West Asia News and Discussions (YEMEN, gulf)

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 06 Mar 2016 04:17

El presidente von trumpfo bin kejriwali...
Sorry, had to write it down whilst I remembered!

TSJones · Post by **TSJones** » 06 Mar 2016 04:41

Jhujar, could you please remove the tragic photo of what appears to me to be an African woman brutally murdered?

I'm not asking for my squeamishness but for respect for the victim. She obviously didn't go there to fight but to serve and if there is a heaven she is surely there,

I think that if there is indeed a heaven, it was primarily created for the least of us and those who serve, not fight. Her earthly remains deserves some dignity.

thank you

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 06 Mar 2016 05:46

Only M of Forum can edit that picture of victim now.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 06 Mar 2016 05:56

TSJ, agree with you 100%. Disturbing. Esp (disturbing to me I mean) as I think it is a Malloostani man, not woman from somewhere else. Was thinking of his family back home thinking he was doing OK trying to make a few bucks to send home. The report said the Moderate Terrorists bound each victim and shot them in the head.

Adminullahs kindly do the needful & remove the pic pls.

fanne · Post by **fanne** » 06 Mar 2016 06:19

Jhujhar sir, please remove the pic. It is disturbing and please do not have ego in these small requests. The ask is genuine.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 06 Mar 2016 21:46

I thought the main danger in being a billionaire was the toxic caviar and the houris, but this is pretty demoralizing. I think I'll stay a YakDungChipaire.

Tehran (CNN)Iranian billionaire Babak Zanjani has been sentenced to death for corruption, authorities said Sunday. Zanjani and two others were convicted of embezzling billions of dollars from the national oil company, judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Ejei said.
One of the charges he faces is "corruption on earth," which carries the death penalty, according to Iranian state TV.
The oil mogul was sanctioned by the EU and the United States for helping Iran evade sanctions.
He was arrested in December 2013. CNN's Yousuf Basil contributed to this report

Whatever happened to "Too Big 2 Fail"?

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 06 Mar 2016 22:53

fanne wrote:Jhujhar sir, please remove the pic. It is disturbing and please do not have ego in these small requests. The ask is genuine.

Admin have to do this as time have elapsed for Editing by the poster.

chanakyaa · Post by **chanakyaa** » 07 Mar 2016 03:55

Wish there was a positive neuj from EU dhaga

Francois Hollande 'quietly' awards France's highest honour to visiting Saudi Crown Prince

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 07 Mar 2016 07:17

All neuj from EU is Bojitive Neuj. IOW, we just can't make up stuff on the EU that is more

than what they put out in 400% seriousness. Les Asses Pompousse avec les shirtes stooffede.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 07 Mar 2016 12:43

Afghanistan,Iraq,Lebanon,Syria,Libya..the list goes on and on.If the Brits and Yanquis had their way,they would try and "liberate" even India from its (alleged) "corrupt and casteist" decline since Independence ! How is Pakistan the fountainhead of Islamic terror worldwide treated by Uncle O'Bomber? Given new N-capable F-16s to vaporise India with!

The West's desire to ‘liberate’ the Middle East remains as flawed as ever
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the ... 15901.html
As Stalingrad-size casualties mount in civil war Syria today, it's worth remembering how the French and British thought they could create a 'modern' Syria in 1941
Robert Fisk
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the ... 15901.html

'Charles de Gaulle, Chief of the French Free Forces, inspects the French colonial troops during during his visit of a military base in Great Britain, 1941'

As General de Gaulle set out for the Middle East in April of 1941, he famously wrote that “towards the complicated Orient, I flew with simple ideas”. They all did. Napoleon was going to "liberate" Cairo, and Bush and Blair were going to "liberate" Iraq; and Obama, briefly, was going to "liberate" Syria.

A magnificent book by the French Saint Cyr Military School historian Henri de Wailly, Invasion Syria 1941, has just been published for the first time in English – and at what a moment. As Stalingrad-size casualties mount in civil war Syria today, here is the story of how the French – and the British — thought they could create "modern" Lebanon and Syria by driving across the border from what was then Palestine and taking over the Levant from the 35,000 demoralised Vichy troops who had been forced since the summer of 1940 to serve Marshal Petain’s pro-German collaborationist regime.

It turned out rather differently, but some things never change in the eyes of the Westerner. Here, for example, is Vichy General Tony Albord on the local Alawite and Lebanese soldiers he commanded – the Alawites, of course, being the same Shia sect to which today’s President Bashar al-Assad of Syria belongs. “The Alawite soldier is capable,” Albord wrote, “the Syrian simple and disciplined, but anti-authority, easily upset and uncultured. His martial spirit is reduced. The Lebanese are conscientious mercenaries, civilians dressed in military uniform. The Lebanese and Syrian middle classes have no esteem for the army; their sons must be lawyers.”

And so they still must be. But back in 1941, things went badly wrong for de Gaulle’s tiny Free French army. The "Army of the Levant" – officially fighting for Vichy France – did not surrender. Anxious to avoid the shame of the French military collapse before the Nazi Wehrmacht in April and May of 1940, it fought with great bravery against both de Gaulle’s rag-tag army and the British and Australians who accompanied them.

The Australians and the Vichy soldiers both hated de Gaulle’s men, and the British also distrusted the Free French. Almost the entire Vichy force – invited to join de Gaulle’s forces to save "the honour of France" – chose to be repatriated to their half-occupied country, many of them in a ship displaying a large banner upon which was written “Vive Petain”.

For the first time, we have this sorry tale written not just from British but from Vichy French archives, wherein we learn that out of 37,000 men fighting for Vichy, 32,380 chose to return to Petainist France, just 5,848 joining the Free French – but 66 per cent of them were African troops who had no interest in the European war. And among the Frenchmen to join de Gaulle, “many were married to Lebanese Christian women and had created families locally that they could not abandon.” Astonishingly, more than a hundred Free French deserted de Gaulle and were smuggled home to France – half of which was occupied by the Nazis – along with their Vichy comrades.

And here, a remarkable coincidence. As I was reading de Wailly’s book, I took a call from British artist Tom Young – the same painter whose efforts to save Beirut’s Ottoman "Pink House" were recorded in this column two months ago – who told me that he’s now trying to preserve the magnificent 1873 Boustani House in a Christian suburb of Beirut. It was built by a Lebanese banker, Salim el-Boustan, whose wife Adele – owner of one of the first pianos in Lebanon (it still survives) – had six children, one of them a beautiful daughter called Georgette.

Back again now to the 1941 Allied invasion of Lebanon. Among the British forces was Sergeant Major Frank Armour, almost certainly fighting in a Scottish Commando unit that was badly hit in the first stages of the attack. He and his fellow officers arrived in "liberated" Beirut and were billeted on the top two floors of Salim Boustani’s home, and last week I walked through their rooms with their beautiful Italian architrave window frames and views over the Mediterranean, a glorious olive garden and banana plantation next door.

But like the French soldiers who married Lebanese women and chose to stay in Lebanon, Frank Armour — whose father was Scots and mother Russian — fell passionately in love with the gorgeous Georgette, married her, and lived on in the Ottoman mansion for the rest of his life. Behind the garden is a Phoenician tomb.

Frank died not long afterwards, the civil war still exploding around the house, Georgette less than a decade ago.

The house was sold to a Kuwaiti and then to a Syrian, Nader Kalai, CEO of the Syrian mobile phone company, Syriatel, and a chum of – you guessed it — Bashar al-Assad.

But you’ve got to be careful in the Middle East. Bashar has accepted Russian military support and may well survive. General Dentz, the Vichy commander in Lebanon, was forced to allow the German Luftwaffe to refuel at French airfields in Lebanon and Syria — at Aleppo, right beside the airfield that is mortared by Nusrah Front rebels to this day — and to hand over weapons to pro-Nazis in Iraq; he was sentenced to death by de Gaulle’s courts in 1944. A Saint Cyr man and a convinced anti-Nazi, he tried to uphold the "honour of France" but as a soldier, he obeyed Marshal Petain and only de Gaulle saved him from execution. Dentz’s army fought so well against the Allies that its exploits have hitherto been largely expunged from French and British – and Australian — histories of the period.

Dentz did not face the firing squad, but he died a slow death, deliberately brought about by a nation which imprisoned him in dank, freezing cells, dripping with water. On 22 November 1955, he wrote in his diary: “They have taken away my overcoat and scarf…I am writing absolutely numb in mind and body.” December 13: “The walls are running like little waterfalls…the best time is when one goes to bed…and, for a few hours, everything is forgotten.” They were his last words.

Petain shared Dentz’s fate. De Gaulle became president of France. Assad remains president of Syria. Better to be a small soldier, I suppose, like Frank Armour. He, too, came to the complicated Orient. Surely not with simple ideas. I guess he fell in love with the place.

member_22733 · Post by **member_22733** » 07 Mar 2016 12:46

I do hope that the future britshits pay the price of their excesses on humanity with interest.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 07 Mar 2016 13:27

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/m ... rror-fight

Francois Hollande 'quietly' awards France's highest honour to visiting Saudi Crown Prince
Just two months ago France was among the most vocal in condemning Saudi Arabia's New Year's mass executions
Adam Withnall

President Francois Hollande hands Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest honour, at a low-key ceremony in Paris on 4 March 2016 Presidence de la Republique

France has been accused of devaluing its highest national honour after the Legion of Honour was quietly awarded to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia on a visit to Paris.

The French government was among the most vocal outside the Middle East in its condemnation of Saudi mass executions earlier this year, calling the kingdom’s killing of 47 people “deeply deplorable”.

Yet almost two months to the day after that statement was issued, President François Hollande awarded his nation’s most prestigious award to the heir to the Saudi throne, Prince Mohammed bin Naif.

The Crown Prince’s visit to the Elysee Palace actually took place on Friday 4 March, the same day as Mr Hollande held talks with Angela Merkel about how to cope with the refugee crisis.

Saudi Arabia is reportedly looking to borrow $10bn
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But while Ms Merkel’s trip featured in a number of videos and photos posted online by the Elysee social media team, any reference or evidence of the Saudi delegation was conspicuously absent.

That the Prince even received the award was only confirmed by Mr Hollande’s entourage on Sunday afternoon. Officials sought to play it down, telling Le Monde it was “common protocol” to issue visiting dignitaries with the honour.

But while in France the decoration was done, as media outlets put it, “with discretion”, the government-owned Saudi news agency SPA hailed the honour as recognition for the prince’s “great efforts in the region and world for combating extremism and terrorism”.

The Legion of Honour was founded by Napoleon in 1802, and is regarded as among the first and most prestigious modern orders of merit in the world.
10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses

Last week, before the Crown Prince received his from the order’s Grand Master Hollande personally, it was awarded to groups of World War Two veterans in Cornwall and Oxfordshire in recognition of their role in the D-Day landings.

In both France and the UK, there was anger on Sunday night at the decision to award the symbolically significant medal to the deputy leader of a country which has executed 70 people since the start of the year.

Twitter user Carmen Renieri called it a “day of shame for France”, while Jane Grover wrote that the decoration “makes the legion d’honneur worthless”.

Wow - Crown Prince Nayef of Saudi Arabia *secretly* awarded with the medal of the Legion of Honor by Hollande. https://t.co/Q1tDyAEtIQ
— Katerina Alexandridi (@kalexandridi) March 6, 2016

So even the Legion d'Honneur is up for sale these days? https://t.co/88WwG3IsZW
— Ghassan Dahhan (@GhassanDahhan) March 6, 2016

France makes the legion d'honneur worthlesshttps://t.co/Be2nYkOBKg
— Jane Grover (@JaneGrover1) March 5, 2016

.@RiseUp75 A day of shame for France: https://t.co/yoFrCAPgCX
— Carmen Renieri (@RenieriArts) March 5, 2016

Disgusting!Shameless Hollande awarded #Saudi Crown Prince with the Legion of Honor for his for combating #terrorism https://t.co/C2wEqCGK3q
— True Love Syria (@Heresay1) March 6, 2016

Quite questionable-why would anyone from Saudi Arabia which is a slave state be given the Legion of honor? Money? https://t.co/fVgtRHLDZj
— Judy Weismonger (@JWeismonger) March 5, 2016

#France Legion of Honour to the Saudi crown prince. To torture the Sakharov Prize ? @Europarl_FR #FreeRaif RT pic.twitter.com/qFRmS6iY5s
— Yannick Chatelain (@ChatelainY) March 6, 2016

In its report from the Crown Prince’s visit, SPA said the two sides “reviewed bilateral relations between the Kingdom and France and ways of enhancing and developing them in all fields, particularly joint cooperation for combating extremism and terrorism”.

“The French President and the Crown Prince also discussed the latest developments in the Middle East and exerted efforts towards them in addition to the two countries stances towards them,” it said.

The visit was a “success”, said Saudi minister of culture and information Adel al-Toraifi, and included discussions of “investment”.

Neither report made mention of the refugee crisis, throughout which Saudi Arabia been accused of failing to take its fair share of asylum seekers. And given the “discretion” surrounding the visit, it is not known whether Mr Hollande felt able to bring up the Saudi human rights record.

habal · Post by **habal** » 08 Mar 2016 11:41

Private mercenary group DynCorp hired by Saudi/GCC to take up the fight in Yemen after another USA group, Blackwater, got it's ass kicked all the way to the Gulf
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/03/07 ... er-DynCorp

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 09 Mar 2016 03:06

What is this outfit's track record? And does Geneva conventions apply to such folks?

TSJones · Post by **TSJones** » 09 Mar 2016 04:25

....does the Geneva convention cover the Gurkhas?

member_23370 · Post by **member_23370** » 09 Mar 2016 04:34

Yes it does if they are in Indian army or British army or Nepali army. These outfits are mercenaries and a few tochkas will wipe them out no need of Geneva convention.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 09 Mar 2016 04:55

TSJones wrote:....does the Geneva convention cover the Gurkhas?

Yes it does as they serve in national armies: India and UK.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Mar 2016 06:35

ramana wrote:What is this outfit's track record? And does Geneva conventions apply to such folks?

they are a very big operator for a long time. i dont think the houthis will be respecting geneva conventions these days, with the saudis ruthlessly bombing their civil infra and.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Mar 2016 06:45

video of some green gas attack on sheikh maqsood aleppo the ypg fortress

https://twitter.com/sayed_ridha/status/ ... 5634660352

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Mar 2016 06:45

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Mar 2016 06:47

Hassan Ridha ‏@sayed_ridha 12h12 hours ago
At 2pm, 4 shells launched from #Syria landed in #Kilis leaving 1 dead, 2 children are amongst the wounded

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 09 Mar 2016 08:31

An Iraqi Convoy has every thing from Abrams to T-72 to BTR's from Humvee to Toyota from MAN Trucks to Fuel Tankers and every thing that comes in between ......with an Arabic Song in background for the Kick

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Mar 2016 09:53

upbeat mood - plenty of men and equipment . there was a lorros type optronic mast on a pickup truck bed for surveillance over berms.

TSJones · Post by **TSJones** » 09 Mar 2016 10:21

Russia dislikes using military contractors.

http://warisboring.com/articles/believe ... ntractors/

But they do use them anyway! Planned for Iraq.

Blackwaterski.....

member_23370 · Post by **member_23370** » 09 Mar 2016 11:41

And they would be considered mercenaries.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 09 Mar 2016 17:07

The Russians just need to get Pakistani help: the djinn dollar-counterfeiting technology. Then they can buy Blackvodkaski

kit · Post by **kit** » 09 Mar 2016 18:27

TSJones wrote:Russia dislikes using military contractors.

http://warisboring.com/articles/believe ... ntractors/

But they do use them anyway! Planned for Iraq. Blackwaterski.....

Read covert operations and plausible deniability .. Welcome to the world of counter counter black ops !

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 10 Mar 2016 10:29

India is our strategic partner, Pak historic ally: Saudi mantri
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 335386.cms

PM Narendra Modi's first visit to Saudi Arabia early April will see a "tremendous uplift" in bilateral relations, says Adel Al Jubeir, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister when TOI caught up with him during his first visit to India this week.
How do you see the current state of bilateral ties between India and Saudi Arabia?
We have been neighbours and neighbouring civilizations for thousands of years. We have been trading partners and have lots of people-to-people contact. Today our two nations are facing many challenges. We face challenges to the international system, security and stability, challenges in creating economic opportunity for our citizens. I believe working together we can turn the challenges that both of us face together into opportunities.We have extensive economic relations with India. We are the largest supplier of oil to India. Saudi Arabia is one of India's biggest markets. We have a community of almost 3 million Indian citizens who live in Saudi Arabia. They are our doctors, bankers, engineers, teachers. They are by far the most peaceful non-Saudi community and we appreciate all their contributions to Saudi nation and society. They are an important bridge.We have enormous security and terrorism challenges. Therefore it's incumbent on both of our countries to work very closely together in order to go after terrorists who threaten your people and ours. We are committed to doing so, and this commitment s there on part of leadership of both countries. We will see a tremendous uplift in our bilateral ties.
What should we expect during the PM Modi's visit to Saudi Arabia on April 2?
Visits at level of head of state tend to be milestones in the relationship. King Abdullah came as chief guest on Republic Day in 2006, when we signed the Delhi declaration that elevated our relationship to new level. Later, when the PM of India came to Riyadh, we took the relationship further. King Salman visited when he was crown prince, which was a productive visit. Now we want to elevate our relations urther.Prime Minister Modi will be hosted by the Custodian of the Holy Mosques. He will meet the crown prince, deputy crown prince and other ministers to exchange views, consult and set the stage for more collaborative efforts.
Saudi Arabia was considered mainly an energy supplier./ How did the security component of our bilateral relationship move so fast?
To begin with, if there is no trust, it becomes difficult to build a relationship. We trust India and India trusts us. The requirements for ensuring the security of your people and ours compel us not to hesitate in any way in trying to confront a danger. Between the trust that exists, the recognition that we should cooperate, in order to be effective to fight terrorism and extremism, it's not difficult to see why our cooperation is natural, and moving quickly.
As your relationship with India has progressed, has this impacted your relations with Pakistan?
Pakistan is a historic ally and will remain so. Our relations with Pakistan do not come at the expense of our relations with India. India is a strategic relationship in all fields. If having such close relations with both countries can be useful in helping the two nations overcome their differences we would be willing to help. But we will not impose ourselves. I believe there is an emerging desire with both countries to improve relations with each other - PM of Pakistan was invited to PM Modi's inauguration and then we saw Mr Modi's birthday diplomacy.
We have a long and deep relationship with Iran. How do you respond?
Our relationship with Iran is difficult. We have tremendous respect for Iranian culture, civilisation and history. We seek to have the best possible relations. They are our neighbours. The problems we have with Iran are with the policies of its government, not its people. In 1979, the Iranian revolution brought to power a revolutionary government that made a decision to export their revolution, a policy of sectarianism, policy of interfering in affairs of other countries. They have supported terrorism, murdered our diplomats, ransacked embassies, they have planted spy cells with the objective of undermining stability and security in the countries of the region. We have captured several of them, in fact one group will be put on trial soon.Iran has to decide whether it's a revolution or a nation state. We have tried for 35 years to extend a hand of friendship to Iran only to be responded to with terrorism and incitement to sectarianism. Iran has to amend its ways, and act like a good neighbour. There was no sectarianism in the region until 1979.
Sectarianism is rampant in your region. But after the nuclear deal does it legitimize their regime? And will you seek nuclear weapons from Pakistan in response?
Iran has many problems with the world. The nuclear issue has been dealt with. But Iran has other issues -- its support for terrorism is another, and it will be held to account; it continues to be sanctioned for its violation of ballistic missile accords. Our position is that any agreement that prevents Iran from acquiring nuclear capability that has intrusive and robust inspections and snap-back provisions in case Iran violates the terms of the agreement is one we would support because it would lead to keeping nuclear weapons out of their reach.As Saudi Arabia there are two things we don't compromise on, our faith and our security. As the government it is our responsibility to provide security to our people, and we will do whatever it takes. That's without getting into other speculation.
Its been said that the present conflict in the Middle East is your version of the Thirty Years War.
Iranian mobilisation and sectarian policies has created a counter-reaction in the Sunni world. Our wish is the Iranians should cease and desist from promoting their agenda and our objective is to combat extremism in the Islamic world militarily, financially and ideologically. There is an awareness in the Islamic world of the need to reclaim our faith, that there are those who have perverted it and hijacked it. and have tried to justify acts that no religion condones or supports.
To believe that Daesh is Islamic is to believe that KKK in America is Christian. When Daesh burns a Jordanian pilot how different is it from a Jewish settler burning a one-year old Palestinian infant? They are psychopaths. Until we realise and speak out and say this, we will not be able to deal with this phenomena.
And dealing with Daesh...?
In the end I have no doubt we will defeat them. It's no contest. We have more resources, more fire-power, technology.We cannot kill our way out of this. There is another way. Daesh in Syria can only be defeated if we bring about a change in the political system. Bashar al Assad has to go. He is the magnet that draws extremists and terrorists to Syria. Unless we remove him and bring about a change we wont be able to defeat Daesh. Another factor is Iraq. We must encourage and push Iraqi government to implement reforms of 2014, to include all its communities. After we have removed the environment for Daesh, we can deal with Daesh as a criminal organisation and destroy them militarily. Assad has been helped by Iran and Hezbollah. Now the Russians are there, but they too won't be able to help him.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 10 Mar 2016 19:43

Ah the old deoband-wahabbi nexus!

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 10 Mar 2016 20:30

KSA is running out of money and wants political cover.

We need to game what triggers and indicators for KSA changes in the next year, three years and five years?

Ten years they wont be there.

Chinmayanand · Post by **Chinmayanand** » 10 Mar 2016 20:49

Jhujar wrote:India is our strategic partner, Pak historic ally: Saudi mantri
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 335386.cms

After we have removed the environment for Daesh, we can deal with Daesh as a criminal organisation and destroy them militarily. Assad has been helped by Iran and Hezbollah. Now the Russians are there, but they too won't be able to help him.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 10 Mar 2016 21:11

Oonth is coming Pahar( Elephant) Ke Neeche !!
This new century will be at peace & progress under natural order of geopolitical things in Asia and the world at large.From Irbil to Indonesia is India , From Taipei to Tokyo is China. Massa Will run its own Tamasha , Russia will be Fussia with all and ver, Old frail Euros there to Serve Coffee & Churo to all Bhurro (Browns).Deobandis should make move now and try to own islam and become main Thekedar.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 11 Mar 2016 02:40

Thank Trump for ridding Jeb Bush. Next Billary for China. Read Ombaba Atlantic interview

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 11 Mar 2016 02:50

Naam na Poochyo Author Kaa:Like Paki,Saudi Search for New Abbu
We Are Witnessing the Decline of Saudi Arabia as a Major Power

Five years ago, when the Arab Spring seemed at its most hopeful point, a Saudi diplomat told me, scornfully, that it would come to nothing. I had met him in the halls of the United Nations, where I had been asking diplomats about their views on Libya. The Saudis were eager to have the UN validate armed action to remove Muammar Qaddafi. A Saudi news outlet, al-Arabiya, had suggested that the Libyan military was killing its citizens with abandon. Fog surrounded Libya. The U.S. State Department seemed clueless. It did not have any reliable intelligence. Hillary Clinton, who pushed for war, relied upon the French and the Saudis for their assessment of Libya. These were unreliable narrators. Saudi Arabia, at least, wanted the Arab Spring shut down. It threatened its own undemocratic regime. The diplomat’s scorn grew out of this anxiety.LOne underestimates the biliousness of monarchs: at a 2009 Arab League meeting, Qaddafi had cavalierly dismissed the King of Saudi Arabia as a creation of the British and a protectorate of the Americans. It was evident that the monarchs would not tolerate his existence for much longer. Two years later, they—with Western help—dismissed him.Qaddafi was a personal affront to the Saudi King. More serious was the imagined threat America’s Kingdom perceived in Iran. When the Shah of Iran ruled there, the Kings of Arabia smiled. It was Islamic republicanism they hated, for it directly threatened them. Saudi Arabia’s fear of Islamic republicanism is what drives its policy. Saudi Arabia, Israel and the West pushed back against Iranian influence through the U.S.’ Syria Accountability Act (2003), the Israeli war on Lebanon (2006) and the nuclear sanctions regime of 2006. None of these worked.Just as the Arab Spring provided the opportunity for the Saudis to intervene in Libya, so too did it provide the Saudis with the pretext for regime change in Syria and in other theaters where it fantasized about Iranian influence (Bahrain, Yemen and Lebanon). The Saudi ambition was to erase Iran’s presence. Five years later, the detritus of that policy is clear: Libya, Syria and Yemen are destroyed, whereas Bahrain has been reduced to a prison of dreams. The Saudi diplomat’s scorn was prophetic.But much of the Saudi dream, given encouragement by the United States, has now turned. Syria and Yemen have been destroyed, but they remain standing. Iran has been welcomed into the fraternity of nations, whether with the slow erasure of the nuclear sanctions regime or integration into the Chinese and Russian networks. Saudi Arabia’s oil civil war has served to bankrupt Saudi Arabia as much as its adversaries. No flag of truce has gone up yet on the palaces of Riyadh. Nonetheless, there are inklings that King Salman’s circle is aware of their grave miscalculation.

An exit from the quagmire in Yemen is not apparent. King Salman wants a dignified way to withdraw. He summoned a Houthi delegation to Riyadh last week. They are now in the palaces of the King, listening to their proposals. This is the first time that the Houthis have sent an envoy to Saudi Arabia, but it is not the first attempt at a peace process. Mohammed Abdel-Salam, the Houthi spokesperson who is now in Riyadh for these talks, led the delegation to Oman last year, when the two sides created a process that led to the ill-starred Geneva talks in June. But hope now is greater. Starvation stalks Yemen, whose infrastructure has been destroyed. There is desperation in the country. Saudi Arabia knows it cannot make gains absent Pakistani ground troops (and even then nothing is guaranteed). A cessation of hostilities is on the cards.
The cessation of hostilities in the oil market is one more indication of a weakened Saudi Arabia.I reached out to the scornful diplomat to ask him what he thought now about the failures of Saudi Arabia. He returned my message this afternoon with a dampened sensibility. “Difficulties are clear,” he wrote. “The Kingdom will have to find a way forward. The West betrayed us.” The last sentence is of interest. Rather than take responsibility for its dangerous gambits, Saudi Arabia will start to blame the West, particularly President Barack Obama, for not bombing Syria and for the end to the Iranian nuclear sanctions. This is a cliché. It is not near reality. America’s Kingdom overreached. In doing so, it destroyed several Arab states. This is not the time for scorn. This is the time for great sadness for what has befallen great Arab societies, which will have to dig deep into their resilience to rebuild their communities.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 11 Mar 2016 03:46

ramana wrote:KSA is running out of money and wants political cover.

We need to game what triggers and indicators for KSA changes in the next year, three years and five years?

Ten years they wont be there.

i have a deep belief that unkil is breaking the bond and casting off this munna...

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 11 Mar 2016 05:58

What's the chatter?
Trump forces want new arrangements. Let's discuss in Geo thread.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 11 Mar 2016 07:24

ramana wrote:What's the chatter?
Trump forces want new arrangements. Let's discuss in Geo thread.

China showed its hand too early and now new global order imperative to keep US supremacy for next few decades. Eventually every power realize that Sri Ganesh of Asian millennium already unstoppable. USA too will be part of Asian power structure instead of Oldtlantic fading scene.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Mar 2016 08:18

Ihsan ‏@Thawra_city Mar 5
Saudi war in Yemen:
- 23K civilians killed & injured
- 2.5M displaced
- 85% population in dire need of food
- 39 univ. & 810 schools damaged

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 11 Mar 2016 14:36

the saudis have invited the houthis to riyadh for talks
towel thrown in...

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 11 Mar 2016 16:48

In Harold Robbins' "The Adventurers" the dictator invites the rebels to talks, then surrounds the bld and machineguns everyone inside.

- 39 univ. & 810 schools damaged

1,500 hospitals and orphanages obliterated with everyone inside. Precision Weapons. From the People of The United States of America. To The People of Yemen. Brought to u by the American-built F-15s via the Moderate Terrorists of Saudi Arabia.