West Asia News and Discussions

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 04 Feb 2011 12:30

Pakistani army Chief of Staff was in Riyadh 2 weeks ago. Khalid Shameem Wynne received some award from a senior Saudi prince.
This guy is tipped to replace Kayani.

Paki Aeronautical Complex head was also in town and met with senior KSA MoD people including Assistant Minister for Defence Prince Khaled bin Sultan, who pretty much runs the saudi MoD.

Basically, the saudi's are going in for 70% ToT of the stuff that they are buying and want to develop their industrial base.
I think this is what is happening. As you know, saudi's have high unemployment and they want to give paki's the jobs to come in and teach the Saudi's.

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

Debka says Israel started to provide intelligence support to VP omar Suleiman as of last week.

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 04 Feb 2011 13:39

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/midd ... 07438.html

Some wonderful images there.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzMOkrfv0uQ[/youtube]
Police killing a teen
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW4XT0sS ... re=channel[/youtube]
Secret police vs liberators..?

http://www.youtube.com/CitizenTube
More

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 04 Feb 2011 14:03

The pharoah has taken a leaf out of Chairman Mao's book.Mao used to allow dissent and anti-party activities to flush out the hidden enemies of state in a tactic he called "chopping off the head of the snakes".Mubarak has similarly lulled the protestors into feeling that his demise was imminent.He has now unleashed his supporters,allowing violence to erupt,so that at a later date the army can then use force to clear the square of all protestors.

Having said that he will step down in September,Mubarak has won onto his side many moderate Egyptians,happy to see him go but want no chaos,which the mob and Muslim Brotherhood represent.The devious machiavellian plot by the US to foist El Baradei,with thre eyears of secret anti-Mubarak activity by the US's dirty tricks dept.,has come a cropper as he has such a weak political base and is increasingly being looked at as an interloper and western stooge. The award of his NObel Peace Prize is now very evident as he was specially given it to be one day a possible successor to Mubarak.

Mubarak has become yet another in the long list of US crony leaders,supported to the hilt by it,allowing human rights abuses galore,then when the leader had most his value to the US,betrayed and deposed .Watch this space to see how another White House "butler",Man Mubarak Singh will also come a cropper!

prahaar · Post by **prahaar** » 04 Feb 2011 14:23

On opening CNN IBN website, for a moment felt like looking at an Egyptian news channel. For a country of 1B+ people, all that the channel can report is Tahrir square. I find a worrying aspect in that the involvement of India in Khilafat movement post WW-I might be repeating itself. What does India have to gain or loose by a regime change in a distant Arab land where any outcome would be equally favourable/unfavourable to India? I wish well for Egyptian people and the world, but certainly not at the expense of India's priorities and national interest. I sincerely wish, this heavy psychological involvement promoted by our DDM does not become a badge of having concern for "minorities" in India. Bji's 90 year cycle is haunting me after looking at news coverage from "secular" "approved" news outlets.

jiteshn · Post by **jiteshn** » 04 Feb 2011 16:13

The arab revolution

I do not know if the arab govts turning islamists like turkey is all good or all bad for india. Maybe they'll all start heading backwards into time like after zia's islamization of pakistan.

Vikas · Post by **Vikas** » 04 Feb 2011 17:33

Philip wrote:The pharoah has taken a leaf out of Chairman Mao's book.Mao used to allow dissent and anti-party activities to flush out the hidden enemies of state in a tactic he called "chopping off the head of the snakes".Mubarak has similarly lulled the protestors into feeling that his demise was imminent.He has now unleashed his supporters,allowing violence to erupt,so that at a later date the army can then use force to clear the square of all protestors.

Having said that he will step down in September,Mubarak has won onto his side many moderate Egyptians,happy to see him go but want no chaos,which the mob and Muslim Brotherhood represent.The devious machiavellian plot by the US to foist El Baradei,with thre eyears of secret anti-Mubarak activity by the US's dirty tricks dept.,has come a cropper as he has such a weak political base and is increasingly being looked at as an interloper and western stooge. The award of his NObel Peace Prize is now very evident as he was specially given it to be one day a possible successor to Mubarak.

Mubarak has become yet another in the long list of US crony leaders,supported to the hilt by it,allowing human rights abuses galore,then when the leader had most his value to the US,betrayed and deposed .Watch this space to see how another White House "butler",Man Mubarak Singh will also come a cropper!

The only glitch here is that Mubarak is no Mao, the situation has gone out of hand pretty fast and now he is hanging around for his life and throne. He is going to be a lame duck president even if he survives this eruption with no chance of his son succeeding him in near future. He has shown that he is bleeding and sharks have smelled the blood. he will not survive till September for sure.
Unfortunately for other tin pot dictators in the region, Any success of mango Egyptian will cause their doom.
El baradi didn't win the Nobel Prize like RK Pachauri did not. Their organizations won the award.
BTW there is no comparison between MMS and Mubarak. Singh's party won the last election fair and square and will be booted out in the next election.

habal · Post by **habal** » 04 Feb 2011 19:37

Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood

While the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Iran do not have strong organizational ties, the Brotherhood has had a major impact on Islamic revivalism in Iran . . .

Egypt under Shiites: Distant Past but Popular Memory

Egyptians are more receptive and positively disposed toward Shiism than other Sunni Arabs. One reason is the Fatimid Dynasty that was established in Egypt in the tenth century as an offshoot of the Shiite Ismaelite movement. The dynasty played an important role in the cross-fertilization between Iran and Egypt. The two centuries of Fatimid rule in Egypt marks a high point in the history of Islamic civilization in terms of economic development and cultural prosperity. Even the art in Fatimid Egypt was influenced by Iranian styles.

The Fatimid period left a lasting impression on Egyptians, and vestiges of the country's long-ago Shiite rulers are still seen in Egyptian openness to Shiite practices and traditions, a receptiveness not found anywhere else in the Sunni world. Egyptians still respect the symbols, icons, and sacred places of that period; for example, Egyptians believe that Hussain, the third Shiite Imam, and his family are buried in Cairo, not in Karbala, Iraq. For Sunni Egyptians the tombs of Hussain, Sayyeda Zainab (his sister), and Assayeda Sakina (his daughter) are the most sacred places in the world after Mecca and Medina. Also like their Shiite coreligionists, Sunnis in Cairo perform Ashura (the Shiite commemoration of the death of Hussain) each year. Furthermore, in nineteenth-century Egypt, the Persian language was accepted as a language of literature and science, reflected in the Persian-language newspapers available at the time.

Moreover, in addition to the influence of Egyptian political Islamists on Iranian clerics noted earlier, Iranian clerics in turn helped to shape Islamist revivalism in Egypt. One notable example is the nineteenth-century Islamist Sayyed Jamal al-Din Asadabadi, also known as al-Afghani. When he arrived in Egypt from his native Iran, he claimed to be an Afghan so he could pass himself off as a Sunni. His new ideology advocated the unity of Muslims and sought in "authentic Islam" answers to the ills of Muslim societies.

As a result of this history, for many years Shiism held some appeal in Egypt, despite the fact that Egyptians at the time of the Fatimids, and still today, are predominantly Sunnis.

Shiism in Contemporary Egypt

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/temp ... p?CID=3014

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 04 Feb 2011 21:03

Egypt tipping over to Shiaism would be a major quake in Middle East. It will put KSA's extremist Wahabism in a pincer movement.

It was the rise of Seljuk Turks which removed the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt. The Seljuk Turks lost to the Ottomon Turks who brought guns to the fight while the Seljuks had swords.

John Keegan has described the confrontation very eloquently how the Seljuk Turks felt about the Ottomon Turks who fought from far with their guns. But then history is history and the weaker make way for the stronger.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 04 Feb 2011 22:17

K. Natwar Singh in Business Standard:

The Egypt problem

The turmoil in Egypt is a seismic event. Is it a revolt or a revolution. Either way, Egypt has changed. Mr Hosni Mubarak is a strong and stubborn man. The conclusion that his authority is diminished, his image tarnished and his current policy discredited, is inescapable.

Ten days ago, I spoke to an Israeli academic friend in Haifa. I asked him if Tunisia would have an impact on Egypt and other Arab nations. He answered that this was most unlikely. The regimes in Cairo and Amman were sensible, stable and strong. A week later, I called him again. He said everyone was completely surprised when Cairo exploded. Every Israeli was anxious and worried. It is well known that Israel has one of the best secret services in the world. Both Egypt and Jordan have diplomatic missions in Israel. No other Arab country does. The intelligence agencies of Israel, the US, Egypt and Jordan are in touch almost daily. Yet, all were caught off guard.

The US is confronted with a very worrying situation. Mr Mubarak is, or was, the favourite Arab leader in Washington. As one of the largest and most populous Arab countries, it is the heavyweight in the Middle East. The US, Egypt and Israel are the powerful trio for containing Iran. If Mr Mubarak were to go, then the US foreign policy in the Middle East will be most adversely affected. The peace process will be indefinitely halted, and Arab nations will be jittery.

Mr Mubarak began as a NAM supporter. He attended the 7th NAM Summit in March 1983. As secretary general of the summit, I saw him at close quarters. Soon he embraced the US. He forgot about the Nehru-Nasser-Tito era. He lost interest in India. Awarded the Nehru Prize in the mid-nineties, he did not turn up to collect it for nearly 15 years.

What is happening in Tahrir Square does President Mubarak no credit. He has let loose thugs in the Square to hit at the anti-Mubarak protesters. Yes, he has provided stability, but at what cost? His announcement that he will continue till September is both incomprehensible and staggeringly arrogant. His political antenna is facing the wrong way. Although the Egyptian economy is doing reasonably well, 40 per cent Egyptians live on $2 every day. Unemployment is nearly 10 per cent.

A peculiar Arab phenomenon is that the Arab dictators do not retire. Mr Mubarak has been at the helm since 1981; Mr Gaddafi since 1969; Mr Bouteflika of Algeria for over 20 years. The president of Yemen has been misruling for 33 years. Mr Ben Ali stifled the Tunisians for 23 years. Mr Assad senior was president of Syria for 25 years; he was succeeded by his son.

I am asked, “Could this happen in India?” My answer is an emphatic “No”. Democracy has taken root in India. In the Arab world, it hasn’t. Our diversity is our strength. The experiment of Emergency strengthened the democracy of India. There is no dictatorship here.

Why do Americans send third-rate and insensitive diplomats to India? Of course, exceptions are there: Ambassadors Chester Bowles, Ellsworth Bunker and J K Galbraith. The American woman in the US establishment in Hyderabad should be recalled.

A series of discourtesies has been inflicted on Indians by the US establishment. Ambassadors Meera Shankar and Hardev Puri were recently shabbily treated. Now the Indian students in a bogus US university are reduced to a semi-criminal status. Prominent Indians have been denied visas. Let me name just one — Prof Goverdhan Mehta, Fellow of the Royal Society, the president of the Indian National Science Academy.

Spinsterji used to complain about the last action.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 05 Feb 2011 01:06

>>Egypt tipping over to Shiaism

Ramana, all the article seems to be suggesting is that the Egyptian Sunnis hate the Shiites less. Not that they like them more, so to speak. No chance of a tip-over to the Shiite side. Not sure if the Washington Institute story is suggesting that but if it is, whoever wrote that story is out of his mind.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 05 Feb 2011 01:16

>>Mr Bouteflika of Algeria for over 20 years.

Actually no, just 10 years or so. Much of the rest is rubbish as well, but I've given up on expecting anything sensible from the man.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 05 Feb 2011 01:22

U.S. Secratary of State Henry Kissinger on the turmoil in Egypt

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11450

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 05 Feb 2011 03:14

VikasRaina wrote:The only glitch here is that Mubarak is no Mao, the situation has gone out of hand pretty fast and now he is hanging around for his life and throne. He is going to be a lame duck president even if he survives this eruption with no chance of his son succeeding him in near future. He has shown that he is bleeding and sharks have smelled the blood. he will not survive till September for sure.

VikasRaina-saar, there are a couple of points here.

Philip-saar is right in a certain sense. The script for dealing with "revolutionary agitations" is written by a chinese dude. But he is not Mao.

But first a look at Iran a few years ago. Whatever happened in Iran is a good example of how Mubarak seems to be doing it till now (Of course, miracles can happen and he could still counterbalance a street light in Cairo). A few years ago, based on western media's portrayal, the Iranian regime looked about to be booted out by student led agitations. But what was played out rather smartly was the Iranian govt allowing the protests to swell to a certain limit and have all appearances of success. Now all these recent revolutions seem to have sharp but timid or inexperienced youngsters as leaders. In the beginnings, they played well and stayed hidden. But these people believed the western portrayal and felt they have won (or about to) and seems to naively assume supportive B-52s to appear over their heads any minute. And all that was needed was "a final push". So as that confidence grew, they came out in the open to lead the crowds. Big mistake. Iranians grabbed the cream of these leaders within a short time and chased the remaining crowds back home (this remaining crowd is mostly made of slack jawed dudes who are usually there for lack of entertainment, to put it mildly). Net result is a devastating blow to dissident ranks. All their key leaders are either dead or worse and it will take a long time for Iranian opposition to recover and get back to challenging the current Majilis setup.

The guy who successfully utilized this tactic in a post-coldwar setting is Li Peng (not Mao), who culled the brightest leaders of Tiannenmen without remorse.

Same seem to be happening in Egypt. They need a gamechanger leader at this point. El Baradei is not one. But unliked the other faceless leaders, he has other options and is not going to be touched. But the other smaller leaders are toast.
Unless Mubarak leaves in a matter of days.

Mubarak, if he survives, will do fine. He did not stay at top for this long (and with minimal opposition), because of dearth of friend requests in his Facebook inbox.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 05 Feb 2011 07:36

Just learnt, Yindu delegation was in KSA to discuss upcoming KSA-India joint exercise in March aswell as Mountain warfare school.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 05 Feb 2011 07:51

This Week at War: The Pakistan Scenario
How the United States could end up paying even more for an anti-American Egypt.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... n_scenario

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 05 Feb 2011 07:55

Where Do We Go From Here?
Foreign Policy asked experts to weigh in on what Egypt means for the future of U.S. foreign policy.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... _from_here

So where does American diplomacy go from here? Foreign Policy asked the experts:

Daniel Kurtzer: Is Revolution What's Best for the Rest?
Thomas Pickering: When Our Alliances Come at a Price
Aaron David Miller: A Complicated Post-Mubarak Egypt Ahead
Nicholas Burns: Obama, Now Is Not the Time to be a Realist
Elliott Abrams: Freedom Must Return to the Agenda
Zalmay Khalilzad: The Interim Plan: What Egypt Needs Next
Stephen Sestanovich: The Three Changes Coming to Obama's Approach to the Middle East
Steven Simon: No Need to Panic

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 05 Feb 2011 08:11

Obama administration contemplates legal nightmare in Egypt after Mubarak

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts ... er_mubarak

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 05 Feb 2011 08:41

Understanding Revolutionary Egypt
The world was shocked to see the frustration in Cairo boil over the past two weeks. FP gathered a group of Egypt experts to discuss how we should adjust to this rapidly shifting reality.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... nary_egypt

Nathan J. Brown: Not Even a Genie Could Have Seen This Coming

J. Scott Carpenter: This Revolution Isn't Over

Steven Brooke: Don't Fear the Muslim Brotherhood

Shadi Hamid: The "Islamist Dilemma" Is No Dilemma At All

AKalam · Post by **AKalam** » 05 Feb 2011 09:18

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

Hamid Dabashi (Persian: حمید دباشی) born 1951 in Ahvaz is an Iranian-American Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City.[1]
He is the author of over twenty books.[2] Among them are his Theology of Discontent; several books on Iranian cinema; Staging a Revolution; an edited volume, Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema; and his one-volume analysis of Iranian history Iran: A People Interrupted.[3]

http://www.hamiddabashi.com/current_affairs.shtml

His views about the Iranian election protests:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q33rWGPRNmc

http://us.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/06/11/da ... index.html

One year later, Iran protesters fight on
By Hamid Dabashi, Special to CNN
June 11, 2010 7:44 a.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Hamid Dabashi says young people continue the fight for freedom in Iran
* He says Green Movement is marks its anniversary as it survives repression by regime
* Green Movement embodies ideals of freedom from American revolution
* He says U.S. policy in region isn't living up to America's own ideals

Editor's note: Hamid Dabashi is the author of "Iran: A People Interrupted." He is the Hagop Kevorkian professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University in New York.

New York (CNN) -- Zahra Shams is a 21-year-old student of law at Ferdowsi University in Mashhad, Iran. She was arrested on May 6, 2010, and held in solitary confinement. She is not a political activist.

The reason for her arrest: Her sister Fatemeh Shams, a poet, blogger and graduate student at Oxford University, is a solid supporter of the Green Movement in Iran.

Fatemeh Shams became even more vocal since last summer's presidential election, when her husband, Mohammad Reza Jalaipour, also a graduate student at Oxford, was arrested in the airport as the couple was leaving Iran to resume their studies in the U.K. He was jailed for more than two months and subsequently released, but not permitted to leave Iran to join his wife in Oxford to resume his studies.

The authorities in Iran evidently arrested Zahra Shams to force her sister Fatemeh into silence in Oxford. She did not become silent. Last week the authorities released Zahra Shams.

Majid Tavakoli is a 24-year-old student activist from Amir Kabir Technical University in Tehran. He has been repeatedly jailed for long periods of time. Arrested on December 7, 2009, during the student protests over the disputed presidential election of 2009, Tavakoli became the subject of global solidarity when authorities in Iran sought to humiliate him by taking his picture garbed in mandatory women's veils. Almost instantly, countless Iranian men wore veils and published their pictures on the internet in solidarity with Tavakoli.

Similarly, when Tavakoli went on a dry hunger strike to protest his solitary confinement, his mother, too, initiated a hunger strike in solidarity with her son, which many young Iranians from around the globe followed. The authorities yielded and transferred Tavakoli from solitary confinement to a regular ward.

Zahra Shams, an apolitical law student, and Majid Tavakoli, a major political activist and a pain in the neck of the Islamic theocracy in Iran, are two typical examples of the two ends of the spectrum on which young Iranians are challenging the 31-year-old theocracy that has ruled their land.

The hopes and aspirations of these young women and men -- in a nation where young people make up some 70 percent of the total population -- are now branded a "fetneh/menace" by the loud propaganda machinery of the Islamic Republic.

Fortunately for Iran, and fortunately for the world, that old and noisy machinery isn't working. Zahra Shams and Majid Tavakoli, and the generation they represent, are in charge of representing themselves and telling the world what they want.

June 12, 2010, is the first anniversary of the election that sparked the Green Movement in Iran, a nonviolent civil rights uprising that caught the world by surprise. In a region infested with violence --genocidal, homicidal or suicidal -- it is impossible to exaggerate the significance of a massively popular civil rights movement that has begun and continued with the most fundamental democratic question of "Where is my vote?" It is a seminal question that had never been asked on such monumental scale in any other aspiring democracy in the region.

With the ring of that simple but resounding question, "Where is my vote?" millions of Iranians have forced the hand of the Islamic Republic, exposing its naked brutality. If the world were to listen and watch carefully, it would see that the ancient Greek theory of democracy; the French Revolution's cry for liberty, equality and fraternity; the American revolt against despotism and tyranny; and ultimately the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s are today all resonating in the Iranian cry for freedom.

For daring to doubt the veracity of the official results of last year's presidential election, innocent citizens have been subject to systematic and unbridled violence by the security apparatus of a theocratic regime that seems to be, more than anyone else, cognizant of its own absence of legitimacy. Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the leading two opposition figures, just canceled their call for a mass silent rally on the first anniversary of the Green Movement for fear of organized state violence against peaceful demonstrators.

The Islamic Republic is of course no exception to the rule of state-sponsored violence against innocent civilians in the region. Against that backdrop, the Green Movement in Iran has opened a new and unprecedented chapter in the political culture of the region that old colonial officers branded "the Middle East." Violent coups, militant rebellions, military invasions and brute insurrectionary uprisings are the staple of the political culture in this region.

In a region where the enduring formation of democratic institutions and of nonviolent transition to democracy has always been thwarted by the rise of one charismatic tyrant or another, from Jamal Abd al-Nasser to Ayatollah Khomeini, the Green Movement boasts no such leader. And it is teaching those who care to watch an entirely new lesson in the art and craft of small steps and careful coalition-building on the long and arduous path to democracy.

By contrast, the West's claim to moral superiority has been undermined by the continued carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan, both still effectively under U.S.-led occupation, and of Israel's wanton disregard for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. What's a little torture in Kahrizak and Evin over the last year compared to what the United States has done in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and Bagram Airbase in the course of its "war on terror" over the last decade?

The United States has invariably supported undemocratic regimes to safeguard its immediate interests, compromising its longstanding ideals and principles. Today, Iranian demonstrators braving brutal repression in their streets and on their rooftops are truer to the ideals and aspirations of Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. than those in positions of power and authority in the United States.

One can scarce imagine a more urgent issue facing the United States than the possibility of an Islamic Republic achieving nuclear arms. But is President Obama a credible leader to force Iran to stop its nuclear ambition when he continues with the double standard of never bringing Israel or Pakistan, two nuclear power allies of the United States who are not even signatories to the nonproliferation treaty, to the negotiating table?

The Green Movement is providing President Obama with a historic opportunity to show the courage of his imagination and opt for regional and ultimately global disarmament, predicated on a nonviolent principle that community organizers (he must remember that term) in Iran seem to have learned from Martin Luther King more earnestly than he has.

One year later, the Green Movement is unfolding in multiple and varied ways, and nothing will stop it. It may thunder as a cascade or flow quietly on a plateau -- but like any other bountiful river it will not stop until it reaches its destined ocean.

From the gracious patience of Zahra Shams in solitary confinement in a Mashhad prison to the noble anger of Majid Tavakoli counting days to his people's freedom in a cell in Evin prison, the young Iranians are teaching nations the very alphabet of a language of liberation that the world leaders are yet to learn.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Hamid Dabashi.

Its seems that the globalized facebook/twitter equipped youth movement of the region did not start in Tunisia, but it actually started with the Iranian election protests. Iranian Mullahcracy is as much at risk as are the tin pots of the region. Basij thugs may be more numerous and organized than Mubarak's thugs, but they are all dinosaurs, about to become history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80 ... n_protests

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 05 Feb 2011 09:41

so another US sponsored color revolutions in the works

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 05 Feb 2011 09:42

Seem there was an assassination attempt on Suleiman VP Egypt and two bodyguard killed. HT reporting on TV

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 05 Feb 2011 09:58

ravi_ku This time its not the usual reasons of regime change. Its impact will be internal US dynamics.

Please think by listing all the effects of an Egypt or ME series of regime changes!

In Middle East countries.
Impact on commodities
Impact on US economy
Impact on US politics.

usw (Und so weiter) as my Physics teacher used to say!

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 05 Feb 2011 10:14

ramana garu,

I was referring only to the Iranian changes. We are hearing nothing from inside of Iran. We are hearing the rumblings and excitement of people established in US and UK, for me a sure shot sign that such a colour is being pushed from "outside".

Basically they are trying to push this dominoe on to Iran.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 05 Feb 2011 11:05

I know. I want to expand your horizons. Please indulge me. List the things as I asked.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 05 Feb 2011 11:33

A few clarifications.Mao several times durign his era "let the snakes out of the hole",only to "chop off their heads".The best example was during the cultural revolution,letting a "thousand flowers bloom" and then cracking down with a vengeance.As said,Li Peng,etc., followed his example at Tian-an-men sq.Mubarak might be finished and his last acts might extend for some more time,but what he and his entourage (and they want to stay in power after he leaves) are doing are to lull the portestors into a false sense of victory only to see it snatched from their grasp when the going gets really hard.The assassination attempt on the VP was most probably carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood who will see a massive crackdown upon them once Suleiman has full power in his hands.

I forsee bloodshed in store for the Egyptians as there appeare to be few moderates on both sides.A grasping overtly ambitious Baradei,the darling of the west is desperate for a "quick fix",by which he hopes to grab the presidency.Baradei is a rank opportunist and a willing puppet for hire. As for Dr.Man "Mubarak" Singh,it is a warning to him as well, though he was legally elected,just like Mubarak,doing b*gger all about the wave after wave of corruption that his govt. is responsible for (for long it pretended as if no crimes were committed),and if all that comes out of his actions despitye the natuonwide uproar are sham prosecutions and tamasha arrests,it could very well be the Indian public that take to the streets as we near the next election.

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 05 Feb 2011 11:55

Ramana garu,

My assumptions: The dominoes end with Egypt and ends Mubarak and a new govt with somewhat anti-us rhetoric comes into place. Without this assumption in place, any analysis becomes too

Impact on commodities:
For the US not much.

Impact on US economy:
pretty difficult to say, I will have to go with a very very minor.

Impact on US politics:
The divergence between those who support Israel and the pro-atlanticists will come out even more. However I see the Israelites winning this unless US suffers some extreme economic shocks. My reasoning is based on that US which might already be seen as a waning superpower, its allies (Soud and Jordon) will run to you when they are in danger.

The most major effect will be a further split in the US-Euro and a further effort by Europe to sell Israel as an appeasement to the muslims and an increase of power for Russia and the US.

We can think of this as the period roughly corresponding to just before the fall of Constantinople, where a trade route (Suez) is under attack.

Another important effect of this will be decrease in influence of the Queendom. The shieks will find it increasingly difficult to continue their relations with them and thus the oil pricing in US and Queendom will diverge a bit more.

Turkey's east ward looking govt should start playing a more important role in this world as the new interlocutor for Egypt and west asia. The Soudi royals will look at US for more support, failing which they will start looking at other options.

We can expect Somalia piracy to increase. Oman's role will increase a lot with it being out of the any of the straits.

Iran will try to pull Egypt towards it. Expect more bellicose islamic rhetoric from Iran about Israel. Egypt and Iran can make good friends according to the mandala theory, not withstanding Shia-sunni differences with the Soudis sandwhiched in between.

Basically it should start a round where allies are sorted out.
I think India has rich pickings if it can play its cards right.

Of course all these things will go into drain if the dominoe falls on Iran as well. Iran and turkey will be the keys for the future developments.

Christopher Sidor · Post by **Christopher Sidor** » 05 Feb 2011 12:25

In 1979 as revolution burst onto Iran, Jimmy Carter a democrat, was the president Of US. After Shah left, the Islamist seized power and created a split-personality type Iran, where Islamic and normal government coexist side by side. There is a president but there is a supreme leader too.
It is said that Jimmy Carter paid a very heavy price for the Iranian Revolution and the 300+ days of hostage drama that followed Shah's fall. It is ironic that the most pivotal person responsible for Shahs abdication, i.e. Jimmy Carter, would pay the ultimate price. Offcourse the economic woes of America did not help matter.

Fast forward today and there is another democratic president, Mr Obama in the helm. Mr Obama and/or his team see him as a contemporary FDR. However the closet comparison would be Jimmy Carter and not FDR. When Jimmy Carter was elected, he was also seen as a clean person who would provide a break from the messy 1970s. Obama when he was elected was also seen, as an outsider and an agent of change. Now also Oil prices are spiking to un-heard of levels, same happened after 1979 iranian revolution. In 1979 also the American economy was going through a tailspin. The American economy now is also in shambles. The parallels are uncannily striking.

If this Egyptian revolution follows the Iranian revolution, and an Islamic government takes control, then we will see a spectacle of an Islamic regime controlling the choke point of North Atlantic countries oil supply, i.e. Suez Canal. During the 1979 revolution, Iran was one of the major producers and suppliers of Oil. The revolution disrupted the oil supply which resulted in oil price doubling almost overnight. Now the fear is that the oil supply could be cut off.

This might seem an academic exercise, as it might not appear to impact India, but well India would be devastated because of the following two reasons
1) Oil in India is priced according the Brent Crude. The price of Brent Crude is largely dependent on the demand and supply to oil to North Atlantic countries. In the twisted world of crude oil pricing, India pays a higher cost of oil every time oil supply is reduced to Europe, even if crude supply to India were not to be disrupted. Off course this is not the case only with Crude, but with all the raw materials produced in India.
2) Indias biggest trading partners are EU and US. Our growth is driven to a large degree by these two entities. If they have a hard landing, we will have a even more harder landing.

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 05 Feb 2011 18:44

Rural Poor Paid to Attack Opposition Supporters

In exchange for the equivalent of a few euros, poor seasonal workers have taken part in street fighting in Cairo on the side of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The thugs, who fight with iron bars, knives and clubs, have been recruited by privileged members of the regime, including party officials, security forces and rich business people with lucrative state contracts.

The bloody clashes in Cairo show that not all of Egypt's 80 million people want to see President Hosni Mubarak overthrown or a new start heralded by fresh elections. Many are fiercely loyal to the ruling system and are ready to fight for it -- with brutality. On Thursday afternoon, there were even reports on the Al Jazeera news channel that Mubarak supporters were storming the hotels of Cairo and hunting down journalists.

The confrontation between the opponents and supporters of the Mubarak regime first escalated on Wednesday, as both sides engaged in hours-long battles on Cairo's central Tahrir Square and the adjoining side streets. Mubarak loyalists stormed the crowd armed with knives, clubs and stones. Some even rode horses and camels, hitting the demonstrators on the head from above with iron bars.

In Cairo's working-class district, they organized a big demonstration, including a motorcade of cars and motorbikes. They shouted slogans such as "Mubarak, we kneel before you," and "Yes to the president of peace." Taking part were members of trade unions and associations, as well as employees of state-run companies, who were obviously told by their bosses to attend.

In the background, the movement is being controlled by businessmen with lucrative state contracts, public servants, security officers and party officials, all of whom are worried by the uncertainty of recent days. They are all determined to ensure that as little as possible changes, regardless of who follows Mubarak. They are the supporters and representatives of the ruling National Democratic Party, which has 3 million members, who fear that they could lose power in free elections. They are members of the nouveau riche, who have gained huge fortunes and influence, largely through corruption and criminality, and who currently enjoy immunity.

The Poor Are Easy Prey

These individuals have everything to lose -- and are now depending on those who have nothing left to lose. The privileged members of the regime don't want to get their hands dirty. Instead, they recruit their helpers from the rural and semi-rural regions, particularly from two provinces north of Cairo: Bahtim and Qalyub. The poor, who make up the majority of the population here, are easy prey. Many are distrustful of the demonstrators' motives and fear that the movement is secretly pursuing other aims.

In every province, there are party offices. There, people -- and especially seasonal workers -- are assembled and offered a tiny sum of money to take part in the bloody battle to keep Mubarak in power. There is not much work on the land at this time of year. Terribly poor and illiterate, they set off to do their employers' bidding for a paltry sum equivalent to around €10-€15 ($14-$20). They are cheap, they are desperate, and they don't ask questions. Thousands have taken part, though it is difficult to estimate the exact figure. According to eyewitnesses, around 4,000 people took part in the counter-demonstrations in Cairo and Alexandria on Wednesday.

Mubarak loyalists have resorted to perfidious measures to sabotage the protests by the opponents of the regime and to put on a show for international observers. Thousands of prisons, including detention centers in the desert, were opened in recent days. At total of 14,000 inmates, including murderers and other serious criminals, were suddenly set free. They were released on the understanding that they would cause as much chaos as possible -- effectively a license to plunder, murder and commit arson.

Between 4,000 and 5,000 of the inmates are thought to have now reached Cairo, while a few hundred have turned themselves in voluntarily. Many want to flee across Sinai to the Gaza Strip in the hope that the radical Islamist group Hamas, which is in government there, will take them in. Hamas has so far not taken a position on the events in Egypt. However, it is assumed that they are not exactly sympathetic to Mubarak because he has supported the Israeli-imposed blockade of the Gaza Strip. Hamas is also considered an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group officially banned in Egypt.

The opposition wants to demonstrate once again against the elderly Egyptian president on Friday. The planned march will converge on Cairo. And the members of the pro-Mubarak camp will also presumably be out in force -- with bloody consequences.

Annett Meiritz contributed to this report.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 05 Feb 2011 21:35

Ravi_ku, If price of oil goes up due to instability in Egypt, what happens to US economy? Which sectors go up and which go down? And quo bono? Who benefits and loses?

The victim of Egyptian riots (now being called Uprising) is Israel. With an unfriendly regime in Egypt, they have to sue for peace on Palestine!

See how the rioters are progressively getting more fundamentalized? An empty church bombed, could be full next time. The radical image of the opposition is being built up.

Tip O'Neill the former speaker said "in US all politics is local!" It applies to world also due to sole super power malaise.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 06 Feb 2011 02:21

U.S. moves to distance itself from envoy's remarks on Mubarak

http://www.politico.com/blogs/lauraroze ... party.html

The Obama administration has moved to distance itself from remarks made by Obama's special Egypt envoy Frank Wisner Saturday that Mubarak needs to stay in power as president to approve certain constitutional reforms.

"The president must stay in office in order to steer those changes through," Wisner told a Munich security conference via videolink, according to Agence France Press. "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical."

An unnamed U.S. official, however, later told the AFP that Wisner was speaking in his capacity as a private citizen about Mubarak's future role -- and not for the administration which sent him to Cairo last week at Hillary Clinton's suggestion.

...

Clinton, addressing the Munich security conference earlier Saturday, said the U.S. supports talks on an "orderly transition" being led by Egyptian Vice President Gen. Omar Suleiman, Egypt's former intelligence chief who is a well-known figure in Washington.

Several opposition parties were reported to have begun negotiations on a transition with Suleiman Saturday. Not among them, however, were former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood, ABC News' Christiane Amanpour reported.

The meeting came as several leaders of Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party submitted their resignation, including Gamal Mubarak, the son and once perceied likely heir apparent of President Hosni Mubarak.

...

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 06 Feb 2011 05:13

ramana wrote:Ravi_ku, If price of oil goes up due to instability in Egypt, what happens to US economy? Which sectors go up and which go down? And quo bono? Who benefits and loses?

ramana garu,
oil is not being blocked. One trade route is being blocked and that trade route is between India/arab to europe, not to US.

The below link should give the information from where US gets its oil from.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petr ... mport.html
only 5-10% of oil comes from arab land inspite of all the rhetoric.

What is more likely to happen is Texas crude price and Uk brent crude price will diverge.

Remember the worst case scenario is its a 1956s suez crisis redux or 67-75 complete blocking and the card stacking of who were ready for suez to close and who were not should be clear. The exceptions of roles being Egypt and Israel.

So Europe and queendom will try to sue for peace with Egypt by selling off Israel, where as Israel will try to hug more closely to US.

The victim of Egyptian riots (now being called Uprising) is Israel. With an unfriendly regime in Egypt, they have to sue for peace on Palestine!

See how the rioters are progressively getting more fundamentalized? An empty church bombed, could be full next time. The radical image of the opposition is being built up.

Of course Israel will be attempted to be sold by Europe. I think Israel better start getting good relations with the bear or it is lost, for turkey is ready to play the role of interlocutor. The mandala theory again comes to the fore.

If you note carefully my previous response, I talked of Iran and Egypt getting closer, with Iran taking more islamic rhetoric- thus solidifying their radical "image"

Tip O'Neill the former speaker said "in US all politics is local!" It applies to world also due to sole super power malaise.

I expect the direct impact to be lot less. The fall out is more from the fight between atlanticists and israelites.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 06 Feb 2011 08:11

As Mubarak Digs In, U.S. Policy in Egypt Is Complicated

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world ... olicy.html

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 06 Feb 2011 08:24

Egypt Stability Hinges on a Divided Military

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world ... itary.html

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 06 Feb 2011 11:47

Robert Fisk: Mubarak is going. He is on the cusp of final departure

Protesters in Tahrir Square are right to be sceptical despite the apparent shake-up in Egypt's ruling party

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 05852.html

In his novel The Autumn of the Patriarch, Gabriel Garcia Marquez outlines the behaviour of a dictator under threat and his psychology of total denial. In his glory days, the autocrat believes he is a national hero. Faced with rebellion, he blames "foreign hands" and "hidden agendas" for this inexplicable revolt against his benevolent but absolute rule. Those fomenting the insurrection are "used and manipulated by foreign powers who hate our country". Then – and here I use a precis of Marquez by the great Egyptian author Alaa Al-Aswany – "the dictator tries to test the limits of the engine, by doing everything except what he should do. He becomes dangerous. After that, he agrees to do anything they want him to do. Then he goes away".

Hosni Mubarak of Egypt appears to be on the cusp of stage four – the final departure. For 30 years he was the "national hero" – participant in the 1973 war, former head of the Egyptian air force, natural successor to Gamal Abdel Nasser as well as Anwar Sadat – and then, faced with his people's increasing fury at his dictatorial rule, his police state and his torturers and the corruption of his regime, he blamed the dark shadow of the country's fictional enemies (al-Qa'ida, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Jazeera, CNN, America). We may just have passed the dangerous phase.

If Mubarak goes today or later this week, Egyptians will debate why it took so long to rid themselves of this tin-pot dictator. The problem was that under the autocrats – Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak and whomever Washington blesses next – the Egyptian people skipped two generations of maturity. For the first essential task of a dictator is to "infantilise" his people, to transform them into political six-year-olds, obedient to a patriarchal headmaster. They will be given fake newspapers, fake elections, fake ministers and lots of false promises. If they obey, they might even become one of the fake ministers; if they disobey, they will be beaten up in the local police station, or imprisoned in the Tora jail complex or, if persistently violent, hanged.

Only when the power of youth and technology forced this docile Egyptian population to grow up and stage its inevitable revolt did it become evident to all of these previously "infantilised" people that the government was itself composed of children, the eldest of them 83 years old. Yet, by a ghastly process of political osmosis, the dictator had for 30 years also "infantilised" his supposedly mature allies in the West. They bought the line that Mubarak alone remained the iron wall holding back the Islamic tide seeping across Egypt and the rest of the Arab world. The Muslim Brotherhood – with genuine historical roots in Egypt and every right to enter parliament in a fair election – remains the bogeyman on the lips of every news presenter, although they have not the slightest idea what it is or was.

But now the infantilisation has gone further. Lord Blair of Isfahan popped up on CNN the other night, blustering badly when asked if he would compare Mubarak with Saddam Hussein. Absolutely not, he said. Saddam had impoverished a country that once had a higher standard of living than Belgium – while Mubarak had increased Egypt's GDP by 50 per cent in 10 years.

What Blair should have said was that Saddam killed tens of thousands of his own people while Mubarak has killed/hanged/tortured only a few thousand. But Blair's shirt is now almost as blood-spattered as Saddam's; so dictators, it seems, must now be judged only on their economic record. Obama went one further. Mubarak, he told us early yesterday, was "a proud man, but a great patriot".

This was extraordinary. To make such a claim, it was necessary to believe that the massive evidence of savagery by Egypt's state security police over 30 years, the torture and the vicious treatment of demonstrators over the past 13 days, was unknown to the dictator. Mubarak, in his elderly innocence, may have been aware of corruption and perhaps the odd "excess" – a word we are beginning to hear again in Cairo – but not of the systematic abuse of human rights, the falsity of every election.

This is the old Russian fairy tale. The tsar is a great father figure, a revered and perfect leader. It's just that he does not know what his underlings are doing. He doesn't realise how badly the serfs are treated. If only someone would tell him the truth, he would end injustice. The tsar's servants, of course, connived at this.

But Mubarak was not ignorant of the injustice of his regime. He survived by repression and threats and false elections. He always had. Like Sadat. Like Nasser who – according to the testimony of one of his victims who was a friend of mine – permitted his torturers to dangle prisoners over vats of boiling faeces and gently dunk them in it. Over 30 years, successive US ambassadors have informed Mubarak of the cruelties perpetrated in his name. Occasionally, Mubarak would express surprise and once promised to end police brutality, but nothing ever changed. The tsar fully approved of what his secret policemen were doing.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 06 Feb 2011 14:21

Miles Axe Copeland, Jr. - a prominent U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative who was one of the founding members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) under William Donovan - divulges the confessions of numerous members of the Muslim brotherhood that resulted from the harsh interrogations done against them by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, for their alleged involvement in the assassination attempt made against Nasser (an assassination attempt that many believe was staged by Nasser himself [85]), which revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood was merely a "guild" that fulfilled the goals of western interests: "Nor was that all. Sound beatings of the Moslem Brotherhood organizers who had been arrested revealed that the organization had been thoroughly penetrated, at the top, by the British, American, French and Soviet intelligence services, any one of which could either make active use of it or blow it up, whichever best suited its purposes. Important lesson: fanaticism is no insurance against corruption; indeed, the two are highly compatible." .[86]

Miles Axe Copeland, Jr., "The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970"

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

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 06 Feb 2011 14:38

Pranav wrote: divulges the confessions of numerous members of the LeT that resulted from the harsh interrogations done against them by , for their alleged involvement in the assassination attempt made against which revealed that the LeT was merely a "guild" that fulfilled the goals of western interests: "Nor was that all. Sound beatings of the LeT organizers who had been arrested revealed that the organization had been thoroughly penetrated, at the top, by the British, American, French services, any one of which could either make active use of it or blow it up, whichever best suited its purposes. Important lesson: fanaticism is no insurance against corruption; indeed, the two are highly compatible." .[86]

habal · Post by **habal** » 06 Feb 2011 14:58

For the first essential task of a dictator is to "infantilise" his people, to transform them into political six-year-olds, obedient to a patriarchal headmaster. They will be given fake newspapers, fake elections, fake ministers and lots of false promises. If they obey, they might even become one of the fake ministers; if they disobey, they will be beaten up in the local police station, or imprisoned in the Tora jail complex or, if persistently violent, hanged.

applies to a fake neighbour of ours also.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 06 Feb 2011 19:28

Allegedly Indian POV of Egypt:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semp ... delhi.html

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 Feb 2011 22:32

Should we really trust what a CIA/OSS keyman quotes from Nasser? Nasser would be delighted to make the claim that MB top was penetrated by western secret services. At that time he himself had just abandoned his own early connections to the western "services" to seek greater personal power and independence of action.

Why should not the MB also welcome offers of collaboration by contacts from the western secret services as a means of fighting Nasser?

It is perhaps the same old story everywhere - the secret services are on the lookout for people who would be willing to cooperate from within an organization that is seen as having at least nuisance value for the secret services. Both sides know what they are doing it for and why. It depends on who becomes the "contact" within the org, since if there are aspects to his/her life [or created so] that can be milked in public for discrediting purposes - then it becomes more of blackmail and corruption. Thus fanaticism or lets say "idealism" is indeed more immune to "corruption" and such peole will go into collaboration more from the tactcial mutual-use viewpoint rather than personal corruption.

This is a reason you will find "idealism" the butt of the strongest possible attacks by critiques who pretend to be rational, neutral and unbiased. Idealists are not easily tradeable.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 Feb 2011 23:11

They are beyond such "kid's stuff" - they already have their own army! Perhaps also facebook and twitter does not operate very well in that difficult terrain.