West Asia News and Discussions

[Klaus]

IMO, Turkey could be dissuaded by Iran from creating a Turko-TSP-PRC alliance if TSPA commits forces. It would be in Turkey's interests to keep the Azeri-Turks lobbies across the Caucasus thriving, most notably in Iran and Azerbaijan.

Iran has still got a few cards up its sleeve. If Turkey backs Iran against TSP+GCC, we have a stalemate and attrition scenario playing out.

[RamaY]

... but if we want to progress onto the next level - seemless integration with the western system, then TSP is a monkey on our backs that we have to get rid of.

Gaganullah!

What seamless integration with the western system you have in mind; Geopolitical, cultural, economic, military, or banking? How does that enable India getting rid of the monkey on its shoulder?

If we agree that TSP is a creation of west to have a foot-hold in the sub-continent to influence Asia or constrain India or both, then no matter what India does, they will come to rescue them. That means even after a noo-clear dhamaka, west can come with a marshal plan to keep this piece separate and 'distinct' from Indian interests.

India is definitely making moves, but they are often too late too little. Right now there are three distinct Indias operating in the sub-continent - (1) Indian Raj (the 2G group), (2) Indian state (the MMS/Babu group), and (3) India that is Bharat. Right now the second India is working for the interests of first India. First India works for their own interests only. The third India is what progressing while carrying the first two Indias on its shoulders. Without destroying the first India and making the second India responsible and answerable to third India it is impossible to make any geopolitical games at this point.

[RamaY]

If we see various emerging conflicts around the world, air power dominates the conflict in the short term. Yes, fortunes can be reversed in the long run but imagine the damage a coordinated air attack from GCC++ can do on Iran.

Iran will have no meaningful fighting power within a month. GCC economy is well prepared to absorb the cost of such a conflict. I doubt Iran can. Such a air-campaign alone strategy would push Iran at least 15-20 years back.

Iran may have a couple of surprise nukes. Against whom it would use them? Israel or KSA? If it uses it against Israel it would be end of Iran. If it uses against KSA, it would just be an economic disaster (given the accuracy of Iranian missiles). World has enough oil to depend on in the short term.

On the other hand a GCC nuke attack on Iran would cripple that civilization for good.

[RajeshA]

Earlier, I was bold enough to make certain proposals. Looking back, I consider them rubbish, and I retract them.

My current thinking says, the best plan for India is to invite Nuri al-Maliki as chief guest to our Republic Day Celebrations 2012! And to increase our investments in South Iraq! Period!

[Klaus]

^^^ GCC using air-power will invite a future Western backlash, I dont think anyone has the licence to use air-power except for West and Israel. GCC using air-power now will result in it becoming a Western target in 5 years time, the same way as Iraq.

What we will see is gunboats and naval flotillas off the coast of Iran, expect naval action along the Caspian coast as well. This may be a golden opportunity for GCC to exercise its marine corps insertion capabilities.

[RamaY]

What-if India puts it power on Iranian side?

I know the impact on expats, energy security, and $50B remittances etc.

Isn't it better that ME is filled with 5 million Pakis on a permanent basis, that many less on our border. India and Iran make the move to crush Pakistan once and for all.

Need to tie-in Russia to hold off PRC.

If PRC's interest is "peaceful raise" it should be fine doing business with an extended India building trade corridors connecting Iran, Indian, and China.

with the RAPEs migrated to Dubaaaai the mango-abduls should be fine living under "secular" India.

US can be assured of a peaceful Afghanistan.

[shyamd]

^^ PRC will come with a stick to keep us in check.

[RamaY]

That is why we need to make them a partner thru SCO.

- self deleted -

[ramana]

Again guys please discuss India and options in other threads. Why this constant need to bring in India in every thread? First you need data then you can come up with options. If you come up with options first, then the data will be incorrect.

Consider this second request/warning.

Thanks, ramana

[ramana]

4/6/2011

Turkey- Yemen: The Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement on 6 April that welcomed and supported a proposal by the Gulf Cooperation Council for mediation between the Yemeni administration and the opposition, according to the Turkish news agency Anatolia. The statement said the foreign ministry expected the Yemeni administration to take the necessary measures to end attacks on civilians, and that Turkey wants stability and peace to be restored in Yemen. Yemen's future should be determined through comprehensive national dialogue with participants from all parts of society, the statement said.

{What about the Kurds in Turkey?}

Comment: This is the second recent instability problem for which Turkey has volunteered to mediate. The other is Libya. Neither the leaders of Libya nor Yemen has accepted the Turkish offer of good offices.

Egypt: The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) could contest up to 49 percent of the seats in the September parliament elections, an MB leader said on 6 April, according to local press reporting. The MB will announce its candidates within a week, an MB spokesman said. An MB Guidance Bureau member said the group's Shura Council would decide how many candidates it will field, likely within a few days. MB leaders said the party hopes to secure 35 to 40 percent of the seats.

Comment: Five months ago the Brotherhood was outlawed. A 40% bloc in parliament would be enough of a plurality to form and lead a coalition government. The military government's reaction to the Brotherhood's campaign plan will be a useful indicator and measure of its ideas of democratic government.

Egypt-Saudi Arabia-Bahrain: Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby said in a statement on 6 April that Egypt considers any infringement on the stability and Arab identity of Arab Gulf states unacceptable. The statement was released after Egypt accused Iran of attempting to destabilize Bahrain and praised the Saudi forces that helped put down pro-democracy demonstrations there.

Comment: This statement is unusual in that it seems to reverse Egypt's overtures to Iran last week, plus it praises a monarchical and military suppression of pro-democracy forces, arguably similar to those that brought Elaraby to office. The NightWatch hypothesis is that the Saudis set the Egyptians straight as to where their loyalties must lie.

{The Egyptian statement puts the issue in terms of nationalism: Arabvs Persian instead of KSA version of Sunni vs Shia. This way it isolates the pro-Iranian elements in Arab countries who might lean due to their Shia faith.}

Libya: Production has stopped at rebel-held oil fields in eastern Libya after they were bombarded by artillery forces loyal to Libyan leader Qadhafi, a rebel spokesman said 6 April. The fields in Misla and the Waha oasis area, which pump oil to Tobruk, were attacked April 5-6, the spokesman said. They also pumped oil to Ras Lanuf, which is now held by Qadhafi forces.


Comment: Only Reuters reported this event which is significant for several reasons. Workers at the two fields, south of Benghazi, early on, sided with the rebels. Since 1 April the fields have changed hands several times, according to various press accounts. The report suggests the rebels are unable to defend the fields and are in danger of being outflanked by Qadhafi forces.


Little by little, Qadhafi's forces are moving deeper into Cyrenaica.

Libya-France: French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe to a parliamentary commission on 5 April that Qadhafi's forces would be attacked by coalition air strikes if Qadhafi moved toward Benghazi. He said the Libyan ground situation is "confused and undecided," and that the coalition intervention did not allow for a balancing of forces. Reinforcing the National Transitional Council and working toward a political solution will be discussed during the EU foreign ministers' meeting the week of 10 April, Juppe stated.

French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said France has promised to open a sea corridor to allow Libyan rebels from Benghazi to supply the coastal town of Misrata. He said previously, the embargo had meant no boats could supply any towns, but as of 6 April marine traffic at Tobruk and Benghazi has reopened to supply Misrata and the NATO-led coalition will prevent any interruption of this traffic by Qadhafi forces.

Comment: The mission is creeping and the French are out in front of the coalition.

So France is getting its own Af-Pak.

[Klaus]

A new picture needs to be drawn on the slate, we need to look at this as a possible energy crisis in the making. The reason is that there is a backlash (could be temporary) against nuclear energy (courtesy Fukushima). Against this backdrop, certain players wish to make life difficult for ROW with respect to natural gas and conventional energy. We could see a repeat of the 1950's UK-US in Iran fiasco, with GCC taking UK's place.

Some maps of ME also label the Gulf as Arabian Gulf. There seems to be a dispute on whether to call it the Persian Gulf or Arabian.

There was a US-Israeli aerial attack Iran in late 2008 which failed to take off, my hunch is that they are rushing in (like fools?) to implement those very same plans. Also, GCC has not taken Iran's naval assymetric warfare capability into account. JMHO onlee.

[ramana]

During the Iran-iraq war there were moves to rename the Gulf. it failed after Iraq got whipped by Desert Storm.


X-Posting...

<Speculative Cap On>

Guys was going through this new report on the main site, that has brought on this speculative cap.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/news ... wsid=14586

When I saw the title, I was like WTF?? what will these dumbasses teach us?? Anyways whats the commanility of purpose apart from the possible Pirate angle and even then how many K of SA ships have actually been threatened eh??

While reading the article with contempt, this struck me

Prince Bandar Bin Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, called on Prime Minister Singh to express his keen interest in further consolidating relations between the two nations and indicated the desire of the Gulf States to do the same.

Now this Bandar (Pun Intended) is a close business associate of Jr. & Sr. Bush. They are also family friends as per some circles. The CIA also had extensive dealing with the K of SA hierarchy through him. Was also the ambassador of K of SA to the Khanland.

Now this dude comes and hobnobs with MMS. What the hell is going on??

What in the god's name can these nincompoops share with the IN? When the AF of KSA has Puki pilots flying their Solahs when they were the only ones to recognize Taliban, when they regularly fund hardline Sunni/wahabi extremists creating havoc in K among other places? What can a regime offer us which depends upon Khan for the moolah for the Oil and the military hardware and the muscle? What commanilty of goals do we forsee??

These thoughts brought in one more thought. Eye-Ran. Khan and the shekihs both hate Eyeran.

My conspiracy theory goes like this: The bade baba saabs of the big oil and big money Pressure Groups have already set their eyes on Eyeran. They do not think that the Khani public will tolerate the Baba O Bummer for another term. (Well Fox can definitely help there) and whenever they are back whether 2014 or after that Eyeran will be on the agenda. Future energy security is crucial. The days of Cheap Oil is over. The biggest Oil producer is a vassal (KSA), the third biggest is under a puppet regime and the second biggest will be on the chopping block. (I'm talking only about P.Gulf states here, excluding Russkies and the Venezuelans)

Is Libya an indicator? I don't know I would like to think so.

Now India, France and Russia apart from China are traditional allies of Eyeran. So strategy is to work on them while there is time and the lowest hanging fruit in the bunch is Bharat especially with the Bush's Mush loving MMS at the helm (Y'all remember his best friend of India bit)

Here please stop and look back for a moment how INdia's approach towards Eyeran has changed over the years under MMS. Iran Pakistan India Gas pipeline is dead. India voted against Iran at UN once and once abstained. Ahmednijad didn't take that well. COmpare this against the days when we were suppossed to be friends with the Iranian people and Iran had refused to back the UNSC resolution on K, one of the only Islamic countries to do so. ( NOw Now I'm no friend of Iran and do not care 2 hoots about what happens to Iran or Ahmedinijad, the example was only to bring about the contrast with time. All I really care about is Namma Bharatvarsha)

Now what would they want the Bhartiya Nau Sena do is what I wonder? Join In? Dreams are good but that's hard to materialize, logistic support? May be. Diplomatic Support Definitely.

Now, will this bonhomie last only still Eyeran or worse still will we be left holding the baby is my question? Secondly any close cooperation with the Khan's makes me nervous about penetration of our agencies.

<Speculative Cap Off>

I'm reading too much into something simple and straight? May be but then who knows??

[shyamd]

Ramana, source says revisit Iran contra affair to understand US plan to give shia supremacy. It ties into the story I think.

[RajeshA]

Ramana, source says revisit Iran contra affair to understand US plan to give shia supremacy. It ties into the story I think.

shyamd,
I concur with your observation. I have tried to put the jigsaw together. Sent you an email on my theory.

[ramana]

Also try to dig up the Tower Commission report from old book stores or libraries. It has a transcript of Iranian cleric/foreign policy person give a long five-six page exposition of Iran world view.... It was fascinating to read in those days. {I tell SHQ not to throw away books! }

X-post ties in with your ideas and RajeshA. Something is cooking from the backroom boys handiwork....

Plausible deniability and all that. [But for Tariq Ali's expose who would have thought that Lawrence of Arabia was meddling in Afghanistan stirring up fundoos to overthrow the king there! It would be CT onlee]


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

From Klaus...

Does anyone know what the 50's plan is ? Something to do about Iran growing its persian influence or regaining the empire. Something like that.

Context? What 50's plan and whose?

Maybe related to this:

The Sunni order is failing. ... The Sunni fundamentalists have no real plan other than purifying Islam and imposing strict adherence to Sharia law. ... The Shia, on the other hand, have ... ijtihad, the "exercise of independent judgment." ... The practice has allowed the Shia to adapt much better to the twenty-first century.

Iran has already absorbed more land, influence, and control of trade routes than anyone else since the Ottomans. ... America's two traditional allies in the Middle East are failing states. Pakistan is held together by an army that gives every sign of cracking. Saudi Arabia is led by a flamboyantly corrupt, greedy royal family, taken seriously by almost no one save the United States.

For two thousand years before Islam, Iran's religion was Zoroastrianism, a monotheistic religion that has left indelible traces on Iran, at times causing other Muslims to wonder if Iran ever fully accepted Islam.

Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ... said Iran's clerical and secular leadership intended to regain "Iran's past greatness." He spoke of the "imperial outlook" that prevailed among Iran's religious leaders, an impulse to promote militant Islam. They wanted to turn Iran into a "citadel of Islam" to help oppressed Muslims worldwide. They wanted to control Mecca and Medina, Islam's two holy cities.

Shia Islam [is] a progressive political movement, an ongoing struggle between justice and injustice. It is tied to action ... Again we see in Iran a hybrid — a hegemon seeking justice. Iran has a divine obligation to render justice, to overthrow the grotesquely corrupt regimes on the Arab side of the Gulf.

Link to book.

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

[VikramS]

On surface the US side seems to be completely in the Sunni camps, KSA and all. But that potentially is also an outcome of the the revolution in 1979. Before that the US also had very good relations with the Shia Iran. Thanks to the sanctions the Shia-Sunni balance has strongly tilted towards the Sunnis.

Given US' stated goals of maintaining strategic parity between different power centers, the pendulum has to come into the middle. GW-II was perhaps a start since it overthrew Sunni rule over the Shias in Iraq and strengthened Iran.

One thing which has always bothered me was that the US never delivered that naani yaad kara denge jhappad to the 9/11 perps. Perhaps the past decade was just setting the stage. Some kind of reconciliation between Israel and Iran is needed for that to happen.

In a lot of ways the dominoes are lining up. TSP is in shambles, and reluctant to go all with the GCC; they want an all-in role where they lead the Sunni Ummah or nothing at all. If TSP is not all-in, the job for the GCC becomes tougher.

A lot of water has flown under the bridge in the past decade. If a grand compromise can be worked out with Iran/Israel including de-nuking of Iran, the rewards can be a lot of barrels of the sweet stuff for the Iranis. It will also be consistent with the Ralph Peter goal of realigning the boundaries of the Ummah along ethnic lines, reducing the dependency on strong men.
====
Oil (CL) just went over $110

[ramana]

Do you see the potential for an Arab Shia state or conglomeration comprising Iraq, Eastern KSA and some of the gulfdoms to bring back Islam under the Arabs? This reduces the Iranian Shia influence and brings the two sects under one people?

RajeshA has been exploring this and should be credited for this.

[VikramS]

The relationship between KSA and Obama have been tense since the Mubarak issue.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02 ... an-crisis/

Mubarak it seems refused to take phone call from Obama.

Things are not all that hunky-dory in the US-Sunni alliance.

[Klaus]

IMO, Egypt would welcome the formation of an Arabian Shia state, the order in the ME would then be restored to the late 11th century when the Islamic revolutions swept across Egypt, essentially burying the primitive Egyptian civilization and founding Cairo in the process.

I think this is the very reason why Egypt is in recent discussions with KSA.

[svinayak]

India is definitely making moves, but they are often too late too little. Right now there are three distinct Indias operating in the sub-continent - (1) Indian Raj (the 2G group), (2) Indian state (the MMS/Babu group), and (3) India that is Bharat. Right now the second India is working for the interests of first India. First India works for their own interests only. The third India is what progressing while carrying the first two Indias on its shoulders. Without destroying the first India and making the second India responsible and answerable to third India it is impossible to make any geopolitical games at this point.

Excellant! Please take it to the GDF forum. There is lot to describe on this topic

[Chinmayanand]

Abbas urges West to stop Israeli strikes on Gaza

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Western powers on Thursday to intervene after Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed four Palestinians.

He called on the West "to immediately intervene to stop this aggression," the official Wafa news agency reported.

Abbas also urged Palestinian militants not to give Israel an excuse to hit Gaza. The flareup of violence followed an attack on an Israeli school bus by an anti-tank missile fired from Gaza which wounded two people.

[D Roy]

PRC will come with a stick to keep us in check.

We can take them.

[Gagan]

X-post

I'm wondering if MMS's cricket diplomacy has any relationship to Pakistan deploying 2 divisions in KSA, and the possibility of them deploying more there, and moving a few corps into Balochistan to the Pak-Iran border.

Obviously, Pakistan would be very insecure as to their position along the LOC because of any such moves, and massa and the GCC states would have wanted India to go the extra length to assuage pakistan that india will not make any unilateral moves to 'reclaim what in actuality belongs to india in the first place'.

I hope that India has asked for its pound of flesh, for keep the LOC quiet, while the pakistanis are doing Ummah duty elsewhere.

[Gagan]

What I am saying is the there would be things that each of the three parties US, GCC, Pakistan, would have to offer India on a bilateral basis.

I hope our diplomats and our leadership have driven a hard bargain if any of this is true.

[Klaus]

Shyamd - this is for you, Check this out

Why is Glenn Beck freaking out over Egypt and a caliphate?
Fox News commentator Glenn Beck finds in Egypt’s democratic revolution a conspiracy involving left and right. Other conservatives are distancing themselves from Beck’s “delusional ravings.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/ ... -caliphate

It’s not a “conspiracy,” Glenn Beck says, but just a group of “like-minded” organizations and individuals – from the Muslim Brotherhood to the AFL-CIO (with assorted other fellow travelers in a "red-green alliance") – working together to “overthrow and overturn stability.” And he has the charts, graphs, and a map to prove it.

If such protests become "contagious," he warns, they will "sweep the Middle East" then "begin to destabilize Europe and the rest of the world."

Beck’s latest theory about where the freedom revolution in Egypt is headed may resonate with his hard-core followers. But it has some conservatives wondering if he’s gone off the deep end.

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and a regular Fox News commentator, welcomes the debate among conservatives over the political revolution in Egypt.

“It’s a sign of health that a political and intellectual movement does not respond to a complicated set of developments with one voice,” he wrote recently.

“But hysteria is not a sign of health,” he continued. “When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.”

IMO, people like Qaddafi and Glenn Beck are passed off as insane, delusional, raving idiots when they start alluding to the prospect of a Fatimid construct taking root across North Africa and ME. Of all the articles seen on the web, none have actually given a renewed Fatimid construct any real chance. I think this is Wahhabi funded psy-ops to keep this prospect buried forever, sadly some North African Shias have also bought into the propaganda.

By Fatimid construct, I do not mean an exclusively Shia construct, the Sunnis will have an progressive role to play as well as making ethnic classifications of Arab and Berber etc irrelevant. Wahhabi oil power is just going to wane from now on, so there is every chance that this concept might come to pass in the near future.

The French might also have something against the Fatimid project, something related to Algeria and the Francophile world order being disturbed. AADE is all for the renewed construct though.

[RajeshA]

OPLAN 1002-04 - The Khuzestan Gambit?: Global Security

Forward presence of US forces in Iraq cements US credibility, strengthens deterrence, and facilitates transition from peace to war. Although ground forces provide the bulk of the long-term forward presence in Iraq, access to ports and airfields is essential to project other forces into the area. The continued presence of US forces in Iraq sends a strong visible message of the US commitment to defend this region. Presence is enhanced through on-going military-to-military interaction, cooperative defense measures, and prepositioning of equipment and supplies critical to US responsiveness and warfighting flexibility.

The term gambit comes from the Italian word gambetto, which was used for a tricky manoeuvre in wrestling. A chess gambit is a exotic way to enjoy a chess game -- there is a touch of recklessness necessarily to become a gambiteer. The term gambit applies to the opening of the game, involving an early sacrifice to achieve later superior attacking chances. The sacrifice is usually speculative, but hard to refuse.

During the Cold War there was speculation that the Soviet Union's war planning included the Hamburg Gambit, in which the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany would seize the port city of Hamburg, and then use this hostage in war-termination negotiations.

OPLAN 1002-04 has probably been revised to reflect the American occupation of Iraq, and the power projection opportunities this provides against Iran. The Zagros Mountains form a natural pallisade defending Iran from incursions from Iraq. The Iranian province of Khuzestan is the one large piece of flat Iranian terrain to the west of the Zagros Mountains. American heavy forces could swiftly occupy Khuzestan, and in doing so seize control of most of Iran's oil resources, and non-trivial portions of the country's water supply and electrical generating capacity.

Khuzestan [Khouzestan] is the most important pivot of Iran's economy. The existence of such huge resources as oil, gas and water in Khuzestan have changed the economic appearance of Iran. Oil first erupted from a well in the Massjed e Soleyman area, located in the southern Khuzestan province.

The two principal mountain ranges, the Zagros and the Elburz, diverge from a point of intersection in the Caucasus mountains; the former crosses Iran in a south-easterly direction toward the Persian Gulf.

Abadan is a large (pop. 308,000) oil-refinery boomtown, located at the junction of the Karun and Arvandrud rivers. It was largely destroyed during the Iran-Iraq War. Before the war, Abadan had a fairly good museum, but little else worth seeing; now it has even less. It is located 420 mi/675 km south-southwest of Tehran. Like Abadan, Ahvaz is a commercial city (pop. 580,000) that was heavily bombed during the Iran-Iraq War. The city's main attraction is its proximity to several historic sites: Choga Zambil (Elamite ruins and well-preserved ziggerat), Haft Tappe (ruins) and Shush 70 mi/115 km north of Abadan. Once Iran's largest port, Khorramshahr was almost destroyed during the Iran-Iraq War and is being rebuilt. The port, which lies near the Iraqi border on the Karun waterway, dates from ancient times (Alexander the Great founded a city nearby).

Khuzestan was home to one of the oldest human civilizations dating back at least 6000 years to Shoosh (Susa). In ancient tiems, such people as the Uxians (who gave their name to Khuzestan in southern Iran) were part of the Caucasic race of people. In the 17th century, in spite of their general poverty and rejection from public life, there were still a good number of Zoroastrians left throughout Persia, from Ahwaz in Khuzestan, to Kandehar in the east. Hautboy is occasionally used in Ashura ceremony in some provinces such as Khuzestan and Khorassan.

Generally, the Iranians whose mother tongue is Persian is estimated at more half of the total population of the country. Close to a quarter of the population speaks languages and dialects connected with the Persan one and which form part of the Iranian languages (guilaki, lori, mazandarani, Kurdish, baloutche). Another quarter of the Turkish languages (Azeri, turkmene, qashqhaï). There is also a minority Arabic-speaking person (less than 2 % of the population) living mainly in the province of Khuzestan and the coastal areas of the Persian Gulf.

The vast majority of Iran's crude oil reserves are located in giant onshore fields in the southwestern Khuzestan region near the Iraqi border and the Persian Gulf. Iran has 32 producing oil fields, of which 25 are onshore and 7 offshore. Major onshore fields include the following: Ahwaz-Asmari (700,000 bbl/d); Bangestan (around 245,000 bbl/d current production, with plans to increase to 550,000 bbl/d), Marun (520,000 bbl/d), Gachsaran (560,000 bbl/d), Agha Jari (200,000 bbl/d), Karanj-Parsi (200,000 bbl/d); Rag-e-Safid (180,000 bbl/d); Bibi Hakimeh (130,000 bbl/d), and Pazanan (70,000 bbl/d). Major offshore fields include: Dorood (130,000 bbl/d); Salman (130,000 bbl/d); Abuzar (125,000 bbl/d); Sirri A&E (95,000 bbl/d); and Soroush/Nowruz (60,000 bbl/d).

According to the Oil and Gas Journal (1/1/04), Iran holds 125.8 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, roughly 10% of the world's total, up from 90 billion barrels in 2003. In October 1999, Iran announced that it had made its biggest oil discovery in 30 years, a giant onshore field called Azadegan located in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, a few miles east of the border with Iraq. Reportedly, the Azadegan field contains proven crude oil reserves of 26 billion barrels. In July 2004, Iran's oil minister stated that the country's proven oil reserves had increased again, to 132 billion barrels, following new discoveries in the Kushk and Hosseineih fields in Khuzestan province.

Iran's energy generation capacity has risen to about 26,000 megawatts. The share of Khuzestan in total amount of energy produced in the country was 3,800 mega watts. The figure is expected to increase following operationing of three dams in Khuzestan province. Water resources are unevenly spread; 30 percent of surface water resources are concentrated in one province (Khuzestan), while many other populated provinces fully exploit their scarce available resources.

Following the downfall of the Shah, the new government in Iran used the army and other military forces to put down the movements of national minorities in Kurdistan, Turkman Sahra and the Arabs of Khuzestan province.

The main thrust of Iraq's attack on 22 September 1980, was in the south, where five armored and mechanized divisions invaded Khuzestan on two axes, one crossing over the Shatt al Arab near Basra, which led to the siege and eventual occupation of Khorramshahr, and the second heading for Susangerd, which had Ahvaz, the major military base in Khuzestan, as its objective. Iraqi armored units easily crossed the Shatt al Arab waterway and entered the Iranian province of Khuzestan. Dehloran and several other towns were targeted and were rapidly occupied to prevent reinforcement from Bakhtaran and from Tehran. By mid-October 1980, a full division advanced through Khuzestan headed for Khorramshahr and Abadan and the strategic oil fields nearby. Other divisions headed toward Ahvaz, the provincial capital and site of an air base. Supported by heavy artillery fire, the troops made a rapid and significant advance--almost eighty kilometers in the first few days. In the battle for Dezful in Khuzestan, where a major air base is located, the local Iranian army commander requested air support in order to avoid a defeat. President Bani Sadr, therefore, authorized the release from jail of many pilots, some of whom were suspected of still being loyal to the shah. With the increased use of the Iranian air force, the Iraqi progress was somewhat curtailed.

[RajeshA]

An old article to freshen up our ABC on US vs. Iran

Published on Jan 01, 2006
By Zoltan Grossman
The U.S., Iran, & Khuzestan - The first front in a possible U.S. war on Iran?

Little attention has been paid to the potential role of ethnic minorities in the Iran crisis, particularly of the Iranian Arab minority, which is centered in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. Events in this oil-rich province bordering Iraq could serve as a harbinger of U.S.-British intentions in Iran and expose Khuzestan as Iran’s Achilles Heel. Recently, a series of bombings and ethnic clashes have begun to show that something is rotten in Khuzestan, which could be an early warning of a coming war.

In March Straw met with London-based Iranian Arab exiles. The following month a letter, allegedly from the Iranian vice president, was read on AlAhwaz television (broadcast from the U.S. via satellite) supposedly advocating the removal of Arabs from Khuzestan and the importing of Persians to the strategic region. Though Tehran denounced the letter as a forgery, Arab youths took to the streets of Ahvaz and clashed with police—5 were killed and over 400 Arabs were arrested in a crackdown after the riots. A November 4 demonstration during Eid (an Islamic holiday marking the end of Ramadan) protesting the continuing arrests of Arab activists reportedly ended with 2 protesters dead and 200 arrested, according to the British Ahwazi Friendship Society.

[RajeshA]

A bit more of recent history

Published on Jun 06, 2007
By Ahmed Janabi
Iran Arabs denounce discrimination: Al Jazeera

Iranian Arabs in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan in southwest Iran have expressed a strong will to split from Iran and restore their own state, accusing Tehran of suppressing them racially, economically, and politically.

Ahwaz has been witnessing sporadic bombings and confrontations between residents and Iranian police.

In 2006, a bomb exploded in the city, causing tension between Britain and Iran after Manouchechr Mottaki, the Iranian foreign minister, accused Britain of involvement in the unrest.

Arab activists have complained about Iranian indifference to their demands and calls for dialogue.

They have voiced concerns over the low living standards, and the lack of education and medical services in their community.

Tahir Aal Sayyed Nima, chairman of the Ahwaz National Liberation Movement (ANLM), told Al Jazeera.net that Iran was treating its Arab nationals as second-class citizens.

He said: "Arabic is banned in government departments and parliament. Arabic is not allowed to be taught at schools or learning centres. We see this as a bid to assassinate our Arab identity.

"Schools are not available in villages, peasants' children have to go to the city on daily basis to be able to study, which is very impractical of course. Hence, illiteracy in Ahwaz is estimated at 90 per cent, and as long as the Iranian government blocks education, it is unlikely that this percentage would ever go down."

[rohitvats]

^^^If Khuzestan is such a strategic importance and if, USA itself will lead the ground offensive with blessings from GCC, then, in case of PA opening another front in east, they could march upto hormozgan province.

[shyamd]

Ultimately all this is a divide and rule policy by the US. Apparently some senior govt officials believe in this, some arernt convinced of this US plot to shiaize the region.

[jimmyray]

Interesting - Now Iraq thrashes Iranian dissidents and Unkil intervenes

Gates Urges Restraint After Iraq Attacks Dissident Iranians

MOSUL, Iraq — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urged the Iraqi government to show restraint on Friday in the wake of an apparent attack by Iraqi security forces on a group of Iranian dissidents protected by the United States.
The dissidents, the People’s Mujahedeen, live in Camp Ashraf, a 14-square mile settlement in northern Iraq near the border with Iran. According to the dissidents, Iraqi security forces opened fire on residents of the camp late Thursday and early Friday, killing more than a dozen. The reports could not be independently confirmed.

But the United States, which has been trying to keep control of tensions here before all American troops pull out at the end of this year, was confident enough of the reports to have Mr. Gates make a statement to reporters.

"We’re very concerned with reports of deaths and injuries resulting from this morning’s clash," Mr. Gates said after speaking to American troops at Forward Operating Base Marez in Mosul. "I urge the Iraqi government to show restraint and live up to their commitments to treat residents of Ashraf in accordance with Iraqi law and their international obligations."

Mr. Gates said that no American troops, who are stationed near Camp Ashraf, were involved in the clash. But he said that the troops may have offered medical assistance. He said he had heard that some residents may have been killed, but he had no confirmation of their number.

The camp is home to a few thousand Iranian dissidents, trained in explosives and proficient with tanks and machine guns, who have sworn to overthrow the government in Tehran. The group has a long and complex history: it supported the takeover of the United States Embassy in Iran in 1979 and was given sanctuary in Iraq by Saddam Hussein.

After the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the group was protected by the United States after supplying information about Iran’s nuclear program. Even so, the United States regards it as a terrorist organization.

The Iraqi government, allied with the group’s enemy, Iran, launched a raid on the camp in July 2009 with the purpose of establishing a police station there. Police officers and soldiers opened fire and ran over people with military vehicles, killing 11 and wounding more than 500.

The government wants to throw the group out of Iraq. “That’s our goal, to get them out of the country,” Ali al-Alak, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said in a 2009 interview. “We have enough to worry about.”

[Klaus]

^^^ Do these dissidents have any network relations with Kingdom assembly? Is it possible that Unkil is supporting 2 separate Shia movements, one in Khuzestan and the other in Red Sea periphery?

[Gagan]

Oil Fields in the Middle East


Iran Oil network


Iran Major Oilfields

[RajeshA]

Who are the Ahwazis?: Facebook Page

Residing mainly in the south-west of Iran, the Ahwazi Arabs are one of the Middle East’s most disadvantaged and persecuted ethnic groups. Their precise number is difficult to ascertain. A figure of around two to three million Ahwazis is commonly cited, based on the CIA claim that 3% of the Iranian population is Arab. This figure, however, rests on census figures from the 1950s – the last time the country’s ethnic composition was analysed. The true figure is, therefore, likely to be much higher than that, probably closed to 4.5 million – a figure equal to around 7% of Iran’s total population.

The overwhelming majority of the Ahwazi Arabs live in Iran’s Khuzestan province (accounting for some 67% of the province’s population), which occupies a geo-strategically crucial position. Not only is it the gateway between the Arab world and Asia, but it also accounts for up to 90% of Iran’s oil resources. This ‘accident of natural geography’, far from being to the benefit of the local population, though, has been the source of much hardship.

Whilst Khuzestan’s oil forms the backbone of the Iranian economy, its people have been viewed, at best, as an inconvenience, or, at worst, a threat, by the Iranian government. Oil revenues from the province are largely spent elsewhere – to the extent that the Iranian government has consistently refused to allocate just 1.5% of oil revenues to Khuzestan, (as requested by the province’s representatives in the Majlis (parliament)).

Recent history

For much of its history, Persia was a multi-national empire ruled by the Shahanshah or “King of Kings”, indicating the devolved nature of power in the empire. The devolution of power goes as far back as the Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BCE), when Darius the Great established satrapies, with governors required only to pay tribute to the emperor.

The Arab regions in the Persian empire enjoyed considerable autonomy as they were largely cut off from the seat of imperial power by the Zagros mountain chain. Local Arab sheikhs enjoyed virtual independence from Tehran and the region became known as Arabistan (meaning “land of the Arabs” in Farsi). The distinctiveness of Arabistan was noted by the British colonial administrator Sir Arnold Wilson, who wrote in his memoirs that Arabistan was “a country as different from Persia as is Spain from Germany.”

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Muhaisin clan came to prominence, led by Sheikh Jabir al-Kaabi, who sought to strengthen and unify the dominant Bani Kaab tribe under the Sheikhdom of Mohammerah. His son Sheikh Khazaal came to power in 1897 and co-operated with the British in the areas of trade, security and investment. His ability to broker agreements without the prior authorisation of Tehran was a testament to the virtual independence of Arabistan. Under Khazaal, Arabistan became an important trade route for the British Empire and became one of the first oil-producing regions in the Middle East, with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (the forerunner of British Petroleum) building the world’s largest refinery in the Arab city of Abadan.

The overthrow of Persia’s Qajar Dynasty and the rise to power of Reza Pahlavi in 1925 brought a new era of centralised power, with the new ruler defining the country in terms of a Persian identity. The Pahlavi dynasty’s ethnic chauvinism was a major break with the devolved and multi-national character of the Persian empire. Reza Pahlavi deposed Sheikh Khazal in 1925, ended Arab autonomy and in 1935 changed the name of the region to Khuzestan; at the same time, Persia’s name was changed to Iran, “land of the Aryans”. The Persians were declared to be of pure Aryan blood, with the Semitic Arabs regarded as members of an inferior race. Non-Persians were forcibly assimilated through ethnocide, linguicide and genocide.

The fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in February 1979 led to an upsurge in demands by non-Persian nationalities for autonomy. Kurds, Turkmen, Balochis and Ahwazi Arabs issued similar demands for social, cultural, linguistic and economic rights, with a federal government responsible for foreign policy and control over defence, finance and the economy at a national level.

The 1979 Ahwazi Arab uprising led to the biggest massacre in modern Iranian history, with 817 unarmed Ahwazi Arabs slaughtered in the streets of Mohammerah (renamed Khorramshahr) by Ayatollah Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guards. Most died during one single day of carnage, which has become known as Black Wednesday. During the massacre, General Madani imposed a brutal clamp-down on Arabs in Mohammerah in May 1979 which Ahwazi Arabs regard as a crime against humanity. At the time, Arabs were demonstrating for cultural rights and were supported by Ayatollah Mohammed Taher al-Khaqani, an Ahwazi Shi'ite mullah. Following the massacre, al-Khaqani was put under house arrest in Qom, where he died. His son Sheikh Mohammed Kazem al-Khaqani continues to campaign for secularism, religious tolerance and human rights. In March 2007, Sheikh al-Khaqani addressed a meeting at the House of Commons in London organised by the Henry Jackson Society, in which he outlined his opposition to theocracy and his insistence that mullahs must stay out of politics.

Contemporary situation

Khuzestan, lacking in central government welfare support, continues to bear the scars of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. That war was, in part, brought about by Saddam Hussein’s attempts to exploit the legitimate grievances of the Ahwazis for his own ends. Believing that, as Arabs, the Ahwazis would side with him, Saddam initiated the war by sending his army across the Iran-Iraq border in an attempt to annex Khuzestan. As it was, at least 12,000 Ahwazis died fighting against Saddam’s invading force.

Despite this demonstration of their commitment to Iran’s territorial integrity, the Ahwazis have continued to be viewed with suspicion, if not outright hostility, by Tehran. Consequently, they have faced a sustained programme of land confiscation and ‘ethnic restructuring’ from a government determined to secure access to energy resources at all costs. This has entailed a concerted effort at ‘Persianisation’, with the government of Tehran attempting to force the supposedly ‘treacherous’ Arabs out of Khuzestan, to be replaced by ‘loyal’ ethnic groups. Since the 1979 revolution, it is estimated that over 200,000 hectares of land have been forcibly taken, or ‘legally’ stolen, by the government. By way of comparison, in almost 40 years of occupation of the West Bank, the Israelis are estimated to have confiscated some 394,000 hectares of Palestinian land. In addition to sustained land confiscation, the Ahwazis have faced not only social and economic discrimination (enduring hardship, poverty, illiteracy and unemployment at higher rates than the national average), but also a prolonged kulturkampf, waged against them by the Iranian regime.

[RamaY]

X-post

I'm wondering if MMS's cricket diplomacy has any relationship to Pakistan deploying 2 divisions in KSA, and the possibility of them deploying more there, and moving a few corps into Balochistan to the Pak-Iran border.

I hope that India has asked for its pound of flesh, for keep the LOC quiet, while the pakistanis are doing Ummah duty elsewhere.

Perhaps the reason for India's inaction w.r.t Chinese in POK.

Ramanaji - Where does the Pahlavi dynasty fit in all these things? Would we see another Karzai in the non-arab Iran?

Gagan ji - Quite LOC is just a pinch of salt, not a pound of flesh.

[Rony]

Lots of interesting details !


China under pressure over Saudi rise

China is doing its utmost to avoid contagion from the Arab revolutions. At the same time it is trying to anticipate developments in the Middle East and get on the right side of history - instead of impotently mourning strongmen it couldn't save and military interventions it couldn't prevent - by championing the Palestinian peace process.

However, Beijing's Middle East initiatives may be scuppered by its two biggest energy suppliers - and mortal enemies - Iran and Saudi Arabia.

In mid-March, China dispatched its special envoy for Middle East affairs, Wu Sike, on a swing through Israel, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Qatar. Wu's stated aim was to highlight the central


importance of the Palestinian peace process to security in the Middle East. His theme: change is perhaps pregnant with opportunity.

His interlocutors appear to have listened politely. It's difficult to say for sure, since his visit was virtually ignored by the regional press. Chinese media dutifully reported his earnest statements about how the Palestinian question could not be marginalized, even in the current turmoil.

As the Arab nations nervously listened for the sound of the next democratic domino - or interventionist bomb - to crash on their heads, Wu's views do not seem to have excited any conspicuous response.

China has no credibility as a democratic reformer or clout as a military power in the Middle East; it seems to be trying to carve out a role for itself as a regional facilitator, one with good relations with all the key players, from Egypt to Israel to Saudi Arabia to Iran.

China's emphasis on the Palestinian peace process is, to some extent, founded on wishful thinking: the People's Republic of China government attempting to shift the framing from the uncomfortable "freedom-loving people assembling in a big square to overthrow authoritarian masters".

As paraphrased in a Xinhua article, Wu stated in a March 25 interview, "A partial reason for the unrest was the dissatisfaction of the people of the region with the Middle East policies of their governments. Therefore, if the Palestine problem is resolved, it would be beneficial for the resolution of other problems." [1]

A similar, hopeful view was outlined in an op-ed by Zhu Weilie, head of the Middle East Department of the Shanghai Foreign Languages Institute. He asserted that the Chinese cooperative approach contrasted favorably with the "clash of civilizations" narrative that put the West at odds with Islam. [2]

Taken as a whole, this indicates that China has decided to view the overthrow of the Hosni Mubarak regime not as a reaction against corrupt authoritarianism; instead it takes the more comforting position that changes in Egypt are a repudiation of failed US Middle East peace policies and its strategy of using Egypt as a bulwark against Palestinian aspirations.

Conspicuous progress in the Palestinian peace process post-Mubarak could be viewed as a validation of China's views and, one would imagine, a source of some internal reassurance to the anxious Chinese leadership.

The context for China's interest in the Palestinian issue is that the matter of Palestinian statehood will probably be the next big drama that roils the Middle East.

Mahmoud Abbas has stated that Palestine will unilaterally declare statehood in September unless significant progress occurs in negotiations with Israel. It appears likely it will gain recognition from a not inconsiderable number of Western and developing world states.

Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated that Israel faces a "diplomatic tsunami" if Palestine declares statehood. [3]

China apparently hopes to surf that diplomatic tsunami. If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu persists in his usual policy of defiance, China enjoys the favorable contrast between its conciliatory policies and Israel's intransigence, inevitably abetted by the United States.

If Israel is stampeded to pre-empt the Palestinian move by announcing its own peace process - a group of security and business heavyweights forwarded a plan to Netanyahu that would fix some key concessions up front instead of withholding them for the conclusion of negotiations - China can claim some credit for being on the side of the good guys. [4]

Beyond lip service to constant principle of Palestinian self-determination, Wu explicitly endorsed reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, a development that was strongly opposed both by Mubarak's Egypt and by the Israeli government.

Wu went to considerable lengths to sweeten this bitter pill for the Israelis, stating, "These new changes will possibly create greater pressures on Israel; only if the Middle East questions are resolved, will Israel be fundamentally relieved of these pressures." [5]

However, the Middle East is hard on dreamers and optimists and diplomats that stake their hopes on Netanyahu's willingness to make peace with the Palestinians.

There are bigger forces afoot in the region, and China is caught between them.

As the various popular revolutions stagger toward their equivocal denouements, China has to deal with the fallout: the Arab counter-revolution and the league of conservative states led by Saudi Arabia that has adopted anti-Iranism as its organizing principle.

While the West focuses on the tragicomic spectacle of the Libyan intervention, the two great powers in the region, Iran and Saudi Arabia are moving towards confrontation.

Saudi Arabia's ruling family is not supportive of Egypt's desire to move beyond its role under Mubarak as America's most reliable client to normalize relations with Iran, and assert its regional clout as a great Muslim nation and a political paragon to the democracy-starved citizens of the Arab world.

Saudi Arabia believes that Egypt, and the Arab League it dominates, can and deserves to be pushed aside.

Riyadh feels a sense of urgency since it must confront the contingency that Iran might be accepted as a legitimate Middle Eastern state, and the regional consensus to contain it through sanctions and military encirclement might waver.

The kingdom also needs to inoculate itself against the possibility that the US response to unrest within Saudi Arabia will be as ambivalent and destabilizing as its at first fitful and then open support of the forces seeking to remove Mubarak in Egypt.

The Saudi response has been to ratchet up the hostility to reframe the instability in the Middle East as a matter of Iranian subversion, not popular discontent, thereby shifting the focus away from Egypt and North Africa and back to the Gulf.

Saudi Arabia has asserted its freedom of action by reclassifying the United States as more than an asset but something less than an ally in its front-line struggle against the Iranian threat.

Two days after US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Bahrain on March 14 to urge conciliation with the demonstrators, the Obama administration was blind-sided as the Peninsula Shield Force was sent across the Fahd Causeway to backstop Bahraini security forces in a pervasive and violent crackdown on demonstrators and activists.

US-Saudi relations are now "strained" and Gates was obliged to visit Riyadh again to persuade King Abdullah of American reliability and the attractions of concluding the largest US arms deal in history - a $60 billion package of F-15 fighter jets, bunker busting bombs, and a variety of missiles suitable for blasting Iran.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia has made the case for the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) - a Saudi-dominated collection of Persian Gulf sheikdoms - as the successor to the widely derided Arab League as the premier leadership grouping in the Middle East.

The GCC recently met to condemn alleged Iranian meddling.

How much Iranian meddling is going on - and how important it might be as popular demonstrations shake Middle East autocracies to their foundations - is open to debate.

Iran has continually flayed the Saudi government in official and press statements for its role in the crackdown in Bahrain on the largely Shi'ite demonstrators. Kuwait claims to have cracked an Iranian spy ring and has sentenced two Iranians and one Kuwaiti to death, withdrawn its ambassador to Tehran, and promised the expulsion of several Iranian diplomats.

The April 3 backgrounder given to Arab Times, a Kuwaiti newspaper, is a clear indication that the GCC has gone all-in on the Iranian threat.
Persian conspiracy seen to target GCC countries ‘Bahraini crisis just a spark'

KUWAIT CITY, April 3: The Iranian plan includes dangerous plots against the Gulf nations, not just Bahrain. Kuwait, in particular, is one of the targets and the spy network is only a tip of the iceberg, because the main objective is for the Iranian Naval Forces to invade some islands in the country and other Gulf nations under the pretext of protecting Shiites in Bahrain, say security sources in the Gulf.

Sources disclosed the Bahraini and Kuwaiti foreign ministers revealed the conspiracy uncovered by the security departments in both countries in the recently-concluded meeting of the GCC foreign ministers in Riyadh. After hearing the report, the GCC foreign ministers presented recommendations, which will be implemented soon, because the GCC nations are keen on revealing the truth to the international community. [6]
Bridge-burning is definitely on the agenda.
[An integrated and strongly-written] letter will be delivered to Tehran by the Qatari foreign minister or his Omani counterpart, without disclosing details of the trip ... the letter will contain an explicit and direct call for an end to the ridiculous game on the security and stability of the GCC countries - a situation which can no longer be denied by the Iranian leadership and authorities, considering the clear pieces of evidence in the hands of the GCC.

The diplomat confirmed there are efforts to inform Tehran on the deportation of some Iranian diplomats from the six GCC countries, especially Bahrain and Kuwait. The number of diplomatic representatives in the cities of Arab nations will also be reduced after the GCC authorities found out that many Iranian intelligence agents are using diplomatic cover and immunity to engage in unscrupulous activities; thereby posing grave security threats to the countries, so there is no option but to expel them, he asserted.
Bahrain has emerged as the key proving ground for the anti-Iran doctrine.

The GCC countries are attempting to overturn the accepted narrative: that Bahrain has a Shi'ite majority that has been unfairly disenfranchised and which is now attempting to gain expanded political rights through popular agitation.

The GCC framing is that Shi'ite are not the majority, that in fact they are a minority attempting to seize power on behalf of their Iranian masters.

The determination of the GCC to deny the Shi'ite majority - and the legitimacy of the demonstrations - is clear from the Arab Times backgrounder.

The arcane and conveniently murky issue of Bahraini demographics - there hasn't been an official census since 1941 since the results would inevitably embarrass the emirate's ruling Sunni minority - is being thrown into the fray.
Sources went on to say the world powers have taken into consideration the real demographic situation in Bahrain, particularly the fact that the Shi'ites are not the majority, contrary to the claims of Iran and others involved in the conspiracy. These world powers have also realized that what is happening is not a sectarian conflict, considering the attempt to manipulate the demographic scale to deprive the majority of their political rights. They have discovered there is no truth in such claims and the naturalization issue was based on the law, not politics; hence, no one can interfere in the process, sources added.
Justin Gengler, PhD candidate at the University of Michigan, who administered the first-ever mass political survey of Bahrain in 2009, provides a unique and authoritative statistical profile of the local demographics.

According to Gengler, the Shi'ite share of the population probably peaked at 65 to 70% in the mid-1980s. Since then, there has been a concerted effort by the government to dilute Shi'ite numbers by an aggressive program to naturalize Sunnis.

Also, it was alleged that, in order to boost Sunni turnout in the 2002 parliamentary elections, the Bahraini government naturalized a large number of Sunnis residing in the Saudi town of Dammam, on the coast facing the island and, for their convenience, erected a polling booth on the King Fahd Causeway!

The briefer tries to turn the naturalization issue on its head by claiming that disloyal Shi'ites were disproportionately nationalized in the 1980s:
"In the 1980s, the Bahraini authorities granted citizenship to many people with Iranian roots, but none of the Shi'ites or the Sunnis objected then. Some of those who were naturalized at the time are still loyal to Persia, as proven recently when they instigated conflicts upon the orders of their masters from Tehran. This issue is totally different from what is being portrayed by some people, especially since the Shi'ite opposition members with Iranian roots have remained loyal to the Iranian authority," sources clarified.
Despite the Sunni demographic campaign and the attempt of


government sources to obscure the situation with their bluster, according to Gengler's 2009 study, Shi'ite still hold the majority over the Sunni, with a split of 58/42.

Gengler told Asia Times Online:
''There is a consensus from in and outside Bahrain that a) the Shi'ite population must have increased more rapidly than the Sunni population since the last census in 1941; and b) in the last decade the government has sought to shift the balance for political purposes through naturalization.''
It is a testimony to the intensity of Sunni desire to delegitimize political activity by Bahraini Shi'ites that the GCC and hardliners with the Bahraini government insist on defining the political conflict inside Bahrain as a "sectarian conflict" despite the consequences for Bahrain's social fabric.

Moderate voices within the Gulf states have been overwhelmed.

Gengler told Asia Times Onine:
''The only moderate we've seen within the al-Khalifa - the crown prince - seems to have lost utterly all influence within the ruling family, having spent all of his political capital on the failed attempt at bringing the opposition to the National Dialogue Initiative. During those two weeks or so ... the crown prince was on TV every day, supposedly giving military orders, etc. ... Since the GCC force arrived he has become irrelevant.
Stamping out the protests has become a matter of crowd control that has merged seamlessly with anti-Iranian doctrine and anti-Shi'ite bigotry, despite the fact that the Shi'ite are the indigenous inhabitants of the island and do not have an especially close affinity to the government in Tehran.

In Asia Times Online, Derek Henry Flood provided a haunting picture of the systematic assault on Shi'ite political and social institutions during the emergency.
Asia Times Online spoke with Nabeel Rajab, the outspoken director of Bahrain's Center for Human Rights. Rajab candidly outlined the outbreak of gross human-rights violations directed against the island state's Shi'ite majority population in recent weeks.

"It is intimidation ... every Shi'ite [Muslim] is a target," Rajab said of the overall climate of fear gripping the kingdom. Rajab described in detail a campaign of a fear being waged not only in villages in the shadow of the once glittering capital but now in downtown Manama itself.

He said the appearance of graffiti supporting King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, desecration of traditional food offerings left outside husseiniyas (Shi'ite religious halls), and a plethora of humiliating checkpoints where being caught with any imagery related to the uprising or bans on photography can lead to a severe beating coupled with interrogation.
...
During a recent visit to a local hospital, Rajab noticed posters of King Hamad and other leading members of the al-Khalifa dynasty that low-level hospital workers of suspect allegiance were apparently urged to kiss in a display of coerced allegiance.
...
According to a Western diplomat who spoke to Asia Times Online, the active placement of foreign Sunni soldiers in Bahrain's military was an effort to firmly consolidate the kingdom's place as a Sunni power, however minor.
...
Rajab, who was detained on March 20 in a night raid that terrified his family, depicts what amounts to a policy of collective punishment being deployed against the monarchy's now possibly irreconcilable subjects along with an economic implosion that is shaking the nation to its core. [7]
It seems that sectarian co-existence in Bahrain - and indeed, the entire Bahraini economy, which is in a shambles - is simply collateral damage in the Sunni effort to secure authoritarian rule within the GCC, sustain the legitimacy of Saudi Arabia's role as the regional arbiter of what political dissent can be tolerated, and frame dissent in the Gulf emirates as Iranian sedition.

Anti-Shi'ite concerns also play a major role in the GCC's other intervention in Saudi Arabia's near beyond: efforts to ease Riyadh's unpredictable and unreliable client, President Ali Abdallah Saleh, out of Yemen.

Yemen is pretty much a basket case. In addition to a secessionist movement in the south, an al-Qaeda problem whose severity and degree of sponsorship by Saleh as a military and security auxiliary is the subject of much debate, across the board demonstrations against his corrupt and impoverishing rule, Yemen has a Shi'ite rebellion problem - followers of a charismatic Shi'ite imam, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi who congregate in the mountainous wastes near the Saudi border.

Belying its reputation as the gold-plated but sedentary army "ready to fight until the last American", the Saudi military has been blooded in several violent clashes with the Houthi, losing over 100 men. Riyadh has claimed the Houthi are receiving support from Iran.

Now the GCC has stepped up to offer mediation (superseding anti-Saleh declarations from the Obama administration), presumably hoping to facilitate the installation of a pro-Saudi strongman who will restore order and suppress the Houthi rebellion more effectively.

As a sign of Saudi Arabia's determination that it must look after itself and not rely on the United States to help with its regional problems, one Saudi commentator proposed a "Marshall Plan" of Saudi tutelage and financial assistance that would lift Yemen out of its impoverished and violent misery. [8]

Saudi determination has already provoked a concession from Egypt on the issue of Iran.

The post-Mubarak government had permitted passage through the Suez Canal for an Iranian naval vessel for the first time since 1979 and had stated its willingness to normalize diplomatic relations with Tehran.

However, after the GCC broadside against Iran, the Egyptian foreign minister obligingly stated that "the stability and Arabhood of the Arab Gulf countries is a red line against which Egypt rejects any trespass". [9]

In this fraught atmosphere, it remains to be seen whether China can enjoy the luxury of acting as an innocent bystander in the contest between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

China has already found it advisable not to veto sanctions against Iran in response to US and Saudi pressure; recently, it abstained instead of vetoing the no fly zone intervention against Gaddafi - a resolution spawned by the activism of the GCC - even though it detested the intervention in principle and as an opportunity for the West to reinject itself into the region.

Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton crudely inserted America in the Saudi-Chinese relation by promising American good offices to replace whatever crude China lost by backing UN sanctions against Iran.

That idea didn't go anywhere, perhaps because China has replaced the United States as Saudi Arabia's biggest customer - as part of its well-advertised desire to diversify energy sources and supplies, the US is now only the 4th largest buyer of Saudi crude - and the two nations are more interested in developing their direct bilateral economic and strategic ties than mediating them through the United States.

In The National Interest, analyst Bruce Riedel pungently summed up the state of play after the Obama administration haltingly participated in the downfall of Hosni Mubarak:
The Saudi leadership also believes they have seen this American movie before. Jimmy Carter threw the Shah under the bus in 1978 and we got the Islamic Republic of Iran. George Bush toppled Saddam in 2003 and we got a Shia government in Iraq. The princes think America is na๏ve at best, untrustworthy at worst. So they are circling the wagons and telling their fellow monarchs in the Gulf and King Abdallah in Jordan to do the same.

They are also looking east for help to old allies in Pakistan and China. Prince Bandar, former ambassador in Washington, reportedly visited Islamabad late last month to ask the Pakistanis for troops to help ensure internal stability in the kingdom and the Gulf States if needed. He invoked an understanding that dates back to the 1980s when then-Pakistani dictator Zia ul Huq provided over 10,000 Pakistani troops to protect the country after the Iranian revolution. Bandar also has been in Beijing to promote more trade and to ensure the Chinese communist dictators stand with their Saudi friends. Bandar was the deal-maker in the Saudi-Chinese intermediate range missile sale in the 1980s that provided Riyadh with its now aging missile force. He reportedly keeps a residence in China. [10]
China currently imports 4 million tons of crude per month from Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia is looking east to China as the most insatiable market for Saudi petroleum products. Two world-scale refineries with Saudi investment are already in operation in Shandong and Fujian. [11]

China and Saudi Arabia announced a deal for a 200,000 ton per year refinery in Yunnan, and China has taken a 37.5% share in an Aramco refinery at Yanbu.

China only gets half as much crude from Iran as it does from Saudi Arabia. Beijing may be forced to make the decision to protect its deep and strategically vital relationship with Riyadh if Saudi Arabia demands that China participate in the isolation of Iran.

A potential wild card in the Middle East is the possibility that Saudi Arabia will choose to ally with the other main anti-Iranian power in the region - Israel.

Intriguingly, the non-government Israeli peace proposal proffered for Prime Minister Netanyahu's consideration is advertised as being based on the regional peace proposal first prepared by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in 2002.

Maybe that's a hint that Saudi Arabia might be Israel's preferred post-Mubarak power broker in the Arab world.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, has presumably given up on the United States as head-cutter-off in chief of the Iranian snake; perhaps the specter of a Saudi-Israeli united front will keep Iran's ambitions in check.

An overt Saudi-Israeli tie-up would be a blow to the United States' role as the essential superpower in the region. China, as long as it can lift oil from Saudi Arabia, might be satisfied with an unglamorous supporting role in the post-American Middle East.

[RamaY]

Good find Rony garu. Posting key points I found interesting (removing china nonsense)

Saudi Arabia's ruling family is not supportive of Egypt's desire to move beyond its role under Mubarak as America's most reliable client to normalize relations with Iran, and assert its regional clout as a great Muslim nation and a political paragon to the democracy-starved citizens of the Arab world.

Saudi Arabia believes that Egypt, and the Arab League it dominates, can and deserves to be pushed aside.

Riyadh feels a sense of urgency since it must confront the contingency that Iran might be accepted as a legitimate Middle Eastern state, and the regional consensus to contain it through sanctions and military encirclement might waver.

The kingdom also needs to inoculate itself against the possibility that the US response to unrest within Saudi Arabia will be as ambivalent and destabilizing as its at first fitful and then open support of the forces seeking to remove Mubarak in Egypt.

The Saudi response has been to ratchet up the hostility to reframe the instability in the Middle East as a matter of Iranian subversion, not popular discontent, thereby shifting the focus away from Egypt and North Africa and back to the Gulf.

Saudi Arabia has asserted its freedom of action by reclassifying the United States as more than an asset but something less than an ally in its front-line struggle against the Iranian threat.

Two days after US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Bahrain on March 14 to urge conciliation with the demonstrators, the Obama administration was blind-sided as the Peninsula Shield Force was sent across the Fahd Causeway to backstop Bahraini security forces in a pervasive and violent crackdown on demonstrators and activists.

US-Saudi relations are now "strained" and Gates was obliged to visit Riyadh again to persuade King Abdullah of American reliability and the attractions of concluding the largest US arms deal in history - a $60 billion package of F-15 fighter jets, bunker busting bombs, and a variety of missiles suitable for blasting Iran.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia has made the case for the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) - a Saudi-dominated collection of Persian Gulf sheikdoms - as the successor to the widely derided Arab League as the premier leadership grouping in the Middle East.


...
Iran has continually flayed the Saudi government in official and press statements for its role in the crackdown in Bahrain on the largely Shi'ite demonstrators. Kuwait claims to have cracked an Iranian spy ring and has sentenced two Iranians and one Kuwaiti to death, withdrawn its ambassador to Tehran, and promised the expulsion of several Iranian diplomats.

The April 3 backgrounder given to Arab Times, a Kuwaiti newspaper, is a clear indication that the GCC has gone all-in on the Iranian threat.

Persian conspiracy seen to target GCC countries ‘Bahraini crisis just a spark'

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The GCC countries are attempting to overturn the accepted narrative: that Bahrain has a Shi'ite majority that has been unfairly disenfranchised and which is now attempting to gain expanded political rights through popular agitation.

The GCC framing is that Shi'ite are not the majority, that in fact they are a minority attempting to seize power on behalf of their Iranian masters.

The determination of the GCC to deny the Shi'ite majority - and the legitimacy of the demonstrations - is clear from the Arab Times backgrounder.

The arcane and conveniently murky issue of Bahraini demographics - there hasn't been an official census since 1941 since the results would inevitably embarrass the emirate's ruling Sunni minority - is being thrown into the fray.


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According to Gengler, the Shi'ite share of the population probably peaked at 65 to 70% in the mid-1980s. Since then, there has been a concerted effort by the government to dilute Shi'ite numbers by an aggressive program to naturalize Sunnis {is that why ShyamD garu was talking about the ineffectiveness of Indian democracy?}

Also, it was alleged that, in order to boost Sunni turnout in the 2002 parliamentary elections, the Bahraini government naturalized a large number of Sunnis residing in the Saudi town of Dammam, on the coast facing the island and, for their convenience, erected a polling booth on the King Fahd Causeway! {another way to rearrange demographics - making Bahrain part of sunni-majority KSA? Sunni EVMs at work }

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[ramana]

RamaY, where did you post the Three india's post?

[RamaY]

Ramanji - In this thread. I will x-post in GDF and continue my thoughts there.

Continuation of highlights of Rony's post

Bahrain

''The only moderate we've seen within the al-Khalifa - the crown prince - seems to have lost utterly all influence within the ruling family, having spent all of his political capital on the failed attempt at bringing the opposition to the National Dialogue Initiative.

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"It is intimidation ... every Shi'ite [Muslim] is a target," Rajab said of the overall climate of fear gripping the kingdom. Rajab described in detail a campaign of a fear being waged not only in villages in the shadow of the once glittering capital but now in downtown Manama itself.

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KSA taking leadership of AL and GCC

Anti-Shi'ite concerns also play a major role in the GCC's other intervention in Saudi Arabia's near beyond {Yemen}: efforts to ease Riyadh's unpredictable and unreliable client, President Ali Abdallah Saleh, out of Yemen.

Yemen is pretty much a basket case. In addition to a secessionist movement in the south, an al-Qaeda problem whose severity and degree of sponsorship by Saleh as a military and security auxiliary is the subject of much debate, across the board demonstrations against his corrupt and impoverishing rule, Yemen has a Shi'ite rebellion problem - followers of a charismatic Shi'ite imam, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi who congregate in the mountainous wastes near the Saudi border.

Belying its reputation as the gold-plated but sedentary army "ready to fight until the last American", the Saudi military has been blooded in several violent clashes with the Houthi, losing over 100 men. Riyadh has claimed the Houthi are receiving support from Iran.

Now the GCC has stepped up to offer mediation (superseding anti-Saleh declarations from the Obama administration), presumably hoping to facilitate the installation of a pro-Saudi strongman who will restore order and suppress the Houthi rebellion more effectively.

As a sign of Saudi Arabia's determination that it must look after itself and not rely on the United States to help with its regional problems, one Saudi commentator proposed a "Marshall Plan" of Saudi tutelage and financial assistance that would lift Yemen out of its impoverished and violent misery. [8] {Buy your subjects, similar to our MKK tactics in TN. This is where Pakis enter the equation}

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Affect of Assertiveness

Saudi determination has already provoked a concession from Egypt on the issue of Iran. {Key lesson to India}

The post-Mubarak government had permitted passage through the Suez Canal for an Iranian naval vessel for the first time since 1979 and had stated its willingness to normalize diplomatic relations with Tehran.

However, after the GCC broadside against Iran, the Egyptian foreign minister obligingly stated that "the stability and Arabhood of the Arab Gulf countries is a red line against which Egypt rejects any trespass". [9]

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Allies and subjects

They are also looking east for help to old allies in Pakistan and China. Prince Bandar, former ambassador in Washington, reportedly visited Islamabad late last month to ask the Pakistanis for troops to help ensure internal stability in the kingdom and the Gulf States if needed. He invoked an understanding that dates back to the 1980s when then-Pakistani dictator Zia ul Huq provided over 10,000 Pakistani troops to protect the country after the Iranian revolution. Bandar also has been in Beijing to promote more trade and to ensure the Chinese communist dictators stand with their Saudi friends. Bandar was the deal-maker in the Saudi-Chinese intermediate range missile sale in the 1980s that provided Riyadh with its now aging missile force. He reportedly keeps a residence in China. {China and Pakistan are key allies. India is just a subject - can be told to layoff Pakis even after 26/11}

China and Saudi Arabia announced a deal for a 200,000 ton per year refinery in Yunnan, and China has taken a 37.5% share in an Aramco refinery at Yanbu.{How much stake India has in Saudi refineries?}

An overt Saudi-Israeli tie-up would be a blow to the United States' role as the essential superpower in the region. {Another potential Allie}

China, as long as it can lift oil from Saudi Arabia, might be satisfied with an unglamorous supporting role in the post-American Middle East.
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A potential wild card in the Middle East is the possibility that Saudi Arabia will choose to ally with the other main anti-Iranian power in the region - Israel.

Intriguingly, the non-government Israeli peace proposal proffered for Prime Minister Netanyahu's consideration is advertised as being based on the regional peace proposal first prepared by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in 2002.

Maybe that's a hint that Saudi Arabia might be Israel's preferred post-Mubarak power broker in the Arab world.

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[putnanja]

Iran-Pakistan fallout over Bahrain

Diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Iran are under a cloud after the Iranian government protested recruitment of Pakistani military officials into the Bahraini police forces. Pakistan's charge d'affairs in Tehran was summoned to Iran's foreign ministry earlier this month where deputy foreign minister Behrouz Kamalvandi conveyed his country's reservations over the 'recruitment for Bahrain's armed forces and police' in Pakistan. He warned that if the recruitment was not stopped, it would have serious ramifications for diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Iran.

However, the Pakistan government is believed to have given blessings to the recruitment, which is being conducted through private contractors. More than a hundred retired army men are now on their way to Bahrain to serve in that country's riot police and defence forces.

Plans are also being finalised to send regular Pakistan army contingents to Saudi Arabia and possibly Bahrain, officials have said privately.
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In March, Pakistan received Prince Bandar of the Saudi National Council who proposed that army contingents be sent to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to prop up the monarchies in the two states.

This visit was followed up by a visit of the Bahrain foreign minister, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, who confirmed that the Pakistan Army was willing to send its troops to bolster his government.
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