After Bouteflika, Algeria’s youth push for radical reforms

Algerian students raise banners and placards as they take part in an anti-government protest in the capital Algiers. AFP

Is it Algeria’s Arab Spring? After weeks of people-power protests across the country, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Wednesday resigned, ending his 20-year autocratic rule. The news was welcomed by noisy celebrations by millions of young people who had been continuing their protests since mid-February. 
The scenes were reminiscent of the jubilation after the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986, the overthrow of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1989, the fall of Berlin wall in 1991, and the short-lived Arab Spring victory in Egypt in 2011.  
The Algerian Spring, we hope, will not end up like the Egyptian Spring.
In Egypt, the people-power revolution ousted the 30-year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. A series of democratic elections then saw the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Freedom and Justice Party securing the presidency and the legislative assembly.  But the democratically elected President, Mohamed Morsi, lasted only a little more than a year.  The Morsi government was overthrown in a counter revolution backed by the Egyptian deep state, the military, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and the United States. It paved the way for the return of a military general as Egypt’s president. 

"The Algerians are politically more battle-hardened, for they won their freedom in 1962 from France after a bloody war"

With Egypt’s tryst with democracy going awry and with the Libyan and Syrian regime-change experiments ending up in prolonged bloody civil wars, the Arab Spring had given way to an Arab winter until this Wednesday the Algerian protesters forced the resignation from the 82-year-old paraplegic president.
However, it is too premature to celebrate victory.  A closer look at the events that took place in Algeria, in the days and weeks before Bouteflika’s resignation, evokes fears that what happened in Egypt, post-Arab Spring, could happen in Algeria, too.
Just as the Egyptian military chiefs played a mediatory role in persuading Mubarak to step down, Algeria’s Army Chief Ahmed Gaid Salah also took the side of the people and applied pressure on Bouteflika to resign.  But the Algerians knew that what happened in Egypt was a charade. The Algerians are politically more battle-hardened, for they won their freedom in 1962 from France after a bloody war.  Some 250,000 Algerians were killed in the eight-year independence war led by the National Liberation Front (FLN) and its armed wing the National Liberation Army.Like many newly independent African states, Algeria’s freedom flavour was short-lived.  Ahmed Ben Bella, who was elected as the first president in 1963, was overthrown in a 1965 military coup led by Col Houari Boumedienne.  (He visited Sri Lanka in 1976 to attend the Non-Aligned Movement summit and handed over its chairpersonship to Sri Lanka’s then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike.)
Algeria, an Ottoman province till the French took over it in terms of a 1916 deal with Britain, has a chequered past.  In 1976, Boumedienne introduced a socialist constitution with the FLN as the sole political party. Islam was recognised as the state religion to pacify the Islamists who played a key role in the freedom struggle, but had, since, become disappointed with the manner in which the state was being run by the junta.  After Boumedienne’s death in 1978, Col. Chadli Benjadid took over, thus continuing with the military’s hold on politics. The country saw its first economic riots in the 1980s. It led to the lifting on the ban on political parties.  Encouraged by the development, the Islamists organised themselves under the banner of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and won the multiparty elections to the local councils in 1990. The military-backed government, alarmed by the popularity of the FIS, began a crackdown on the Islamists.  Despite the harassment, the FIS won the first round of the 1992 general elections and was predicted to win a clear victory in the second round.  The military intervened and cancelled the elections.  

"However, it is too premature to celebrate victory.  A closer look at the events that took place in Algeria, in the days and weeks before Bouteflika’s resignation, evokes fears that what happened in Egypt, post-Arab Spring, could happen in Algeria, too"

The military’s anti-democracy action, however, was supported by the United States and Algeria’s former colonial master France.  This was because by 1991, the West had serious worries about the Islamists’ threat to its geopolitical interests in the region, although the West had fathered the birth of modern Islamic radicalism as part of its policy towards defeating the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. 
The action triggered Algeria’s civil war in 1991. The ten-year war killed some 150,000 people.  With the Islamists banned from contesting the 1997 elections, military’s backed parties won the parliamentary elections.  In 1999, the military backed candidate, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, was elected as president. 
In his initial years in office, Bouteflika was seen to be doing quite well. He introduced political and economic reforms.  Under his presidency, oil-rich Algeria experienced an economic boom in the mid-2000s. But the prosperity was short-lived.  Today, in Algeria, every fourth person under 30 is unemployed.  The economy is in dire straits.  With the economic crisis worsening, the people began to see the wrongs of the ‘corrupt’ Bouteflika regime. They took to the streets in February when Bouteflika announced his intention to go for a fifth term.  As the aphorism goes, in the Arab world, presidents do not leave office, they have to be overthrown. Bouteflika is no exception.
But his resignation on Wednesday has not settled the crisis. Fearing that the military’s tough stand against Bouteflika was only a pretense, the young protesters want to end the military’s hold on politics; they want to overthrow, not just an elderly president, but the corrupt and elitist system. 
They want free and fair elections, not a Bouteflika henchman to take over as president after the 90-day transition period.  The people want a complete overhaul.  They vowed on Wednesday to keep protesting until their objective was achieved.

"In his initial years in office, Bouteflika was seen to be doing quite well. He introduced political and economic reforms.  Under his presidency, oil-rich Algeria experienced an economic boom in the mid-2000s"

The country cannot afford to plunge into another civil war.  The Algerians want to see a change similar to what happened in neighbouring Tunisia, the only country where democracy has taken root after the 2011 Arab Spring protests. 
In the 1990s, the West supported the Algerian junta’s crackdown on the Islamists.  This policy had a disastrous consequence. It made some of the Islamists to turn towards extremism. An extremist group called al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIIM) is a big threat to the country and the region.
Therefore, the West is well advised to support the pro-reform and pro-democracy protesters and put pressure on the military to submit itself to the civilian authority. The United States, which has close military and security relations with Algeria, has said the future of the country “is for the Algerian people to decide”. Russia, meanwhile, has called for a transition without foreign “interference”. There appears to be some truth in the Russian statement. 

War on Syria: Part of a plan?

Syrian “revolution” against Islamic resistance

Zaakir Ahmed Mayet

The context of the war on Syria was linked to the wave of the Arab Spring (aka Islamic Awakening). The spark of self-immolation in which Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi sacrificed his life set off an inferno that spread quickly from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya to Yemen, Bahrain to Syria, and even to the Saudi Kingdom itself. The hegemony of US and Western interests were under threat and a swift and rapid answer was required.

The uprisings called for an end to monarchical and military rule. The Egyptian uprising was crushed via a triple-sided threat: Mubarak officials ensconced in government structures, the military (SCAF), and foreign elements of the United States. The end result was grave miscalculations and internal dynamics that saw the Muslim Brotherhood shattered, its leadership imprisoned, and its structures scattered to countries such as Turkey and Qatar.

Interestingly, at the time Qatar was also placed under pressure to cut ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Libyan crisis developed rapidly into the benevolent dictator versus the people. Unlike the protests in Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, and Egypt, the Libyan revolt turned into an armed rebellion and insurrection. This devolving situation turned one of the most progressive countries, in terms of services to its people, into a failed and lawless state. This opened the door for US hegemonic forces and the invasion of Libya. A quick survey demonstrated that the GCC states cooperated with Western forces to re-establish the hegemonic foothold so as to ensure that the uprising was quelled.

Not only did this civil war (enigneered from abroad as we know in hindsight) between state and people provide a perfect excuse for intervention, it also allowed for a continued status quo of civil war, demonstrated how armed insurrection could topple government and provided a case study of how the tide can be quelled to prevent the emergence of a civil momentum. The protests in Libya began in February 2011 and the subsequent military operations came to an end in August 2011. The end result was that hegemonic oil interests were secured, any positive regime change against Western interests quelled and the formula of insurgency for regime-change or perpetual conflict finetuned.

Shortly after the start of the Libyan rebellion, the Syrian theatre exploded with protests calling for reform. It is important to place a proviso at this point to ensure that the bulk of the analysis is captured in its correct light for the purpose of understanding the geopolitical and military picture surrounding the current Qatari situation. The Syrian conflict, as we understand it today, is one that is charged with emotional and religious sentiment.

It becomes virtually impossible to suppress one’s emotions when hospitals are targeted, masjids are destroyed, refugees have their dignity ripped away, barrel bombs are thrown from the sky, and reports of torture emerge. The violence from both sides is gross and ignites strong emotions.

In order for the conflict in Syria to be properly understood, we must consider its three dimensions. The first is humanitarian to which our emotions are most strongly connected, and rightly so. The second is the political dimension which must be dealt with in the framework of negotiations, theories of democracy, and even economics. The final and most crucial in this piece is the military and geopolitical aspect, which demands an absence of emotion to view the Syria conflict in its truest form. It is on this premise that we proceed.

Numerous analyses have been presented to explain the Syrian issue, each containing its own biases and failures. In all the analyses only one has explained events in a truthful and unbiased manner. In 2015 a senior official in the resistance movement structures explained what had happened. Syria had been ruled by Hafiz al-Asad, the current leader’s father. Upon his death, his ophthalmologist son, Bashar, took over. In March 2011, legitimate protests began calling for reforms within Syria as the people were unhappy about the hereditary lineage of leadership. The Syrian regime reached out to the Palestinian liberation movement Hamas to mediate a peaceful end to the protests. It was the position of Hamas that they do not intervene in internal state matters. However, after much persuasion, the movement assisted in trying to bring stability to the state that it had called home. The negotiation process was slow and in the interim al-Asad offered reforms to aid the process.

It is said that during the reform process, Iran had advised al-Asad to enact reforms and embrace the demands of the people via legitimate avenues. Al-Asad’s younger brother, Maher, however, was not happy with Tehran’s advice nor with the negotiations that were taking place. As Commander of the Syrian Army’s 4th Armoured Division, Maher convinced Bashar to quell the uprising using live ammunition and force. Bashar went against Iranian advice, pulled Hamas and others out of the negotiations and deployed Maher to suppress the protests.

The results were catastrophic. Images of massacres in the streets fueled further protests and led to exploitable circumstances beyond Bashar’s control. He was shunned by his erstwhile allies Iran and Hizbullah and the situation began to deteriorate.

A slight digression is necessary to explain the concept of destabilisation, which is crucial as a tool for hegemonic powers. In 2013, a key think tank of the United States Military Establishment, the RAND Corporation, published an extensive report titled “Ending The US War In Iraq — The Final Transition, Operational Manoeuvre And Disestablishment Of United States Forces in Iraq.” In the said publication it was stated,

Consequently, building the political, economic, and security capacity of the host nation was viewed as central to conducting a successful COIN [Counter Insurgency] operation. While building the capacity and legitimacy of the government, a COIN strategy must also seek either to delegitimize the insurgents and separate them from the population or to find a mechanism to bring the insurgents back into the political process. However, as the host government increases its capacity, especially in the security sector, the less likely it is that the government will seek a negotiated settlement with insurgents. Thus, a successful COIN campaign that strengthens the capacity of the government to conduct COIN operations may actually undermine the long-term resolution of a civil war because those who hold governmental power have little incentive to establish and enforce reconciliation and reintegration programs.

This paragraph is explosive in that it highlights two realities; first, that insurgencies or guerrilla warfare cannot be stopped by conventional militaries. This is true when looking at the record of superpowers verses asymmetric forces such as in Russia vs. Afghanistan, US-NATO Coalition vs. Afghanistan and the “Coalition of the Willing” vs. Iraq. The second reality is that the presence of armed movements or insurgents “undermines the long-term resolution of a civil war.” A perpetual status of instability which neutralises the state alternatively makes it susceptible to foreign intervention.

This knowledge will help us understand the importance of the acts that follow. After the massacre unleashed by Maher al-Asad, the Syrian opposition protestors followed the questionable Libyan model. On July 8, 2011, French and US ambassadors in Syria joined the protestors. Shortly thereafter a wave of lower level defections occurred from the Syrian military and on July 29, 2011, merely 20 days later, the first armed movement, “The Free Syrian Army” (FSA), was formed. It was at this point that the legitimate and peaceful protests morphed into something very different and in line with hegemonic interests. As time progressed the rebel movement mutated into different strands. At one stage there were over 40 different groupings in Syria. Al-Asad had been receiving very little assistance from Iran or Hizbullah with the exception of advisors, this being the price he paid for not following their wise and astute advice given with sincerity.

In August 2012 a report by Reuters confirmed what analysts had been speculating from the beginning, that the rebels in Syria were being supported by the hegemonic powers. The report stated “Obama’s order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence ‘finding,’ broadly permits the CIA and other US agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Asad.” The aim underpinning support for the rebels was evident from an interview conducted with a key FSA figure by the Israeli publication, Israel Hayom. The rebel identified only by an alias Kamal, stated, “Al-Asad’s fall will eliminate the link in the chain that ties Iran with Hizbullah in Lebanon. Not only would you be rid of an enemy, but you [Israel] would also weaken two others.”

In 2011, the opposition formally established its headquarters in Turkey as announced by Burhan Ghalioun. Chants began filling the streets of Syria, “No to Iran and no to Hizbullah, we want (Saudi) King Abdullah” accompanied by the burning of Hizbullah flags in cities like Tabaqah in Hamah. In an interview in December 12, 2011, Ghalioun told the Wall Street Journal that a change would be in the cards. The article said “that a Syrian government run by the country’s main opposition group would cut Damascus’ military relationship to Iran and end arms supplies to Middle East militant groups such as Hizbullah and Hamas, the group’s leader said, raising the prospect of a dramatic realignment of powers at the region’s core.”

In December 2011, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was asked about the impact of al-Asad’s overthrow. He said, “The fall of Asad will deal a crushing blow to the radical axis and this will weaken Hizbullah in Lebanon.” He echoed similar sentiments at the World Policy Conference in Vienna. Syrian rebels uttered similar statements, “Once we are done with Syria we will slaughter with knives, O Hasan Naßrullah.” When attacking the Qußayr countryside, the rebels stated, “Bases of Hizbullah within Lebanese territory will be targeted.” Messages from Jabhah al-Nußrah also indicated that they would attack Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Strategically, al-Qußayr was the central corridor for weapons from Syria and Iran to Hizbullah. The Israelis had fully understood this and Meir Dagan, the Mossad Chief, stated at a conference in 2012, “Effort to lessen the influence of Iran in the region, will occur via bringing about a situation whereby Bashar al-Asad falls, which will weaken — automatically and directly — Hizbullah in dramatic and effective manners.” A 2012 lecture at the Washington Institute titled “Is the End Near in Damascus” provided a clear and direct insight into US-Israeli thinking on Syria. It was said, “But this nasty and ugly regime will be gone and with it the lynchpin of the Iranian position in the region and Hizbullah’s strategic position. I think we should be happy.” According to Israeli army analyst, Nadav Pollak,

Along with Hizbullah and Iran, Syria is part of the greater “axis of resistance,” which seeks to confront Israel, along with Western and Sunni interests in the Middle East. A weaker Syria thus would mean for Hizbullah and Iran a weaker resistance coalition, and Asad under threat, called for a response. Especially grim for Hizbullah and Iran was a scenario in which Asad might be replaced with a more Western-friendly government.

In fact, in a Washington Institute discussion, Jeffrey White said when questioned in 2012 about Iran and Lebanon,

I think we’ve seen the limit of Iranian military intervention. They are not going to do anything greater, anything significantly different. They are not going to fly in revolutionary guards and try and save the regime. They might send an aeroplane to get Asad out but I don’t think we will see any grand Iranian involvement in the conflict. I think they understand the limits, geographic limits what we are talking about and they almost certainly don’t want to commit their forces to a losing situation. They would be caught up in a collapse and defeat of the government.

The collapse of Syria was manageable for Israel according to the analyst who said “you have tensions on the Golan front… But the current security problem, the Israelis know how to deal with very effectively.”

According to the rebel leader this writer had spoken to, it was only after extensive assessment of attitudes of the rebels, that were diverse in their composition, that a decision was taken. It was evident that the rebels were either partial toward or in line with Israel. This was a grave threat to the resistance axis. Attacks within Lebanon began increasing dramatically and in 2013 Hizbullah officially entered the Syrian theatre with sizeable force. On May 25, 2013, Hizbullah Secretary General, Sayyid Hasan Naßrullah announced, “Syria is the backbone of the resistance and the support of the resistance. The resistance cannot sit with its hands crossed while its backbone is made vulnerable and its support is being broken, or else we will be naive.”

This changed the face of the war in Syria with the presence of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) troops, Russian hi-tech weapons systems and Hizbullah with advanced fighting capabilities. This rewrote the entire rubric of Western interests in the region and spelt the doom of the hegemony. These events were completely unexpected and a resistance victory was not part of the calculation for the hegemons.

Zaakir Ahmed Mayet is Chairman of the Media Review Network of Pretoria, South Africa.

 

Zaakir Ahmed Mayet

Saudi Arabia: On the Brink of Disintegration

The chaos, which its diabolical authors have brought to a number of Arab countries cynically calling it “the Arab Spring”, demonstrates that the process has not been completed and yet some other Middle East countries will fall under its bloody millstone. Arising quite suddenly in Tunisia (that more or less successfully escaped the spring winds), the chaos, backed up by the Western armed forces, moved to the formerly prospering Libya, which, currently, has ceased to exist as a whole state having fallen apart into three separate regions – Tripoli, Cyrenaica and Fezzan. The latest news reported by the global media evidence that the terrorist organisation, the Islamic State (IS), is planning to turn the Libyan territory in its own “jumping board” for penetrating and attacking European countries. In the north of Africa, only Egypt has held its ground; due to the enormous political experience of the Egyptian people and the determination of its army, it managed to remedy the situation in the very heart of the Arab world.

The situation is even worse in the Persian Gulf region where Bahrain at some point was occupied by Saudi troops, and that alone helped to suppress the violent riots of the Shiah who, according to different estimates, comprise over 70 to 80% of the population. But the fire of the riots is not extinct and from time to time its sparks serve as a reminder by burning Manama suburbs.

The situation is awful in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The first two states fell victim to unprovoked aggression on the part of the USA, resulting in the loss of national identity and destruction of infrastructure. As the proverb goes, one fool makes many, and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, blinded by their incredible wealth and incorrect analysis of the situation in the region, wished to establish a regime in Damascus, which would be obedient to them. Until now, the Syrian people have been in hell fighting with countless mercenaries and defending their right to live and solve their own problems on their own, Syrian soil. The country is divided into parts, many cities and settlements have been demolished, several million Syrian nationals have left their homeland and are seeking asylum in other countries. But the Riyadh Wahhabi leaders are still not satisfied with that, and their task is to establish their own regime in Damascus, which would be obedient only to them, no matter if Syria continues to exist as a single state or is divided into several “subcomponents”.

However the logic of the history of the so-called “Arab Spring” is as follows: the point currently at issue is whether Saudi Arabia itself will exist within its previous borders or there will be several states in the Saudi territory, in compliance with the map of former lieutenant-colonel Ralf Peters. In this regard, it should be recalled that in June 2006 Ralf Peters, retired lieutenant-colonel working in the US National Military Academy, published prospective borders of the national states of the Greater Middle East in his article “Blood Borders” in the Armed Forces Journal. R.Peters’ last assignment was to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence in the US Department of Defense. He is one of the most well-known Pentagon authors and has published numerous works on strategy in US military and foreign policy editions. Though the aforementioned map does not reflect the Pentagon’s official point of view, it was used in educational programs for senior military officers of the NATO Defense College and could be quite easily used, alongside other maps, by the National Military Academy and military specialists in the sphere of planning.

At this very complicated period of its existence, possibly the most dangerous one since the moment when Saudi Arabia was created by Abdulaziz ibn Abdul Rahman ibn Faisal Al Saud (Ibn Saud), its current leaders do not display any skills, far-sightedness and political thinking. Moreover, they are doing everything possible in order that the earlier artificially created monarchy could be divided into several parts. Evidently, due to feeble mind and old age, the current Saudi King Salman ibn Abdulaziz Al Saud and his son Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, the youngest Minister of Defense in the world, have been involved in three wars simultaneously or, as one may say, have begun a three-front war.

It is common knowledge backed by history, for example if we look at the history of Europe, that a state may succeed only if it leads one war and it will lose on two fronts. In 1870-1871, Prussia (Germany) only crushed France and imposed on it heavy war indemnity taking military actions on one front. However, during the World War I and World War II, Germany, which was already united by these times, undertook military actions on two fronts and was heavily defeated in both wars, with the impacts of those losses visible to this today. We might be absolutely astounded by the unreasonable behavior of the present Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel – if we were unaware of the fact that the German territory is still occupied by American troops and many American military bases are located there.

But it seems that Europe is too far from Saudi Arabia as the present Saudi leaders do not know the rudiments of history. Not surprisingly, due to this very fact they have got involved simultaneously in three complicated and cruel wars. The first war is, of course, the Syrian conflict, which has occurred and is being continuously fomented by the Saudis, who have spent hundreds millions of dollars on the creation and generous financing of terrorist groups such as the Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, etc. At first glance, it may seem strange that these terrorist organisations just occasionally subject the Saudi regime to mild criticism for derogation from the norms of “real Islam”, but they do not go any far than that. For some reason, the terrorists do not take any military actions against the Saudis, though the terrorists, tempered in battle, need no more than three days to quickly cross the desert regions near the Saudi-Iraqi border in their Toyota trucks and occupy the main oil-bearing region of Al Hasa on the Persian Gulf shore. However that does not happen and the terrorists, for no reason whatsoever, do not leave the Syrian and Iraqi territory and prefer to die as a result of effective bombing by the Russian Military and Space Forces. Evidently, the Saudi leaders have generously sponsored not only the terrorists’ military activities but their death as well. But, given the low oil prices, the Saudi treasury will run empty earlier or later, and what will the enraged terrorists do then?

The second Saudi Arabia front comprises the unsuccessful military actions in Yemen where barefoot Houthis rebels are not only putting up adequate resistance to the Saudis and their satellites but also inflicting significant damage on them. This being the case, when the rebels are armed with rifles alone. Since March 26, Saudi Arabia, supported by military air forces of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, has been carrying out a military air operation against the rebels using the most advanced arms supplied from the United States. The coalition was also joined by Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Sudan. According to UN data, 2,795 civilians died and 5,324 were wounded during escalation of the conflict. At that, Riyadh is widely using the USA banned weapons – cluster bombs. This was reported by the American organisation, Human Rights Watch, which insists on conducting a most thorough international investigation of the fact.

Experts are asking quite a reasonable question: what will happen when Iran supplies modern weapons to the rebels (as all the Saudi media are loudly sounding the alarm of these prospects). It will happen, sooner or later. In these circumstances, Yemen will easily regain the disputed territories that now form part of the Saudi provinces Najran, Jizan and Ha’il. Therefore, all the southern part of the modern Saudi Arabia will become the territory of Yemen, as was in the old times, and that might serve as the catalyst for disintegration of the whole kingdom.

The third front, on which the Saudis are fighting without any success, is the ill-thought-of tactics of decreasing oil prices. In this case, the Riyadh leaders blinded by their wealth and seeking to take possession of the whole of the global market, decided to oust the major oil-producing states like the USA, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, Norway from the market. As the time goes on and the competitors do not leave the oil market, the world is gradually becoming accustomed to low prices. But this, firstly, has struck a blow to the finances of Saudi Arabia, originally regarded as “the fat cat”. Now its economy is beginning to experience certain difficulties caused by the low prices, the enormous expenses of making war in Syria and Yemen and expenses of supporting large social payments and subsidies. There is a strain on the balance of payments and spending of state funds. The things have gone so far that there are rumours of privatization of the “sacred cow” – Saudi Aramco, the major donor of the economy.

It would seem that in these conditions, cutting external and non-core expenses (military operations expenses, financing terrorist organisations) and focusing on the economy would be a solution. However, the Saudi leaders, taking the bit between their teeth, are seeking a solution in yet new adventures. Some media reported that Saudi Arabia has taken the decision to start a land operation in Syria in the nearest future without waiting for the support from the other allies, as brigade General Akhmed al Asiri informed. This would be the case while the Saudis haven’t even succeeded in Yemen.

It is possible that Washington is deliberately drawing the Saudis into all kinds of adventures in order that changes in the state structure in the Arab Peninsula will occur sooner. There are up to $ 1 trillion worth of Saudi Arabia state funds stored in American banks, plus about half trillion dollars of private deposits. If Saudi Arabia falls apart it is almost impossible that any Saudi nationals will dare to make financial claims against Washington. The people who will be heads of the new states will be undoubtedly grateful to the United States and will need their assistance and supervision. For example, if the representative of the Hashemite delegation, the now ruling King of Jordan Abdallah II heads Hejaz, as his ancestors did for many centuries, and becomes the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, he will evidently retain good feeling towards Washington and its rulers.

Beyond any doubt, the new adventures and ill-conceived external and domestic initiatives, where the authorities resort to repressions and numerous executions in order to calm down the people, only serve to draw the historical outcome and the “Arab Spring” in the Arab Peninsula closer. It is possible that we will be witnesses to the situation where the last son of the great ibn Saud, who in olden days created Saudi Arabia, will become the last king of the desert monarchy in the Arab Peninsula.

Victor Mikhin, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
https://journal-neo.org/2016/02/24/saudi-arabia-on-the-brink-of-disintegration/