country:saudi arabia

Trump ME peace plan : Half West Bank for Palestinians, Abu Dis as capital - DEBKAfile
▻https://www.debka.com/trump-me-peace-plan-half-west-bank-for-palestinians-abu-dis-as-capital

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/debka/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/20100414/US-Peace-Plan-5.18.jpg

The president had discussed the peace plan’s content with three Arab leaders, Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, UAE emir Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed, the Qatari ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, as well as thoroughly briefing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was invited to come aboard, but he rebuffed the offer – and that was even before he generated a crisis with Israel for its deadly confrontation with Hamas in Gaza.
(...)
A Palestinian state will be established with limited sovereignty across about half of the West Bank and all the Gaza Strip.
Israel will retain security responsibility for most of the West Bank and the border crossings.
The Jordan Valley will remain under Israel sovereignty and military control.
.The Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem will pass to the Palestinian state, excepting the Old City, which will be part of Israeli Jerusalem.
Abu Dis east of Jerusalem is the proposed capital of Palestine.
Palestine and Jordan will share religious jurisdiction over the city’s mosques.
Gaza will be integrated in the new Palestinian state provided Hamas agrees to disarm.
There is no provision in the plan for the Palestinian refugees’ “right of return” – but a compensation mechanism will be established and managed by the international community.
The Trump plan mandates Israel’s recognition as the homeland of the Jewish people, and Palestine with limited sovereignty as the Palestinian homeland.

Debka est un site « d’intelligence » qui sert souvent aux Israéliens à faire passer des infos à confirmer par la suite... Les choses seraient décidées à la fin du mois de ramadan...

#palestine

Saudi Arabia Detains Activists Who Pushed to End Ban on Women Driving
By Ben Hubbard
May 18, 2018
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/world/middleeast/saudi-women-drivers-arrests.html

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Saudi Arabia has detained at least five people connected to the campaign to end the kingdom’s longtime ban on women driving, despite the fact that the government has promised to lift the ban next month, associates of the detainees said on Friday.

The Saudi government has billed the lifting of the driving ban as part of a reform push spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The changes have also included curtailing the powers of the religious authorities and expanding the entertainment options available in the conservative kingdom.

But those efforts have coincided with waves of arrests that have scooped up clerics, businessmen, members of the royal family and activists who have a history of challenging the government’s positions. Many of them have not been officially charged with crimes despite having been held for months.

The Saudi government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new detentions, and it remained unclear whether those detained had been charged with anything.

#réformes #MBS #arabie_saoudite

Rania Khalek on Twitter : « This is alarming. The Atlantic Council—which is funded by gulf monarchies, western governments,NATO, oil and weapons companies, etc will now assist #Facebook in suppressing what they decide is disinformation. »
▻https://mobile.twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/997179235000340480

Facebook à bien compris que le problème n’est pas les #fake_news en soi, mais tout (que ce soit délirant ou- SURTOUT- pertinent) ce qui peut semer le doute quant aux fake news de l’ordre établi.

The First Saudi-Iranian War Will Be an Even Fight – Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/07/the-first-saudi-iranian-war-will-be-an-even-fight

https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/gettyimages-669659392.jpg

Since 2011, first in Syria and then in Yemen, proxy forces of Iran and Saudi Arabi have been in constant, brutal competition. Both sides seem to have concluded that a direct war isn’t in their interest, with neither having ever directly attacked the other. But there has always been a risk of escalation — and that risk will heighten dramatically on Tuesday if President Donald Trump withdraws from the Iran nuclear deal, as seems likely. That could lead to an increase in military provocations by Iran in the region, and embolden any Saudi response.

It’s far easier to assess the likelihood of direct conflict between Tehran and Riyadh, however, than to predict a winner. The outcome of the first Saudi-Iranian war would ultimately depend on the shape it ended up taking.

The two countries differ markedly in the size and capabilities of their forces. Iran has the larger military, with two forces — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Artesh regular military — composed of complementary air, naval, and land branches. The Artesh has an estimated 350,000 active-duty soldiers and controls most of Iran’s more sophisticated conventional capabilities, especially in the air and maritime domains. By comparison, the IRGC, with an estimated force of 125,000, has maintained a focus on asymmetric warfare but also oversees Iran’s growing unmanned aerial vehicle fleet and strategic ballistic missile programs. Additionally, through its special forces division, known as the Quds Force, the IRGC commands Iran’s foreign military operations and relations with client allies, such as in Syria and Iraq.

Since the 1980s, intermittent sanctions and political pressure from the United States have severely degraded Iran’s ability to procure military technology and weapons from other countries, which has made some of its military capabilities relatively outmoded and weak. Iran’s defense spending (around $12.3 billion in 2016) is modest compared with Saudi Arabia’s as one of the top defense budgets in the world ($63.7 billion in 2016 and $69.4 billion in 2017), and its defense technology generally falls well below that of other regional states. Iran’s air forces fly dated platforms, such as F-5 and F-14 Tomcat variants, which have been updated domestically from aircraft inherited from the pre-revolution Pahlavi state, but struggle with intermittent inoperability. Similarly, Iran’s mechanized armor is mostly a hodgepodge of pre-1979 U.S. stock (such as the M60A1) and older Soviet tanks (such as the T-72S) procured from Russia during the 1990s.

Explosion damages vessel carrying wheat to #Yemen | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-ship/explosion-damages-vessel-carrying-wheat-to-yemen-idUSKBN1IC2CX

An explosion has damaged a Turkish vessel carrying wheat to Yemen’s Houthi-controlled port of Saleef, with varying accounts attributing the incident on Thursday to an unexplained blast aboard the ship or a possible missile strike.

A naval ship of a Saudi-led military coalition received a call from the captain of the vessel, the Ince Inebolu, who reported an opening had appeared in the middle of the ship on the left side, a spokesman for the alliance said.

“Coalition forces conducted a survey of the incident and visited the ship and found an explosion from the inside to the outside,” the spokesman said in a statement.

The captain said he did not know the cause of the damage, the spokesman said. The coalition later towed the ship to the port of Jizan in Saudi Arabia.

A shipping source said separately it was possible the damage was either caused by overheating of parts of the ship or a missile.

A separate source connected with the shipment said the vessel was carrying 50,000 tons of Russian milling wheat, adding that it was unclear if it was hit by a missile or due to an internal blast, while anchored about 70 miles off Saleef, which is just north of the port of Hodeidah on the Red Sea.

The ship was in a waiting area, the source said, where vessels typically anchor for permission to dock.

Israel and the U.S. are triggering a risky, unnecessary war of choice in the Middle East

Triggering a Risky, Unnecessary War of Choice in the Middle East
But neither Israel’s prime minister, nor other regional U.S. allies, have any assurances America will stick around to manage the dangerous fallout from the Iran deal’s implosion

Daniel Levy May 10, 2018

▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-and-the-u-s-are-triggering-a-risky-unnecessary-war-in-the-m

We will probably never know the extent of responsibility Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears for the U.S. withdrawal, under President Trump, from the Iran nuclear deal.
U.S.- Iranian relations have certainly long been poisonous, independent of Israel. Congressional enthusiasm for the deal was always low and, within the GOP, support for it near non-existent.
Still, Netanyahu and the campaign he spearheaded certainly helped to create part of the backdrop to Trump‘s announcement; indeed, in his announcement, Trump gave Israel direct credit for supposedlysupplying “definitive proof” that Iran’s nuclear intentions were never peaceful. Not for the first time, a U.S. presidential text read like it was written in Jerusalem. 

Israel will now have to live with the consequences of that success. Following Trump’s announcement, the nuclear deal is now on a clear path to unravelling completely, with only a small chance of reversing that trajectory.
Iran has been honoring the stipulations of the JCPOA, something that Netanyahu and the deal’s many critics said would never happen, and they have produced no evidence to the contrary.
The concerns which the U.S. and Israel had raised regarding the limitations of the deal, and with which Europeans, at least, were sympathetic – the sunset clause arrangements regarding Iranian nuclear energy, ballistic missile development, and especially the challenges posed by Iran regionally – all will now have to be addressed in an atmosphere of growing crisis.
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That atmosphere will only be heightened now the nuclear issue is presumably back on the table, while tensions are escalating on Israel’s northern border, and the value of American international commitments have been significantly devalued. 
Without batting an eye-lid, President Trump has effectively just called his European allies (as well as the Chinese and Russians) a bunch of morons for negotiating what he described as a “horrible,” "one-sided," “decayed,” "rotting" and “defective” deal.
Despite his recent protestations that a shortcoming of the nuclear deal was its failure to address Iran’s regional ambitions, Netanyahu was among those who pushed hardest to keep the nuclear and regional files separate in any P5+1 dealings with Iran. He has now helped bring those two together.
After Trump’s withdrawal decision there might be an attempt to create a semblance of continuity – Europeans and Iranians might explore avenues for retaining the deal which was, after all, blessed by the UN, and they could attempt to address the additional concerns raised by the U.S. But the odds are heavily stacked against that succeeding, if it is even attempted. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech on Iran’s nuclear program, in Tel Aviv, April 30, 2018.JACK GUEZ/AFP
Europe cannot salvage the deal without the U.S. Thus far, Iran has implemented its side of the bargain without the reciprocal economic easing really materializing – that is primarily because European banks and companies feared being frozen out by U.S. financial institutions. Now what was speculation and risk management from European business has become fact, even fewer in the European private sector will risk extensive business dealings with Iran.

A strong economic stand by Europe against U.S. direct and secondary sanctions, possibly even at the WTO, might make a difference. There are few signs that Europe is preparing such a response. 
On the Iranian side the smart money will be on this strengthening those who cautioned against any expectations from the West in general, and the U.S. in particular, to honor agreements. 
To try and claim, as the White House has done recently, that this exit could be a prelude to a better deal is to stretch incredulity to breaking point.
The logic of Trump’s announcement is that he and his team expect one of three scenarios to play out - regime change in Iran, capitulation by Iran or confrontation with Iran.
The music suggests that that the U.S. is betting on scenarios one or two. Neither option has much going for it other than wishful thinking. American-driven attempts at regime change have a very poor record indeed in the Middle East, and anyone who thinks that Iran will agree to terms dictated by Washington, Riyadh and Jerusalem has not been paying attention.
All of which points in the direction of an increasing likelihood of the gloves coming off and of direct confrontation between some combination of the key protagonists (the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia on one side, Iran, Hezbollah and allied militias, including in Iraq, on the other.)

The far-right nationalist movement roiling Eritreans in Israel

The far-right Agazian movement seeks to establish a Tigrinyan Orthodox-Christian state in what is now Eritrea and part of Ethiopia. Its anti-Muslim, militant politics are deepening the divisions within the already fractious Eritrean opposition.

https://staticv3.972mag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/eritrean-diaspora-2.jpg

From Qatar’s blockade, a bold, unexpected new vision is emerging | World news | The Guardian

▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/06/qatar-blockade-unexpected-new-vision-isolation

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5325058944c25af852069a5acc8c75f527c375c9/0_43_4000_2400/master/4000.jpg?w=1200&h=630&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=crop&crop=faces%2Centropy&bm=normal&ba=bottom%2Cleft&blend64=aHR0cHM6Ly91cGxvYWRzLmd1aW0uY28udWsvMjAxOC8wMS8zMS9mYWNlYm9va19kZWZhdWx0LnBuZw&s=a49cdd31ddc8abed059456cb30e668a1

For most of the past year the city-state of Qatar, the wealthiest peninsula on the planet, has been exploring the law of unintended consequences. The trigger for that came last June, when Qatar’s closest neighbours, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE, escalated a simmering disquiet about the Gulf state’s role in the region to implement a full land and air blockade.

Overnight, planes and cargo ships heading for Qatar were diverted, all diplomatic links were cut and Qatar’s sole land border, with Saudi Arabia, was closed. Even camels were not spared the politics – 12,000 Qatari animals were forcibly repatriated.

#qatar

Saudi Arabia: Thousands Held Arbitrarily | Human Rights Watch
▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/05/06/saudi-arabia-thousands-held-arbitrarily

Saudi Arabia is detaining thousands of people for more than six months, in some cases for over a decade, without referring them to courts for criminal proceedings. Saudi Arabia’s attorney general should promptly charge or release all criminal defendants and stop holding people arbitrarily.

Human Rights Watch analyzed data from a public online Interior Ministry database, which revealed that authorities have detained 2,305 people who are under investigation for more than six months without referring them to a judge. The number held for excessively long periods has apparently increased dramatically in recent years. A similar Human Rights Watch analysis in May 2014 revealed that only 293 people had been held under investigation for that period.

#arabie_saoudite

Former Jaysh al-Islam leader stole millions to make business in Turkey - reports
▻https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/former-jaysh-al-islam-leader-stole-millions-to-make-business-in-turkey

https://www.almasdarnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/alloush1.jpg

Former leader of the militant group Jaysh al-Islam, Mohammed Alloush, has stolen $47 million from its budget, reports the FARS news agency, citing media activists close to the group. There were no official reports confirming the information.

According to the news agency’s sources, he used the money to buy restaurants and commercial centers in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Jaysh al-Islam commanders reportedly called on Alloush to return the stolen sum.

Mohammed Alloush was one of the founders of the Jaysh al-Islam militant group and until recently lead its political division.

He resigned from his post on May 3, after the group sustained several defeats at the hands of the Syrian army in Eastern Ghouta.

Source iranienne, mais information plausible. Tout le monde n’a pas tout perdu en #Syrie...

Army Green Berets Secretly Help Saudis Combat Threat From Yemen Rebels - The New York Times

▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/us/politics/green-berets-saudi-yemen-border-houthi.html

By Helene Cooper, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Eric Schmitt
May 3, 2018
WASHINGTON — For years, the American military has sought to distance itself from a brutal civil war in Yemen, where Saudi-led forces are battling rebels who pose no direct threat to the United States.

But late last year, a team of about a dozen Green Berets arrived on Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen, in a continuing escalation of America’s secret wars.

With virtually no public discussion or debate, the Army commandos are helping locate and destroy caches of ballistic missiles and launch sites that Houthi rebels in Yemen are using to attack Riyadh and other Saudi cities.

Details of the Green Beret operation, which has not been previously disclosed, were provided to The New York Times by United States officials and European diplomats.
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They appear to contradict Pentagon statements that American military assistance to the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen is limited to aircraft refueling, logistics and general intelligence sharing.

There is no indication that the American commandos have crossed into Yemen as part of the secretive mission.

But sending American ground forces to the border is a marked escalation of Western assistance to target Houthi fighters who are deep in Yemen.

Beyond its years as a base for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen has been convulsed by civil strife since 2014, when the Shiite Muslim rebels from the country’s north stormed the capital, Sana. The Houthis, who are aligned with Iran, ousted the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the Americans’ main counterterrorism partner in Yemen.

In 2015, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia began bombing the Houthis, who have responded by firing missiles into the kingdom. Yet there is no evidence that the Houthis directly threaten the United States; they are an unsophisticated militant group with no operations outside Yemen and have not been classified by the American government as a terrorist group.

The Green Berets, the Army’s Special Forces, deployed to the border in December, weeks after a ballistic missile fired from Yemen sailed close to Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The Saudi military intercepted the missile over the city’s international airport, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman renewed a longstanding request that the United States send troops to help the kingdom combat the Houthi threat.

Richard Branson’s Virgin #Hyperloop partners with backer #DP_World to launch logistics startup | TechCrunch
▻https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/29/richard-bransons-virgin-hyperloop-partners-with-backer-dp-world-to-launc

https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/h1_83451_2018-04-06.jpg

Virgin Hyperloop One and DP World are launching a new joint venture, #DP_World_Cargospeed, two years after the high-speed transportation technology developer tapped the UAE-based shipping company in a $50 million financing.

The company’s stated goal is to deliver palletized cargo more efficiently by combining super high-speed promise of hyperloop transportation with new logistics technologies to accelerate deliveries along Virgin Hyperloop One’s planned routes between Mumbai and Pune in India; in Saudi Arabia, and in the United Arab Emirates.

Announced with much fanfare and in the presence of Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem and Virgin Hyperloop chairman Richard Branson, the new company is basically built on buzzwords like “on-demand” and the promise of future performance.

Right now there’re only 10 kilometers of Virgin Hyperloop track being built (and they’re all in India).

Although there’s not much more than a bunch of pontificating palaver around hyperloop technologies now, the startup companies and their corporate backers do present an compelling vision of the future of transportation.

Introducing DP World Cargospeed
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQIihCOrvZY

MBS : les Palestiniens doivent accepter le « plan de paix » étasunien ou « la fermer »

▻https://www.axios.com/saudi-crown-prince-tells-jewish-leaders-palestinians-should-take-what-they-ar

https://images.axios.com/twElLHU-bwBLRapwdaFDUOB6AkM=/0x162:3770x2283/1920x1080/2018/04/29/1525025697167.jpg

In a closed-door meeting with heads of Jewish organizations in New York on March 27th, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) gave harsh criticism of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), according to an Israeli foreign ministry cable sent by a diplomat from the Israeli consulate in New York, as well three sources — Israeli and American — who were briefed about the meeting.

The bottom line of the crown prince’s criticism: Palestinian leadership needs to finally take the proposals it gets from the U.S. or stop complaining.

According to my sources, the Saudi Crown Prince told the Jewish leaders:

“In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given. It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.”
— MBS

MBS also made two other points on the Palestinian issue during the meeting:

He made clear the Palestinian issue was not a top priority for the Saudi government or Saudi public opinion. MBS said Saudi Arabia “has much more urgent and important issues to deal with” like confronting Iran’s influence in the region.

Regardless of all his criticism of the Palestinian leadership, MBS also made clear that in order for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to normalize relations with Israel there will have to be significant progress on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

What we’re hearing: A source who was briefed on the meeting told me the attendees were stunned when they heard the Saudi Crown Prince comments on the Palestinian issue. “People literally fell off their chairs,” the source said.

Why it matters: In the last year, the Trump administration has been drafting a plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The White House peace team, led by Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Jason Greenblatt, has basically finished drafting the plan and is discussing how and when to launch it.

Launching the plan will be difficult because of the Palestinians have been boycotting the White House since Trump’s December 6th Jerusalem announcement.

In the last year, Kushner managed to get MBS on board in trying to move the peace process forward, and get the Arab world to urge the Palestinians to enter peace talks with Israel on the basis of the U.S. peace plan.

#Arabie_saoudite #Palestine #Israel #dirigeants_arabes #indigents_arabes « #monde_arabe »

Palestinians must make peace or shut up, Saudi crown prince said to tell US Jews | The Times of Israel
▻https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-must-make-peace-or-shut-up-saudi-crown-prince-said-to-te

At a meeting with Jewish leaders in New York last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman castigated the Palestinian leadership for rejecting opportunities for peace with Israel for decades, and said they should either start accepting peace proposals or “shut up.”

Inutile de dire que cette ultime sortie du régent saoudien suscite beaucoup de commentaires dans la presse arabophone.

#palestine

Germany moving to limit arms sales to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey

Proposed law would also ban arms exports to other countries involved in military operations and regional crises.

▻https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/germany-moving-limit-weapons-export-saudi-arabia-uae-180428072944493.html
#armes #commerce_d'armes #Allemagne #Arabie_Saoudite #Turquie #Émirats_arabes_unis #EAU
cc @reka @simplicissimus

A Saudi-Iranian Dialogue on Regional Security – LobeLog
▻https://lobelog.com/a-saudi-iranian-dialogue-on-regional-security

by Turki al Faisal and Hossein Mousavian

With tensions between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia at the brink, a rare dialogue recently took place between two former senior Saudi and Iranian officials. Hosted by the Center for Strategic Studies at the Joint Special Operations University in Tampa, Florida, former Saudi Ambassador to the United States and Director General of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency Prince Turki al Faisal debated Ambassador Hossein Mousavian, a former spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiators and chairman of the foreign policy committee of Iran’s National Security Council. The lively discussion touched on each country’s view of its security environment and the broader issues affecting the Iran-Saudi relationship. LobeLog has obtained the full transcript of the conversation, and the following is an abbreviated excerpt covering the key points.

Exclusive: U.S. sorghum armada U-turns at sea after China tariffs
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-sorghum-exclusive/exclusive-u-s-sorghum-armada-u-turns-at-sea-after-china-tariffs-idUSKBN1HR0

Sorghum is a niche animal feed and a tiny slice of the billions of dollars in exports at stake in the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies, which threatens to disrupt the flow of everything from steel to electronics.

The supply-chain pain felt by sorghum suppliers on the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans underscores how quickly the mounting trade tensions between the U.S. and China can impact the global agricultural sector, which has been reeling from low commodity prices amid a global grains glut.

Twenty ships carrying over 1.2 million tonnes of U.S. sorghum are on the water, according to export inspections data from the USDA’s Federal Grain Inspection Service. Of the armada, valued at more than $216 million, at least five changed course within hours of China’s announcing tariffs on U.S. sorghum imports on Tuesday, Reuters shipping data showed.

http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-TRADE-CHINA/010061V93NG/SHIPS.jpg

#sorgo #guerre_commerciale

Death penalties by country 2017 - MapPorn

▻https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8btmo7/death_penalties_by_country_2017_1280x905

https://i.redditmedia.com/L696nPvlyAofcp_YlfW3FcpWfRNp-M7tO5R3b2PVp0E.jpg?w=320&s=a813a0065a777b149f48601f4d059fd9

Because of population differences, this is pretty misleading. The rate per 100,000,000 people would tell you more:

Iran>634

Saudi Arabia=456

Iraq> 336

Bahrain=207

Somalia=162

Kuwait= 175

Jordan=160

Singapore=143

Palestine=132

China>72

Egypt>37

South Sudan=33

Pakistan>31

Belarus>21

Afghanistan=15

Malaysia>12

UAE=10

USA=7

Yemen=7

Bangladesh=4

Japan=3

North Korea/Vietnam=???

#droits_humains #peine_de-mort #cartographie #visualisation #sémiologie

The U.S. just bombed 3 sites in Syria. Here’s what we know about why nations choose airstrikes. - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/04/14/the-u-s-just-bombed-3-sites-in-syria-heres-what-we-know-about-why-st

https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/re-MRcyB095446yT2TxW84cVOFM=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/THXSHKPA5MY2HO23C2NM6HFM24.jpg

[...]

Democracies aren’t more prone to use airstrikes — but rich states are

We looked at some popular expectations about why states would choose air power. Traditionally, there is the perception that democracies are more likely to use airstrikes — and only airstrikes — because democratic leaders are too afraid to put boots on the ground and risk casualties.

Policymakers and even potential target states themselves have shared this perception. Since the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, numerous militarily weaker states have gambled on their ability to outlast American public acceptance of casualties.

Contrary to popular perceptions about the cost sensitivity of democracies, we find that democratic states are not more likely than their autocratic counterparts to employ air-only campaigns. But rich states — and by extension, militarily powerful states — are more likely to use airstrikes. This dynamic helps us understand Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen, for instance.

Airstrikes are more likely when the stakes for an intervener are low

The second popular expectation we examine is whether or not airstrikes are a signal of low resolve. Do rich and powerful states just use air power when they don’t care enough to put boots on the ground? Both Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic certainly acted like they believed just that — they attempted to resist U.S.-led airstrikes on multiple occasions.

We found support for the idea that lower stakes make an airstrikes-only strategy more likely. In high-stakes conflicts, states are much more likely to couple airstrikes with ground forces. With airstrikes alone, targets may rightly infer that the crisis is a lower foreign policy priority for the attacking state. Of course, those leaders conducting the airstrikes may argue that airstrikes are a costly signal of future uses of force.

While airstrikes may indeed be used as a means of escalation, states are likely aware that airstrikes are a limited signal — and realize that the most salient crises cannot be resolved with airstrikes alone or without a stronger signal of resolve.

Airstrikes alone as a crisis response may thus lead the target to conclude that the attacker is unresolved. This may lead the state being attacked to hold out, and not make major concessions.

Airstrikes alone are not particularly effective

When states choose to use airstrikes alone, do they work?

In previous research, we found that air power strategies that include efforts to deny targets military capabilities as well as punish target publics and regimes are more likely to be successful. The April 2017 airstrikes on Shayrat Airbase represented only a minimal effort at military denial, and therefore, it is unsurprising that, despite the wealth and military superiority of the United States, there was no long-lasting impact.

The bottom line

President Trump’s decision to employ strikes is not particularly surprising. Leaving aside his own personal views, he is the leader of a rich state with few good military options in Syria, a country where the stakes for the United States are relatively low.

For a second time in his presidency, Trump has chosen airstrikes. It probably won’t be the last.

#Syrie #Etats-Unis

Syria attack is a win for Assad and reveals true intentions of Western powers behind it - Syria - Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/.premium-syria-attack-is-a-win-for-assad-and-reveals-west-s-true-intentions

Jack Khoury

[...]

The coalition hasn’t learned that a Western strike on an Arab capital will never bring its citizens into the streets to celebrate or turn public support in their favor, no matter how despotic the leader. Indeed, even the Assad regime’s most bitter enemies found it hard to cheer for the Western airstrikes. It’s important to make a clear distinction between the positions of a few countries’ leaders, including the Gulf states, and the overall consciousness of citizens of the Muslim and Arab world.

Syria’s public diplomacy machine did not need to work hard when it came to the attack on Damascus and one of its suburbs by the three powers. It immediately earned the sobriquet “the trilateral aggression,” familiar to all Arab ears as the name given to the military response of France, Israel and Britain in 1956 to Egypt’s then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. [...]

The scenario this time is completely different. Assad, a despot who inherited the regime from his father and has carried out unforgivable crimes against his own people, is very far from Nasser in every way. No one who supports democracy and human rights can side with his actions. But while his motives are clear – Assad will do whatever it takes to maintain his power – those of U.S. President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May are not entirely obvious.

While they pride themselves on their defense of human rights and universal values, the West does nothing to stop the ongoing slaughter in Yemen. Trump continues to extend unqualified support for Israel’s conduct toward the Palestinian people , and his two partners make do with laconic statements of censure. The events along the Israel-Gaza Strip border in the past two weeks did not elicit so much as a call for restraint from them, and oddly enough, Trump envoy Jason Greenblatt chose to lecture the Palestinians. If the goal is to defend human rights, then attention should also be paid to the regimes in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf states, which are no less totalitarian than the one in Damascus.

The blood of the Syrian people is no different from that of the Yemenis or the Palestinians. The behavior of the Western leaders at this masked ball has once again been revealed for the double game that it is, in accordance with the map of interests that serves them. Anyone who seeks a more just and rational world must first address the oldest issue in the Middle East, the need to give the Palestinians an independent state.

[...] If the West genuinely cared about the Syrian nation’s welfare, its leaders would support the national democratic opposition in the country, which envisions a modern, democratic state that provides freedom and liberty to all its citizens.

But Trump and his partners care about their interests and those of their wealthy allies in the Gulf, not about the Syrian people. The position they have taken now will not result in the establishment of a free and democratic state in the Middle East that will challenge the existing regimes, and perhaps Israel as well.

#Syrie

Opinion | Will the Next Superbug Come From Yemen? - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/opinion/sunday/yemen-antibiotic-resistance-disease.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/04/15/opinion/sunday/15loewenberg-sub/15loewenberg-sub-facebookJumbo.jpg

Before the war, #Yemen had a functioning, if fragile, health system. The war destroyed it, along with the country’s water and sanitation infrastructure. Many small children are not even getting routine vaccinations. Nearly 18 million people are hungry, with many close to famine levels. By conservative estimates, 10,000 civilians have been killed, with 52,000 more wounded — fertile ground for drug resistance.

Antibiotic consumption was already very high in the region. A 2014 study found a prevalence of nonprescription antibiotic use by 48 percent of the population in Saudi Arabia and 78 percent in Yemen. Syria was a major producer of antibiotics, both for itself and for export.

It’s a recipe for catastrophe: a struggling health system where antibiotics remain widely available with little oversight, combined with an overwhelming number of wounded in hospitals and weak hygiene and infection-control practices. Doctors in Yemen, struggling to treat the rush of patients, often use broad-spectrum antibiotics on even simple infections. “This creates a new generation of multidrug-resistant bacteria,” Dr. Mansoor said, and inadvertently sets the stage for a public health meltdown.

#antibio_résistance #antibiotiques

WATCH: Direct Action to Stop a War: Sam Walton & Rev. Dan Woodhouse - Real Media - The News You Don’t See
▻https://realmedia.press/watch-direct-action-to-stop-a-war-sam-walton-rev-dan-woodhouse

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqLdm4smkKg

Sam Walton & Rev. Dan Woodhouse broke into a BAE systems airbase in Lancashire to damage fighter jets and prevent their flight to Saudi Arabia where they would be used to kill civilians in Yemen.

A magistrate eventually found them not guilty of the charges brought by BAE, persuaded that their actions were an attempt to stop a greater crime and both were acquitted.

(not your usual reverend and quaker friends)

#armements #action_directe #anti-guerre #Yémen

Saudi-Qatar Feud Hits New Low as Saudis Plan Nuclear Dump on Border.
▻https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/saudi-qatar-feud-hits-new-low-as-saudis-plan-nuclear-dump-on-border-1.59896
▻https://images.haarets.co.il/image/upload/w_953,h_554,x_30,y_79,c_crop,g_north_west/w_857,h_482,q_auto,c_fill,f_auto/fl_any_format.preserve_transparency.progressive:none/v1523356361/1.5989679.720281865.JPG

Saudi Arabia could consider a proposal to dig a maritime canal along the kingdom’s border with Qatar, turning the peninsula-nation into an island and transforming its only land border into a military zone and nuclear waste site, state-linked Saudi newspapers reported Monday.

The project has not been given official approval and faces many obstacles. Still, the proposal signals a new low in the 10-month-old feud between Qatar and a quartet of nations that includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain.

The four accuse Qatar of sponsoring terrorism because of its support for Islamist opposition groups in the region and its warm relations with Iran. Qatar denies the allegations and says the moves attempt to undermine its sovereignty.

Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, met in Washington on Monday with U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. He is scheduled to meet President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia’s Sabq and al-Riyadh newspapers carried nearly identical reports Monday saying that under the proposal, Saudi Arabia would transform part of its side of the border with Qatar into a military base and another area would become a dump site for waste from nuclear reactors the kingdom wants to build. The UAE, meanwhile, would also build a nuclear waste site at the closest point near its border with Qatar.

.:Middle East Online:: :.
▻http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=87984

Arabic media reports stated that the Middle East has the highest per capita share of Viagra users in the world, with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt topping the list.

In 2012, Saudi newspaper Al Riyadh reported that men in the country spent as much as $1.5 billion annually on Viagra and similar medications.

While more recent estimates vary, Viagra’s trademark blue pills, which have proven through studies to significantly improve men’s sex lives around the world, obviously remain in high demand throughout the region.

#catastrophe_arabe !!!

.:Middle East Online:: :.
▻http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=87979

The Middle East, largely defined by Britain and France, the victors of the first world war, is falling apart as the region is consumed by unrivalled conflicts and political upheaval. It is splintering along religious and tribal lines — the very ones that the colonial powers failed to recognise — in large part a consequence of the calamitous Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

“We’re seeing the centrifugal forces of tribal or religious or ethnically divided societies coming apart because the old guard has lost influence and credibility due to the passage of time, grass-roots forces empowered by new technologies and the deep frustrations and disengagement of outside powers,” explained David Rothkopf, editor-at-large of the journal Foreign Policy.

Syria lies at the apex of this disintegration, splintered by a 7-year-old war that has come to involve the entire region along with the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The country that was once an Arab powerhouse is likely to fragment into at least three sect-based entities: Iran-backed minority Shias on the north-eastern border with Shia-dominated Iraq along with a minority Alawite statelet and a majority Sunni region. It is possible there would also be self-ruling Kurdish and Druze enclaves.

The breakup of Syria is widely seen to be inevitable because most people refuse to be ruled by the harsh, Alawite-dominated regime under the Assad dynasty, which since 1971 had become a dynastic republic through a smothering network of institutionalised corruption, fear and terror.

The region has never been stable since the Ottomans were crushed in world war one after ruling the region for some 400 years. The subsequent collapse of their empire and the artificial division of Arab lands between the wartime victors Britain and France doomed the region to decades of death and destruction.

Un festival que je me suis permis de grasser par endroit tellement c’est magnifique ! Même BHL n’arriverait pas à faire aussi bien.

#syrie #prophétie_autoréalisatrice #fardeau_de_l'homme_blanc