The West’s Middle Eastern Playbook

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Remember the  lie? It cost more than 3 million Vietnamese their lives, murdered in cold blood, using the most lethal weapons American war industry could produce and sell. An identical modus operandi was used as recently as 2003 to start the Iraq War. The lies about Saddam Hussein’s WMDs cost the lives of a Iraqis, and counting. Last year, the US finally drew the curtain on its 20-year war in Afghanistan, at a  of over $2.3 trillion and nearly 50,000 civilian lives. How is that possible? Because the public is ignorant and, therefore, easily fooled by decision-makers and powerful media.

Same Playbook

It’s the same playbook, again and again. The media refocus public attention from a country to a specific individual, presenting them as a bogeyman from whom the people are to be liberated. Now the war is not against a nation in which millions will die but against an individual. It’s easy to turn your ignorant people against one person. In Vietnam, it was Ho Chi Minh, in Afghanistan, Mullah Omar and his Taliban, and Hussein in Iraq.

Take a look at the Ukrainian crisis: The conflict is not with Russia — it’s with Vladimir Putin. The narrative is, will Putin invade? Why is Putin amassing his — not Russia’s — army? The Russian president is the new bogeyman. And what do the nice people at NATO want? Just freedom for Ukraine to join NATO, which incidentally includes Kyiv’s right to allow NATO armies to amass on its territory, on Russia’s doorstep. How could there possibly be something wrong with that? Right? Wrong!

Here are some real thoughts for our domesticated friends on the other side of sobriety. It might even help free them from the confinements of their media and actually take a global, rather than a parochial, view of their problems.

Suppose Ukraine, after joining NATO, becomes emboldened and decides to challenge Russia (or is it Putin?) in Donbas or Crimea? Both have a Russian population and, like all of Ukraine and Russia, were part of the former Soviet Union. What will NATO do? Trigger  and embark on a direct military confrontation against Russia on Ukraine’s side? Or will it unprecedentedly abandon a NATO member in war and risk breaking up the alliance, giving French President Emmanuel Macron’s  of NATO more credence?

If war breaks out over Ukraine, as some never-seen-action, gung-ho rocking-chair warriors want, what will happen in Asia? What if China decides that the moment is right to take over Taiwan and the whole of the South China Sea? Will our Western warriors start a war with China while fighting Russia?

In the Middle East, where Washington’s client states are on the run, will they be able to rely on American protection, which they desperately seem to need despite hundreds of billions spent on military hardware? What will happen if their regional adversaries decide to go full scale on them, creating a wider conflict across the Arab world because all hell has broken loose in Europe and the South China Sea?

And who is doing the actual saber-rattling? The leadership of major  — the front-line states — is scared, not by Russia invading Ukraine but of their own Anglo-Saxon war-mongering allies in London and Washington. The Europeans realize that these are the same people who pushed the world to disastrous wars repeatedly, killing countless millions but losing each one of these conflicts — unless, of course, the purpose of war is exclusively to kill and destroy.

Trusting these same people with decisions of war and peace is like using the same failed mindset and same failed plan but hoping for different results. This has never worked. It will never work.

Sitting on a Powder Keg

These are realistic scenarios in a world sitting on a powder keg with everyone wanting to redraw geopolitical maps. Are these global ramifications even considered in the West? Does the public in the West even know or understand these global realities? The media there are busy entertaining the public with war scenarios and military hardware. No one is telling them that if the war starts; we will know where and when it started, but we won’t know where or when it will stop. Of course, we will be able to estimate how destructive it will be, assuming that it still matters.

The path to war is littered with bravado, brinkmanship and ego. We then lose control of events, and all that is required is a spark, or a single bullet, like the one that murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand and created an uncontrollable chain reaction leading to a war that 40 million people.

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Following the fall of the Soviet Union, we drifted from a bipolar world that maintained decades of no major wars to a destructive unipolar system of unstoppable wars and invasions. With the reemergence of Russia and the rise of China, we now see a tripolar world in the making, with a number of regional superpowers such as India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey coming into their own. There is no going back on this.

Attempts to prevent others from rising will only result in destructive wars. The sooner our friends across the big pond recognize and learn to coexist with that new world order, the better it is for everyone. This is not to say their time is up, rather that time has come to share power, and they must accept that new reality. The alternative is disastrous. Germany tried to control the world and become its dictator. We know how that ended. Lessons learned — time for sobriety.

And here is a thought: Taking one’s nation to the edge of the cliff requires brinkmanship. Taking a step back requires leadership. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Time for a Sober Look at the Ukraine Crisis appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The battlegrounds are the oil-rich Mareb, the 3,000-year-old capital city of the queen of Sheba, with its famous Mareb Dam, and the north-south large buffer city, Taiz, whose 2.5 million people suffered heavily over the past six years. These are the two regions where Hadi has some but not full control, and where tribal and political loyalties are as clear as the sun on a very foggy, snowy day. These two battlegrounds will not only determine the future of Hadi and his circle, who for the past six years served as the Saudi coalition’s pretext for its destructive military intervention, but also the future make-up of postwar Yemen and, most probably, the region’s new alliances. 

Working Together Toward Peace in Yemen

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Ansar Allah’s efforts are centered around eliminating the Hadi faction permanently from the equation by driving its forces from its last two strategic positions. The meeting last month in Muscat, Oman, between the US and Ansar Allah might have a lot to do with wrapping up the fighting and discussing postwar scenarios. The battles cannot be allowed to continue for long, especially with other pressing regional issues demanding resolution. That is why, compared to all their battles so far, the Hadi faction is determined to continue fighting. Its survival depends on these two key positions, as does Ansar Allah’s ultimate prize — to retain its hard-won title as the driving force in Yemen’s political future, possibly as king, or at least as kingmaker.

The Southern Transitional Council (STC), which had already dealt its own decisive blow to Hadi, now relishes its turn to watch the events unfold, clearly hoping for an Ansar Allah victory. This would help to terminate the president’s influence completely from the STC’s own stronghold, Aden, where the Hadi group exists ceremoniously as a government only with the STC’s permission.   

First Scenario

There are three possible scenarios for an endgame in this conflict. First is a total defeat and subsequent elimination of the Hadi faction from Yemen’s political future. That entails the elimination of the General People’s Congress (GPC), the ruling party founded by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Islah, Yemen’s brand of Muslim Brotherhood also created by Saleh as a religious party opposing the south’s Yemen Socialist Party (YSP). Ironically, Islah evolved into a strong opposition to Saleh’s own rule and allied with a weak YSP.

The GPC and Islah, once the stalwarts of Yemen’s post-union political landscape, have now become spent forces. The GPC managed in totalitarian fashion by its founder virtually died with him, as is always the case with one-man shows. Islah, defeated, then banished from Yemen by its ideological and political arch-rival Ansar Allah now exists largely in Saudi Arabia, where it is at once viewed as a terrorist organization and an ally by the Saudi regime. The UAE also rejects Islah, like it does the rest of the Muslim Brothers. These two spent forces are the bulwarks of the Hadi bloc.

Eliminating the two political parties in every way but in name will not be unprecedented in Yemen. Following the two-month war in 1994 to defeat southern secessionist attempts led by the YSP, the GPC-Islah alliance completely destroyed the socialists, once a powerful dictatorship that ruled the pre-union People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in the south. It then remained an insignificant player that managed to find a small voice on the bandwagon of Yemen’s Arab Spring revolution in 2011. Currently, in the midst of this war, the YSP is unheard of. Ironically, its fate now awaits its nemeses, the GPC and Islah, once ruling allies, then ruling opponents, now on the same side of a banished government led by Hadi, who, despite his international recognition as president, is unable to set foot in the country he claims to preside over.

This scenario leaves Ansar Allah in control of the northern part of Yemen, with the STC controlling the south. This should be the logical platform for a north-south federation that can save the union. In the face of opposition to a preferred larger multistate federation, such a scenario was envisaged years back when the idea of a centralized state was completely rejected due to its absolute totalitarianism as well as political and financial corruption. But this scenario is now the most viable to bring a stable and peaceful solution.

Second Scenario

However, the danger for Yemen as a whole is the second scenario, in which the STC, without seeking a referendum, uses the fiat of its de facto power supported by the UAE to push for secession. Such a move will provoke others and become destructive in a postwar landscape. The move will also be dangerous for its proponents, the STC and the southerners who support it, and also the south’s backers in Abu Dhabi.

Since independence in 1967, the south has not been politically cohesive. The fighting between the Hadi government — whose members, including Hadi himself, are largely southerners — and the STC, which is identifiably a southern secessionist movement is reminiscent of pre-union southern civil wars. Other secessionist voices in the south have become more prominent since the war of 1994. The large, oil-rich Hadhramout region has the economic and geographic viability to survive as a state on its own.

Together with neighboring Shabwah, another large oil region, the two can be united as a nation. This is a prospect the Saudis have been seeking for many years, hoping to integrate the two regions into greater Saudi Arabia with a direct outlet to the Arabian Sea, away from the unstable Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz. Neighboring Mahra, bordering Oman, with whom it has historical and ethnic ties, can find some accommodating formula with Muscat.

Such a scenario will leave the STC with Aden and its surrounding regions of Lahaj, Abyan, Yafei and Dhalee, all of which can only be economically viable as part of a nation, never on their own. This is the dangerous scenario that the STC and the UAE must be very cautious about. It spells dangers for both by creating a total dependence of STC-ruled areas on Abu Dhabi. While this might look appealing for the UAE in the short term, enabling it to obtain geographical concessions from the STC — especially to Socotora, the Arab world’s biggest island coveted by Abu Dhabi — in the long term it will backfire because Yemenis have always reacted violently to attempts by external forces to dominate them territorially.

Besides, this scenario also enables the Saudis to become more powerful vis-à-vis the Gulf Cooperation Council, a prospect that others, especially the UAE and Oman, will find unnerving. There are much better ways of achieving regional partnerships that are peaceful, inexpensive and offer stable long-term benefits to all involved. On the other hand, there are intertwined economic and social bonds between north and south Yemen. Not only are these ties necessary and beneficial to maintain, but they are also difficult to break.

The gas exported through the Balhaf terminal in the south originates from the fields in Mareb in the north of the country. The southern Yemeni oil that originates from fields in Masila and eastern Shabwah is piped across the northern Yemeni desert to Ras Essa in the Red Sea, part of north Yemen. This type of profitable integration exists in other economic lifelines of the nation. Families on both sides have strong social relations that are evident through intermarriage, food, dress, culture and social habits, forming a diverse nation of strong similarities.

Why all this must be allowed to be lost at the risk of returning to the pre-union border wars is a serious question that anyone seeking to break the union will have to address. Secession demands have been largely led by emotions and a revolt against the excesses, mismanagement and corruption of the Saleh regime, which wreaked havoc on all Yemen and especially the south. But that regime is gone, never to return. Yemenis must now ask themselves if they still want to break up the country — with all the dangers, weaknesses and instability this fracture will bring to Yemen and the entire region — or whether they should mend Yemen in the broken places and build a viable nation that can be a strong regional and international partner?

Such a Yemen will become a powerful lynchpin to the region’s security arrangement, especially as a southern security gate to the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen has the only regional coastline that connects both the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, extending for more than 2,500 kilometers. Going forward, regional political decisions affecting Yemen’s fate can either turn a very frustrated and angry Yemeni population, which has suffered six years of relentless airstrikes, blockade, starvation and military intervention, into a force for chaos or stability in this very important waterway. Clearly, seeing the support retaliatory strikes against Saudi Arabia are getting amongst Yemenis, those currently working toward peace have their work cut out for them. They better hurry. With time and patience running out, failure to meet peace expectations can become ever more dangerous.

Ideal Scenario

The ideal scenario given the current situation will be a new formula for a union that creates a federal government, with strong local governments to support it. That is the type of multistate federation envisaged before the military intervention brought Yemeni peace talks to a sudden halt on the eve of a . It is still viable within a two-state federation.

The third scenario is a stalemate in the current battles with no decisive victories. It is very doubtful that this would lead to a negotiated settlement. It has failed in the past six years because of external players funding and arming opposing sides. No solution in Yemen is possible without turning around the roles played by external forces. A stalemate at the present time is the worst possible scenario that must be avoided at all costs. Yemenis cannot afford it and should not be required to suffer it again.

Strange as this might sound, it is, in fact, the UAE that can drive a solution, provided it is willing to terminate its destructive role in the Yemen war and follow the US example by announcing it is disengaging from the Saudi coalition. Despite saber-rattling, the UAE, among all Arab countries, has excellent relations with Iran, as demonstrated by substantial business ties, the large Iranian community in the UAE and the number of flights between the two countries. The UAE, despite the war, has good coordinating relations with Ansar Allah, and, of course, it is also the sponsor and benefactor of the STC without which the council would not survive. Despite the raging proxy battles between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the south of Yemen, Abu Dhabi still retains working relations with Riyadh. Unlike the Saudis, the UAE also has good relations with the Biden administration.

Working closely with Oman, which maintains unique relations with Yemenis across the divide, and Iran, which has excellent relations with Ansar Allah and is cordial with the STC, Abu Dhabi, Muscat and Tehran could together play a pivotal role in ending the war in Yemen, isolating those unwilling or unable to come to the table.

However, the challenge in this approach is that, unlike some of its neighbors who might be of help, Yemen is a republic with a strong tradition of a free press and multiparty political process. The attempts to rule Yemen centrally through a totalitarian system failed because of these two characteristics. Its tribal tradition does not accept the full authority of a state. On the flip side, it is this strong tribal independence that strengthens Yemeni resolve to resist authoritarian rule. Should the process of bringing peace to Yemen threaten this rebellious characteristic, the dangers to the process can be insurmountable.

Whether we will see this type of regional alliance brought to fruition depends on whether regional leaders are visionaries and strategists or are still confined to simple-minded tactical mentalities to achieve short-term gains. There is an opportunity in President Joe Biden announcing US disengagement from the conflict in Yemen and seeking its end. Others can do the same and ally themselves with this US direction. The blood and treasure that has been lost in Yemen, the social fabric that has been destroyed in the region, the hatred that replaced popular harmony due to bad decisions taken by regional leaders have all compounded the world’s worst man-made catastrophe.

The heaviest price has been paid by Yemenis, once also known to ancient Romans and Greeks as Arabia Felix. As the Quran eloquently describes it, using Yemen’s ancient name, “There was among the people of Sheba, in their homes the proof (of God), two gardens on the right and the left. Eat from the bounties of your Lord and be thankful. A good land and forgiving God.” More than ever in the past, Yemen and the whole of the Middle East now have a unique opportunity to come together, bringing peace and stability to a region uniquely endowed with the potential for prosperity.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Battle Lines of Yemen’s Endgame appeared first on 51�Թ�.

First, let us understand how we got here why Yemenis have become so very disappointed with and feel betrayed by the United States. Understanding that is critical to any future US efforts vis-à-vis Yemen.

Cautiously Optimistic: The Biden Administration’s Options in Yemen

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When in March 2015 the Saudi regime , from Washington, the commencement of the military intervention in Yemen, the Obama administration had already given its green light to the regime presided over by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In fact, President Barack Obama went ahead to the Saudis with weapons and logistics support, including target-selection advisers and refueling of coalition fighter jets on their bombing raids. Obama’s decision effectively made the US a direct member of the Saudi-led coalition in both name and in fact, waging an undeclared war on a nation that never fired a single bullet against the United States.

It’s Going to Be Quick

It was going to be quick: a two-week expedition and it’s done, with minimum casualties — or so they thought. Granted, we can safely speculate that, despite Saudi Arabia’s well-known military incompetence, seen during the First Gulf War, and its total disregard for human life, Obama still could not have guessed how callous and, therefore, catastrophic the Saudi campaign would become. We can also grant that no one in Obama’s administration knew that Yemenis are not a people who can be subdued in two weeks or two years or even, as US ally Britain ultimately learned, in 128 years.

No one, it seems, told Obama how crazy the idea was to intervene in a country dubbed the graveyard of foreign invaders nor, it seems, reminded Obama of previous US estimates of quick wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and how those turned out to be. Obama was a man in a hurry, and people in a hurry act fast. Consultations and critical thinking take time.

But why did Obama make this horrible decision that his successor, Joe Biden, is now trying hard to put right? Obama, in 2015, nearing the end of his presidency, was single-mindedly focused on leaving behind a glorious legacy of having achieved a breakthrough with Iran by signing the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (), which was going to be a crowning achievement of his foreign policy. It was also a deal that Washington’s regional ally, Saudi Arabia, together with Israel and the UAE, were vehemently opposed to, and still oppose.

Obama’s decision to support Saudi war efforts was the appeasement gift that he gave the Saudis to quieten their protests in return for signing the JCPOA. For Yemen, the ink that Obama used to sign the JCPOA agreement was made from the blood of its people. Yemenis have been made to sacrifice their lives and livelihoods on the altar of the Iran nuclear deal and the regional and international political expediency and horse-trading that went with it. They have proven to be the most expendable people, both for their own tyrants and their regional and international counterparts.

How Hillary Clinton, had she succeeded Obama, would have dealt with evidence of Saudi-led callousness, or whether she would have taken the decision to end the support for the coalition that Biden announced last week, is useless speculation after the fact. She was not elected. Instead, we had to contend with a disastrous presidency of Donald Trump, whose first order of regional business was to sign a with Riyadh, progressively building to $380 billion, and continue to support and arm to the teeth the Saudi war on Yemen.

You Break It, You Own It

After Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, do we still need proof that military interventions, no matter how well-intended the protagonists claim them to be, do not solve but worsen crises? We should be excused for being scared when we hear President Biden promising to spread democracy worldwide, that “America is back.” We saw what happened when democracy became the calling card that substituted the weapons of mass destruction. Biden would be well advised to keep those good intentions on the back burner for the time being and instead focus on solving the destructive consequences of earlier good intentions. As history has repeatedly shown, the road to hell is indeed paved with them. 

This will probably go down as Biden’s era. He better make it work. His first days in office have been loud and clear. And the sounds were, with some exceptions, mostly good. After earlier skepticism, this author is now becoming cautiously optimistic that Biden is determined to move in the right direction. At his age and time in his career, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing the right thing for America — and eventually, hopefully, become convinced to leave Yemen alone to try to do the right thing on its own. Going forward, the best help the Biden administration can and must provide is not to do too much. Less is definitely more. But for now, the US must be held firmly accountable, applying the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it.

The United States must review its priorities. This brings us to Biden’s recent decision to stop arms supplies to the Saudi intervention in Yemen and revoking the Trump administration’s labeling of Ansar Allah (as the Houthis are officially known) as a terrorist organization. Biden’s administration understands that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision was not aimed at Ansar Allah but was, in fact, one of the last minute mischievous moves that the Trump administration left behind to entrap Biden and tie his hands in a fait accompli. This was a trap that Biden is clearly not willing to fall into. Good for Biden. Good for Yemen. Good for peace.

Away from Trump’s and Pompeo’s political mischief that has impressed only the gullible, Biden’s decision to suspend operational support and intelligence sharing, despite being symbolic in immediate military terms, is nevertheless very serious. Although the Saudi regime — the world’s accounting for 12% of the world’s arms trade — is able to continue the war from its large stockpiles (the UAE’s F35 fighter planes were not until 2027), Biden’s decision strongly indicates a very important change of priorities in the region.

Biden doesn’t view Iran as the bogeyman used by the Trump administration as an excuse to terminate the JCPOA while continuing arms sales and saber-rattling that created one of the most dangerous periods of continuous regional instability. For the Biden administration, that era has ended. It is now the era of diplomacy and finding solutions to problems, without kicking down doors. But let’s not get carried away with euphoria — it won’t be easy. Biden has the experience and resources to understand the challenges. That is why he is .

But even as Biden is moving toward the realignment of US priorities, with the aim of easing regional tensions, he must also be wary of Benjamin Netanyahu’s moves in the Persian Gulf. When it comes to Biden’s policies, Israel sees a window of opportunity to , hoping to replace what Netanyahu predicts to be America’s waning regional influence. Netanyahu is regionally encouraged in this mischief-making. Israel and its regional allies on the Arab side of the Persian Gulf are no friends of the JCPOA, which is a lynchpin in the Biden administration realignment. To succeed with the JCPOA partners, Biden will eventually have to confront all of Washington’s regional allies.

It will be dangerous for Biden to ignore the threats. Equally dangerous will be any temptation to use Israeli mischief as leverage against Iran. Worse has been tried by the Trump administration; it didn’t work. The who-will-blink-first gambit between Tehran and Washington must stop. Perhaps, instead, walking the walk simultaneously could symbolize that unity of purpose that has been missing for four long and traumatic years. With that unity of purpose, the United States and Iran can also work toward finding a solution to the war in Yemen and stopping the misery of a nation that has paid a heavy price for the JCPOA. America and Iran owe it to the Yemenis. Biden has already made the opening moves, both by stopping the arms supplies and by assuring Riyadh that Washington has their back if Yemenis attack.

Decision Time

Yemenis must welcome this Biden assurance. It is not just offered as protection for Saudi Arabia, but useful for Yemen because it is a positive step towards peace. Yemen never had the intention or a plan to attack Saudi Arabia. But it was Saudi Arabia and UAE that sent the into Yemen’s capital city on that infamous night in March 2015. The coalition continued the air strikes relentlessly, despite mounting evidence of high civilian casualties. Yemeni retaliation became necessary to make the coalition slow down its attack — to try to make the pain mutual. The strategy largely worked.

If Biden now wants to assure the Saudis and simultaneously ensure that they suspend the airstrikes, Yemenis must welcome that. It is up to Riyadh and Washington to determine how that protection would look. In any event, American protection for the Saudis is not new. But Yemen must insist that any future resumption of arms supplies to Saudi Arabia or the UAE must be accompanied by US assurances that the weapons will not be used against Yemen, with a reliable verification mechanism in place. For now, Yemenis must focus their energy on securing peace, taking advantage of the opportunity Biden’s policy shift offers. 

President Biden has made his decision. It is a decision Yemenis have been demanding for a long time. Now it is up to the others involved in this horrendous war to make theirs. This war could not be possible without foreign actors, many of whom are sitting around the JCPOA table, supplying weapons to the regional and domestic parties to this war. The Biden administration should not stop at freezing US arms supplies but should pressure its NATO allies, especially Britain and France, to stop arms sales. Washington should also pressure regional actors to stop their funding and arms supplies to the various domestic forces. This will be an uphill battle, but one that Yemen needs to win.

Before this war, a common estimate of the number of weapons among the Yemeni population was 50 million — a 2:1 ratio. That figure was more myth than reality. Today, after almost six years of conflict, it will be safe to assume that that figure is no longer mythical and may indeed have increased at the hands of militia groups, whose exact numbers or identities no one knows for sure. All these militias were created, funded and armed by regional actors, who still continue to do so today. The question of how to withdraw these weapons and end the anarchy of lawless militias operating in Yemen will continue to haunt the country for many years to come. The war that was ostensibly intended to restore a legitimate state in Yemen and improve the lives of its people has in reality become a war that has destroyed even a semblance of a state and instead created a humanitarian catastrophe for generations to come.

Ironically, Ansar Allah, whose defeat was the stated objective of the military intervention, has not only gained greater public support inside and outside Yemen, but has emerged as the strongest and most organized group in the country without which no solution is possible. Like Iran, which has emerged as a regional power despite, or perhaps because, of 40 years of political, economic and even military aggression led by the United States, Ansar Allah has found a raison d’être from the war waged against it. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to suggest that the Saudi-led military intervention has given Ansar Allah a public relevance and strength it never dreamt of having. This is its war dividend. The question is, how much better can the peace dividend be?

Regardless of any dreams of governing Yemen that some within Ansar Allah may or may not have, the leadership has demonstrated itself to be pragmatic enough to acknowledge the limits of any ambitions of forming a central government in a nation as diverse as Yemen. Centralization has failed several times in the past, and it will fail again. A federation of several states (six are currently proposed) has been the major focus of Yemenis’ attention in seeking the of a federal state. Strong opposition to the proposed six-state federation might necessitate accepting a union between southern and northern states under a federal or even a confederal system, which will prevent a total collapse of the current union resulting in continuous wars. Yemenis have painfully lived through that before.

When the war finally comes to an end, finding a working formula acceptable to everyone will be a major challenge. Negotiations leading to successful agreements, by definition, are those that give something — but not everything — to everyone. The alternative to that formula is war. There can be no maximalist or zero-sum solutions that can bring enduring peace to Yemen. The peace dividend for all parties must be found within that formula, led by Yemeni negotiators willing to put everything on the table with no preconditions except ending the war and bringing peace, stability and prosperity to Yemen.

Peace Dividend

Contrary to what the group actually believes, nothing can be more burdensome and exert more pressure on Ansar Allah and the other warring factions than a reopening of Yemen’s entry points, especially airports and seaports. People returning to the country seeking opportunities, encouraged to start rebuilding their lives, is a strong fait accompli, requiring those in power to measure up to the challenge. Despite current difficulties, Yemenis have the spirit and mindset to return immediately if routes are opened. It is relatively easy to rule a country at war and under a blockade through oppression. It becomes much harder when the world is paying close attention to the evolution of peace as the nation is rebuilding.

Like any group or political party, there are various political viewpoints within Ansar Allah, ranging from ideologically unyielding to politically pragmatic. The challenge is to formulate an approach that can navigate a middle ground within the group as a whole. Attempts to use these divergent political viewpoints as fissures to be exploited will be dangerous for the entire effort and delay or, worse, torpedo the peace process. Spoilers are created by such an approach. We have come to this point, partly because of those who think they can cleverly do exactly that.

Instead of cleverness, what is needed in these times is wisdom, the ability to work patiently across all divides and a commitment to Yemen as a whole and not to partisan politics or gains. Anger and protests are a necessary tool to bring focus to the problem. Yemenis must continue to agitate and make good trouble for the powers at play, to make them pay attention to the problem. However, solving the problem requires cool heads and a different focus.  

As efforts to bring an end to the war are planned, identifying the moving parts and the various components of the war are a must. As much as Ansar Allah’s strength is derived from the Saudi intervention, it also benefits to a large extent from the disarray among its adversaries, particularly the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which itself is divided between his supporters and those of his opponents at the Southern Transitional Council (STC), whose agenda is to secede from the union. Refusing to identify themselves as Yemenis, they have nevertheless failed to come up with an alternative identity. So they call themselves “southerners” — a geographical location rather than a national identity.

Apart from fighting Ansar Allah, the divided Hadi government and the STC are fighting against each other for turf in the south as Ansar Allah quietly watches from the sidelines, probably waiting to pick up the pieces. The coalition, now comprising only of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, is expressively committed to restoring legitimacy (meaning Hadi’s government) and supporting opposing parties in the battles between Hadi’s government (supported by Saudi Arabia) and the STC (supported by the UAE). Effectively, the Saudi-UAE coalition, despite all claims of unity, is in fact locked in a proxy war for influence in south Yemen.

And if all that is not bizarre enough, there is the Islah Party, Yemen’s Muslim Brothers, declared as a terrorist organization by both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Despite the designation, the party is a member of the Hadi government, which Saudi Arabia and the UAE are committed to restoring to power after defeating Ansar Allah.

However, domestic factions will not decide the peace in Yemen. They can, to a certain extent, for a certain period, act as spoilers of the peace process, but that’s as far as they can go if their sponsors and external actors decide to end the war. And most of those who can, in fact, those who must decide are sitting around the JCPOA table. That’s where the center of power is for the war in Yemen. Should those trying to move ahead with the JCPOA fail to bring peace to Yemen as a prerequisite of the implementation of the nuclear deal, there are enough possibilities to wreck the JCPOA itself, irreparably. It should be remembered that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not friends of the JCPOA. The three are also involved in the war in Yemen. One doesn’t need to be a genius to see how the lines crisscross.

If Yemen gets help to find postwar peace and stability and is then left alone, the Biden administration and others in the region will find it a better partner to engage with, going forward. Yemen must move on from the era of leadership that continuously seeks external support and interference to compensate for its incompetence, corruption and failures. The country needs young energetic leaders who are invested in its future prosperity. A nation of 30 million with tremendous resources does not need charity. Instead, Yemenis must seek partnerships. Regional players who wasted billions seeking unfair geopolitical advantages through destructive war could have achieved greater benefits through partnerships with Yemen — for much less.

Yemen’s hope is in its youth, despite, or perhaps because of a painful but educational 6-year war. There is still time to develop that mindset for the future. In as far as regional neighbors (and beyond) are concerned, Yemenis are a forgiving people. Yet lest future generations risk repeating it, we must never allow this Nakba to be forgotten. Yemen can and must forgive, and then move on.  

Nothing is more sustainable than the need to get things done, no matter how misguided it might be at times. Generosity of the heart is whimsical. It was not generosity that induced President Obama to support Mohammed bin Salman’s war on Yemen. It was political expediency born from a misguided notion of need. Today, it is not the generosity of President Biden’s heart that will stop the war in Yemen but political expediency born from a real need. Both are related to the JCPOA.

In 2015, for Barack Obama, the horrendous war in Yemen was a vehicle toward the Iran nuclear deal. For Obama’s former right hand, now President Biden, in 2021, there can be no successful implementation of the JCPOA without ending that horrendous war. Call it irony, or call it divine intervention to set the record straight. But now, let’s work together to win the peace.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Working Together Toward Peace in Yemen appeared first on 51�Թ�.

In 2013, Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, a card-carrying member of the Muslim Brotherhood, was overthrown by a coup that reinstated the military junta. In the days that followed, Egypt saw a bloody purge of the Muslim Brotherhood, with thousands of its members killed. Today, tens of thousands continue to languish in jail without trial.

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In 2015, the United Arab Emirates declared the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, jailing without trial anyone suspected of membership or having sympathies with the Muslim Brothers. According to , Frances Fragos Townsend, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, reported that during a 2006 meeting, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed “claimed that if elections were held in Dubai ‘tomorrow’ he thought the Muslim Brotherhood would win.”

Accusing Doha of giving asylum to and funding the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2017, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, together with Bahrain, broke diplomatic relations. The so-called quartet then imposed a blockade on Qatar and even attempted a military invasion, which was only halted when Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rapidly deployed a military force to Qatar. 

Incoherence of the Incoherent

The Muslim Brotherhood, established in 1928, is older than all of the regimes fighting over it. It had reached power in Tunis, Egypt and elsewhere only through the ballot box. Like most political parties that mix their political ideology with religion, it has lost the support, if not the respect, of those who, like this author, believe the two don’t mix.

But here is the mother of all Arab political ironies. For example, in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been carrying out brutal airstrikes for the past six years that have more than 200,000 people, ostensibly to reinstate the “internationally recognized” president overthrown by Ansar Allah (Partisans of God, as the Houthi rebels are officially known). The Muslim Brotherhood is not only an active member of the Saudi-UAE military campaign, but also part of the internationally recognized Yemeni government that the Saudi and UAE alliance is bombing Yemen in order to reinstate. Did you get that? Ibn Rushd (or Averroes, as he is known by his Latin name) would have called this murkiness the “incoherence of the incoherent.”

If that is not bizarre enough for you, here is another one. The Muslim Brothers, recently outlawed as terrorists in Saudi Arabia, are still given political asylum, protection and funding by Riyadh as allies in the war in Yemen. Many of their leaders live in Saudi Arabia. You couldn’t make this up if you were the greatest fiction writer.

But the anti-Muslim Brotherhood, anti-Qatar and anti-Turkey brigade is crumbling. The Arab quartet is losing its American ally in the face of President Donald Trump and is not sure what to expect from the incoming Biden administration. Meanwhile, Iran continues to be as formidable and as unyielding as ever. And so, in true Arab form, alliances must change — again.

The UAE and Bahrain recently formalized and made public their long-standing secret relations with Israel, seeking to create a protective buffer against Iran and any potential challenges from the new administration in Washington. Alas, Saudi Arabia, a self-proclaimed custodian of the Muslim holy sites, cannot be so open about its own secret relations with Israel and is even less confident about the changes afoot the United States. Instead, it called for reconciliation with the other side, Qatar, and made similar moves toward Turkey — both supporters of the Muslim Brothers and vehemently at odds with the UAE, Saudi Arabia’s ally against the Brothers.

Hasty Reconciliation

In a recent hastily-called reconciliation summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), under the watchful eyes of President Trump’s trusted son-in-law Jared Kushner (in typical monarchial style), the anti-Qatar coalition signed an that said, “let bygones be bygones.” The Saudi foreign minister the reconciliation as “due to the wisdom of the GCC rulers and Egypt, it is a complete turn of the page on all points of dispute.” So, the brought against Qatar as non-negotiable conditions for reconciliation have been turned.

In fact, to indicate the uncompromising nature of the quartet’s demands, the UAE’s foreign minister, Anwar Mohammed Gargash, on May 1, 2018, tweeted: “A sincere advice intended to bring Qatar out of her crisis. There will be no gulf mediation. No pressures will be beneficial. And your media will not change your status. Go back to your wisdom, for your crisis continues. Manage your affairs from today with wisdom. And negotiate within the perimeters of your neighbors who express real concerns.” No wonder that, commenting on the reconciliation agreement, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was quick to Qatar for “the success of its brave resistance to  pressure & extortion.”

Despite the dramatic welcome that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave to the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim ibn Hamad Al Thani, followed by a tour of the desert driven by the crown prince himself, the summit spoke more of divergence than unity. It left no doubt about its real purpose, at least from the Saudi and American perspectives. Bin Salman lost no time bringing to focus the elephant in the room, Iran. His message was clear: This is a reconciliation between brothers to wage war on a neighbor. The summit’s fault lines have been widened.

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Qatar still maintains strong relations with Iran. While it seems highly unlikely that even the Trump administration, with all its faults, will be crazy enough to attack Iran and start a regional war that will make the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq pale by comparison, the fear is that Israel might do so and force Washington’s hand. Should that happen, any future US attack on Iran using its Qatar-based Al Udeid Air Base will result in destructive retaliation on Qatar. Iran had strongly warned all its neighbors that attacks carried out from their soil will be retaliated against (on their soil). The Iranian foreign minister it as “an all-out war.”

Qatar’s vulnerability is made worse by its break with its neighbors, leaving it to face any possible Iranian retaliation alone. Whether the reconciliation summit is intended to assure or to fool Qatar into breaking away from Tehran, despite Iran’s support during the quartet’s blockade, is an open question. Whether Qatar will fall for that is also an open question. The Prophet Muhammad had warned that “A faithful is not stung twice from the same burrow.”

On a visit to Doha during the blockade, a Qatari official told me that in his view, reconciliation will ultimately happen. Pointing out the foolishness of the ongoing blockade, he insisted that Doha will not be imprudent enough to trust the quartet with its fate. Having opened new pathways beyond the GCC, he saw this crisis as an important lesson — never again.

Old Rivalries

The above view is supported by regional history, of which the Qataris are mindful. In ancient times, the desert tribes of Arabia fought over water wells. While water scarcity will continue to be a cause of wars in the region, the GCC has now moved on to geopolitical fights reflecting the skyscraper nation-states mushrooming out of the desert oil wealth.

However, despite modern geopolitical realities, changing alliances and desert reconciliation summits, the real underlying reasons for the dispute between Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain — old tribal rivalries — have not yet been resolved. In fact, these are virtually impossible to resolve without dismantling the monarchies. The Nahyans of Abu Dhabi, now led by Mohammed bin Zayed, see mainly Qatar, but also Bahrain, as mini-states that escaped the UAE federation and must be brought in, willingly or by force. As far back as 1867, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa rulers and the Abu Dhabi Nahyan tribe allied to attack Qatar’s Al Thani tribe to undo its newly formed state.

Even the GCC, which was created as an organization of independent sovereign states, has not removed the old tribal mentalities among its members. The Al Khalifas of Bahrain — from whom the Saudis forcefully took the whole of its oil-rich Shia-populated eastern region, historically part of Greater Bahrain — reject Qatar’s legitimacy. The Al Khalifas ruled Qatar before the Al Thani tribe broke away from the territory that is now Saudi Arabia and created its own state. The Saudis see Qatar as a wayward artificial state that should have never existed in the first place. They consider it part of Saudi Arabia. These underlying tribal rivalries endure and play a major role in how current relations are managed, becoming even more prominent since the Arab Spring.

Qatar, together with Turkey, supported the uprisings against the military dictatorships that ruled Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria. Qatar’s very vocal Al Jazeera news network was the voice of Arab Street during the uprisings. Qatar funded a lot of the youth programs, many of which were either led or at least infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, fearing that a successful Arab Spring revolution that brings an accountable transparent political process will infect their own populations, took the opposing side, spending billions to arm and support the military dictatorships against the uprising.

Having given up on the UAE and bin Zayed personally (who is seen in the West as an Arab visionary despite the failures of all his costly foreign adventures), Saudi Arabia and Egypt have started to make overtures to Turkey, the regional power that has defeated Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE — plus Russia and France — in Libya and then also defeated the latter two in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh at the end of last year.

Reconciling with Qatar leaves the UAE and Bahrain isolated. However, the extent to which Mohammed bin Zayed can rely on Bahrain, effectively ruled and kept alive by the Saudis, is highly debatable. Debatable too is how useful Bahrain can be for the crown prince, beyond sharing a table to sign a “normalization” deal with Israel.

In Yemen, the UAE escaped Ansar Allah’s retaliatory missiles that hit Saudi Arabia, mainly as a result of shaky deals it has made with the rebels. A live-and-let-live policy accompanied by ransom payments has enabled the UAE-Israeli alliance to focus attention on Yemen’s southern ports. There’s virtually no military confrontation between Sanaa and Abu Dhabi. A similar shaky deal exists with Iran, Dubai’s major trading partner. However, if indeed there is a regional war, all bets are off. The shaky friendships in Yemen will transform into deadly hostilities in the Persian Gulf. No amount of double or triple play will save Mohammed bin Zayed. 

Meanwhile, Iran continues to observe the changing loyalties across the waters. Iran knows how it starts among us Arabs, how it proceeds and where it ends. It’s all déjà vu. The GCC is made up of the same Arabs who first financed Saddam Hussein’s attack on Iran, then opened the gates for the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq itself. And all that smoke you see above Arab skies — in Yemen, in Syria, in Iraq, in Egypt, in Libya — comes from the guns with GCC petrodollars signs all over them.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Navigating the Minefield of Arab Politics appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The symbolism was unmistakable. UAE’s military strongman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, had earlier that his decision to “normalize” relations with Israel was part of a deal that will stop the annexation of the West Bank. Immediately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by contradicting Bin Zayed, stating that his decision was only a temporary suspension, requested by President Donald Trump, an indication that even the suspension itself was not influenced by Bin Zayed.

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The deal with Bin Zayed, Netanyahu affirmed, was “peace for peace.” Nothing more. The aircraft’s name was a confirmation that even as the flight carried the Arabic, English and Hebrew words for peace, it was not intended to revoke Israel’s annexation program. Ultimately, like Kiryat Gat before, the West Bank will also be annexed.

How Normal Is Normal?

It is the sovereign right of every country to define its relations with any other party. What Bin Zayed has done is revoke the promises made to the Palestinians by the UAE and other Arab nations, including the current undertaking, first declared in the Arab summit conference in Beirut in 2002 and reaffirmed as recently as 2017. Known as the , it offered normalization, but only if certain conditions were met. The UAE is a signatory to the original and subsequent declarations, including the 2017 document.

This and similar earlier declarations over the years by Arab governments had prevented Palestinians from seeking their own methods for liberating their lands. Negotiations, mainly controlled by Arab governments guided by their own political and economic agendas, had monopolized the Palestinian struggle for the past seven decades. In the process, Israel had become more powerful, imposing an increasing fait accompli by creating more settlements, while Palestinians still remain scattered in refugee camps, generation after generation, in hope that Arab governments will ultimately help them regain their rights. With Mohammed bin Zayed deciding to normalize relations with Tel Aviv, the question that springs to mind is how normal can relations be when one party to that normalization refuses to abide by normal behavior and in fact continues to evict, imprison, confiscate land, bulldoze houses and create more forced realities on the ground that deny the Palestinians some of the most basic human rights?

Under what definition can a relationship between Israel and the UAE be termed “normal,” especially given Abu Dhabi’s repeated commitments to the Palestinians under the Arab League Charter and Arab summit conferences? By this normalization, Bin Zayed has unconditionally opened to Israel doors that were promised only as part of a comprehensive settlement for the Palestinians. This is not normalization. This is a sellout and betrayal of Palestinians who were denied — through Arab compromises and declarations — to seek their own route and method to a solution.

The UAE’s abrogation of its commitments is not the first one we see. The US has abrogated its commitments under several international agreements. And the Palestinians themselves have been on the receiving end of numerous Israeli violations of their treaty commitments toward Palestinians, including many UN resolutions that obligate Israel, as a UN member, to obey. But the UAE used a pretext that the Palestinians find insulting — the claim that this normalization is part of a deal that will stop annexation of the West Bank. This claim is not only a foolhardy lie, as Netanyahu’s immediate denial shows, but also demonstrates political immaturity and lack of understanding about the 72-year Palestinian struggle.

The Palestinian fight has never been about stopping or suspending Israel’s West Bank annexation but about the entire history of Palestinian rights that are being systematically eradicated while Arab governments continue to hijack their cause. If indeed Bin Zayed is correct that such an understanding exists, then Netanyahu’s turnaround will probably be just the first, but certainly not the last, that the UAE will experience in its dealings with Israel. The well-known Palestinian politician, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, : “The UAE will experience what we have seen many times over the years. Israel doesn’t respect any treaties, any covenants, any promises it makes.”

Of Dying and Forgetting

Referring to Palestinians in the diaspora, Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, had , “The old will die. The young will forget.” More than 70 years after the creation of the state of Israel and the forced eviction of Palestinians, many of them hold the keys to their homes which are passed over to their children. Every year as Israel celebrates another anniversary of its creation, Palestinians mourn another anniversary of the Nakba — the Catastrophe — that descended upon them. The old have died, and the young refuse to forget.

Khalid al-Sheikh Ali, a Palestinian living under Israeli occupation in Al Shaafath refugee camp, : “We live here in prison. We live in a camp while we have a plot of land inside Palestine — it is empty. You want me to be an intellectual human being, a well-informed human being, a non-violent human being and so on. But I am not living like a human being here. You go out, you see the army, the overrunning drains, the piling garbage, the humidity that is eating into us and our dwellings, the dirty drinking water. The most painful thing we suffer, everyday, is to try to go outside the barriers.”

This misery is being inflicted upon Palestinians to force them to abandon their homeland, throw away their keys, forget and escape. Instead, they endure, passing the barbed-wire barriers that separate them from their homes the keys to which they still hold on to, sure that they will return. Indeed, given the never-ending misery Palestinians inside and outside Palestine suffer, it is impossible to imagine Ben Gurion or any of his successors ever realizing their dream. Enduring pain has its own way of sustaining memories.

In an act that again demonstrated the inability of Arab rulers to resolve Arab problems, Iran and Turkey — repeatedly accused of interfering in Arab affairs — have been vindicated by Bin Zayed. Arabs, especially Palestinians, indeed need to look to regional solutions instead of Arab solutions. Clearly, Arab rulers have decided that self-preservation takes precedence over national preservation. The deal with Israel, supported by the US, aims at enabling Netanyahu and Trump to win elections with the quid pro quo of helping Mohammed bin Zayed push back the growing internal opposition to his rule. The security agenda in this deal unmistakably stands out by the deafening silence of the dealmakers on the subject. Going forward, this deal will result in more draconian methods to silence the growing opposition. 

Following the arrival of flight Kiryat Gat in the UAE, erupted almost simultaneously, one in Abu Dhabi, on a road leading to the airport, and another in Dubai. The government claimed gas leaks to be the cause for both. The coincidence and the timing are an uncanny precedence, in a country where such incidents are unheard of.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Israel and the UAE: The Myth of Normalizing Abnormalities appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Does MBS think he can get away with murder? His Western allies’ answer has so far been yes — until now, when al-Jabri, fearing for his life, threatened to expose everything and everyone in a way that could palaces on both sides of the Atlantic, sending Riyadh, and Trump’s White House in particular, running for cover. The man holds Pandora’s Box and has made clear he is ready to open it. But for now, he is willing to heckle. Clearly, al-Jabri is not driven by conscience but by predicament. As far as his ethics go, he had plenty of time to expose the crimes in high places. He didn’t.

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Instead, he served successive despots, then stole their secrets and is now using these as a bargaining chip to save himself and get the best deal. Once he gets his deal, al-Jabri will be very happy to keep the lid closed and let the ruthlessness he served for so long continue under a different despot. That’s not a man driven by conscience but by cynicism.

Father of the Bullet

Al-Jabri and others before him are not really the cause of our sorrow. Rather, we celebrate that the brutal Saudi mafia is coming apart at the seams for all to see and that many of us will be vindicated in the process. Al-Jabri and others among all the regime’s men were part of the system and knew the rules of the game. Like any mafia, the Saudi omertà is a sacred code of conduct at the price of death: You break it, you die. Al-Jabri also knew how to protect himself. Jamal Khashoggi didn’t — and paid the price. This is not a court case between a ruthless despot and a frustrated human rights advocate. It is a lawsuit against a current despot by a former subordinate trying to position himself favorably under a future despot in a palace power struggle, racing against time.

And therein lies the opportunity. The for MBS and 12 others by a Washington court has put more pressure on that time frame and created a dangerous urgency in Riyadh for the crown prince, who must hurry to ascend to the throne and guarantee himself immunity as king, and also in Washington, where the Trump administration seeks to replace MBS with an acceptable alternative. Suddenly, Mohammed bin Salman and the White House are at once allies trying to keep closed al-Jabri’s Pandora’s Box but also opponents in the race for the Saudi throne. You couldn’t dream up this saga if you had the world’s best imagination.

At the time of writing, I am told there’s already a highly-placed Washington “team” in Riyadh trying to figure out an acceptable solution, one that will clearly result in a change on the throne. And that is what we must fear most. Changing the face, not the substance, then carrying on with business as usual. The most dangerous thing — and this is what Washington is currently trying to do — is substituting the liability that is MBS with a new smiling face it can present to the world as the vanguard of reform.

This is something akin to how MBS was originally presented, despite strong indications to the contrary. The among Saudis is, after all, “Abu Rasasa” — father of the bullet. But Mohammed bin Salman is not the only culprit for the crimes committed against so many for so long — not even close. That reality should be the guiding principle for Washington as it looks for a replacement. Failing to change a system is not only a disservice to the region, but also to the United States and to the rest of the world. It is time the US took a long-term view of its relations with our region. Despite our repeated past disappointments, if Washington demonstrated a serious willingness to engage with the forces of change, there is enough wisdom in this part of the world to promote a revised view of the United States.

Imperialist Opportunism

So far, Washington’s political dogma espoused by successive administrations has inherently conflicted with our regional interests, in the short as well as the long term. Essentially, the US and its Western allies have been unwilling to level the playing field. Consequently, they opted for a relationship with the ruling despots instead of supporting democratic forces. Blindsided by short-term opportunism, the US and the West chose to identify themselves with the worst forms of despotism across the Middle East. We have become relegated to bystanders as we watched destructive policies being carried out in our region, including the protection and arming of the most ruthless, tyrannical and corrupt regimes that serve to legitimize extremism — views that are intrinsically abhorrent to everything we stand for.

This imperialist view has not served the US well in the past, and it will certainly not do so in the future. When it comes to the Saudi regime, Washington has an almost unique opportunity not only to cause positive change but to be seen doing it. For far too long it has done the opposite. At the beginning of the Arab Spring, when the US appeared to take a positive position toward the changes demanded by the Arab peoples, we were willing to move on from our past bitter experiences. Tragically, Washington did not allow that honeymoon to last. Instead, it chose short-term benefits derived from its relations with the regimes leading the counterrevolution.

With the events currently unfolding within the Saudi regime, an opportunity is opening up for the US and the rest of us to mend ourselves. Will the United States be led by prudence and long-term, albeit lesser gains of a stable relationship with the forces of change or revert to its shortsightedness? If the US lets this opportunity slip, the future will be unforgiving. In Arabic we say, A little that is stable and consistent is better than a lot that is short and inconsistent.

If all that happens is a US drive to change the face of Saudi tyranny and not its substance, then we will be better served by keeping MBS at the helm of a regime that the world is too embarrassed to do business with. Going forward, boycotted as an outcast, the Saudi regime under Mohammed bin Salman will be less destructive than a new smiling face presented as yet another “reformer” but who will only maintain the same ruthless policies of all his predecessors. You don’t just cut the branches off a decaying tree — you dig it up with its roots.

This is something our American friends must consider come November: Will they uproot the system in Washington or just change the style and approach? What applies to the Saudis and MBS also applies to Americans and Donald Trump. Those who first blundered by putting both men on the thrones they don’t deserve must either remove them and all they represent or otherwise suffer the consequences of isolation.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Is the US Ready to Back Real Change in Saudi Arabia? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The fact that the launched on the eve of President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Beirut calling for Lebanon to return to the French mandate gathered 50,000 signatures in the first 24 hours is representative of the hopelessness that has pervaded this small, but historically proud, creative and industrious nation. The fact that regional and international scavengers have come closer, circling the Lebanese wagon, seeking to complete their meal, is testimony to the dangers that lie ahead as Lebanon must try to protect the last remaining elements of its sovereignty against another assault.

This assault will further compound the UN Security Council that overruled Lebanon’s parliament in the case of Rafiq Hariri, the former prime minister assassinated in 2005 — a process that has lost both its respect and even its entertainment value.

Last Line of Defense

But that is a discussion for another day when the delayed ruling is announced. For now, in the midst of one of the most destructive episodes in the country’s recent history, the Lebanese people find themselves faced with not only the greatest challenge to their survival as a nation but also the loss of what they fought hard to defend in the face of foreign usurpation: their ability to continue as a creative nation of free thinkers and artists and, above all, as partakers of a free political process that is the envy of all those subjugated to dictatorships in the region.

Just two days apart, 75 years ago, in Hiroshima, Japan, another proud and industrious people were smitten by unprecedented magnitude. While the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki were a deliberate act of premeditated evil, the jury is still out on Lebanon’s Beirushima. The jury is also still out on whether the Lebanese will follow the footsteps of their predecessors to rebuild their country into a vibrant and transparent economic regional player, but without surrendering the strength that first liberated most of their land and now continues to protect its territorial integrity — the last line of defense for what remains of Lebanon as a nation.

Beyond that imperative, nothing must be held sacred if reform is to be the true way forward. Losing that imperative is what many of the country’s regional enemies will seek to force upon Lebanon, exploiting the opportunities this very dark hour provides them. This will indeed prove to be a challenge that requires strong leadership that must protect Lebanon from foreign intervention.

As shock turned into more street anger, Lebanon’s fragmented society has forgotten its religious and sectarian divides and united against a common internal enemy: the corrupt political system that has abused its democratic process and misruled Lebanon for far too long. This display of national unity is the silver lining that will hopefully ultimately save Lebanon.

The entire political system must be overhauled if Lebanon is to survive as a nation. And the onus of leading the way lies with the people and not the leadership. Lebanese politicians have proven themselves to be one of the most corrupt political elite in the region, owning or being involved in everything ranging from to power generation to banks that lend money to the government at exorbitant rates. The structure has created a ruling class with everything to lose and nothing to gain from economic reform. These are not the people trustworthy of leading the transformation the country so desperately needs.

Pulling the Trigger

On top of everything else, its ailing economy is loaded with more than 1.5 million refugees, the result of Israeli occupation, the Syrian Civil War and many regional conflicts that Lebanon is made to pay the price for. It is, therefore, not surprising that highly explosive ammonia nitrate at the port of Beirut for six years would be allowed to lie hidden and become a powder keg waiting for something or someone to trigger what Brian Castner, the lead weapons investigator for Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Team, “the biggest explosion in an urban area in decades” that made 300,000 people homeless.

In a country where economic indicators have lost their meaning, where law and order are decided by a judicial mafia, where the role of both political business leadership has lost its demarcations and where a foreign president is popularly welcomed where a native is banished, it is clearly a time to fold and start all over again. And only the street, now prompted and indeed strengthened by a massive explosion, can lead the way. Whether the blast that devastated the nation’s capital has also wiped away the corruption that brought Lebanon to its feet, only time will tell. For if it hasn’t, nothing ever will, and the noble, generous and hardworking Lebanese will become a nation that once was.

This is, of course, assuming it was something, not someone, who pulled the trigger. Should it, in the end, become evident that the explosion was another act of premeditated evil, then all bets are off. Our worst fears will become true, and Lebanon, and the entire region, will go up in flames. Let us hope Donald Trump was when he suggested the blast had been an attack, and let us hope that foreign election campaigns have not been the reason Beirut blew up, with the potential to take with it the rest of what’s remaining of our region.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Beirushima: What Lebanon Needs to Survive appeared first on 51�Թ�.

French President Emmanuel Macron has no qualms about claiming that France Haftar. In the era of television and coronavirus social distancing, Macron was saved the embarrassment of looking us in the eye as he insulted our intelligence. Or perhaps he wasn’t. Unlike many of us, but still with a good memory, he was just too young to remember the French military helicopter near Benghazi, killing three French soldiers in July 2016. Clearly, they were not there paying a social visit to Haftar, and not in a war chopper.

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Nor would he remember the Javelin missiles in the possession of Haftar’s forces that France procured from the Americans, probably using cash it withdrew from one of the two petrodollar ATMs. But to be fair to France, it did confess ownership of those missiles, , “Those missiles were damaged! Awaiting destruction!” In Haftar’s possession, we may ask? Seriously?

Granted, torpedoing a political process intended to bring an accountable transparent rule of law is anathema to Haftar’s regional supporters and for Russian President Vladimir Putin too, who, like his colleagues in Cairo, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi has fixed himself with job security until 2036 or eternity, whichever lasts longer. Installing another North African military junta makes sense — for them at least.  

Ultimate Objective

But what could possibly drive France to be involved in a destructive war with the ultimate objective to restore a brutal military dictatorship, which goes against everything the French people stand for? Moreover, France’s role in Libya has split the NATO alliance dangerously. French and Turkish warships recently faced each other as rather than allies in the Mediterranean Sea. Rather than work with a NATO partner who knows the dangers of, and has freed itself from, military rule, Turkey, Macron, in order to help bring a civilian-led political process in Libya, has taken the side of the region’s most ruthless dictatorships, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and also Russia, who must be applauding the NATO split.  

By what measure of expression and democratic representation of the people does Macron’s policy reflect the will of the French majority? Probably the answer to that and other debacles of the Macron administration might come soon. The next election is in 2022, and the French do not suffer fools.

Still insulting our intelligence, France insists it is engaged in — everybody’s cause célèbre for rampage, plunder, death and destruction. From Afghanistan to Iraq and Yemen, to Libya and Syria, one wonders who has become more dangerous, more destructive, more criminal — the terrorists or those claiming to be fighting and saving us from them? 

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan saw the creation of al-Qaeda by the CIA, which funded, trained and armed the group — complete with stinger missiles. Immediately after the Soviets left Afghanistan and America won that Cold War battlefield, the Afghans were dumped, only to be remembered when America itself decided to invade the country. Only this time, it is the Russians who are hitting back at the US there, if the reports on for dead Americans are to be believed.

Even before the blood of Afghans and Americans dried up, Washington decided to launch another invasion, this time against weapons of mass destruction, or maybe to bring democracy, or maybe leading an anti-terrorism alliance. It took the maestro himself, Alan Greenspan, to admit what we already knew. In his book, “The Age of Turbulence,” Greenspan writes that “The Iraq war was largely about oil.” He goes on to say, “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to admit what everybody knows.” There, so much for WMDs and fighting terrorism and bringing democracy on the backs of war tanks.

Western Playbook

There is a playbook in the West, used in every modern-day invasion of the Middle East. In it, loud noises are never the not-so-hidden agendas. Pardon me for stating the obvious. The problem with that short-sighted destructive playbook is its unnecessary cost in blood and treasure.  

In 2012, at the height of the Arab Spring and our optimism, I attended a conference in Istanbul discussing “rebalancing.” Advocating for the idea of rebalancing Arab-Western relations, I said that  “while we Arabs must refuse to be held hostage by the past, and we will continue to advocate a forward looking new page in our relations. The West must also free itself from its past.” The West tragically was unable to live with the prospects of new realities emerging in the Arab world and went ahead to help cut the knees of the democratic forces.

Our argument for creating governments that do not rely on foreign powers for protection but on their own electorates to whom they will also be answerable was exactly what was feared. When I said, “The West must realize that the incoming governments of Arabia, unlike the outgoing dictatorships, will be answerable to their people, and therefore have less wiggle room to make decisions that only serve short term external interests over their people’s long-term interests,” a Western friend came to me and said, “That’s exactly why your revolution will not be allowed to succeed.” 

That kind of shift in the West toward the Middle East would require accepting representative governments created through a transparent, accountable political process and accepting economic exchange based on fair value. An exchange we have always been happy to engage in, no bloody and expensive invasions needed. After all, the Arab world can neither drink its oil nor live in economic isolation.

But the West has never been used to that type of relationship with us. Not when it was the colonial power nor later, as the protector of proxy regimes it helped create at the end of its colonial presence. That inability to accept a change in the region lies at the center of its policies — supporting the survival of military and other undemocratic regimes in the region whose existence is not protected by the mandate of the people they govern but by foreign powers. The price for that quid pro quo is paid economically and politically and is never at fair value for the people who matter — the growing populations.

The vicious cycle is perpetuated. The more such arrangements are created at the top, the more unrest is created at the base against the ruling tyrants, which in turn leads to more dependence on foreign protection. Imagining the violent outcome is a no brainer, and it is clear before our very eyes.   

Whether it is America and Britain in Afghanistan and Iraq, or France in Libya and elsewhere in Africa, that playbook has become more costly not just for the people in whose territories it is played out, but also in the streets of the nations that employ it. Tyranny comes in different shapes and forms. It is also dressed differently, and not just in turbans and military uniforms. Perhaps the worst is the one that comes deceptively in a suit and necktie, controlling the levers that drive the others.  

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Allow me to welcome you in your steady evolution into our world. According to your leaders, Democrats and Republicans, you are either “lowlifes” or “deplorables.” There is bipartisan agreement on this. That’s a very good start. 

Where I come from, the Arab world, we have gone beyond that. Long ago. We are not deplorables. We are not lowlifes. Our current status is “expendables.” Yes, the ultimate level of evolution, just before entering nirvana.

Recently in Libya, a new example of our expendability was discovered in a few , generosity of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his military supporters in humanist France, totalitarian Russia and “democratic” Egypt. Haftar is, of course, bankrolled by the usual ATMs, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who have immense abilities to subsidize any carnage, anywhere, anytime. 

So, my deplorable, lowlife American friends, you are ok. For now. If you are patient enough, you might be rewarded, like us, with the ability to have rulers who don’t hassle you every four years to line up and, well, vote! Not that it matters really. The folks in that great “democratic” institution your Constitution has created, the “Electoral College,” don’t really need your vote. They just put in the dude they like regardless of whom most of you vote for. Remember 2000? Happened again in 2016. Maybe before too. I can’t be bothered to check. Doesn’t matter, really.

So, don’t allow the Electoral College to do it again. Evolve. Stay ahead of the curve. Get yourself a president for life. One is already gearing up. We are Arabs. We can show you how it’s done. Once your evolution is complete, you will attain our status. You will no longer be deplorables or lowlifes. You will become expendable, like us. We will be real brethren. Hand in hand, we will walk toward nirvana. 

Just so you know, we, in the land of the Arabian nights, are experts on this. We got ourselves a bunch of field marshals. And the good thing is, these field marshals don’t need to have won wars or even been in one. Libya’s Field Marshal Haftar never won a battle. In fact, he got himself captured and humiliated in Chad. Ran away to Virginia. Yes, your Virginia. Became one of you. Pledged his allegiance to The Star-Spangled Banner, then came back to try to restore a military junta in Libya at the behest of �����������é-é����������é-�ڰ����ٱ���Ծ���é France et. al. He failed. Again. No one knows his current whereabouts. Some say Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi put him in “protective” custody. I think he is probably back in Virginia, offering advice there and helping you evolve.

Then we have Egypt’s Field Marshal Sisi. He never saw action in his life. Unless of course you count the Cairo blood bath that brought him to power. Now that’s a lot of action. That was Sisi’s route to field marshaldom. With some luck, your current great leader might become a field marshal too.

And of course, there’s Yemen’s field marshal, Ali Abdulla Saleh. Well, at least he saw a lot of action. All of it inside Yemen of course, making sure nobody can get rid of him. The plan didn’t work. He got whacked. Bless his soul. He was succeeded by Field Marshal Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who actually saw some foreign action. From his exile palace in Wahabistan, he currently plays the internationally recognized president of Yemen. Because he can’t come to Yemen. No Yemeni national wants him. So he got himself internationally recognized.

See how that scam works? Anyway, one day in March 2015, they woke him up from his palatial afternoon siesta and brought him to the command and control center in Riyadh for a photo op, sitting in front of a bunch of screens showing foreign missiles hitting Yemeni neighborhoods. So he participated in some real action. So at least one internationally recognized field marshal president saw international action. We have amazing field marshals, don’t you think? 

My dear American friends, you can do this. You have field marshals. I am sure. All those wars all over the globe. You must have a bunch of field marshals. It doesn’t matter that they and their trillion-dollar war machine didn’t win any war in living memory. Not in Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq or any one of the many trillion-dollar wars they fought in which poor American kids were sent to die, protecting some ruthless foreign despots while enriching corporate America’s war merchants. Don’t bother with all that. No need for quality control. The most important thing is that you have field marshals, and they are usually very capable when it comes to saving the cost of needless elections. I know. It works. I am an Arab. We have the expertise for this. Trust me. 

First things first: You are doing fine. You have attained the status of deplorables and lowlifes. Your leaders on both sides attest to that. That’s quite a feat. Expendables is now within reach. Be patient, tolerant and quiet. Don’t agitate. Protests and agitation distract from the evolutionary process. Remember, people are working hard to speed up the process. If you are lucky, the 2016 election will be the last time anyone will really bother you. Stay engaged. 

We Arabs are waiting for you at the gates of nirvana. In MAGA we trust! 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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