While I was in the Middle East I would often use the Tor onion browser to access websites that were not permitted by the host country I was in. I used the browser because it was (a) free, (b) seemingly charitable with free speech objectives, and (c) had a reputation of being the go-to for journalists and others who needed to circumvent state controls on internet browsing to file reports, and so on. The historical origins of the Tor program – that it was developed by the U.S. Naval Laboratory – were never an issue for me. We’re all on the same side, right?

Since then, there arose a number of Virtual Private Network ‘tunneling’ services that offer ‘secure’ access online. When people like me think of secure online access, the marketing soundbites probably resonate: free from government oversight, hackers (IP sniffing), unsecured Public Wifi, online activity, and tracking (E.g. see: https://www.anonymizer.com/how-it-works).

While most of these benefits hold true, one thing is assured – if you use any of these VPN or Tor-like services, the government of the country you are in, and the United States, have complete oversight of your activities.

The Domain Name Service (DNS) system is essential for the proper functioning of the IP/TCP protocol, and tunneling through VPNs requires TCP/IP to operate, even if other address information is buried within the so-called data component of the data packages. The government of the country you are in has complete visibility of all DNS computers on the network that may be connected to the internet backbone; DNS servers are the lifeblood of the internet and governments block sites at their discretion via their DNS. In other words, if you can access Tor or any other VPN service, the government is purposefully allowing the internet traffic from your computer to the IP address of that Tor/VPN server. You may log-in through a Tor/VPN application, but at the network level you are still logging in via that same DNS host. (This does not apply to wifi traffic security, since we are not talking about encryption security here. But who cares, since the government can monitor you from the comfort of the DNS rather than the street).

So what is happening then?

The characteristic of all these VPN services that ‘mask’ IP addresses is a process similar to DNAT/SNAT. Once the data from your IP address hits the Tor/VPN server, a DNAT/SNAT process (part of an IP routing service) masks your IP address (randomly), which means that whichever site or recipient you are sending data to does not know your IP address. Fine. But everything on the other side of that network connection – i.e. from your IP address to the IP address of the VPN/Tor service (and on the other side of the network too, before it leaves the country you are in) – is visible.

On the way back, all the data is translated back to your personal IP address by the Tor/VPN server and sent back to you by the government-monitored DNS server.
(In rare cases you might have the Ethernet protocol routing to a DNS. Nevertheless, the UDP protocol is not generally encrypted, and any access to the DNS server will be observed by government.)

This is fairly astonishing. What does it mean?

It means that if you use Tor or a similar VPN service, all of your data can be viewed by government as soon as you send it from your computer into the network. In countries were Tor or similar services are not allowed access to Tor/VPN, access is a government phish, since the government must permit your access via their internet backbone to the Tor/VPN server via DNS (regardless of any ‘tunneling’). The government thus can monitor any IP address logging into Tor/VPN services ; they know what IP address you have selected as a destination IP address; and they can track all the data back and forth at their leisure.

The result is that if you want to truly hide who you are when sending data from a country, you must use additional measures. You must utilize different computers using different IP addresses than your own, principally from publicly available sources. You should also use software masking techniques such as boot loading from Linux Tails via USB from your intenet café computer.

What does this mean for Bitcoin?

The bitcoin phenomenon is staggering. Bitcoin – and similar currencies – are fiat currencies fundamentally built on the energy expended from the processing power to solve the encryption algorithms associated with securing each transaction. Beyond that, their value as publicly traded commodities is largely sentiment driven. Their values seem to be skyrocketing. Why might that be?

On the one hand, bitcoin and similar currencies are fully transparent, transactional systems. Each transaction of each bitcoin (or part of bitcoin) is preserved – in perpetuity – on a public ledger that can be inspected by anybody. This has enormous implications for anti-corruption policies, since each transaction can be viewed linking two unique bitcoin ‘wallets’ to a time, date, and amount of bitcoins. (E.g. see https://blockchain.info/) . Such ideas have important implications for auditing and for charitable sectors (amongst others), as money can be assured to reach intended recipients.

Despite the audibility, Bitcoin has seemingly become a favoured route for money laundering, shifting money overseas (capital flight), and paying for illicit goods and services. The main reason this is because these users were able to access the bitcoin exchanges via Tor/VPN, and thus, these users believed, they had anonymity.

Hate to break it to those who might be taking advantage of this idea.(And extracting from the fact that Tor was developed by the U.S. Naval Laboratory):

With standard big data mining techniques on the public ledgers, bitcoin wallet value can trivially be assessed – along with each transaction associated with each wallet. See above for anonymity implications.
Presumably with the jump in value, the IRS, Inland Revenue and so on are now taking more of an interest (if they weren’t already) in wallet size… Unless these users were taking effective steps to dissociate their physical person (or persons connected to them) with IP addresses used to access the internet via a Tor/VPN browser (e.g. by disguise in an Internet café), they can be identified by authorities, along with what they have in their wallets, what they spent their money on, and/or who they received their money from.

To my mind, it seems to be the biggest government heist in history.

The upshot: the anonymization service was a good game played for a while by online ‘tunneling’ services, it still has a use, but not for masking currency transactions. The Tor/VPN service is a ruse by host governments to phish for people who wanted to bypass their systems.

Today, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, issued a statement about Turkey, the general thrust of which was: relations are now on a back foot and seemingly don’t have a chance of improving, at least for the time being. This is broadly due to the Turkish government’s response to the Turkish coup of 2016 and specifically the crack-down of supporters of Fetullah Gulen.

Gulen is the leader of a highly conservative political movement which, in part, appears to promote dialogue over force in its dealing with Kurdish separatists in Turkey. In 2002, President Erdogan formed an alliance with Gulen and in doing so broke the number one rule of Middle Eastern politics, which I can now expand to Asia Minor: don’t grow a snake in your pocket.  Now, I’m not saying that Gulen is a snake, or even a ‘terrorist’ – definitions of which are vague anyway – but at least, in President Erdogan’s eyes, Gulen is a snake.

What should be kept at the forefront of the mind, however, is that Erdogan’s APK party was able to sweep to power via the ballot box because they worked in partnership with Gulen’s movement. In the following nine or so years, Turkey embarked in wholesale integration of APK and Gulen movement supporters into all aspects of Turkish public life. This included appointments in the frontline institutions of political power: the judiciary, police, and intelligence services. The political favouratism in appointments presumably extended to institutions across the social sphere as well, to the mediam education, and so on.

During all that time, accession talks with the EU were ongoing. The question I have regarding the accession is: would common European sensibilities have approved of this shift in Turkish political dynamics, had the general population been broadly aware of it? In 2011, my attention was not focused so much on values of potential accession partners. Brexit was only an apple in the eye of Brexiteers, and the EU public view had not been thrown into confusion by the difficulties arising from the refugee and migrant crisis. The march of EU expansion and closer integration seemed to be an unstoppable and inevitable process.

Thinking about it now, I’m generally inclined to believe that the accession of Turkey under an Erdogan-Gulen partnership would not necessarily have been in the EU’s favour. The pacifist approach to dealing with Kurdish separatism – which brings Gulen the charge of terrorist apologist – might simply seem inherently reasonable to EU observers; while the focus on religious conservatism in the political domain something more at odds with the other EU capitals.

Historically, the momentum that originally brought strategically-positioned Turkey into the western world, and ultimately NATO, had been a separation of state powers, secularism, and a new-found Turkish nationalism. Since 2002, the APK-Gulen political movement appears to have focused on subjugating the Turkish military – which preserved the status quo – and eliminating the legacy of ‘Kemalist’ values. That process necessitated the installation of sympathetic persons in high office, which amounted to hundreds, possibly thousands of persons from the APK and Gulen camp.

In 2011 there was an incident referred to as the MIT crisis; you can read something of a summary here: http://www.turkeyanalyst.org/publications/turkey-analyst-articles/item/395-the-coalition-crumbles-erdogan-the-g%C3%BClenists-and-turkish-democracy.html. This was the watershed moment in which President Erdogan changed his view on Gulen and began the crackdown on his followers. This was all before the issue raised its head above the parapet into the western consciousness. While dangerous and worthy of condemnation, the coup of 2016 subsequently gave the APK the necessary pretext to move ahead with a purge of their erstwhile colleagues.

None of this means that I believe the coup was staged by the APK – in a well-developed country like Turkey, the externalities of such an action would outweigh the dubious potential advantages. It does mean however, that I see the coup as the visible culmination of a political process originally subscribed-to by the ruling APK party, and not something that appeared out of the blue. It should not be confused with the regional movement, the Arab Spring, for example. Does it also mean I think that western governments were behind the Gulen plot? No. There were bigger fish to fry in the coming months.

In summary my takeaway points are: (1) the APK government was partially directly responsible for creating the problem which it now has to resolve; and (2) most people that have now been purged would probably not have been the positions they were in without the APK and President Erdogan. If they are recent appointees they are readily identifiable; they are not clandestine plotters, but openly known sympathizers (since that’s why they were appointed).

Lastly, the balance of where you stand on military primacy in public life, and relations between the Turkish Government the PKK and the Kurdish militia, as opposed to your views on religiously-inspired government should – if you’re an EU citizen – determine your view on whether Gulen’s movement was a force for good or not. That’s largely a historical question however. As it now stands, President Erdogan now has an unparalleled opportunity to move to a more EU-friendly position by putting the right decision-makers in key posts. I suppose we’ll see what happens.

I had some ideas in ways Chemical Weapons Convention could potentially be tightened

The current gaps seem to be as follows:

1. The CWC makes no specific reference to the responsibilities for use, transfer, or operation of chemical weapon production or storage facilities, in areas that are not under the jurisdiction of a State Party, but not under the jurisdiction of another State Party/State either. For example: international waters or polar regions.
2. The term “production” does not reference, as part of its definition: (1) the word “electrolysis” as a component of the “final technological stage”, (2) the adjectival phrase “in situ” with respect to “electrolysis” as a final technological stage; and (3) any phrasing to the effect of: “in any location, including areas outside the jurisdiction of the State Party, such as international waters”
3. The General Obligations do not specifically cover the use of chemical weapons to target another State deploying from a area beyond the official border of the target State. For example, by releasing chemical agents, or producing toxic chemicals in situ, in international waters, in a manner that would impact upon the target State that is down-wind or down-stream of the release.
4. The CWC makes no specific reference or provisions to the actions of non-state actors or proxies acting under the direct control of States Parties to the CWC – covert or otherwise – which may have the capacity and resources to produce and deploy toxic chemicals.

Consider a scenario in which a malicious State Party procures the services of a non-state actor agent to produce, in situ, in international waters, via the electrolysis of brine, quantities of chlorine gas – the express purpose of which is to target civilians within another State. Such a scenario would probably be covered under CWC Article 1 General Provision (b), or potentially under the terms of “transfer”.  If is not however, could it even be officially reported to the OPCW for example? In that case it might require a case to be built, losing critical time.

Generally speaking, I have serious doubts as to the judicious and ethical use of international waters, Polar Regions, and even Low Earth Orbit. For the purposes of mounting attacks upon adversaries, these locations are no less strategic than being on the de jure territory of a State. If anyone else has a better understanding than I do on how this could be covered under the CWC, I’d be very interested to hear from them. Otherwise, to my mind there is a sizeable loophole within the treaty.

Shortly before his death in 2003, Edward Said came to the American University of Beirut on his farewell tour of Arab academic institutions and, as a student there, I was fortunate enough to attend. The lecture hall was filled with politically-active Lebanese who came to listen to the pioneer of Arab, post-modern, colonial deconstructionism.

Instead of a scathing critique of neocolonialism – so far as I recall – we heard Said’s fond reminiscences of AUB, and a general call to academia. In those heady days immediately prior to the invasion of Iraq we were accustomed to listening to something more rousing from our public speakers. I remember that although I felt touched by greatness, I left the lecture hall faintly disheartened. The student body went back to streets to protest and face tear-gas and water-cannons. In the end, those protests hardly mattered at all; while Said left a legacy which continues to define the critical analysis of western misadventure in the Middle East.

If you have not read it, in his seminal work, Orientalism, Said critiques the ideas by which westerners have come to view the lands to the East of Europe. The East is set upon a nostalgic pedestal in the collective consciousness of the West and this foments an anachronistic view of the land and its people, which ends up translating into exploitation or ill-conceived policy decisions. By this mechanism, the land of a thousand-and-one nights is overtly colonized at worst, or at best treated paternalistically via local political elites who share similar romanticised views.

More than a decade of entrenched military deployments later, we have seen the destruction of Aleppo, Sana’a, Baghdad, Mosul, and other historic cities in the Middle East. Further afield we have seen the military rise of nuclear states (China, Pakistan, India, North Korea), a proto-nuclear state (Iran), and more. We see reports of a form of subversive economic activity conducted wholesale against western states in a manner hitherto unseen previously, e.g. see Johnson Testimony before the U.S. – China Economic and Security Review Commission (https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Johnson_USCC%20Hearing%20Testimony012617.pdf). With all this in mind, I find the idea of any new graduate or foreign policymaker wearing rose-tinted glasses to view the East as an increasingly unlikely concept.

Instead, the Orientalist view has forked. Along one path, a new Occidental discourse has been steadily emerging in the western world; a discourse that is perhaps even less advantageous to the so-called East than the traditional, Orientalist one.  While the new discourse might still be described as paternalistic, it features criticism, threats, vulnerabilities, isolationism, and aggressive, single-issue interventionism. The western body of literature surrounding the East today is less Lawrence of Arabia, and more Breitbart News.

In the second fork of the narrative: the traditional, Orientalist view persists, not amongst westerners, but amongst easterners living in the West, i.e. those persons and groups with enduring personal or cultural relationships to the East. The policy of western multiculturalism of the last three decades obfuscated an accurate cultural representation of western culture – which has always been relatively fluid – and this provided a fertile ground for the coherent Orientalist concept of the East to change hands and develop within the West. Built atop centuries of Orientalist-heritage, and in-cases driven by religiously-sourced maxims, it is a framework that can reverse the idea of ‘western superiority’, and in which Oriental idiosyncrasies are the tools of policy implementation as opposed to eastern structural weaknesses. Stories, ideas, and concepts, such as the golden age of the Islamic Caliphate for instance, continue to generate a positive, emotional resonance amongst those groups that view it as their heritage, and do less so amongst those that do not.

In other words, this discourse fork is not just characterized politico-religious content and a reaction to contemporary western foreign policy, it is a systemic phenomenon and a product of western domestic policy as much as anything else. This is potentially useful. An understanding of the ‘foreign’ (read: westerner of eastern descent) jihadist struggle, for example, can be informed by the familiar terms of western-Orientalism, but viewed from the other direction. This idea is by no means restricted to political Islam – which is just a component of a new frontline in the contemporary Occidental-Oriental divide (as much as a frontline exists): conceptually and geographically.

Said’s work has been, and still is, very important; it empowered the Palestinian narrative in the occupied territories for example, and it generally helps to expose previously hidden aspects of neocolonialism, cultural or economic. Now, perhaps, using his analytical framework, and applying a nuance an analysis of eastern Occidentalism in the West – it could be used to better understand the so-called ‘new threats’ to western states as well as threats to-and-from states in the East.

In any event, using Said’s work as a baseline, it would be exceptionally interesting to determine – as specifically as possible – how the wider Orientalist narrative has been changing in an era of globablisation, (more) ethical economics, a reduced dependency on hydrocarbons, human rights, and so on.  Are there any takers?

The activities of the last few weeks have been somewhat electrifying to watch. Specifically: the milestone events in a triumvirate international conflicts – starting with Syria, moving to Afghanistan, and then on to North East Asia and the Korean peninsula. There is no denying the ‘inter-connectedness of things’ in this case and is that inter-connectedness which, I think, gives me license to include few words about the Far East, in a blog ostensibly about the Middle East.

Each event underscored a return to missile diplomacy and fewer rules of engagement. At a macro-level it showed willingness to participate more forcefully in an international conflict on ethical grounds, but with less of a vested interest in the final outcome of that conflict. In other words: we don’t care what regime you have in place, as long as respect the international norms of warfare and state interaction.

At a tactical level, the cruise missile strike on the Syrian Regime airbase – within a hair’s-breadth of Russian forces – sent a message laden with risk tolerance, and red lines. The MOAB bomb-strike against embedded Isis militants in Afghanistan told a story about a possible future for the entrenched, North Korean artillery positions along the DMZ that are pointed at Seoul.

The crescendo reached its height in Korea. The immediate willingness of the U.S. administration to deploy its big guns to the Yellow Sea – which, aside from North Korea, lies off the Chinese coast – showed that the U.S. is prepared to risk further relationships in its insistence of enforcing a nuclear free peninsula.

And just like that… in a few short days, the narrative in which western supremacy meets its inevitable end against (variously): intractable conflict, international terrorism, and the inexorable rise of orient, began to be reshaped.

There is no denying the risks that lie ahead. Nevertheless, two guiding principles seem to indicate a path forward: (1) politics will be more ethical than it has been previously, and (2) allowing state-led nuclear belligerency to match with capability will not be tolerated. Despite the inevitable casualties in the short-term this is a far better paradigm to live under than a paradigm in which economic self-interest or regime power are the primary drivers of politics.

It seems that President Trump was not prepared to wait for the outcomes of any OPCW investigation into the events at Khan Sheikhun. Last night a cruise missile strike was launched on the airbase and infrastructure which, the U.S. claimed, was the staging post for a regime-led chemical strike.

Two points to note:

1. Notice was given, including a 30 minute warning to the Russian military. This effectively means that the Syrian armed forces had just short of 30 minutes to take cover for incoming fire, but not enough time to transfer any chemical munitions. This is an unusual courtesy, and was presumably solely for the benefit of the Russians.
2. The missile strike of around 50 cruise missiles on a site that had a chance to evacuate came at a cost of six Syrians lives in addition to the alleged chemical weapons store. This is a statement on capability and resolve as opposed to a serious attempt to hamstring the Syrian forces

The rhetoric from the U.S. Administration this week still gives me the impression that despite this intervention there is no specific emphasis on regime change from President Trump; from his Secretary of State yes, but the President remains unspecific. Nevertheless the events show that the administration will hold President Assad responsible for the terms of war within that state – maintaining it within a framework of minimum of adherence to Geneva conventions. In other words: collateral damage is unpleasant, but an accepted component of this dirty civil war; deliberate targeting of civilians (women, children, civilian non-combatants) using indiscriminate means will not be tolerated, and any such capability will be degraded. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-basarl-al-assad-syria-military-strike-sarin-nerve-gas-a7671291.html).

The scope creep of western intervention has, until yesterday, skirted around the issue of direct confrontation with Syrian armed forces, relying instead on a campaign of proxy war. And in the absence of a specific Security Council resolution detailing the conditions of an international intervention against Syria, Russia is correct on one matter: yesterday’s strike does not fit under any aspect of international law; only under the norms of war. Then again, a chemical weapons strike on a purely civilian target does not fit under any component of international law either, and neither does that fit under the norms of war.

Despite the risks and frustrations of fighting a bitter conflict, presumably the Russians, and even the Iranians – who have historically suffered heavily from poison gas attacks during their war with Iraq in the 80s – must also balk at the use of gas on innocent civilians. In any event, the traditional caution has just been thrown out of the window, albeit with the most care taken to not upset the Russians. Which, given the integration of Russian and Syrian forces is a fairly challenging exercise.

Aside from the rights and wrongs of this new development, the timing was extraordinary. President Trump was hosting President Xi of China at his Florida resort as the missiles launched from the U.S. fleet.

Meta-communication in warfare is nothing particularly new. Military forces may choose to deliberately target enemy target symbols that carry no direct military threat, such as the toppling of a statue of Saddam Hussein; or choose targets that carry a message of revenge – such as the tit-for-tat bombings of historic cities by the allies and Nazis in World War Two.

In an blossoming age of meta-communication provided by the internet, this practice has grown significantly – to deliver crowing threats, or taunt adversaries. Nothing is sacrosanct; and when the smoke clears enough to allow a glimpse beyond the directly observable in the latest terrorist atrocity a glaring meta-message is sometimes to be found.

The village of Khan Sheikhun in Idlib province in Syria was hit with a suspected Sarin gas attack earlier this week. That chemical weapons caused the attack is not denied by either party. However, both sides have claimed the other party is in some way responsible – one directly, the other indirectly; the rebels say it was a regime plane, the regime says it was a rebel munitions factory containing chemical munitions which were then released when it was bombed.

The regime has the means to provide an aerial delivery. It also has a well-documented history of stockpiling weapons, and a ‘record’ if you like, with OPCW and the international community for allegedly using such weapons in the recent past. The Russian government also confirmed that the Syrian Airforce did target a warehouse in the town (https://www.rt.com/news/383522-syria-idlib-warehouse-strike-chemical). However, the timings given for their air-strike are somewhat later than the time of the chemical strike reported by the media, which was at around day-break. Air activity over Idlib province was reportedly no more than usual (http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/04/05/522093672/the-view-from-khan-shaykhun-a-syrian-describes-the-attacks-aftermath).

At least one chemical weapons experts has come out to say that any bombardment would have incinerated the chemicals, rendering them useless, and thus the Syrian regime explanation does not add up. As has happened before with munitions dumps in the general region however (such as Taji West in Iraq) an explosion on a munitions warehousing facility can create enough over-pressure to expel/jettison munitions which have not been fully destroyed in the initial blast, which can then arm and detonate. If that site contained chemical munitions in different states of preparation and storage, it cannot be expected that an aerial bombardment will provide a fail-safe means of destroying chemical weaponry.

The statement from Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the Free Idlib Army rebel group that “everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas” is insufficient as it currently stands. Poison gas is not generally ‘bombed’ in the conventional sense and if it has been air-served in dropped canisters, a strike should be relatively easy to prove. Rockets were heard too. Rockets can deliver chemical weapons, and they are held by both sides.

To make matters more complicated, chemical weapons routinely fall into the hands of non-state actors, and there is every suggestion that certain belligerent groups would be willing to use them to further their purposes. These actors would almost certainly be willing to use more ‘risky’ deployment methods, as they do not have an air-force.

All that being said, the Syrian Regime has not suggested that a chemical weapons strike was deliberately made by the opposition. Nor has any opposition group made the claim that they made the strike.

In any case, this will all need to be clarified in any investigation, along with an examination of the warehouse site. There is a defined procedure (Article XI CWC), and as a state-party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, Syria does not have a choice but to accept it. Until that happens, it will boil down to a she-said, he-said situation regarding whether it was a bombed stockpile or a deliberate airstrike; with only the two parties knowing the truth of the matter.

Nevertheless, there is one factor that has not been considered in the traditional analysis. This is the meta-message.

Generally speaking, Khan Sheikhun as a deliberate target of a chemical weapons strike provides something of a mystery. If Syrian warplanes are generally targeting the area, then it is presumably outside of government control, nevertheless there were no armed groups reported to be based there. Daily life was ongoing, with children going to school and so forth. Aside from an alleged warehouse it had no real feature worthy of targeting. Except its name.

Like many older settlements across the Arab world, Khan Sheikhun has a whimsical name with a literal meaning. Another form of meta message if you like, relating to the history of a place. Sometimes the meaning still stands, such as the name of Palmyra in Arabic which literally means something like “destruction” – an apt name if ever there was one. Sometimes the meaning is lost or no-longer obvious.

Sheikhun is a masculine plural form of the word sheikh that unsurprisingly means sheikh – elder or leader – a plural form occasionally used instead of the standard plural, sheiyukh.  Khan in Arabic has an obvious meaning of an ‘inn’ or a ‘hotel’, but interestingly the word also carries other meanings, all of which are in a similar vein: to betray, to rat, to sell-out, to play-false, to squeal, to split, or to two-time.

“Treacherous leaders”.

Is the meta-statement, and this murderous attack on this relatively-peaceful village was the fire breathed into it.

The question on my mind is: whose meta-message is this?

The last fifteen years have been particularly testing for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The installation of the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad started a ‘descent’ of the northern Middle East into Iranian-influence. The uprisings of the Arab spring also brought concerns over conflict with Shia populations in Sunni states across the Arabian Peninsula, and KSA was no-exception. When they came, the ‘revolutions’ in both Syria and Yemen quickly became power-struggles between poverty-stricken Sunni and Shia factions; calling for support from their co-religionists in other countries.

The rapid dismantling of the traditional power structures has come so thick and fast, that it has led to a series of hasty – and with the benefit of hindsight, ill-conceived – foreign policy decisions by KSA. Of these, the most disastrous own-goal was to saturate the oil market. The carefully constructed world oil market behaves as a ‘game’ in an economic sense, and the oil price rise was premised on a set of carefully balanced factors built-up over the preceding years. The price was easy to smash, but has proved difficult to reconstruct when needed – leading to massive deficits in the KSA budget.

The second most obvious decision has been the invasion of Yemen, and commitment to an unwinnable war against an adversary that has been entrenched for centuries. This was done at the perception of an Iranian interference in the country. The extent of this interference – or whether it even exists – is debated by analysts. In any case, the war cannot be won by military means, which leads to an endless drain on resources and morale: fomenting a national psychology of a besieged state.

The third decision falls into a pattern which the Saudis have been strategically repeating since the 1980s, except on a much broader scale: resource support to Islamic-militant groups that align with an international-jihad agenda. This was a concept that paid off in Afghanistan against the Soviets and against the Serbs in Bosnia, but has otherwise caused much political grief with respect to U.S.-Saudi relations post 9-11, and brought with it a global perception of being a state-sponsor of terrorism. This reputation may be ‘acceptable’ for countries with large Muslim populations; but not-so-much for those with minority ones.

It can be, and is probably, argued that each of these policy decisions has been naturally in-keeping with historical precedent, and Wahabi/Saudi Arabian sensibilities; a general price paid for doing business with the Saudis. While an element of doubt remains of the extent to which Saudi intelligence may have control over of international jihadi groups, these relationships could be exploited, and any negative consequences consigned to bad-luck; there is never any solid accusation that the Saudi regime has actively, and deliberately, targeted any Western government.

In a development which has been seemingly missed by most commentators however, historical precedent with respect to KSA-Western relations is being overturned. China and KSA have recently signed a raft of bilateral agreements comprising including enormous trade and oil deals. Given the timing of this week’s crackdown by Chinese authorities on civil liberties of ethnic Uighurs, it comes as no surprise. Saudi Arabia hosts an ethnic Uighur community, and like Turkey beforehand, China provided the economic mollification to the foreign regime: to reduce the likelihood of criticism when increased pressure came the following week.

KSA is apparently desperate enough for allies and future markets for its oil that it would sell out the Sunni Uighurs. While less than honorable perhaps, this is an internal Saudi prerogative, and it is their sovereign business to do so. In any case, it is a non-economic element of the bilateral agreement which sets the alarm bells ringing: KSA and China have agreed to collaborate on China’s far-side of moon space mission in 2018.

The Chinese space program – commercial or otherwise – is inextricably linked with their military program. For anyone interested in understanding how that military program is being developed in direct opposition to western interests is strongly-advised to read the following congressional testimony on the matter: https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Fisher_Testimony_2.18.15.pdf. Not least the worrisome quote on the final page: “Congress should request that the Administration clarify with Chinese officials the disclosures that Chinese President Xi Jinping has personally ordered services of the PLA to prepare for space combat”.

There is a new set of power relations emerging, that is obvious, and not just in the Middle East. While it may seem like science fiction to many people, the next major strategic security challenge has been here for some time already – “space control”. With its agreement with KSA, China has played a card with both internal political ramifications – the Uighurs – along with a military one. Sooner or later KSA might-well be expected to clarify its intentions with respect getting involved with, and potentially part-funding, China’s space program.

KSA has already set an astronaut into space – with NASA. It might be worth reminding Riyadh that in the 21^st century you cannot pick-and-mix your partners on space programs. Along with a sell-out to the Sunnis of China, which will come to be recognized sooner or later, this decision may turn out to be more of a bitter pill than expected.

Lastly, there is an important lesson here for Western nations. Also, as the supreme benefactor of the Arab world, the Saudis are averse to requesting direct assistance – it does not mesh well with general image management. Nevertheless that masks a major issue: KSA is in deep distress, perceived and actual. The lackadaisical approach to bi-lateral politics practiced by many Arab states – not least because of their own internal concerns and problems – means that Arab states have a difficult time finding rock-solid allies, which can lead to a deep sense of isolation. (The UAE may be an exception here.) To avoid a potential catastrophe, it is high time that the risk was openly acknowledged, and for western states to extend a helping hand.

 

 

 

Today marked the end of the 2017 Arab Summit held at the Dead Sea in Jordan. The Summit is an opportunity for Arab countries to formulate common positions on regional issues of the day, the main ones currently being: Israel/Palestine, Iran, Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

One of the most interesting points to arise from the meeting was a re-offer of the Arab peace plan: normalization of ties with Israel in return for the recognition of a Palestinian State in pre-1967 borders. This was the Arab world’s official response to President Trump’s policy position that the U.S. would only pursue a two-state solution if was what the two parties believed was in their best interest.

It’s worth repeating this proposal: the Arab world is re-offering Israel full normalization of relations in return for the recognition of Palestine within 1967 borders. What could be a better proposition than this? The initial reaction from Israel was apparently cool however, with the Israelis saying they would prefer to pursue common interest projects instead – such as countering Iranian influence in the region – as a preliminary path to peace.

This gives a glimpse into the cost-benefit rationale of Israeli decision-makers: (1) normalization of ties with (formerly?) hostile neighbours is not immediately better than (formally) conceding a two-state solution; (2) ties with neighbours are likely to improve naturally by pursuing common security issues, driven by increasing urgency; and (3) with regional instability being at an unprecedented high, the prospect of rescinding any aspects of security control of the West Bank is a bridge too far.

The Saudis were apparently the major centre of gravity at the Summit. They drew praise from President Abdu Rabo Mansur Hadi of Yemen for their efforts in keeping his disenfranchised government. There was also apparently something of a rapprochement between the Saudis and the Egyptians, after their recent fall-out over future governance options in Syria. The Syrians were absent from the meeting.

A lot can happen between now and next year’s Summit in Saudi Arabia. Whatever does happen, one thing can be sure: the Iranian presence will almost certainly have increased. Short of the highly unlikely complete overthrow of the Syrian government, Iran remain be heavily present even following a peace agreement: it has surfaced in the news again that Syria has accepted something in the region of 5 billion dollars in credit from Iran, annually. This will likely buy Iran access to Syrian ports in the Mediterranean (in addition to their direct Caspian and Gulf access); and no doubt the Iranians and President Assad would wish to continue their alliance even without any financial commitments.

With the saturation of Lebanon with Iranian-backed groups, and the political and military support that that the Iranians have provided the Iraqis, the Iranians now have a solid presence across the whole northern sector of the Middle East.

No wonder the Saudis, as well as the Israelis, are feeling the heat.

Despite their differences, the Iranians and Arabs do have a common position with regards Palestine, the question is: when will the Iranian issue eclipse the Palestinian issue in minds of the so-called Arab street, and as a corollary – when will Palestinians in the West Bank begin to see better prospects of salvation in Iran than in the Arab League? Hamas in Gaza is looking as though it has already made the tilt. Gaza’s economic necessities have overridden popular sensibilities over Iranian military actions against Sunnis in Aleppo. Money does talk.