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/ |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E
A S T R E A L I T I E S
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Making Sense of the Middle East
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www.MiddleEast.Org
News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest
Groups,
and the Corporate Media Don't Want
You To Know!
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LISTEN TO ROBERT FISK SPEAKING ON ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11:
Exclusively at -- http://www.MERTV.Org
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U.S. TROOPS IN PLAIN CLOTHES AND CIA
OPERATIVES STOP QATAR COUP
"If America occupies an Arab country,
it would mean the whole Arab world on fire."
MID-EAST REALITIES - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org
- Washington - 25 October:
Now the actual reality is that the U.S. occupies most of the
countries in the Middle East, not directly but rather though "client
regimes" and the CIA, not through brute force and military occupation but
rather through more subtle and crafty means.
Anyone who thinks the massive footprints of the American CIA
and Pentagon aren't all over the exposing and putting down of the recent coup in
Qatar doesn't know much about the secret history of American imperial
'diplomacy' nor about how most of the regimes in the Middle East have come to be
and come to stay...with a few noteable exceptions. MER first
reported this coup attempt and put down earlier this week; now this brief report
today from the Stratfor Intelligence organization.
As for the somewhat buried on the inside pages story in
today's New York Times about building anger and hatred in the Middle
East, what's most interesting is that nearly everyone quoted is a co-opted
on-the-take journalist, business person, or government-approved semi-official;
all in fact representing the most pro-American Arabs one can find these days.
Not very deep-digging or serious reporting, and not very prominently put forth.
But the subject itself is a most important one which is quite likely to lead to
more tragedies and more 9/11s in the years now ahead.
Meanwhile, in related regional developments having to do with
Saudi Arabia, the following: The long-time independent-minded and
thoughtfully outspoken Saudi Ambassador in London - Ghazi al-Gosaibi - has been
sacked at American insistence. None other than Saudi Ambassador Prince
Bandar bin Sultan, who met privately with President Bush during the summer at
the Texas ranch, is thought to have coordinate al-Gosaibi's removal after he
penned a poem supportive of the Palestinian Intifada. His
replacement? The long-time Saudi intelligence chief known for his close
contacts with the CIA (along with Bandar of course) and whose public rendition
of Saudi-US 'cooperation', in the pages of the Washington Post last month, read
like an on-his-knees confession of Saudi political sins to many in the Middle
East.
QATAR
COUP PLOT MAY THWART U.S. WAR PLANS
A foiled coup plot in Qatar raises questions about the ability of the government
in Doha to survive, and with that, about U.S. access to the massive al-Udeid air
base. If Qatar is forced to rethink and limit its cooperation with the U.S.
military, then it could remove a key component of Washington's war plan for
Iraq.
Stratfor sources, including Qatari diplomats and Russian military intelligence
officials, confirm that authorities in Qatar foiled a coup plot this month after
one of the conspirators betrayed the group for money.
Arabicnews.com on Oct. 16 cited rumors out of Cairo and the Gulf States that the
Qatari government had arrested "scores" of high-ranking army officers
on the evening of Oct. 12, after the plot was exposed. The report also claimed
that U.S. troops were involved in the crackdown, establishing roadblocks and, in
plain clothes, participating in the arrest of suspects. -Stratfor
Intelligence Brief, 25 October
ANGER BUILDS AND SEETHES AS
ARABS AWAIT AMERICAN INVADER
By DANIEL J. WAKIN
NEW YORK TIMES, Oct 25 - CAIRO — After last Friday's Prayers at Al
Azhar Mosque, anger against the United States spilled out into the courtyard in
what was a relatively meager demonstration. Separate groups of men and women
chanted in favor of Iraq, a boy on a man's shoulders carried a sign saying
"I love 11 September" in English and the rally was over within an
hour.
But on the edge of the crowd, Hassan Hossam reflected on a deeper fear in this
part of the world that if the United States attacks Iraq, it would go on to
impose long-term military control.
"This is totally rejected because Arabs are the only people who should rule
their country," Mr. Hossam, a 32-year-old sales clerk, said.
"President Bush is trying to take us backward, to many years ago," he
said. "If America occupies an Arab country, it would mean the whole Arab
world on fire."
Confronted by American plans for Iraq, people in the Middle East are facing more
than just the prospect of war. They now must consider the possibility that the
American government, backed by its military, may exert daily administrative
control over a swath of Arab soil for a long period.
The idea summons up angry emotions in a region where sensitivities about the
colonial past run deep. When asked about American plans for Iraq, people here
evoke the Sykes-Picot agreement, a secret pact in 1916 between France and
Britain to carve up Arab lands and Turkey from the remnants of the Ottoman
Empire after World War I. It led to British and French control of what is now
Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, and the death of early Arab nationalist dreams;
Britain had already occupied Egypt in 1882.
United States officials at one point said the Bush Administration was
considering a plan for Iraq modeled after the occupation of Japan after World
War II. An American military commander would assume control of the country for a
year or more while the United States and allied forces would search for weapons
of mass destruction and keep up oil production. But administration officials
have also taken pains to say Iraqis would be treated as a liberated, not a
conquered, people. President Bush has said the United States would not try to
impose its culture or form of government on another nation.
Nevertheless, even the hint of American domination of Iraq touches a raw nerve
here.
An American occupation of Iraq would feed into a sense of humiliation felt by
many Arabs, said Rami Khouri, a political analyst and syndicated newspaper
columnist who is Palestinian Jordanian.
"People are worried about the continued sense of degradation and
humiliation that they are subjected to," he said in an interview from
Amman, "just sitting around watching Americans and Israelis do whatever
they want in the region."
Such sentiments give rise to talk that the United States and Israel are seeking
to redraw the map of the Middle East, perhaps dividing up Saudi Arabia, or
sending the Palestinians from the occupied territories to Jordan. "It's a
hallucinatory perspective," Mr. Khouri said.
As a sign of such sensitivities, King Abdullah of Jordan felt it necessary in a
television interview last week to deny claims that the ruling Hashemite family
had plans to take control of Iraq if President Saddam Hussein were ousted.
News reports said rumors about Jordan's intentions took hold after an uncle of
the king participated in an Iraqi opposition conference.
Commentators have also linked the Israeli Army's return to the West Bank as part
of a grander United States strategy to redraw the map of the Middle East.
There is a widespread belief among Arabs that a United States occupation of Iraq
would be aimed at securing Iraqi oil supplies, echoing the imperial powers
hunger for raw resources in decades past. American military occupiers would
effectively control the world's second largest proven oil reserves.
"All they want is the oil!" exclaimed Zeinab Said, a businesswoman,
amid table talk of Lady Di and cellphones at a luncheon in Cairo last week,
where the hostess tinkled a bell to summon her white-gloved servant.
Ms. Said later allowed that some good could come from Saddam Hussein's removal.
"It can be for development and a certain kind of democracy. It's a double
edged sword you see," she said. "I am always an optimist."
One political thinker, Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Al Ahram Center for
Strategic and Political Studies, said United States military control of Iraq
would indeed be seen as a recolonization. But he suggested that something along
the lines of a 'trusteeship', with strong participation by other countries,
would be acceptable in the region.
An Iraqi opposition leader who is a member of the former royal family and who
hopes to restore the monarchy, al-Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein, said Sunday that
American troops should come as liberators, not colonizers. "They will be in
Iraq for cooperation and consultation, but they should leave quickly,"
Agence France-Presse quoted him as saying.
Many people worry about an increase in local violence as anger against the
American presence grows.
Mohammed Salah, an expert on Egypt's Islamic movement for Al Hayat, a
Saudi-owned Arabic-language newspaper in London, said anger over a United States
presence in Iraq will only help groups seeking to attack American interests in
the name of Islam.
"This atmosphere makes it very easy for Al Qaeda to operate," Mr.
Salah said. "It makes the soil very fertile to launch attacks and to
recruit people."
MiD-EasT RealitieS - http://www.MiddleEast.Org
Phone: (202) 362-5266
Fax: (815) 366-0800
Email: MER@MiddleEast.Org
