وكان نعمة المعطاة للعرب ، وهي فرصة لترشيد حكوماتهم وجعلها تصل الى المعايير الحديثة للمساءلة. الألم والمأساة لم إسكات الشعب.
"A grace was afforded to the Arabs, a chance to rationalize their governments and to bring them up to modern standards of accountability. Pain and tragedy has not silenced the people."
-JPM
Today, after prayers in Syria, riots broke out all over - even in Damascus, where the army/police assaulted Sunni Muslims coming out of the mosque after Friday prayers. Some 15,000 Syrians have fled to Turkey, and nobody know if many can go home.
We once supported Bashar Al Assad, seeing his minority regime as a gurantee of safety to the Christians, the Jews, the Kurds, the Druze, and Nisari Shi'a and a million Iraqi refugees. Twelve people run Syria: the Allewite Shi'a may be favored, but the regime does depend on Sunni support. The Sunnis have their Ba'ath reps, in professional associations, clerical ministries, in labor groups and cooperatives, in army, police and air force schools. But, when Mahir intervened and ordered his much-vaunted 4th Mech division to hit the civilians of Dera'a in their stone-built mosque, because some kids wrote things on a wall, he lost his legitimacy: you just don't use those weapons against unarmed civilians. Ever.
Mater Al Assad is using his army precisely, as most soldiers are Sunni Muslims. Many army units are in their barracks. Instead Mater is sending in various 'intelligence' groups, and these too, are preceded by the shabibhi, the "ghosts." These are mercenaries, street thugs plus, we think, Iranian basij snipers, who don't hesitate to kill any civilian, of whatever age or sex.
At the moment, Syrian and Turkish military are in a race to build up along the two countries' border. Neither army has the tank transporters to quickly field a cross-border armored thrust. But two weeks from now, when, say, Syrian soldiers fire into Turkey, again, the Turks may be pushed domestically, to break Mater's clunky army and extend Turkish control to Halab (Aleppo). The rising economy of Aleppo was long in coming, and after some 10 years of gradual prosperity, the economy is now broken people such that they cannot get (affordable) food, fuel, NG, medicines and enough electricity. The defection and betrayal of the Syrian government under the Al Assad brothers has shattered Muslim Turkey's 'new prominence in regional harmony.' Can Iran be now trusted when Iranian revolutionary guards have been posted as snipers in Syrian streets?
Iraq is not far away. There, Nur al Maliki reigns, joined at the hip with the dim Mullah Sadr. What will they do when the Americans leave, when they have no outside enemy to hit? Iraqi academics have calculated that the average yearly number of people killed by the Saddamic regime, from 1978 to 2003, was between 30,000 and 50,000 souls. This does not include war casualties. Add to that the maimings, the death of families, children without fathers or mothers - the slaughter of a generation in the stupid Iran-Iraq War. Saddam was evil - yet he was supported by Yemen, Jordan, the Palestinians (both Al Fatah and Hamas), Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. Saddam's spasms of war ended that.
Is there a broader sectarian war brewing? Iran has long sought to infiltrate Syria and Lebanon, Palestine, and eastern Turkey as well. The Revolutionary Guard has, in the past, used speed boats to land agents of the western side of Bahrain, and elsewhere along the Gulf coast. Iran's demonstrations over fraudulent elections in 2008-9 were a precursor to the Arab Spring. Bear in mind that Central Asia extends right to Iraq; the lush highlands of the Zagros and all those Iranian valleys - this is Central Asia.
Arabs do indeed live in Central Asia. Last I checked, there is a tribe of Bedouin that nomadize the northwestern slopes of the Hindu Kush. But the nomads in Afghanistan, including not just old Pashtun tribes, but also Turcoman, Aimaq and Kyrgyz, have been under pressure, to stay out of traditional highland pastures, from the Shi'a Hazara people - settled highland farmers who occupy Afghanistan's remote interior - but also from armed groups in trucks and SUVs claiming to be Taliban. Arabs also live in Khuzistan, Iran. There's unrest but in Iran, but the Arabs know their place. Just a few bombs.
In North Africa, we find pressures building in Algeria. The government has rescinded its emergency powers but still, police confront most demonstrations with shows of force. The key problems of lack of housing and jobs and high food prices, have yet to be addressed. But Algeria has money, and should be able to do something for its people. Algeria was the only Arab nation that had to fight for its independence, so they are like grandparents, for whom street 'manifestations' were long instinctive.
Libya is ablaze. NATO has launched some 12,000 sorties. Again, the bombing of pro-Qaddafi forces has prevented massacres, first in Benghazi, then Al Brega and Adjabiyya, and then Mishuratah, Zlintan and Zawiye. Qaddafi's army and police, his mercs and thuggish serial killers, have not been able to sweep the streets; or hold them through the night. Every day his forces are degraded. He no longer has GRAD rockets, or gunboats. No air force, no straight-forward loyal divisions of troops and armor. Where is his submarine?
So time is on the side of the Libyan democratic forces. And when the time comes to negotiate new oil contracts, they will reward those who helped them. The USA, long self-excluded from Qaddafi's extortionate prices, should now aim to purchase some 7% of Libya's oil production.
Qaddafi is hiding out in private homes, a different one every night; but his time is running out. In Tripoli there are probably some 20 teams of assassins hunting him. From satellites the Americans (and others) can watch traffic anomalies from the air. But do the Americans have ground contact with Libyan democratic fighters? Yes, we intuit, but through several layers of middle men - a command bureaucracy. US SOF will not be deployed into Libya which is too bad, as Qaddafi may still opt to blow the well heads, a la Saddam. The Kufrah oasis in Libya's southeast, and the Sabha Fezzan area in the southwest center of Libya, are critical areas, production areas. Qaddafi's soldiers and police were able to win control over Al Kufrah (some 2/5ths Libya's oil reserves and production), after two months of fighting. But Al Kufrah is a small place, featuring tacky little american tract houses surrounded by a wall, less than a mile from the oil fields.
Only the French and the Egyptians can help. The French can come up through Niger and Chad, and the Egyptian army SF could come over land from Al Khareb oasis in the Western Desert. But the Egyptian democrats apparently don't seem to care whether Qaddafi wins or loses. They're paralyzed.
Right across the Sahel we see offensives against the Boku Haram in northern Nigeria and al Qaida of the Islamic Magreb (Al Qaida of the Islamic West, AQIM). Just after prayers on Friday, forces from Mali and Mauretania conducted a joint operation against AQIM hiding out in a veritable jungle. The operation was a success, and the Sahel militaries and police are tracking down fleeing terrorists and kidnappers. The whole upper Sahel has been closed to foreign tourists for the past 4 years. Now it is time to open this spectacular land.
Yemen is a wound that doesn't heal. The country is diverging, not collapsing. I mean, the economy has collapsed, but people revert to their village ways. Water and NG and diesel are all scarce, so the country is a disaster area deserving massive amounts of food and fuel. Meanwhile, Al Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula (QAP), has taken over the eastern side of the country, centered on Shabwa and Shibam. Zinjibar fell to them, and that town is just 20 km. west of Aden. Aden has become a valuable port, and should not fall to MB thugs and murderous clerics.
The US has ramped up its drone attacks in the east. They has must some 20 observers, spies, out there. The Saudis also run agents. The US CIA has waged war against eastern Yemen, before, in 1964-71, secretly, to prevent the communists from taking over the country, and to drive Nasser out of Yemen.
Ali Abdullah Saleh, still president of Yemen, is still in the Riyadh military hospital. His two sons are in command of the army. The lower officers have been mixing with people for months now. I don't foresee any big shoot out like what we saw in early June, when Al Akhmar affiliates fought Saleh's troops in the streets (after they were attacked.) But the people under the Resistance umbrella, expect a change in government. They want to elect their leaders. Indeed, the poverty of Yemen demands that practical steps be taken to ameliorate suffering, and this is best accomplished when people have a say in their government, a loyalty of their own responsibility.
Can history teach citizens how to behave when all economic relations are down or too expensive? Muhammad in Medina did not evolve a bureaucracy or hierarchy or clergy. The people around him were all thoroughly responsible: titles and offices were not needed. Indeed, the prevailing Muslim values eschewed the trappings of rank and wealth. His army had a loose command hierarchy: when officers were killed, the men, usually mounted, could instinctively execute complex maneuvers leading to victory.
So too today do we hope and trust that the good peoples of Egypt and Tunisia put together a way of governance, that eschews titles and layers of security police; neither the police or the army have recovered their privileges. That's why Egypt does not send armor and troops and air support to the Benghazi democratic fighters. Nor does Tunisia, even when Qaddafi forces crossed the border last month in pursuit of rebels. These countries need peace just to put together their party platforms. Elections are coming up. In Egypt we expect some 45% of the lower parliament's seats to go to a front party for the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brothers aren't as crazed as the Salafis. The Salafis are the ones who will kill you if you think normally or can't come up with the right phrase in Qur'anic Arabic
We have long believed that fire must be fought with fire. As the prophet said: "If violence breaks out, find out who started it, then attack him.". Such aggressive, targeted security work might best be left to the Brothers, as Egyptian intell/security police are undergoing a lengthy re-organization.
The simultaneous Arab revolts taking place in every Arab country except Lebanon (which has its own dynamic of unrest). Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea and the Sudan have all been affected. But there were three definite percursers:
1.) all summer and fall of 2010, demonstration in Tindouf, Algeria, trying to get the king of Morocco, to stop delaying UN-mandated referendums concerning the independence of the South (or Western) Sahara. Algerians picked up that unrest, disobeying police curfews. That was copied.
2. the drought of summer 2009 in Central Asia, which forced Russia to curtail all grain exports. That caused prices to triple over the next year, for bread and other staples, like couscous and pasta.
3. the eruption of large demonstrations in Iran, 2008-2009, which were the first to be shepherded by youths using cell phones, texting, video (w/uplinks) and 2-way radios.
The wars in Yemen and Libya impact squarely on the nervous oil markets. We do not expect American gasoline to go below $3.25/gallon, ever again. But the US and Europe did get together and agree to dump some 3 million barrels of oil a day onto the spot markets. That'll bring gasoline down to about $3.70, where it will stay. Demand is just growing too fast for it to go much lower. In fact, the price of refined petroleum products will keep rising in the longer run. By 2016, expect $5 a gallon for gas.
An entire way of life, based on cheap oil from Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, is coming to an end. Many commuters in Japan, North America, Western Europe, urban China and elsewhere, just cannot use their automobiles often. People just cannot get in and cruise around. And if you cannot do that, why own a car?
OPEC has yet to make up after disastrous meeting in mid June. OPEC will not pump a little extra oil to make up for the 2.5 mil/brl/day Libya once produced. This will put a drag on any nation using petroleum products - and that's all nations. In America, people sit around waiting for the depression to lift, to get back to normal. But 'normal' will not come again. The value of properties is not rising, they are declining, if not in price as in the value of the dollar, which is primed to slip, and slip in such a way that the United States will likely enter into a negative vortex of mutually-aggravating forces and realities. The same reasons which keep poor nations poor, will keep the US on a downward trend.
For those interested in charting the decline of a great nation, see http://speculumusa.blogspot.com.
"A grace was afforded to the Arabs, a chance to rationalize their governments and to bring them up to modern standards of accountability. Pain and tragedy has not silenced the people."
-JPM
Today, after prayers in Syria, riots broke out all over - even in Damascus, where the army/police assaulted Sunni Muslims coming out of the mosque after Friday prayers. Some 15,000 Syrians have fled to Turkey, and nobody know if many can go home.
We once supported Bashar Al Assad, seeing his minority regime as a gurantee of safety to the Christians, the Jews, the Kurds, the Druze, and Nisari Shi'a and a million Iraqi refugees. Twelve people run Syria: the Allewite Shi'a may be favored, but the regime does depend on Sunni support. The Sunnis have their Ba'ath reps, in professional associations, clerical ministries, in labor groups and cooperatives, in army, police and air force schools. But, when Mahir intervened and ordered his much-vaunted 4th Mech division to hit the civilians of Dera'a in their stone-built mosque, because some kids wrote things on a wall, he lost his legitimacy: you just don't use those weapons against unarmed civilians. Ever.
Mater Al Assad is using his army precisely, as most soldiers are Sunni Muslims. Many army units are in their barracks. Instead Mater is sending in various 'intelligence' groups, and these too, are preceded by the shabibhi, the "ghosts." These are mercenaries, street thugs plus, we think, Iranian basij snipers, who don't hesitate to kill any civilian, of whatever age or sex.
At the moment, Syrian and Turkish military are in a race to build up along the two countries' border. Neither army has the tank transporters to quickly field a cross-border armored thrust. But two weeks from now, when, say, Syrian soldiers fire into Turkey, again, the Turks may be pushed domestically, to break Mater's clunky army and extend Turkish control to Halab (Aleppo). The rising economy of Aleppo was long in coming, and after some 10 years of gradual prosperity, the economy is now broken people such that they cannot get (affordable) food, fuel, NG, medicines and enough electricity. The defection and betrayal of the Syrian government under the Al Assad brothers has shattered Muslim Turkey's 'new prominence in regional harmony.' Can Iran be now trusted when Iranian revolutionary guards have been posted as snipers in Syrian streets?
Iraq is not far away. There, Nur al Maliki reigns, joined at the hip with the dim Mullah Sadr. What will they do when the Americans leave, when they have no outside enemy to hit? Iraqi academics have calculated that the average yearly number of people killed by the Saddamic regime, from 1978 to 2003, was between 30,000 and 50,000 souls. This does not include war casualties. Add to that the maimings, the death of families, children without fathers or mothers - the slaughter of a generation in the stupid Iran-Iraq War. Saddam was evil - yet he was supported by Yemen, Jordan, the Palestinians (both Al Fatah and Hamas), Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. Saddam's spasms of war ended that.
Is there a broader sectarian war brewing? Iran has long sought to infiltrate Syria and Lebanon, Palestine, and eastern Turkey as well. The Revolutionary Guard has, in the past, used speed boats to land agents of the western side of Bahrain, and elsewhere along the Gulf coast. Iran's demonstrations over fraudulent elections in 2008-9 were a precursor to the Arab Spring. Bear in mind that Central Asia extends right to Iraq; the lush highlands of the Zagros and all those Iranian valleys - this is Central Asia.
Arabs do indeed live in Central Asia. Last I checked, there is a tribe of Bedouin that nomadize the northwestern slopes of the Hindu Kush. But the nomads in Afghanistan, including not just old Pashtun tribes, but also Turcoman, Aimaq and Kyrgyz, have been under pressure, to stay out of traditional highland pastures, from the Shi'a Hazara people - settled highland farmers who occupy Afghanistan's remote interior - but also from armed groups in trucks and SUVs claiming to be Taliban. Arabs also live in Khuzistan, Iran. There's unrest but in Iran, but the Arabs know their place. Just a few bombs.
In North Africa, we find pressures building in Algeria. The government has rescinded its emergency powers but still, police confront most demonstrations with shows of force. The key problems of lack of housing and jobs and high food prices, have yet to be addressed. But Algeria has money, and should be able to do something for its people. Algeria was the only Arab nation that had to fight for its independence, so they are like grandparents, for whom street 'manifestations' were long instinctive.
Libya is ablaze. NATO has launched some 12,000 sorties. Again, the bombing of pro-Qaddafi forces has prevented massacres, first in Benghazi, then Al Brega and Adjabiyya, and then Mishuratah, Zlintan and Zawiye. Qaddafi's army and police, his mercs and thuggish serial killers, have not been able to sweep the streets; or hold them through the night. Every day his forces are degraded. He no longer has GRAD rockets, or gunboats. No air force, no straight-forward loyal divisions of troops and armor. Where is his submarine?
So time is on the side of the Libyan democratic forces. And when the time comes to negotiate new oil contracts, they will reward those who helped them. The USA, long self-excluded from Qaddafi's extortionate prices, should now aim to purchase some 7% of Libya's oil production.
Qaddafi is hiding out in private homes, a different one every night; but his time is running out. In Tripoli there are probably some 20 teams of assassins hunting him. From satellites the Americans (and others) can watch traffic anomalies from the air. But do the Americans have ground contact with Libyan democratic fighters? Yes, we intuit, but through several layers of middle men - a command bureaucracy. US SOF will not be deployed into Libya which is too bad, as Qaddafi may still opt to blow the well heads, a la Saddam. The Kufrah oasis in Libya's southeast, and the Sabha Fezzan area in the southwest center of Libya, are critical areas, production areas. Qaddafi's soldiers and police were able to win control over Al Kufrah (some 2/5ths Libya's oil reserves and production), after two months of fighting. But Al Kufrah is a small place, featuring tacky little american tract houses surrounded by a wall, less than a mile from the oil fields.
Only the French and the Egyptians can help. The French can come up through Niger and Chad, and the Egyptian army SF could come over land from Al Khareb oasis in the Western Desert. But the Egyptian democrats apparently don't seem to care whether Qaddafi wins or loses. They're paralyzed.
Right across the Sahel we see offensives against the Boku Haram in northern Nigeria and al Qaida of the Islamic Magreb (Al Qaida of the Islamic West, AQIM). Just after prayers on Friday, forces from Mali and Mauretania conducted a joint operation against AQIM hiding out in a veritable jungle. The operation was a success, and the Sahel militaries and police are tracking down fleeing terrorists and kidnappers. The whole upper Sahel has been closed to foreign tourists for the past 4 years. Now it is time to open this spectacular land.
Yemen is a wound that doesn't heal. The country is diverging, not collapsing. I mean, the economy has collapsed, but people revert to their village ways. Water and NG and diesel are all scarce, so the country is a disaster area deserving massive amounts of food and fuel. Meanwhile, Al Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula (QAP), has taken over the eastern side of the country, centered on Shabwa and Shibam. Zinjibar fell to them, and that town is just 20 km. west of Aden. Aden has become a valuable port, and should not fall to MB thugs and murderous clerics.
The US has ramped up its drone attacks in the east. They has must some 20 observers, spies, out there. The Saudis also run agents. The US CIA has waged war against eastern Yemen, before, in 1964-71, secretly, to prevent the communists from taking over the country, and to drive Nasser out of Yemen.
Ali Abdullah Saleh, still president of Yemen, is still in the Riyadh military hospital. His two sons are in command of the army. The lower officers have been mixing with people for months now. I don't foresee any big shoot out like what we saw in early June, when Al Akhmar affiliates fought Saleh's troops in the streets (after they were attacked.) But the people under the Resistance umbrella, expect a change in government. They want to elect their leaders. Indeed, the poverty of Yemen demands that practical steps be taken to ameliorate suffering, and this is best accomplished when people have a say in their government, a loyalty of their own responsibility.
Can history teach citizens how to behave when all economic relations are down or too expensive? Muhammad in Medina did not evolve a bureaucracy or hierarchy or clergy. The people around him were all thoroughly responsible: titles and offices were not needed. Indeed, the prevailing Muslim values eschewed the trappings of rank and wealth. His army had a loose command hierarchy: when officers were killed, the men, usually mounted, could instinctively execute complex maneuvers leading to victory.
So too today do we hope and trust that the good peoples of Egypt and Tunisia put together a way of governance, that eschews titles and layers of security police; neither the police or the army have recovered their privileges. That's why Egypt does not send armor and troops and air support to the Benghazi democratic fighters. Nor does Tunisia, even when Qaddafi forces crossed the border last month in pursuit of rebels. These countries need peace just to put together their party platforms. Elections are coming up. In Egypt we expect some 45% of the lower parliament's seats to go to a front party for the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brothers aren't as crazed as the Salafis. The Salafis are the ones who will kill you if you think normally or can't come up with the right phrase in Qur'anic Arabic
We have long believed that fire must be fought with fire. As the prophet said: "If violence breaks out, find out who started it, then attack him.". Such aggressive, targeted security work might best be left to the Brothers, as Egyptian intell/security police are undergoing a lengthy re-organization.
The simultaneous Arab revolts taking place in every Arab country except Lebanon (which has its own dynamic of unrest). Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea and the Sudan have all been affected. But there were three definite percursers:
1.) all summer and fall of 2010, demonstration in Tindouf, Algeria, trying to get the king of Morocco, to stop delaying UN-mandated referendums concerning the independence of the South (or Western) Sahara. Algerians picked up that unrest, disobeying police curfews. That was copied.
2. the drought of summer 2009 in Central Asia, which forced Russia to curtail all grain exports. That caused prices to triple over the next year, for bread and other staples, like couscous and pasta.
3. the eruption of large demonstrations in Iran, 2008-2009, which were the first to be shepherded by youths using cell phones, texting, video (w/uplinks) and 2-way radios.
The wars in Yemen and Libya impact squarely on the nervous oil markets. We do not expect American gasoline to go below $3.25/gallon, ever again. But the US and Europe did get together and agree to dump some 3 million barrels of oil a day onto the spot markets. That'll bring gasoline down to about $3.70, where it will stay. Demand is just growing too fast for it to go much lower. In fact, the price of refined petroleum products will keep rising in the longer run. By 2016, expect $5 a gallon for gas.
An entire way of life, based on cheap oil from Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, is coming to an end. Many commuters in Japan, North America, Western Europe, urban China and elsewhere, just cannot use their automobiles often. People just cannot get in and cruise around. And if you cannot do that, why own a car?
OPEC has yet to make up after disastrous meeting in mid June. OPEC will not pump a little extra oil to make up for the 2.5 mil/brl/day Libya once produced. This will put a drag on any nation using petroleum products - and that's all nations. In America, people sit around waiting for the depression to lift, to get back to normal. But 'normal' will not come again. The value of properties is not rising, they are declining, if not in price as in the value of the dollar, which is primed to slip, and slip in such a way that the United States will likely enter into a negative vortex of mutually-aggravating forces and realities. The same reasons which keep poor nations poor, will keep the US on a downward trend.
For those interested in charting the decline of a great nation, see http://speculumusa.blogspot.com.
