Middle East Politics

2cents said:
Kuwait kind of gets lost in the conversation about the Gulf states. Apparently the biggest private doners to ISIS were Kuwaiti.
Click to expand...

They do, perhaps because 2 of their neighbours have played such a big role in the recent history of the region? And they don't seem to openly attempt to project power like UAE and Qatar have tried to.

That is very interesting about ISIS though, I had no idea. Their population is only a few million too....
 
africanspur said:
They do, perhaps because 2 of their neighbours have played such a big role in the recent history of the region? And they don't seem to openly attempt to project power like UAE and Qatar have tried to.

That is very interesting about ISIS though, I had no idea. Their population is only a few million too....
Click to expand...

My impression has always been that they're the most despised royal family in the region. Hence why Saddam thought nobody would protest when he annexed the place. And in fact Saddam was cheered on in that by popular opinion across the Arab Middle East.
 
2cents said:
My impression has always been that they're the most despised royal family in the region. Hence why Saddam thought nobody would protest when he annexed the place. And in fact Saddam was cheered on in that by popular opinion across the Arab Middle East.
Click to expand...

Oh really, that's interesting. I don't know much about the country if I'm honest, why is that?
 
africanspur said:
Oh really, that's interesting. I don't know much about the country if I'm honest, why is that?
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure but I think it's likely due to their history of almost complete dependence on British and then American support for their existence and continuing survival combined with what I've heard is an incredibly arrogant attitude towards workers from other Arab states like Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Palestine (before they were all kicked out after 1991). Of course this can apply to some of the other Gulf states as well to a degree, but the Kuwaitis seem to receive a lot more vitriol in my experience - it wasn't just the Arab street that cheered on Saddam, but pretty much the entire Arab intellectual class as well (Kanan Makiya's book Cruelty and Silence is good on this). My Iraqi in-laws, no fans of Saddam, speak about Kuwait with nothing but contempt, regarding it as a lost province of civilized Iraq stolen by illiterate, barbarous Bedouins who got lucky making friends with the Brits and then striking oil.
 
2cents said:
My impression has always been that they're the most despised royal family in the region. Hence why Saddam thought nobody would protest when he annexed the place. And in fact Saddam was cheered on in that by popular opinion across the Arab Middle East.
Click to expand...
One of my favorite stories from the Gulf War is how Saddam only invaded Kuwait because he didn’t think anybody would care (anybody being the US).

Like a decade later how he thought the US would be able to realize the aluminum tubes he was getting were for rockets and not nuclear weapons. That ended up being a much larger and tragic miscalculation if true, of course.
 
2cents said:
I'm not 100% sure but I think it's likely due to their history of almost complete dependence on British and then American support for their existence and continuing survival combined with what I've heard is an incredibly arrogant attitude towards workers from other Arab states like Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Palestine (before they were all kicked out after 1991). Of course this can apply to some of the other Gulf states as well to a degree, but the Kuwaitis seem to receive a lot more vitriol in my experience - it wasn't just the Arab street that cheered on Saddam, but pretty much the entire Arab intellectual class as well (Kanan Makiya's book Cruelty and Silence is good on this). My Iraqi in-laws, no fans of Saddam, speak about Kuwait with nothing but contempt, regarding it as a lost province of civilized Iraq stolen by illiterate, barbarous Bedouins who got lucky making friends with the Brits and then striking oil.
Click to expand...

This is very interesting, thanks. Will have a look at that book for sure, added to the reading list.

I think Arabs from countries which have traditionally been at the heart of the Arab world's social, cultural and political elite (Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad etc) definitely do seem to look down a bit on the Gulf Arabs with that exact same mentality you described. From my experience anyway. I'd imagine a bit of that is bitterness at the different trajectories the countries have taken over the past 5-6 decades but the ones I know seem to speak of an almost uniform arrogance when dealing with people from the Gulf.

Interesting about the Kuwaitis though.
 
2cents said:
I'm not 100% sure but I think it's likely due to their history of almost complete dependence on British and then American support for their existence and continuing survival combined with what I've heard is an incredibly arrogant attitude towards workers from other Arab states like Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Palestine (before they were all kicked out after 1991). Of course this can apply to some of the other Gulf states as well to a degree, but the Kuwaitis seem to receive a lot more vitriol in my experience - it wasn't just the Arab street that cheered on Saddam, but pretty much the entire Arab intellectual class as well (Kanan Makiya's book Cruelty and Silence is good on this). My Iraqi in-laws, no fans of Saddam, speak about Kuwait with nothing but contempt, regarding it as a lost province of civilized Iraq stolen by illiterate, barbarous Bedouins who got lucky making friends with the Brits and then striking oil.
Click to expand...
This is all too true. Kuwaitis are vehemently disliked in Iraq. Even Kurds who on the whole harbour no patriotic loyalty to the Iraqi republic look at them with contempt.
 
africanspur said:
This is very interesting, thanks. Will have a look at that book for sure, added to the reading list
Click to expand...

It's a great read. Very controversial book though. The first half discusses some of the horrific things Saddam and his regime did in Kuwait and in suppressing the Kurdish and Shi'i rebellions that followed the Gulf War. There's really been nobody worse than Saddam - Makiya's Republic of Fear is his first account of the Saddam regime, some of the things they did which he discusses there you couldn't try to imagine.

Second half of the book he takes aim at Arab intellectuals who supported Saddam, or at least opposed the US intervention to get him out of Kuwait. As a result and also due to his support for the 2003 war, Makiya is today absolutely despised in certain Arab intellectual circles. It's as much a dispute about airing dirty Arab laundry in public as anything else. But I'd recommend reading the book and some of the responses - Edward Said's in particular - to decide who had the right of it.
 
2cents said:
It's a great read. Very controversial book though. The first half discusses some of the horrific things Saddam and his regime did in Kuwait and in suppressing the Kurdish and Shi'i rebellions that followed the Gulf War. There's really been nobody worse than Saddam - Makiya's Republic of Fear is his first account of the Saddam regime, some of the things they did which he discusses there you couldn't try to imagine.

Second half of the book he takes aim at Arab intellectuals who supported Saddam, or at least opposed the US intervention to get him out of Kuwait. As a result and also due to his support for the 2003 war, Makiya is today absolutely despised in certain Arab intellectual circles. It's as much a dispute about airing dirty Arab laundry in public as anything else. But I'd recommend reading the book and some of the responses - Edward Said's in particular - to decide who had the right of it.
Click to expand...

Will do!

Not surprised about the Arab 'intellectual elite' response at all.

I don't know if you follow him at all but Karl Sharro said something that was right on the money with my experience of them and their support of certain causes:



Very pertinent I think.
 
africanspur said:
I don't know if you follow him at all but Karl Sharro said something that was right on the money with my experience of them and their support of certain causes:

Click to expand...


Yeah Karl certainly has a point there. Don't think he would have had someone like Edward Said in mind though, Said was a genuinely great intellectual, maybe the last of his kind in the Arab world. But he suffered a little bit from an affliction that affects many people who analyze the Middle East - Israel/Palestine derangement syndrome, where that particular conflict appears much bigger and more important than it actually is, and everything that goes on in the region is evaluated on the basis of how it will impact the fortunes of the Israelis and Palestinians. This can affect supporters of Israel as much as supporters of the Palestinians, it turns them into "Israel-firsters" or "Palestine-firsters", where all other interests in the region must be subordinated to the Great Cause. And for Said, it was understandable given his Palestinian background. But being a "Palestine-firster" in the context of the 1991 Gulf War generally meant opposing the extension of American power in the region, which was perceived to help Israel and came at the expense of the Palestinians' great supporter Saddam (something similar has played out among a certain section of supporters of the Palestinian cause in the context of the Syrian War today). In practical terms it means that, depending on the circumstances, the freedom of others from tyranny must wait until the Palestinians have achieved theirs (see Arab attitudes towards the Kurdish cause as an example).

The other problem Said had was that Makiya accused the Arab intellectuals of refusing to criticize Saddam, which was actually not entirely true, as Said pointed out. The Arabs were happy to criticize Saddam amongst themselves. However, they couldn't bear the sight of Makiya and the Kurds criticizing Saddam to the West, because they believed this provided the justification for further Western wars and interference in the region. Honestly, I can understand the point - as an Irishman I know how unbearable it can be for us to hear another Irish person criticizing Irish society and aspects of our culture to, say, British listeners. Complaints are supposed to be kept in-house, you don't air your dirty laundry in public, etc. But for an Iraqi in 1991 fighting to get rid of Saddam (as so many of them, encouraged by the West, did in the war's aftermath), the reality was that it could only be achieved with Western support, as they subsequently found out - the Kurds succeeded in largely freeing themselves with Western support, while the Shi'a, abandoned by the West at the same moment, found themselves at Saddam's mercy (of which he had none).
 
Obviously far from the whole story, but still an achievement of some sort given the circumstances:

 
Very unusual:



Oman has traditionally been the closest of the GCC states to Iran.
 
Feels like something has been going on behind the scenes wrt Israel and the Gulf states:

 
Israel and the Gulf: Beyond the photo-ops

The growing warmth in Israeli-Arab Gulf relations has spilled into the public domain. It is a trajectory that will continue

This week the Palestinian Central Council (PCC) appealed to Arab states to suspend further normalisation with Israel pending the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“We are asking Arab states to send a message of resolve and tell Israeli officials that they cannot expect to make any more political and economic gains with Arab states when they are making the lives of Palestinians in the occupied territories a nightmare. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees our request will be considered,” said a Palestinian source who spoke on the phone from Ramallah on Monday.

On the same day a Cairo-based Arab diplomat confirmed to Al-Ahram Weekly that the PCC’s request was unlikely to be given a serious hearing.

“When the [PCC] requests the suspension of further normalisation with Israel it is basically talking about Gulf countries, not about Egypt or Jordan which have peace treaties with Israel. But the Gulf countries take the position that if the Palestinian Authority continues to refuse US proposals for a possible deal that could eventually resolve the Palestinian problem, then the Palestinian leadership is in no position to ask Gulf states to refrain from any steps that might be in their political or economic interests,” said the source.

Far more likely, he added, is that the “next few weeks and months” will see a much greater public acknowledgment of Israeli relations with Arab Gulf countries “and Arab countries in general” and that “Israeli officials are likely to visit Manama soon”.

Speaking during a press briefing on Saturday on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogues, Bahrani Foreign Minister Khaled bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa suggested that normalisation with Israel is progressing in parallel with diplomacy to resolve the Palestinian problem.

Meanwhile, Cairo-based regional diplomats say that they would not be surprised if Bahrain proves to be the next stop. In the words of one, “Israel and Bahrain have much in common when it comes to Iran.”

Bahrain and its key ally Saudi Arabia have long accused Iran of seeking to incite unrest in the small kingdom which has a Shia majority and a ruling Sunni minority.

At the same press conference with Al-Khalifa, the Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said that the real battle in the region now is between the “modernising” vision that Riyadh is leading and the “backward vision Iran is trying to impose”.

Al-Jubeir and Al-Khalifa spoke days after Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman told the “Davos in the Desert” investment conference that Riyadh is working with its allies to make the “Middle East a strong economy — the new Europe”.

Palestinian officials, whether from Ramallah-based Fattah or Gaza-based Hamas, will have been quick to notice that Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler opted to speak of the “Middle East” and not of Arab countries, which would until recently have been the case.

“The train of economic and security normalisation between Israel and the Arab Gulf states left the platform some time ago and I don’t think anyone in the Gulf is willing to stop it. What we are asking for is a slow down,” said the Palestinian official.

Earlier this week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country would be soon taking measures to connect its railway grid with Gulf states via Jordan.

While the proposal is not entirely new — it was the subject of a tentative agreement between Tel Aviv and Amman a little over a year ago — from the point of view of the Palestinians it is a significant announcement, coming in the wake of Netanyahu’s surprise visit to Oman where Sultan Qaboos, who makes few public appearances, extended a cordial welcome.

Following the short visit, earlier this week, Natanyahu said it would not be his last to Arab countries with which Israel has no peace treaty.

Omani Foreign Minister Youssef bin Alawi said the trip was requested by the Israelis.

Netanyahu arrived in Oman hours after Qatar hosted an Israeli sports team for the first time, and followed a widely publicised trip by Israel’s Likud sports minister to the UAE.

Fattah and Hamas officials have expressed dismay such visits are taking place when Israel is killing peaceful Palestinian protesters in Gaza and aggressively expanding its illegal settlements in the West Bank.

“It is impossible to speak of a Palestinian state with current Israeli settlement policies. But to be honest, I don’t think any Arab capital expects a viable or demilitarised Palestinian state with any semblance of territorial connectivity,” said a Cairo-based European diplomat.

The same diplomat also pointed out that Arab Gulf states have been fast-expanding relations with Israel for years now.

“There have long been economic links, with Qatar at the forefront, but now we are seeing profound security cooperation,” he said.

According to Washington sources, not only do Gulf officials in the US capital and in the UN headquarters in New York no longer make a secret of their meetings with Israeli counterparts, they are now speaking with leading members of the Israeli lobby and the most pro-Israel members of Congress.

The expanded dialogue, according to one Washington source, is the result of Riyadh and the UAE seeking “an agreement” with US President Donald Trump over the case of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist killed in his country’s consulate in Istanbul on 2 October, and an attempt to counter-balance attempts by Doha to persuade the US administration to use the Khashoggi case to pressure Riyadh to end its blockade of Qatar.

Abdel-Alim Mohamed, an Israeli affairs expert at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, says it is no longer possible to ignore that relations between the Gulf states and Israel are being fast-tracked.

He points out that what Al-Khalifa and Al-Jubeir said at the Manama Dialogues was in essence an echo of the argument first made in winter 2008 by the then Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni — that the dynamic of the Arabs versus Israel was being replaced by one of “moderates” versus “extremists”. Now, he says, Israel has been replaced by Iran as regional enemy number one.

“This is the way it is, whether we like it or not. There are now stable relations between Israel and the Arab Gulf states and they are going to be further upgraded, sooner rather than later.”

“It is not just about Netanyahu visiting Oman — he’s not the first Israeli official Oman has received, after all. It is much more diverse and multi-layered than a simple exchange of visits.”

Mohamed dates the beginnings of the thaw in Arab Gulf-Israeli relations to the immediate wake of the Oslo Agreement 25 years ago.

“This was understandable at a time when many thought the region was moving towards a fair peace deal. Today, these relations are unlikely to be in the interest of the Palestinian cause,” he says.

The Palestinian official speaking from Ramallah stresses that it is no coincidence that the increasing warmth between Israel and many Gulf capitals “comes at a time many Arab states are pressing the Palestinian Authority to agree to” a final settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli struggle that Trump has promised.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsCon.../Israel-and-the-Gulf-Beyond-the-photoops.aspx
 
This guy has solid enough contacts in the Syrian regime. Major news/thread:

 
2cents said:
This guy has solid enough contacts in the Syrian regime. Major news/thread:

Click to expand...

I don’t see it. For starters Syria will almost certainly lose Iranian (and by proxy Hezbollah and Iraqi) support should they get into bed with the Saudis. Granted it would be an audacious move by Assad to garner a bit more stability.
 
Kaos said:
I don’t see it. For starters Syria will almost certainly lose Iranian (and by proxy Hezbollah and Iraqi) support should they get into bed with the Saudis. Granted it would be an audacious move by Assad to garner a bit more stability.
Click to expand...

Seems unlikely I agree. Maybe they look at Turkey and Qatar and find they suddenly have a more pressing enemies in common? After all the Saudis have been supporting the SDF who have made it pretty clear they'll accept a return of Assad rule in all of Syria in exchange for some kind of autonomy.

Before 2011 Assad had a weird relationship with the Saudis, they kept each other at arms length but at the same time used each other for certain things. It wasn't the all-out hostility that came with the war by any means. But yeah, there's nothing that will break the Damascus-Tehran alliance IMO, so the ties can only go so far.
 
2cents said:
Seems unlikely I agree. Maybe they look at Turkey and Qatar and find they suddenly have a more pressing enemies in common? After all the Saudis have been supporting the SDF who have made it pretty clear they'll accept a return of Assad rule in all of Syria in exchange for some kind of autonomy.

Before 2011 Assad had a weird relationship with the Saudis, they kept each other at arms length but at the same time used each other for certain things. It wasn't the all-out hostility that came with the war by any means. But yeah, there's nothing that will break the Damascus-Tehran alliance IMO, so the ties can only go so far.
Click to expand...
If we were to interrogate this further I’d argue it would be easier for Assad to butter the Turks by throwing the SDF under the bus, I’m sure the Turks would be more than happy to assist. Then there’s the other curveball Qatar who’ve been warming relations with Iran post the Saudi meltdown with them. The Qatari backed remnants of the FSA are now all but deemed obsolete, so I don’t see him being concerned on that front.

Honestly if we’re going to see these dichotomised power structures I’d expect Assad to fall in with the Turks and their associates, id wager it’s what Tehran would prefer too.

The question is which way Putin will lobby.
 
Kaos said:
If we were to interrogate this further I’d argue it would be easier for Assad to butter the Turks by throwing the SDF under the bus, I’m sure the Turks would be more than happy to assist. Then there’s the other curveball Qatar who’ve been warming relations with Iran post the Saudi meltdown with them. The Qatari backed remnants of the FSA are now all but deemed obsolete, so I don’t see him being concerned on that front.

Honestly if we’re going to see these dichotomised power structures I’d expect Assad to fall in with the Turks and their associates, id wager it’s what Tehran would prefer too.

The question is which way Putin will lobby.
Click to expand...

Turks are currently occupying large swathes of Syria themselves though, and show no inclination to leave any time soon.
 
Offsideagain said:
Using that logic, should Chelsea fans feel tainted because the Russians poisoned those people in Wiltshire? Leicester fans should boycott their club because of human rights violations in Thailand. Everton fans should give because their owner is Iranian and they sponsor terrorism all over the World. Can you suggest anyone that’s perfect?

Ref Man City owners. They are cheating by avoiding FFP and alledgely some players and former Managers avoiding income tax by not declaring the true figures financial or indeed attendances as it turns out.
Click to expand...

Do they? Shia terrorism isn't all that common. @2cents?
 
JPRouve said:
Do they? Shia terrorism isn't all that common. @2cents?
Click to expand...

In the 80s/early 90s yeah, nowadays perhaps not so much although it depends on how you define terrorism and if Hezbollah and Shi'i militias in places like Syria, Iraq and Yemen fit your definition.

But Iran has also supported Sunni groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (the latter is their favored faction in Gaza to this day).
 
2cents said:
In the 80s/early 90s yeah, nowadays perhaps not so much although it depends on how you define terrorism and if Hezbollah and Shi'i militias in places like Syria, Iraq and Yemen fit your definition.

But Iran has also supported Sunni groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (the latter is their favored faction in Gaza to this day).
Click to expand...

Thanks, that seems very localized and contextualized. It's the all over the World that made me wonder, Sunni terrorism seem to be a lot more global, maybe it's only an impression.
 
JPRouve said:
Sunni terrorism seem to be a lot more global, maybe it's only an impression.
Click to expand...

I'd agree. Easy enough to understand given that Sunnis vastly outnumber and outstretch (geographically) Shi'a around the world.
 
"Recent data from surveys conducted by my research group, Alustakilla (IIACSS), shows new trends in public opinion about Iran among Iraqi Shiites. These surveys are based on nationwide representative samples of 2,500 to 3,500 face-to-face interviews conducted two to three times annually during the past decade.

The findings from recent surveys reveal genuinely striking changes. The percentage of Iraqi Shiites who have favorable attitudes toward Iran decreased from 88 percent in 2015 to 47 percent in the fall of 2018. During the same period, those who have unfavorable attitudes toward Iran increased from 6 percent to 51 percent. This means that the majority of Iraqi Shiites currently have negative attitudes toward Iran.

At the same time, the percentage of Shiites who believe that Iran is a reliable partner in Iraq has decreased sharply, from 76 percent to 43 percent, over the same period. Those who believe that Iran is not a reliable partner increased from 24 percent to 55 percent. There is a significant increase in the percentage of Iraqi Shiites who believe that Iran is a real threat to Iraqi sovereignty. This number has jumped from 25 percent in 2016 to 58 percent in 2018."

Iran’s influence in Iraq is declining. Here’s why.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...s-declining-heres-why/?utm_term=.ae70aa324bfd
 
Adisa said:
So it's conceivable Israel tilts further to the right?
Click to expand...

Definitely. Netanyahu is well out-flanked on that side of things, and Bennett is an ambitious and credible challenger who might never be PM but will at least be looking for a greater say in things. The system being what it is though, you can't rule out a more centrist coalition emerging to prevent that happening. We'll get some proper analysis on the current state of play if/when the elections are announced.
 
Some quick thoughts here on the situation Netanyahu finds himself in:

http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2018/11/netanyahus-quandry-mid-november-2018.html

"Spare a moment to reflect on the hardship of being Binyamin Netanyahu this week. Actually, don’t. He’s a very powerful man and deserves none of our emotional support. Still, the position he finds himself in is quite instructive, far beyond the impact of the present news cycle.

As a leader of the opposition Netanyahu routinely taunted the government by promising that when he returned to power he’d act decisively and effectively against Palestinian violence. Israeli social media is full of his erstwhile plans for Hamas in Gaza, which he promised to rout once and for all. Yet here he is, starting the week by authorizing the transfer of millions of dollars from Qatar to bolster the rule of Hamas in Gaza, then sending the IAF to carefully bomb a series of pre-marked targets in Gaza, then accepting a cease-fire with Hamas, then watching his coalition crumble. His political allies and rivals will use all this to attack him for his indecisiveness.

Part of this is that Netanyahu truly dislikes sending soldiers to their deaths. I once saw this close up, and wrote about it here. Yet there’s an important structural explanation which needs elucidating, and that is the darker and often overlooked side of the vaunted “managing the conflict” policy.

Arguably, this policy has been the central plank of Israel’s behavior since the failure of the Oslo Process. If one assumes the most Israel can offer the Palestinians is considerably less than the minimum they demand in return for ending the conflict – or, vice versa, the most the Palestinians can offer Israel is less than the Israelis demand to hand over full control to a sovereign Palestinian State – then there’s no chance of peace. Or at least, there’s no chance until one of the sides changes its fundamental position. The goal then becomes managing the conflict with a minimum of violence, not trying to end it. Most Israelis, with the exception of the political extremes, subscribe to some version of this policy. It may well be that a majority of Palestinians also accept it, probably hoping that someday Israel will tire and waver. Well-meaning foreigners such as Barack Obama and John Kerry keep on hoping to break this model, and they keep on failing.

But there’s a snag: managing means you don’t make a dash towards peace, which is unachievable. It also means, however, that you never convincingly defeat your enemy. Managing is predicated on the enemy’s permanence. You can’t reach an agreement that will make the enmity go away; but nor can you take military measures that will make the enemy go away. As Netanyahu knows, the IDF could conquer Gaza and kill most of the leaders of Hamas. And then what? Would Hamas’ ideology of hitting Israel until some day it collapses, also go away? It wouldn’t. Would a new chapter of Israeli rule in Gaza do anyone any good? Most certainly not.

And so Netanyahu the Prime Minister does the opposite of what Netanyahu the opposition leader said he would. He tries to contain Hamas and limit its harm, while bolstering Hamas so that it bears responsibility for Gaza; better they than we. His gamble is that most Israelis understand what he’s doing and grudgingly agree: and they’ll give him yet another electoral victory sometime in 2019."​
 
You must log in or register to reply here.