Middle East Update, April 27, 2011

Egypt gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan explodes  BBC.  Found it on Godlike Productions.


"An unknown armed gang attacked the gas pipeline," an unnamed security source told Reuters, adding that the flow of gas to Israel and Jordan had been hit.

No letup in Syrian crackdown on protesters  Arab News.  Excerpts:

Residents of the southern Syrian city of Daraa braved sniper fire Tuesday to pull the bullet-riddled bodies of the dead from the streets and hide them from security forces, a day after a brutal government crackdown on the popular revolt against President Bashar Assad, witnesses said.

As heavy gunfire reverberated through Daraa, a Syrian human rights group said authorities detained dozens of people across the country, mainly in several Damascus suburbs, including the town of Douma and in the northern coastal city of Jableh.

A relentless crackdown since mid-March has killed more than 400 people across Syria, with 120 dead over the weekend, rights groups said. That has only emboldened protesters who started their revolt with calls for modest reforms but are now increasingly demanding Assad’s downfall.

Trying To Make Sense Of The Arab Spring  The Moderate Voice.  Excerpts:

* The big story is the feeling of empowerment that has swept the region. Arabs of all backgrounds now demand to be heard. This is primarily because of Al-Jazeera and social media.

* The dramatic three-week uprising in Egypt that culminated with the fall of Hosni Mubarak is, taking the most optimistic point of view, only the end of the beginning. The same applies to other countries where there have been successes.

* The need for a vigorous American public diplomacy has never been greater, but many of the very Republicans who excoriate the White House and State Department for its diplomatic efforts want to dramatically slash funding for such efforts.

* The sense of stalemate is palpable in much of the region, which makes it even more important that there be a clear U.S. policy and that it be hewed to for the long-haul. That, of course, has to include Israel, Palestine and Iran.

Yemen Parties to Meet in Saudi Arabia to Sign Accord for Saleh Departure

Yemeni opposition and ruling party officials will sign an accord for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down within 30 days and guarantee him immunity, said Mohammed Basendwah, head of the Preparatory Committee for National Dialogue.

The agreement, brokered by ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, will be signed early next week in Saudi Arabia, Basendwah said in a telephone interview from Sana’a. His committee, created in 2008 to help navigate an earlier political crisis, includes opposition, business and regional leaders. The accord came as anti-government protesters clashed with police today in two Yemeni cities.
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GCC officials are seeking to avert an escalation of the violence in Yemen or a deadly military divide like the one in Libya. Rising social unrest also threatens to strengthen al- Qaeda as it seeks to use Yemen, the poorest Arab nation, as a base from which to destabilize neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil.

This isn't good..  Bahrain expels Iranian diplomat as ties worsen

Bahrain ordered an Iranian diplomat to leave the island kingdom as ties between the two nations worsen and tensions rise between the Shiite powerhouse and Sunni Arab states in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

The state-owned Bahrain News Agency reported late Monday that Hujatullah Rahmani, the second secretary at the Iranian Embassy in Manama, was declared persona non grata and ordered out within 72 hours.

Bahrain’s king declared martial law last month and invited about 1,500 Saudi-led troops from Gulf neighbors to help contain a Shiite uprising that Sunni leaders around the Middle East believe could open the way for greater influence by Iran.
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Opposition leaders in Bahrain have repeatedly denied Iran’s role in a wave of demonstrations and sit-ins by Bahrain’s Shiite majority demanding greater political freedoms and equal rights.

Bahrain's Secret Terror

Desperate emails speak of 'genocide' as doctors who have treated injured protesters are rounded up.  Klassy with a K. Excerpts:

 The intimidation and detention of doctors treating dying and injured pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain is revealed today in a series of chilling emails obtained by The Independent.

At least 32 doctors, including surgeons, physicians, paediatricians and obstetricians, have been arrested and detained by Bahrain's police in the last month in a campaign of intimidation that runs directly counter to the Geneva Convention guaranteeing medical care to people wounded in conflict. Doctors around the world have expressed their shock and outrage.
And:
"Interrogation committees question me about our role in treating the injured protesters, who are considered now criminal for protesting against the government," he said, shortly before being detained. "We said we were there to treat patients and have nothing to do with politics.

"I don't have good feeling about things going on in Bahrain. So many of our consultant surgeon and physician colleagues been arrested at pre-dawn raids and disappear."
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There followed a long silence before he wrote again: "Three weeks of hell. The military took control of the Salmaniya Hospital, doctors, nurses, paramedics and patients treated as suspects by soldiers and policemen. Daily interrogation and detention to some of our colleges." He added: "Very much intimidated and frighten."

And, sad to say this is nothing new.  Richard Sollom: The shocking thing is that Bahrain abuse is systematic. 

In two decades of conducting human rights investigations in more than 20 countries, I have never seen such widespread and systematic violations of medical neutrality as I did in Bahrain.

Bahrain's ambulances, hospitals and medical clinics as well as its physicians, nurses, and medical staff are all being targeted. It's pervasive and ongoing. These attacks violate the principle of medical neutrality and are grave breaches of international law.
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While in Bahrain, we documented evidence of the hospital administration at Salmaniya calling doctors and nurses in for appointments, from which they were never seen again. Presumably they are taken to places of detention. One notable detention centre, Criminal Investigations Directorate at Adliya, is also an infamous centre of torture.

Unfortunately, the doctors do not have to be taken to detention centres to suffer violent attacks. We have documented the story of six doctors beaten by security forces in a Salmaniya staff room. When security forces are capable of such brutality in a hospital, one can only imagine what happens in a detention centre.

I'm sure Iran has taken note of this situation, among others.  They seem upset..  This proxy-crisis feels like it will escalate very soon.

Bahrain/Saudi/Iranian Conflict Explodes Into Violence. Sorry.. WILL Explode Into Violence, Shortly..

Iran calls deployment of Gulf troops in Bahrain 'meddling'

 Iran on Tuesday criticized the deployment of soldiers from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states into Bahrain, the first cross-border intervention since a wave of popular uprisings swept through parts of the Arab world.


"The presence of foreign troops and meddling into Bahrain's internal affairs will only further complicate the issue," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in Tehran. Saudi troops were not visible in main areas of the capital Tuesday.


The protests have fueled fears that unrest may spread to Saudi Arabia. Many Shiite Bahrainis retain cultural and family ties with Iran and Shiites in eastern Saudi Arabia; Bahrain's ruling family has close links with Saudi Arabia, which holds 20 percent of the world's oil reserves.
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"The Saudis are adding fire to the situation," said one of the protesters, Hussein Ali, a 40-year-old mechanical engineer. "We consider the Gulf force to be an invader."
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Saudi Arabian troops moved into Bahrain as part of a regional force from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The United Arab Emirates sent some 500 soldiers, U.A.E. Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan said.
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More than 100 military vehicles have crossed into Bahrain, Al-Jazeera television reported.  (The next article calls those "military vehicles" tanks.)

Bahrain Protest: Saudi Arabia, Iran Complicate Unrest

The increasingly bloody confrontation between the mostly Shi'ite protesters and their Sunni King, Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa, led the monarch to ask for backup on March 13 from the Joint Peninsula Shield, the military coalition established to protect members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) from invasion. On March 14, more than 100 Saudi tanks rolled across the causeway that links Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in an effort to quell the uprising and save Bahrain's royal regime. Saudi Arabia's arrival marks the first time an outside country has intervened in a protest since the wave of unrest began in the Arab world in January. (See TIME's exclusive pictures of the crackdown in Bahrain.) (Check out the link..  After looking at these images, two things became more clear:  The income disparity is pretty large between haves and have nots(Compare the nice cars and nice clothes to the no cars and not nice clothes), and.. The Shiites aren't submitting.  They won't back down:  Not now..)
Saudi Arabia's unexpected military action could further anger not only the protesters in Manama but also leaders in Iran, perhaps leading the island nation to become the scene of a proxy war. Iran has long had an interest in dominating the Persian Gulf. Stratfor's John Friedman wrote in a position paper on March 14 that the larger uprising's spread to Bahrain represented a "golden opportunity" for Tehran. "The Iranians are accustomed to being able to use their covert capabilities to shape the political realities in countries," he wrote, something they did effectively in Iraq. "The Saudis, recognizing that this posed a fundamental risk to their regime and consulting with the Americans, have led a coalition force into Bahrain ... pressed by covert forces, they were forced into an overt action they were clearly reluctant to take." (See "Why a Saudi Intervention in Bahrain Won't End the Protests.")

The Bahrain/Saudi/Iranian crisis is some mutant, militarized Romeo and Juliet, where both Iran and Saudi Arabia are Romeo, Juliet is the Bahraini Ethnic Shiites(With Iran) and Sunnis(With Saudi Arabia), and America is Juliet's father: Traditionally Powerful and Present(Via the 5th Fleet), but ultimately, unable to influence the crisis to a peaceful outcome, and suffering a devastating loss...



Or not; just a thought..

Iran not behind Mideast protests: Mullen

From SpaceWar. And no, Mike Mullen's no lefty freak Iran apologist.  He's the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Excerpts:

Iran foments instability in the Middle East but is not behind popular protests in Bahrain and other countries in the region, top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen said Monday in Qatar.

"Iran, I still believe, is a country that continues to foment instability in the region, take advantage of every opportunity," But "from my perspective that has not been the principal focus of what happened in Egypt or what happened in Bahrain or any of these other countries,"

"Those are by and large internal issues, as opposed to issues fomented by some external forces," Mullen said, although "there's always concerns in this region with Iran and certainly the US has them as well as all the regional players."
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"As far as Fifth Fleet operations, no, the demonstrations have not had any impact here -- we're continuing to conduct our regular business out here," a spokesman for the Fifth Fleet told AFP on Monday.

In the Qatari capital Doha, Mullen met with Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and army chief of staff General Hamad al-Attiyah.

He's right. Say what you want about Iran, but they didn't provide/provoke the tipping-point influence needed for either uprising in Tunisia or Egypt.  Tunisia fell after years of combination economic hardship, no jobs, a corrupt, nepotistic regime, and no future prospects for its citizens.  Tunisia reached its flash point when a 26 year old self-immolated(who was no revolutionary himself), frustration morphed into rage, and Revolution took hold within the Tunisian collective consciousness.

Egypt's revolution was not only a response to Mubarak's authoritarianism, but it was mostly a food riot extrapolated out to governmental overthrow, brought on by Ben Bernanke.  Thanks Ben!  The Washington Post's analysis is about half right:  Let's do some excerpts:

DOES BEN S. BERNANKE, the Federal Reserve chairman, deserve the blame - or the credit, depending on your point of view - for Hosni Mubarak's plight? Some seem to think so. Last August, Mr. Bernanke announced further Fed asset purchases known colloquially as "quantitative easing II," or "QEII" for short. The goal was to ease monetary conditions in the United States and fuel growth. But cheaper money lowered the costs and raised the rewards of speculating on food and energy, relative to some other investments. The latest rise in commodity prices began around the time of Mr. Bernanke's announcement; expensive food triggered unrest first in Tunisia and then in Egypt. Ergo, Mr. Bernanke undermined Mr. Mubarak - or so the argument goes.

Here's where The Post doesn't go far enough..

Still, Mr. Bernanke was probably right to deny that the Fed is "primarily responsible" for the current price run-up. The spike in wheat prices, which determines the price of bread in Cairo, began before QEII, when drought destroyed Russian crops. (Yes, but QEII exacerbated the crisis to boiling point. The absence of a single(or two, for that matter..)crop/commodity, even wheat, won't necessarily throw a society into chaos.  17 percent yearly inflation on people who make 2 dollars a day?  Now the promise of inevitable starvation, that's the kind of thing that freaks societies out.)  Subsequent floods in Australia have destroyed more wheat. As for other foodstuffs and oil, the continuing rapid growth of investment and middle-class consumption in China and India probably explains much recent inflation - just as it will probably drive future price increases in those goods. (Damn China and India for growing.  Just because their economy's are growing does not mean they're eating That Much More food to cause a significant Global agricultural distortion that would cause double digit inflation.  Yes, their populations are growing, but this cause/effect is too rapid for population increase to be a primary factor.).  Ugh.  Not a mention here as to how commodities traders influence global food prices, so when disaster does strike a crop, traders make much more money while doubling the effects of drought or flood on those who couldn't afford prices BEFORE said drought or flood happened..)

Reforming those misbegotten programs(Involving Sugar and Cotton--my clarification) would probably improve global commodity markets more than abolishing QEII, which ends in a few months anyway. (Bullshit.  The damage is done.  After QEII, will prices magically decrease, or will they stay at the same level/continue to rise as they do during inflationary periods?  My Unicorn says prices will decrease.)

Higher food prices do, indeed, hurt the poor. But the focus should be on alleviating their suffering - not on alleged political effects(Overthrowing their corrupt, misery causing governments IS Alleviating Their Suffering, ya big dumb douche!  Put differently:  Focus on the political effects of food inflation again, led to governmental overthrow, thereby alleviating the people's suffering.  Hey!  We ended up in the same place..). Costlier food all by itself is not destabilizing; there are no food riots in democratic India or the Philippines(Yet.  Yet.).  As Egypt and Tunisia prove, it's the combination of misery and tyranny that's combustible(At present.  Let's check back in December).

Bahrain might be the likeliest candidate for Iranian influence, or it might be the Shia majority is sick of the Sunni minority's oppressive rule.  This might be why:

"In Bahrain, you have the majority Shia, who are oppressed, and the minority Sunnis, who have all the money and all the power. That's a pretty volatile combination."



The extent of the economic divide between the Sunni ruling class and the Shiite majority is shocking, said Toby Jones, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University and an editor at the Middle East Report political journal, who lived in Bahrain for several years in the mid-2000s.

"Nationally, Bahrain is a very poor country and the wealth that does get created is concentrated in the hands of the rulers and the influential," he said. "… I’ve never seen wretched poverty like I’ve seen in Bahrain."

Factors that spurred Libya's current bloodbath?  Inertia, and Gaddafi as mass murderer are two good guesses, for the moment..  Again, Iran just isn't a factor.  Iran's own protests have been squelched for the moment, so whether Revolution Inertia ultimately spread to Tehran remains to be seen. 

Until any credible evidence actually surfaces regarding Iran's influence on any effected country's problems, all narratives regarding factors should be assumed Internal, not due to External pressures from anyone in Iran.  If evidence points otherwise, I'll revisit my stance.  But right now, no such evidence seems to exist.  

 

Bahrain Massacre: The World Bears Witness In Horror And Disgust..

When Bahrain's al-Khalifa royal family is overthrown, I hope the trial is broadcast internationally. Their response to their people's peaceful demonstrations have sealed their fate, and their subjects have shown more courage than the royal family could ever muster. Bahrain protesters didn't run away. They faced the bullets head-on. Excerpts, doubling as future testimony at the World Court:

"Massacre – it's a massacre," the doctors were shouting. Three dead. Four dead. One man was carried past me on a stretcher in the emergency room, blood spurting on to the floor from a massive bullet wound in his thigh.
A few feet away, six nurses were fighting for the life of a pale-faced, bearded man with blood oozing out of his chest. "I have to take him to theatre now," a doctor screamed. "There is no time – he's dying!"
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Eyewitness testimony from a hospital orderly at the demonstration..
"We decided to walk to the hospital because we knew there was a demonstration. Some of us were carrying tree branches as a token of peace which we wanted to give to the soldiers near the square, and we were shouting 'peace, peace. There was no provocation – nothing against the government. Then suddenly the soldiers started shooting. One was firing a machine gun from the top of a personnel carrier. There were police but they just left as the soldiers shot at us. But you know, the people in Bahrain have changed. They didn't want to run away. They faced the bullets with their bodies."
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The demonstration at the hospital had already drawn thousands of Shia protesters – including hundreds of doctors and nurses from all over Manama, still in their white gowns – to demand the resignation of the Bahraini Minister of Health, Faisal Mohamed al-Homor, for refusing to allow ambulances to fetch the dead and injured from Thursday morning's police attack on the Pearl Square demonstrators.

But their fury turned to near-hysteria when the first wounded were brought in yesterday. Up to 100 doctors crowded into the emergency rooms, shouting and cursing their King and their government as paramedics fought to push trolleys loaded with the latest victims through screaming crowds.
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Five ambulances sent to the street – yesterday's victims were shot down opposite a fire station close to Pearl Square – were stopped by the army. Moments later, the hospital discovered that all their mobile phones had been switched off. Inside the hospital was a doctor, Sadeq al-Aberi, who was himself badly hurt by the police when he went to help the wounded on Thursday morning.
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Why has the royal family of Bahrain allowed its soldiers to open fire at peaceful demonstrators? To turn on Bahraini civilians with live fire within 24 hours of the earlier killings seems like an act of lunacy.

But the heavy hand of Saudi Arabia may not be far away. The Saudis are fearful that the demonstrations in Manama and the towns of Bahrain will light equally provocative fires in the east of their kingdom, where a substantial Shia minority lives around Dhahran and other towns close to the Kuwaiti border. Their desire to see the Shia of Bahrain crushed as quickly as possible was made very clear at Thursday's Gulf summit here, with all the sheikhs and princes agreeing that there would be no Egyptian-style revolution in a kingdom which has a Shia majority of perhaps 70 per cent and a small Sunni minority which includes the royal family.
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And the stakes here are high. This is the first serious insurrection in the wealthy Gulf states – more dangerous to the Saudis than the Islamists who took over the centre of Mecca more than 30 years ago – and Bahrain's al-Khalifa family realise just how fraught the coming days will be for them. A source which has always proved reliable over many years told me that late on Wednesday night, a member of the al-Khalifa family – said to be the Crown Prince – held a series of telephone conversations with a prominent Shia cleric, the Wifaq Shia party leader, Ali Salman, who was camping in Pearl Square. The Prince apparently offered a series of reforms and government changes which he thought the cleric had approved. But the demonstrators stayed in the square. They demanded the dissolution of parliament. Then came the police.
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A doctor who gave his name as Hussein stopped me leaving the emergency room because he wanted to explain his anger. "The Israelis do this sort of thing to the Palestinians – but these are Arabs shooting at Arabs,".. "This is the Bahraini government doing this to their own people. I was in Egypt two weeks ago, working at the Qasr el-Aini hospital – but things are much more fucked up here."

The Shia make up 70% of Bahrain's population, controlled by the Sunni Royal Family. As you can see by this 2009 article, Shia dominated Iran has an affinity for Shia-majority-but-ruled-by-minority-Sunni Bahrain. Now that Iran has ships cruising the Suez Canal, is it beyond the scope of possibility that Iran might come to the aid of the Bahrainis and do a little ass kickin' on the Bahraini military, if the opportunity arises? How would the Saudis' react to such provocation, or more accurately, how quickly would this crisis escalate to a regional inferno? Note: Bahrain is also home to America's 5th Fleet, so the U.S. is involved with this uprising whether we like it or not. "On the one hand, Bahrain is a flash point between the United States and Iran," he told CNN. On the other, it's "a flash point between Saudi Arabia and Iran."

The potential for more bloodshed is almost assured. It's really a matter of how this plays out, and how the three outside interests proceed. This very well could be the country that turns this regional unrest into something much, much bigger. And the actions of the bloodthirsty thugs who(for now) rule Bahrain have inflamed their people and won't be forgotten.

Bahrain Funeral Draws Protesters as Violence in Libya Spreads

From Bloomberg Business

Protesters in Bahrain gathered for the funeral of two men killed by security forces, calling for democracy and the fall of the government as unrest in the Middle East spread to Libya where 20 were reported dead in clashes.
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Yesterday’s deaths came after the army fired teargas, buckshot and rubber bullets at a crowd of protesters gathered at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama calling for a constitutional monarchy and a change of government in the Shiite-majority country ruled by Sunni royals. Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the focus of the demonstrators’ demands, has held the office for four decades.
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“They started firing from the bridge without any warning, then they started firing from their cars,” said Hussein Ali, 42, who was at a rally site at 3 a.m. yesterday when security forces arrived. “There were women and children in tents. I saw cars running over tents. It was terrifying, a nightmare. Small children and women were falling over.”
And:
Demonstrators in Libya, ruled by Muammar Qaddafi for more than 40 years, yesterday demanded the government’s overthrow. At least 20 people were reported killed in confrontations with security forces as violence broke out during marches yesterday in five Libyan cities, according to the Associated Press, which cited an opposition website and an anti-Qaddafi activist.

The deaths were in the second- and third-largest cities, Benghazi and Beyida, according to Al Arabiya television. There is an absence of independent reporting due to Libya’s tight press restrictions and activists used the Internet and social media to call for yesterday’s “Day of Anger” rally. Qaddafi has ruled since 1969 while tolerating no dissent.

The anger intensifies within the region, in each country, and in the hearts of every oppressed individual. When all is said and done, Egypt and Tunisia will seem completely bloodless in comparison. No one seems done, here. No one..