be false.
While I do not expect this to go very far in the Senate, it does a good job of jamming Trump and the Republican Party up.
Well played.
We now have a report that Iranian forces fired a rocket at Israel, and Israel responded with air-strikes:
Israeli forces bombed targets belonging to Iran inside Syria early Monday morning, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement, as tensions on the northern border continued to skyrocket.
The Israeli army said at 1:30 a.m. it was “now striking Iranian Quds targets in Syrian territory,” and warned Syrian forces not to intervene.
………
The attack came less than a day after Israel reportedly carried out a rare daylight strike on targets near Damascus, after which Iranian forces in Syria fired a retaliatory missile at Israel, according to the IDF. The exchanges ratcheted up concerns of a wider confrontation between Israel and Iran in Syria. The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported Monday that the Iranian missile, intercepted en route to the Golan by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, carried a nearly half-ton warhead.
I do not think that this is unrelated to the fact that Knesset elections will be in less than 3 months.
Say what you will about Binyamin Netanyahu, but he has an almost preternatural knack for tapping into the Israeli electorate fears to further his own political career..
It turns out that the Orwellian-named Center for American Progress is in the pockets of the United Arab Emerates, and have gone hammer an tong after employees who are concerned about this:
The Center for American Progress fired two staffers suspected of being involved in leaking an email exchange that staffers thought reflected improper influence by the United Arab Emirates within the think tank, according to three sources with knowledge of the shake-up. Both staffers were investigated for leaking the contents of an internal email exchange to The Intercept, but neither of the former employees was The Intercept’s source.
………
A CAP spokesperson acknowledged two employees were fired as a result of the leak investigation, but said that the leak was not the reason they were fired: “We are not going to discuss internal personnel matters, but no one was fired at CAP for leaking or whistleblowing.” Internally, however, multiple members of CAP leadership have used the leak as the leading rationale for the firings in multiple settings, sources said. Gude did not return requests for comment.
At issue was an internal debate over how to frame CAP’s response to the murder of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was dismembered by Saudi Arabian officials inside the nation’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2.
The initial draft of the CAP’s statement condemned the killing and Saudi Arabia’s role in it, calling for specific consequences. Brian Katulis, a Gulf expert at CAP, objected to the specific consequences proposed in an email exchange with other national security staffers, according to sources who described the contents of the thread to The Intercept. At an impasse, the specifics were dropped, replaced merely with a call to “take additional steps to reassess” the U.S.-Saudi relationship, and the statement was released to the public on October 12.
I’m not surprised.
It’s a vipers nest of Clintonite grifters like Neera Tanden, Tom Daschle, John Podesta, and Larry Summers, so it’s no surprise that they are bought and paid for by the Saudi’s Persian Gulf war criminal (Yemen) buddies.
It is now a diffuse terrorist organization, and as such, the only remaining justifications for keeping 2-3000 (and probably more off the books) troops on the ground are promulgating regime change and doing the House of Saud’s dirty work in their hundreds of years long battle with Iran.
As such, I think that Trump’s announcement that they are pulling ground troops from Syria, effective immediately, is a good thing, even if is (probably) being done for the most base of reasons:
The United States will move quickly to withdraw all forces from Syria, the White House abruptly announced Wednesday, as President Trump defied warnings from his top advisers and upended plans for a continued mission against the Islamic State.
The move plunged U.S. allies into uncertainty and created the potential for greater regional instability even as it provided Russia and its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a chance to cement greater control over the country.
“Our boys, our young women, our men, they’re all coming back and they’re coming back now, we won and that’s the way we want it,” Trump said in a video message on Twitter, an unusual format for the president. “That’s the way we want it, and that’s the way they want it,” he said, pointing to the sky in an apparent reference to American soldiers killed in Syria.
To quote John Kerry, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
The decision also delivers on the president’s repeated threat this year to pull out troops. Since before taking office, Trump has promised to conclude the campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and questioned the value of costly and dangerous military missions overseas.
………
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee, respectively, warned in a statement that the decision would benefit Russia and Iran, Assad’s other major patron.
I use the tears of the regime change Mousketeers to sweeten my coffee.
Of course, the wing of U.S. officialdom known as, “The Blob,” are doing their level best to prevent a sudden outbreak of peace:
President Donald Trump may have declared the so-called Islamic State “defeated,” sparking talk of a U.S. withdrawal from the former ISIS stronghold of northeastern Syria. But administration officials, several of whom were taken by surprise, indicated an effort was underway to stop or slow a pullout.
………
Yet the official added a harder-edged warning suggesting that military force against Iran in Syria remained an option: “Iran knows the U.S. stands ready to re-engage at all levels to defend American interests.”
OK, Mr. Anonymous Official, name 3 significant American interests in Syria, and you cannot use, “Iran’s there,” or, “Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud’s dick won’t suck itself.”
I do not a reason for this canal beyond spite
No, this is not another Trump story, this about how Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud (MBS) is literally planning to cut Bahrain off from the rest of the Arabian peninsula:
The Saudi government appears to be close to announcing the winner of a tender to dig a canal along the border with Qatar, effectively transforming the peninsula nation into an island.
The tender process for the ambitious project to dig a 60-kilometre navigable canal closed on June 25 with Saudi media reporting at the time that the results would be announced in September.
A senior government official signalled on Friday that the final approvals for the project may be in the works.
“I am eagerly awaiting details on the implementation of the Salwa island project, a great, historic project that will change the geography of the region,” Saud Al Qahtani, a senior adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, said on Twitter.
Seriously, there is no justification for this canal beyond isolating Qatar.
A boat from Bahrain to Abu Dabi around the peninsula is 275 miles, through the canal it is over 300 miles, and the House of Saud is planning to put a nuclear waste dump on the Qatar side of the canal.
Even by the standards of the medieval and inbred descendents of Ibn Saud, this MBS is a train wreck.
So clueless that Donald Trump mocks you for being an incompetent despot:
President Trump on Tuesday ramped up his rhetoric against Saudi Arabia over the death of Jamal Khashoggi, calling the kingdom’s efforts to hide the journalist’s killing the “worst cover-up ever.”
“They had a very bad original concept, it was carried out poorly and the cover-up was the worst in the history of cover-ups,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They had the worst cover-up ever.”
We truly live in Bizarro world.
We know what the House of Saud is, and we know what they do: They are incompetent and corrupt royals who make the Hapsburgs look like Little Orphan Annie.
Your hand wringing after the fact will disabuse no one of your complicity in their regime:
McKinsey & Co. said it’s “horrified” that a report it prepared to measure public perception of Saudi Arabia’s policies may have been used by the kingdom to silence dissidents.
The consulting firm responded on Twitter to a New York Times article that detailed a report in which it identified several people driving conversations on Twitter. Those people were later arrested or had their social-media accounts shut down.
In a nine-page report, the consulting firm said responses to the country’s economic policies received twice as much coverage on Twitter than in the country’s traditional news media, and that negative sentiment was more common than positive statements on social media. The document was a brief overview of social-media usage and meant for internal use, McKinsey said.
The New York-based firm said it wasn’t working in tandem with the Saudi government, and that when it does work with governments, the company “has not and never would engage in any work that seeks to target individuals based on their views,” according to a statement released on Saturday night. “We are horrified by the possibility, however remote, that it could have been misused in any way,” the statement said. “At this point, we have seen no evidence to suggest that it was misused, but we are urgently investigating how and with whom the document was shared.”
Yeah, and Dick Cheney is looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Please, don’t treat us as idiots.
Very strange… Iran fired missiles at ISIS in Syria. Killed several ISIS leaders – almost killed Al-Baghdadi. US complained (!!) saying Iran was reckless, cuz the strike was within 3 miles of US troops.
But why was ISIS leader Baghdadi feeling so safe so close to US troops????
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) October 5, 2018
You know, the fact that we are effectively allied with ISIS might be a small indicator that our policies in Syria are not in the national interest.
H/t naked capitalism.
It appears that agents of the House of Saud murded dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in their consulate in Istanbul, dismembered him, and took him out of the country in diplomatic pouches:
Top Turkish security officials have concluded that the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on orders from the highest levels of the royal court, a senior official said Tuesday.
The official described a quick and complex operation in which Mr. Khashoggi was killed within two hours of his arrival at the consulate by a team of Saudi agents, who dismembered his body with a bone saw they brought for the purpose.
“It is like ‘Pulp Fiction,’” the official said.
Saudi officials, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have denied the allegations, insisting that Mr. Khashoggi left the consulate freely shortly after he arrived. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has demanded that the Saudis provide evidence proving their claim.
………
The security establishment concluded that Mr. Khashoggi’s killing was directed from the top because only the most senior Saudi leaders could order an operation of such scale and complexity, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to disclose confidential briefings.
Fifteen Saudi agents had arrived on two charter flights last Tuesday, the day Mr. Khashoggi disappeared, the official said.
All 15 left just a few hours later, and Turkey has now identified the roles that most or all of them held in the Saudi government or security services, the official said. One was an autopsy expert, presumably there to help dismember the body, the official said.
………
Security camera footage showed Mr. Khashoggi entering the consulate shortly after 1 p.m. that day. Ms. Cengiz, his fiancée, waited outside, and she has said he never emerged.Two and a half hours after he entered the facility, six vehicles with diplomatic license plates pulled out, carrying 15 Saudi officials and intelligence officers, Sabah reported.
Two other vehicles, including a black Mercedes Vito van with darkened windows, went from the consulate to the consul’s residence about 200 yards away. Turkish employees of the residence had unexpectedly been told not to report for work that day, the newspaper said.
This is completely nuts, but it’s par for the course for Mohammad bin Salman.
The 33-year-old boy king-in-all-but-name has clearly never ever had anyone ever say, “No” to him, and he is off the deep end in a way that would have Czar Nicholas II saying, “Dude, you are letting this whole absolute monarch thing go to your head.”
We are in for a bumpy ride on the Arabian peninsula.
Fred Hiatt and the Washington Post editorial board have concluded that US support for the war in Yemen shocks the conscience.
The reason I find this remarkable is that after supporting every misbegotten bit of military adventurism over the past few decades, I did not know that either the Post‘s editorial board or Fred Hiatt had a conscience to shock.
I have mentioned how it seems to me that Rachael Maddow is having a full Mort Sahl styl meltdown on MSNBC.
I’m wrong, it’s the whole f%$#ing network:
As FAIR has noted before (1/8/18, 3/20/18), to MSNBC, the carnage and destruction the US and its Gulf Monarchy allies are leveling against the poorest country in the Arab world is simply a non-issue.
On July 2, a year had passed since the cable network’s last segment mentioning US participation in the war on Yemen, which has killed in excess of 15,000 people and resulted in over a million cases of cholera. The US is backing a Saudi-led bombing campaign with intelligence, refueling, political cover, military hardware and, as of March, ground troops. None of this matters at all to what Adweek (4/3/18) calls “the network of the Resistance,” which has since its last mention of the US’s role in the destruction of Yemen found time to run over a dozen segments highlighting war crimes committed by the Syrian and Russian governments in Syria.
By way of contrast, as MSNBC was marking a year without mentioning the US role in Yemen, the PBS NewsHour was running a three-part series on the war, with the second part (7/3/18) headlined, “American-Made Bombs in Yemen Are Killing Civilians, Destroying Infrastructure and Fueling Anger at the US.” The NewsHour’s Jane Ferguson reported:
The aerial bombing campaign has not managed to dislodge the rebels, but has hit weddings, hospitals and homes. The US military supports the Saudi coalition with logistics and intelligence. The United States it also sells the Saudis and coalition partners many of the bombs they drop on Yemen.
455 to 0. That makes the Washington Generals record against the Harlem Globetrotters look impressive.
It’s understandable though, as FAIR notes, “In any event, it’s not like any Yemenis are going to pull ads, turn down appearances, or phone Comcast higher-ups complaining. So, who cares?”
We’re talking an explicit quid pro quo, but you’ll hear very little about this because it all fades into the miasma that is Trump’s ethical lapses.
In the process of pursuing Vladimir Putin as if he were Ernst Stavro Blofeld, people have ignored the fact that Trump is deeply and profoundly corrupt, and always has been:
Today marks the 16-month anniversary of Donald Trump becoming the 45th president of the United States, and nowhere has our unlikeliest commander-in-chief placed a greater stamp on America’s place in the world than his dramatic — and sometimes arbitrary and capricious, or so it seems — shifts in foreign policy. None of these seismic changes seemed more baffling than last spring’s abrupt sellout of the Persian Gulf state of Qatar — a longtime ally where the U.S. Air Force Central Command and its 10,000 American troops are now based.
………
Trump stunned his own foreign policy team — including then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis — when he tweeted that Qatar is a sponsor of terrorism and seemingly endorsed an economic and political blockage of the tiny, oil-rich nation organized and led by two powerful neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, or UAE.
………
How to make sense of a 180-degree shift in policy that seemed so counter to U.S. interests in the region? A few months later, people who suspect the worst about Trump and his minions learned a possible motive that was almost too cynical to comprehend. Not long before Team Trump switched gears on Qatar, key officials from the emirate had met with Charles Kushner — father of Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared, who’s in charge of Trump’s Middle East portfolio — to discuss a massive Qatar-funded bailout of 666 Fifth Ave., the debt-laden Manhattan skyscraper that was threatening to sink the Kushner family real estate empire. But the Qataris rejected the deal — just weeks before the policy about-face. Whatever actually happened, the appearance was simply awful.
No, the reality is simply awful.
It also seems not to have been the full story. This weekend, the New York Times published a stunning report about a plan floated by a longtime emissary for the Saudis and the UAE in early August 2016, when Trump had just grabbed the GOP nomination but faced an uphill campaign against Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump Jr., aide Stephen Miller and Erik Prince, founder of the notorious mercenary outfit once know as Blackwater, listened intently as the emissary offered Team Trump millions of dollars in assistance, including a covert social-media campaign, to help Trump win that would be run by a former Israeli spy who specializes in psychological warfare, or psywar.
“The emissary, George Nader, told Donald Trump Jr. that the princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president,” the Times reported. Some key elements — exactly who was behind the plan, and what parts, if any, were carried out — remain murky.
I should mention here that Nader is a convicted felon, having served multiple sentences for child porn and sexual child abuse. (As Anna Russell would say, “I’m not making this up, you know.”)
And the corruption is pretty explicit:
As long as Trump and Jared Kushner continue to hold onto their business holdings while leading U.S. foreign policy, this cloud will remain. Did Trump voice support last week for ending American sanctions on the Chinese telecom company ZTE Corp. because it would benefit their U.S. subcontractors, or because a Chinese fund is investing $500 million in an Indonesia theme park that should dramatically boost the value of a related Trump Organization development? Then there’s the matter of Qatar, because in recent months it has become clear that the Gulf state is again in the Trump administration’s good graces, and the strategic alliance has been renewed as if last spring’s blowup never happened. Is that because it’s a more sensible policy — or is it because a firm called Brookfield Asset Management that is backed heavily by Qatari funds is near a deal to bail out Kushner’s 666 Fifth Ave? Is it any wonder that so many longtime key allies of the United States wonder if they can trust Trump’s America?
I note that Trump was thoroughly corrupt, and deeply mobbed up last year, but, instead of looking at the stuff that blatantly obvious, we have discussions of pee tapes.
First, we have an al Qaeda linked group shooting down a Russian jet with a US missile:
Syria’s former al-Qaeda affiliate claimed responsibility Saturday for the downing of a Russian warplane in northern Syria, apparently using a surface-to-air missile to target the aircraft.
The pilot was killed after he ejected and exchanged gunfire with militants on the ground, the Russian Defense Ministry and a monitoring group said.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, a powerful rebel alliance that publicly split from al-Qaeda last year, said it had used a shoulder-fired weapon to down the Su-25 fighter jet as it flew low over the opposition-held town of Saraqeb.………
It also raises questions about the source of the apparent “man-portable air-defense system,” or MANPADS, a shoulder-fired weapon for which Syria’s rebels have repeatedly pleaded from their international backers. The United States has been strongly opposed, fearing that antiaircraft weapons could fall into the hands of the country’s extremist groups.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said any allegation that the United States has provided MANPAD missiles in Syria was untrue, and she denied that U.S. equipment was used in shooting down the Russian plane.
Considering the fact that the CIA has been supporting groups that the US military has been attacking, so take that with a grain of salt.
The rather more shocking news today though is that Israel has been conducting airstrikes in the Sinai with the affirmative assent of the Egyptian government:
The jihadists in Egypt’s Northern Sinai had killed hundreds of soldiers and police officers, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, briefly seized a major town and begun setting up armed checkpoints to claim territory. In late 2015, they brought down a Russian passenger jet.
Egypt appeared unable to stop them, so Israel, alarmed at the threat just over the border, took action.For more than two years, unmarked Israeli drones, helicopters and jets have carried out a covert air campaign, conducting more than 100 airstrikes inside Egypt, frequently more than once a week — and all with the approval of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The remarkable cooperation marks a new stage in the evolution of their singularly fraught relationship. Once enemies in three wars, then antagonists in an uneasy peace, Egypt and Israel are now secret allies in a covert war against a common foe.
The Israeli airstrikes are not that unusual, but the fact that there has been official (though not public)n approval, and not just grudging acknowledgement, of the Egyptian government.
The obvious conclusion here is that the Egyptian Government (particularly el-Sisi) is desperate, which indicates that the government is far less secure than it would like to proclaim.
In response to threats and a blockade led by the House of Saud, Qatar has reopened full diplomatic relations with Iran:
Qatar said Thursday that it has restored diplomatic relations with Iran, marking a further break with Arab nations that have closed ranks against Qatar for its links to Islamist groups and others perceived as regional threats.
The decision ignores demands by Qatar’s neighbors — led by Saudi Arabia — to limit ties with Tehran and threatens to deepen the region’s worst diplomatic crisis in decades, which has complicated Washington’s policies in the Middle East.
Qatar hosts U.S. warplanes at a major air base and serves as a logistical hub for Pentagon operations.
“The State of Qatar expressed its aspiration to strengthen bilateral relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran in all fields,” Qatar’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The brief statement made no mention of the tensions that have roiled the Persian Gulf region since June, when Saudi Arabia and three other Arab nations severed ties with Qatar. The Arab bloc shut down borders, airspace and shipping lanes after accusing the tiny, energy-rich nation of backing terrorism because of ties with groups such as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Qatar also has come under pressure to close down the powerful pan-Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, which is based in the Qatari capital, Doha.
Qatar has denied the allegations and has weathered the boycott, not least by turning to Iran and Turkey for economic and military assistance.
Qatar recalled its ambassador from Tehran in early 2016 to show solidarity with Saudi Arabia after protesters ransacked the kingdom’s embassy in Tehran and a consulate in the city of Mashhad. The attacks were triggered by Riyadh’s execution of a well-known Shiite Muslim cleric, and prompted Saudi Arabia to sever ties with Iran after accusing it of not protecting its missions.
When you look at the Saudi initiatives that have come to the fore since Mohammed bin Salman first rose to prominence in the House of Saud, the pointless and self-destructive confrontation with Qatar is only the latest clusterf%$#, it has been a very inauspicious start for the youngster.
I’ve always said that the House of Saud would fall sooner rather than later, and that the only choice was whether they fell like the House of Windsor (British Royals), or like the House of Romanov (the Russian Czars).
They seem determined to going the Romanov route.
It does appear that Donald Trump (père, not fils) may have been using his position as President in an attempt to secure a bailout for a disastrous real estate deal made by Jared Kushner.
Specifically, Trump’s immediately taking the side of the House of Saud in their dispute with Qatar on Twitter may very well have been retaliation for their turning down a deal with his son-in-law:
Not long before a major crisis ripped through the Middle East, pitting the United States and a bloc of Gulf countries against Qatar, Jared Kushner’s real estate company had unsuccessfully sought a critical half-billion-dollar investment from one of the richest and most influential men in the tiny nation, according to three well-placed sources with knowledge of the near transaction.
Kushner is a senior adviser to President Trump, and also his son-in-law, and also the scion of a New York real estate empire that faces an extreme risk from an investment made by Kushner in the building at 666 Fifth Avenue, where the family is now severely underwater.
Qatar is facing an ongoing blockade led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and joined by Egypt and Bahrain, which President Trump has taken credit for sparking. Kushner, meanwhile, has reportedly played a key behind-the-scenes role in hardening the U.S. posture toward the embattled nation.
That hard line comes in the wake of the previously unreported half-billion-dollar deal that was never consummated. Throughout 2015 and 2016, Jared Kushner and his father, Charles, negotiated directly with a major investor in Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, known as HBJ for short, in an effort to refinance the property on Fifth Avenue, the sources said.
Trump himself has unsuccessfully sought financing in recent years from the Qataris, but it is difficult to overstate just how important the investment at 666 Fifth Avenue is for Kushner, his company, and his family’s legacy in real estate. Without some outside intervention or unforeseen turnaround in the market, the investment could become an embarrassing half-billion-dollar loss. It’s unclear precisely how much peril such a loss would put Jared’s or his family’s finances in, given the opacity of their private holdings.
HBJ, a former prime minister of Qatar who ran the country’s $250 billion sovereign wealth fund, is a billionaire and one of the world’s richest men. He owns a yacht worth $300 million called Al Mirqab, the same name he gave to the private investment firm that Kushner pitched. The former emir of Qatar summed up HBJ’s power with a quip: “I may run this country, but he owns it.”
HBJ ultimately agreed to invest at least $500 million through Al Mirqab, on the condition that Kushner Companies could raise the rest of a multibillion refinancing elsewhere. The negotiations continued long after the election, carried out as recently as this spring by Charles Kushner. “HBJ basically told them, we’re good for 500, subject to a lot of things, but mainly subject to you being able to raise the rest,” said one source in the region with knowledge of the deal. The talks were confirmed by two additional sources with knowledge of the talks. One of those sources claimed that the potential deal was not contingent on the rest of the money being raised and that the HBJ investment was on hold as the overall structure of the financing was reconsidered. None of the sources would agree to talk on the record about a private financial transaction that has until now remained a secret.
………
The revelation of the half-billion-dollar deal raises thorny and unprecedented ethical questions. If the deal is not entirely dead, that means Jared Kushner is on the one hand pushing to use the power of American diplomacy to pummel a small nation, while on the other his firm is hoping to extract an extraordinary amount of capital from there for a failing investment. If, however, the deal is entirely dead, the pummeling may be seen as intimidating to other investors on the end of a Kushner Companies pitch.
………
On June 6, President Trump took sides, taking credit for the moves by the Gulf nations.
…extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017
So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding…— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017
During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017
On June 9, after Saudi Arabia and the UAE had begun to blockade Qatar, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to calm nerves, calling for mediation and an immediate end to the blockade.Within hours, Trump, at a White House ceremony, contradicted Tillerson, slamming Qatar again and claiming it had “historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.”
Trump’s White House remarks, Tillerson came to believe, had been written by UAE Ambassador Yousef Al-Otaiba and delivered to Trump by Jared Kushner.
(emphasis mine)
This is Teapot Dome level crap.
It’s easy to understand, and the violation of the law is clear.
What’s more from a power politics perspective, if this becomes a major political issue, it would scare off any potential investors for 666 5th Avenue, which would likely cripple the Kushner Company empire when the balloon payment comes due.
Quoting Billy Ray Valentine from the movie Trading Places, “The best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people.”
Is the Saudi Boycott of Qatar Driving It into the Arms of Iran?
Did you really need to ask?
Just 24 hours after Turkey sent troops to protect Qatar, Saudi officials announced their public support for the Kurds in Syria.— Leith Abou Fadel (@leithfadel) June 12, 2017
The House of Saud, the Gift that Keeps Giving
I am referring to, of course, the latest kerfuffle between Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Saudi Arabia, with the rest of the its toady petty monarchs around the Persian Gulf, have recalled diplomats, expelled Qatari citizens, and blockaded the land border to Qatar:
For years, the tiny, energy-rich country of Qatar has carved out a niche in the Arab world by trying to be everything to everyone. It housed an American military base and flooded the region’s airwaves with its influential media, all while keeping close ties to Iran and a wide selection of Islamist movements.
On Monday, five countries in the region announced that they were forcing Qatar to choose: Its powerful neighbor Saudi Arabia, Egypt and at least three other Arab nations severed all ties with the country, escalating their accusations that the Qatari monarchy supported Sunni Islamist terrorism and Iranian designs on the region.
Those Arab nations not only abruptly suspended diplomatic relations, as they have in the past, but also surprised many by cutting off land, air and sea travel to and from Qatar. All but Egypt, which has 250,000 people working there, ordered their citizens to leave Qatar.
The move created an immediate crisis for Qatar, whose only land border is with Saudi Arabia and which imports about 40 percent of its food from the Saudis. Residents said that people were stocking up on food and cash. And Qatari diplomats and citizens were scrambling to meet a 48-hour deadline to leave some Persian Gulf countries where they had been posted.
Qatar, which in the context of the Gulf monarchies I would describe as the best of a bad lot, has been ruffling feathers in the reason for a while.
It has been generally supportive of the Islamic Brotherhood and its related groups (most notably Hamas), and it has relatively friendly relations with Iran, but the thing that really upsets other regional governments, particularly the House of Saud, is that it operates the Al Jazeera which actually provides relatively impartial news coverage of the region (except, of course, in Qatar, funny how that works).
Further complicating the matter is the fact that Doha has been cultivating a relationship with Turkey, and will be allowing Ankara to construct a military base on the peninsula, which would put a Turkish military presence in the area for the first time since the fall of the Ottoman empire.
This, along with a mammoth air base operated by the US in Qatar means that their military influence is far greater than their (90% expat) population and the size of their military would imply.
In any case, a list of demands was presented to Qatar by Saudi Arabia and the other gulf states:
It’s a laundry list of demands, and I think that some of them were inserted do provide some obfuscation or wiggle room.
I’ve highlighted the items that I think are the the real causus belli, which reduces to Iran, Turkey, and a (relatively) free press being what really upsets Riyadh.
One theory about these demands is that they are not a serious set of demands, but rather they have been issued with the goal of justifying a Saudi invasion. (Think about the Austrian demands to Serbia that precipitated World War I.)
In any case, the immediate response by Qatar has been to reach out to Turkey and Iran for needed supplies, which also is very clearly a f%$# you to the other members of the GCC:
Qatar is in talks with Iran and Turkey to secure food and water supplies amid concerns of possible shortages two days after its biggest suppliers, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, cut trade and diplomatic ties with the import-dependent country.
“We are in talks with Turkey and Iran and other countries,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, adding that the supplies would be brought in through Qatar Airways cargo flights.
So right now, it looks like Qatar is turning into yet another clusterf%$#, much like its aimless intervention in Yemen.
To quote Dean Vernon Wormer, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
Dear Qatar,If anyone is going to sponsor terrorists it’s going to be me.
Sincerely,
Saudi Arabia
— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) June 5, 2017
The US has decidedly to supply arms directly to Kurdish fighters in Syria:
President Trump has approved a plan to directly arm Kurdish forces fighting in Syria, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, inflaming already strained ties with Turkey and putting the U.S. military a step closer to seizing a remaining Islamic State stronghold.
Pentagon spokeswoman Dana W. White said the president made the decision Monday, describing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a diverse group dominated by Kurdish fighters, as “the only force on the ground that can successfully seize Raqqa in the near future.” For more than a year, the U.S. military has been advancing plans to capture Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the Islamic State’s de facto capital, as the final major step in its nearly three-year effort to defeat the militant group.
“We are keenly aware of the security concerns of our coalition partner Turkey,” White said in a statement. “We want to reassure the people and government of Turkey that the U.S. is committed to preventing additional security risks and protecting our NATO ally.”
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Ankara sees the YPG as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is considered a terrorist group by both Turkey and the United States.
Since Turkey is perhaps the 2nd worst external actor in Syria, after the House of Saud, so the fact that their agenda is going pear shaped is a good thing.
It’s fairly clear that Erdoğan is using the conflict with ISIS to reinforce his authoritarian rule, and it appears highly likely that he is intent on creating some sort of Turkish zone of influence akin to the Ottoman empire.
That reality is disabusing Erdoğan of his delusions is a good thing.
First, as I am sure most of you are aware, the evacuation of Aleppo is complete, and the Assad Regime has full control of the city:
The evacuation of civilians and fighters from the last rebel-held part of Aleppo concluded on Thursday after long delays because of frigid weather, putting all of Syria’s industrial capital back in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for the first time since 2012.
The last buses carrying residents from eastern Aleppo left the city late Thursday night, according to the Syrian state news agency.
Tens of thousands of people have been removed from eastern Aleppo since Dec. 15. Before the last buses left on Thursday, the Red Cross said that 34,000 people had left the city, including 4,000 fighters who had left in their own vehicles the previous night.
A separate convoy was waiting to carry residents out of two pro-government villages in neighboring Idlib Province that have been surrounded by rebels for years. It was unclear late Thursday whether the convoy had completed its trip.
The seizure of all of Aleppo by Mr. Assad and his allies signals a turning point in the nearly six-year conflict.
Rather unsurprisingly, despite representation in western media, upon entering East Aleppo, evidence of mass torture and mass executions were found:
Russian military forces have discovered mass graves in eastern parts of the Syrian city of Aleppo, with many of the bodies reportedly showing signs of torture.
Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesperson for the Russian defense ministry, announced the horrifying discovery on Monday. “Many of the corpses were found with missing body parts, and most had gunshot wounds to the head,” he said, according to RT, a Russian state-owned news network.
Until recently, the eastern portion of Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city and industrial and financial center, was under the control of so-called “moderate” rebels, many of whom have received both intelligence and material support from the United States and its allies in the Middle East.
Last week, Russian and Syrian military forces oversaw the evacuation of civilians from eastern Aleppo. Prior to that, the rebel-held portion of the city had been controlled by two main factions, Jabhat al-Nusra, a terrorist group with ties to al-Qaida also known as the Nusra Front, and Ahrar al-Sham, another extremist group that receives U.S. support despite being designated a terrorist organization.
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Russian forces also found massive stockpiles of weaponry abandoned by fleeing rebel groups. “In one small area, three tanks, two cannons, two multiple rocket launchers and numerous homemade mortars were found,” reported RT.
In related news, a Syrian refugee was charged with war crimes in Sweden for his role in executing captured Syrian government soldiers:
A former Syrian opposition fighter has been charged with breaching international law over the execution in 2012 of seven soldiers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, the Swedish prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.
The 46-year-old man, who was arrested in March, appears in a video showing the killings, the prosecutor’s office said.
The man, who was not named, denies any crime.
“The soldiers were captured and defenseless when this happened,” prosecutor Kristina Lindhoff Carleson said in a statement.
While this was going on, Russia, Iran and Turkey met for cease fire negotiations. Notably, the US, NATO, and the UN were not included, which is rather unsurprising, considering that those three entities have remained committed to replacing Assad.
What’s more, it appears that these negotiations have born fruit, with cease fire coming into effect across Syria, though it it’s success is still not certain:
A cease-fire announced by the Syrian government went into effect across the country early Friday as part of a broader deal that includes a return to peace talks to end more than five years of war.
Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reestablished control over the northern city of Aleppo earlier this month, forcing rebels to flee what was once their largest stronghold and handing the government a victory that appeared to bring the war’s endgame into view.
The Assad government, backed by Russia and Iran, is now in its strongest position since the start of the war, while rebel groups are mostly boxed into the northwestern province of Idlib and hold no strategically significant urban areas.
The Syrian military declared in a statement issued Thursday that the “comprehensive” cessation of hostilities follows “victories and advances” by the armed forces.
Russia and Turkey, which brokered the deal, said they could guarantee compliance from the government and its armed opposition, respectively, after weeks of negotiations.
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The Syrian army said the cease-fire excluded “terrorist organizations,” notably the Islamic State but also the country’s al-Qaeda affiliate, an influential component of what remains of Syria’s armed opposition. The caveat suggested that the fighting could continue in Idlib, now the rebels’ final bastion.
ISIS and al Qaeda (al Nusra/al-Sham) aren’t just an “influential component” of Syrian opposition. They are the bulk of viable rebel military forces.
As I have stated before, there is no moderate opposition. They are all salafist Sunni extremists, sponsored by Turkey, the House of Saud, and the Persian Gulf Potentiates.
Turkish President Erdogan is claiming that he has evidence to prove that the US is supporting terrorist organizations, including al Nusra, Daesh, and the YPG:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said “it’s very clear” that the US-led coalition is supporting terrorist groups in Syria, Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS/ISIL) among them.
“They give support to terrorist groups including Daesh (Arabic for IS),” Erdogan said.
Saying that the US have accused Turkey of supporting IS, speaking at a press conference on Tuesday the Turkish leader blamed the US-led coalition for assisting terrorists themselves.
Apart from IS, he also mentioned Kurdish People’s Protection Units in northern Syria (YPG) and Democratic Union Party (PYD) as groups supported by the coalition.
“We have confirmed evidence, with pictures, photos and videos,” he added.
Best evidence is that he is right on two of those three counts, our military haxs supported Kurdish fighters, and the CIA has been supporting (at least indirectly through its completely incompent grooming of “moderates”) al Nusra.
Our policy, which largely consists of incompetent CIA operations running at cross purposes to military and diplomatic efforts that are in large part intended to slavishly follow the dictates of the House of Saud.