The Middle East

[LFC]

Our "friends" in the Middle East have decided to hose us for not supporting their own tyrannical actions, the way Trump did. He was willing to sell nuclear technology to the nation that supplied most of the 9/11 terrorists and is the single largest sponsor of terrorism across the globe.

The WSJ reports tonight that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have both signaled to Washington that they won’t help ease the global squeeze on gasoline supplies and surging prices unless the Biden administration falls into line on Yemen and other regional issues – one of these being immunity for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. The specific hook of the article is that the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the UAE have both declined calls from President Biden in recent weeks.

It has seemed clear to me since early 2021 that the Gulf states have been working to undermine the Biden administration in part because of these issues in the Gulf and also because of their close ties with ex President Trump and Jared Kushner. But over the course year energy prices have become a key driver of inflation. Now the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made the need to open up new supplies of oil a matter of acute urgency for the United States and really much of the globe. What it amounts to is that at a moment of acute and profound economic and geopolitical need they’re squeezing us.

Saudi Arabia and UAE are sovereign states. Yemen and Iran are huge issues for them. They’re entitled to make their choices. But it goes without saying that the US has directly and indirectly underwritten their security for decades. It is a reminder that they are on Team Autocracy. And in a moment when autocracy versus civic democracy is suddenly the central factor in global politics, we shouldn’t forget that. They produce products that the whole world is deeply dependent on but which are also driving the global crisis of climate change.

Needless to say, we should not forget this. We should accelerate the reorientation of our global foreign policy in ways that properly identify these countries as malefactor states.

There's too much oil power in the hands of too many horrible leaders. It's clear that we need to do everything we can to limit their power over us. It's a national security matter. Actually that was clear roughly 50 years ago but Americans are addicted to cheap oil.

[pnwguy]

Mar 9, 2022 14:47:37 GMT LFC said:

Our "friends" in the Middle East have decided to hose us for not supporting their own tyrannical actions, the way Trump did. He was willing to sell nuclear technology to the nation that supplied most of the 9/11 terrorists and is the single largest sponsor of terrorism across the globe.

There's too much oil power in the hands of too many horrible leaders. It's clear that we need to do everything we can to limit their power over us. It's a national security matter. Actually that was clear roughly 50 years ago but Americans are addicted to cheap oil.

Greedy, narcissistic tyrants love other greedy narcissistic tyrants.  Dumpster could hardly pass up the chance to praise and rub elbows with them.

[goldenvalley]

There is perhaps an oligarchy club that Russians and some of the Middle East has.  The super wealthy from petroleum plus whatever "other" means of acquiring wealth stick together.  They tolerated Trump and Kushner because those two slavered and kissed their behinds and sold them sophisticated weapons.  I suspect they got together and laughed hard after visits from T & K.

And besides rising oil prices raises all boats. The Middle East will be making much more money now.

[LFC]

Our "friends" in Saudi Arabia continue to threaten rising prices unless we approve of their war in Yemen. It's long past time to cut ourselves free of this dependency. A half century of being f***ed over should be more than enough to make any reasonable person realize that they can't be trusted.

I mentioned last week that a significant part of high energy prices which have fueled inflation have been driven by the refusal of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies to increase supply and moderate prices. As we discussed last week, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, has been fairly open about the fact that he sees no urgency about cooling oil prices as long as the US government has not provided him with immunity for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi or total support for its war in Yemen.

Just this morning, the Saudi Foreign Ministry put out more of what amount to threats if the US doesn’t back its war in Yemen. From Al Arabiya …

Saudi Arabia will not bear responsibility for any shortage in oil supplies in light of recent attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi militia on oil facilities, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Monday citing a source in the Ministry of Foreign affairs.

The source highlighted the danger of Iran’s continuing to provide Houthis with ballistic missile and drone technology, which the Yemen-based group uses to target oil and gas production sites in the Kingdom.

Recent attacks will affect the Kingdom’s production capacity and its ability to meet its supply obligations, threatening global energy supply, according to SPA.

The source highlighted the importance of standing against the Houthis and deterring them from further attacks.

As I said, these amount to yet more threats when rising energy prices, related inflation and the Ukraine War have placed the US in a position of maximum vulnerability. Who needs client states if they blackmail you when you’re under threat?

There have always been lots of reasons to be critical of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the US-Saudi relationship. But here we can see that relationship is failing even on its own terms. The US and the world are in the midst of one of probably the biggest geopolitical crisis of the post-Cold War era and the Saudi government is using that as an opportunity to squeeze us – blackmail the US really – to fall in line with their regional policies. If the US protection of the Saudi monarchy hasn’t earned assistance in a situation like this, the relationship is truly worthless.

[LFC]

TPM is starting to pull together more details about Mohammed bin Salman's $2B "investment" in Jared's hedge fund despite Jared having no experience in running one. They are also paying an enormously high fee for his management, 2X higher than Steve Mnuchin who they invested $1B in, even though Mnuchin actually has and can run a hedge fund. The fact is that they have invested in Trump and Trumpism. And it's a very solid reason for why Saudi Arabia, unlike when Trump was in office, have refuse to adjust production. Screwing the U.S. is the politically expedient thing to do when your direct investment isn't in office.

There are two broad ways to think about a MBS-to-Kushner investment. One is as a thank you for services rendered in the past — help with figuratively dispatching MBN, help with literally dispatching Khashoggi. The other is an investment in the future. After all, Donald Trump could be back in power in 2025, or, if not him, another Trump-aligned Republican. But what was described to me seemed to transcend both — less a payoff or a future investment than evidence of some relationship between the two men that was deeper than either.

One of these high flyers I spoke to described a recent visit to Saudi Arabia which brought together power players from around the world — but particularly from the investment world — for a series of dinners, confabs and meetings. My interlocutor was one of the attendees. Each evening featured a different big dinner, with different luminaries in attendance. Some gatherings were large, some smaller, some very small, including the Crown Prince and just a handful of others. As it was described to me, at each of these events, or just about every one, there was Jared Kushner, seated right next to MBS.

Now I want to be clear that my interlocutor here didn’t have a perfect visual memory of the precise seating layout in every case. I didn’t get into the nitty gritty details. It wasn’t that kind of chat. But the gist was clear. My interlocutor had never seen anything like it. Sitting next to the ruler on a single night would be a career maker even for your average billionaire. But there Jared was every night — even for the private few-attendees dinner, apparently. The message seemed crystal clear and bold: Jared is my guy. In fact, he’s my number one, number two and number three guy.

What struck my interlocutor was not just the tightness and openness of the bond but the fact that this is during Joe Biden’s presidency. In U.S. politics, Kushner equals Trump. And Trump is no ordinary ex-President. He is not only the U.S. domestic political opposition. But people in and around the White House consider him an existential threat to America’s core political institutions. MBS seemed totally unconcerned about any of that. He might as well have been holding a GOP fundraiser. You might have expected him to at least downplay his bond with Jared in the interests of managing his relationship with the White House. But apparently not even close.

We must see this in the context of other events over the last year. The United States and Joe Biden really, really need energy costs to go down. You can see this in terms of U.S. economic interests or Joe Biden’s political interests. But for now they’re perfectly aligned. The White House has repeatedly pressed the Saudis to hike production to cool down oil prices. The Saudis have repeatedly refused. They took a much more accommodating approach under Trump, agreeing to hike production in 2018 and decrease it in 2020 at the request of the Trump White House. But now that has all changed.

In each of these ways the U.S.-Saudi alliance, which goes all the way back to the 1940s, seems to have been replaced by a Saudi-Trump alliance. (The oil price bonanza is funding a manic building and spending spree in Saudi Arabia which is the backdrop to these billionaire confabs I describe above.) Or perhaps we can see it more broadly as a transnational layer of authoritarian or authoritarian-friendly billionaires and princelings running the show separate from the actions and decisions of elected governments.

[AnBr]

If only there were some way that we could cut our need for oil. I wonder what.

[LFC]

Apr 19, 2022 20:34:24 GMT AnBr said:

If only there were some way that we could cut our need for oil. I wonder what.

The military has said for years that our dependence / ability to be impacted by petro-states was a major national security concern. What ever happened to Republicans "listening to the generals?"

[pnwguy]

Apr 19, 2022 20:53:09 GMT LFC said:

Apr 19, 2022 20:34:24 GMT AnBr said:

If only there were some way that we could cut our need for oil. I wonder what.

The military has said for years that our dependence / ability to be impacted by petro-states was a major national security concern. What ever happened to Republicans "listening to the generals?"

Republicans listen to General Motors.  Military leaders don't send them money.  

"I need cheap fuel for Hummers!"

[LFC]

Gee, more corruption between the Trumpies and the Middles East. What a shock.

The Justice Department has updated its indictment of former President Donald Trump’s billionaire buddy Thomas Barrack, documenting how he quietly tweaked the GOP platform at the 2016 Republican National Convention to avoid mentioning the Saudi royal family’s connection to the 9/11 hijackers.

On Monday, the DOJ replaced its original 46-page charging document with an expanded 55-page superseding indictment that more closely details how the financier allegedly exploited his proximity to Trump to make secret deals with the United Arab Emirates.

Barrack, who was also the chairman of Trump’s 2017 inauguration committee who got caught misspending funds while ushering in a new era of political corruption, was arrested last year on charges of foreign lobbying and obstruction of justice.

In the latest version of the indictment, federal prosecutors documented the role Barrack played at the run-up to the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. As a congressional investigation has since uncovered, Barrack had already allowed the Saudis and Emiratis to edit a major Trump campaign speech about energy, in which he made a pledge to "work with our Gulf allies.” Then, as Barrack’s relationship to the Emiratis got tighter, the meddling increased.

[LFC]

I guess Saudi Arabia is looking to create a new kind of fully enclosed city for when the climate change their major source of revenue is fueling makes their nation virtually unlivable for most humans.

Saudi Arabia is developing a new city, 150-stories tall and built from scratch, that will serve as a semi-enclosed environment where people can live and work without ever stepping foot outside. And while the promotional videos released Monday are likely an attempt to give the development a utopian feel that recalls so many “intentional cities” of the 20th century, the project comes across as extremely dystopian.

The city, completely walled on four sides with some kind of ventilation on top, is planned to be about 546 yards tall (500 meters), 218 yards wide (200 meters), and 105 miles long (170 km), according to the promotional videos, and will feature cutting-edge technology along with high-speed transportation from end-to-end. Cars will be completely unnecessary.

A video uploaded to Twitter proclaims this new city will house 9 million residents to provide a more healthy and “sustainable” quality of life. And while it’s being advertised as an eco-friendly project, with water and power supplies billed as “100% renewable,” the details have yet to be provided.

“For too long, humanity has existed within dysfunctional and polluted cities that ignore nature. Now, a revolution in civilization is taking place. Imagine a traditional city and consolidating its footprint, designing to protect and enhance nature,” the narrator of the new video explains.

The video shows what appears to be autonomous drones zipping around the new city, with plenty of greenery. And people who live there will supposedly be able to go from one end to another in just 20 minutes.

“Residents have access to all their daily needs within 5-minute walk neighborhoods,” the narrator continues.

[pnwguy]

Jul 26, 2022 21:23:45 GMT LFC said:

I guess Saudi Arabia is looking to create a new kind of fully enclosed city for when the climate change their major source of revenue is fueling makes their nation virtually unlivable for most humans.

Saudi Arabia is developing a new city, 150-stories tall and built from scratch, that will serve as a semi-enclosed environment where people can live and work without ever stepping foot outside. And while the promotional videos released Monday are likely an attempt to give the development a utopian feel that recalls so many “intentional cities” of the 20th century, the project comes across as extremely dystopian.

The city, completely walled on four sides with some kind of ventilation on top, is planned to be about 546 yards tall (500 meters), 218 yards wide (200 meters), and 105 miles long (170 km), according to the promotional videos, and will feature cutting-edge technology along with high-speed transportation from end-to-end. Cars will be completely unnecessary.

A video uploaded to Twitter proclaims this new city will house 9 million residents to provide a more healthy and “sustainable” quality of life. And while it’s being advertised as an eco-friendly project, with water and power supplies billed as “100% renewable,” the details have yet to be provided.

“For too long, humanity has existed within dysfunctional and polluted cities that ignore nature. Now, a revolution in civilization is taking place. Imagine a traditional city and consolidating its footprint, designing to protect and enhance nature,” the narrator of the new video explains.

The video shows what appears to be autonomous drones zipping around the new city, with plenty of greenery. And people who live there will supposedly be able to go from one end to another in just 20 minutes.

“Residents have access to all their daily needs within 5-minute walk neighborhoods,” the narrator continues.

Any different than a Don’t Look Up scenario that doesn’t use space craft? We can destroy most life while enriching ourselves and ensure we survive ourselves. We already have Jared in our pocket to do so and promised his family a place in our terrestrial escape pod.

[LFC]

Uuuuhhhh, who sold Saudi Arabia water leases in Arizona and why? This story stinks to high heaven.

Democratic attorney general candidate Kris Mayes is calling to investigate and potentially cancel the leases the State Land Department signed with a Saudi Arabian company that is pumping from Phoenix's backup water supply in western Arizona.

Mayes is also calling for the Saudi Arabian company to pay the state approximately $38 million for using the water in La Paz County, which sits in a basin that could be tapped as a future water source for the Phoenix area.

Mayes says the lease should be put on hold while they are investigated because they potentially violate the Arizona Constitution in two ways: They could violate the gift clause as well as a clause that requires state land and its products to be appraised and offered at their true value.

In June, The Arizona Republic reported that the State Land Department had given a sweet deal to a Saudi Arabian company called Fondomonte to farm areas in Butler Valley near Bouse and grow alfalfa and ship it back to the Middle East to feed its cows.

Fondomonte pays only $25 per acre annually, which is about one-sixth of the market price for farm land in that area, according to experts interviewed by The Republic as well as the state's own mass appraisal for areas in and around Butler Valley.

In addition, the water that is being pumped by Fondomonte is located in what’s called a transfer basin, meaning water sucked from the ground can be shipped to areas of the state where groundwater is regulated. That makes the water underneath the desert in Butler Valley extremely valuable.

State Land Department employees said the water being pumped from the ground could be worth as much as $4 million annually. But Fondomonte is paying just $86,000 annually to lease the land.

[goldenvalley]

Sept 6, 2022 14:14:59 GMT LFC said:

Uuuuhhhh, who sold Saudi Arabia water leases in Arizona and why? This story stinks to high heaven.

Democratic attorney general candidate Kris Mayes is calling to investigate and potentially cancel the leases the State Land Department signed with a Saudi Arabian company that is pumping from Phoenix's backup water supply in western Arizona.

Mayes is also calling for the Saudi Arabian company to pay the state approximately $38 million for using the water in La Paz County, which sits in a basin that could be tapped as a future water source for the Phoenix area.

Mayes says the lease should be put on hold while they are investigated because they potentially violate the Arizona Constitution in two ways: They could violate the gift clause as well as a clause that requires state land and its products to be appraised and offered at their true value.

In June, The Arizona Republic reported that the State Land Department had given a sweet deal to a Saudi Arabian company called Fondomonte to farm areas in Butler Valley near Bouse and grow alfalfa and ship it back to the Middle East to feed its cows.

Fondomonte pays only $25 per acre annually, which is about one-sixth of the market price for farm land in that area, according to experts interviewed by The Republic as well as the state's own mass appraisal for areas in and around Butler Valley.

In addition, the water that is being pumped by Fondomonte is located in what’s called a transfer basin, meaning water sucked from the ground can be shipped to areas of the state where groundwater is regulated. That makes the water underneath the desert in Butler Valley extremely valuable.

State Land Department employees said the water being pumped from the ground could be worth as much as $4 million annually. But Fondomonte is paying just $86,000 annually to lease the land.

The Saudis know what to do with scare water resources...buy water cheap and sell products raised with it high or ship it home.  It's as if the US is being colonized by other countries...taking over natural resources and sending them overseas.

[LFC]

Saudi Arabia continues to support the Republicans. Yet another reason we have to break free of oil dependence.

[LFC]

Putin still has at least one ally. We need to get off oil for our national security. Military intelligence came to this conclusion decades ago.

Michael McFaul
@mcfaul

OPEC's decision today to cut oil supplies directly and immediately assists Putin's war effort. They were not compelled to do so. They choose to do so. Don't ever forget it.

[LFC]

Josh Marshall thinks it's time to step back a bit from our alliance with Saudi Arabia.

Yesterday Rep. Ro Khanna (D) said we should send a message to the Saudis that they change their oil quota decision or face a cut in the military spare parts their US-manufactured army requires to function. This is in the context of new hardball from the White House, which is apparently sending a comparable message. Just a moment ago I saw a tweet from Sen. Dick Durbin (D) saying that it’s time for the US to ditch the US-Saudi alliance. These are things we’ve heard for ages from backbenchers in the House or others distant from the centers of power. They’re close to unheard of for people at the center of power.

This is all driven by a decision which is not only bad for the US (and arguably for the stability of the whole global economy) but also for the Democrats’ near-term electoral interests. So the backlash has many layers of motivation. Democrats also have a clear secondary interest in publicly blaming the Saudis (fairly, I would argue) for whatever near-term impact the Saudi decision might have at the pumps. This might suggest these comments will become dead letters after election day. But I don’t think they will. They shouldn’t. It looks like a potential watershed, one perhaps sparked by a single contingent event, but recognizing significantly changed realities.

One can like cold realpolitik decision-making or not. But in realpolitik terms, the US-Saudi alliance used to make a lot of sense. The Saudis needed the US, despite our cultural worlds apart. The US needed them. The Saudis operated for the US as the custodians of the price stability of the global oil supply. They also provided financial support to other US regional allies. We wanted them to provided a steadying hand in relations between Israel and the Arab states. The truth is that both countries now need each other considerably less than in the past. But the Saudis are acting mostly like the relationship is over even though the US mainly is not. Perhaps it’s better to say they are seeing it in purely transactional terms, with very short term clearing of accounts. They are playing hardball with us but we’re not with them.

The other wrinkle in the equation, perhaps far more than a wrinkle, is that the Saudi Royal family, which always generally preferred Republican government in the US, is now all in for the Trumpite GOP and to some great degree with the Trump family. The royal family literally invested $2 billion in Trump’s son-in-laws new investment fund, even though no one thinks his experience or credibility merited anything like that. I’ve always been cautious about basing big decisions about Saudi Arabia around the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. It was an awful, awful thing. But the centrality of that event has been vastly amplified by how integrated Khashoggi was in the DC policy world and at The Washington Post. But the Saudis, under current management, don’t act like friends. They also play favorites in internal US politics. There are lots of reasons entirely apart from the Khashoggi story to reconsider things.

Alliances have a long half life to them. It’s all deeply embedded in relationships, assumptions about various US interests in the region. Nothing changes overnight. But there are still watersheds. And this may be one of them.

The US should act accordingly. What, Saudi Arabia, have you done for us lately?

[LFC]

Is it any wonder the Republicans love Saudi Arabia? They'd LOVE to be able to do this.

Saudi Arabia Sentences US Citizen Over Tweets

In an escalation of recent tensions with the U.S., Saudi Arabia has arrested and sentenced an American citizen to 16 years in prison over tweets that criticized the regime for corruption and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

[pnwguy]

Oct 18, 2022 20:04:52 GMT LFC said:

Is it any wonder the Republicans love Saudi Arabia? They plan 'd LOVE to be able to do this.

 Saudi Arabia Sentences US Citizen Over Tweets

In an escalation of recent tensions with the U.S., Saudi Arabia has arrested and sentenced an American citizen to 16 years in prison over tweets that criticized the regime for corruption and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

FIFY

[goldenvalley]

Here's an article about retired American military are taking jobs with Saudi Arabia among other countries.  Helping them upgrade their own militaries. 

More than 500 retired U.S. military personnel — including scores of generals and admirals — have taken lucrative jobs since 2015 working for foreign governments, mostly in countries known for human rights abuses and political repression, according to a Washington Post investigation.

In Saudi Arabia, for example, 15 retired U.S. generals and admirals have worked as paid consultants for the Defense Ministry since 2016. The ministry is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, who U.S. intelligence agencies say approved the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, as part of a brutal crackdown on dissent.

Saudi Arabia’s paid advisers have included retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, a national security adviser to President Barack Obama, and retired Army Gen. Keith Alexander, who led the National Security Agency under Obama and President George W. Bush, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

How does this work?

Congress permits retired troops as well as reservists to work for foreign governments if they first obtain approval from their branch of the armed forces and the State Department. But the U.S. government has fought to keep the hirings secret. For years, it withheld virtually all information about the practice, including which countries employ the most retired U.S. service members and how much money is at stake.

There's a lot here to read.  Very interesting.

[LFC]

F***, this is one fight we do NOT want to be involved in. I'm not even convinced which side, if either, is actually spoiling for this fight. It could be Saudi Arabia just looking to get America to sell it more arms so it can ship them to Yemen. Who the f*** knows?

Lara Seligman
@laraseligman

Officials believe Tehran is planning an attack on the Kingdom, likely on energy infrastructure.

Iranian officials believe Saudi Arabia is helping anti-government protesters who are fomenting unrest across the country, and that may be the motive for the threat.

Sadly the view is that Saudi Arabia is still our ally. I have no idea why.

The flight of two U.S. B-52 bombers over the Middle East announced on Thursday was a show-of-force message to Iran as American and Saudi officials continued to monitor an imminent threat to Saudi Arabia, according to a senior Defense Department official.

Officials believe Tehran is planning an attack on the Kingdom, likely on energy infrastructure, the official said.

American and Saudi officials are also monitoring an increased threat from Iran to Iraq, where the U.S. has thousands of troops and personnel spread across a number of military bases, said a second DoD official. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.

Iran-linked militia groups frequently target U.S. and partner forces in both Iraq and Syria, most recently in an August skirmish that prompted retaliatory U.S. airstrikes.

Iranian officials believe Saudi Arabia is helping anti-government protesters who are fomenting unrest across the country, and that may be the motive for the threat, the first DoD official said. The protests were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by the morality police for allegedly flouting Iran’s strict dress code for women.

FFS, I wish the leaders of these two nations would just kill each other. I feel for the people stuck under them.

[jackd]

Probably because we still want their oil on the market.

[LFC]

Nov 11, 2022 18:27:18 GMT jackd said:

Probably because we still want their oil on the market.

Do we really have it? They just f***ed us for fun and profit. They'll continue to buy drilling equipment and services from U.S. companies because we have what they need. It's amazing that it was something like 20 years ago the U.S. military warned us that our dependency on oil was a national risk but the Republicans are still dug in like ticks to keep their payola coming.

[jackd]

I wasn't suggesting that we were successful in getting their oil on the market. Rather I suggested the desire for that was our motivation for treating them as an ally.