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    For Saudi Arabia, Iran Looms, Israel Beckons and the Taliban Cause Goosebumps

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    Prince Khalid bin Salman may not have planned it that way, but the timing of his trip to Moscow last week and message to Washington resounded loud and clear. By not postponing the visit, the Saudi deputy defense minister signaled that he was trying to hedge his kingdom’s bets by signing a defense cooperation agreement with Russia. This took place just as the United States fumbled to evacuate thousands of people from Afghanistan after that country was captured by Taliban militants.

    Saudi Arabia would have wanted to be seen as hedging its bets with or without the US debacle. The kingdom realizes that Russia will exploit opportunities created by the fiasco in Afghanistan but is neither willing nor capable of replacing the US as the Gulf’s security guarantor.

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    Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia likely wants to capitalize on jitters in the US as Washington tries to get a grip on what went wrong and come to terms with the fact that Afghanistan will once again be governed by the Taliban. In 2001, the US ousted the ultraconservative militants from power because they harbored al-Qaeda terrorists who planned the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan.

    Al-Qaeda, alongside various other militant groups, still has a presence in Afghanistan. The Taliban insist that no one will be allowed to operate cross-border or plan and/or launch attacks on other countries from Afghan soil.

    Jitters in the Gulf

    Yet the willingness to exploit US discomfort may also signal jitters in Saudi Arabia. The American withdrawal from Afghanistan raises questions for Riyadh. First, is the US still reliable when it comes to the defense of the kingdom and the Arabian Peninsula? Second, does the US move undermine confidence in Washington’s ability to negotiate a potential revival of the Iranian nuclear deal if and when talks start again? Third, could Afghanistan become a battlefield in the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, despite both sides seeking to dial down tensions?

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    Neil Quilliam, a Middle East analyst at Chatham House, argues that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has increased its influence among the Taliban at the expense of the Saudis, who backed away from the group in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The kingdom and the Taliban’s paths further diverged with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman liberalizing the once-shared ultra-conservative social mores while Afghanistan appears set to reintroduce them.

    “The Taliban leadership will likely begin a campaign to challenge the legitimacy of the Al Saud and appeal directly to the Saudi population to challenge the ruling family’s authority. At the same time, the Saudi leadership will be keen to align policy with the US and its Western partners and will follow their lead in establishing diplomatic relations with the new Afghan government and providing aid to the country’s population,” Quilliam predicted.

    His analysis assumes that reduced Saudi interaction and closer Iranian ties with the Taliban mean that the group’s inclinations would lean more toward Tehran than Riyadh.

    In a similar vein, some analysts have noted that Saudi Arabia was absent among the Gulf states that helped the US and European countries with evacuations from Afghanistan. Instead, it sent its deputy defense minister to Moscow.

    Others suggested that Saudi Arabia chose to remain on the sidelines and hedge its bets, given its history with the Taliban. Until 2001, Saudi Arabia was a major influence among Afghan jihadists, whom it funded during the war against the Soviets in the 1980s. It was also one of three countries to recognize the Taliban government in Afghanistan when it first gained power in 1996. Fifteen of the 19 perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were Saudi nationals. By then, Saudi influence had already waned, as was evident in the Taliban’s refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden before the attacks took place. 

    If proven correct, Quilliam’s prediction would amount to a break with the Taliban record of not operating beyond Afghanistan’s borders except in Pakistan, even though it tolerates al-Qaeda militants and others on territory it controls. Moreover, despite being strange bedfellows, the need to accommodate one another is unlikely to persuade the Taliban to do Iran’s bidding. “Iran has tried to increase its influence within the group by getting closer to certain factions, but it is still suspicious of the Taliban as a whole,” said Fatemeh Aman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

    Iran and Israel

    Moreover, the Taliban may want to steer clear of the Iranian-Saudi rivalry. This is particularly if those who believe that US unreliability, as demonstrated in Afghanistan, leaves Saudi Arabia no choice but to escalate the war in Yemen and confront Iran more forcefully get their way.

    “We should take a lesson from the events in Afghanistan, and especially from the mistakes [that were made there], regarding Yemen. This is the time to crush the Houthis without considering the international forces,” said Saudi columnist Safouq al-Shammari, echoing other commentators in Saudi media. “Giving Israel a free hand regarding the Iranian nuclear issue has become a reasonable [option] … It seems like [Israel’s] extremist [former prime minister] Netanyahu, was right to avoid coordinating with the [Biden] administration, which he considered weak and failing.”

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    Shammari’s notions fit into Mohammed bin Salman’s effort to replace the religious core of Saudi identity with hyper-nationalism. They also stroke with thinking among more conservative Israeli analysts and retired military officers. In Shammari’s vein, retired Major General Gershon Hacohen of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) walked away from the US debacle in Afghanistan, warning that “for all its overwhelming material and technological superiority, the IDF stands no chance of defeating Israel’s Islamist enemies unless its soldiers are driven by a relentless belief in the national cause.”

    By the same token, Major General Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser and head of military intelligence research, argued that the US withdrawal would drive home to the Gulf states the proposition that an “open relationship with Israel is vitally important for their ability to defend themselves.” He added that Israel could not replace the US as the region’s security guarantor, “but together with Israel these countries will be able to build a regional scheme that will make it easier for them to contend with various threats.”

    By implication, Amidror was urging the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which last year established diplomatic relations with Israel, to forge closer security cooperation with the Jewish state. He suggested that Saudi Arabia may, in the wake of the events in Afghanistan, be more inclined to build formal ties with Israel. Yet while there is little doubt that Mohammed bin Salman would like to have an open relationship with Israel, it is equally possible that the victory of religious militants in Afghanistan will reinforce Saudi hesitancy to cross the Rubicon at the risk of sparking widespread criticism in the Muslim world.

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Can Saudi Arabia Balance Social and Economic Change?

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      The World Bank issued a stark warning in its 2018 outlook for the Saudi economy: “The Kingdom likely faces a looming poverty problem.” The bank has since noted in its 2019 and 2020 outlooks that “while no official information is available on poverty, identifying and supporting low-income households is challenging.” Dependent on world oil prices, the curve of gross domestic product (GPD) per capita in Saudi Arabia was never a straight line upward. Instead, it ebbed and flowed.

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      In one example, Saudi GDP per capita dropped by almost half from a peak of $17,872 in 1981 to $8,685 in 2001, the year in which 15 Saudi middle-class nationals constituted the majority of jihadists who flew airplanes into New York’s World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon in Washington. It was also the year in which many Saudis struggled to make ends meet amid depressed oil prices and then-King Abdullah’s efforts to introduce a measure of Saudi fiscal restraint. Many people held two to three jobs.

      “Prior to the Gulf War, we didn’t pay rent in student dormitories — now we do,” a Saudi student enrolled in Saudi Arabia’s prestigious King Fahd Petroleum and Minerals University told this writer at the time. “In the past, it didn’t matter if you didn’t complete your studies in five years. Now you lose your scholarship if you don’t. Soon we’ll be asked to pay for tuition. Before the Gulf War, you had 10 job offers when you graduated. Now you’re lucky if you get one,” the student said referring to the US-led reversal of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

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      “There’s nothing to do here but sit around, watch television and smoke shisha,” added Abdulaziz, one of the student’s friends. “There’s nothing we can do to change things. That’s why we get married early, only to discover that it was a mistake.”

      Saudi GDP per capita has dropped again, although less dramatically, from $23,337 in the year that the World Bank warned about looming poverty to $20,110 in 2020. On a positive note, the bank reports that while “poverty information and access to survey data to measure welfare conditions have been limited,” Saudi Arabia has seen “gains in administrative capacity to identify and support low-income households.” It warned, however, that the middle class could be most exposed to the pains of austerity and fiscal restraint.

      A Different Saudi Arabia

      To be sure, the Saudi Arabia at the turn of the century is not the same kingdom as today. Saudis made up one of the largest contingents of foreign fighters in the Islamic State group that seized territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014. Despite this, Saudi citizens are unlikely to respond to a unilateral rewriting of a social contract that promised cradle-to-grave-welfare and potential economic hardship by drifting toward militancy and extremism at a time that a young crown prince has promised massive change and delivered some.

      Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has liberalized social mores, rolled back the influence of ultra-conservative clerics, created greater leisure and entertainment offerings, and enhanced women’s rights and professional opportunities. This forms part of his plan to wean Saudi Arabia off its dependency on oil exports and diversify the economy. He has simultaneously tightened the political aspect of the kingdom’s social contract involving the public’s absolute surrender of all political rights, including freedom of expression, media and assembly.

      In exchange, Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 reform plan promises, according to the World Bank, to protect citizens from the pain of economic change by “modernizing the social welfare system, redirecting price subsidies toward those in need, preparing and training those unable to find employment, and providing tailored care and support to the most vulnerable citizen.” In doing so, the government has sought to soften the impact of higher energy prices and the tripling of value-added tax and expatriate levy.

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      More than social protections, Vision 2030 is about creating jobs for Saudis in a country where unemployment was 11.7% in the first quarter of this year. In the last three years, the Saudi private sector reportedly created a third of the 1.2 million jobs the kingdom needs to generate by 2022 to meet its unemployment target. The country’s statistics agency said the first-quarter unemployment was Saudi Arabia’s lowest in nearly five years. But the decline was partly driven by people dropping out of the labor force rather than new job creation.

      Jobs for Saudis

      In May, Mohammed bin Salman asserted in a wide-ranging interview that “we have 200,000 to 250,000 people getting into the job market each year and public sector jobs are limited.” Taking tourism as an example, he said the development of the industry would create 3 million jobs, 1 million of which would be for Saudis who, over time, could replace expats who would initially fill two-thirds of the openings.

      “Once we create three million jobs, we can Saudize them in the future. There are also jobs in the industrial sector and so on,” Prince Mohammed said. He predicted at the same time that the percentage of foreigners in the kingdom could increase from a third of the population today to half in the next decade or two.

      Writing about the changing social contract in Saudi Arabia, Mira al-Hussein and Eman Alhussein cautioned that the government needs to manage rapid economic and social change, in part by providing clearer information to the public. The scholars identified issues involving rights of foreigners versus rights accorded children of mixed Saudi and non-Saudi marriages, the rollback of religion in public life and austerity measures as potential points of friction in the kingdom. “The ramifications of existing grievances and the increasing polarization within Gulf societies … as well as the extensive social engineering programs have pitted conservatives against liberals. Arab Gulf States’ ability to redefine their social contracts without turbulence will depend on their tactful avoidance of creating new grievances and on solving existing ones,” the authors wrote.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Saudi Seeks to Replace UAE and Qatar

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      Saudi Arabia has stepped up efforts to outflank the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as the commercial, cultural and/or geostrategic hub in the Gulf. The Saudis recently expanded their challenge to the smaller Gulf states by seeking to position Saudi Arabia as the region’s foremost sports destination, once Qatar has had its moment in the sun with the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The kingdom seeks to secure a stake in the management of regional ports and terminals, which have so far been dominated by the UAE and, to a lesser extent, Qatar.

      The kingdom kicked off its effort to cement its position as the Middle East’s behemoth earlier this year. In February, Saudi Arabia announced it would cease doing business by 2024 with international companies whose regional headquarters were not based in the country. 

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      The UAE ranks 16th on the World Bank’s 2020 Ease of Doing Business Index as opposed to Saudi Arabia at number 62. As a result, freewheeling Dubai has long been the preferred regional headquarters of international firms. The Saudi move “clearly targets the” United Arab Emirates and “challenges the status of Dubai,” said a UAE-based banker.

      Saudi Arabia is a latecomer to the port control game, which is dominated by Dubai’s DP World. That company operates 82 marine and inland terminals in more than 40 countries, including Djibouti, Somaliland, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Cyprus. The kingdom’s expansion into port and terminal management appears to be less driven by geostrategic considerations. Instead, Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Gateway Terminal (RSGT), backed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, said it was targeting ports that would service vital Saudi imports, such as those related to food security.

      In January, PIF and China’s Cosco Shipping Ports each bought a 20% stake in RSGT. The Chinese investment fits into Beijing’s larger Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which involves the acquisition of stakes in ports and terminals in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Oman and Djibouti, where China has a military base.

      Jens Floe, the chief executive officer of RSGT, said the company planned to invest in at least three international ports in the next five years. He said each investment would be up to $500 million. “We have a focus on ports in Sudan and Egypt. They weren’t picked for that reason, but they happen to be significant countries for Saudi Arabia’s food security strategy,” Floe said.

      Saudi Sports

      Saudi Arabia’s increased focus on sports, including a possible bid to host the 2030 World Cup, serves multiple goals. First, it offers Saudi youth, who account for more than half of the kingdom’s population, a leisure and entertainment opportunity. Second, it boosts Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s burgeoning development of a leisure and entertainment industry. The Saudis believe this could allow the kingdom to polish its image tarnished by human rights abuse, including the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, and challenge Qatar’s position as the face of Middle Eastern sports.

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      A recent report by Grant Liberty, a London-based human rights group that focuses on Saudi Arabia and China, estimated that Riyadh has invested $1.5 billion in the hosting of multiple sporting events. These include the final games of Italy and Spain’s top football leagues, Formula 1 races, boxing, wrestling and snooker matches, and golf tournaments. So far, Qatar is the Middle East’s leader in the hosting of sporting events, followed by the UAE.

      According to Grant Liberty, further bids for events worth $800 million have failed. This did not include an unsuccessful $600-million offer to replace Qatar’s beIN Sports as the Middle Eastern broadcaster of the UEFA Champions League. Saudi Arabia reportedly continues to ban beIN from airing in the kingdom, despite the lifting of the Saudi-Emirati-led diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar in January.

      Oil Exports

      Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan to diversify and streamline the Saudi economy and ween it off dependency on oil exports “has set the creation of professional sports and a sports industry as one of its goals,” said Fahad Nazer, spokesperson for the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington. “The kingdom is proud to host and support various athletic and sporting events which not only introduce Saudis to new sports and renowned international athletes but also showcase the kingdom’s landmarks and the welcoming nature of its people to the world.”

      The increased focus on sports comes as Saudi Arabia appears to be backing away from its intention to reduce the centrality of energy exports for its economy. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the crown prince’s brother, recently ridiculed an International Energy Agency (IEA) report, saying “there is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply” as “the sequel of the La La Land movie.” He went on to ask, “Why should I take [the report] seriously?”

      Putting its money where its mouth is, Saudi Arabia intends to increase its oil production capacity from 12 million to more than 13 million barrels a day. This is based on the assumption that global efforts to replace fossil fuel with cleaner energy sources will spark sharp reductions in American and Russian production. The Saudis believe that demand in Asia for fossil fuels will continue to rise even if it drops in the West. Other Gulf producers, including the UAE and Qatar, are following a similar strategy.

      “Saudi Arabia is no longer an oil country, it’s an energy-producing country … a very competitive energy country. We are low cost in producing oil, low cost in producing gas, and low cost in producing renewables and will definitely be the least-cost producer of hydrogen,” Prince Abdulaziz said. He appeared to be suggesting that the kingdom’s doubling down on oil was part of a strategy that aims to ensure that Saudi Arabia is a player in all conventional and non-conventional aspects of energy. By implication, he was saying that diversification was likely to broaden Saudi Arabia’s energy offering, rather than significantly reduce its dependence on energy exports.

      “Sports, entertainment, tourism and mining alongside other industries envisioned in Vision 2030 are valuable expansions of the Saudi economy that serve multiple economic and non-economic purposes,” said a Saudi analyst. “It’s becoming evident, however, that energy is likely to remain the real name of the game.”

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      What Will It Take for MBS to Rehabilitate His Image?

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      On April 10, the Saudi Ministry of Defense announced the execution of three soldiers after what it called a “fair trial” in a specialist court. The men were convicted and sentenced to death for the crimes of “high treason” and “cooperating with the enemy.” Aside from the men’s names, no further details were provided.

      Ali al-Ahmed, a Washington-based critic of the regime, tweeted a video — which has not been independently verified — of what appears to be soldiers burning and stamping on a picture of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). In the tweet, Ahmed says he was “told this video was behind executing the 3 Saudi soldiers.”

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      Given the opacity of the Saudi regime, the soldiers could have been executed for any number of reasons, such as being involved in the illicit sale of weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen (the trial and executions were carried out in the military’s Southern Command close to the Yemeni border). Or it may have been a case of lèse-majesté — the burning of the photograph — that enraged MBS.

      If it is the latter, it gives further credence to the image of an unstable and violence-prone leader, whom the CIA blames for ordering the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Try as he might, Mohammed bin Salman cannot put that one crime behind him. He was angered that Khashoggi — at one time a close associate of senior members of the ruling family — had departed from the kingdom and had the temerity to criticize the prince in columns he wrote for The Washington Post.

      Throwing Critics in Prison

      Western businessmen and politicians, anxious to do business with Saudi Arabia, could set aside many of the actions of this unruly and impulsive prince. These include the Saudi-led war in Yemen, which MBS thought he would win in a few weeks but has now entered its seventh year; the blockade of Qatar in June 2017, which did not end until January 2021; the seizure and forced resignation of the then-Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, in November 2017; and the arrest and detention of more than 400 Saudi businessmen and senior members of the royal family, some of whom were allegedly tortured and only released when they signed over companies and surrendered millions of dollars in a mafia-style shakedown.

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      Even the imprisonment of Loujain al-Hathloul, a Saudi women’s rights activist, caused barely a flicker of concern in Western boardrooms and corridors of political power. Hathloul and her family allege that since her arrest in May 2018, she was tortured in detention and subjected to electrocution, flogging, sexual abuse and waterboarding in secret prisons before she was finally brought to trial. Among those responsible for the torture, she claims, was Saud al-Qahtani, a confidante of the crown prince who was heavily implicated in the Khashoggi murder. Hathloul was finally released but under strict conditions in February of this year. The allegations of torture were never investigated by Saudi authorities.

      The arrival of Joe Biden in the White House took away the protection that his predecessor had provided to the crown prince. In February, President Biden released a declassified CIA report on the killing of Khashoggi. He has also withheld arms sales to the Saudis to pressure MBS to end the war in Yemen. Biden has also signaled that human rights issues — having been kicked into the long grass by Donald Trump, the former US president — are now back on the agenda. Thousands of political prisoners are languishing in the Saudi prison system. This includes the scholar and author Salman al-Odah, against whom the public prosecutor is seeking the death penalty, and the aid worker Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, who in March was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of writing anonymous tweets critical of the regime.

      PR Will Not His Image

      Biden’s stance on Saudi Arabia is a problem for MBS, but just how much of a problem remains to be seen. Biden is, after all, a pragmatist who may, in the end, not exact much of a price on the human rights front before waving through the weapons deal. But with every step MBS takes to rehabilitate his image and rebrand the kingdom as a modern, open society where “moderate Islam” flourishes, he is shadowed by a remarkable and doggedly courageous woman: Hatice Cengiz, the fiancé of the murdered Jamal Khashoggi.

      When MBS attempted to use the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) to purchase Newcastle United, a football club in the UK, Cengiz was there to challenge the takeover bid. It failed, to the great chagrin of the crown prince. When more recently he dangled a $100-million purse to secure the heavyweight fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury for the kingdom, Cengiz used The Telegraph newspaper to express her anger. “I cannot believe after all this time, and all the evidence showing his guilt, that the Saudi Crown Prince is still being considered as a ‘host’ for such world sporting events, which he is using for political reasons and to clean his image,” she said in a statement. 

      Indications are that Saudi Arabia will host the fight, but MBS may have to pull even more than $100 million out of the PIF to do so. But sports events and expensive PR campaigns will not take away the stain of the killing of Khashoggi. To rehabilitate his image, MBS would have to give justice to Hathloul, drop the charges and release Odah, end the unjust incarceration of Sadhan and release thousands of other prisoners of conscience. Mohammed bin Salman would have to take responsibility for his actions and acknowledge his crimes — which he cannot do. 

      What he can and will do is to play for time and hope that Trump or one of his lackeys returns to the White House in 2025.

      *[This article was originally published by Gulf House.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Mohammed bin Salman’s Neom: A Case of Giga-Narcissism

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      Despite rumors to the contrary due to the somewhat soiled reputation of a leader better known for, according to US intelligence, commanding the murder of a Washington Post journalist than his contribution to the future of humankind, Business Insider reassuringly reports that “work is pressing ahead at Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman‘s prized gigaprojects, a key pillar of his dream of modernizing Saudi Arabia.”

      The young man known as MBS has a confirmed habit of spending vast amounts of money on anything that may redound to his personal glory. And nothing redounds better than immensely costly, futuristic public projects that defy description. His discreetly managed construction of his own Chateau Louis XIV in Louveciennes, just a few kilometers from Versailles itself, got very little publicity, due undoubtedly to the fact that it was just an example of narcissistic indulgence.

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      The New York Times has referred to it as “the most expensive house in the world,” though there appear to be other candidates, such as Antilia in Mumbai, whose cost of construction estimated at between $1 and $2 billion dwarfs the $300 million that Mohammed bin Salman’s Chateau is worth. That nevertheless qualifies it for the title of the most elegant expensive house in the world and possibly the most respectful of its environment, nestled discreetly within the charming forest of Louveciennes.

      For all its splendor and expense, Chateau Louis XIV doesn’t is no gigaproject. The Times calls it a “bauble” for MBS. It has nothing to do with “modernizing Saudi Arabia” since it doesn’t even modernize France. The real future jewel in the crown prince’s crown is a delirious vision of the future called Neom.

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Gigaproject:

      Any absurd, unrealistic project planned by an individual with access to gigabillions of dollars and devoid of human values

      Contextual Note

      Business Insider gives its readers an idea of what MBS wants Neom to become. It is not just a hypermodern resort for billionaires, like Dubai, but a bold, forward-looking gigaproject that will generously advance the interests of science, the environment and especially human beings addicted to sci-fi literature and film and willing to pay to see and experience technoscientific fantasies materialized in front of their very eyes. “The city, named Neom, would be carbon neutral and have artificial rain, a fake moon, flying taxis, and robotic maids, according to early blueprints drawn up by consultants. It has since branded itself as a future hub for pioneering clean energy development,” Bill Bostock writes.

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      It sounds as if the consultants were asked to physically combine Las Vegas, Universal Studios, Disneyland and Dubai and shape them into a doughy ball that MBS could then roll out across a stretch of Arabian Desert. Business Insider explains that Mohammed bin Salman’s aim is to “inspire awe,” as if the daring murder and dismembering of journalist Jamal Khashoggi hadn’t already achieved that effect.

      But there is an even more serious objective. MBS wants Neom and two other gigaprojects to “substantiate his self-styled image as a reformer, while adding new strings to Saudi Arabia’s economic bow.” No other reformer of the past — from Martin Luther to Martin Luther King — has had the temerity and deep sense of empathy toward suffering humanity capable of guiding them toward the coveted goal of creating a society with artificial rain and a fake moon.

      In an earlier article, Business Insider describes Neom as “the world’s first ‘cognitive city.’ It is designed to “anticipate residents’ needs,” which it does by harvesting “an unprecedented amount of data from future residents.” It follows the Google model, offering something deemed valuable for free to gain control of all the forces underlying its consumers’ behavior. Both Google and MBS deploy a strategy that consists of confusing the random, artificially stimulated desires of their customers with needs.

      At least the Chinese model of social credits, denounced throughout the West as a totalitarian tool, derives from the value of “harmony” at the core of Chinese culture. Technology now enables every government in the world to encourage not just spying on its citizens, but monitoring every individual’s behavior. Democratic regimes do it one way. Despotic regimes do it another way. What varies is the type of hypocrisy used to justify it.

      Historical Note

      In recent history, the idea of reform, especially in the context of democracy, referred to measures that served to reduce injustice and promote equality. As a supremely autocratic monarchy, Saudi Arabia is the opposite of a democracy. When commentators such as Thomas Friedman detect the utilization of despotic powers to promote conformity with the global economic system imposed by the United States on the rest of the world, they call those who initiate such processes reformers. For Friedman, the world loses its asperities and becomes “flat” — in his reading, fair and just as well as economically dynamic — whenever money and monopoly-orientated technological innovation are brought together and stimulated by visionary political leadership. The symbiosis of Wall Street and Silicon Valley sums up Friedman’s ideal. Mohammed bin Salman encapsulated that ideal.

      The political stakes are undeniable. Business Insider cites the opinion of a former US diplomat who explained that the Saudi crown prince’s political future is “to a considerable extent tied to the success of” these gigaprojects. In today’s economy, commercial success, especially when technology is involved, is the key to pardoning crimes that can be henceforth reclassified as unfortunate episodes of history that deserve to be erased from our collective memory.

      The challenge nevertheless remains of ensuring such projects are successful. Money alone won’t do the trick. Overly ambitious projects, however well-funded, are risky, just as dismembering a journalist in an Istanbul consulate may prove risky. If the project doesn’t live up to its ambitions, danger lurks. The higher and more unrealistic the ambition, the greater the chances of humiliating failure. And the more enticing the promise — in this case, of accelerating scientific progress — the more disappointing even partial success will prove to be. With the right engineering and adequate investment, as a theoretical proposition, Neom may today seem technically feasible — just like Elon Musk’s idea of thriving colonies on Mars — but the willingness of humans to live in such artificial worlds and their ability to adapt to radically different living conditions may fail to meet the designers’ optimistic expectations.

      If Dubai has proved successful, it is because — despite its pretensions of grandeur — its hyperreality has never crossed the invisible line of credibility. It has simply taken and exaggerated every notable trend in the consumer society. Its unoriginal architecture imitates existing models. How many buildings in Dubai look like cheap imitations of New York’s Chrysler building or the British Parliament? Hyperreality is about imitation and illusion, not innovation. Neom appears to want to merge both and to be honored for advancing human science.

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      Andrew Hudson-Smith, a professor of digital urban systems at University College London, believes Neom’s success is possible. “People will buy into this as long as they’re given an incentive for it,” he told Business Insider. “That may be better healthcare, which is what Neom has said.” A Saudi analyst offered this optimistic take: “People will value the convenience and the associated elimination of bureaucracy … over sharing their digital data that many assume is already in the public domain given the technology that they use.” It’s the Google-Facebook principle.

      This thinking is consistent with the ingrained ideology of the consumer society. Offer people something new that seems to solve a problem or offer a new convenience and they will readily accept the associated constraints, so long as those constraints don’t become too visible. But there’s a significant flaw in the reasoning. Consumer society’s success in the 20th century rested on the idea that it was about limitless choice. Neom and Musk’s Mars colonies neglect the fact that choice implies the ability to change one’s choice once the consumer discovers the drawbacks. The worst thing that can happen to consumers is to feel they have become the prisoner of their choices.

      Business Insider claims the “experts are excited about Neom” before adding “the caveat that smart cities rarely resemble their original blueprints.” The experts have the luxury of simply drawing up new blueprints. Those who have committed to living there may feel locked in by circumstances or by their sense of shame at having made the wrong consumer choice.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      The Talented Mr. Bin Salman

      by

      Mohammed bin Salman is a charming fellow. The tall, dark and handsome Saudi prince known as MBS has seduced world leaders and eager pundits left and right. To his supporters, MBS became first in line to the Saudi throne by championing reform in a deeply conservative Gulf kingdom, taking on corruption, confronting religious extremists and promising to modernize the economy. “Someone had to do this job — wrench Saudi Arabia into the 21st century — and MBS stepped up,” wrote Thomas Friedman in an oft-cited column from November 2017. “I, for one, am rooting for him to succeed in his reform efforts.”

      Not only impressionable opinion-makers have fallen for the prince’s charm. In 2017, MBS won the reader poll for Time’s person of the year with an astonishing 24% of the vote. Second place, at 6%, went to the magazine’s eventual pick for its cover, the #MeToo movement, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau garnered a mere 4%, Pope Francis 3% and then-US President Donald Trump 2%.

      Serious Politics Is Not About Recalibration

      READ MORE

      Of course, not everyone has been enthusiastic about the talented Mr. bin Salman. In 2015, three months into his new position as defense minister, MBS launched an air war in neighboring Yemen. Tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians have died, and the country has been plunged into a humanitarian nightmare. The war, which has become a quagmire for the Saudi-led coalition, has not exactly made a lot of friends for MBS.

      Two years later, shortly before he mesmerized Friedman in Riyadh, Mohammed bin Salman detained a number of his wealthiest rivals in a set of rooms at the Ritz-Carlton in the Saudi capital. There he subjected the sheikhs and businessmen to interrogations and torture that resulted in one death and the hospitalization of 17 others. The Saudi leadership called the extortion of billions of dollars from the rich prisoners an anti-corruption campaign, but it was really a way for MBS to consolidate his power through brute force.

      Embed from Getty Images

      “He is a psycho,” a relative of one of the detainees said of MBS. “He has spite. He wants to break people. He doesn’t want anyone to have an honorable name but him. He is a devil, and the devil is learning from him.”

      Shortly before the Ritz-Carlton “sheikhdown,” Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi fled the country for the United States. As a Washington Post columnist, he then took aim at the policies of the Saudi government and those of MBS in particular. While the Saudi prince “is right to free Saudi Arabia from ultra-conservative religious forces, he is wrong to advance a new radicalism that, while seemingly more liberal and appealing to the West, is just as intolerant of dissent,” Khashoggi wrote in a column from April 2018.

      That intolerance for dissent was on full and tragic display a few months later when Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to get papers to marry his Turkish fiancée and never came out. A government-dispatched death squad strangled the journalist and dismembered his body.

      The Saudi government initially denied that Khashoggi had been killed. Then it claimed that the killers were rogue elements. The kingdom eventually put 11 unnamed individuals on trial for the crime, charged eight of them and handed down five death sentences that it subsequently commuted to 20 years in prison.

      After Khashoggi’s murder, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on 17 Saudi officials. But even though a UN report implicated MBS in the assassination, he didn’t face any consequences. Indeed, Trump continued to praise the Saudi prince as if nothing had happened.

      “It’s an honor to be with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, a friend of mine, a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms of opening up Saudi Arabia,” Trump said at a June 2019 breakfast with MBS at the G20 meeting in Tokyo. “I want to just thank you on behalf of a lot of people, and I want to congratulate you. You’ve done, really, a spectacular job.”

      This week, the Biden administration released an earlier US intelligence report on the assassination of Khashoggi that concluded that Mohammed bin Salman approved the killing. The administration added some new sanctions against certain Saudi officials and instituted a “Khashoggi ban” against 76 unnamed individuals associated with the killing. That ban can also be applied to any foreign officials who harass or harm journalists or activists.

      Still, the Biden administration has declined to sanction MBS himself. Like Tom Ripley in the novels of Patricia Highsmith, Mohammed bin Salman is a confidence man, a possible serial killer and an all-around psychopath with a taste for the high life. Highsmith described the protagonist of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and four other novels as “suave, agreeable, and utterly amoral.” Although he often comes close to getting caught, in the end, Tom Ripley gets away with murder every time. Will that be the fate of the talented Mr. bin Salman as well?

      The US-Saudi Relationship

      The alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia initially made sense, at least at a basic economic level. In February 1945, when Franklin D. Roosevelt met secretly with King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud on a Navy destroyer in the Suez Canal, the US president wanted to secure a homeland for Jewish refugees in Palestine. Although the Saudi king was not enthusiastic, he was willing to forge a partnership around oil. Saudi Arabia had recently discovered what promised to be very lucrative fields, and the US needed a reliable oil supply to finish off World War II and begin a post-war recovery.

      Saudi Arabia still has a lot of oil, but the US doesn’t need it anymore. From a high of two million barrels of crude a day in May 2003, US imports dropped to a mere 100,000 last December. For a period of time in January, for the first time in 35 years, the United States didn’t import any Saudi oil at all. Because of its own fossil fuel production, increased imports from countries like Canada, and greater reliance on renewables, the US is simply no longer dependent on the Saudis.

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      Take oil out of the equation and the alliance becomes untenable. Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship with fewer political and religious freedoms than, say, Iran, which the US routinely castigates for its human rights violations. The kingdom has been a destabilizing influence in the region, for instance through its war in Yemen and its earlier embargo of Qatar. Moreover, Saudi Arabia promotes a conservative version of Islam, Wahhabism, that has squeezed out more liberal variants of the religion all around the world. The country has also generated even more extremist ideologies, like the jihadism of Osama bin Laden and his followers.

      In an investigation of the links between the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers, the FBI found some evidence of collaboration, through the Saudi Embassy in Washington, but the agency has been divided on whether that evidence is conclusive. The name of the relevant embassy contact, Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, was even inadvertently revealed last May, but it’s not likely that the Saudi government will allow him to be deposed as part of the lawsuit mounted by families of the 9/11 victims.

      It’s not the only case in which the Saudi government has been implicated. A lawsuit in Florida alleges that the kingdom could have prevented an attack by a Saudi air force officer in 2019 at a naval air station in Pensacola that left three US sailors dead.

      The US government has generally looked the other way when it comes to these obvious disqualifications for a strategic partnership. It’s not just oil. The Saudis have proved to be useful partners in various causes over the years. They provided financial support for the anti-Soviet mujahideen in Afghanistan. They’ve been a bulwark behind conservative regimes in the Middle East, such as Egypt, which the United States has misinterpreted as a stabilizing influence.

      And then there’s Iran, with which Saudi Arabia has long battled for influence in the greater Middle East. Part of the rivalry is confessional — Iran is predominantly Shia, while Saudi Arabia is predominantly Sunni. The tensions are also political since the Saudis tend to prefer conservative, pro-Western regimes, while Iran favors governments and movements that are at least skeptical of the West if not outright hostile. But the competition often boils down to geopolitics, with the two countries trying to influence countries and leaders regardless of their religion or political leanings.

      Because the United States decided 40 years ago, with a big assist from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to do everything it could to constrain the new Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia became an essential partner. In 2015, the Obama administration challenged the cornerstone of this partnership with the Iran nuclear deal. Trump swung in the opposite direction to make the kingdom the fulcrum of a region-wide peace plan.

      President Joe Biden is now trying to “recalibrate” the relationship. It has ended “all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales,” but that leaves open the possibility of supporting defensive operations, whatever those might be. It has put a hold on half a billion dollars in military assistance but is now evaluating which deals can go through under the category of “defensive” weapons, like missile defense systems.

      In his initial discussions with the kingdom, Biden also raised issues of human rights and the assassination of Khashoggi. At the same time, however, the administration has tried to preserve the overall relationship by effectively pardoning MBS. King Salman is 85 years old, and he’s not in good health. With MBS set to take over, the United States doesn’t want to alienate a powerful future monarch. Mohammed bin Salman is aware of his leverage. He will act accordingly.

      Dealing with Ruling Assassins

      The Biden administration this week announced sanctions against senior Russian officials over the poisoning of dissident Alexei Navalny. In 2019, the European Union imposed sanctions on Iran for its involvement in the assassination of two Iranians in the Netherlands. After the 2017 assassination at the Kuala Lumpur airport of Kim Jong Nam, who was North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half-brother, Malaysia closed its embassy in Pyongyang and imposed a travel ban on the country.

      Embed from Getty Images

      None of these moves has doomed bilateral relations. The US still engages with the Kremlin, most recently by extending New START. The EU is pushing hard for a resumption of the Iran nuclear deal. Malaysia reopened its embassy in Pyongyang last year.

      Part of the reason why such extrajudicial murders generate sanctions but not a full quarantine of the perpetrating countries is the widespread nature of these offenses. Among its many “targeted killings” by drones, the United States assassinated the head of Iran’s Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, outside the Baghdad airport at the beginning of 2020. Israel has routinely killed its opponents all over the world, including a Libyan embassy employee in Rome, an Egyptian nuclear scientist in Paris, a Brazilian colonel in Sao Paolo and a Canadian engineer in Brussels. Syria might or might not have been behind several assassinations in Lebanon, including leftist leader Kamal Jumblatt and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. None of these countries has suffered geopolitically for these acts.

      The talented Mr. bin Salman, in other words, killed his most prominent critic because he knew he would get away with it. Even if the Biden administration decides for entirely pragmatic reasons not to sanction the Saudi prince, it should definitively stop all military support to Riyadh, even weapons considered “defensive.” After all, if Saudi Arabia feels more secure behind a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, it will be more likely to direct aerial attacks against its opponents.

      It’s the nature of geopolitics that a few psychopaths are going to become the leaders of their countries. But that’s no reason for the United States to give these “talented” men the weapons to consolidate their power.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Working Together Toward Peace in Yemen

      by

      Nothing in recent memory could have possibly done more damage to America’s relations with the Yemeni people and to its image in the region than Washington’s support for the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen. The conflict produced the worst manmade catastrophe — one that never had to happen. As US President Joe Biden embarks on that treacherous mission to end his country’s involvement and, consequently, end the war itself, the extent to which regional crises are not just difficult to resolve, but intertwined, will become his most formidable adversary. But as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said a long time ago, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

      First, let us understand how we got here why Yemenis have become so very disappointed with and feel betrayed by the United States. Understanding that is critical to any future US efforts vis-à-vis Yemen.

      Cautiously Optimistic: The Biden Administration’s Options in Yemen

      READ MORE

      When in March 2015 the Saudi regime announced, from Washington, the commencement of the military intervention in Yemen, the Obama administration had already given its green light to the regime presided over by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In fact, President Barak Obama went ahead to provide the Saudis with weapons and logistics support, including target-selection advisers and refueling of coalition fighter jets on their bombing raids. Obama’s decision effectively made the US a direct member of the Saudi-led coalition in both name and in fact, waging an undeclared war on a nation that never fired a single bullet against the United States.

      It’s Going to Be Quick

      It was going to be quick: a two-week expedition and it’s done, with minimum casualties — or so they thought. Granted, we can safely speculate that, despite Saudi Arabia’s well-known military incompetence, seen during the First Gulf War, and its total disregard for human life, Obama still could not have guessed how callous and, therefore, catastrophic the Saudi campaign would become. We can also grant that no one in Obama’s administration knew that Yemenis are not a people who can be subdued in two weeks or two years or even, as US ally Britain ultimately learned, in 128 years.

      No one, it seems, told Obama how crazy the idea was to intervene in a country dubbed the graveyard of foreign invaders nor, it seems, reminded Obama of previous US estimates of quick wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and how those turned out to be. Obama was a man in a hurry, and people in a hurry act fast. Consultations and critical thinking take time.

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      But why did Obama make this horrible decision that his successor, Joe Biden, is now trying hard to put right? Obama, in 2015, nearing the end of his presidency, was single-mindedly focused on leaving behind a glorious legacy of having achieved a breakthrough with Iran by signing the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was going to be a crowning achievement of his foreign policy. It was also a deal that Washington’s regional ally, Saudi Arabia, together with Israel and the UAE, were vehemently opposed to, and still oppose.

      Obama’s decision to support Saudi war efforts was the appeasement gift that he gave the Saudis to quieten their protests in return for signing the JCPOA. For Yemen, the ink that Obama used to sign the JCPOA agreement was made from the blood of its people. Yemenis have been made to sacrifice their lives and livelihoods on the altar of the Iran nuclear deal and the regional and international political expediency and horse-trading that went with it. They have proven to be the most expendable people, both for their own tyrants and their regional and international counterparts.

      How Hillary Clinton, had she succeeded Obama, would have dealt with evidence of Saudi-led callousness, or whether she would have taken the decision to end the support for the coalition that Biden announced last week, is useless speculation after the fact. She was not elected. Instead, we had to contend with a disastrous presidency of Donald Trump, whose first order of regional business was to sign a $110-billion arms deal with Riyadh, progressively building to $380 billion, and continue to support and arm to the teeth the Saudi war on Yemen.

      You Break It, You Own It

      After Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, do we still need proof that military interventions, no matter how well-intended the protagonists claim them to be, do not solve but worsen crises? We should be excused for being scared when we hear President Biden promising to spread democracy worldwide, that “America is back.” We saw what happened when democracy became the calling card that substituted the weapons of mass destruction. Biden would be well advised to keep those good intentions on the back burner for the time being and instead focus on solving the destructive consequences of earlier good intentions. As history has repeatedly shown, the road to hell is indeed paved with them. 

      This will probably go down as Biden’s era. He better make it work. His first days in office have been loud and clear. And the sounds were, with some exceptions, mostly good. After earlier skepticism, this author is now becoming cautiously optimistic that Biden is determined to move in the right direction. At his age and time in his career, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing the right thing for America — and eventually, hopefully, become convinced to leave Yemen alone to try to do the right thing on its own. Going forward, the best help the Biden administration can and must provide is not to do too much. Less is definitely more. But for now, the US must be held firmly accountable, applying the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it.

      The United States must review its priorities. This brings us to Biden’s recent decision to stop arms supplies to the Saudi intervention in Yemen and revoking the Trump administration’s labeling of Ansar Allah (as the Houthis are officially known) as a terrorist organization. Biden’s administration understands that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision was not aimed at Ansar Allah but was, in fact, one of the last minute mischievous moves that the Trump administration left behind to entrap Biden and tie his hands in a fait accompli. This was a trap that Biden is clearly not willing to fall into. Good for Biden. Good for Yemen. Good for peace.

      Away from Trump’s and Pompeo’s political mischief that has impressed only the gullible, Biden’s decision to suspend operational support and intelligence sharing, despite being symbolic in immediate military terms, is nevertheless very serious. Although the Saudi regime — the world’s leading arms importer accounting for 12% of the world’s arms trade — is able to continue the war from its large stockpiles (the UAE’s F35 fighter planes were not intended for delivery until 2027), Biden’s decision strongly indicates a very important change of priorities in the region.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Biden doesn’t view Iran as the bogeyman used by the Trump administration as an excuse to terminate the JCPOA while continuing arms sales and saber-rattling that created one of the most dangerous periods of continuous regional instability. For the Biden administration, that era has ended. It is now the era of diplomacy and finding solutions to problems, without kicking down doors. But let’s not get carried away with euphoria — it won’t be easy. Biden has the experience and resources to understand the challenges. That is why he is offering assurances.

      But even as Biden is moving toward the realignment of US priorities, with the aim of easing regional tensions, he must also be wary of Benjamin Netanyahu’s moves in the Persian Gulf. When it comes to Biden’s policies, Israel sees a window of opportunity to muscle in, hoping to replace what Netanyahu predicts to be America’s waning regional influence. Netanyahu is regionally encouraged in this mischief-making. Israel and its regional allies on the Arab side of the Persian Gulf are no friends of the JCPOA, which is a lynchpin in the Biden administration realignment. To succeed with the JCPOA partners, Biden will eventually have to confront all of Washington’s regional allies.

      It will be dangerous for Biden to ignore the threats. Equally dangerous will be any temptation to use Israeli mischief as leverage against Iran. Worse has been tried by the Trump administration; it didn’t work. The who-will-blink-first gambit between Tehran and Washington must stop. Perhaps, instead, walking the walk simultaneously could symbolize that unity of purpose that has been missing for four long and traumatic years. With that unity of purpose, the United States and Iran can also work toward finding a solution to the war in Yemen and stopping the misery of a nation that has paid a heavy price for the JCPOA. America and Iran owe it to the Yemenis. Biden has already made the opening moves, both by stopping the arms supplies and by assuring Riyadh that Washington has their back if Yemenis attack.

      Decision Time

      Yemenis must welcome this Biden assurance. It is not just offered as protection for Saudi Arabia, but useful for Yemen because it is a positive step towards peace. Yemen never had the intention or a plan to attack Saudi Arabia. But it was Saudi Arabia and UAE that sent the first missiles into Yemen’s capital city on that infamous night in March 2015. The coalition continued the air strikes relentlessly, despite mounting evidence of high civilian casualties. Yemeni retaliation became necessary to make the coalition slow down its attack — to try to make the pain mutual. The strategy largely worked.

      If Biden now wants to assure the Saudis and simultaneously ensure that they suspend the airstrikes, Yemenis must welcome that. It is up to Riyadh and Washington to determine how that protection would look. In any event, American protection for the Saudis is not new. But Yemen must insist that any future resumption of arms supplies to Saudi Arabia or the UAE must be accompanied by US assurances that the weapons will not be used against Yemen, with a reliable verification mechanism in place. For now, Yemenis must focus their energy on securing peace, taking advantage of the opportunity Biden’s policy shift offers. 

      President Biden has made his decision. It is a decision Yemenis have been demanding for a long time. Now it is up to the others involved in this horrendous war to make theirs. This war could not be possible without foreign actors, many of whom are sitting around the JCPOA table, supplying weapons to the regional and domestic parties to this war. The Biden administration should not stop at freezing US arms supplies but should pressure its NATO allies, especially Britain and France, to stop arms sales. Washington should also pressure regional actors to stop their funding and arms supplies to the various domestic forces. This will be an uphill battle, but one that Yemen needs to win.

      Before this war, a common estimate of the number of weapons among the Yemeni population was 50 million — a 2:1 ratio. That figure was more myth than reality. Today, after almost six years of conflict, it will be safe to assume that that figure is no longer mythical and may indeed have increased at the hands of militia groups, whose exact numbers or identities no one knows for sure. All these militias were created, funded and armed by regional actors, who still continue to do so today. The question of how to withdraw these weapons and end the anarchy of lawless militias operating in Yemen will continue to haunt the country for many years to come. The war that was ostensibly intended to restore a legitimate state in Yemen and improve the lives of its people has in reality become a war that has destroyed even a semblance of a state and instead created a humanitarian catastrophe for generations to come.

      Ironically, Ansar Allah, whose defeat was the stated objective of the military intervention, has not only gained greater public support inside and outside Yemen, but has emerged as the strongest and most organized group in the country without which no solution is possible. Like Iran, which has emerged as a regional power despite, or perhaps because, of 40 years of political, economic and even military aggression led by the United States, Ansar Allah has found a raison d’être from the war waged against it. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to suggest that the Saudi-led military intervention has given Ansar Allah a public relevance and strength it never dreamt of having. This is its war dividend. The question is, how much better can the peace dividend be?

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      Regardless of any dreams of governing Yemen that some within Ansar Allah may or may not have, the leadership has demonstrated itself to be pragmatic enough to acknowledge the limits of any ambitions of forming a central government in a nation as diverse as Yemen. Centralization has failed several times in the past, and it will fail again. A federation of several states (six are currently proposed) has been the major focus of Yemenis’ attention in seeking the creation of a federal state. Strong opposition to the proposed six-state federation might necessitate accepting a union between southern and northern states under a federal or even a confederal system, which will prevent a total collapse of the current union resulting in continuous wars. Yemenis have painfully lived through that before.

      When the war finally comes to an end, finding a working formula acceptable to everyone will be a major challenge. Negotiations leading to successful agreements, by definition, are those that give something — but not everything — to everyone. The alternative to that formula is war. There can be no maximalist or zero-sum solutions that can bring enduring peace to Yemen. The peace dividend for all parties must be found within that formula, led by Yemeni negotiators willing to put everything on the table with no preconditions except ending the war and bringing peace, stability and prosperity to Yemen.

      Peace Dividend

      Contrary to what the group actually believes, nothing can be more burdensome and exert more pressure on Ansar Allah and the other warring factions than a reopening of Yemen’s entry points, especially airports and seaports. People returning to the country seeking opportunities, encouraged to start rebuilding their lives, is a strong fait accompli, requiring those in power to measure up to the challenge. Despite current difficulties, Yemenis have the spirit and mindset to return immediately if routes are opened. It is relatively easy to rule a country at war and under a blockade through oppression. It becomes much harder when the world is paying close attention to the evolution of peace as the nation is rebuilding.

      Like any group or political party, there are various political viewpoints within Ansar Allah, ranging from ideologically unyielding to politically pragmatic. The challenge is to formulate an approach that can navigate a middle ground within the group as a whole. Attempts to use these divergent political viewpoints as fissures to be exploited will be dangerous for the entire effort and delay or, worse, torpedo the peace process. Spoilers are created by such an approach. We have come to this point, partly because of those who think they can cleverly do exactly that.

      Instead of cleverness, what is needed in these times is wisdom, the ability to work patiently across all divides and a commitment to Yemen as a whole and not to partisan politics or gains. Anger and protests are a necessary tool to bring focus to the problem. Yemenis must continue to agitate and make good trouble for the powers at play, to make them pay attention to the problem. However, solving the problem requires cool heads and a different focus.  

      As efforts to bring an end to the war are planned, identifying the moving parts and the various components of the war are a must. As much as Ansar Allah’s strength is derived from the Saudi intervention, it also benefits to a large extent from the disarray among its adversaries, particularly the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which itself is divided between his supporters and those of his opponents at the Southern Transitional Council (STC), whose agenda is to secede from the union. Refusing to identify themselves as Yemenis, they have nevertheless failed to come up with an alternative identity. So they call themselves “southerners” — a geographical location rather than a national identity.

      Apart from fighting Ansar Allah, the divided Hadi government and the STC are fighting against each other for turf in the south as Ansar Allah quietly watches from the sidelines, probably waiting to pick up the pieces. The coalition, now comprising only of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, is expressively committed to restoring legitimacy (meaning Hadi’s government) and supporting opposing parties in the battles between Hadi’s government (supported by Saudi Arabia) and the STC (supported by the UAE). Effectively, the Saudi-UAE coalition, despite all claims of unity, is in fact locked in a proxy war for influence in south Yemen.

      And if all that is not bizarre enough, there is the Islah Party, Yemen’s Muslim Brothers, declared as a terrorist organization by both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Despite the designation, the party is a member of the Hadi government, which Saudi Arabia and the UAE are committed to restoring to power after defeating Ansar Allah.

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      However, domestic factions will not decide the peace in Yemen. They can, to a certain extent, for a certain period, act as spoilers of the peace process, but that’s as far as they can go if their sponsors and external actors decide to end the war. And most of those who can, in fact, those who must decide are sitting around the JCPOA table. That’s where the center of power is for the war in Yemen. Should those trying to move ahead with the JCPOA fail to bring peace to Yemen as a prerequisite of the implementation of the nuclear deal, there are enough possibilities to wreck the JCPOA itself, irreparably. It should be remembered that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not friends of the JCPOA. The three are also involved in the war in Yemen. One doesn’t need to be a genius to see how the lines crisscross.

      If Yemen gets help to find postwar peace and stability and is then left alone, the Biden administration and others in the region will find it a better partner to engage with, going forward. Yemen must move on from the era of leadership that continuously seeks external support and interference to compensate for its incompetence, corruption and failures. The country needs young energetic leaders who are invested in its future prosperity. A nation of 30 million with tremendous resources does not need charity. Instead, Yemenis must seek partnerships. Regional players who wasted billions seeking unfair geopolitical advantages through destructive war could have achieved greater benefits through partnerships with Yemen — for much less.

      Yemen’s hope is in its youth, despite, or perhaps because of a painful but educational 6-year war. There is still time to develop that mindset for the future. In as far as regional neighbors (and beyond) are concerned, Yemenis are a forgiving people. Yet lest future generations risk repeating it, we must never allow this Nakba to be forgotten. Yemen can and must forgive, and then move on.  

      Nothing is more sustainable than the need to get things done, no matter how misguided it might be at times. Generosity of the heart is whimsical. It was not generosity that induced President Obama to support Mohammed bin Salman’s war on Yemen. It was political expediency born from a misguided notion of need. Today, it is not the generosity of President Biden’s heart that will stop the war in Yemen but political expediency born from a real need. Both are related to the JCPOA.

      In 2015, for Barack Obama, the horrendous war in Yemen was a vehicle toward the Iran nuclear deal. For Obama’s former right hand, now President Biden, in 2021, there can be no successful implementation of the JCPOA without ending that horrendous war. Call it irony, or call it divine intervention to set the record straight. But now, let’s work together to win the peace.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Saudi Arabia’s Mission to Correct “Distorted Narrative”

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      The virtual G20 Leaders’ Summit hosted by Saudi Arabia this past weekend was intended to be a moment of triumph for Riyadh and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It was the first time an Arab state has hosted the gathering, which represented a golden opportunity to flaunt on the global stage the many changes the kingdom has undergone in a very short period of time — changes that frequent visitors to the kingdom have remarked upon with a degree of amazement.

      They speak about that which was previously forbidden: concerts with pop stars from the West, movie theaters, cultural exhibitions and sporting events such as the World Wrestling Entertainment Super ShowDown at the Mohammed Abdu Arena in Riyadh in February and the just-concluded inaugural Aramco Saudi Ladies International golf tournament, all with mixed audiences of men and women. And, of course, seeing women driving — a right that was granted in June 2018.

      Is the US Ready to Back Real Change in Saudi Arabia?

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      The relaxation of the male guardianship system in August of this year has also been hailed as a significant advance for women. At the time, the decision was celebrated by Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Gathering together a group of female employees in the embassy, she said: “You have unalienable rights now, the right to your own identity, to move, dream, work.”

      Correcting the Narrative

      Speaking on November 19, the ambassador discussed the importance of gender equity and women’s advancement as a cornerstone of Vision 2030, Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitious and audacious program of economic and social transformation. She also took up a theme often expressed by Saudi authorities: Hers was a country “too often misunderstood, our remarkable progress, reform and change too often overlooked.” She added, “We need to do a better job of correcting an inaccurate and distorted narrative.”

      That was what the G20 summit was designed to do — to shift the narrative away from the negative. But COVID-19 intervened, and what was to have been a glittering showcase of Saudi innovation, creative drive and women’s empowerment became a flat Zoom reality. The opportunity to press the flesh and wow their guests with trips to sites like the $500-billion futuristic Neom city now under construction morphed into a dull screen of faces. Still, there was one moment of technical wizardry projecting a group photo of G20 leaders onto the walls of the historic ruins of the city of Diriyah on the outskirts of Riyadh.

      But haunting that moment was another image, cast onto the Louvre museum in Paris. It was of three women activists detained in Saudi prisons: Loujain al-Hathloul, Nassima al-Sadah and Samar Badawi. Their plight and the plight of other women prisoners is the subject of a just-released report by Baroness Helena Kennedy, QC. She cites multiple Saudi and international laws and agreements that have been violated during the arrests and detention of the women. She details credible allegations of torture and names two individuals very close to the Saudi crown prince either directly engaged in or presiding over torture. The torture, the report says, included beatings, electric shock, sexual assault and threats to rape and kill family members.

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      The two named individuals are Saud al-Qahtani, implicated in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in October 2018, and Mohammed bin Salman’s younger brother and the former ambassador in Washington, Khalid bin Salman. Al-Qahtani escaped prosecution in Saudi Arabia for the killing of Khashoggi but remains on the US sanctions list he was put on shortly after the murder; in July, his name was added to the UK sanctions list.

      Khalid bin Salman, while serving as ambassador to the US, reportedly encouraged Jamal Khashoggi in the belief that he could return safely to Saudi Arabia. Prince Khalid left the United States shortly after details of the killing began to emerge. He returned briefly, then quit his post. In February 2019, he was appointed deputy defense minister. His older brother, the crown prince, is defense minister. As Helena Kennedy’s report states:

      “Al-Qahtani personally tortured Loujain on a number of occasions. Al-Qahtani’s involvement is also attested to by the former female inmate of Dhabhan, who stated that one of the Women’s Rights Activists had told her that Saud Al-Qahtani was present at the unofficial facility for much of the time she was there, directed a number of both individual and group torture sessions, threatened her with rape, and sexually abused her. She also told the former inmate that she had witnessed Saud Al-Qahtani sexually assaulting several other Women’s Rights Activists in their rooms, including Loujain Al-Hathloul and Eman Al-Nafjan.

      Additionally, the former female inmate of Dhabhan reports that Khalid bin Salman was occasionally present at the unofficial facility, and would sometimes attend interrogations. One of the Women’s Rights Activists told her that he would threaten rape and murder when overseeing interrogations, and would boast about his position and power, saying ‘do you know who I am? I am Prince Khalid bin Salman, I am the ambassador to the US, and I can do anything I like to you’, or words to that effect.”

      These are very serious allegations. However, they are not proven and the Saudi authorities have consistently denied the claims. But rather than have an independent investigation, the authorities have chosen to take the view that those detained and the manner of their detention are internal issues for the Saudi courts to deal with. It’s a position they took in convicting eight individuals and sentencing them to between seven and 20 years in jail for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Saud al-Qahtani was not among those charged.

      “People Have Not Been Fair”

      In an interview with the BBC’s Lyse Doucet, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, said, “Our judiciary is independent and we do not allow people to lecture us or tell us what we should or shouldn’t do.” The minister claimed that Loujain al-Hathloul was not detained for her women’s rights activism but because she was being investigated as a national security risk. In 2018, Mohammed bin Salman called her a spy and said he would produce evidence “the next day” to prove it, but no such evidence has emerged.

      Al-Jubeir also complained, as has Princess Reema, that Riyadh is a victim of unwarranted criticism: “I think that people have not been fair when it comes to dealing with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” he told Doucet. “I think they always look for the negative part of it rather than the positive part of it.”

      Had US President Donald Trump secured reelection earlier this month, telling that “positive part” would have been less challenging. As it was, with the Saudis attempting to focus the summit on the global battle against COVID-19, Trump made a brief appearance via Zoom to extol his administration’s efforts at combating the pandemic and then left to play a round of golf. Joe Biden described Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” state in 2019, stating in October that his administration would “reassess our relationship with the Kingdom, end US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.”

      The Saudis are hoping that was just electioneering talk. Speaking to Reuters in a virtual interview on the sidelines of the G20 summit, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, the Saudi foreign minister, said: “I’m confident that a Biden administration would continue to pursue policies that are in the interest of regional stability.” The foreign minister is likely correct in that assessment. But with the current abysmal state of human rights in the kingdom, it is far less likely that the Biden White House will buy into the positive narrative of reform and change Princess Reema has been deployed to sell in Washington.

      *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      What Iran Can Learn From Saudi Arabia

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      Over three years have passed since Mohammed bin Salman became the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. The challenges he has faced throughout this time have been too colossal for a 35-year-old leader to accommodate. Yet the prince has sought to give the impression of a strong social reformer. Indeed, some of the changes he has introduced will significantly transform the public image of Saudi Arabia and global attitudes toward the kingdom, at least in the long term.

      Where Is Mohammed bin Salman Taking the Saudi Kingdom?

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      Under Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, Saudi Arabia has repealed a longstanding ban on women driving, allowed female singers to perform publicly, relaxed male guardianship laws on women, implemented employment discrimination protection and allowed women into sports stadiums. These are some of the most notable steps the crown prince has taken to socially liberalize a conservative country. Add to the list the curbing of the religious police’s powers and efforts to appeal to international tourists by introducing an e-visa system and you could say that Saudi Arabia is changing.

      The crown prince has also faced his fair share of criticism. The assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, Riyadh’s deadly and costly war in Yemen, a diplomatic spat with Qatar, deteriorating relations with Syria and tensions with rival Iran are only some of the issues that have caused critics to rail on Mohammed bin Salman.

      MBS Is Popular in Saudi Arabia

      Despite this, the future Saudi king has undoubtedly scored significant gains both domestically and internationally. MBS, as the crown prince is commonly known, is popular among young Saudis, and he has a favorable public image in the eyes of Western political and business elites.

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      In 2018, the Arab Youth Survey found that more than 90% of young people in Saudi Arabia between the ages of 18 and 24 endorse the crown prince’s leadership, believing that he is moving the country in the right direction. The Economist has dubbed the reforms spearheaded by MBS as a “social revolution,” and The New York Times has described the measures he introduced as “Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring.”

      What is important is that MBS has admitted that Saudi Arabia has enforced a rigid reading of Islam for a long period of time. This is reflected in the restricted level of civil liberties and social freedoms granted to its citizens over the years, as well as the stringency of Saudi Arabia’s bureaucratic and judicial processes. The prince thinks it’s time for a change.

      In an interview with The Guardian in 2017, MBS said Saudi Arabia has been “not normal” for three decades. “What happened in the last 30 years is not Saudi Arabia. What happened in the region in the last 30 years is not the Middle East,” he added. The prince promised that Saudi Arabia will be pivoting to “moderate Islam” in preparation for changing the kingdom for the better. He echoed the same sentiments in a 2018 interview with Time magazine: “We believe the practice today in a few countries, among them Saudi Arabia, is not the practice of Islam.”

      And he was right. In a country labeled as the “most profoundly gender-segregated nation on Earth,” carrying the accolade of one of the most conservative cultures in the world, change was and is still needed. To abandon an unprogressive reading of Islam as a government-prescribed lifestyle is the first step.

      MBS has embraced those changes and introduced reforms that are meaningful and important in a troubled region riddled with conflict and the absence of democracy. It was only on April 24 that Saudi Arabia’s supreme court announced it had abolished flogging as a form of punishment, which will be replaced by imprisonment or fines. Moreover, the kingdom has rescinded the death penalty for juvenile offenders and minors who commit serious crimes, and the maximum sentence that can be handed down to them is a 10-year prison term.

      Saudi Arabia is still far from becoming a democratic state. However, the prince’s boldness in busting dogmas that were so entrenched in Saudi society that they couldn’t even be debated publicly should serve as an example for other Muslim countries that continue to curtail their citizens’ civil liberties and human rights. Iran, another religiously conservative nation, is a case in point.

      Meanwhile, in Iran…

      Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are regional rivals and have barely maintained cordial relations in recent decades. In denominational terms, they are on the two extremes of the spectrum. Iran is a Shia-majority nation at the helm of which is a Shia jurist who is the ultimate authority on all matters. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni-majority country founded on the puritanical doctrine of Wahhabism — an ultraconservative branch of Islam — that is deeply at odds with Shia Islam.

      Yet the two rivals are socially similar. In Iran, like Saudi Arabia, a conservative interpretation of Islam is practiced. Public celebrations that are not based on religion are rare. Some degree of male guardianship is enforced. For example, women need the consent of a male relative to apply for a passport. Iran’s compulsory hijab rules are highly strict, and religious police penalize non-Islamic, non-pious public behavior, including drinking and eating during Ramadan and dressing styles that violate governmental edicts. Foreign visitors are also subject to restrictions, including being required to follow the mandatory Islamic dress code of the state. Other than a few occasions since 1979, female spectators have not been allowed into sports stadiums. And the list goes on.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Although the revolutionary zeal of the early 1980s has subsided and civil liberties have grown to some extent, Iran is still a conservative country, and the government sees the orthodox enactment of Islamic decrees as its top priority.

      Characterized by tens of executions per year, a strict dress code for women and constant intrusion into people’s lives, Iran has not yet woken up to the threat of extremism pitting the public against the ruling elite and tarnishing its global image. The Islamic Republic’s religious and political authorities have not been willing to adjust their reading of Islam with life in the 21st century.

      This is particularly troubling because, in Iran, daily life is closely tied to religion and how it is construed. As Iranian leaders stringently proselytize the idea that Islam and politics cannot be separated, an “Islamic” prefix or suffix accompanies the name of most public bodies, the school curriculum has religious undertones and 80% of state TV programs have religious motifs.

      What Iran Can Learn

      Iran needs reform. To survive and thrive in a globalized world, attract foreign investment, put an end to decades of hostility with the US and the West, draw international visitors to nourish its tourism sector, decrease its debilitating reliance on oil revenues and diversify its economy, Iran must take bold steps and opt for change. Opening up to the world and reducing restrictions on social and political freedoms of its citizens are essentials that will help the country come out from the cold and have warm relations with the international community.

      Saudi Arabia’s reform bonanza on social life is perhaps the benchmark that Iran can build on to implement reforms of its own. Saudi Arabia is a member of the G20. This shows its economic prosperity and global standing. Iran is not short of resources for it to be in a similar situation. What it lacks is the courage to accept that it needs change. When Iran makes that admission, there will be better days for its citizens.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More