READY FOR ANOTHER ARAB WAR?

READY FOR ANOTHER ARAB WAR?

Ancient Bedouin warfare was reborn in the Gulf yesterday as the Saudi’s long held hatred for the tiny State of Sunni Qatar bubbled over amid claims of hacking and executions of each other’s citizens. It’s not just another spat this time as the Saudis via OPEC have the major say in total oil production, therefore pricing. And Qatar owns and exports gas from the world’s largest deposits.

There is little doubt that President Trump’s visit and his brash comments lit an old fuse between all those States who want a piece of Syria and Iraq, if not the entire Levant, once the dust settles.

Qatar is largely Sunni and supports the overthrown Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Al Queda and ISIS terrorists. Qatar also boasts media influence in the area via its Al Jazeera network where two separate channels are each dedicated to English and Arabian versions.

The headquarters of Al Jazeera Arab Language channel in Doha is an extravagant shrine to slain Egyptian, Osama bin Laden, with huge photographs including him on a horse with an assault rifle backed by an Arabian sunset. The entire studio leaves little doubt as to Qatar’s affiliations. 

But Al Jazeera English channel shows nothing of its terrorist alliances. Peter Greste did not understand that his English reporting, when it suited Qatar, was shown on the Arab channel to the Egyptians who promptly jailed him for three years. Peter never realised he was dealing with the devil who was using him for desperate influence in the Gulf.

Qatar's number one enemy is Egypt and it was Greste of Al Jazeera who got the blame for supporting the Brotherhood.

But Qatar is about to host the corrupt FIFA’s World Cup in the middle of a Gulf summer and it has other Gulf States nervous over the tiny country’s increasing influence in the region. 

It also has closer than acceptable (for the Saudis that is) relations with Trump’s new foe, the Shia State of Iran, and Iran hates all the same things as does Qatar. And it supports the same terrorist groups as Qatar, including Al Queda and ISIS who are already seeking a new alliance of destruction in the wake of an impending Syrian/Iraq vacuum.

 

So Trump’s determination to dump the EPA to assist with energy self-sufficiency may be a good move as oil is central to Gulf tribal warfare. But the terms of engagement of warfare have changed since the tented Bedouins' squabbles, now all States have access to modern weapons, no longer do they charge each other on moulting camels.

The only real damage is likely to be a sharp rise in the world's oil price, but even that will not be as catastrophic as it once was.

 

The West has continued to coddle the Saudi Family and the Saudis have recently taken an emboldened leadership of the Gulf’s task force to help wipe out ISIS. But that is already starting to come undone at the seams. 

The West seems incapable of realising that to kill off anything in the Middle East leaves a vacuum that will incite even greater problems.

Obama supported the 10 per cent of Shia in Iraq and in most States, this led to vicious tribal vengeance against the Sunnis and the Sunnis responded with even more violent paybacks. Trump has stated his determination to castrate Shia Iran's tilt at nuclear capability and that has altered the balance once again. And no-one knows where this one will finish.

 

Russia’s Putin apparently has greater foresight than the Americans who are fighting for the demise of Assad, because the vacuum that the popularly-elected Assad will leave is a short fuse on a Middle East time bomb that could involve Israel and suck the US and even Russia into another endless war where no-one can be sure of who they should be fighting.

Do you seriously believe NATO members, including the US, come even close to understanding corrupt Middle-East geopolitics?

It’s time to get out of that decadent Islamic hotbed of tribal hatred... we have enough trouble with it over here.

Pickering