10-16-2011, 12:56 PM
TROUBLE IN THE KINGDOM
Alexander Cockburn
Counterpunch
Threaten the stability of Saudi Arabia, as the Shi’a upsurges are now doing in Qatif, and al-Awamiyah in the country’s oil-rich Eastern Province and you’re brandishing a dagger over the very heart of long-term U.S. policy in the Middle East for over half a century.
In 1945 the chief of the State Department’s Division of Near Eastern Affairs, wrote in a memo that the oil resources of Saudi Arabia are a “stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.” The man who steered the Saudi sheikhs towards America and away from Britain, was St.John Philby, Kim’s father, and with that one great stroke Philby Sr. wrought far more devastation on the British Empire than his son ever did. The fall of America’s ally, the Shah of Iran in 1979 only magnified the strategic importance of Saudi Arabia.
These days the U.S. consumes about 19 million barrels of oil every 24 hours, about half of them imported. At 25 per cent Canada is the lead supplier. Second comes Saudi Arabia with 12 per cent. But supply of crude oil to the U.S. is only half the story. Saudi Arabia controls OPEC’s oil price and adjusts it carefully with U.S. priorities in the front of their minds.
The traffic is not one-way. In the half-century after 1945, the United States sold the Saudis about$100 billion in military goods and services. A year ago the Obama administration announced the biggest weapons deal in U.S. history – a $60 billion program with Saudi Arabia to sell it military equipment across the next 20 to 30 years.
The US trains and supplies all Saudi Arabia’s security forces. US corporations have huge investments in the Kingdom.
Say the words “Saudi Arabia” to President Obama or to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the high-minded prattle about the “Arab spring” stops abruptly. When the Saudis rushed security forces across the Causeway and into Bahrein, counselling the Khalifa dynasty to smash down hard on the Shi’a demonstrators in the homeport of the US Fifth Fleet, the public noises of reproof from Washington were mouse-like in their reticence and modesty.
Could the uprisings in Saudi Arabia spiral out of control? We’re talking here about two different challenges. The first are the long-oppressed Shi’a, making up ten per cent of the population. The second is from the younger generation — youth under 30 account for two-thirds of the Saudi population– in the Sunni majority, living in one of the most thorough-going tyrannies in the world.
In February of this year, perturbed by the trend of events in Egypt and elsewhere, the 87-year King Abdullah announced his plan to dispense about $36 billion in welfare handouts – about $2,000 for every Saudi. He correctly identified one of the Kingdom’s big problems, which is that nearly half those between 18 and 40 don’t have a job.
A few days ago Abdullah offered Saudi women a privilege – to participate in certain entirely meaningless municipal elections (if approved by their husbands.) What municipal elections can be meaningful amid resolute repression under an absolutist monarchy?
As the international rights lawyer Paul Wolf remarked on PressTV, “In Saudi Arabia, cell phones with cameras are illegal. All telephone conversations are monitored. The government controls the TV and the print media. In 2009 an election was cancelled…. So I mean it is great if they are taking action to try to include women in the political process but really, no one is included in the political process.”
The American Empire has lost Iran and Iraq. What of Saudi Arabia? Suppose, fissures continue to open up in the Kingdom itself? I doubt, at such a juncture, that we would hear too much talk from Washington about “democracy” or orderly transitions. Aside from anything else, the downfall of the Saudi regime would have terrible consequences in Washington, since hundreds of heavy-hitters there are on the Saudi payroll, starting with virtually all the ex-ambassadors, with the exception of James Akins who once told a friend of mine he was the only one who wasn’t. No way will Washington let the money flow from Riyadh to K street be endangered. Send in the 101st Airborne!
One cherished British imperial rule, handed down to the Empire that displaced it, is: When in doubt, break it up. There have been recent western advocates of break-up of Saudi Arabia, Two well-known neo-cons, Richard Perle and David Frum wrote in their 2005 book, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror that the U.S.should mobilize the Shi’ites living in eastern Saudi Arabia, where most of the Saudi oil is: “Independence for the Eastern Province would obviously be a catastrophic outcome for the Saudi state. But it might be a very good outcome for the United States. Certainly it’s an outcome to ponder. Even more certainly, we would want the Saudis to know we are pondering it.”
Perle was once head of the Defense Policy Board, advising the Defense Department. As Robert Dreyfus reports in Devil’s Game, In 2002, a Defense Policy Board briefing argued that the US should work to split Saudi Arabia apart so the US could effectively control its oil. Other neoconservatives like Michael Ledeen expressed similar views. In early 2003, Akins, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, mentioned the possibility that Osama bin Laden could take over Saudi Arabia if the US invaded Iraq. “I’m now convinced that that’s exactly what [the neoconservatives] want to happen. And then we take it over.”
I guess the current model is the Kurdish sector of Iraq.
TIME FOR MUSLIMS TO VETO THE UNITED STATES
Jahangir Muhammad
Centre for Muslim Affairs
After the last few weeks there should no longer be any doubt that the Muslim world needs to rid itself of American presence and interference in Muslim lands. There can be no freedom, self-determination or independence in these lands unless that happens. The United States veto of the Palestinian efforts at recognition in the United Nations, the decision to withdraw aid for Palestinians, as well as continued US military presence, repeated drone attacks and assassination of Muslims without charge or trial in Muslim lands, is surely compelling evidence that its time for a different approach.
Change happens when the majority of people develop a common understanding of their situation and decide collectively to do something about it. The revolutionary movements (not yet revolutions) in the Arab world this year, are the product not just of face book (this was just a vehicle for change), but also of decades of Islamic activism, and challenge to dictatorship and oppression. Small and gradual changes over time produce bigger change. This activism helped produce a common understanding of the nature of these regimes, leading eventually to these uprisings. We must never forget the many Islamic activists and their families who have been persecuted, imprisoned, or killed for exposing and standing up to these regimes.
However, there will be no revolutions in the Muslim world unless and until the Muslim masses understand that their struggle is not just against their own dictators. These dictators are just the local proxies of the United States and the West. To produce revolutionary change requires Muslim masses first to understand that their real struggle is against western presence and interference in Muslim lands, and then to do something about it. In both Egypt and Libya we have seen that removing a Western backed dictator does not equate to removing Western presence and interference. Nor will it lead to freedom and independence.
Nowhere is this relationship between the West and United States becoming clearer than in occupied Palestine. For over 60 years now the Palestinian leadership have been struggling to persuade the West and the United Nations of the just nature of their cause. The Palestinian Authority accepted the United Sates and Britain as impartial mediators, even prepared to accept what amounts to a tiny parcel of land of what was once Palestine. Yet from 1949 -2010 the United States has supplied $106BN of assistance, mostly military, to Israel. This does not include special military assistance on occasions and for joint military projects. Moreover, the economic assistance is provided on more favourable terms than other countries and not to programmes but direct to the Israeli government. This support has continued even when the Israelis have been massacring Palestinians and Muslims in both Palestine and Lebanon.
Anyone with sense can conclude from this, that the Palestinian struggle is not just against Israel, but the United States in particular, and other Western nations that support it. Yet the Palestinian leadership has treated this as a local struggle and the US as their friend. If someone aids and abets your enemy in every conceivable way for over 60 years, it is an act of gross stupidity to consider them your friends and as a solution to your problems. Recognising your enemy is an essential step to putting an end to your misery. That is why the Quran goes into so much detail about the threats and enemies Muslims and humanity are likely to face in this world, and how to deal with them.
So when the US threatens to veto even the tabling of a call for recognition of a Palestinian State, and most of the non –Western nations support it, and almost all the Western nations oppose it, or abstain, its time to realise who your struggle is really against? The United States did not even float the idea of a Palestinian State for the first time until after 911 in the June 2002 speech of George Bush. Even then it laid down so many pre-conditions that it made it virtually impossible to achieve.
Instead of Muslims running to the UN, and, the United States threatening to veto, it should be Muslims who should be vetoing the United States. Every penny that Muslims spend in trade or investment with the United States simply prolongs our suffering. Instead of our leaders and scholars pleading for justice with the leaders of Western nations, they should be addressing and mobilising the Muslim masses in a global resistance movement against the United States. They should be calling for the masses to make it difficult for American companies to do business in any part of the Muslim world, not through violence but through legitimate protest, boycott and other means of civil mobilisation and resistance. This would have a major impact. The American economy is already collapsing. Muslim masses could hasten this decline, and as the American people realise that their regimes policies are making them suffer, they will rise up against their own government and the State of Israel, and force change. It is this global resistance against the US and capitalism, inspired by Muslims, rather than elections or lobbying that will bring about revolution and change not just in the Muslim world but in the West too.
The despots of the Muslim world will not support such calls against the US, but the global Muslim Ummah of two billion people will. Our scholars and leaders of movements need to learn to address them not Western instruments of power. It was to them we should always have turned. In one of his last commands to Muslims before he passed away the Prophet Muhammad (saw) asked the believers to “ Expel the Mushrikeen from Jazeera ut- al Arab” ( the Arabian peninsula, extends all the way to Syria). This order remains to be fulfilled even today. Revolutions first occur in the mind before they can be established on the ground. Its time for a change in mindset and strategy.
Alexander Cockburn
Counterpunch
Threaten the stability of Saudi Arabia, as the Shi’a upsurges are now doing in Qatif, and al-Awamiyah in the country’s oil-rich Eastern Province and you’re brandishing a dagger over the very heart of long-term U.S. policy in the Middle East for over half a century.
In 1945 the chief of the State Department’s Division of Near Eastern Affairs, wrote in a memo that the oil resources of Saudi Arabia are a “stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.” The man who steered the Saudi sheikhs towards America and away from Britain, was St.John Philby, Kim’s father, and with that one great stroke Philby Sr. wrought far more devastation on the British Empire than his son ever did. The fall of America’s ally, the Shah of Iran in 1979 only magnified the strategic importance of Saudi Arabia.
These days the U.S. consumes about 19 million barrels of oil every 24 hours, about half of them imported. At 25 per cent Canada is the lead supplier. Second comes Saudi Arabia with 12 per cent. But supply of crude oil to the U.S. is only half the story. Saudi Arabia controls OPEC’s oil price and adjusts it carefully with U.S. priorities in the front of their minds.
The traffic is not one-way. In the half-century after 1945, the United States sold the Saudis about$100 billion in military goods and services. A year ago the Obama administration announced the biggest weapons deal in U.S. history – a $60 billion program with Saudi Arabia to sell it military equipment across the next 20 to 30 years.
The US trains and supplies all Saudi Arabia’s security forces. US corporations have huge investments in the Kingdom.
Say the words “Saudi Arabia” to President Obama or to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the high-minded prattle about the “Arab spring” stops abruptly. When the Saudis rushed security forces across the Causeway and into Bahrein, counselling the Khalifa dynasty to smash down hard on the Shi’a demonstrators in the homeport of the US Fifth Fleet, the public noises of reproof from Washington were mouse-like in their reticence and modesty.
Could the uprisings in Saudi Arabia spiral out of control? We’re talking here about two different challenges. The first are the long-oppressed Shi’a, making up ten per cent of the population. The second is from the younger generation — youth under 30 account for two-thirds of the Saudi population– in the Sunni majority, living in one of the most thorough-going tyrannies in the world.
In February of this year, perturbed by the trend of events in Egypt and elsewhere, the 87-year King Abdullah announced his plan to dispense about $36 billion in welfare handouts – about $2,000 for every Saudi. He correctly identified one of the Kingdom’s big problems, which is that nearly half those between 18 and 40 don’t have a job.
A few days ago Abdullah offered Saudi women a privilege – to participate in certain entirely meaningless municipal elections (if approved by their husbands.) What municipal elections can be meaningful amid resolute repression under an absolutist monarchy?
As the international rights lawyer Paul Wolf remarked on PressTV, “In Saudi Arabia, cell phones with cameras are illegal. All telephone conversations are monitored. The government controls the TV and the print media. In 2009 an election was cancelled…. So I mean it is great if they are taking action to try to include women in the political process but really, no one is included in the political process.”
The American Empire has lost Iran and Iraq. What of Saudi Arabia? Suppose, fissures continue to open up in the Kingdom itself? I doubt, at such a juncture, that we would hear too much talk from Washington about “democracy” or orderly transitions. Aside from anything else, the downfall of the Saudi regime would have terrible consequences in Washington, since hundreds of heavy-hitters there are on the Saudi payroll, starting with virtually all the ex-ambassadors, with the exception of James Akins who once told a friend of mine he was the only one who wasn’t. No way will Washington let the money flow from Riyadh to K street be endangered. Send in the 101st Airborne!
One cherished British imperial rule, handed down to the Empire that displaced it, is: When in doubt, break it up. There have been recent western advocates of break-up of Saudi Arabia, Two well-known neo-cons, Richard Perle and David Frum wrote in their 2005 book, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror that the U.S.should mobilize the Shi’ites living in eastern Saudi Arabia, where most of the Saudi oil is: “Independence for the Eastern Province would obviously be a catastrophic outcome for the Saudi state. But it might be a very good outcome for the United States. Certainly it’s an outcome to ponder. Even more certainly, we would want the Saudis to know we are pondering it.”
Perle was once head of the Defense Policy Board, advising the Defense Department. As Robert Dreyfus reports in Devil’s Game, In 2002, a Defense Policy Board briefing argued that the US should work to split Saudi Arabia apart so the US could effectively control its oil. Other neoconservatives like Michael Ledeen expressed similar views. In early 2003, Akins, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, mentioned the possibility that Osama bin Laden could take over Saudi Arabia if the US invaded Iraq. “I’m now convinced that that’s exactly what [the neoconservatives] want to happen. And then we take it over.”
I guess the current model is the Kurdish sector of Iraq.
TIME FOR MUSLIMS TO VETO THE UNITED STATES
Jahangir Muhammad
Centre for Muslim Affairs
After the last few weeks there should no longer be any doubt that the Muslim world needs to rid itself of American presence and interference in Muslim lands. There can be no freedom, self-determination or independence in these lands unless that happens. The United States veto of the Palestinian efforts at recognition in the United Nations, the decision to withdraw aid for Palestinians, as well as continued US military presence, repeated drone attacks and assassination of Muslims without charge or trial in Muslim lands, is surely compelling evidence that its time for a different approach.
Change happens when the majority of people develop a common understanding of their situation and decide collectively to do something about it. The revolutionary movements (not yet revolutions) in the Arab world this year, are the product not just of face book (this was just a vehicle for change), but also of decades of Islamic activism, and challenge to dictatorship and oppression. Small and gradual changes over time produce bigger change. This activism helped produce a common understanding of the nature of these regimes, leading eventually to these uprisings. We must never forget the many Islamic activists and their families who have been persecuted, imprisoned, or killed for exposing and standing up to these regimes.
However, there will be no revolutions in the Muslim world unless and until the Muslim masses understand that their struggle is not just against their own dictators. These dictators are just the local proxies of the United States and the West. To produce revolutionary change requires Muslim masses first to understand that their real struggle is against western presence and interference in Muslim lands, and then to do something about it. In both Egypt and Libya we have seen that removing a Western backed dictator does not equate to removing Western presence and interference. Nor will it lead to freedom and independence.
Nowhere is this relationship between the West and United States becoming clearer than in occupied Palestine. For over 60 years now the Palestinian leadership have been struggling to persuade the West and the United Nations of the just nature of their cause. The Palestinian Authority accepted the United Sates and Britain as impartial mediators, even prepared to accept what amounts to a tiny parcel of land of what was once Palestine. Yet from 1949 -2010 the United States has supplied $106BN of assistance, mostly military, to Israel. This does not include special military assistance on occasions and for joint military projects. Moreover, the economic assistance is provided on more favourable terms than other countries and not to programmes but direct to the Israeli government. This support has continued even when the Israelis have been massacring Palestinians and Muslims in both Palestine and Lebanon.
Anyone with sense can conclude from this, that the Palestinian struggle is not just against Israel, but the United States in particular, and other Western nations that support it. Yet the Palestinian leadership has treated this as a local struggle and the US as their friend. If someone aids and abets your enemy in every conceivable way for over 60 years, it is an act of gross stupidity to consider them your friends and as a solution to your problems. Recognising your enemy is an essential step to putting an end to your misery. That is why the Quran goes into so much detail about the threats and enemies Muslims and humanity are likely to face in this world, and how to deal with them.
So when the US threatens to veto even the tabling of a call for recognition of a Palestinian State, and most of the non –Western nations support it, and almost all the Western nations oppose it, or abstain, its time to realise who your struggle is really against? The United States did not even float the idea of a Palestinian State for the first time until after 911 in the June 2002 speech of George Bush. Even then it laid down so many pre-conditions that it made it virtually impossible to achieve.
Instead of Muslims running to the UN, and, the United States threatening to veto, it should be Muslims who should be vetoing the United States. Every penny that Muslims spend in trade or investment with the United States simply prolongs our suffering. Instead of our leaders and scholars pleading for justice with the leaders of Western nations, they should be addressing and mobilising the Muslim masses in a global resistance movement against the United States. They should be calling for the masses to make it difficult for American companies to do business in any part of the Muslim world, not through violence but through legitimate protest, boycott and other means of civil mobilisation and resistance. This would have a major impact. The American economy is already collapsing. Muslim masses could hasten this decline, and as the American people realise that their regimes policies are making them suffer, they will rise up against their own government and the State of Israel, and force change. It is this global resistance against the US and capitalism, inspired by Muslims, rather than elections or lobbying that will bring about revolution and change not just in the Muslim world but in the West too.
The despots of the Muslim world will not support such calls against the US, but the global Muslim Ummah of two billion people will. Our scholars and leaders of movements need to learn to address them not Western instruments of power. It was to them we should always have turned. In one of his last commands to Muslims before he passed away the Prophet Muhammad (saw) asked the believers to “ Expel the Mushrikeen from Jazeera ut- al Arab” ( the Arabian peninsula, extends all the way to Syria). This order remains to be fulfilled even today. Revolutions first occur in the mind before they can be established on the ground. Its time for a change in mindset and strategy.