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How Broke is the House of Saud?

November 8, 2017

How Broke is the House of Saud?


Salvador Dalí The oecumenial council 1960
Trying to figure out what on earth is happening in the Middle East appears to have gotten a lot harder. Perhaps (because) it’s become more dangerous too. There are so many players, and connections between players, involved now that even making one of those schematic representations would never get it right. Too many unknown unknowns.

A short and incomplete list of the actors: Sunni, Shiite, Saudi Arabia, US, Russia, Turkey, ISIS, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Kurds, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Hamas, Qatar, Israel, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Houthis, perhaps even Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan. I know I know, add your favorites. So what have we got, or what do we know we’ve got? We seem to have the US lining up with Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia against Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah. Broadly. But that’s just a -pun intended- crude start.

Putin has been getting closer to the Saudis because of the OPEC production cuts, trying to jack up the price of oil. Which ironically has now been achieved on the heels of the arrests of 11 princes and scores of other wealthy and powerful in the kingdom. But Putin also recently signed a $30 billion oil -infrastructure- deal with Iran. And he’s been cuddling up to Israel as well.

In fact, Putin may well be the most powerful force in the Middle East today. Well played?! He prevented the demise of Assad in Syria, which however you look at it at least saved the country from becoming another Iraq and Libya style failed state. If there’s one thing you can say about the Middle East/North Africa it’s that the US succeeded in creating chaos there to such an extent that it has zero control left over any of it. Well played?!

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Lebanon – the next front in the Great Gas War.

November 8, 2017

Lebanon – the next front in the Great Gas War.

The Great Gas War has already two distinct fronts: The now relatively quiet Northern Front in Ukraine and the Southern Front in Syria in which the Western empire has been losing. It looks to me that Lebanon is being targeted as the next front, where the West hopes its loses might be recouped.

Yesterday, November 6th,  Reuters reported,

Saudi Arabia said on Monday that Lebanon had declared war against it because of attacks against the Kingdom by the Lebanese Shi‘ite group Hezbollah.

This comes after Israel, Saudi’s long time though largely un-offical best friend in the region,  has been very publicly preparing to renew its own war with Lebanon – or more accurately with Hezbollah.  As the American news journal Newsweek put it recently,

ISRAEL PREPARES FOR ANOTHER WAR WITH HEZBOLLAH AS IDF PRACTICES LEBANON INVASION.

Why now and why Lebanon?  Well the rulers of Saudi, a Sunni dominated country, will tell us that it is because Hezbollah is a Shia terrorist organisation. “Hezbollah” literally means the “Party of Allah” or “Party of God”.  Saudi Gulf affairs minister Thamer al-Sabhan yesterday pointedly referred to Hezbollah as, “the Lebanese Party of the Devil”.  Saudi is not alone of course, Hezbollah has also been listed as a terrorist organisation by America, Israel, the Arab League, the UK and the EU. It is also, however, part of the popular government of Lebanon having seats in its parliament.

I suggest, however, a powerful reason that a new war with Hezbollah may be in the offing is because Lebanon is the next link in any gas pipeline that could potentially bring Iranian Gas to Europe. That was the reason the West decided to “liberate” the Syrian people and it will be why they decide to enforce the same salvation upon the people of Lebanon.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

On The Verge Of Catastrophe: Saudi Arabia Says Lebanon Declared War

November 6, 2017

On The Verge Of Catastrophe: Saudi Arabia Says Lebanon Declared War

As expected, Saudi Arabia has cast itself as the victim of external Shia plotting after its internal weekend of chaos which included a missile attack from Yemen, the deaths of two princes and other high officials within a mere 24 hours, and an aggressive crackdown against dissent in the royal family which saw close to a dozen princes placed under house arrest. And as Al Jazeera noted,in this Saudi version of ‘Game of Thrones’, the 32-year-old Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) shows that he is willing to throw the entire region into jeopardy to wear the royal gown.

While Saudi Arabia has long blamed Iran for sowing unrest in the region, this evening’s declaration by Saudi Gulf affairs minister Thamer al-Sabhan that Lebanon has “declared war” against the kingdom is truly an historic first. But perhaps the biggest problem is that international media is currently uncritically spreading the statement, whereas what such a bizarre claim actually warrants is laughter. Thankfully, Nassim Nicholas Taleb sums it up nicely with a basic geography lesson: “Either the media is stupid, or Saudi rulers are stupid, or both. Lebanon did not formally declare war and there is no common border.”

With that in mind, here is the statement currently making headlines as reported by Reuters:

Saudi Arabia said on Monday that Lebanon had declared war against it because of attacks against the Kingdom by the Lebanese Shi‘ite group Hezbollah.

Saudi Gulf affairs minister Thamer al-Sabhan told Al-Arabiya TV that Saad al-Hariri, who announced his resignation as Lebanon’s prime minister on Saturday, had been told that acts of “aggression” by Hezbollah “were considered acts of a declaration of war against Saudi Arabia by Lebanon and by the Lebanese Party of the Devil”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Lebanon Plunges Into Crisis After Premier Resigns, Fearing Assassination Plot

November 5, 2017

Lebanon Plunges Into Crisis After Premier Resigns, Fearing Assassination Plot

The Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad al-Hariri, unexpectedly resigned on Saturday, saying in a fiery televised broadcast from Saudi Arabia that he feared for his life  while also fiercely criticizing Iran. According to regional analysts, the move has “plunged Lebanon into crisis” amid heightened regional tensions.

In his resignation speech, Hariri – whose farther, former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, was assassinated in 2005 –  fired a vicious tirade against Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah group for what he said was their meddling in Arab affairs and said that “Iran’s arms in the region will be cut off.” Accusing Iran of sowing “fear, chaos, strife and destruction” throughout the region, including Lebanon, Hariri said that “the evil that Iran spreads in the region will backfire on it.”

Hariri’s resignation was unprecedented in the way it was announced, in a televised address from an undisclosed location in Riyadh. In his speech, Hariri suggested he feared for his life and said the climate in the country is similar to the one that existed before his father, the late prime minister Rafik Hariri, was assassinated in 2005.

That said, Hariri may have had an ulterior motive for his fire and brimstone speech: Hariri – whose family is very close to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional competitor – was appointed prime minister in late 2016 and headed a 30-member coalition government that included members of the Shiite militant Hezbollah. But it’s been an uneasy partnership between Hariri, who heads a Sunni-led camp loyal to Saudi Arabia, and Hezbollah, which represents a camp loyal to Shiite Iran. President Michel Aoun, who was elected in October 2016 after more than a two-year presidential vacuum, is a close ally of Hezbollah.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The War in Syria: Who Is Actually to Blame?

October 8, 2016

The War in Syria: Who Is Actually to Blame?

Those of us who inform ourselves daily from an eclectic range of media sources tend to have a broader understanding of the conflict in Syria. The more critical one becomes of both ends of the media spectrum, the more one can evaluate the veracity of the respective outlets (for example, the peddling of statistics from a T-shirt shop in England versus the use of satellite imagery).

Analyzing all forms of media leads to only one conclusion regarding the current crisis in Syria: all of the parties involved have an overwhelming amount of blood on their hands and are playing a role in the ongoing war. However, the evidence suggests there is one group of nations, headed by the world’s superpower, that has once again created a humanitarian catastrophe rivaling that of history’s worst dictators.

Although corporate media has portrayed the situation in Syria as being one of a popular uprising against a brutal and murderous dictator, the truth is far more complex.

According to four-star General Wesley Clark, Syria was one of seven countries the Pentagon targeted for regime change following the attacks of September 11, 2001. The others were Libya, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran. This intention to take out Syria’s leader prior to the start conflict in 2011 was confirmed by Wikileaks (you can access the relevant chapter in its entirety here). According to Julian Assange, Assad’s overthrow was planned as far back as 2006. As explained by MintPress News:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Next War In The Middle East Has Begun And Israel Vows ‘To Act Powerfully On All Fronts’

January 30, 2015

The Next War In The Middle East Has Begun And Israel Vows ‘To Act Powerfully On All Fronts’

Israel and Hezbollah are at war.  On top of everything else that is going on in the world, now we have a new war in the Middle East, and nobody is quite certain what is going to happen next.  Israel has been preparing for this moment for more than 8 years.  So has Hezbollah.  According to some reports, Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal of 50,000 rockets since the end of the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006.  If all-out warfare does erupt, we could potentially see tens of thousands of missiles rain down into an area not too much larger than the state of New Jersey.  And of course the Israeli military is also much more sophisticated and much more powerful than it was back in 2006.  If cooler heads do not prevail, we could be on the verge of witnessing a very bloody war.  But right now nobody seems to be in the mood to back down.  Hezbollah is absolutely fuming over an airstrike earlier this month that killed six fighters and a prominent Iranian general.  And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel is “prepared to act powerfully on all fronts” in response to a Hezbollah ambush that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven.  Just such an incident is what sparked the war between the two sides back in 2006.  But this time, a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah could spark a full-blown regional war.

Earlier this month, Israel launched a surprise assault against a group of Hezbollah fighters that Israel believed was planning to conduct terror attacks inside their borders.

But in addition to killing six Hezbollah fighters, a very important Iranian general was also killed.  Needless to say, Iran is furious…

Iran has told the United States that Israel should expect consequences for an attack on the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights that killed an Iranian general, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Revolutionary Guards General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi died alongside six fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah group in the January 18 attack on forces supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war.

And we didn’t have to wait too long for a response.  An IDF convoy was hit by anti-tank missiles near the Lebanon border.  Two Israeli soldiers were killed and seven were wounded.  The following is how the Jerusalem Post described the attack.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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