What happened at the IISS Manama dialogue?

By Ramin Hossein Abadian

TEHRAN - Bahrain has long been a place for holding meetings that follow the goals of the U.S. and the Zionist regime. The Al Khalifa family also is keenly serving the U.S. and the Israel.

Bahrain's Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa along with his allies in the Persian Gulf, who take a position against Iran and serve Tel Aviv, should know that Israel will not back them. At the time that political and military calculations are changing rapidly, Israel itself needs to be backed.

The time for Israeli and American orders is over and the coming days will be full of surprises. The Bahraini foreign minister and his regional allies should reconsider their calculations quickly.

The Manama dialogue began on Friday, November 22 and ended on Sunday, November 24. At the conference, the Arabs of the southern region of the Persian Gulf sought to increase pressure on Iran as they declared their readiness to resolve the disputes with Tehran through a diplomatic solution. It seems that this is a tactic that aims at getting more concessions from Iran in future meetings.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for the United Arab Emirates, Anwar Gargash, claimed that the issue of Iran’s ballistic missile should be dealt with through joint regional diplomacy, while Iranian officials have always insisted that the missile capacity of their country will not be negotiated with any person or country.

Speaking at a conference in Manama on Saturday, Gargash said that one of the reasons for instability in the region is what he called Iran’s Expansionist policies.

Saudi Minister of State Adel al-Jubeir claimed that Iran was involved in the attack on Aramco oil facilities, saying that the policy of satisfying Iran will not work out and the country should not be allowed to continue its foreign policy.

Bahrain's Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa was the third Arab official who claimed, in his speech at the Manama Conference, that Iran is intervening in Lebanese domestic affairs through Hezbullah.

The Bahraini foreign minister said, “Iran has created and supported Houthis. We need a comprehensive plan to stop Iran’s intervention in the region. We have been suffering from Iranian intervention for forty years, but have not wanted and will not to change Iran’s regime. We are distrustful of resuming cooperation with Iran”.

Also at the meeting, French Defense Minister Florence Parly criticized the U.S. for not interfering further in the regional affairs and not confronting Iran, noting that we would continue to negotiate with Iran.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi denounced the baseless and worthless remarks and the bogus allegations made against Iran by certain participants in the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain and dismissed the accusations against Tehran.

Abdel Bari Atwan, a prominent Arab analyst, pointed to the Manama meeting and wrote in Raialyoum newspaper that it is well known that the meeting hosted by Bahrain, in addition to serving European and American masters, was, in fact, a part of propaganda through which the Al-Khalifa family is trying to show itself as a stable regime that is interested in the subjects of dialogue as well as regional and global security. Atwan added that the truth is that Bahrain does not care about the dialogue and has confronted its opponents, thus the dialogue has no place in such a regime.

Houthis change rules of engagement with devastating attack on Saudi Arabia

By

 5Pillars

Veteran Arab journalist Abdel Bari Atwan says Yemen’s Houthi movement has completely changed the equation in its war with Saudi Arabia by taking the fight into Saudi territory in such devastating fashion.

The huge fires started by Saturday’s drone attacks on the Abqaiq and Khurais oil production and processing facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia may have been brought under control. But big questions remain unanswered about where the ten pilotless aircraft came from and how they managed to reach their targets apparently undetected and hit them with such devastating accuracy.

These were no ordinary targets. They were among the most strategically important – and one would have assumed most closely protected — locations in the country. The two oilfields and their related plants have a capacity of more than seven million barrels of crude oil per day and process some 70% of Saudi Aramco’s petroleum output.

Saturday’s attack, which at a stroke cut the country’s oil production by more than half, was the third on Aramco facilities this year. In May seven drones targeted two pumping stations on the main east-west oil pipeline and in August the massive Shayba oilfield was attacked.

In claiming responsibility for the latest (and by far most serious) drone raid, Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement offered possible partial answers to the above questions.

Houthi spokesman Yahya Sarie’ said the operation was carried out after a “careful process of intelligence surveillance” of the sites. He did not elaborate about how and by whom this surveillance was carried out, nor did he comment on this apparent breakthrough in the Houthis’ intelligence capabilities.

Neither did he explain how, if the drones were launched from Yemeni territory, they managed to make the 1,000 km-plus journey without refuelling or being detected.

He did, however, make a point of praising “honourable and freedom-loving people” inside Saudi Arabia for their contribution to the operation. This sounded like a reference to the participation of members of Saudi Arabia’s persecuted Shia minority, who are concentrated in the Eastern Province in the attack, or at least in the intelligence/surveillance process that preceded it.

The drones seem unlikely to have been launched from within Saudi Arabia itself. It would have been very difficult to smuggle such large devices into the Kingdom or assemble them there. They were probably fired from a neighbouring country: Iraq is increasingly being identified as the most likely source (the drones that struck the east-west pipeline were also widely reported to have come from there).

There has also been speculation they may have been clandestinely launched from Bahrain, or from a ship sailing off the Saudi Gulf coast.

Resistance Axis

But the precise source of the missiles is immaterial. Since the start of the Saudi-led war on Yemen, the Houthis have become increasingly closely aligned with the regional “Resistance Axis” comprising Iran and Syria and their allies in Iraq, Lebanon and other Arab countries. They no longer attempt to conceal this: their envoys now visit Tehran openly and their leaders express pride about their relationship with the Islamic Republic.

Sarie’, meanwhile, warned that Ansarullah’s list of targets inside Saudi Arabia is “growing by the day,” meaning that more such attacks can be expected until Riyadh ends its war and lifts its blockade of Yemen.

This warning should be seen in the context of two other highly significant warnings that were issued in recent days: the declaration by Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, that his movement has new options available for countering U.S. attempts to cripple it and its allies; and the reaffirmation by Iranian leader Ali Khamenei’s advisor Ali Akbar Velayati that if his country is prevented from exporting oil through the Persian Gulf, no other country will be allowed to do so either.

The Houthis are closely aligned with Iran

The Houthis have changed the rules of engagement. The message they delivered with the latest attacks is, in their own words, that they will continue striking targets deep inside Saudi Arabia until the country’s leadership realises that “killing more Yemenis will not force them to their knees.”

Saudi fire-fighters may have put out the flames in Abqaiq and Khurais. But the dense smoke from the fires continues to shroud the region, and to conceal, at least for now, many questions about the future of the struggle raging in the Middle East, not just in Yemen but throughout the region.

In the meantime, a question is worth asking: Who is going to buy a stake in Saudi Aramco now? The Saudi government is desperate to offer shares in the giant corporation for sale. But even if they ever go on the market, how much will they fetch? Is it as coincidence that the attacks were launched just as Riyadh was stepping up efforts to proceed with a share offering?

Those unsophisticated mountain-dwelling Yemenis are clearly not as stupid as their enemies think.

Arabs now realise the Golan Heights can only be recovered by armed resistance

By Abdel Bari Atwan 

Veteran Arab journalist Abdel Bari Atwan says that by recognising Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, the U.S. is telling Syria it can only recover its occupied territory by force.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights did not come as a surprise. It was only to be expected given the shameful defeatism Arab regimes are displaying these days.

Their failure to react forcefully or practically to Trump’s recognition of occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s “eternal capital” removed any obstacle to his latest move. In such circumstances, he could soon go on to recognise the annexation of the West Bank, which he no longer considers to be occupied, and to support Israeli designs on other territories.

A senior Hezbollah official who spoke to Raialyoum suggested that there are positive aspects to this decision: It has ruled out any prospect of any Syrian government seeking to recover its occupied lands through negotiations, and left it with no option other than armed resistance in all its variants – ensuring that the country remains within the “Resistance Axis” for decades to come.

Successive Israel prime ministers tried to lure Syria out of that axis by holding out the prospect of giving back the Golan Heights through negotiations. Successive U.S. presidents colluded in that deception. But the Netanyahu/Trump duo has made things clearer – it has demonstrated that the negotiations were a lie, the promised peace was a mirage, and the prospective return of the Golan Heights was never more than a big ruse.

The same happened in the case of the 1993 Oslo Accords with the PLO and the 1994 Wadi Arba agreement with Jordan.

With his decision, Trump has unwittingly legitimised the launch of armed resistance to liberate the Golan Heights – as in the West Bank, Gaza, and South Lebanon. So does the near-unanimous international opposition that encountered his endorsement of Israel’s annexation of the Heights.

Armed resistance 

Israel is trying to use force to impose facts on the ground, while exerting pressure on its allies to accept them as new realities. It has been proven in practice (in South Lebanon, Gaza and during the early stages of the 1973 war) that this policy can only be countered by force.

It was painful to witness some of the reactions to this provocative and insulting American step. Worst of all was the failure of the Syrian opposition to come out clearly and frankly against this theft of a precious part of their country with no legal or moral justification. The Golan Heights do not belong to the current Syrian government or to President Bashar al-Assad, who these factions oppose, but to all Syrians since time immemorial.

The Golan Heights

The reaction of the Arab regimes was nearly as bad. Some of them dragged their feet before issuing statements opposing the move – for more than a day in the case of some Gulf governments. That was disgraceful in the full sense of the word.

The Israeli occupation state was thrown into a state of confusion by a single missile fired by besieged resistance fighters in Gaza that hit a building north of Tel Aviv. One can only imagine what would happen if many more missiles, much more capable, were to start hurtling down on Israeli targets from a reactivated Golan Front.

Some say this idea is far-fetched. They note that the Golan Front was kept quiet by the Syrian regime for over 40 years. That is true. But times and circumstances have changed. The US has now blessed Israel’s annexation of this part of Syria, after trying for eight years to fragment the entire country but failing due to the resilience of the Syrian army and state. Syrian air defence missiles ended Israel’s impunity in the skies, and now it faces the prospect of being confronting with thousands of ground-to-ground missiles.

The army that succeeded in recapturing most of Syria’s cities is certainly capable of recapturing the Golan Heights. It represents the entire country, and has acquired unprecedented combat expertise and skills. This is not only our judgement: Israeli military experts are saying the same thing.

What’s the real plan?

A final point needs to be mentioned: Trump’s unlimited and naked support for Netanyahu, and his flagrant intervention in the Israeli elections in his favour, suggest that a plan is being prepared. Its features may not emerge until after Netanyahu is re-elected with the support of the president of the world’s strongest power.

What could these be? Waging war on Iran and its allies after the implementation of the second phase of sanctions that aim to stop all Iranian oil exports? A re-occupation of the Gaza Strip? An assault on Lebanon in a desperate attempt to destroy Hezbollah? Or possibly a military invasion of Syria?

These are hypothetical questions to which we have no answers. What we can say, in all confidence, is that any US plans – whether in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine – are doomed to fail, and to backfire catastrophically on those who hatch them.

Netanyahu has been bombing Gaza relentlessly, yet still seeks Egypt’s mediation for the third time in less than two months to halt missiles strikes from the Strip. He has ordered more than 200 airstrikes on Syria, but failed to achieve any of his aims, whether removing Iranian forces from the country or preventing missile deliveries to Hezbollah.

The writing, therefore, is on the wall.

Why has Donald Trump decided to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria?

By 5Pillars

US President Donald Trump

Veteran Arab journalist Abdel Bari Atwan says President Trump may have cut a deal with Turkish President Erdogan so that he could withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.

There is a military rule that says: if you are facing defeat and want to cut your losses, the shortest way out is to declare victory and promptly retreat.

U.S. President Donald Trump may not be familiar with this dictum, as his expertise is confined to business deals and property brokering. But some of his advisors are most definitely aware of it, as they are of the facts on the ground on the battlefronts where U.S. forces are deployed, especially in the Middle East.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders announced on Wednesday that all US forces in Syria – comprising some 2,000 Special Forces troops – would be withdrawn within two or three months, while another American official said that all State Department personnel would be pulled out of Syria within 48 hours.

Trump justified this move in a tweet explaining that the war against terrorist groups, which was the only reason for the U.S. forces’ presence in the first place, had achieved its aim with the defeat of the ISIS, so he had decided to bring them all home from Syria.

There is much that is unclear about this decision, in addition to the element of surprise. Just one week ago, the U.S. envoy to the international anti-terror coalition in Syria, Brett McGurk, declared that US forces would be remaining in the country for while.

His boss, Secretary of State James Mattis (who has just resigned) has repeatedly warned over the past month against any premature U.S. withdrawal from Syria, on the grounds that this would leave a vacuum which President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian and Russian allies would fill. This has also been reiterated by Trump’s ally Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

Has ISIS been defeated? 

The claim that US forces have eliminated ISIS, which maintains bases and a military presence in northeastern Syria, is false. The group remains strong, and it poses a threat to the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which the U.S. has been supporting and arming. Two days ago it retook villages it had lost in earlier confrontations between the two sides. So it is hard to accept this explanation.

To understand why Trump took this decision to withdraw from Syria, and to vacate the Middle East conflict zone generally, a number of points need to be considered:

First: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s repeated warnings over the past ten days to attack the SDF and wipe it out completely in north-eastern Syria, on the grounds that it is an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — which Turkey designates as a terrorist organisation — and threatens the country’s national security.

Turkish president Recep Tayyib Erdogan

Second: Trump may have taken this decision after reaching a deal with Erdogan aimed at avoiding a military confrontation between their countries and reviving their previous strategic partnership. This is plausible. The two presidents have been in regular contact over the past few days, and Sanders indicated that Trump was considering Erdogan’s demand for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based preacher accused of masterminding the failed coup in Turkey.

Third: The Trump administration may be preparing to ignite a war with Iran, and is pulling its forces out of Syria so they do not become a target for retaliatory attacks by pro-Iranian Iraqi groups. The 5,200 American soldiers in Iraq may also be withdrawn for the same reason. Moreover, talks were held on Wednesday between the U.S. and the Taliban in Abu Dhabi (not Doha), attended by the Pakistanis, Saudis, and Emiratis, about a prospective withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Fourth: Trump may have agreed with his allies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE – and perhaps Qatar too – to send forces from these countries to replace the U.S. troops, prevent a vacuum from occurring, and bankroll and arm the SDF. News reports have revealed that military experts from these countries have visited the Eastern Euphrates in recent weeks. Saudi Minister of State Tamer as-Sabhan went there several months ago to prepare for the arrival and basing of these forces. Reports in the past few days have suggested that Sudanese troops may be deployed there as well, also in coordination with the U.S. administration.

Kurds betrayed

As usual, it is the Kurds – who banked on American protection, fought under the U.S. banner against Syrian forces and then against ISIS, defeating the latter and capturing its capital city al-Raqqa – who stand to be the main victims of this American move. They have the most to lose, just like their counterparts in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Kurds’ problem, especially in Syria, is that they failed to learn from the lessons of history and of their own previous experiences and put all their eggs in the American basket. They are separatists when they have U.S. backing, and Syrians when the Americans let them down or the Turks attack them.

Bashar al Assad welcomed the American pullout

This has happened more than once, most recently last week when they appealed for support from the Syrian army in the face of Turkish threats and accused it of betraying them when it did not immediately comply – as though Damascus is at their beck and call.

It was no surprise to hear Kurdish spokeswoman Ilham Ahmad describe the U.S. decision to withdraw form Syria as a stab in the back. It was a stab with a poisoned dagger, but it was not the first and will not be the last.

The approaching new year will be replete with violent bumps and tremors. We should brace ourselves, and try to read the Middle Eastern scene differently this time, for there is more to come.