What a scary week in the Mideast. The epicenter of the
world’s energy resources and the land-bridge between Asia and Africa is
spinning out of control as the danger of a shooting war between the US and
Russia grows daily.
A US F-18 warplane shot down a Syrian Air Force SU-22 ground
attack aircraft over eastern Syria. This was a grave, reckless
provocation clearly authorized by Washington. Russia, Syria’s ally,
threatened to begin targeting its supposedly deadly S-300 missiles against US
warplanes over Syria.
Another US warplane shot down an Iranian drone over southeastern
Syria as US forces and US mercenary Arab troops closed in on a worthless piece
of ground on the Syrian-Iraq border. Russia is rushing ten more
warships into the Mediterranean, though most are obsolescent or small.
The US
Navy is challenging – or provoking – the Iranians in the Gulf. US
technicians and crews are keeping Saudi warplanes bombing Yemen, where half the
population faces starvation. Just across the Red Sea, US warplanes and
special forces are attacking the Somalia nationalist resistance movement,
Shebab. At least 4,000 more US troops are headed for Afghanistan’s stalemated
war.
US Marines are attacking ISIS positions near Mosul, al-Tanf and
Raqaa and adding long-ranged HIMARS artillery rockets. American forces are
using white phosphorus, a hideous chemical weapon, against Isis
defenders. Iran may send more ‘volunteer’ troops into Syria and Iraq as
US warplanes probe Iran’s airspace. Turkey is reportedly moving
against US-backed Kurds in Syria. Some Mideast experts believe the
US may be set on partitioning Syria.
A US fighter just buzzed a Russian aircraft over the Baltic
carrying Russian defense minister Sergei Shogu until chased away by Russian
fighters. Moscow is under growing pressure to retaliate against the US
though President Vladimir Putin insists he wants no military confrontation with
Washington.
Adding to these tensions, a palace coup in Saudi Arabia just
sidelined the kingdom’s iron-handed number two, former Crown Prince and
Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef and replaced him by 31-year old Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, the favorite son of King Salman. The King is said to
be seriously ill. But the 15,000-member Saudi family is not pleased by
the defenestration of heir apparent Nayef.
Prince – now crown prince – Mohammed was the author of Saudi
Arabia’s stalemated war in Yemen, which is burning through the kingdom’s cash
reserves at a time when oil prices are plunging and has killed large numbers of
civilians. He is behind the recent Saudi-Egyptian-Israeli
tacit alliance.
It was Prince Mohammed who came up with the plan to run US shale
producers out of business by launching an oil price war. It has backfired
badly. The Saudis even had to borrow $9 billion to keep the kingdom
running.
Arab
critics assert that the young prince is rash and inexperienced. The
Trump administration likes Prince Mohammed a lot. He is about the same age as
Trump’s favorite, son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is in Israel this week
supposedly crafting a final peace settlement between Jews and Arabs after a
century of conflict. What a cruel joke this is.
Kushner has been meeting with Israel’s wily PM Netanyahu, who
has no intention of ever allowing a Palestinian state, and with over-the-hill
Palestinian ‘leader,’ Mahmoud Abbas, who is 82. Abbas is widely reviled
as a US/Israel puppet who was made PLO leader after the untimely death of Yasser
Arafat. The shady Mohammed Dahlan, rumored to be CIA’s Palestinian ‘asset,’
waits in the wings to replace the doddering Abbas.
The authentic Palestinian government, Hamas, is locked up in
Gaza and totally isolated by a joint Israeli-Saudi-Egyptian campaign.
Back in Washington, most of Trump’s senior advisors are ardent supporters of
Israel. So with whom will young Kushner, himself an orthodox Jew,
negotiate? As in decades past, Washington’s supporters of Israel’s
moderates will negotiate with Israel’s right. Is it any wonder there is
no Mideast peace?
Meanwhile, the new Saudi Crown Prince proclaims he will
modernize the kingdom, diversify away from its oil and gas economy, and make
himself leader of the Arab world. Those who do not readily agree, like
little Qatar, will be squashed like bugs.
It’s
a tall order. But we wish Crown Prince Mohammed well because Saudi
Arabia, the world’s most ultra-conservative nation, very badly needs shaking
up, modernization and less theocracy. The skimpy army is denied ammo and
transport for fear of a coup, and the kingdom employs large numbers of foreign
mercenaries.
In the past, 15,000 tough Pakistani troops defended the royal
family. Pakistan’s former president, Zia ul-Haq, told me many funny
stories of his days as a military advisor in Saudi and Iraq. Today, US
forces in the region protect the Saudis from their neighbors and their own
sometimes restive people.
Add the rising dangers in Syria, Iraq and the Gulf to this tense
situation and we can count on Arabia and the Levant to provide lots of
fireworks in days to come.
Eric
Margolis [send him
mail] is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new
book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the
Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.
Copyright © 2017 Eric Margolis
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