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Ed Webb

The Siege of Doha « LobeLog - 0 views

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Qatar GCC KSA UAE diplomacy politics analysis

shared by Ed Webb on 17 Jul 17 - No Cached
  • Despite all the onerous sanctions that the US has imposed against Iran over the years, which verge on economic warfare, there has never been a formal restriction on sales of food or medicine, including by US companies. The Saudi-UAE boycott, however, closed off food and medicine shipments to Qatar wherever possible, in the middle of Ramadan. I don’t know if this technically constitutes a breach of international humanitarian law, but it is certainly drastic by modern standards of political conflict.
  • it is striking that the attacks on dissident forces in Yemen have employed the same tactics. Access to food and medicine have been denied routinely in the name of military expediency, reducing the population to near starvation and subject to outbreaks of cholera and other epidemics
  • In political and social terms, these demands are more stringent than the documents of surrender that the United States and its coalition allies imposed against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq at Safwan in 1991 after one of the greatest defeats in military history. There was no attempt to dictate to the Iraqis what they could say, or what they could believe, or who they could have as friends. This appears to be the equivalent of regime change, even if that is not the stated intention.
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  • in light of the background and history of the ultra-wealthy Arab Gulf kingdoms, it is very difficult to accept at face value this newfound determination to defeat terrorism by humiliating a smaller neighbor whose differences consist primarily of alternative choices of distasteful proxies
  • the Saudi-UAE siege appears to be a reckless act of coercion by two of the largest and wealthiest states in the region against a smaller, but also vastly wealthy state that chose an alternative political path. It has split the Gulf Cooperation Council down the center and seems to be signaling that membership in this club implies not cooperation so much as unswerving obedience to the Saudi metropole. That goes beyond a mere dynastic spat between rival domains and raises serious questions about the future of the institution itself
Ed Webb

Omani foreign minister meets Tillerson as Washington seeks channel to Tehran ... - 0 views

www.thenational.ae/...eks-channel-to-tehran-1.612952

Oman Iran Qatar GCC US USA foreignpolicy diplomacy

shared by Ed Webb on 23 Jul 17 - No Cached
  • “The Trump administration, just like the Obama administration before it, may have come to recognise Oman's pragmatic relationship with Iran as a policy asset,” said Sigurd Neubauer, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “Oman is able to have a pragmatic relationship with Iran because of its historic relationship with the US,” he noted, being a “strategic ally for nearly two centuries, and one of two GCC countries (along with Bahrain) to enjoy a free-trade agreement with the United States.”
Ed Webb

Is war about to break out in the Horn of Africa? Will the West even notice? - Salon.com - 0 views

www.salon.com/...rica-will-the-west-even-notice

US USA Russia Turkey Egypt Sudan Ethiopia Eritrea UAE nilebasin water conflict diplomacy

shared by Ed Webb on 16 Jan 18 - Cached
  • Now an actual conflict over H2O may be boiling, but no one in Washington has put down Michael Wolff’s book long enough to notice. Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia may come to blows — with the help of Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project
  • The Nile is so important that, setting aside terrorism and internal stability, Egypt’s most significant security concerns lay largely to the south and are directly related to the unimpeded flow of the river’s waters
  • When GERD is completed, it will reduce Egypt’s share of Nile water by 22 billion cubic meters per year, devastating Egyptian agriculture and hydroelectric production, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources. This is obviously of critical concern to Egypt’s leaders, but they have not been able to reach a diplomatic solution to the problem. The country has been preoccupied with internal developments since the uprising in 2011 that pushed President Hosni Mubarak from power. In addition, the issue of the Ethiopian dam has been managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is not as influential as it once was, especially in comparison to the Ministry of Defense and the General Intelligence Directorate. There was an effort to resolve the problem in 2015, with Sudan acting as a broker between Egypt and Ethiopia, but that failed.
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  • The Sudanese recently welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Khartoum, where he signed a number of security-cooperation agreements, including a provision to allow the Turks to administer Suakin Island, located at a strategic point in the Red Sea between Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia. The island used to be home to an Ottoman naval base, and the Egyptians fear the Turks plan to renovate the island and establish a permanent military presence there.
  • Qatar also upgraded its security relations with Sudan
  • tension between Cairo and Khartoum over the Hala’ib and Shalateen disputed zones, which are located on the border between Egypt and Sudan but administered by the Egyptians
  • Egyptians deployed a helicopter carrier in the Red Sea and sent troops to an Emirati base in Eritrea. This in turn angered the Ethiopians. Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1993 and the two countries fought a border war in the late 1990s that killed an estimated 80,000 people. In 2016 they briefly clashed again, killing hundreds more. In response to the presence of Egyptian troops in Eritrea, the Ethiopians not only rejected a Cairo proposal to cut Khartoum out of negotiations over GERD, but Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn hosted the Sudanese defense minister and vowed to speed up dam construction. All the while the Sudanese deployed thousands of troops to its border with Eritrea
  • It is not hard to imagine how all this escalates into warfare. We are not dealing with the best militaries in the world, which reduces the margin for error and miscalculation. It is also a potential conflict that involves a number of important American allies against each other. Turkey, a NATO ally, and Qatar, which hosts the largest American military base outside the United States, have aligned themselves with Sudan and by extension with Ethiopia, another American ally. On the other side we have Egypt, a longtime partner of the United States in the Middle East, and Eritrea. The United Arab Emirates, a critical player in the Persian Gulf and beyond, would also likely be involved given its ties to Egypt and Eritrea.
Ed Webb

Qatari Emir's Timely Visit to Washington - LobeLog - 0 views

lobelog.com/irs-timely-visit-to-washington

Qatar US USA Iran Afghanistan GCC diplomacy

shared by Ed Webb on 09 Jul 19 - Cached
  • Sheikh Tamim’s visit to Washington comes as the pace of Afghan peace talks hosted by Qatar has quickened significantly and generated real hopes of a breakthrough in attempts to end one of the “forever wars” that President Trump inherited when he took office in January 2017. For nearly a decade, the Qatari government has allowed the Taliban to operate a political office in Doha at the request of U.S. officials who recognized the utility of having an address where peace negotiators could contact Taliban intermediaries
  • Talks between U.S. and Taliban negotiators began in October 2018 and increased incrementally so that, by the sixth round of dialogue in May 2019, the focus was on a lasting ceasefire, troop withdrawal, guarantees against terrorism, and an eventual political settlement with the Afghan government.
  • If the uptick in diplomatic activity in Doha can be sustained, it may put President Trump within distance of a breakthrough that eluded both Bush and Obama and an agreement the self-proclaimed dealmaker could embrace as the signature foreign policy success of his presidency so far.
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  • Qatari officials have offered to act as mediators between the United States and Iran and, together with counterparts in Oman and Kuwait, can play a role in facilitating the dialogue with Iran that the president has several times called for, again in an apparent bid to upstage and surpass the achievement of his predecessor
  • Early in the blockade, U.S. officials made it clear that they would not tolerate any spillover of tension into core U.S. security and defense interests in the Gulf, and pragmatic workarounds have evolved in response. Gulf chiefs of staff meet regularly, with U.S. officials in the room alongside them, and the White House has sought to push a Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA) of the six Gulf States plus Egypt and Jordan. However, those plans hit a snag when Egypt withdrew in April. Even if MESA were to get off the ground, it would at best be a poor substitute for a fully-functioning Gulf Cooperation Council that has been so fractured by the blockade of three of its members against a fourth, with no winners or losers from a U.S. perspective as all are close regional partners.
Ed Webb

Turkey's desire for safe zone in northern Syria justified, says Lavrov | Ahval - 0 views

ahvalnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/...rn-syria-justified-says-lavrov

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shared by Ed Webb on 28 Sep 19 - Cached
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday said Turkey’s desire to establish a safe zone in northern Syria is justified
  • Russia, as the main backer of the Assad regime, is with meeting with both Ankara and Damascus on the matter
  • “They are suffering from the infiltration of terrorists coming from territory controlled by the U.S. right now,” state-run Anadolu news agency quoted the Russian foreign minister as saying in reference to Turkey in New York on the sidelines of the 74th UN General Assembly. 
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  • U.S. and Turkish officials last month agreed to work together to create a buffer zone free of fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara views as a terrorist organisation due to its links to outlawed Kurdish militant groups in Turkey
  • The YPG controls some enclaves in northeast Syria along the Turkish border and forms the backbone of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria
  • Ankara has said the zone should run to a depth of up to 30 km with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan discussing the use of the region to build new settlements to rehouse over 1 million of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey
Ed Webb

10 Conflicts to Watch in 2020 - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...10-conflicts-to-watch-2020

USA US Israel Syria Iran military diplomacy politics analysis Yemen Algeria Sudan Libya KSA Saudi Ethiopia

shared by Ed Webb on 21 Feb 20 - Cached
  • Only time will tell how much of the United States’ transactional unilateralism, contempt for traditional allies, and dalliance with traditional rivals will endure—and how much will vanish with Donald Trump’s presidency. Still, it would be hard to deny that something is afoot. The understandings and balance of power on which the global order had once been predicated—imperfect, unfair, and problematic as they were—are no longer operative. Washington is both eager to retain the benefits of its leadership and unwilling to shoulder the burdens of carrying it. As a consequence, it is guilty of the cardinal sin of any great power: allowing the gap between ends and means to grow. These days, neither friend nor foe knows quite where America stands
  • Moscow’s policy abroad is opportunistic—seeking to turn crises to its advantage—though today that is perhaps as much strategy as it needs
  • Exaggerated faith in outside assistance can distort local actors’ calculations, pushing them toward uncompromising positions and encouraging them to court dangers against which they believe they are immune. In Libya, a crisis risks dangerous metastasis as Russia intervenes on behalf of a rebel general marching on the capital, the United States sends muddled messages, Turkey threatens to come to the government’s rescue, and Europe—a stone’s throw away—displays impotence amid internal rifts. In Venezuela, the government’s obstinacy, fueled by faith that Russia and China will cushion its economic downfall, clashes with the opposition’s lack of realism, powered by U.S. suggestions it will oust President Nicolás Maduro.
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  • As leaders understand the limits of allies’ backing, reality sinks in. Saudi Arabia, initially encouraged by the Trump administration’s apparent blank check, flexed its regional muscle until a series of brazen Iranian attacks and noticeable U.S. nonresponses showed the kingdom the extent of its exposure, driving it to seek a settlement in Yemen and, perhaps, de-escalation with Iran.
  • another trend that warrants attention: the phenomenon of mass protests across the globe. It is an equal-opportunity discontent, shaking countries governed by both the left and right, democracies and autocracies, rich and poor, from Latin America to Asia and Africa. Particularly striking are those in the Middle East—because many observers thought that the broken illusions and horrific bloodshed that came in the wake of the 2011 uprisings would dissuade another round.
  • In Sudan, arguably one of this past year’s better news stories, protests led to long-serving autocrat Omar al-Bashir’s downfall and ushered in a transition that could yield a more democratic and peaceful order. In Algeria, meanwhile, leaders have merely played musical chairs. In too many other places, they have cracked down. Still, in almost all, the pervasive sense of economic injustice that brought people onto the streets remains. If governments new or old cannot address that, the world should expect more cities ablaze this coming year.
  • More people are being killed as a result of fighting in Afghanistan than in any other current conflict in the world.
  • In 2018, aggressive international intervention in Yemen prevented what U.N. officials deemed the world’s worst humanitarian crisis from deteriorating further; 2020 could offer a rare opportunity to wind down the war. That chance, however, is the product of a confluence of local, regional, and international factors and, if not seized now, may quickly fade.
  • Perhaps nowhere are both promise and peril for the coming year starker than in Ethiopia, East Africa’s most populous and influential state.
  • Mass protests between 2015 and 2018 that brought Abiy to power were motivated primarily by political and socioeconomic grievances. But they had ethnic undertones too, particularly in Ethiopia’s most populous regions, Amhara and Oromia, whose leaders hoped to reduce the long-dominant Tigray minority’s influence. Abiy’s liberalization and efforts to dismantle the existing order have given new energy to ethnonationalism, while weakening the central state.
  • Burkina Faso is the latest country to fall victim to the instability plaguing Africa’s Sahel region.
  • Burkina Faso’s volatility matters not only because of harm inflicted on its own citizens, but because the country borders other nations, including several along West Africa’s coast. Those countries have suffered few attacks since jihadis struck resorts in Ivory Coast in 2016. But some evidence, including militants’ own statements, suggest they might use Burkina Faso as a launching pad for operations along the coast or to put down roots in the northernmost regions of countries such as Ivory Coast, Ghana, or Benin.
  • The war in Libya risks getting worse in the coming months, as rival factions increasingly rely on foreign military backing to change the balance of power. The threat of major violence has loomed since the country split into two parallel administrations following contested elections in 2014. U.N. attempts at reunification faltered, and since 2016 Libya has been divided between the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli and a rival government based in eastern Libya. The Islamic State established a small foothold but was defeated; militias fought over Libya’s oil infrastructure on the coast; and tribal clashes unsettled the country’s vast southern desert. But fighting never tipped into a broader confrontation.
  • In April 2019, forces commanded by Khalifa Haftar, which are backed by the government in the east, laid siege to Tripoli, edging the country toward all-out war.
  • Emirati drones and airplanes, hundreds of Russian private military contractors, and African soldiers recruited into Haftar’s forces confront Turkish drones and military vehicles, raising the specter of an escalating proxy battle on the Mediterranean
  • A diplomatic breakthrough to de-escalate tensions between the Gulf states and Iran or between Washington and Tehran remains possible. But, as sanctions take their toll and Iran fights back, time is running out.
  • After falling off the international radar for years, a flare-up between India and Pakistan in 2019 over the disputed region of Kashmir brought the crisis back into sharp focus. Both countries lay claim to the Himalayan territory, split by an informal boundary, known as the Line of Control, since the first Indian-Pakistani war of 1947-48.
Ed Webb

Israel-US spat erupts ahead of Trump visit to region - 1 views

www.apnews.com/7211e6c3084e60868b3e6385c2e814

Israel Palestine israelpalestine Jerusalem territory US USA politics diplomacy Trump

shared by Ed Webb on 15 May 17 - No Cached
  • A diplomatic spat on Monday erupted between U.S. and Israeli officials, just days before a planned visit by President Donald Trump, after an American representative questioned Israel’s claim to one of the holiest sites in Judaism.
  • The Western Wall is revered as the holiest site where Jews can pray, and according to Channel 2 TV, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked to join Trump. The report said the Americans rebuffed the request, with one official telling the Israelis the site is “not your territory.” It said the comment prompted shouting from the Israeli preparatory team.
  • An official in Netanyahu’s office said the U.S. comment was “received with astonishment” and that Israel had asked the White House for an explanation.
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  • Israeli officials appear to be growing increasingly nervous over Trump’s visit
  • Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a senior member of Netanyahu’s coalition government, voiced concern Monday that “there has been a kind of change in the spirit” of Trump’s statements since he was elected. Bennett said he was not sure why Trump has changed his rhetoric. Bennett said he welcomed Trump’s arrival next week, but said Israel also has to stick to its positions. He said Israel must oppose attempts to establish a Palestinian state and insist on Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem “forever.”
Ed Webb

Just What The Middle East Needs -- $110 Billion More In Weapons | HuffPost - 1 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...re_us_5920669be4b0e8f558bb26e9

KSA Yemen Saudi Iran US USA weapons arms military diplomacy opinion politics Nigeria Qaeda alQaeda ISIS bokoharam

shared by Ed Webb on 21 May 17 - No Cached
  • It appears the Trump administration is counting on the country with the worst human rights record in the region to enforce peace and security in the Middle East.
  • Piled on top of this enormous arms lot are precision-guided munitions that President Obama would not sell the Saudis. That’s not because the Obama folks didn’t like selling weapons to the Saudis — Obama sold more weapons and gear to Saudi Arabia in eight years than all other previous administrations combined. No, Obama withheld precision-guided munitions because the Saudis were using U.S.-provided munitions to repeatedly target civilian and humanitarian sites in their bombing campaign inside Yemen, despite regular protests from the United States.
  • millions of Yemenis are being radicalized against the country they blame for the civilian deaths: the United States. By selling the Saudis these precision-guided weapons more — not fewer — civilians will be killed because it is Saudi Arabia’s strategy to starve Yemenis to death to increase their own leverage at the negotiating table. They couldn’t do this without the weapons we are selling them.
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  • The Saudis’ obsession with Iran, and the proxy wars (like Yemen) that flow from this obsession, mean that they have little bandwidth to go after extremist groups. Meanwhile, the Saudis continue to export a version of Islam called Wahhabism that is a crucial building block for the perversion of Islam parroted by groups like al Qaeda
  • we have to ask whether continuing to fuel the growing proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is the right way to bring peace to the Middle East. To the extent this conflict is going to continue, we are clearly on the Saudis’ side, but the inarguable effect of selling more capable weapons to the Saudis is the acceleration of weapons build-up in Iran
  • feeding the arms race between the two nations probably isn’t the best long-term strategy
  • What do we have to gain by going in so enthusiastically with the Sunnis against the Shia in their fight for power in the Middle East? This isn’t our fight, and history suggests the U.S. military meddling in the Middle East ends up great for U.S. military contractors, but pretty miserable for everyone else.
  • $110 billion could educate every single one of the 30 million African primary school age children who has no access to school today...for five years
Ed Webb

What's going on with Qatar? - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...whats-going-on-with-qatar

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shared by Ed Webb on 02 Jun 17 - No Cached
  • The ferocity and the sheer scale of the “Qatar-bashing” articles suggest that an orchestrated campaign is underway to discredit Doha regionally but also — crucially — in the eyes of the Trump administration.
  • A convergence of factors appears to have shifted the geopolitical landscape in the Persian Gulf. The Trump administration signaled that it intends to follow a set of regional policies that are aligned far closer to those of Abu Dhabi and Riyadh than Doha. Both Mohammed bin Zayed and Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were high-profile visitors to Washington in the run-up to the Riyadh summit with Arab and Islamic leaders. Further, the policy inexperience of many within Trump’s inner circle has presented an opportunity for both the Saudis and the Emiratis to shape the administration’s thinking on critical regional issues such as Iran and Islamism, both of which were evident during the Riyadh visit.
  • Key principals within the Trump administration, such as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, hold views on Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood that are virtually indistinguishable from those in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are emerging as the two spearheads around which U.S. regional policies are realigning, including a set of hawkish defense and security interests
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  • There are differences between this latest disagreement and the past — not least in the way the current standoff is being played out in the media rather than behind the closed doors of leaders’ meetings — and no act equivalent to the withdrawal of the ambassadors. In fact, few officials have publicly joined the feeding frenzy and have been careful not to single Qatar out by name in calling for brotherly unity against the Iranian “menace.”
  • By allowing the media campaign to run into a second week with no apparent letup, policymakers in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi may be hoping to pressure the leadership in Doha into making concessions or watching to see whether figures within the Trump administration take the bait without having to resort to official threats or sanctions. Where this leaves the GCC as an entity in the age of Trump is anyone’s guess
Ed Webb

Why Biden's Airstrikes on Iran Militias Matter | Newlines Magazine - 0 views

newlinesmag.com/...trikes-on-iran-militias-matter

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shared by Ed Webb on 01 Mar 21 - Cached
  • hitting Iranian proxies in Syria was not as much of an eye roll-worthy operation as has been argued. For one thing, Biden has signaled he’s learned from President Barack Obama’s past failures of acquiescing to Iranian belligerence in an effort to curry diplomatic favor with Tehran, which the Iranians correctly viewed as a license to carry on without fear of material consequence
  • helpfully spotlighted an awkward question for armed groups created to defend Iraq from foreign occupiers, and which are now legally bundled into Baghdad’s central security apparatus: What are they doing in Syria in the first place?
  • Starting in late 2012, Iraqi Shiite fighters were sent by the thousands to Syria. Some came as volunteers on what they believed was a mission from God to “defend” the Sayyida Zaynab Shrine south of Damascus. Others desired adventure. Still others wanted a paycheck. Whatever the motive, for Iran this mass recruitment and deployment had but one strategic objective: Save the then-embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from a protest movement-turned-incipient Sunni insurgency. By 2016, over 20 organizations were used to mobilize and deploy, at a minimum, 10,000 to 15,000 Iraqi Shiite fighters.
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  • open recruitment of Iraqi Shiites to fight in Syria has significantly ebbed, particularly following the cessation of Iraqi operations to crush the Islamic State in Mosul in 2017
  • The Iraqi groups that still operate in Syria are primarily centered in Damascus or in areas of eastern Syria near Deir ez-Zor. In fact, this zone has become a major geostrategic hotbed for Iranian activity in the Middle East because it is where the so-called land bridge linking Tehran to the Mediterranean is to be constructed
  • Among the hardcore groups deployed there are Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Kataib Hezbollah (one of the militias targeted Thursday), Saraya al-Jihad, Lebanese Hezbollah, as well as an Iranian-run Afghan and Pakistani faction
  • they’ve even reportedly offered payments to local Sunnis to join their paramilitaries or even convert to Shiism
  • Kataib Hezbollah, in particular, is a central spoke in Tehran’s wheel of aggression in Iraq and therefore a source of enormous resentment among Iraqis. To the Pentagon, it’s one of the most notorious terrorist outfits in Iraq.
  • The other named group targeted by U.S. forces on Thursday, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, is simply a splinter from Kataib Hezbollah. It was formed in early 2013, ostensibly due to a leadership dispute within the ranks of its parent organization. Since then, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada has posted candidates for Iraqi parliament in national elections and recruited thousands of fighters for combat in Iraq and Syria, all while remaining completely under Iranian control
  • Iran has always understood that its real power rested with its proxy groups across the region. It’s a smart assumption, predicated on the historical fact that Iran was able, in the last half decade, to extend its influence well beyond its borders with impunity, counting on America’s desperation for a nuclear deal. In other words, it got to do much of what it wanted a bomb to do, without the benefit of a bomb. 
  • The Middle East is greatly transformed from what it was before Trump became president. Turkey has emerged as a major interventionist power, one increasingly at odds with Iran in northern Iraq. Gulf states, meanwhile, have normalized their relations with Israel in either de jure or de facto manners. And with the destruction of ISIS’s “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq has come a new slate of socioeconomic grievances aimed at central governments and the non-state or para-state structures keeping them afloat. Containing Iran, in short, means undermining the militias, and it seldom matters where along the Soleimani “land bridge” one finds them, as the Israelis know all too well
Ed Webb

Saudi Arabia and Iran are starting to solve their differences without America. - 1 views

slate.com/...saudi-arabia-iran-biden.html

USA US diplomacy Iran analysis opinion politics KSA Saudi IR Yemen

shared by Ed Webb on 06 May 21 - Cached
  • Saudi and Iranian security officials have been holding secret talks since January without any U.S. involvement—a bit of news that has led some to bemoan a decline in American power as President Biden seeks to withdraw from the Middle East. But in fact, this is good news, both for the United States and for the prospects of calm in the region.
  • The secret talks were first reported last month in the Financial Times. The British news site Amwad.media has since reported that five such meetings have been held, beginning as far back as January, and that some of these sessions have also included officials from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan, on topics ranging from the war in Yemen to security in Syria and Lebanon.
  • Saudi Arabia and Iran have had no diplomatic relations since 2016. Their leaders and diplomats have practically hissed war threats at one another since before then. In other words, even if the talks don’t produce many tangible results, we are witnessing a monumental political shift.
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  • A senior Biden adviser told me, during the transition between election and inauguration, that the region would rank “a distant fourth” in Biden’s priorities, after Asia Pacific, Europe, and South America
  • As Trita Parsi recently put it in Foreign Policy, “It’s not so much anything Washington has done but rather what Washington has stopped doing—namely, reassuring its security partners in the region that it will continue to support them unconditionally, no matter what reckless conduct they engage in.”
  • Biden’s pushback also marks a departure from President Obama’s policy, which, in many ways, perpetuated Washington’s accommodation of Saudi interests—a carryover from U.S. policy dating back to just after World War II—despite his avid desire to “pivot” away from the region. For instance, in order to placate Saudi anxieties over his signing of the Iran nuclear deal (which would involve lifting U.S. sanctions against Tehran), Obama allowed Riyadh to use American munitions against Iranian-backed rebels in the Yemen war. (Obama later regretted this concession.)
  • in recent years, the Saudi Crown and other Sunni powers have cozied up with Israel, a partner in the cold war with Iran—which, even if the Saudi-Iranian talks are fruitful, isn’t about to vanish
  • Ignore moral values for a moment. Is there any reason, on strictly geopolitical grounds, for an American president to accommodate Saudi interests when they compromise our own? No.
  • Letting Saudi Arabia and Iran reach some modus operandi on their own does not reflect a decline of American power, nor is anyone likely to see it that way. It’s more likely to be seen as a sensible end to the squandering of our resources.
Ed Webb

Biden administration halts arms sales to UAE and Saudi Arabia | News | DW | 28.01.2021 - 0 views

www.dw.com/...a-56365478

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shared by Ed Webb on 04 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it had put a temporary hold on billions of dollars in arms sales to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.
  • Among the sales that have been put on hold is a massive $23 billion (€19 billion) deal to supply the UAE with 50 Lockheed-Martin F-35 stealth fighter jets. The deal was made in the final days of the Trump presidency, after the November 6 election.
Ed Webb

Israel seeking 'non-aggression' agreements with Gulf states | GCC News | Al Jazeera - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...lf-states-191006145121280.html

Israel GCC KSA Saudi Bahrain Oman Iran US USA diplomacy Palestine

shared by Ed Webb on 07 Oct 19 - Cached
  • Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has said he is seeking "non-aggression" agreements with Gulf states, as the two sides have warmed up to each other against common foe Iran.
  • All 22 Arab countries - except Egypt and Jordan - do not recognise Israel over the latter's occupation of Arab lands in Palestine and Syria.
  • the latest push by Israel to improve relations with Gulf states who do not formally recognise Israel and do not have formal diplomatic relations
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  • Iran's support for proxies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen have been worrying many including Israel and Saudi Arabia
  • Katz said he discussed the "non-aggression" plan with Arab foreign ministers and US President Donald Trump's outgoing envoy for the Middle East Jason Greenblatt
  • A Wikileaks cable from 2009 reported that Gulf Arabs believed "they can count on Israel against Iran".
  • In October 2018, Netanyahu met with Oman's Sultan Qaboos in Muscat in a surprise, unannounced trip
  • "This actually helps Iran because any regime in the region that associates itself with the Israeli regime, its image is hurt significantly. The more open this is, the better," he said alluding to widespread Arab resentment against Israel for its occupation of Palestine
  • Mohammad Marandi, a professor of American studies at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera that the latest news is "a very positive step for Iran" as it's been an open secret that Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE have been allies for years, "working together behind the scenes".
  • Earlier that year in March, Saudi Arabia allowed an Israel-bound passenger plane to cross through its airspace for the first time ever, breaking a 70-year ban
  • Ian Black, a visiting senior fellow at the Middle East Centre of the London School of Economics, told Al Jazeera that despite the warm relations and a shared common enemy, peace agreements are unlikely to happen "simply because of the emotive nature of the Palestinian issue across the Arab and Muslim world"
  • "[The Gulf states] simply don't want to go public with the sort of relationships we've seen increasingly visible but still limited in recent years."
Ed Webb

GERD talks should continue despite deadlock, Egyptian experts say - Politics - Egypt - ... - 0 views

english.ahram.org.eg/...e-despite-deadlock,-Egypt.aspx

Egypt Ethiopia Sudan nilebasin diplomacy water conflict

shared by Ed Webb on 15 Oct 19 - Cached
  • Talks between Egypt and Ethiopia over the latter's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) should not stop, despite reaching a deadlock earlier this month, Egyptians experts said at a conference in Cairo on Tuesday
  • an event organised by the Egyptian Center For Strategic Studies (ECSS)
  • On 5 October, Egypt announced that talks with Ethiopia over GERD had reached a dead due to the “intransigency” of the Ethiopian side.
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  • On Friday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed agreed in a phone call to overcome any obstacles facing negotiations on the dam's operation, according to the Egyptian presidency. The pair are set to meet at a summit in Russia next week
  • Egypt fears that the dam will reduce its water supply, which is dependent on the Nile, while Ethiopia maintains the hydroelectric dam will not restrict the river’s flow and hopes the mega-project will turn it into a regional power hub. The dam, which has been under construction since 2011, is being built on the Blue Nile, which accounts for 85 percent of the Nile water that reach Egypt
  • Ethiopians were trying to both finalize the process of ratification for the 2010 Entebbe agreement, which has been signed by six out of the ten Nile Basin Initiative states
  • Ed Webb on 15 Oct 19
     
    Egyptian officials aren't used to not getting their way in the Nile Basin
Ed Webb

Russia's Putin signs deals worth $1.3bn during UAE visit | Russia News | Al Jazeera - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...uae-visit-191015194158423.html

US USA Russia KSA Saudi UAE diplomacy economy trade investment

shared by Ed Webb on 16 Oct 19 - Cached
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin's has told officials in the United Arab Emirates they "will not be disappointed" as he wrapped up a short Gulf tour by signing deals worth more than $1.3bn in Abu Dhabi.
  • The crown prince and the Russian president struck six agreements, including one on shared investments between Russia's sovereign wealth fund and the Emirati investment fund Mubadala
  • In 2018, commerce between the two countries tabled some $1.7bn.
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  • "Among the Gulf countries, the UAE is the leader in terms of trade with Russia,"
  • Putin and Prince Mohammed also met Emirati astronaut Hazzaa al-Mansoori, who last month became the first Arab to reach the International Space Station, to which Russia currently enjoys a monopoly on manned flights.
  • Putin's Monday visit to US ally Riyadh, where he signed deals worth billions of dollars, came amid efforts to calm soaring tensions between the kingdom and its rival Iran. Despite its alliance with Tehran, Moscow has improved ties with Riyadh in recent years, hosting King Salman on the first official trip to Russia by a Saudi monarch in October 2017.     
Ed Webb

Beirut 1958: America's origin story in the Middle East - 0 views

www.brookings.edu/...rigin-story-in-the-middle-east

Egypt Lebanon Iraq KSA Saudi Jordan US USA military diplomacy USSR ColdWar

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Nov 19 - Cached
  • No one in Beirut — or Washington — thought that this mission would mark the beginning of decades of seemingly endless American combat missions in the Middle East. In retrospect, Beirut in 1958 was a decisive turning point.
  • Lebanon was in the midst of a civil war pitting the Christian and Muslim communities against each other. The Muslims saw the Marines as enemies intent on keeping a hated President Camille Nemr Chamoun in office against the law. The Lebanese army, a fragile coalition of Christians and Muslims, saw the Marines as uninvited aggressors who were violating Lebanese sovereignty. The American command was prepared for the worst and was ready to deploy nuclear weapons to the battlefield from its base in Germany.
  • A year before, Eisenhower had enunciated what became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine, the first statement by a president stating that America has vital interests in the Middle East and would defend them by force if necessary.
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  • the immediate cause for the dispatch of the Marines: a coup d’etat in Baghdad on July 14. The pro-American King Faisal II had been brutally murdered in the coup, and his government was swept away. In Jordan, then federated with Iraq, Eisenhower said a “highly organized plot to overthrow the lawful government” of King Hussein had been discovered. Actually, the Central Intelligence Agency had foiled the plot several weeks before.
  • said President Chamoun had requested American military intervention to stop “civil strife actively fomented by Soviet and Cairo broadcasts.” It was the only time in the speech that Eisenhower even alluded to what had him really worried that day: the rising political power in the Arab world of Egypt’s charismatic young President Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Arab nationalist movement.
  • It was a less than candid explanation for sending in the Marines. Eisenhower made no mention of the fact that Chamoun was illegally seeking a second term and even claimed Chamoun did not seek reelection. The focus was entirely on Russia and the Cold War, an issue far more Americans understood than the intricate politics of Lebanon or the Arab world.
  • Nasser, meanwhile, was in Yugoslavia visiting the communist government there. Within hours of Eisenhower’s speech, he flew to Moscow. Both Nasser and his host Nikita Khrushchev agreed that they had no warning of the coup in Baghdad or knew anything about the coup plotters, according to recently declassified Soviet documents. Both agreed that the Iraqi coup was the most important development in the Middle East and the American intervention in Lebanon was a sideshow.
  • Nasser was, in the summer of 1958, at the pinnacle of his political career and power. Ironically, he had started his political rise very much as a protégé of the Americans.
  • The British had been completely surprised by the coup in Egypt, but the CIA was not — it had detected the signs of change coming. The agency moved quickly after to coup to establish contact with Nasser.  The point man for the CIA was the legendary Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt, a scion of the Roosevelt family born in Argentina. Kim had visited Cairo before the coup and set up contact with the Free Officers who would carry it out. In October 1952, he returned to Cairo as chief of the CIA’s Near East Division and met with Nasser at the famous Mena House Hotel near the pyramids. Each was impressed by the other and they agreed to a clandestine relationship.
  • Roosevelt led the CIA operation that overthrew a democratically elected government in Iran and restored the Shah to his throne in 1953, immediately making him the darling of both Dulles and Eisenhower.
  • Washington agreed to encourage the British to give up their Suez Canal base. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was initially reluctant, but the U.K.’s huge debts from the world wars compelled him to make a deal and the British army agreed to leave Egypt in 1954. Roosevelt had been active behind the scenes in facilitating the deal.
  • The CIA gave Nasser a few million dollars, far short of what he wanted, to buy arms. Instead, he used it to build a large transmitter for the Egyptian radio program the “Voice of the Arabs” and broadcast his Arabist and anti-colonialist message to the region. Word spread about the source of the money for the tower, and it was nicknamed “Roosevelt’s Erection.”
  • Nasser took a decisive step when he arranged a large arms purchase from the Soviet Union’s client state Czechoslovakia in 1955. This alarmed the Cold Warriors in the West, especially John Foster Dulles, who saw the arms deal as the first significant penetration of the Middle East by Russia. It also alarmed the British and French, who saw Nasser’s growing stature as a threat to their remaining colonies and protectorates in the region such as Aden (part of modern-day Yemen), Algeria, Jordan, and Iraq.
  • Eisenhower opposed the 1956 tripartite invasion of Egypt by Britain, France, and Israel, seeing it as a throwback to imperialism, but the crisis did not improve the American relationship with Nasser.
  • Nasser’s intelligence agents unveiled a Saudi-funded plot to assassinate him, severely embarrassing King Saud, the man Eisenhower hoped would be a pro-American alternative to Egypt for the Arab public
  • The July 14 coup in Baghdad was a complete shock. A brigade of troops was scheduled to pass through the capital en route to Jordan to help back King Hussein against the threat posed by Nasser. Instead, as it entered the capital, it turned on the monarchy. The rebels surrounded the royal palace, and when it surrendered, the king and regent were shot to death. It was a bloody affair. The tanks of the coup-makers were covered with pictures of Nasser, and the crowds that cheered the Iraqi monarchy’s demise also screamed for Gamal Abdel Nasser. The military leaders of the coup said very little.
  • Lebanon’s Chamoun was already asking for American troops, and Jordan was acutely vulnerable. “If the Iraq coup succeeds it seems almost inevitable that it will set up a chain reaction that will doom the pro-West governments of Lebanon and Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and raise grave problems for Turkey and Iran.” Israel, Dulles predicted, would take over the West Bank and East Jerusalem “if Jordan falls to Nasser.” The entire Middle East — or at least its Arab components — might fall to Nasser, in his view. Russia would be the beneficiary.
  • At risk was a devastating defeat in the Cold War
  • the British government decided to send paratroopers to Amman to help steady the remnant of the Hashemite monarchy still in power there.
  • Ike was lucky in the end. His diplomats and generals on the scene in Beirut found a diplomatic way to avoid conflict and prevent the worst. The nuclear weapons were never shipped from Germany to the Mediterranean. After a period of political negotiations, Chamoun was pressured to stand down as president, and the civil war ended.
  • The return of the Marines to Beirut in 1982, for example, ended in a catastrophic truck bombing of their barracks that killed 241 soldiers. The wars in Iraq have now seemingly become endless. The region itself is constantly in turmoil, with terrorist attacks in many of its capital cities an all too routine atrocity.
Ed Webb

25 years on, remembering the path to peace for Jordan and Israel - 0 views

www.brookings.edu/...to-peace-for-jordan-and-israel

Jordan Israel MEPP US USA Trump diplomacy treaty peace

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Nov 19 - Cached
  • When the secret talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) were divulged in 1993, Jordan’s King Hussein felt betrayed. For years he had been secretly meeting with the Israelis to broker peace; now he discovered that they were secretly meeting with the Palestinians and making a deal without consulting him. The PLO, fellow Arabs, had not consulted the king either. He was devastated.
  • In September 1993, Rabin secretly came across the border from Eilat to Aqaba to address King Hussein’s concerns and assure the Jordanians that they would be kept informed about the future of the Oslo process. The meeting was arranged by Efraim Halevy, the deputy director of the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad. Hussein had been dealing with the Mossad and Halevy for years as a trusted clandestine back-channel
  • Clinton supported the peace process enthusiastically. A Jordanian treaty would get his support and help him sell the revival of bilateral relations with Jordan to Americans still angry over the Iraq war, especially in Congress
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  • Jordan had long held back from a peace treaty with Israel because it did not want to get in front of the Palestinians. It did not want a separate treaty with Israel, like President Anwar Sadat had done for Egypt. But now Arafat was engaging in direct talks with the Israelis to make a peace agreement: Jordan would not be alone. Even the Syrians were engaging with Israel via the Americans. Jordan was free to negotiate a peace treaty with Israel after decades of clandestine contacts begun by Hussein’s grandfather King Abdullah without fear of a backlash from the other Arabs
  • On July 25, 1994, Clinton read the declaration on the White House lawn and Rabin and Hussein signed it. It terminated the state of war. Israel formally undertook to respect the special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem. All three gave speeches, but the king’s address got the most attention. His speech included a clear and unqualified statement that the state of war was over. He spoke of the realization of peace as the fulfillment of his life-long dream.
  • Rabin had met with the king secretly for almost two decades
  • The Rabin-Hussein relationship was crucial to the success of the negotiations. Both trusted the other. Hussein saw Rabin as a military man who had the security issues under his command. He was convinced that he had a unique opportunity to get a peace treaty and Rabin was central to the opening.
  • The king also saw the negotiation process as almost more of a religious experience than a diplomatic solution to the passions of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He spoke movingly of restoring peace between the children of Abraham. He wanted a warm peace, not the cold peace between Egypt and Israel.
  • Jerusalem was also a core issue for the Hashemite family. Despite losing physical control of East Jerusalem in 1967, the king had retained influence in the Muslim institutions that administered the holy sites in the city. The preservation of Jordan’s role in the administration of the third holiest city of Islam was a very high priority of Hussein then, and still is for his son King Abdullah today
  • Clinton had studied the Jordanian wish list carefully. The top priority was for debt forgiveness, amounting to $700 million dollars. Clinton told Hussein that this would be a tough lift on Capitol Hill. If Hussein would meet Rabin at a public ceremony in the White House hosted by the president, Clinton said he could get the debt relief and progress on Jordan’s other requests.
  • The king told his aides that this was the best meeting he had had with an American president since his first with Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1959. On July 9, the king told the Jordanian parliament that it was time for an end to the state of war with Israel and for a public meeting with the Israeli leadership. He wanted the meeting to take place in the region.
  • The Jordanian and Israeli peace teams met publicly on the border to start the rollout, followed by a foreign ministers meeting at the Dead Sea in Jordan — a way to bring Peres into the photo op but not the negotiations.
  • The Americans got a copy only on the night before the White House ceremony.
  • Jordan and Israel would keep the Americans informed, but the king did not want Washington using its leverage in a negotiation process given the Americans’ closer ties to Israel.
  • Clinton spoke of the king’s extraordinary courage in pursuit of peace. He compared him to his grandfather, who had been assassinated for his talks with Israel
  • Rabin and Hussein addressed a joint session of Congress. Hussein spoke about his grandfather’s commitment to peace. “I have pledged my life to fulfilling his dream.” Both received standing ovations. Behind the scenes, Halevy was lobbying Congress for debt relief. He returned to the region on the royal aircraft with the king and queen.
  • Teams from the two countries met every day, mostly at the crown prince’s house in Aqaba. Hassan supervised the day-to-day talks for his brother.
  • The toughest issues were land and water.
  • The final issues were addressed at another Rabin-Hussein summit meeting in Amman on the evening of October 16. The two leaders got down on their hands and knees to pour over a large map of the entire border from north to south and personally delineated the line. Two small areas got special treatment: Israel would lease the two areas from Jordan so Israeli farmers could continue access to their cultivation. By 4am, it was done.
  • On October 26, 1994, Clinton witnessed the signing of the treaty on the border by the prime ministers of Israel and Jordan. It was only the second visit to Jordan by a sitting American president
  • Many Jordanians felt it was dishonorable to make peace with Israel while the occupation of the West Bank continued. Some argue that it legitimates the Israeli occupation. It has gotten progressively more unpopular in the 25 years since the signing ceremony
  • Two years later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatched a Mossad hit team to Amman to poison a Hamas leader. The botched murder attempt created a crisis in the new peace, and Halevy had to be called back from his new job in Brussels as ambassador to the European Union to smooth out the disaster and get the Mossad team released. He would then be appointed the head of the Mossad.
  • Hussein never trusted or respected Netanyahu after it, and the peace has been cold ever since
  • Hussein’s strategic goal of restoring bilateral relations with the United States was achieved
  • in December 1999, I traveled with Clinton and three former presidents to attend Hussein’s funeral in Amman in a strong demonstration of America’s commitment to Jordan.
  • The Trump administration has tilted dramatically toward Israel on all the issues that concern Jordanians about the future of the Palestinian issue, especially the status of Jerusalem. The movement of the American embassy to Jerusalem was a particularly important shock to the peace treaty. If Israel begins to annex parts of the West Bank, as Netanyahu has promised, the Jordanians will be in a corner. The treaty may be more endangered today than ever before.
Ed Webb

U.S. bars former Saudi diplomat in Turkey from entering U.S. over Khashoggi murder - Re... - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...khashoggi-murder-idUSKBN1YE20Y

USA US diplomacy KSA Saudi Yemen politics journalist

shared by Ed Webb on 11 Dec 19 - Cached
  • The United States on Tuesday barred from entering the country Mohammed al Otaibi, the former Saudi consul general in Istanbul in October 2018, when Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed there, the U.S. State Department said.
  • The United States has deployed additional American military forces to the kingdom to bolster its defenses after the Sept. 14 attack on its oil facilities, which Washington and Riyadh have blamed on Iran. Many members of the U.S. Congress, however, have questioned the longstanding U.S.-Saudi security alliance and backed several efforts - which have failed so far - to stop Trump from selling arms to the kingdom without congressional approval or providing support to the Saudi-led military coalition fighting in Yemen.
  • Otaibi previously was the subject of a U.S. asset freeze for his alleged role in Khashoggi’s death. The designation also bars his family members from entering the United States.
Ed Webb

It's Turkey's Libya now | European Council on Foreign Relations - 1 views

www.ecfr.eu/...mmentary_its_turkeys_libya_now

Europe EU Libya military diplomacy UAE Egypt Syria Russia

shared by Ed Webb on 20 May 20 - Cached
  • Turkish military support has driven the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) to sweeping victories that have effectively killed off Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s hopes of conquering Tripoli, while creating significant fractures within his camp. As Turkey grows more assertive and stamps its authority on Libya, Europeans need to use these shifting dynamics to create a new political reality in Libya – one that might finally have a chance of success, given his dramatically weakened position
  • Turkey’s new assertiveness is a direct result of the failure of the Berlin conference held in January. The German initiative was designed to align international actors on a political route out of the morass in Libya, but it did little to deter the United Arab Emirates’ massive mobilisation in support of Haftar. Ankara has now demonstrated a firm intent to remove Haftar from Tripoli and its environs. Turkey’s Libya intervention appears to be following Russia’s Syria playbook – from the legitimising act of a formal invitation that had parliamentary approval (in stark contrast to the covert intervention of all other states involved in the war) to its exploitation of divisions between European countries whenever it felt threatened by them
  • Haftar’s forces still launch missile attacks on Tripoli each day and control Libya’s oil.
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  • Haftar’s response to this discontent was to launch what was effectively a coup: he annulled the Libyan Political Agreement, which forms the basis of Libya’s political institutions, and claimed full control. But this brazen power grab only seems to have further alienated important constituencies in southern Libya, which responded by declaring their allegiance to the GNA, while eastern tribes continue to hedge their bets.
  • there may finally be an opportunity for some political progress – which has been blocked in the past year by, more than anything, the intransigence of Haftar and his external backers, who seemed to truly believe that total military victory was in sight. This dream is now dead
  • Other European states – particularly Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom – should press France and Greece to escape Haftar’s sinking ship. This could allow Europeans to work more forcefully through the United Nations to create a patchwork of local deals, building on recent Libyan initiatives that bring together warring communities in western Libya while using Saleh’s initiative to restart the Geneva dialogue between Libya’s political factions.
  • Europe’s window of opportunity in Libya is closing. It needs to move fast if it is to forcefully protect its interests and its role as a barrier against Russian encroachment into the country, while preventing the development of another Syria-style conflict in its neighbourhood.
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