Suleimani Is Dead, Iraq Is in Chaos and ISIS Is Very Happy

America's foreign policy in the Middle East has been a disaster for decades - perhaps back to the 1950's and certainly 1979 when the US failed to support the Shah of Iran - and was only made worse long term by the Iraq War. Now, with Iraq pushing for the exodus of all American troops from its territory and US allies stepping back from counter-terrorism efforts, things will likely go from bad to worse with the big winners being ISIS and Iran with Trump's assassination of Gen. Qassim Suleimani making the situation for American interests less safe. Trump needed a diversion from his impeachment problems and, putting personal interests ahead of long term national interests, we now have arguably a far worse situation.  A column in the New York Times looks at where America now finds itself. Here are highlights:

In 2016, Donald Trump, then a candidate for president, described Barack Obama as the “founder of ISIS.” In the end, it may be Mr. Trump who comes to be known not as the terrorist group’s founder, but as its savior.

The Islamic State has been weakened considerably since its peak in 2015, when it controlled a territory the size of Britain, but the Trump administration’s targeted killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani may have poised the group for a comeback. Just as the misguided American invasion of Iraq in 2003 revitalized Al Qaeda, some 17 years later, a return to chaos in the same country may yet do the same for the Islamic State.

Granted, the White House was correct to identify General Suleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, as an enemy of the United States. . . . But war in the Middle East is nothing if not complex; General Suleimani’s proxies also indirectly served American interests by fighting the Islamic State — to great effect.

Still, contrary to the breathless eulogies to him in Iran, he was not some indispensable hero who single-handedly defeated the Islamic State. Other commanders will fill his shoes, if not in star power then at least in strategic expertise. The real boon for the jihadists will be the second-order effects of his death.

First, and most obviously, American influence in Iraq is now living on borrowed time. One of those killed alongside General Suleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was the deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Force, a coalition of pro-Iranian militias that nominally form part of the Iraqi armed forces. For many Iraqis, that made the strike an attack against Iraq as well as Iran, and put the Iraqi government, which already has a tense relationship with the United States, in an even tougher bind.

Recognizing the heightened tensions, the 6,000 American troops in the country have switched their focus to defending Americans in Iraq, rather than fighting the Islamic State or training Iraqi forces to do so. American allies including Germany and Britain have begun pulling their own forces from the country, . . .

Second, the chaos threatens Iraq’s stability. Tehran responded to the strike on General Suleimani with missile attacks on two American-run military bases last week. But it’s unlikely this will be the end of Iran’s retaliation. Iranian military strategy is defined by asymmetry — and particularly by the use of militant proxies. Under a screen of plausible deniability, Iran will most likely work to drive the United States out of Iraq.

In this, the Iranians will be brutal. During the American occupation — before the rise of the Islamic State made strange bedfellows of Washington and Tehran — Iranian proxies often exceeded Sunni extremists in terms of the number of casualties they inflicted on American forces. These proxies have lost no time in returning to attacks on American interests.

A conflict between Iranian proxies and the United States will tear at Iraq’s fragile governing structures, creating a power vacuum for the Islamic State to exploit. Iraq already has only a caretaker government. . . . . Iraq’s viability as a state is jeopardized. Add to that the harm to counterterrorism operations brought about by the “pause” in coalition assistance, and you have a combustible mix.

Third, and perhaps worst of all, General Suleimani’s death portends yet more sectarianism in Iraq. The parliamentary vote on Jan. 5 to expel American troops passed on the strength of votes from Shiite lawmakers; members of Parliament representing Iraq’s other main factions, the Kurds and the Sunni Arabs, abstained.

Extremist groups thrive on this kind of division. . . . . Moreover, the Iranian response to General Suleimani’s killing is likely to include an escalation in its conflict with Saudi Arabia, which is framed as a battle between Sunnis and Shiites. Ratcheting up these tensions will create still more openings for Sunni extremists such as the Islamic State.

The Islamic State still has deep pockets, affiliates around the world, and a knack for recruitment. General Suleimani’s death will have its leaders rubbing their hands in anticipation.

The damage is done. Without a major cooling of tensions, a jihadist resurgence might now be all but inevitable.

It Is Time for Saudi Arabia - a False Ally - to Defend Itself

Amnesty International says Saudi Arabia ranks
 after China and Iran for the number of executions.

Over the last three-quarters of a century America has squandered trillions of dollars protecting Saudi Arabia - one of the world's worse human rights violators - and other theocratic regimes in the Middle East not to mention the squandering of the lives of thousands of American military personnel.  Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is the third largest spender on military equipment and arms in the world - only America and China spend more- even as it continues to fund radical Islam which preaches hate against the West and America in particular (15 of the 9-11 hijackers subscribed to this toxic dogma).  Despite all this, America is supposed to respect Saudi culture - an oxymoron, in my view - and ignore the abuse of women, gays, and the jailing and murder of political opponents and human rights activists.  Now, the Saudis want America to go to war with Iran, an equal menace to human rights that has a competing form of toxic Islam.  It's time for Americans to say "no" in unmistakable terms to being played to act as Saudi Arabia mercenary. Hopefully, enough public opposition will force the narcissistic moron in the White House from squandering more American treasure and lives protecting a nation whose "values" are an insult to what America is supposed to represent.  A column in the New York Times argues that it is time for the Saudis and similar corrupt and despotic regimes to go it alone.  Here are highlights:

The missiles that struck last weekend in Saudi Arabia did not just destroy oil tanks. They also dealt the final blow to a doctrine that has been fading for years: the belief that the United States maintains a security umbrella able to protect the oil-rich Persian Gulf states from their enemies — and, especially, from Iran.

President Trump’s miscalculations helped get us here. But the current Gulf crisis is not just about this administration and the pitfalls of its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran. The United States has been disengaging from the Middle East since the catastrophe of the 2003 Iraq invasion. Now that shale has made America so much less dependent on the Middle East’s oil, it is hard to imagine any American president risking significant blood and treasure to defend Saudi Arabia.

For decades, the leaders of the Gulf seemed to believe their close ties with the United States (and the billions of dollars spent on American weapons) made them almost invulnerable. But the faith in American power always blinked away some inconvenient facts. Iran’s population and military strength dwarf those of the Gulf countries, and the United States is nearly 10,000 miles away. In any conceivable war, the Gulf’s cities would be among the first targets. And unlike Iran, those cities are intensely vulnerable: A single bomb could shatter the status of Dubai as a safe hub for trade, transport and tourism. Now the nightmare appears to be coming true. On Saturday, several volleys of Iranian missiles eluded the Saudis’ expensive American-supplied defenses, neatly puncturing oil storage tanks and facilities at two of the kingdom’s most important sites and causing global oil prices to spike. The damage was limited, but its message was not: Iran could strike the Gulf’s economic lifeline at any time.

The political follow-up has been equally chilling to Riyadh. Mr. Trump, reluctant to be drawn into a war that could damage his election prospects, responded with his usual blend of bluster and bargaining.

It is still too early to say what will come of all this. If the provocations do not spin into open war — which would almost surely force the United States to get involved — Iran is likely to emerge stronger in any subsequent diplomacy, whether with the Trump administration or its neighbors across the Gulf.

The American commitment to protect the Gulf monarchies has its roots in 1945, when Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Saudi Arabia’s first king, Abdelaziz ibn Saud. It grew stronger during the Cold War, when presidents from Harry Truman through George Bush believed protecting Saudi Arabia’s oil fields was essential to fighting Communism.

The relationship has been tested — first by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, then by the belief among Gulf leaders that President Barack Obama abandoned them during the Arab uprisings of 2011.

The Saudis and Emiratis initially believed he would be a tougher guardian than Mr. Obama. They were delighted when he [Trump] withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran and reimposed heavy sanctions.

More recently, though, Gulf leaders have become uneasy about the mismatch between Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and his actions.  . . . .  His decision to fire John Bolton, his hawkish national security adviser, has strengthened a belief that Mr. Trump does not want war. But many feared he would stumble into one.

The Emiratis now appear to be wondering if they can rely on this president. After a series of attacks on tankers in the Persian Gulf, they pointedly refused to blame Tehran, and then quietly sent a diplomatic delegation to Iran. They also pulled most of their troops out of the war in Yemen.

Will the Saudis respond in the same way? They have been waging a ruinous proxy war in Yemen since 2015, with the goal of teaching Iran a lesson. The lesson now seems to be flowing in the other direction. The Houthi militia in Yemen,  which is allied with Iran, took responsibility for the missiles that struck Saudi Arabia last week. No one seems to take that claim seriously, but the Houthis have been firing drones and missiles at Saudi Arabia with rising frequency. The Saudis may have to recognize that only diplomacy will bring that war to an end.

[A]t this point, it seems more likely that his [Trump's] fecklessness will provide them with a very different, and perhaps more enduring legacy: the recognition that they must learn to manage Iran without American help.

With the trillions of dollars wasted in the Middle East, America's infrastructure could have been rebuilt and murderous regimes might well have destroyed themselves.  No more American lives or money should be spent protecting a false ally. 

Why is the America So Committed to Terror Financier Saudi Arabia?

I have lamented many times the United States' continued cow towing to Saudi Arabia despite the documented facts that (1) the vast majority of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudi nationals, (ii) Saudi Arabia is a principal sponsor of spreading Wahhabism and Islamic extremism across the globe, and (iii) Saudi Arabia is one of the worse human rights abusers on the planet.  The Saudis simply put are NOT America's friends or even receptive to western values - or, I would argue, human decency.  Yet America prostitutes itself to this false ally and extremist nation.  A piece in History News Network seeks to answer this question.  The answer to a large extent boils down to one word: oil.   All other considerations more or less are thrown on the trash heap.  Sadly, the Saudis have played America like a fine violin, much to America's and western civilization's loss.  Here are article highlights:

Every year or so the oil-rich Arab kingdom of Saudi Arabia makes American headlines for generally the same reasons. American leaders have made some kind of weapons deal with the Saudi royal family, have praised the monarchy for its commitment to fighting terrorism, or have met with Saudi oil executives to assure that crude and petroleum are flowing unhindered in Asia and Europe. Along with these news items are widespread condemnations of the U.S.-Saudi relationship and reminders that the ultra-fundamentalist Saudi regime is responsible for some of the most outrageous human rights violations on the planet.

American presidents speak frequently of the need to stand up for democracy and religious freedom in the face of radical Islamist tyranny, so why do they insist on backing a dictatorship that will not even allow for Christian churches to be built on Saudi soil? The answer to the question is both simple and complex. The simple answer is the most obvious, and is the primary reason Saudi Arabia is the wealthy powerhouse that it is – oil.

But the more complex answer lies in the relationship between the two countries throughout four distinct periods of conflict – the Second World War, the Cold War, the 1991 Gulf War, and the War on Terror. The Saudis managed to placate the U.S. in each of these four global crises, granting oil concessions and military cooperation while pursuing a regional foreign policy often at odds with American goals and implementing increasingly draconian policies at home. The U.S. has viewed the alliance as valuable enough to overlook Saudi Arabia’s anti-Israel foreign policy and its espousal of Islamic fundamentalist ideology.

When the U.S. entered the Second World War, it did not view Saudi Arabia as an indispensable partner. The kingdom, barely a decade old, had a better relationship with the British, who still had a sizable amount of influence in the Middle East at the time. But the U.S.-Saudi relationship changed significantly over the course of the war as the Americans came to view Saudi oil as, in the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of State Cordell Hull, “one or the world’s greatest prizes.”  . . . . access to oil came to define the U.S.-Saudi relationship during World War 2, and would continue to do so.

During the Cold War, the U.S.-Saudi relationship strengthened, as both countries viewed the Soviet Union as a threat to Persian Gulf oil.  . . . . By the end of Reagan’s presidency, the Middle East had descended into serious sectarian warfare and the U.S. was heavily involved in the region.

But the relationship between Washington and Riyadh survived. In fact, it enjoyed perhaps its most fruitful period in the early 1990s, when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s army invaded Saudi neighbor and ally Kuwait and threatened to control a large percentage of the Gulf’s oil. The Saudi monarchy made a major concession, allowing the U.S. to station hundreds of thousands of troops on its soil in order to fight off the Iraqi advance. The effort was successful, but the presence of American troops on Saudi soil (considered holy land) enraged fundamentalist Muslims throughout the region (including Saudi jihadist Osama bin Laden) and forced the regime to confront what had been lurking in the darkest corners of the country for a couple of decades – Sunni radicalism.

When Osama bin Laden sent his al-Qaeda fanatics to attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the U.S.-Saudi relationship faced its most serious challenge to date. The fact that a majority of the hijackers were Saudi posed a serious problem for the alliance, and raised the question of just how much of a role the royal family played in financing the atrocities. This question has still not been answered to the satisfaction of most Americans, and the Saudi regime does little to assuage suspicions that it fully supports radical Islamist ideology. Despite all of the setbacks and the questions, however, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia remain steadfast partners. Why? Because the Saudis once again have proven to the U.S. that they are willing to support it in its major foreign policy objective while guaranteeing a steady flow of oil to large swaths of Asia and Europe. Though the Saudis enforce a strict brand of sharia law at home, frequently behead or imprison those who break this law, and espouse an extreme Islamist ideology, they have remained a loyal ally in the American fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. And, though the U.S. relies less on Mideast oil than it once did, it recognizes that a stable and oil-producing Saudi Arabia is vital to the stability of the region.
 All of these factors considered, it is crucial that American leaders ask a couple of big questions. First, is maintaining the U.S.-Saudi relationship in its current condition worth all of the other headaches that accompany it?
 And second, if the relationship is worth preserving in its current state, is it worth getting further involved in Saudi Arabia’s proxy war against Iran? Iran is ruled by an equally rigid Islamic dictatorship that has financed terror abroad, but its citizens have generally expressed more of an openness to making amends with the Americans after years of hostility.
 It is uncertain as to how well this strategy will pay off, but history has proven that one thing remains certain – the Saudis will continue to enjoy a significant amount of American support as long as they supply oil to American allies and assist the U.S. in at least one major foreign policy objective.

Are the Days of the Middle East's Oil Dominance Ending?

For much of the last 40 or more year's America's often disastrous foreign policy decisions in the Middle East have been controlled by one thing: oil.  Oil and America's addiction to imported oil, best personified by gas guzzling trucks and SUV's.  Without this addiction and the control it put in the hands of despotic Middle Eastern nations - Saudi Arabia being the most notable, American intervention in the Middle East would likely not have occurred and the rise of ISIS would not have been triggered by the failed policies of Bush/Cheney.  A lengthy piece in Politico looks at the emerging situation where demand for oil will be declining and the ability of false allies like the Saudi's will be dwindling with it.  Here are excerpts:  

Sunday, April 17th was the designated moment.  The world’s leading oil producers were expected to bring fresh discipline to the chaotic petroleum market and spark a return to high prices. Meeting in Doha, the glittering capital of petroleum-rich Qatar, the oil ministers of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), along with such key non-OPEC producers as Russia and Mexico, were scheduled to ratify a draft agreement obliging them to freeze their oil output at current levels. In anticipation of such a deal, oil prices had begun to creep inexorably upward, from $30 per barrel in mid-January to $43 on the eve of the gathering. But far from restoring the old oil order, the meeting ended in discord, driving prices down again and revealing deep cracks in the ranks of global energy producers.

It is hard to overstate the significance of the Doha debacle. At the very least, it will perpetuate the low oil prices that have plagued the industry for the past two years, forcing smaller firms into bankruptcy and erasing hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in new production capacity. It may also have obliterated any future prospects for cooperation between OPEC and non-OPEC producers in regulating the market. Most of all, however, it demonstrated that the petroleum-fueled world we’ve known these last decades — with oil demand always thrusting ahead of supply, ensuring steady profits for all major producers — is no more.  Replacing it is an anemic, possibly even declining, demand for oil that is likely to force suppliers to fight one another for ever-diminishing market shares.
 This is no theoretical construct.  It’s reality itself.  Net consumption of oil in the advanced industrialized nations has already dropped from 50 million barrels per day in 2005 to 45 million barrels in 2014. Further declines are in store as strict fuel efficiency standards for the production of new vehicles and other climate-related measures take effect, the price of solar and wind power continues to fall, and other alternative energy sources come on line. While the demand for oil does continue to rise in the developing world, even there it’s not climbing at rates previously taken for granted. With such countries also beginning to impose tougher constraints on carbon emissions, global consumption is expected to reach a peak and begin an inexorable decline.According to experts Thijs Van de Graaf and Aviel Verbruggen, overall world peak demand could be reached as early as 2020.

In such a world, high-cost oil producers will be driven out of the market and the advantage — such as it is — will lie with the lowest-cost ones. Countries that depend on petroleum exports for a large share of their revenues will come under increasing pressure to move away from excessive reliance on oil. This may have been another consideration in the Saudi decision at Doha. In the months leading up to the April meeting, senior Saudi officials dropped hints that they were beginning to plan for a post-petroleum era and that Deputy Crown Prince bin Salman would play a key role in overseeing the transition.

On April 1st, the prince himself indicated that steps were underway to begin this process. As part of the effort, he announced, he was planning an initial public offering of shares in state-owned Saudi Aramco, the world’s number one oil producer, and would transfer the proceeds, an estimated $2 trillion, to its Public Investment Fund (PIF). “IPOing Aramco and transferring its shares to PIF will technically make investments the source of Saudi government revenue, not oil,” the prince pointed out. “What is left now is to diversify investments. So within 20 years, we will be an economy or state that doesn’t depend mainly on oil.”

For a country that more than any other has rested its claim to wealth and power on the production and sale of petroleum, this is a revolutionary statement. If Saudi Arabia says it is ready to begin a move away from reliance on petroleum, we are indeed entering a new world in which, among other things, the titans of oil production will no longer hold sway over our lives as they have in the past.

This, in fact, appears to be the outlook adopted by Prince Mohammed in the wake of the Doha debacle.  In announcing the kingdom’s new economic blueprint on April 25th, he vowed to liberate the country from its “addiction” to oil.”  This will not, of course, be easy to achieve, given the kingdom’s heavy reliance on oil revenues and lack of plausible alternatives.  The 30-year-old prince could also face opposition from within the royal family to his audacious moves (as well as his blundering ones in Yemen and possibly elsewhere).  Whatever the fate of the Saudi royals, however, if predictions of a future peak in world oil demand prove accurate, the debacle in Doha will be seen as marking the beginning of the end of the old oil order.

I have long advocated for a movement to non-fossil fuels - something that could be good for the environment and take away the power of those who hate us to blackmail us and other western nations. 

How the CIA, George W. Bush and Others Create ISIS

To hear Republicans the ongoing debacle in the Middle East is all Barack Obama's fault.  Like so much of what the GOP noise machine puts out nowadays, these claims bear no resemblance to the truth.  Moreover, just as George W. Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney were caught completely at the wheel by the 9-11 attackes, George W. Bush and his evil minion - or is puppeteer more accurate? - bear responsibility for the rise of ISIS.  Rather than missteps by Obama, it was the failed Middle East polices of Bush/Cheney that are to blame for the current unfolding disaster. But, again, when do truth and reality mean nothing to today's Congressional Republicans.  A piece in Salon looks at the those truly at fault in the creation of ISIS.  Here are excerpts:

Since 1980, the United States has intervened in the affairs of fourteen Muslim countries, at worst invading or bombing them. They are (in chronological order) Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo, Yemen, Pakistan, and now Syria. Latterly these efforts have been in the name of the War on Terror and the attempt to curb Islamic extremism.

Yet for centuries Western countries have sought to harness the power of radical Islam to serve the interests of their own foreign policy. In the case of Britain, this dates back to the days of the Ottoman Empire; in more recent times, the US/UK alliance first courted, then turned against, Islamists in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. 

The Turkish Ottoman Empire was, for centuries, the largest Muslim political entity the world has ever known . . . Britain’s support for the Ottoman Caliph—a policy known as the Eastern Question—was entirely motivated by self-interest. Initially this was so the Ottoman lands would act as a buffer against its regional imperial rivals, France and Russia. . . .

It was only with the onset of the First World War in 1914 that this 400-year-old regional paradigm unraveled. When Mehmed V sided with the Germans, Britain was reluctantly excluded from dealing with the caliphate’s catchment of over 15 million Muslims, reasoning that “whoever controlled the person of the Caliph, controlled Sunni Islam.” London decided that an Arab uprising to unseat Mehmed would enable them to reassign the role of caliph to a trusted and more malleable ally: Hussein bin Ali Hussein, the sherif of Mecca and a direct descendant, it is claimed, of the Prophet Muhammad. The British employed racism to garner support for the uprising, appealing to the Arabs’ sense of ownership over Islam, which had originated in Mecca and Medina, not among the Turks of Constantinople.

The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, fomented by the British, got underway in 1916, the same year that the infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement was made in secret, carving up between the British and French the very lands Sherif Hussein had been promised. Betrayal, manipulation, and self-interest were, and remain, the name of the game when it comes to Western meddling in the Middle East.  

In a memo to British intelligence in 1916, Lawrence described the hidden agenda behind the Arab uprising: “The Arabs are even less stable than the Turks. If properly handled they would remain in a state of political mosaic, a tissue of small jealous principalities, incapable of cohesion . . . incapable of co-ordinated action against us.” In a subsequent missive he explained, “When war broke out, an urgent need to divide Islam was added. . . . Hussein was ultimately chosen because of the rift he would create in Islam. In other words, divide and rule.” 

To counteract the rise of pan-Arabism, the West began to support Islamist tendencies within each country—mostly branches of the Muslim Brotherhood—and also worked hard in the diplomatic field to create strong and binding relationships with Islamic, pro-Western monarchies in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Jordan. These relationships endure to this day. 

The most extreme manifestation of radical Sunni Islam was Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism, which it had started to disseminate via a string of international organizations and its self-designated Global Islamic Mission.  

For the West, radical Islam represented the best way to counter the encroachment of Arab nationalism communism.

“More than 100,000 Islamic militants were trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992, in camps overseen by the CIA and MI6, with the SAS training future al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts. Their leaders were trained at a CIA camp in Virginia.” That Western interference in Afghanistan actually precedes the Soviet invasion by several months is rarely acknowledged.

Because IS is a product of Western interference in Iraq and Syria, none of the powers that backed the Afghan mujahideen anticipated the emergence of alQaeda, with its vehemently anti-Western agenda and ambition to re-establish the caliphate. Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf wrote in his autobiography, “Neither Pakistan nor the US realized what Osama bin Laden would do with the organization we had all allowed him to establish.”

In the course of the 1990s, radical political Islam became more extremist—a shift that was encouraged and funded by Saudi Arabia. . . . The House of Saud now linked its survival with the rise of the Salafi-jihadist tendency, which was consistent with its own custom-fit Wahhabi ideology.

Saudi entities and individuals funded al Qaeda and other violent Salafist groups to the tune of $300 million through the 1990s, and the United States and UK remained stalwartly supportive.

The First Gulf War brought two changes into play. The first was that Saudi Arabia now became completely dependent, militarily, on the United States for its survival. The second was that, in an attempt to weaken Saddam Hussein, the CIA encouraged Shi‘i groups in southern Iraq to rebel, resulting in thousands of Shi‘a being slaughtered by regime helicopter fire. George H. W. Bush spent $40 million on clandestine operations in Iraq, flying Shi‘i and Kurdish leaders to Saudi Arabia for training, and creating and funding two opposition groups . . . 

The West continues to behave as if Saudi Arabia can deliver the world from the menace of extremism. Yet the kingdom has spent $50 billion promoting Wahhabism around the world, and most of the funding for al Qaeda—amounting to billions of dollars—still comes from private individuals and organizations in Saudi Arabia. The Sinjar Records (documents captured in Iraq by coalition forces in 2007) provided a clear picture of where foreign jihadists were coming from: Saudi nationals accounted for 45 percent of foreign fighters in Iraq. They swell the ranks of IS today. 

As noted in other posts, it is ridiculous that the USA continues to support the Saudi royals who are funding  - or allowing - the funding of ISIS and extremist groups.  Sadly, due to American and European dependence on Middle East oil, we have supported the Saudis even as they work for terror attacks against us.   

The Ugly Legacy Of King Abdullah

Diplomats and world leaders are falling all over themselves to say nice things about King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who died earlier in the week.  The level of self-prostitution on the part of these individuals is enough to make one vomit.  The reality is that but for Saudi Arabia's vast oil reserves Abdullah would likely instead have been condemned for human rights abuses and fostering dangerous religious extremism.  The man put wealth and personal power over all else and presided over a government that regularly violates international human rights treaties, denies religious freedom and freedom of the press and upholds treating women as the chattel property of their husbands or male relatives.  John Kerry's statement that "King Abdullah was a man of wisdom & vision" shows that Kerry's head is so far up his ass that it's a wonder he hasn't suffocated.  The sad take away is that if one controls enough oil, one can do whatever one wants and engage in all kinds of abuses and savagery.  Equally sad is America's willingness to throw its principles out the window for the sake of oil.  Think Progress looks at Abdullah's track record on women's rights.  Here are some highlights:

One of the most scrutinized aspects of the Saudi Arabia’s rights’ record is its so-called “male guardianship system,” women are not allowed to travel, obtain a passport, marry, or continue their education without the approval of a male relative. 

The King’s own daughters are hardly an exception to the harsh rule. Four of his daughters claim that the are being forcibly held in a dilapidated palace with little in the way of food and water. “Our father said that we had no way out,” Sahar Al Saud, 42, wrote in an email to the British broadcast network Channel 4, “And that after his death our brothers will continue detaining us.”

“We are just an example of so many families, of what so many women, go through. Just a tiny, tiny example,” the princess who once enjoyed international skiing and shopping trips said.

It’s not only Saudi Arabian women who face heavy-handed sentences for defying the country’s strict laws around social order.

Less than 10 percent of Saudis are able to vote.

According to a report by the human rights organization Amnesty International, more than 2,000 people were executed in Saudi Arabia between 1985 and 2013. The organization claims that many of those who have been tortured or killed were advocates for social and political reform in the country who were charged with vague offenses like “disobeying the ruler.” 

On Friday, Saudi authorities again postponed the flogging of the progressive blogger Raif Badawi.

Not exactly the handiwork of a "reformer."  Andrew Sullivan has a summary of other reactions that show the falsity of the statements lauding Abdullah who was in fact a tyrant.  Here are excerpts:

Greenwald is disgusted by the tributes to the late Saudi king:

The effusive praise being heaped on the brutal Saudi despot by western media and political figures has been nothing short of nauseating; the UK Government, which arouses itself on a daily basis by issuing self-consciously eloquent lectures to the world about democracy, actually ordered flags flown all day at half-mast to honor this repulsive monarch.

Murtaza Hussain piles on:

It’s not often that the unelected leader of a country which publicly flogs dissidents and beheads people for sorcery wins such glowing praise from American officials. Even more perplexing, perhaps, have been the fawning obituaries in the mainstream press which have faithfully echoed this characterization of Abdullah as a benign and well-intentioned man of peace.

Andrew Brown likewise takes the Saudis to task: 

Saudi’s influence on the outside world is almost wholly malign. The young men it sent to fight in Afghanistan turned into al-Qaida. The Sunni jihadis whom Saudis have funded in Iraq and Syria turned into Isis. It has spread a poisonous form of Islam throughout Europe with its subsidies, and corrupted western politicians and businessmen with its culture of bribery. The Saudis have always appealed to the worst forms of western imperialism: their contempt for other Muslims is as great as any American nationalist’s.

 My thoughts on Abdullah? Good riddance.  Sadly, his replacement will likely be no better.

The Disingenuous Return of ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’

For newer readers, I spent nearly the first decade of my law career in oil and gas matters - first as an attorney with a large firm that represented major oil companies in exploration and production matters and then as in-house counsel for a fortune 50 corporation's oil and gas subsidiary. A subsidiary which in some years cash-flowed the entire corporate conglomerate now known as Allied Signal. In the course of my duties I covered everything from pipeline issues, to gas processing plants to overseas offshore production ventures, including the North Sea. As a result, I DO know a thing or two about exploration costs, how long it takes to get a major production discovery on line, etc. And frankly, I want to vomit when I hear idiot politicians who know NOTHING about the industry parroting the "drill baby drill" mantra or sleaze bags from the American Petroleum Institute whining about Obama welcoming Brazil's major offshore discovery while restricting offshore drilling in the USA. Anyone who claims that offshore drilling is a solution to our current gas prices is a liar. Let me repeat that, they are LIARS. Yes, a few years back Brazil made a major discovery. But it will be likely another DECADE or more before the first barrels of production hit the oil market. And in the interests of full disclosure, the largest investment I inherited from my late mother is a chunk of Exxon stock which she never sold because of capital gains issues having purchase Mobil stock some 40 years ago. The New York Times has an editorial that rightly excoriates those - mostly Republicans, naturally - now returning to the "drill baby drill" mantra. Here are highlights from the Times' editorial:
*
With the country again facing $4-a-gallon gasoline, the time would seem ripe for a grown-up conversation on energy. What we are getting instead is a mindless rerun of the drill-baby-drill operatics of the 2008 campaign, when gas was also at $4 a gallon. Then, as now, opportunistic politicians insisted that vastly expanded oil drilling would bring relief at the pump and reduced dependence on foreign oil. Then, as now, these arguments were bogus.
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As President Obama observed in a March 30 address on energy issues, drilling alone cannot possibly ensure energy independence in a country that uses one-quarter of the world’s oil while owning only 2 percent of its reserves. Nor can it lower prices, except at the margins. Only coordinated measures — greater auto efficiency, alternative fuels, improved mass transit — can address these issues.
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Still the oil industry and its political allies persist in their fantasies. On Thursday, the House passed the first of three bills that will require the Interior Department to accelerate drilling permits without proper environmental or engineering reviews, reinstate lease sales off the Virginia coast that were canceled after the BP blowout, and open up protected coastal waters — East, West and in Alaska — to drilling.
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Here’s the hard truth: Prices are set on the world market by the major producers, OPEC in particular. Even countries that produce more oil than they need, like Canada, have little leverage. Canada’s prices track ours.
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The Energy Information Agency recently projected what would happen if the nation tripled production on the outer continental shelf. There would be no price impact at all until 2020 and only 3 cents to 5 cents a gallon in 2030.
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By contrast, the agency found, raising the fuel efficiency of America’s cars would do real good. Increasing the fleetwide average from roughly 30 m.p.g. today to 60 m.p.g. in the next 15 years, an ambitious but not implausible goal, could bring prices down by 20 percent.
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Some politicians get it. Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, is drafting a bill that seeks to repeal $4 billion in annual taxpayer subsidies to the oil industry and use the proceeds to develop more efficient cars and alternative fuel sources.
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Repealing these breaks would reduce the deficit and yield revenues to be invested in cleaner fuels, while having no real impact on prices. Mr. Obama may not be able to persuade the House of these simple truths. But he can and must seize whatever opportunities are offered in the Senate, involving himself, not just rhetorically, in the hard but necessary struggle for a sane energy policy.

The Danger of the GOP's Refusal to Reject Ignorance and Obama's Refusal to Lead

Increasingly the USA - which once lead much of the world industrially and at times politically - seems to reject any concept of planning ahead. In business, all the focus is on the numbers for the next quarterly report and in politics, no one looks beyond talking points and slogans for the next election - if even that. Often it's the next news day cycle that represents long term planning. The myopia seems to be intensifying even as the USA has growing challenges from China, India and other rising nations that DO look at things with a longer view. Adding to the threat to stability and economic prosperity is the fact that one of the two major political parties seems to increasingly embrace ignorance and be focused solely on looking back in time trying to reprise a social model that never even truly existed. Compounding the problem is a president who refuses to be a leader on anything. He merely punts to Congress which does nothing. Thomas Friedman has a column in the New York Post that looks at this frightening reality. Here are some highlights:
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At a time when Japan is suffering a nuclear catastrophe that is likely to make the world even more dependent on oil and gas, at a time when the world’s top oil and gas producers are entering what will be, at best, an unstable, and, at worst, a viciously violent transition from autocracy to, one hopes, democracy, and at a time when the combination of the two could slow down global growth while we’re still trying to climb out of recession, America has no energy policy, no climate policy and no long-term plan to deal with its unsustainable deficit.
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[O]ur two political parties would rather focus on winning the next election and blaming the other guy than making hard choices.”
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President Obama has the right convictions on all these issues, but he has not shown the courage of his convictions. The Republicans have just gone nuts. If you listen to Obama, he eloquently describes our energy, climate and fiscal predicaments: how we have to end our addiction to oil and cut spending and raise revenues in an intelligent way that also invests in the future and doesn’t just slash and burn. But then the president won’t lead.
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[T]he president has never gotten in the G.O.P.’s face on this issue [energy policy]. He has not put his own energy plan on the table and then gone out to the country and tried to sell it. It is what a lot of Obama supporters find frustrating about him: They voted for Obama to change the polls not read the polls.
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Republicans, by contrast, are insisting that we can somehow drill our way out of our energy problems, and House Republicans just reported out of committee a bill that would block the E.P.A. from taking any action to reduce greenhouse gases, while also slashing government funds to keep air and water clean. So far, the G.O.P. is calling for cuts in the things we need to invest more in — like education and infrastructure — while leaving largely untouched things we need to reduce, like entitlements and defense spending. A country that invests more in its elderly than its youth, more in nursing homes than schools, will neither invent the future nor own it.
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The picture is bleak indeed. Many of us hoped for a transformational president in voting for Obama. We did not get what we wanted. Instead we have a spineless, equivocating follower. As for the GOP, having sold its soul first to the Christian Right and then the Tea Party, I see little hope for an intelligent, rational leader emerging. So what will happen? We will likely follow the path Britain did prior to WWII - being perceived as strong militarily even as the changes needed to sustain that power were ignored and/or turned back.

Saudi Arabia Sends Troops Into Bahrain

As most of the world sits transfixed watching the still unfolding disaster in Japan in horror, unsettling events are taking place in the Middle East. Namely, the Saudi autocrats sending troops into Bahrain to aid the Sunni monarchy in subduing the Shi'ite majority. Obviously, if things ignite further, the majority in Saudi Arabia may decide that a homegrown uprising is needed as well. Meanwhile, the USA, because of its own severe dependence on foreign oil and the need for bases to support Chimperator Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is left trying to walk a tight rope that may come back to bite it in the ass either way things play out in the longer term. Huffington Post looks at this development. It's a mess and the USA still has no longer term plan for energy independence. Here are some highlights:
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Saudi Arabia sent troops into Bahrain on Monday to help put down weeks of protests by the Shi'ite Muslim majority, a move opponents of the Sunni ruling family on the island called a declaration of war.
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Analysts saw the troop movement into Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, as a mark of concern in Saudi Arabia that concessions by the country's [Bahrain's] monarchy could inspire the conservative Sunni kingdom's own Shi'ite minority. . . .
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Saudi Arabia, which is worried about any spillover to restive Shi'ites in its own Eastern Province, the center of its oil industry.
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Bahraini opposition groups including the largest Shi'ite party Wefaq said the move was an attack on defenseless citizens. "We consider the entry of any soldier or military machinery into the Kingdom of Bahrain's air, sea or land territories a blatant occupation," they said in a statement.
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"This real threat about the entry of Saudi and other Gulf forces into Bahrain to confront the defenseless Bahraini people puts the Bahraini people in real danger and threatens them with an undeclared war by armed troops."
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Any intervention by Gulf Arab troops in Bahrain is highly sensitive on the island, where the Shi'ite Muslim majority complains of discrimination by the Sunni Muslim royal family. Most Gulf Arab ruling families are Sunni and intervention might encourage a response from non-Arab Iran, the main Shi'ite power in the region. Accusations already abound of Iranian backing for Shi'ite activists in Bahrain -- charges they deny.
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"The Bahraini unrest could potentially turn into regional sectarian violence that goes beyond the borders of the particular states concerned," said Ghanem Nuseibeh, partner at consultancy Cornerstone Global.
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Wefaq is calling for a new government and a constitutional monarchy that vests the judicial, executive and legislative authority with the people. A coalition of much smaller Shi'ite parties are calling for the overthrow of the monarchy -- demands that scare Sunnis who fear this would benefit Iran.
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Will the USA once again support brutal autocrats over rank and file citizens demanding a form of government based on the founding principles of America? Yes, principles such as freedom of speech, the right to free assembly - and maybe even freedom of religion.

Arab World Unrest Grows, Oil Prices Surge and the USA Has No Energy Plan

It's just a few years shy of the 40th anniversary of the first major oil price shock to hit the USA. And as the stability of the Arab world - based on autocratic disctatorships - teeters, it is disturbing that the USA still has no comprehensive long term energy plan. The GOP in particular has prostituted itself to big oil for decades while the Democrats have lacked the spine and leadership to push for a change of the status quo that equates to zero future planning. Sarah Palin and similar mental midgets "chant drill baby drill" yet that's not a solution. Having worked in the oil industry, I know only too well that it takes YEARS to bring new production online and get it available at the gas pumps and home heating fuel suppliers. And that less than cheery reality doesn't factor in an even bigger problem: the USA lacks sufficient recoverable reserves to meet the nation's huge demand for oil and its derivatives should the Arab world spigot get turned off or significantly reduced. As CNN reports, oil prices are surging even as uninformed soccer moms continue to drive about in their gas guzzling SUV's. Depending on how the revolts in the Middle East and Arab world play out, the USA could find itself in one hell of a mess. A mess that will be in significant part self inflicted. Pretending that oil and gas consumption can continue unchanged is insanity. Yet, no U.S. politician has the balls or honest to tell Americans that a harsh day of reckoning may be in the offing. Here are highlights:
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The gasoline Americans buy is made not just with U.S. supplies but mainly with oil from around the globe, and that fuel is surging in price. Since a protester lit himself on fire in Tunisia at the end of December, sparking revolts across North Africa and the Middle East, global oil prices have jumped. Brent crude, pegged to oil prices in the North Sea, is up over 12%.
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Much of the oil being made into gasoline now actually costs $105 a barrel. For this we can blame a few of the usual suspects – try Middle East unrest and strong overseas economic growth – and one new one, a weak link in the U.S. petroleum supply chain.
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[I]it projected a 1-in-3 chance the gas price will break $3.50 this summer and a 1-in-10 chance it will hit $4. And if anything those estimates may understate how fragile the balance is. . . . Even a smaller rise could slow the snaillike recovery of the U.S. economy.
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A study released last month by IHS Global Economics says a 25-cent rise in the gasoline price, all else equal, will reduce employment by some 600,000 jobs over the following two years. And the steeper the rise, the more jobs that stand to be lost. "Suddenness is very important in determining how much damage is done to the economy," says IHS economist Gregory Daco.
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Pipelines that take oil out of Cushing [Canada fields] are at least two years away, and oil companies that stand to rake in fat refining profits aren't exactly looking to rush that timeline. . . . Prices are likely to rise regardless heading into the summer refining season. If the U.S. recovery gains steam, a replay of the ugly summer of 2008 looks like an unhappily good bet.

Growing Revolt in Egypt Shows Weakness in U.S. Strategy

Time and time again throughout the last fifty or more years, the U.S. has backed dictators and corrupt rulers out of what I am sure seemed to be expediency at the time or because such despots seemed a better short term solution to the immediate situation. Unfortunately, such decisions never seemed to have had a long term view of where things might develop down the road. The ongoing revolt in Egypt is a case in point. For nearly thirty years "President" Hosni Mubarak has been a dictator in all by name. If his government is toppled - and it seems it could happen as reports of army troops siding with protesters are increasing - I suspect we will learn that the USA has no "Plan B" for such an eventuality. Obviously, the world does not need another Muslim extremist regime, but by solidly backing Mubarak for decades, I fear that the USA has helped create a vacuum for any organized alternative government that isn't potentially religious based. Time will tell, but the situation is most worrisome. Moreover, if discontent and upheaval spreads across the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia, the USA's foolish dependence on foreign oil may bite all of us in the ass big time. So far, Mubarak is employing more of the same old heavy handed tactics and has shut down the Internet and the operations of Al Jazeera's Cairo bureau in an effort to keep protesters uninformed. Here are highlights from the New York Times on the escalating chaos:
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As President Hosni Mubarak struggled to maintain a tenuous hold on power and the Egyptian military reinforced strategic points in the capital, the United States said on Sunday it was offering evacuation flights for its citizens and urged all Americans currently in Egypt to “consider leaving as soon as they can safely do so.”
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The announcement injected a stronger note of growing alarm among Egypt’s allies as an uprising against Mr. Mubarak’s almost three decades in power entered a sixth day, fraught with uncertainty about its outcome. Police have largely withdrawn from the country’s major cities and the military has done little so far to hold back tens of thousands of demonstrators defying a curfew to call for an end to Mr. Mubarak’s rule..
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On Sunday, Turkey, a major regional player, said it was sending three flights to evacuate 750 of its citizens from Cairo and Alexandria, one day after Israel flew back the families of its diplomats in Egypt on Saturday
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France, Britain and Germany issued a rare joint statement urging President Mubarak and the protesters to show restraint. But, like President Obama, they did not call for the ouster of an autocratic leader who has cast himself as a linchpin of Western diplomatic and security interests in the Middle East.
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State television said Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster whose coverage of the turmoil in the Arab world has spread word of protests from capital to capital, was being taken off the air in Egypt. But, initially at least, the station continued to broadcast. Earlier, its Arabic channel had proclaimed: “Egypt speaks for itself.” Internet connections remained cut on Sunday as the authorities sought to contain the potential spread of unrest.
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It was unclear whether the soldiers in the streets were operating without orders or in defiance of them. But their displays of support for the protesters were conspicuous throughout the capital. In one striking example, four armored military vehicles moved at the front of a crowd of thousands of protesters in a pitched battle against the Egyptian security police defending the Interior Ministry.
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If Mr. Mubarak’s decision to pick a vice president aroused hopes of his exit, his choice of Mr. Suleiman did nothing to appease the crowds in the streets. Long trusted with most sensitive matters like the Israeli-Palestinian talks, Mr. Suleiman is well connected in both Washington and Tel Aviv. But he is also Mr. Mubarak’s closest aide, considered almost an alter ego, and the protesters’ negative reaction was immediate.
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Many of the protesters were critical of the United States and complained about American government support for Mr. Mubarak or expressed disappointment with President Obama. “I want to send a message to President Obama,” said Mohamed el-Mesry, a middle-aged professional. “I call on President Obama, at least in his statements, to be in solidarity with the Egyptian people and freedom, truly like he says.”

Brazil Dances With OPEC

Wearing my former oil company in-house counsel hat, I blogged last year about the huge oil discovery off shore from Brazil and the production potential which would allow Brazil to become a major player in the world economy. Obviously, there will be a significant development period before Brazil will be able to ramp up production from the new discoveries, but whether or not Brazil joins OPEC is significant because it will decide whether or not Brazilian production will exist as a counter weight to OPEC and Middle Eastern oil. Regardless of Brazil decides to do via-a-vis OPEC, the USA needs to finally get serious about finding ways to decrease its dependence on imported oil. The chatter has been going on since the early 1970’s and very little has actually been done. The one time trend to smaller fuel efficient cars died years ago as soccer moms [yes I disdain them for many reasons, not the least of which is their political idiocy as they worry about insignificant matters in the grand scheme of things] drive about in gas guzzling four wheel drive behemoths like Suburbans, Tahoes, and Hummers to name a few. Brazil’s increased economic clout also shows why the USA needs to start developing a responsible policy towards South America. Here some highlights from a new CNN story (http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/22/news/international/brazil_opec/index.htm):

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- OPEC, the 13-nation cartel that has a huge influence over oil prices, may be expanding farther into South America. News that the largest economy in Latin America (see correction below) was considering joining OPEC began to swirl late last year shortly after Brazil announced the discovery of huge offshore oil and gas deposits that could turn the country into a major oil exporter. Politicians, including President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva, said the country would consider membership in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries as soon as the export potential from the new fields is evaluated. Analysts say Brazil is serious about joining, and its membership could push crude prices higher as more oil would be under OPEC control, but that membership and significant crude exports from the country won't happen anytime soon. Brazil's interest in joining OPEC is the political clout that membership brings.

"To the extent they are able to present themselves as an international powerhouse, that plays favorably at home," said Christopher Garman, head of the Latin American division at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. OPEC membership would also give Brazil a tremendous boost in clout on the world scene, with a seat at the table of an organization that controls some 40% of global oil production. If oil prices fall, Brazil could help prop them up by voting to cut production in all OPEC countries, a far more powerful lever than simply cutting production on their own.

Brazilian membership would also bring more oil to OPEC, at a time when oil resources from non-OPEC sources - such as Mexico and the North Sea - run dry. The new discoveries could turn the country into an export powerhouse. The Tupi oil field off the country's central coast is thought to contain 5 to 8 billion barrels of oil and gas, and would boost the country's total reserves by about 50%. And Brazilian officials have said other offshore fields could ultimately leave the country with 80 to 100 billion barrels of proven reserves, one of the largest in the world.

Huge Oil Discovery Rocks Brazil

I missed this last week, but this story is welcomed in that it has the potential to reduce world dependence on Middle East oil and, therefore, pressure the Arab world to conform with international law and standards. I am all for higher oil prices which will force the suburban soccer moms in their tank-like SUV's and other irresponsible consumers to conserve resources. Therefore, as Brazil brings these reserves online, I hope that it will be done in a manner that will not flood the market and reduce the price of oil. Here are story highlights from CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/11/08/brazil.oil.ap/):

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- A huge offshore oil discovery could raise Brazil's petroleum reserves by a whopping 40 percent and boost this country into the ranks of the world's major exporters, officials said. The government-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, said the new "ultra-deep" Tupi field could hold as much as 8 billion barrels of recoverable light crude, sending Petrobras shares soaring and prompting predictions that Brazil could join the world's "top 10" oil producers.

Petrobras President Sergio Gabrielli said Thursday the oil from ultradeep areas, including the Tupi field, would give Brazil the world's eighth-largest oil and gas reserves. "Brazil's reserves will lie somewhere between those of Nigeria and those of Venezuela," Gabrielli said at a news conference. Petrobras says the Tupi field, off Brazil's southeastern Atlantic coast, has between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels -- equivalent to 40 percent of all the oil ever discovered in Brazil. Brazil's total oil reserves currently rank 17th in the world, with 14.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent, Gabrielli said.

"If the best-case scenario happens, this discovery would make Petrobras' reserves overcome those of Shell and Chevron and put Petrobras behind only Exxon and British Petroleum," Cunha said. Petrobras has a 65 percent operating stake in the field, Britain's BG Group PLC holds 25 percent, and Petroleos de Portugal holds the remaining 10 percent.