Will Trump Inflame or Defuse Gulf Crisis?: Ben Lynfield, Jerusalem Post, July 4, 2017— The Gulf crisis could escalate in the coming days, with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt tightening the economic screws on Qatar.
Fear Is What Changed Saudi Arabia: Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2017— Saudi Arabia used to be one of the most cautious players in the world of diplomacy.
Saudi-Israeli Diplomatic Relations in the Works? Latest Developments Indicate Possibility: Sean Savage, JNS, July 3, 2017— Building off the last few years of rumors and reports regarding clandestine relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia…
Yemen: A New Mideast Flash Point?: Heshmat Alavi, American Thinker, June 13, 2017— With the new U.S. administration blueprinting its Iran policy after escalating developments in Syria and the recent attacks in Tehran, one major battleground between the two arch-rivals is set to be Yemen.
Journalist Joins His Jailer’s Side in a Bizarre Persian Gulf Feud: David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times, July 1, 2017
Two Princes: Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, June 29, 2017
A Young, Determined Heir: Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, Israel Hayom, June 22, 2017
Are Israel and Saudi Arabia Getting Closer?: Nitsan Keidar, Arutz Sheva, June 18, 2017
WILL TRUMP INFLAME OR DEFUSE GULF CRISIS?
Ben Lynfield
Jerusalem Post, July 4, 2017
The Gulf crisis could escalate in the coming days, with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt tightening the economic screws on Qatar. They would be doing this with a green light from Washington, which is anything but a neutral mediator. Washington shares the goals of the four allies that imposed a boycott and severed diplomatic relations with Doha on June 5, saying the moves were a response to Qatari support for terrorism.
“This administration probably shares the broad sentiments driving the Saudi and Emirati pressure on Qatar but at the same time doesn’t want to see the situation spin out of control or deteriorate to the point of armed conflict or an unmanageable crisis,” said Brandon Friedman, a specialist on Gulf politics at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center.
A two-day extension by the four allies of an ultimatum that Qatar meet a list of 13 demands to change its policies expires Tuesday. A meeting of the allies to discuss the next steps against Qatar will take place Wednesday unless Qatar caves in. Among the demands are that Qatar close Al Jazeera television, curb ties with Iran, close a Turkish military base and hand over designated terrorists. UAE Ambassador to Moscow Omar Ghobash was quoted recently by The Guardian as saying the allies could force their trading partners to choose between working with them or with Doha. There is also talk of expelling Qatar from the Gulf Cooperation Council.
In the view of Gabriel Ben-Dor, a Middle East specialist at Haifa University, “The US will go along with anything as long as it doesn’t involve the direct use of force. The problem is that the Saudis and their allies are threatening, if necessary, the use of force, which is really out of bounds as far as the international rules of the game are concerned.” Washington and Kuwait are leading the diplomacy. But given the increasingly intimate US-Saudi ties – which became even closer during US President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Riyadh – this is a classic case of the umpire also wearing the uniform of one of the teams.
This was apparent at a Republican fund-raiser in Washington last week. According to the website of Sky news and other media reports, Trump said: “We’re having a dispute with Qatar – we’re supposed to say Qatar,” making fun of the country’s name being pronounced in two different ways. “It’s Qatar, they prefer. I prefer that they don’t fund terrorism.”
Trump has even taken credit for the Saudi moves, saying on June 9 that they grew out of the Riyadh meeting. On Twitter he has accused Doha of funding terrorism “at a very high level,” although his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, perhaps mindful of the large US airbase in Qatar, has been more diplomatic. Friedman, the Tel Aviv University analyst, said: “The US would like to see Qatar back in the Saudi-UAE camp and that it stop sitting on the fence trying to be all things to all people. The Saudis and Emiratis want the Qataris to choose a side, to choose their side. And the US is sympathetic to that.”
While hosting the US base, Doha has at the same time maintained ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, groups affiliated with al-Qaida and Hamas, in addition to having cordial relations with Tehran. In Ben-Dor’s view, the Qataris would like to find a compromise solution in which they concede some points but not ones essential to their national pride. But Turkey and Iran are encouraging Qatar to refuse compromise.
“They can’t sever relations with Iran and they can’t close down Al Jazeera,” Ben-Dor said. “But they can tone down its propaganda directed against Arab regimes. They can continue expelling some Hamas and other terrorist leaders to show they mean business. They can make some gestures which are not irreversible.” The US would like a deal that largely meets Saudi demands while enabling the continuation of the airbase in Qatar, which is a center for operations in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.
The problem, as Ben-Dor noted, is that the situation is highly combustible. “If things keep deteriorating and Qatar appeals for assistance, the Russians might come into the picture and the Turks might become more assertive. Things are just dangerous. The region might be set aflame.” The question is whether Donald Trump has the judgment and skills to prevent such a conflagration.
FEAR IS WHAT CHANGED SAUDI ARABIA
Walter Russell Mead
Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2017
Saudi Arabia used to be one of the most cautious players in the world of diplomacy. Not anymore. In the past three weeks, the Saudis have launched a coordinated diplomatic offensive against neighboring Qatar, hinted at new ties with Israel, scolded Pakistan, turned up the heat in their confrontation with Iran, and carried on a war of words with Turkey. Meanwhile, they continue to bomb Yemen to support their local allies in that country’s increasingly bitter civil war.
The Saudis are also bringing new gusto to domestic policy: The 2030 plan backed by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the most far-reaching and ambitious program for Saudi reform and restructuring ever seriously proposed. Privatizing the state oil giant Aramco (or at least part of it) and using the money to diversify the economy is, by Saudi standards, a revolutionary idea.
The jury is out on whether the Saudis’ new foreign and domestic policies will work, but no doubt something fundamental has changed in what used to be one of the world’s most cautious and slow-moving countries. The question is why. Some look to the deputy crown prince, a 31-year-old reformer elevated to his current role in 2015. But his rise is more a sign of the times than the main force driving change. After all, in the old Saudi Arabia, a mere 30-something never would have been allowed anywhere near the reins of power.
So what is behind the new Saudi activism? Fear. It’s an emotion that comes naturally to an oil-rich kingdom with a relatively small population in a neighborhood full of predatory rivals. For years fear made the Saudis cautious, since they felt they could take shelter behind a strong and confident America. Now they aren’t so sure. In Riyadh, the Age of Insecurity began during President Obama’s tenure. Mr. Obama’s outreach to Iran—and his willingness to overlook its unprecedented regional aggression in his quest for a nuclear deal—left the Saudis feeling isolated and betrayed. As Iranian power spread across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, Saudis concluded that the U.S. no longer saw Saudi security as part of its core national interest.
The Trump administration has sought to reassure the Saudis that the “tilt to Iran” has ended, but their insecurity runs deep. From Riyadh, and from many other world capitals, the erratic shifts in American foreign policy—from Bush to Obama to Trump—raise disturbing questions about the future. Who comes after Mr. Trump? Elizabeth Warren ? Sean Hannity ? As American politics becomes less predictable and more extreme, countries that have grounded their national strategy on the stability of an American alliance must reassess their options.
Then there is oil, an issue on which Saudis and Americans once saw eye to eye. With their enormous reserves, the Saudis believed that they were in the oil business for the long term. Unlike more aggressive players, who wanted to push oil prices as high as possible, the Saudis used their position as a “swing producer” to keep markets reasonably stable—something the U.S. appreciated. The Saudi goal was to keep their customers committed to oil long term and forestall heavy investment in alternative fuels. The shale revolution is shifting this balance. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are no longer allies in the oil market. American frackers, who can quickly increase or decrease output as prices change, are challenging Saudi Arabia’s role as the global swing producer.
Worse, from a Saudi point of view, the long-term dynamics of the oil market seem to be changing. There is much less talk of “peak oil” in the sense of peak production, and more talk of “peak demand.” Advances in energy efficiency and alternative power-generation are shifting the long-term demand curve for hydrocarbons. At the same time, Saudi Arabia’s rapidly growing population will place increasing demands on its economy. Riyadh worries that if oil becomes less profitable, it will be unable to keep its people happy.
All this suggests that the current turbulence in the Gulf is here to stay. If the Trump administration wants to restore tranquillity, it should think holistically about Saudi Arabia’s economic and security problems—and creatively about how this American alliance, a pillar of Middle East stability since World War II, can be renewed.
SAUDI-ISRAELI DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS IN THE WORKS?
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS INDICATE POSSIBILITY
Sean Savage
JNS, July 3, 2017
Building off the last few years of rumors and reports regarding clandestine relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, mainly motivated by their shared concerns over Iran’s nuclear program and destabilizing regional activities, two recent developments highlight a potential route for Israel to firm up support within the Arab world.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi ratified a treaty to hand over two strategic islands in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman promoted his 31-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman, to crown prince, making him next in line to be king.
The deal to hand over the islands of Tiran and Sanafir was reached in 2016 after a visit to Egypt by King Salman. The uninhabited islands that sit on the southern entry to the Gulf of Aqaba were originally given to Egypt in 1950 by Saudi Arabia, in order to protect them from Israel. Later, the islands played an important role in setting off the 1967 Six-Day War when Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships, preventing Israeli access to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
United Nations peacekeepers maintain a presence on Tiran Island as part of the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty. Under the treaty’s terms, Israel gave its approval for the Egyptian-Saudi agreement as long as the Saudis maintained the treaty’s clauses pertaining to Israeli shipping through the Straits of Tiran. According to Joshua Teitelbaum, a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, it is not of utmost importance to Israel who controls the Tiran and Sanafir islands as long as the Jewish state has unimpeded shipping access.
Instead, Teitelbaum argued, the constructive cooperation between Egypt and Saudi Arabia is more crucial for Israel as it relates to the Arab alliance to counter radical Islam and the Iranian threat. “Israel wishes to keep that camp strong,” Teitelbaum told JNS.org. “If Egypt and Saudi Arabia can get together, whether on confronting Iran or Qatar, or even the exchanges of these two islands, then that is beneficial for Israel. This firms up the Saudi-Egyptian relationship.”
Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to crown prince signals a new direction in Saudi Arabia, and may have implications for Israeli-Saudi ties and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Saudi Arabia is dealing with low oil prices, its rivalry with Iran, a dispute with Qatar, and civil wars in Yemen and Syria. In his former role as defense minister, Prince Salman sought to boost ties with the U.S. as well as to overhaul and diversify the Saudi economy, which is heavily dependent on oil. In a rare public comment on Saudi Arabia by an Israeli official, Communications Minister Ayoub Kara said the appointment of the new crown prince “means more economic cooperation in the Middle East, and not just regarding oil.”
“The strengthening of relations with the Trump administration is the beginning of a new and optimistic time between Saudi Arabia and regional states, including Israel and the Jewish people,” Kara said, adding, “This crown prince is really one of the architects of this post-Arab Spring Saudi policy that has pushed for…an anti-Iran and anti-radical Islam policy, which includes targeting Hamas….Israel will be pleased to cooperate with the new crown prince.”
Prince Salman has already been tied to rumors that he has met with Israeli officials as part of efforts to establish closer economic and security relations. “In terms of the general trend of things, the Saudi prince is the guy who has been running Saudi foreign policy for the past two years,” Teitelbaum said. “During that period, there’s been an increasingly closer relation between Israel and Saudi Arabia. That’s going to likely continue.”
Israel and Saudi Arabia are discussing allowing Israeli businesses to operate in the Arab Gulf as well as letting Israel’s El Al airline to fly over Saudi airspace, the London Times recently reported, citing Arab and American sources. Prince Salman has been in talks with Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, about improving Saudi ties with Israel as a step towards Israeli-Palestinian peace, the report added.
Despite the Saudi-Egyptian cooperation and reports of Prince Salman’s interest in ties with Israel, Teitelbaum cautioned against expectations for official diplomatic ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. “There is a limit on the relationship, with most of the relations being clandestine,” he said. “The Saudis don’t really have a motivation to make these relations overt because they get what they need from Israel—intelligence, security, technology—without open diplomatic relations.”
In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia would take steps to normalize relations with Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes gestures for the Palestinians, such as freezing settlement construction or easing trade restrictions in Gaza. “In order to bring Israeli-Saudi relations out into the open, the Saudis would really need to see major progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track. And that is really tough,” Teitelbaum said, adding that “we are a long way from full diplomatic relations.”
YEMEN: A NEW MIDEAST FLASH POINT?
Heshmat Alavi
American Thinker, June 13, 2017
With the new U.S. administration blueprinting its Iran policy after escalating developments in Syria and the recent attacks in Tehran, one major battleground between the two arch-rivals is set to be Yemen. Sitting at the opening of a major waterway through which a significant amount of the world's seabound oil flows, this country of 27 million has been war-torn and desperately grappling with a famine currently risking the lives of 7 million people.
All the while, Iran and its offspring terror organization, the Lebanese Hezb'allah, are escalating their meddling in a war that has already left more than 10,000 killed and literally leveled the country's already poor infrastructure.
And while the United Nations has issued pleas for support to boost the efforts of humanitarian aid organizations, signs show that Iran and its Houthi proxies are ignoring these calls. The larger picture of the Middle East power struggle is casting a long shadow over this entire nation. It is, however, worth noting that the Saudi-led coalition welcomed a U.N. proposal to hand the port city of Hodeidah, currently the country's lifeline, to a neutral third party to supervise the urgent flow of humanitarian aid into Yemen.
The Iran-backed Ansar Allah militia group, aka the Houthis, will most likely turn down the proposals. Such a handover would render the loss of their last remaining port in Yemen, choking the flow of Iran-supplied arms and ammunition. It is a known fact that Iran's involvement in Yemen is in line with its broader strategy of encircling the entire Arabian peninsula and upping pressure on its regional arch-rival, Saudi Arabia.
Iran seeks the destabilization of the Gulf States and to ultimately obtain the capability of replacing these governments with rulers loyal to the Islamic Republic's doctrine. Iraq is a vivid example of how Iran usurped the opportunity of the 2003 invasion to cast its shadow over this nation, especially during the eight years of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and eight years of Obama's Chamberlain-style appeasement.
This is the very philosophy behind establishing and procuring terror cells with the objective of purging government officials and staging attacks targeting the infrastructure of various states, including Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE. Bahrain, particularly, in March busted a terrorist cell linked to Hezb'allah and Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).
It is a known fact that the IRGC and Hezb'allah are present in Yemen, with their troops and foot soldiers fighting alongside Houthis, parallel to providing much needed training and advice to these forces. The number of Hezb'allah fighters being captured is on the rise, with such statistics in the first three months of 2017 matching the entire course of 2016. The death toll of Hezb'allah and IRGC forces also escalated in the first quarter of 2017.
More Iranian equipment across scattered front lines in Yemen is being discovered by advancing Yemeni and Saudi forces. Further concerning is the fact that Iranian weapons convoys and shipments, consisting of drones and high-tech missiles, have been intercepted on the Yemen-Oman border. Maritime traffic snaking the Yemeni coast lengthwise has experienced a dangerous rise in attacks staged by the Iranian IRGC and Hezb'allah. Advisers to these two sources are busily training Houthis how to develop sophisticated drone boats packed with explosives and how to lay mines in Yemen's Red and Arabian Sea waters.
Recent reports in the media shed light on the Houthis launching their first such attack, targeting an oil tanker in the southern Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Assailants of unknown identity fired rocket-propelled grenades – a favorite tactic of insurgents – at the 70,362-ton M.T. Muskie, sailing under the Marshall Islands flag, using the strategic waterway heading into the Red Sea entrance, according to Reuters.
Involvement in the attack was denied by the Houthis, despite a history of evidence showing these Iran-supplemented proxies staging attacks on various navy vessels using the narrow water passage. The Houthis are also known to have direct interest in disturbing the flow of Bab el-Mandeb's maritime traffic to provide Tehran unprecedented influence over the Red Sea and up north to the Suez Canal.
As tensions continue to escalate in this vital corner of the globe, it becomes imperative for the international community, and especially U.S. allies in the region, to take urgent action against Iran's meddling, with the aim of curbing its dangerous influence and establishing peace and tranquility in the Middle East.
Journalist Joins His Jailer’s Side in a Bizarre Persian Gulf Feud: David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times, July 1, 2017—The journalist Mohamed Fahmy had been working in Cairo for Al Jazeera when the Egyptian authorities threw him in prison for more than a year, accusing him of stirring up unrest as an agent of the channel’s owner, the Qatari government.
Two Princes: Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, June 29, 2017 —The confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which currently takes the form of an embargo and the severing of diplomatic relations with Qatar by governments from Egypt to the United Arab Emirates, might be the result of a strictly local genital-measuring contest between two ambitious young men in rival royal families feeling their oats: The 37-year-old Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, is the youngest reigning monarch in the Gulf Cooperation Council and has held power only since 2013, while 31-year-old Mohammad bin Salman was named the Saudi crown prince only a week ago.
A Young, Determined Heir: Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, Israel Hayom, June 22, 2017—I recently heard from a foreign expert that the Saudi royal family is undergoing a process of change — a process that gathered steam after the recent visit by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Are Israel and Saudi Arabia Getting Closer?: Nitsan Keidar, Arutz Sheva, June 18, 2017 —Israel and Saudi Arabia are in talks to establish formal economic ties and preliminary agreements could be coming soon, the London-based Times newspaper reported on Saturday.
