The Red Line: Iraq: What Went Wrong?

 For a number of years Iraq has been spiraling, with worsening insurgencies, sectarian violence and numerous regional players all treating Iraq like a political battleground. How did we get here though? What was the decision made to bring Iraq to the point we stand at now, and will decisions coming up better or worsen the situation? On the panel this week. JAMES LEBOVIC (George Washington University) DIYAR AMEEN (Kurdistan Mission to the EU) JOSEPH VOTEL (Rtr 4-Star US General) For more info please visit - www.theredlinepodcast.com Follow the show on @TheRedLinePod Follow Michael on @MikeHilliardAus

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The Prospect Interview #158: Saudi Arabia’s reform and repression

 When the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ascended to power in 2017, he was hailed in the west as a liberal reformer, and was welcomed by Hollywood celebrities and world leaders alike. But what has happened to Saudi Arabia’s supposedly radical programme of reform? Saudi expert Madawi al-Rasheed joins the Prospect Interview and takes us behind the power struggles and social debates within the country—and why the west got it so wrong.

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CNN: Saudi Crown Prince accused of assassination plot against senior exiled official

 MBS, according to previously unreported WhatsApp text messages referenced in the complaint, demanded that Aljabri immediately return to Saudi Arabia. As he repeatedly refused, Aljabri alleges the Crown Prince escalated his threats, saying they would use "all available means" and threatened to "take measures that would be harmful to you." The Crown Prince also barred Aljabri's children from leaving the country. [...]

The US national security community has been tracking the Crown Prince's vendetta against Aljabri "at the highest levels" according to a former senior US official. "Everybody knows it," the former official said, "They know bin Salman wanted to lure Aljabri back to Saudi Arabia and failing that, that bin Salman would seek to find him outside with the intent to do him grave harm." [...]

"MBS is eager to neutralize the threat posed by Aljabri, whose intimate knowledge of the ruling family's skeletons, and everyone else's, and broad network, equipped him to enable any aspiring challenger to the crown," London says. "I don't rule out the possibility that MBS wanted to kill Aljabri, but it's just as likely, if not more so, that were there a team deployed to Canada, MBS wanted to put Aljabri under observation, information from which might provide insight on his contacts and activities."

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WorldAffairs: Saudi Arabia: Mecca is empty + Oil is Cheap

Now that the global economy is mostly on hold, the demand for oil has dropped dramatically, destroying the market and threatening countries whose economies depend on selling it. Saudi Arabia and Russia have been engaged in an oil-price war to keep the markets in their favor. Saudi Arabia saw another economic loss when the kingdom decided to limit access to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Meanwhile, violence in some of the most at risk countries rages on. In Yemen, preventable diseases like cholera already threaten people with limited access to healthcare and basic necessities. Would a global ceasefire help war-torn countries like Yemen manage their coronavirus outbreaks? On this week’s episode, we talk with experts from around the world about Yemen, oil and Saudi Arabia.

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The Prospect: The political rivalry that shaped the Middle East

Journalist Kim Ghattas joins the Prospect Interview to explain the political conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran—where did it come from, and how has it fundamentally transformed the region? She also talks about lessons from the Arab Spring, and why her own background growing up in Lebanon means she’s able to tell stories that challenge popular Western narratives.

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Bloomberg: Liberated Saudi Youth Wonder Where All the Wahhabis Have Gone

Today the muttawa are nowhere in sight. What’s visible instead is a younger generation of tech-savvy Saudis fired up by a sense of national, rather than religious, identity. “Saudi identity is us. The Wahhabi identity is not us,” says Mashael al-Baoud, who’s in her 30s. She’s standing behind her display of green crocodile-skin charms in the shape of Saudi Arabia and mobile phone cases embossed with the image of the crown prince or the national emblem, two crossed swords and a palm tree. “They have vanished,” she says. “Since they’re not here, we’re showing who we really are.”

But the contrast with the religiously repressed old kingdom is still dramatic. From cinemas to the lively activity in Riyadh’s King Abdullah Park to a top-floor hookah lounge in Jeddah, businesses have sprung up to cash in on the new tolerance. There’s even talk among some Saudis of the alcohol ban being lifted, possibly before the nation hosts the Group of 20 next year. What comes next depends on whether the economy can make enough strides to meet the expectations of a country where three-quarters of the population, including the crown prince himself, is under the age of 35. While they’re excited by the new liberalization, most young Saudis have one nagging concern: Where have the Wahhabis gone, and what are the chances of them coming back? [...]

And among the young, there are a few who are outright against the changes or worry the kingdom is moving too fast. Saudi Arabia is potentially at the “gates of too far,” says Zaid, the man looking for funding for his sandboarding business. From the eastern city of Dammam, he spent seven years in the U.S. and graduated in chemical engineering before returning home in 2017. “The whole society has loosened up. Loosening up is good, but we don’t want to take it to an extreme. You have to keep your culture.”

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Independent: As Saudi Arabia grows desperate, this could be the beginning of the end of the war in Yemen

The Yemen war is about to come to an end. A Saudi official admitted this week that for the first time since 2016, Riyadh is in talks with the Houthi rebels. The talks have surfaced despite the Houthis being in charge of the capital Sanaa and the other most populous parts in Northern Yemen, which indicates that the Saudis are coming to terms with this status quo. The radical approach of effectively flushing the Houthis out of the north has been abandoned. The new approach of accepting the Houthis as part of the new post-war reality in Yemen, on the other hand, is much more sophisticated. [...]

Instead of the endless fighting, Saudi Arabia is trying to convince the Houthis to sever ties with its regional rival, Iran. After all, all the Houthis want is legitimacy of their new strategic posture in Yemen. This, in their view, must be cited in a similar power-sharing agreement that guarantees their share in a federation-like new system that includes president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi’s government and separatists in the south. [...]

The attack on the Saudi Aramco oil installations in September, which knocked out half of the Kingdom’s production, was a tipping point. This week, Aramco launched an initial public offering (IPO) to be listed on the local stock market, abandoning Mohamed bin Salman’s original plan to list it on overseas markets. The escalation with Iran began to have a direct effect on the Saudi economy.

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The Observer view on India’s aggression over Kashmir

Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, and the ruling nationalist BJP stand accused of acting without proper legal authority by unilaterally revoking article 370 of the constitution, which guarantees Kashmir’s special status. Delhi’s arbitrary bifurcation of the state into two union territories (Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh) is also legally contentious. Opponents say Modi has opted for “raw power” over legitimacy.

Modi also ignored UN resolutions on the internationally recognised dispute with Pakistan over sovereign control of the Kashmir region and, notably, the 1972 Simla agreement, which stipulates that its final status must be settled by peaceful means. That point was made last week by the UN secretary-general while appealing for “maximum restraint”. To cap it all, Modi failed to consult Kashmir’s political leaders, whether pro-independence or pro-India, or the Kashmiri people. Quite the opposite, in fact. Political leaders were placed under house arrest. The population was placed under curfew. Means of association and communication were cut. And massive army deployments have been used to enforce Delhi’s diktat. [...]

Khan has limited options. His country is severely indebted. Modi has been clever in strengthening ties with Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia that traditionally bankrolled Pakistan. None of them spoke up on Islamabad’s behalf last week. Meanwhile, relations with the US have become strained, not least over Afghanistan.

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Vox: “Trump is quite easy to buy off”: how Trump is putting American foreign policy up for sale

Xi continues to use the trade talks as a lure to get what he wants from the American president. First, he asked that the US stay quiet on China putting more than a million Uighur Muslims in reeducation camps. Second, he pushed for Trump to reverse the ban on US businesses working with Chinese telecommunications giants Huawei and ZTE — even though Trump’s own administration says doing that is a national security risk. [...]

“This took place in Turkey and to the best of our knowledge, Khashoggi is not a United States citizen,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on October 11, 2018. “I don’t like stopping massive amounts of money that’s being poured into our country,” referring to his desire to sell $110 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, adding that “it would not be acceptable to me.” [...]

It was perhaps one of Trump’s most honest articulations about how he conducts foreign policy: He won’t call out a country that infringes on human dignity as long as it’s willing to inject cash into the American economy. And it’s especially fine if the affected people aren’t US citizens. Trump, in this case, put a price tag on Khashoggi’s life. [...]

This doesn’t keep happening by accident — it’s a deliberate strategy by other countries to manipulate the president. “A lot of foreign leaders are now relying either on flattery and pomp to woo Trump, or they come to Washington with proof of ‘big deals’ that will appeal to him in this way,” says Cato’s Ashford.

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Reuters: Wahhabism confronted: Sri Lanka curbs Saudi influence after bombings

Sri Lanka has since arrested a Wahhabi scholar and is poised to take over a Saudi-funded school. The government also says it will monitor previously unchecked money flows from donors including prominent Saudi families to mosques on the Indian Ocean island. [...]

Saudi Arabia rejects the idea that Wahhabism is problematic and defends its record by pointing to the detention of thousands of suspected militants. Riyadh in June sent back five Sri Lankans allegedly linked to the Easter attacks. [...]

The monks, who are influential on the island where 70 percent of the population are Buddhists, and some members of parliament say Hizbullah’s links to Riyadh contributed to the spread of militancy in his native Kattankudy, a Muslim-majority town.

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Foreign Policy: Mohammed bin Salman Is Making Muslims Boycott Mecca

In late April, Libya’s most prominent Muslim Sunni cleric, Grand Mufti Sadiq al-Ghariani, called for all Muslims to boycott the hajj—the obligatory pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca.In late April, Libya’s most prominent Muslim Sunni cleric, Grand Mufti Sadiq al-Ghariani, called for all Muslims to boycott the hajj—the obligatory pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca. He went so far as to claim that anyone who embarked on a second pilgrimage was conducting “an act of sin rather than a good deed.” The reasoning behind the boycott is the suggestion that boosting Saudi Arabia’s economy through pilgrimage continues to fuel arms purchases and direct attacks on Yemen—and indirectly Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Sudan, and Algeria. Ghariani added that investment in the hajj would “help Saudi rulers to carry out crimes against our fellow Muslims.”

Ghariani is not the first prominent Muslim scholar to support a ban on the hajj. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, also a Sunni cleric and vocal critic of Saudi Arabia, announced a fatwa in August last year banning the pilgrimage, instead stating, “Seeing Muslims feeding the hungry, treating the sick, and sheltering the homeless are better viewed by Allah than spending money on the hajj.” [...]

Throughout the Middle East and in other Muslim-majority nations, there has been growing concern over the slaying of Khashoggi, as well as the rising death toll in Yemen, which is expected to reach 230,000 by 2020 through the often indiscriminate airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition—which has bombed hospitals, funerals, children’s school buses, and weddings—in what has been described as the “worst man-made humanitarian crisis of our time” by U.N. officials. Saudi Arabia’s truculent approach to the Yemen war has isolated itself within its own coalition; even the Emirati government has shown some discomfort toward the Saudi approach.

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The Guardian: Nicki Minaj to headline music festival in Saudi Arabia

The female rapper is known for her outlandish, provocative style and hits like Anaconda, where she raps about her “big fat” backside. Her lyrics are often laced with profanities and her skin-bearing music videos often include twerking. Christian groups criticised her 2012 Grammy awards performance, which included dancing priests and an exorcism. [...]

Reactions on social media ranged from shock and joy to criticism and disappointment. In a profanity-laced video posted on Twitter and viewed more than 37,000 times, a Saudi woman wearing a loose headscarf accused the Saudi government of hypocrisy for inviting Minaj to perform but requiring women who attend the concert to wear the modest full-length robe known as the abaya. Most Saudi women also veil their hair and faces. [...]

Gender segregation between single men and women is still enforced in many restaurants, coffee shops, public schools and universities, but other rules have been loosened, with women now allowed to drive and attend events in sports stadiums.

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Today in Focus: Has Saudi Arabia got away with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi?

A UN report on the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi has said there is credible evidence linking the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to the crime. Nick Hopkins and Stephanie Kirchgaessner discuss the killing and the fallout in Saudi Arabia and among its allies. Plus: Patrick Timmons on the political reaction to the deaths of a father and daughter in the Rio Grande this week.

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Reuters: Kushner's economic plan for Mideast peace faces broad Arab rejection

The lack of a political solution, which Washington has said would be unveiled later, prompted rejection not only from Palestinians but also in Arab countries with which Israel would seek normal relations.

From Sudan to Kuwait, commentators and ordinary citizens denounced Kushner’s proposals in strikingly similar terms: “colossal waste of time,” “non-starter,” “dead on arrival.”

Egyptian liberal and leftist parties slammed the workshop as an attempt to “consecrate and legitimize” occupation of Arab land and said in a joint statement that any Arab participation would be “beyond the limits of normalization” with Israel. [...]

Thousands of people marched through the Moroccan capital Rabat on Sunday to express their solidarity with the Palestinians and their opposition to the Kushner plan. [...]

Arab analysts believe Kushner’s economic plan is an attempt to buy off opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land with a multi-billion dollar bribe to pay off the neighboring hosts of millions of Palestinian refugees to integrate them.

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CNN: US condemns Saudi Arabia over religious freedom abuses

The State Department's top official for international religious freedom said Friday that Saudi Arabia continues "to be one of the worst actors in the world on religious persecution" -- a blunt assessment in light of the administration's consistent pro-Saudi policies.[...]

"Freedom of religion is not provided under the law. The government does not allow the public practice of any non-Muslim religion. The law criminalizes 'anyone who challenges, either directly or indirectly, the religion or justice of the King or Crown Prince.' The law criminalizes 'the promotion of atheistic ideologies in any form,' 'any attempt to cast doubt on the fundamentals of Islam,' publications that 'contradict the provisions of Islamic law,' and other acts including non-Islamic public worship, public display of non-Islamic religious symbols, conversion by a Muslim to another religion, and proselytizing by a non-Muslim," it notes.

The report describes discrimination against and abuse of Shiite Muslims, including up to 34 individuals who faced possible execution. Saudi Arabia executed 37 men, the majority of them Shiites, in April 2019. One of them was crucified. Three were minors when the kingdom said they carried out their crimes. [...]

The Chinese government has detained "possibly more than 2 million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and members of other Muslim groups, mostly Chinese citizens, in specially built or converted detention facilities in Xinjiang and subjected them to forced disappearance, torture, physical abuse, and prolonged detention without trial because of their religion and ethnicity since April 2017," the report notes.

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Failed Architecture: Mecca to the Max: The Holy City Transformed

In this episode, we discuss with various experts how this rising number of pilgrims is fueling a radical makeover of the city. While Mecca has always been changing and under construction, the current developments are of an unprecedented scale. What does Mecca’s radical makeover look like? Who is profiting from these developments and what does it mean for the city’s spiritual character? What does the current building craze mean for older buildings, and what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of people who live in the city’s informal settlements?

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The New York Review of Books: Reckless in Riyadh

America’s delicate treatment of the Saudis persisted: for example, while the two countries were targeting terrorists, Washington said little about the enormous Saudi NGOs that spread their ultraconservative Wahhabi Islam around the globe. As the scholar Will McCants remarked, when it comes to Islamist extremism, “the Saudis are both the arsonists and the firefighters.” Still, the burgeoning ties among spies produced real benefits. At least two plots that could have killed significant numbers of Americans during the Obama administration were disrupted because of Saudi tips. American officials murmured approval when the Saudis took small steps to alleviate the plight of the country’s Shia minority or to promote women’s education and participation in the workforce, but their criticism of human rights abuses—torture and other mistreatment of government critics, harsh punishment of migrant workers, and mass beheadings, whether of Shia “terrorists” or common criminals—remained muted at best. [...]

At first, Vision 2030 gave MBS a real sheen. Donald Trump broke with tradition and made the first overseas trip of his presidency to Riyadh instead of visiting democratic allies. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote, “I never thought I’d live long enough to write this sentence: The most significant reform process underway anywhere in the Middle East today is in Saudi Arabia.” He praised MBS for rolling back the power of the country’s clerical establishment and proclaimed, “Not a single Saudi I spoke to here over three days expressed anything other than effusive support for [his] anticorruption drive.” During a visit to the US in April 2018, MBS was feted by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and, at a dinner party hosted by Rupert Murdoch, entertained by the actors Michael Douglas and Morgan Freeman, before having an audience with Oprah Winfrey.

The sheen faded quickly, though, as it became clear that MBS’s notion of reform owed less to Western norms than to Xi Jinping and the Chinese policy of pushing for economic growth without permitting the expansion of political freedoms. There has been a degree of limited liberalization, but in MBS’s view, reforms must be granted by the crown, not elicited, let alone demanded, by his subjects. Hence the imprisonment of women who pressed for the right to drive and for a relaxation of the “guardianship laws” that give men control over the lives of the women in their families—the very measures that MBS had endorsed and, to some extent, enacted. Despite the reforms, there has also been an increase in the pace of executions. Several are now planned for well-known Sunni clerics who, though previously incarcerated for opposing royal policies, were viewed as too popular to be treated more harshly. [...]

Equally astonishing has been the kingdom’s open embrace of Israel. In 2015 a retired Saudi general, Anwar Eshki, participated in a discussion of Israeli and Saudi mutual interests with Dore Gold, a right-wing Israeli former diplomat, at the Council on Foreign Relations’ office in Washington; in 2017 Saudi media broadcast a lengthy interview with then Israeli chief of staff Gadi Eizenkot. In November 2018 Israeli media leaked a diplomatic cable from the country’s foreign ministry instructing its embassies worldwide to advocate for Saudi foreign policy objectives, especially vis-à-vis Iran. And Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended MBS for his involvement in Khashoggi’s murder—in which the Saudi go-between with Israel, General Ahmed Asiri, was implicated. It has also been widely reported that the Trump administration expects the Saudis to fund an Israeli–Palestinian peace agreement; according to MBS, the Palestinians should either accept it or “shut up.”

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The Guardian: Qatar attendance at Saudi summit raises prospect of detente

King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia invited Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, to attend the emergency Gulf Cooperation Council summit on Iran’s alleged role in attacking Gulf shipping and oil installations. [...]

Qatar – unlike Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – has so far retained support for the Iran nuclear deal. Although determined to follow an independent foreign policy, it will not be seeking to alienate Donald Trump by spurning Washington’s pressure to curtail Iranian aggression in the region. Qatar has an economic interest in ensuring gas and oil installations are not the subject of attacks by Iranian proxy forces. It also acts as the host to the largest US military base in the Gulf. [...]

Washington has blown hot and cold in its demands on Iran, with Trump saying he was not seeking regime change in Tehran, merely a renegotiation of the nuclear deal. He said the deal was full of loopholes that allowed Tehran to achieve nuclear breakout too rapidly.

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In These Times: Here’s Exactly Who’s Profiting from the War on Yemen

Under President Barack Obama’s administration and, now, President Donald Trump’s, the United States has put its military might behind the Saudi-led coalition, waging a war without congressional authorization. That war has devastated Yemen’s infrastructure, destroyed or damaged more than half of Yemen’s health facilities, killed more than 8,350 civilians, injured another 9,500 civilians, displaced 3.3 million people, and created a humanitarian disaster that threatens the lives of millions as cholera and famine spread through the country. [...]

The war in Yemen has been particularly lucrative for General Dynamics, Boeing and Raytheon, which have received hundreds of millions of dollars in Saudi weapons deals. All three corporations have highlighted business with Saudi Arabia in their reports to shareholders. Since the war began in March 2015, General Dynamics’ stock price has risen from about $135 to $169 per share, Raytheon’s from about $108 to more than $180, and Boeing’s from about $150 to $360. [...]

According to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the United States may not authorize arms exports to governments that consistently engage in “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” The Arms Export Control Act of 1976 stipulates that exported weapons may only be used for a country’s defense.[...]

Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia has ordered U.S.-made offensive weapons, surveillance equipment, transportation, parts and training valued at $109.3 billion, according to an In These Times analysis of Pentagon announcements, contracts announced on defense industry websites and arms transfers documented by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. That arsenal is now being deployed against Yemen.

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Vox: Congress passes historic resolution to end US support for Saudi-led war in Yemen

The war in Yemen, directed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (or MBS, as he’s commonly referred to in Washington), has killed more than 50,000 people and left more than 20 million Yemenis in need of humanitarian assistance. [...]

That means the US is partially culpable for the death and destruction of Saudi’s enemies in the war — the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels — and the thousands of civilians who have been killed. In one particularly egregious incident, a coalition warplane bombed a school bus full of children last August with an American-made bomb, killing at least 40 of them.

The Yemen resolution invokes the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (WPR), which gives Congress the power to direct a president to remove troops involved in “hostilities” abroad if there has been no formal “declaration of war or specific statutory authorization” from Congress.

Not only does it serve as a censure of Saudi’s conduct in the war, it’s also a clear check on executive power; if the US wants to be involved in a war in Yemen, Congress has to declare it. The Republican-led Senate passed the resolution in March, and it now heads to Trump’s desk. The White House says the president plans to veto it.

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