Last month President Biden announced more sanctions against Cuba, saying they were “just the beginning” of action against the authorities responsible for cracking down on protests that were largely caused by dissatisfaction on the part of the Cuban people because their living standards have been reduced to the pitiable — largely by U.S. sanctions. Biden further declared “I unequivocally condemn the mass detentions and sham trials that are unjustly sentencing to prison those who dared to speak out in an effort to intimidate and threaten the Cuban people into silence.” This may indeed be a true picture, and the U.S. President may be genuine in his indignation. But it seems that Mr Biden is selective in lashing out sanctions against nations whose governments can be categorised as violators of human rights.

The 2021 World Report by Human Rights Watch states categorically and undeniably that Egyptians continue “to live under the harsh authoritarian grip of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government. Tens of thousands of government critics, including journalists and human rights defenders, remain imprisoned on politically motivated charges, many in lengthy pretrial detention.” Yet, as reported by CNN (for example), the Washington administration has agreed to sell missiles to Egypt at a cost of $197 million because, as the State Department related in a press release, the weapons and all the associated equipment and training “will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a Major Non-NATO Ally country that continues to be an important strategic partner in the Middle East.” (The dictator al-Sisi came to power as president following the military coup he organised when he was head of the armed forces in 2013.)

So the Egyptian regime coasts along, persecuting its citizens as an important strategic partner of the United States which itself records in the State Department’s Report on Human Rights Practices that “Significant human rights issues included: unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings by the government or its agents and terrorist groups; forced disappearance; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary detention; political prisoners or detainees; politically motivated reprisal against individuals located outside the country; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious restrictions on free expression, the press, and the internet…”

We might think that such a litany of hideous abuse of its citizens would automatically incur the displeasure of the Washington administration to the extent of perhaps a tiny sanction or two, or even an official pronouncement that is mildly condemnatory of the poisonous regime of the dictator el-Sisi. But that is not happening. In fact, the Biden administration intends to give $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt in 2022, so that al-Sisi can buy more U.S. weaponry.

But the human rights hypocrisy of the Biden Administration doesn’t stop at the Cuba-Egypt dichotomy. There is also direct denial of human rights by Washington itself, ably assisted by its cross-Atlantic puppet, Boris Johnson, leader of an increasingly authoritarian Conservative government whose care and compassion are along the lines of Attila the Hun. Johnson is a vocal supporter of “the rules-based international system in which we believe and that we strive to protect”, just like Biden. In fact, as recently noted by Peter Beinart of the New York Times, “anyone who slogs through the diplomatic verbiage generated by President Biden’s inaugural overseas trip earlier this month [June 2021] will notice one phrase again and again: “rules-based.” It appears twice in Mr. Biden’s joint statement with Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, four times each in the communiqués the United States issued with the governments of the Group of 7 and the European Union, and six times in the manifesto produced by NATO.”

But the phrase never appears in the context of the refugee citizens of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, ejected summarily by Britain, their colonial master, in accordance with the wishes of Washington, as recounted by Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post on August 8.

Two years ago in these columns I wrote that the Chagos Archipelago was “depopulated” in the 1960s because Britain had agreed with America that a U.S. military airfield should be built on the main island, Diego Garcia. The BBC reports that “Between 1968 and 1974, Britain forcibly removed thousands of Chagossians from their homelands and sent them more than 1,000 miles away to Mauritius and the Seychelles, where they faced extreme poverty and discrimination.” As revealed in 2004, the head of Britain’s Colonial Office in 1966 wrote that “The object of the exercise is to get some rocks which will remain ours; there will be no indigenous population except seagulls who have not yet got a committee. Unfortunately along with the Birds go some few Tarzans or Men Fridays whose origins are obscure, and who are being hopefully wished on to Mauritius etc.” This sort of racist sneering is part of a pattern, as Johnson himself is recorded as having written that “It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies.”

To give him his due, at least Biden doesn’t talk about piccaninnies or, as Johnson has done, have a condescending snigger about then Prime Minister Blair’s “tribal warriors” in the Congo who “will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.” That is nauseating, and Biden would never plumb such racist depths. Nevertheless, he refuses to activate his much-repeated catchphrase “the rules-based international system” in the context of the natives of the Chagos Islands. Just like Johnson and the current British Raj he ignores the International Court of Justice opinion on the “Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965” that “the process of decolonization of Mauritius was not lawfully completed when that country acceded to independence… the United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible”.

The State Department told the Washington Post that “The United States unequivocally supports UK sovereignty” over the islands. “The specific arrangement involving the facilities on Diego Garcia is grounded in the uniquely close and active defence and security partnership between the United States and the UK. It cannot be replicated.” Neither Washington nor London is going to even try to abide by the guidance of the International Court of Justice or the United Nations General Assembly that in 2019 voted overwhelmingly (121 to 6) for a resolution requiring that Britain should withdraw its “colonial administration” from the Chagos Islands.

So forget the international rules-based system.

And forget your human rights, surviving Chagos Islanders and the families of those displaced Chagos citizens who have been taken to the great Island in the Sky. You’ll never be allowed to return home while U.S. nuclear bombers zoom in and out of the airfield in Diego Garcia.

The people of Cuba will continue to be sanctioned and kept in poverty by the powerful United States and the people of Egypt will continue to be subjected to “unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings by the government or its agents… forced disappearance; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government.” After all, their governing dictator is buying weapons from Raytheon worth $187 million of U.S. taxpayers’ money.

When human rights are brought to the attention of the authorities in Washington and London it’s money and military “partnership” that matter. Not people.

“I am angry. I am angry that so many refuse to open their eyes to what is happening today in France, and around the world”. She adds: “I am really passionate about this: I sense you feel this passion”.

Of course, there is amongst people generally a numbness, bemusement and (also) a deep fear of poking one’s head out from the ‘narrative trench’ in which we sit – and where, enclosed by high trench walls – we experience a modicum of safety. Best not to range too far from that!

Narrative warfare however, has taken a new turn, with western political parties, mass media and platforms not just abandoning argument, but in emulation of the Grand Inquisitors, firing-off volleys of charges (witchcraft, heresy, etc) without real basis – with the aim, as Lyndon Johnson taunted, of ‘making the sonofabitch deny it’. Of course, then as now, it is impossible to prove the negative: Admit to woke heresy and be burnt alive, or deny it until every bone is cracked on the media ‘rack’.

The point is that de-platforming, boycotts and shaming of individuals or parties as supremacist or racist, in today’s climate, are seen to work: They can be leveraged through the tech-platforms to such a degree that critical thinking can be not just suppressed, but individuals and parties shamed and ‘cancelled’; and swept off from the political ‘board’ entirely with a swipe from weaponised narrative.

This one-sided approach envisages no truck with opponents, save to accept their unreserved recantation; or to light the bonfire beneath the feet of their careers. The point here, is that ‘between-ness’ becomes heresy, and so too, is the understanding of polarities – the understanding that duality is deeply a part of human experience, as much as the double helix resides in our DNA. History teaches us that such radical one-sidedness almost invariably tilts toward intolerance, repression and ultimately, violence.

Which brings us back to the lady’s lament above at the arid, desiccated, political landscape sweltering under the brassy sun of Apollonian ratiocination, devoid of passion, very masculine, and empty of human empathy.

Shakespeare touched on this issue of human empathy – at a moment in history that resonates with ours today – through his focus on the Great Goddess: the symbol of feminine sensuality and power: the symbol of renewal (renewal of life at its most basic). The myth behind Venus and Adonis and that of another poem Lucrece, Ted Hughes argues, reflects precisely the schism of cultural war of Shakespeare’s times: Protestants and Catholics, both seeing each other as ‘devilish’ and heretic, with no compromise possible except cancellation.

In the first poem, Aphrodite, goddess of ‘this world’ and symbol of the ideal, virtuous woman, is compelled by circumstance to give this chaste, ‘preppy’ young man, Adonis, into the care of her polar ‘opposite’, Persephone – the goddess of the ‘otherworld’ (or, of primal unconscious sexual energy, we might say today). The sensual Persephone however, falls for the young Adonis – and desires him unreservedly. She refuses blank to hand him back to Aphrodite, and Zeus is forced to intervene with a 50/50 custody judgement.

But then, the tables turn. And the respectable Aphrodite ‘of this world’, wants to keep this chaste youth with her, and not to expose him to the sensuous, primal aspect to Nature in the ‘other world’. The weak-willed Adonis acquiesces, and renounces Persephone’s claims on him.

Persephone enraged, savages the youth in the form of a wild boar, killing him (the unconscious rising up to force his transformation through death). Hughes notes that by Newton’s day, the conception of ‘Truth’ (today ‘Science’), was seen to have radically purged itself of any taint of human subjectivity, to emerge as a new brassy sun scorching away dualism to leave a desert.

Today, we are amidst a new aridity, a new desert. We are invited to ‘Re-set’ into ‘socially responsible’, techno-robotic capitalism. Socially responsible capitalism isn’t some new notion. The idea harks back, as Joaquin Flores notes, to the centrist wing of fascism some 90 years ago: “It is to wit the embodiment of the last century’s corporatist and technocratic ideal, until about the 1970s – when Friedmanism [neo-liberalism] became de rigueur”. Now, social responsibility is again being trumpeted as the reason why socialism must be viewed as wholly inappropriate, since what is good for corporations, surely must be good for society, since we all yearn for stability.

It is not market capitalism – that has long been strangled in the US by the Fed. The term ‘capitalism’ is used by today’s ideologues to maintain ideological continuity, rather than to stand as a plausible definition. The camouflaged aim however, under the sugar-coating, is to manage a strictly post-capitalist society. This would be one which develops new coercive and depopulating technologies towards that old maxim that ‘everything must change, so that things remain the same’ (i.e. so that the present rulers remain – but undergo ‘a make-over’ – so that when the wrappers are removed – it appears as something shiny-new.)

This is why passionate anger is in order: This vision is both abstract, and devoid of any empathy for the human condition. The public must be trained and subjected to Covid and lockdown disciplining firstly, and then to further ‘punishment’ required by the ‘climate emergency’. Its ideologues use fear and deliberate narrative contradictory-chaos to anaesthetise, and gain public acquiescence into this new techno-reality.

“Trauma is the point of entry, and prior crimes which have been perpetuated against other peoples can be metamorphosed – through this trauma – into being the crimes that humanity itself committed, and must now pay for – and pay very dearly (reparations). The crimes of the ruling class against people thus are transformed into crimes that the people have committed and which the ruling class – the stakeholders (governments, NGO’s, institutions) must now correct. And those corrective measures will be punitive and disciplinary in nature”.

Nonetheless, the planned technocratic dystopia may yet be perceived by many to be a carry-forward of social-democracy. Centrist political parties will endorse it. They long for applause and praise of the MSM and tech-platforms. And with the public no longer having any real political power, the costs of this re-set will be pushed down to the people, whilst wealth concomitantly gets funnelled upwards towards a tight, controlling oligarchy.

All of which leads us back to the question of feminine ‘anger’. Ted Hughes tells us that Shakespeare was well acquainted with the story of the goddess Isis, whose determination and powerful passion restored an Egypt riven by the one-sidedness of a particularly aggressive grasping rationality (that of Seth) which had failed to accomplish the conjunctio between its arid rationality, and the balancing need for fecundity (symbolised by Osiris), in all its diverse aspects.

The point here is that the Egyptian Osiris-Isis myth is about the repeated, oscillating tension between the impulse of harmony and that of destruction – and of need to find (and bring) balance. Without Seth, there would be no destruction-creation. Without Seth, there would be no Osirian revival. But note that in this myth, the disruptive conflict derives from the masculine, which is both a creative and destructive impulse; yet it is Isis – reflecting the determination and power of the female – that finally restores balance to Egypt; who reassembles the dismembered Osiris; and revitalises the male-female impulse that runs through all living things.

If we look back to the ancient concept of the ‘two lands’ of Egypt: the fertile Black Lands of the Nile and the barren Red Lands of the surrounding desert, we get an inkling of how the waxing and waning of one polarity, yielding ultimately to the rise of its ‘opposite’ value, was understood in earlier times. Everything is in flux: polarities swap places, as in a formal dance, and potencies of the invisible world jostle and shove against the ebb and flow of human activity.

The ‘Two Lands’ of Egypt represents something more than some mere geographical distinction. In ancient Egypt, the physical landscape had a metaphysical resonance of which the ancient Egyptians were keenly aware: The Two Lands were comprehended as the two contending, yet mutually interpenetrating realms of life and death.

The combined landscape of the Two Lands is one of ‘paradise’ and ‘hell’, at war with one another, yet united in precarious balance and reciprocity. One thus symbolised the harmonious, creative unity of cultivation in the valley; and the other that of in-coherence, of chaos and death in the desert areas.

But even Seth, who, in so many respects symbolises a destructive, voracious negativity, embodies too, a certain duality. He was never perceived as intrinsically bad or evil, but as a necessary component of the Cosmos: aridity, desiccation and death. His ambivalence is experienced in the Egyptian desert: mercilessly hot, with nowhere to shelter from the sun; but in this landscape of rock and silence, where no bird flies and no animal, save the desert viper moves, there is, too, a deep stillness which the Valley cannot give.

Then the Nile swells – and its waters slip across the Delta – refreshing and watering it. And shortly thereafter, it become rife with fecund life.

Seth may, in one sense, personify the force of life-sapping, decay and death, but his dramatic polarity lies precisely in his very necessity to renewal. Ancient Egyptians saw themselves held in this balance and interplay of polarities: life and death, abundance and scarcity, light and dark. The very landscape teaches the principle of oscillating polarities. Maintaining balance was a succession of destructions and renaissances; allowing Seth’s insidious, sapping barrenness to be overcome by Horus’s subsequent reviving inundations, was the central preoccupation of the Egyptian King: Seth and Horus were thus to be held in equilibrium.

We might understand this double movement – compounded in aspects that are always in polar tension; yet are co-constituent to each other – as being somehow a reflection, an analogy, and a consequence of a deep inner life-rhythm: the systole and diastole of human creativity itself.

So, the anger expressed earlier is understandable and appropriate. We are being surreptitiously slipped into the aridity of a ‘neo-Sethianism’ arid polarisation. Balance and reviving inundations are deemed heretic and will not be tolerated. Yet in the end Seth was exiled, and harmony returned to Egypt.

In the 1950s the so-called enemy of the West was not only Moscow but the Third World’s emerging nationalists, from Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt to Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. The United States and Britain staged a coup d’état against Mossadegh, and used the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist movement and the grandfather organization of the militant Islamic right, in an attempt to remove Nasser, the leader of the Arab nationalists.

In the 1960s, left wing nationalism and Arab socialism spread from Egypt to Algeria to Syria, Iraq and Palestine. This emergence presented a threat to the old imperialist game of Great Britain, to which the United States was a recent recruit of, and thus they decided to forge a working alliance with Saudi Arabia intent on using Wahhabi fundamentalism as their foreign policy arm in the Middle East, along with the Muslim Brotherhood.

This paper will go through the carving up of the Middle East under Sykes-Picot, the British creation of Saudi Arabia and Israel and the British occupation of Palestine, the origin of the Muslim Brotherhood and Nasser’s fight for Arab independence. In a follow-up paper, I will discuss the role of the City of London in facilitating the bankroll of the first Islamic fundamentalist state Saudi Arabia, along with the Muslim Brotherhood and its terrorist apparatus.

An “Arab Awakening” Made in Britain

“The renunciation will not be easy. Jewish hopes have been raised to such a pitch that the non-fulfilment of the Zionist dream of a Jewish state in Palestine will cause intense disillusionment and bitterness. The manifold proofs of public spirit and of capacity to endure hardships and face danger in the building up of the national home are there to testify to the devotion with which a large section of the Jewish people cherish the Zionist ideal. And it would be an act of further cruelty to the Jews to disappoint those hopes if there existed some way of satisfying them, that did not involve cruelty to another people. But the logic of facts is inexorable. It shows that no room can be made in Palestine for a second nation except by dislodging or exterminating the nation in possession.”

– the concluding paragraph of George Antonius’ “The Arab Awakening” (1938)

Much of what is responsible for the war and havoc in the Middle East today has the British orchestrated so-called “Arab Awakening” to thank, led by characters such as E.G. Browne, St. John Philby, T.E. Lawrence of Arabia, and Gertrude Bell. Although its origins go as far back as the 19^th century, it was only until the early 20^th century, that the British were able to reap significant results from its long harvest.

The Arab Revolt of 1916-1918, had been, to the detriment of the Arab people, a British led rebellion. The British claimed that their sole interest in the affair was the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire and had given their word that these Arab territories would be freed and allowed independence if they agreed to rebel, in large part led and directed by the British.

It is a rather predictable feature of the British to lie and double cross and thus it should be of no surprise to anyone that their intentions were quite the opposite of what they had promised and thanks to the Sykes-Picot Russian leak, were revealed in their entire shameful glory.

If the Sultan of Turkey were to disappear, then the Caliphate by common consent of Islam would fall to the family of the prophet, Hussein ibn Ali the Sharif of Mecca, a candidate which was approved by the British Cairo office as suitable for British strings. T.E. Lawrence, who worked at the Cairo bureau is quoted as saying:

“If the Sultan of Turkey were to disappear, then the Caliphate by common consent of Islam would fall to the family of the prophet, the present representative of which is Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca….If properly handled the Arab States would remain in a state of political mosaic, a tissue of jealous principalities incapable of cohesion…” (1)

Once the Arab Revolt was “won” against the Ottoman Empire, instead of the promised Arab independence, the Middle East was carved up into zones of influence under British and French colonial rule. Puppet monarchies were created in regions that were considered not under direct colonial subjugation in order to continue the illusion that Arabs remained in charge of sacred regions such as Mecca and Medina.

In central Arabia, Hussein, Sharif of Mecca, the puppet leader of the Arab Revolt laid claim to the title Caliph in 1924, which his rival Wahhabite Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud rejected and declared war, defeating the Hashemites. Hussein abdicated and ibn Saud, the favourite of the British India Office, was proclaimed King of Hejaz and Najd in 1926, which led to the founding of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Al Saud warriors of Wahhabism were a formidable strike force that the British believed would help London gain control of the western shores of the Persian Gulf.

Hussein ibn Ali’s son Faisal (under the heavy tutelage of T.E. Lawrence) was bestowed as King of Iraq and Hussein’s other son, Abdullah I was established as the Emir of Transjordan until a negotiated legal separation of Transjordan from Britain’s Palestine mandate occurred in 1946, whereupon he was crowned King of Jordan. (For more on this history refer to my paper.)

While the British were promising Arab independence they simultaneously were promising a homeland in Palestine to the Jews. The Balfour Declaration of November 2nd, 1917 states:

“His majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object…”

Palestine had been seized by the British during the so-called Arab Revolt on December 11^th, 1917 when General Allenby marched into Jerusalem through the Jaffa Gate and declared martial law over the city. Palestine has remained occupied ever since.

Britain would receive the mandate over Palestine from the League of Nations in July 1922.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s violent confrontations between Jews and Arabs took place in Palestine costing hundreds of lives. In 1936 a major Arab revolt occurred over 7 months, until diplomatic efforts involving other Arab countries led to a ceasefire. In 1937, a British Royal Commission of Inquiry headed by William Peel concluded that Palestine had two distinct societies with irreconcilable political demands, thus making it necessary to partition the land.

The Arab Higher Committee refused Peel’s “prescription” and the revolt broke out again. This time, Britain responded with a devastatingly heavy hand. Roughly 5,000 Arabs were killed by the British armed forces and police.

Following the riots, the British mandate government dissolved the Arab Higher Committee and declared it an illegal body.

In response to the revolt, the British government issued the White Paper of 1939, which stated that Palestine should be a bi-national state, inhabited by both Arabs and Jews. Due to the international unpopularity of the mandate including within Britain itself, it was organised such that the United Nations would take responsibility for the British initiative and adopted the resolution to partition Palestine on November 29th, 1947. Britain would announce its termination of its Mandate for Palestine on May 15th, 1948 after the State of Israel declared its independence on May 14th, 1948.

The Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood

In 1869, a man named Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, the intellectual founder of the Salafiyya movement, went to India where British led colonial authorities welcomed him with honors and graciously escorted him aboard a government owned vessel on an all expenses paid voyage to the Suez. (2)

In Cairo he was adopted by the Egyptian prime minister Riad Pasha, a notorious enemy of the emerging nationalist movement in Egypt. Pasha persuaded Afghani to stay in Egypt and allowed him to take up residence in Cairo’s 900 year old Al Azhar mosque considered the center of Islamic learning worldwide, where he received lodging and a monthly government stipend (paid for by the British). (3)

In 1879, Cairo nationalists in the Egyptian Army, led by the famous Egyptian hero Ahmed ‘Urabi, organised an uprising against the British role in Egypt. Afghani was expelled from Egypt by the Egyptian nationalists that same year.

Ahmed ‘Urabi served as prime minister of Egypt briefly, from July 1882 to Sept 1882, however, his movement for Egyptian independence was eventually crushed by the British with the shelling of Alexandria in July 1882 followed by an invasion which resulted in a direct British occupation of Egypt that would last until 1956. It would be Gamal Abdel Nasser who would finally end British colonial rule of Egypt during the Suez Crisis, whereupon the Suez canal was nationalised and the British military bases expelled.

While Egypt was fighting its nationalist fight from 1879-1882, Afghani and his chief disciple Muhammad Abduh travelled together first to Paris and then to Britain, it was in Britain that they would make a proposal for a pan-Islamic alliance among Egypt, Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan against Czarist Russia (4).

In addition, the crisis in Sudan, was in the middle of a tribal religious rebellion against the British led by a man named Mohammed Ahmad a Sudanese sheikh who proclaimed himself the Mahdi, or savior, and was leading a puritanical Islamic revolt. (5)

What Afghani was proposing to the British was that they provide aid and resources to support his formation of a militant Islam sect that would favour Britain’s interest in the Middle East, in other words, Afghani wished to fight Islam with Islam, having stated in one of his works “We do not cut the head of religion except by sword of religion.”(6)

Although it is said that the British refused this offer, this is not likely considering the support Afghani would receive in creating the intellectual foundation for a pan-Islamic movement with British patronage and the support of England’s leading orientalist E.G. Browne, the godfather of twentieth century Orientalism and teacher of St John Philby and T.E. Lawrence.

E.G. Browne would make sure the work of Afghani would continue long beyond his death by immortalising him in his 1910 “The Persian Revolution,” considered an authoritative history of the time.

In 1888, Abduh, the chief disciple of Afghani, would return to Egypt in triumph with the full support of the representatives of her Majesty’s imperial force and took the first of several positions in Cairo, openly casting his lot with Lord Cromer, who was the symbol of British imperialism in Egypt.

Abduh would found, with the hold of London’s Egyptian proconsul Evelyn Baring (aka Lord Cromer) who was the scion of the enormously powerful banking clan (Barings Bank) under the city of London, the Salafiyya movement. (7)

Abduh had attached himself to the British rulers of Egypt and created the cornerstone of the Muslim Brotherhood which dominated the militant Islamic right throughout the twentieth century.

In 1899, Abduh reached the pinnacle of his power and influence, and was named mufti of Egypt.

***

In 1902, Riyadh fell to Ibn Saud and it was during this period that Ibn Saud established the fearsome Ikhwan (translated as “brotherhood”). He collected fighters from Bedouin tribes firing them up with fanatical religious zeal and threw them into battle. By 1912 the Ikhwan numbered 11,000 and Ibn Saud had both central Arabia’s Nejd and Al-Ahsa in the east under his control.

From the 1920s onward, the new Saudi state merged its Wahhabi orthodoxy with the Salafiyya movement (which would be organised into the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928).

William Shakespear, a famed British agent, forged the first formal treaty between England and Saudi Arabia which was signed in 1915, which bound London and Arabia for years before Saudi Arabia became a country. “It formally recognized Ibn Saud as the independent ruler of the Nejd and its Dependencies under British protection. In return, Ibn Saud undertook to follow British advice.” (8)

Harry St. John Bridger Philby, a British operative schooled by E.G. Browne and father to the legendary triple agent Kim Philby, would succeed Shakespear as Great Britain’s liaison to Ibn Saud under the British India Office, the friendly rival of the Cairo Arab Bureau office which was sponsoring T.E. Lawrence of Arabia.

In Egypt 1928, Hassan al-Banna (a follower of Afghani and Abduh) founded the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimeen), the organization that would change the course of history in the twentieth century Middle East.

Banna’s Muslim Brotherhood was established with a grant from England’s Suez Canal Company (9) and from that point on, British diplomats and intelligence service, along with the British puppet King Farouq would use the Muslim Brotherhood as a truncheon against Egypt’s nationalists and later against Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

To get the Muslim Brotherhood off the ground, the Suez Canal Company helped Banna build the mosque in Ismailia that would serve as its headquarters and base of operation. (10) The fact that Banna created the organization in Ismailia is itself worthy of note. For England, the Suez Canal was the indispensable route to its prize possession, India and in 1928 the town Ismailia happened to house not only the company’s offices but a major British military base built during WWI. It was also, in the 1920s a center of pro-British sentiment in Egypt.

In the post-WWI world, England reigned supreme, the flag of the British empire was everywhere from the Mediterranean to India. A new generation of kings and potentates ruled over British dominated colonies, mandates, vassal states, and semi-independent fiefdoms in Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Arabia and Persia. To varying degrees those monarchies were beholden to London.

In the half century between 1875 and 1925 the building blocks of the militant Islamic right were cemented in place by the British Empire.

Nasser Leads the Fight for Arab Independence

In 1942, the Muslim Brotherhood would earn their well-deserved reputation for extremism and violence by establishing the “Secret Apparatus,” an intelligence service and secret terrorist unit. This clandestine unit functioned for over twelve years almost entirely unchecked, assassinating judges, police officers, government officials and engaging in goon squad attacks on labor unions and communists.

Throughout this period the Muslim Brotherhood worked for the most part in an alliance with King Farouq (and thus the British), using their clandestine forces on behalf of British interests. And throughout its entire existence it would receive political support and money from the Saudi royal family and the Wahhabi establishment (more on this in part 2 of this series).

The Secret Apparatus would be smashed into pieces by Nasser in 1954.

After WWII, the faltering Farouq regime lashed out against the left in an intense campaign of repression aimed at the communists. The Cold War was beginning. In 1946, prime minister Isma’il Sidqi of Egypt who was installed as head of the government with the support of Banna, openly funded the Muslim Brotherhood and provided training camps for its shock troops used in a sweeping anti-left campaign. Sidqi resigned in Dec 1946 after less than one year as PM due to massive unpopularity.

As King Farouq began to lose his grip on the Egyptian people, the Brotherhood distanced itself while maintaining shadowy ties to the army and to foreign intelligence agencies and always opposed to the left.

The Palestine War (1947-1949) resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel at the cost of 700,000 displaced Palestinian Arabs and the destruction of most of their urban areas.

The territory that was under British administration before the war was divided between the State of Israel (officially formed May 14^th, 1948), which captured about 78% of it. In opposition to Israel, the Kingdom of Jordan captured and later annexed the West Bank, and Egypt captured the Gaza Strip, with the Arab League establishing the All-Palestine Government, which came to an end in June 1967 when the Gaza Strip, along with the West Bank, were captured by Israel in the Six-Day War.

The Egyptian people were furious over these developments, and the reign of British puppet King Farouq who had done nothing to prevent the dismantling of Palestine was on extremely shaky ground. In response to this, Farouq’s accord with the Muslim Brotherhood broke down, and in December 1948, the Egyptian government outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood. Weeks later a Brotherhood assassin murdered prime minister Mahmoud El Nokrashy.

Two months later, in Feb. 1949, Banna was assassinated in Cairo by the Egyptian secret police.

For Arab nationalists, Israel was a symbol of Arab weakness and semi-colonial subjugation, overseen by proxy kings in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.

On the night of July 23, 1952, the Free Officers, led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, staged a military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, overthrowing the British puppet monarch. The Free Officers, knowing that warrants had been issued for their arrest, launched the coup that night, storming the staff headquarters in Cairo.

Cairo was now, for the first time, under the control of the Arab people after over 70 years of British occupation.

The seizure of power by the Free Officers in Egypt came during an era when the entire Arab world from Morocco to Iraq was locked in the grip of imperialism. Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia were French colonies; Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Oman and Yemen were British colonies. Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were kingdoms ruled by monarchies installed by London. And Egypt under King Farouq was the political and economic center of the Arab world.

A growing surge of Arab nationalism arose in response to the Free Officers’ actions in Egypt. The powerful Voice of the Arabs radio in Cairo was reporting to the entire Arab world that they had found their independence movement, and that Nasser was at its helm.

From 1956 to 1958 Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon underwent rebellions, Iraq’s king was toppled, and Syria united with Egypt in Nasser’s United Arab Republic, part of Nasser’s strategy to unify the Arab world.

In Algeria, moral and material support was given from Cairo towards the Algerian revolution that finally won them independence from French colonial rule in 1962.

That same year, Yemen underwent a Nasser-inspired revolt, triggering a proxy war pitting Saudi Arabia against Egypt, with Nasser stating in a 1962 speech, “Yemen’s fight is my fight. Yemen’s Revolution is our Revolution.”

Nasser’s leadership and the inspiration he stirred were so strong that even as late as 1969 the year before Nasser’s death, Libya’s king was overthrown and Sudan’s right-wing regime was eliminated by military leaders loyal to Nasser.

Nasser had managed to threaten the very heart of Anglo-America’s post-WWII strategy in the Middle East. Nasser understood, that if the vast oil fields in Saudi Arabia were under Arab control, the potential for an economic boom would be enormous for all Arab states, such that the old game of imperialism by Britain and France could no longer retain its chokehold on Arab independence.

Not only was Egypt a military rival to Saudi Arabia, not only did Cairo clash with Riyadh in a shooting war in Yemen, not only did Nasser inspire Arabs in Saudi Arabia with republican ideals but the Egyptian leader even won over some of Saudi Arabia’s royal family. This group was led by Prince Talal to form the ‘Free Princes’, which defected to Egypt demanding the establishment of a republic in Saudi Arabia!

What was really going on during the period of 1954 to 1970, under Nasser’s leadership, was a war between two competing visions for the future of the Middle East; an Arab world of independent but cooperative Arab republics utilising their natural resources to facilitate an economic boom in industrialisation vs a semi-feudal scattering of monarchies with their natural resources largely at the West’s disposal.

The real reason why the British and Anglo Americans wanted Nasser removed, was not because he was a communist or because he was susceptible to communist influence; it was because he refused to obey his would-be foreign controllers and was rather successful in this endeavour, bringing their shadowy actions uncomfortably close to the light and inspiring loyalty amongst Arabs outside of Egypt including those sitting on top of the oil.

What especially worried London and Washington was the idea that Nasser might succeed in his plan to unify Egypt and Saudi Arabia thus creating a major Arab power. Nasser believed that these oil wells were not only for the government of those territories to do with as they wished but belonged to all Arab people and thus should be used for the advancement of the Arab world. Afterall, most Arabs are aware that both the monarchies themselves and the artificial borders that demarcate their states, were designed by imperialists seeking to build fences around oil wells in the 1920s.

Nasser understood that if Cairo and Riyadh were to unite in a common cause for the uplifting of the Arab people, it would create a vastly important new Arab center of gravity with worldwide influence.

In 1954 Egypt and the United Kingdom had signed an agreement over the Suez Canal and British military basing rights. It was a short lived. By 1956 Great Britain, France and Israel concocted a plot against Egypt aimed at toppling Nasser and seizing control of the Suez Canal, a conspiracy that enlisted the Muslim Brotherhood.

In fact, the British went so far as to hold secret meetings with the Muslim Brotherhood in Geneva. According to author Stephen Dorrill, two British intelligence agents Col. Neil McLean and Julian Amery, helped MI6 organize a clandestine anti-Nasser opposition in the south of France and in Switzerland, (11) in his book he writes “They also went so far as to make contact in Geneva…with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, informing only MI6 of this demarche which they kept secret from the rest of the Suez Group [which was planning the military operation via its British bases by the Suez Canal]. Amery forwarded various names to [Selwyn] Lloyd, [the British foreign secretary].”

British prime minister Anthony Eden, Churchill’s handpicked successor, was violently anti-Nasser all along and considered a British coup d’état in Cairo as early as 1953. Other than such brash actions, the only political force that could mount a challenge to Nasser was the Muslim Brotherhood which had hundreds of thousands of followers.

Nasser’s long postponed showdown with the Muslim Brotherhood occurred in 1954, this was timed to add pressure during the rising frustration concerning the British-Egyptian negotiations over the transfer of the Suez Canal and its military bases to Egypt. The British, after over 70 years of direct occupation in Egypt, were not going to give up on one of their most prized jewels, their gateway to the Orient, so easily.

From 1954 on, Anthony Eden, the British prime minister was demanding Nasser’s head. According to Stephen Dorrill’s “MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations”, Eden had ranted “What’s all this nonsense about isolating Nasser or ‘neutralising’ him, as you call it? I want him destroyed, can’t you understand? I want him murdered…And I don’t give a damn if there’s anarchy and chaos in Egypt.”

Nasser would not back down, and in the first few months of 1954 the Muslim Brotherhood and Nasser went to war, culminating in Nasser outlawing them as a terrorist group and a pawn of the British.

On Oct. 1954, a Muslim Brotherhood member Mahmoud Abdel-Latif attempted to assassinate Nasser while he was delivering a speech in Alexandria, which was live broadcasting to the Arab world by radio, to celebrate the British military withdrawal.

Panic broke out in the mass audience, but Nasser maintained his posture and raised his voice to appeal for calm, and with great emotion he exclaimed the following:

“My countrymen, my blood spills for you and for Egypt. I will live for your sake and die for the sake of your freedom and honor. Let them kill me; it does not concern me so long as I have instilled pride, honor, and freedom in you.”

The crowd roared in approval and Arab audiences were electrified. The assassination attempt backfired, and quickly played back into Nasser’s hands. Upon returning to Cairo, he ordered one of the largest political crackdowns in the modern history of Egypt, with the arrests of thousands of dissenters, mostly members of the Brotherhood.

The decree banning the Muslim Brotherhood organization said “The revolution will never allow reactionary corruption to recur in the name of religion.” (12)

In 1967, there was a Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab states Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, which was started by Israel in a coordinated aerial attack on Egypt, eliminating roughly 90% of Egyptian air forces that were still on the ground, followed by an aerial attack on Jordan, Syria and Iraq. Israel then went on to conduct a ground attack with tanks and infantry, devastating whole Arab regions.

Despite the disastrous loss to Israel, the people of Egypt refused to accept Nasser’s resignation and took to the streets in a mass demonstration calling for Nasser’s return. Nasser accepted the call of the people and returned to his position as president where he remained as until his death in Sept 1970.

Five million people turned out on the streets of Egypt for Nasser’s funeral, and hundreds of millions more mourned his death throughout the world.

Although Nasser had devastatingly lost a battle, the Egyptian people along with their Arab compatriots understood that the fight for Arab independence was not lost. The dream of dignity and freedom, in forever opposition to the shackles of tyranny could not be buried now that it had been stirred to its very core. Nasser would be the catalyst for an Arab Revolution for independence, a revolution that remains yet to be finished.

The author can be reached at https://cynthiachung.substack.com/

(1) David Hogarth, “The Penetration of Arabia.” Hogarth was a former head of the Arab Bureau, a branch of British Intelligence.
(2) Elie Kedourie, “Afghani and Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam”
(3) Ibid.
(4) The proposal to London from Jamal al-Din al-Afghani was reported by a British Orientalist and author W.S. Blunt, a friend of Afghani’s. It is cited in C.C. Adams, “Islam and Modernism in Egypt.”
(5) Elie Kedourie, “Afghani and Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam.”
(6) Ibid.
(7) Ibid.
(8) David Holden and Richard Johns, “The House of Saud.”
(9) Richard P. Mitchell, “The Society of the Muslim Brothers.”
(10) Ibid, pg 9. The source Mitchell uses is al-Banna’s autobiography.
(11) Stephen Dorrill, “MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations.”
(12) Joel Gordon, “Nasser’s Blessed Movement.”

Forty-seven years ago, Egypt and Syria launched a massive surprise attack on Israeli forces dug into fortifications along the Suez Canal and Golan Heights. The ‘limited’ Arab objective was to recapture both strategic areas that had been seized from the two Arab states in Israel’s victorious 1967 War.

Re-armed with modern – but by no means top drawer – Soviet weapons, Egypt and Syria sought to drive the Israelis back, then wait for the great powers to impose a truce. It was a badly flawed strategy, which assured the heavily armed Israelis would control the military initiative with their superiority in air power and armor.

At first, the Arab surprise attack caught Israel flat-footed. Israeli reserve armored forces were still in storage when Egyptian and Syrian armor and infantry stormed across the 1967 cease-fire lines.

Warnings of the impending assault from the most important Israeli spy, Ashraf Marwan – amazingly the son-in law of the late Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser – were ignored or shrugged off in Israel which was still filled with hubris over its lopsided, US-assisted victory in the 1967 War.

This was the first big mystery of the 1973 War. Was Marwan really a Mossad spy or a double agent, as Egypt later claimed, disinforming Israel on the time of the Arab offensive? Marwan later fell to his death – or was pushed – from a London apartment.

Syria’s armor drove into the Golan Heights from their starting positions on the plains east of Golan and the Mount Hermon massif.

The opening Arab assault was a remarkable success. I walked much of the Suez Canal soon after the war and was awed that Egypt’s military engineers had managed to get so many tanks and men across the wide canal under enemy fire.

Equally amazing was Egyptian infantry using highly effective new Soviet Sagger anti-tank missiles and air defense units employing SAM-6 anti-aircraft missiles to blunt Israeli counter attacks. Hundreds of Israeli US-supplied M40 and M60 tanks and 20% of Israel’s formidable air force were destroyed.

Most of Israel’s 15 Bar Lev forts built to defend the Suez Canal were stormed. As a connoisseur of modern fortification, I was fascinated to explore the fallen Israeli forts. Syria inflicted heavy casualties on Israeli armor defending the Golan Heights and on its forts.

The second big mystery of the war concerns the savage fight for Golan. Syrian armor and mechanized divisions had managed to claw their way to the top of the Golan Heights, from where they looked down on Galilee and most of northern Israel. We don’t know whether Syria intended to drive into Galilee, formerly a heavily Arab area, or try to defend the Golan ridgeline. But orders went out from Syrian HQ to halt the Syrian offensive when the downhill road to Galilee and Jordan River bridges were wide open. Why did the Syrians halt their advance when victory was in their grasp?

The answer remains a mystery. But the best assumption is that Soviet spy satellites saw Israel move 13 Jericho missiles out of caves at two airbases and affix their 20-kiloton nuclear warheads. Moscow immediately warned Washington and its Arab allies, both of whom feared an imminent Israeli nuclear strike against targets that included Damascus and Cairo.

So, both Egypt and Syria halted their advances. Israeli forces, bolstered by the arrival of powerful reserve armored divisions, seized the initiative and went on to achieve a brilliant victory that included crossing the Canal and encircling Egypt’s III Corps. The fighting ended after Israel failed to seize Suez and towns on the way to Damascus. Threats of Soviet intervention and America’s resupply of almost all of Israel’s lost weapons brought the 1973 War to a close.

Egypt regained Sinai – Syria and the Palestinians got nothing. The US sank ever deeper into the turbulent affairs of the Arab world. After a bad scare, Israel triumphed as the Mideast’s premier military power.

ericmargolis.com

Cairo is urging Addis Ababa for clarification after European satellite images showed water filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Ethiopia has stated that the higher water levels are a natural consequence of the current heavy rainy season. However, this month was designated by Addis Ababa as a deadline to begin filling the $4.6 billion dam.

Egypt has repeatedly challenged the project saying that it would deprive it of vital freshwater supplies. Egypt relies on the Nile for 90 per cent of its total supply for 100 million population. Last month foreign minister Sameh Shoukry warned the UN security council that Egypt was facing an existential threat over the dam and indicated his country was prepared to go to war to secure its vital interests.

Ethiopia also maintains that the dam – the largest in Africa when it is due to be completed in the next year – is an “existential necessity”. Large swathes of its 110 million population subsist on daily rationed supply of water. The hydroelectric facility will also generate 6,000 megawatts of power which can be used to boost the existing erratic national grid.

Ominously, on both sides the issue is fraught with national pride. Egyptians accuse Ethiopia of a high-handed approach in asserting its declared right to build the dam without due consideration of the impact on Egypt.

On the other hand, the Ethiopians view the project which began in 2011 as a matter of sovereign right to utilize a natural resource for lifting their nation out of poverty. The Blue Nile which originates in Ethiopia is the main tributary to the Nile. Ethiopians would argue that Egypt does not give away control to foreign interests over its natural resources of gas and oil.

Ethiopians also point out that Egypt’s “claims” to Nile water are rooted in colonial-era treaties negotiated with Britain which Ethiopia had no say in.

What makes the present tensions sharper is the domestic political pressures in both countries. Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is struggling to maintain legitimacy among his own population over long-running economic problems. For a self-styled strong leader, a conflict over the dam could boost his standing among Egyptians as they rally around the flag.

Likewise, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is beset by internal political conflicts and violent protests against his nearly two years in office. His postponement of parliamentary elections due to the coronavirus has sparked criticism of a would-be autocrat. The recent murder of a popular singer-activist which resulted in mass protests and over 100 killings by security forces has marred Abiy’s image.

In forging ahead with the dam, premier Abiy can deflect from internal turmoil and unite Ethiopians around an issue of national pride. Previously, as a new prime minister, he showed disdain towards the project, saying it would take 10 years to complete. There are indicators that Abiy may have been involved in a sinister geopolitical move along with Egypt to derail the dam’s completion. Therefore, his apparent sudden support for the project suggests a cynical move to shore up his own national standing.

Then there is the geopolitical factor of the Trump administration. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump weighed in to the Nile dispute in a way that was seen as bolstering Egypt’s claims. Much to the ire of Ethiopia, Washington warned Addis Ababa not to proceed with the dam until a legally binding accord was found with Egypt.

Thus if Egypt’s al-Sisi feels he has Trump’s backing, he may be tempted to go to war over the Nile. On paper, Egypt has a much stronger military than Ethiopia. It receives $1.4 billion a year from Washington in military aid. Al-Sisi may see Ethiopia as a softer “war option” than Libya where his forces are also being dragged into in a proxy war with Turkey.

Ethiopia, too, is an ally of Washington, but in the grand scheme of geopolitical interests, Cairo would be the preferred client for the United States. Up to now, the Trump administration has endorsed Egypt’s position over the Nile dispute. That may be enough to embolden al-Sisi to go for a showdown with Ethiopia. For Trump, being on the side of Egypt may be calculated to give his flailing Middle East policies some badly needed enthusiasm among Arab nations. Egypt has the backing of the Arab League, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Egypt has previously threatened to sabotage Ethiopia’s dam. How it would do this presents logistical problems. Egypt is separated from Ethiopia to its south by the vast territory of Sudan. Cairo has a strong air force of U.S.-supplied F-16s while Ethiopia has minimal air defenses, relying instead on a formidable infantry army.

Another foreboding sign is the uptick in visits to Cairo by Eritrean autocratic leader Isaias Afwerki. He has held two meetings with al-Sisi at the presidential palace in the Egyptian capital in as many months, the most recent being on July 6 when the two leaders again discussed “regional security” and Ethiopia’s dam. Eritrea provides a Red Sea corridor into landlocked Ethiopia which would be more advantageous to Cairo than long flights across Sudan.

Nominally, Eritrea and Ethiopia signed a peace deal in July 2018 to end nearly two decades of Cold War, for which Ethiopia’s Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the Eritrean leader may be tempted to dip back into bad blood if it boosted his coffers from Arab money flowing in return for aiding Egypt.

There will be plenty of platitudinous calls for diplomacy and negotiated settlement from Washington, the African Union and the Arab League. But there is an underlying current for war that may prove unstoppable driven by two populous and thirsty nations whose leaders are badly in need of shoring up their political authority amid internal discontent.

The series of debilitating military setbacks that Libya’s renegade general Khalifa Haftar suffered in recent months have spurred diplomatic activities over the conflict in the country. But the war is far from over.

Haftar’s dream of capturing Tripoli from the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj has been dashed. Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) has retreated from several cities northwest of Tripoli, near the border with Tunisia, as well as the al-Watiya airbase, a strategic asset southwest of the capital.

A comeback by Haftar can only take place in the fullness of time and that too, if his mentors—France, Egypt, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Russia—repose confidence in him still. Haftar seems to have overreached, and the present setback dents his credibility.

Egypt reacted swiftly by getting Haftar and Aguila Saleh Issa, the head of the Tobruk-based House of Representatives—the third protagonist in the Libyan strife—over to Cairo for a patch-up, following which, on June 6, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi announced a grandiose roadmap called the Cairo Declaration to end the Libyan conflict.

The Cairo Declaration envisages a ceasefire starting June 8 (which didn’t happen) followed by “disbanding militias, handing over their arms, pulling out foreign forces, electing a ruling presidential council representing all Libyans and drafting of a constitutional declaration to regulate elections for later stages.”

Sisi’s Cairo Declaration has been welcomed by the Gulf states and Russia, while the GNA backed by Turkey remains disinterested and hopes to make some more territorial gains so as to be able to negotiate from a position of strength. The GNA and Turkey estimate—rightly so—that any respite at this point will be utilized by Haftar and his backers to recoup and plan anew to return to the battlefield to make another bid to rule Libya.

In immediate terms, the bone of contention is the port city of Sirte and the al-Jufra airbase in the central region. Sirte is adjacent to the so-called “oil crescent” comprising Libya’s key oil terminals, and the GNA and Turkey intend to gain control over them.

As for al-Jufra airbase, the GNA and Turkey fear that Russia, which has a presence there, must be preempted from consolidating by bringing in reinforcements of mercenaries.

In tactical terms, the GNA and Turkey calculate that if the military pressure continues on Haftar, it will weaken him further, making it easier to eliminate him from the Libyan chessboard forever, depriving his backers of a surrogate figure.

For the first time after the latest phase of the conflict unfolded, Russian President Vladimir Putin engaged his Turkish counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone conversation on June 10. The Kremlin readout said:

“During their in-depth discussion of the developments in Libya, they expressed their concerns over the continued large-scale armed clashes in the country… Vladimir Putin noted that it was important to adhere to a ceasefire as soon as possible and to resume the intra-Libyan dialogue based on the decisions of the Berlin International Conference on January 19, 2020, and approved by UN Security Council Resolution 2510, as well as other initiatives aimed at a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict.”

Interestingly, Ankara refrained from issuing any customary press release regarding the conversation. Turkish media merely reported, citing presidential sources in Ankara, that the two leaders “discussed tensions in Libya and Syria’s Idlib province.” Evidently, Turkey didn’t want to commit to a ceasefire yet.

Prior to engaging with Erdogan, Putin had also held discussions with Egyptian President Sisi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (who had called him) to take a coordinated stance on the Cairo Declaration as a basis for UN-sponsored intra-Libyan talks.

If Moscow’s intention was to hustle Erdogan, it hasn’t worked. Erdogan is hanging tough. It remains to be seen whether Erdogan would give up his military campaign to capture Sirte and the al-Jufra airbase when Haftar’s forces are demoralized and his mentors are still groping for a way forward. On the other hand, Russia is unlikely to give up the base easily and will bring in mercenaries to counter the GNA offensive.

According to reports, Russia recently transferred over a dozen fighter jets to al-Jufra. Turkey anticipates that Russia has plans to turn al-Jufra into a military base. The specter of Russia establishing a military base in Libya also haunts the U.S. and NATO. On June 10, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg regarding Libya as well as general security issues.

There is a congruence between Ankara, Brussels and Washington that any moves to establish a Russian military base in Libya must be preempted, as that would foreclose NATO’s planned intervention in Libya and future expansion plans in Africa, apart from weakening the alliance’s dominance of the Mediterranean while Russia strengthens its presence in the eastern Mediterranean and challenges Turkey’s historical preeminence in the region.

Indeed, a big contingent of Turkish forces and large quantities of weapons and aircraft have been transported audaciously across the Mediterranean along sea lanes and air space that are closely monitored by NATO, European Union and the United States. Yet, there has not been a single instance of interception—although there is a UN embargo on arms supplies to Libya.

Following a phone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump on June 8 in which Libya was the main topic of discussion, Erdogan claimed that a “new era can begin” in Turkish-American relations. He added, “We had reached some consensus in the conversation… They [U.S.] are also curious about the developments in Libya. He [Trump] has confirmed the developments and that we [Turkey] are successful in Libya.”

Erdogan stressed, “Now the goal is to take Sirte completely, including the surroundings of Sirte. These are the regions where oil wells are located. It will be much more comfortable as soon as they are handled.” Clearly, Erdogan calculates that Turkey’s success in Libya holds the potential to shape its relations with the United States.

Erdogan is all pumped up. As a top Saudi establishment commentator, Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, wrote on June 9, “In a move of a kind not seen since the fall of the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago, Turkey crossed the Mediterranean.”

But Trump has since sprung a surprise by voicing support for a ceasefire. Washington is apprehensive over reports that Egypt may send its forces into Libya to stem the tide of the Turkish intervention. Besides, Turkey’s belligerence has prompted Greece, its perennial rival, to enter the fray, which puts two NATO countries at loggerheads.

No doubt, the Gulf states and Egypt remain stakeholders in Libya. The GNA is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and there is hardly any scope for compromise. Although the GNA’s territorial control has doubled, it still controls only less than one-fifth of Libya, while LNA remains in possession of something like 60 percent of the country, including the oil fields.

Of course, if the Turkish forces seize Sirte and Benghazi, that would phenomenally change the rules of the game in Libya and throughout the region. But it is a bit early to speak of that.

counterpunch.org

In doing so, the White House is running the risk of alienating good relations with African nations. It appears that Trump is willing to trade that African loss for gaining leverage over Arab nations in pursuit of his Middle East ambitions.

Last week, Trump publicly backed Egypt in the dispute with Ethiopia over the latter’s construction of a $5 billion dam on the Nile – the world’s longest river. The project has been underway since 2011 and has over the years engendered a bitter row between Cairo and Addis Ababa. Egypt is concerned that it will be deprived of downstream river water which is critical for its agriculture centered along the Nile Valley.

For its part, Ethiopia claims that because it is the territorial source of the Blue Nile (the main tributary to the river), it therefore has sovereign right to harness the resource for its development.

Once the hydroelectric dam – the biggest in Africa – becomes operational it is hoped that it will meet Ethiopia’s electricity needs for its 100 million population and, in addition, be able to export power to surrounding nations.

Egypt points to a colonial-era treaty brokered with Britain in 1929 which ostensibly gives Cairo veto rights over development projects by other nations which share the Nile River. Ethiopia claims that treaty is obsolete.

On February 28, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin intervened in the river row and cautioned Ethiopia not to proceed with filling the dam until it had Egypt’s final agreement. Ethiopia is planning to fill the dam over seven years to a capacity of 74 billion cubic meters. The Egyptians contend that the proposed rate of filling will be detrimental to its share of the Nile waters. The Ethiopians say technical studies show no loss to downstream nations.

Following Mnuchin’s intervention, President Trump further infuriated Ethiopia last week by giving his backing to Egypt’s position.

Washington had up to then been taking a neutral stance on the matter, saying that it was acting as a mediator between Egypt and Ethiopia, both of which have strong ties with the US.

However, there seems to have been a recent change in calculus by the Trump White House. And the answer to that shift most likely resides in Trump’s ambition to gain leverage with Arab states in order to push his lackluster Middle East plans.

The 22-member Arab League resolved last week to back Egypt’s claims against Ethiopia over the Nile. That resolution will put pressure on Addis Ababa to refrain from going ahead with its plans to begin filling the dam.

By supporting Egypt’s position in the Nile dispute, the Trump White House appears to be seeking ingratiation with the Arab nations, specifically on the issue of his “deal of the century” peace plan between Israel and Palestine.

Significantly, the Arab League voted unanimously last month to reject Trump’s much-vaunted proposal for resolving that Mideast conflict. Even U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt have spurned the White House’s roadmap for peace as not delivering on “the minimum rights and aspirations of Palestinian people.”

Moreover, the Arab states have vowed to not cooperate with the Trump administration in implementing its Mideast proposal, which they view as a capitulation to Israel’s annexation of Palestinian lands after the 1967 Six Day War. Arab leaders are no doubt mindful too of the popular anger over what is seen as betrayal of the Palestinian cause.

Without token Arab support that means Trump’s much-hyped “deal of the century” is dead in the water. The president has been bragging for the past four years about how his presumed business genius would break through the decades-old conflict. To have forged a semblance of a deal to settle one of the world’s most-protracted wars would have boosted Trump’s re-election kudos.

This would explain why the White House is taking a sudden interest in the Nile impasse between Egypt and Ethiopia. By stridently advocating for Cairo, Trump is bidding to win over Arab states which might then be more amenable about endorsing his dubious Middle East plan.

But by derailing the Blue Nile dam project that move comes with a cost. Ethiopia and other East African nations, including Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, which would stand to benefit from greater access to hydroelectric power will view the Trump administration as depriving them of development plans. Other nations of the 54-member African Union will also see Washington as a Neo-colonial interloper, interfering in their affairs in favor of Arab states.

Last month when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo embarked on an Africa tour, it was viewed as an “anti-China mission”, whereby Washington was trying to proffer strategic partnership with Africa in place of China. It looks like Trump is about to blow that gambit in Africa over his Middle East ambitions.

Or maybe the “business genius” simply has a problem playing chess with tiddlywinks tactics.

While Donald Trump shocked the world by admitting that he is entertaining purchasing the world’s largest island, Greenland, from Denmark, regardless of the fact that it is not for sale, there are other island moves taking place in the Middle East, Indian Ocean, South Pacific, and elsewhere. What makes Trump’s obsession unique is that Trump appears to think that an island like Greenland that is under duress from global warming is prime for a hostile takeover bid. While that may be a business strategy in Trump’s cut-throat world of high-end real estate, it is not acceptable in the world of diplomacy and international relations.

When a Manhattan hotel is sold, the purchase agreement does not include all of the hotel’s occupants. Greenland’s population is 57,000, 88 percent of whom are native Inuit. There is little chance that the Inuit citizens of Greenland would want to become part of a country whose president repeatedly calls a US senator “Pocahontas” and disparages the treaty rights of Native American tribal nations. Nor would the Inuit, as well as the ethnic Danish minority, want to sacrifice their top-notch national health care system for one of the worst in the industrialized world.

Another strategic island, Socotra, which lies in an important shipping channel in the Gulf of Aden, is currently a highly-contested prize between the United Arab Emirates, the internationally-recognized government of the Yemen Arab Republic – exiled in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the South Yemeni secessionist Southern Transition Council (STC) – which is backed by the UAE and seeks restoral of South Yemen’s former independent status, and the British colonial era Mahra State of Qishn and Socotra, which is supported by Oman, where the pretender to the throne of Qishn and Socotra, Sheikh Abdullah Al Afrar, is headquartered when he is not present in Socotra. Socotrans have grown tired of the presence of Emirati and Saudi troops on their pristine island, called the “Galapagos of the Indian Ocean” due to the presence of flora and fauna not found anywhere else in the world. During the final 75 years of the Mahra State, the Mahra sultans ruled their British protectorate from Hadiboh, the capital city of Socotra.

There are significant historical links between the Mahra and Omani sultans and Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said has avoided participation in the Saudi-led coalition that is battling Houthi-led rebels who have taken control of much of North Yemen. The UAE, which took over control of Socotra’s airport and seaport, views Socotra as a key link between the UAE, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea. There has been some talk of the UAE leasing Socotra for 99 years. However, just as Greenland and Denmark have told Washington that Greenland is not for sale, the Socotrans and Mahra State, backed by Oman, have told Abu Dhabi that Socotra is not for lease.

To the south in the Indian Ocean, the UN General Assembly voted on May 22, 2019 to set a six-month deadline for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the Chagos Archipelago, which is claimed by Mauritius. In 1967, the British expelled the native Chagossians from the archipelago to make way for a major US military base on Diego Garcia. Mauritius, which became home to many Chagossian refugees, wants the original inhabitants resettled on their islands. London and Washington are balking at any such notion.

While Borneo, the world’s third largest island after Greenland and New Guinea, is part of Indonesia, the announcement by Indonesian President Joko Widodo that Indonesia will move its capital city from Jakarta to the northeastern part of Borneo will forever change the nature of Borneo. Half of Jakarta is currently below sea-level, a situation that has been caused by a combination of depletion of ground water and rising sea levels due to climate change. Current plans are to move Indonesia’s capital to a forested area between the East Kalimantan province cities of Balikpapan and Samarinda.

The new capital will be close to Eastern Malaysia’s states of Sabah and Sarawak and the Sultanate of Brunei. Like the Amazon Basin, East Kalimantan province’s rain forests have also earned it the title of “lungs of the world.” Environmentalists are concerned about the effect the new capital city will have on forest destruction, an issue that currently plagues the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Borneo is home to three secessionist movements. The Kalimantan Dayaks and Malays favor independence or unification with Malaysia. However, there are also nascent secessionist movements in Sarawak and Sabah that seek a complete break with Peninsular Malaysia. It remains to be seen how Indonesia’s new capital will be viewed by Kalimantan secessionists.

Two uninhabited islands in the Red Sea between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Tiran and Sanafir, have been the subject of a virtual tug-of-war between the Saudis and Egyptians. In 2016, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said during a press conference with visiting Saudi King Salman, that the two islands would be transferred to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis insisted that they only temporarily transferred administration of Tiran and Sanafir to Egypt in 1950 in order to protect the islands from being occupied by Israel. In 1956, Israel did occupy the islands, but they were transferred back to Egypt following the 1978 Camp David accord between Israel and Egypt.

In response to the transfer of the islands, Egyptian protesters demanded that the Egyptian government not go through with the deal because it violated the terms of the Egyptian Constitution, which requires a national referendum is required before any change to Egypt’s borders. The Saudis plan to build a causeway via the two islands linking Saudi Arabia to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Many Egyptians are keenly aware that the Saudi military crossed the Saudi causeway with Bahrain to help brutally put down a popular revolt by Bahraini citizens. They fear the same will occur with the Saudi causeway to Egypt.

Global climate change also resulted in one government, that of the rising sea level threatened South Pacific nation of Kiribati, to purchase land on the Fijian island of Vanua Levu that in the future would become the home to Kiribati’s climate change refugees and become an ex-situ seat of government for Kiribati. The 6,000 acres bought in 2014 by Kiribati’s then-president, Anote Tong, was seen as a model for how other threatened nations, including Tuvalu, Nauru, and Maldives, might maintain their identity and independence long after they disappeared beneath the waves. Tong called the project “migration with dignity.” Tong’s successor, Taneti Mamau, changed Tong’s plans. Rather than move to higher ground on Vanua Levu, Mamau now favors dealing with climate change effects in Kiribati. He said he favors leaving the future of Kiribati and the I-Kiribati people in God’s hands. That comes as little comfort to the people of the crowded Kiribati capital in South Tarawa, Abaiang, and other islands dealing with the effects of saltwater contamination of fresh ground water, ruined crops, and inundated houses.

From Washington and Jakarta to Copenhagen and Abu Dhabi island fever has taken hold with new real estate development plans at the forefront of major political and financial decisions.

A white, Christian Zionist, American Secretary of State gave a speech in Egypt – a conservative Muslim country, where the Muslim Brotherhood was born, where some of the most conservative Muslim thinkers are from and the home of Al Azhar University; the internationally renowned and recognized Islamic academic center – where he celebrated his country’s resounding support for Israel. To add insult to injury, the Secretary of State proudly noted that “President Trump campaigned on the promise to recognize Jerusalem – the seat of Israel’s government – as the nation’s capital. In May, we moved our embassy there”.

Pompeo went on to use this “platform” in Egypt to lambast President Obama, the first American president of African, Muslim heritage; bashing him and holding him responsible for ills in American foreign policy and in the Middle East.

The whole event is incongruous, to say the least; a black comedy!

Pompeo assured us that “It is a truth that isn’t often spoken in this part of the world… America is a force for good in the Middle East.” An example of this honorable American “force for good” in the Middle East, he noted, is the presence of “US military personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia and major bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the Emirates. They are there at the invitation of the host country.” This raised two points:

First, why are American military personnel in the Gulf countries? Trump had answered this question, regarding Saudi Arabia specifically, at a rally in October 2018 in Southaven, Mississippi. He clarified the US role in Saudi Arabia, saying “We protect Saudi Arabia. Would you say they’re rich? And I love the King, King Salman. But I said: King – we’re protecting you – you might not be there for two weeks without us – you have to pay for your military” This is NOT a force for good.

Second, Pompeo stated that Americans are in the Gulf countries at the invitation of the host countries which makes it legitimate and legal. However, Pompeo declared that “In Syria, the United States will use diplomacy and work with our partners to expel every last Iranian boot”. It is kosher for America to be in a country at the invitation of the host country to protect its political system, but is it not kosher for Iran to be in Syria at the invitation of the host country to protect its political system?

Thus, America in the Middle East is not “a force for good”, but a force to protect oppressive and expansionist authoritarian regimes on the one hand and exploit the resources of the host country on the other.

Pompeo came up with another curious assertion: “We learned that when America retreats, chaos often follows.” Vietnam descended into total chaos following the American invasion and started the process of recovery after the American retreat. Iraq descended into total chaos following the 2003 American invasion and so did Syria, following the American and American allies’ invasion during the recent civil war. Both countries are on the way of recovery with the reduction of American military involvement. A notion is developing in the Middle East, and to some degree worldwide, that Israel and, its closest ally the US, threaten international peace and security.

In another part of the speech, Pompeo said that America, along with allies and partners, dismantled “the Islamic State’s caliphate, liberating Iraqis, Syrians Arabs and Kurds…” However, he ignored the fact that it was the US, and particularly its allies in the region, who recruited and encouraged terrorists from all over the world to come to Syria and opened their borders to these terrorists to gather in Syria. Once in Syria, these terrorists were provided money and weapons to establish the Islamic State’s Caliphate.

Wittingly, or unwittingly, Pompeo gave the green light to Israel to wage a war against Iran. He said, “We strongly support Israel’s efforts to stop Tehran from turning Syria into the next Lebanon”. This is another example of America not being “a force for good”, but a force for war and destruction.

Another curious assertion by Pompeo: “America has always been, and always will be, a liberating force, not an occupying power.” This brings back to memory the tragic Vietnam War and the American Mỹ Lai Massacre: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”.

The low point in Pompeo’s speech, and there were several, was when he said with a straight face that “Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries contributed towards stabilization efforts” in Syria. Tell that to the Syrians who, in this brutally cold winter, are facing shortages of heating fuel, cooking fuel and electric power.

President Abraham Lincoln is often credited for having said: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” It is loud and clear that Pompeo, and beyond him the American administrations in recent decades, have forgotten Lincoln’s admonition and try to fool all the people all the time.

Photo: Flickr

From this we gather that Pompeo is a strong advocate of democratic governance and will always make it clear that the United States supports unfortunate people living in countries having “authoritarian regimes.” It is apparent he must believe in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”

Unfortunately it transpired that Pompeo is a selective supporter of democracy and freedom of religion, because after he left Brazil and went to the Middle East he voiced vigorous support for despots who rule countries in a manner that is undeniably authoritarian.

In a speech in Cairo on January 10 Pompeo threatened Iran and declared that “Nations are rallying to our side to confront the regime like never before. Egypt, Oman, Kuwait, and Jordan have all been instrumental in thwarting Iran’s efforts to evade sanctions.” It must be gratifying for him that these nations have joined the US in its crusade against Iran, three of them being hereditary monarchies and one run by a non-regal martinet.

Oman, for example, is “an absolute monarchy by male primogeniture. The Sultan, Qaboos bin Said al Said, has been the hereditary leader of the country since 1970.” Freedom House notes that “The regime restricts virtually all political rights and civil liberties, and imposes criminal penalties for criticism and dissent… Political parties are not permitted, and the authorities do not tolerate other forms of organized political opposition.”

In Jordan “the monarch holds wide executive and legislative powers, including the appointment of the prime minister and all seats of the senate. The monarch approves and dismisses judges; signs, executes or vetoes all laws; and can suspend or dissolve parliament.”

The leader of Kuwait, the Amir, according to the CIA Factbook, is “chosen from within the ruling family, confirmed by the National Assembly; the prime minister and deputy prime ministers are appointed by the Amir.” In this autocracy, according to Human Rights Watch, there are “no laws prohibiting domestic violence or marital rape… a man who finds his mother, wife, sister or daughter in the act of adultery and kills them is punished by either a small fine or no more than three years in prison.”

Pompeo wants “democratic governance and human rights” in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Why not in Oman, Jordan and Kuwait?

The only one of Pompeo’s countries not ruled by a supreme monarch is Egypt, whose president is Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi who “was elected in May 2014, almost a year after he removed his elected predecessor, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi, from office in a coup.” Sisi “won a second four-year-term in March 2018 against a sole minor opposition candidate. Human rights lawyer Khalid Ali and former prime minister Ahmad Shafiq withdrew from the race, and the former armed forces chief of staff Sami Anan was arrested.”

In his warmongering anti-Iran, anti-Syria speech Pompeo announced that his visit to Egypt was “especially meaningful for me as an evangelical Christian, coming so soon after the Coptic Church’s Christmas celebrations” and visited the Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ and the Al-Fattah Al-Alim mosque where he praised Egypt’s “freedoms here in this houses [sic] of worship, these big, beautiful, gorgeous buildings where the Lord is clearly at work.”

He ignored Amnesty International’s statement that in Egypt “the authorities continued to violate the right to freedom of religion by discriminating against Christians.” His own Department recorded that last year “Irrespective of religion, authorities also did not apply equal protection to all citizens and sometimes closed churches, in violation of the law, according to multiple sources.”

The bigotry of the Egyptian regime and its clerics was epitomised on January 13 when Al Azhar University which is responsible for “a national network of schools with approximately two million students” expelled a female student for being hugged by a male friend. The scandal was revealed in a video clip which “showed a young man carrying a bouquet of flowers kneeling before a young woman and then hugging her in what appeared to be a marriage proposal.” According to a University spokesman this violates “the values and principles of society”. There was not a word from Pompeo, that self-declared admirer of Egyptian places of worship where “the Lord is clearly at work.”

Pompeo continued his tour of the region, and next day, as he landed in Saudi Arabia, the Egyptian regime announced that for the seventh time it had extended its state of emergency which “allows authorities to take exceptional security measures, including the referral of terrorism suspects to state security courts, the imposition of curfews and the confiscation of newspapers.” This would be supported in Saudi Arabia where, as chronicled by Freedom House, the “absolute monarchy restricts almost all political rights and civil liberties. No officials at the national level are elected. The regime relies on extensive surveillance, the criminalization of dissent, appeals to sectarianism, and public spending supported by oil revenues to maintain power. Women and religious minorities face extensive discrimination in law and in practice.”

This discrimination was highlighted by the New York Times on January 13 when it published an Op-Ed by Alia al-Houthlal that implored Pompeo to ask Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman to release her sister, the women’s rights activist, Loujain al-Houthlal, who is imprisoned in Riyadh. Ms Alia al-Houthlal wrote that her sister had been tortured in prison, and that a close associate of bin Salman, Saud al-Qahtani, who has been named in connection with the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi [brutally killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 last year], was present at several torture sessions.

The Times reported that Pompeo began his conversation with bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, by saying “I want to talk to you about a couple of places we’ve been. We think we learned a lot along the way that will be important going forward.” There was no mention of the torture of Loujain al-Houthlal or any other gross violations of human rights in Saudi Arabia where the regime continues to “repress peaceful activists and dissidents, harassing writers, online commentators and others who exercised their right to freedom of expression by expressing views against government policies.”

There was none of that embarrassing stuff. It was all skated over, with Pompeo saying only that “we spoke about human rights issues here in Saudi Arabia – women activists. We spoke about the accountability that – and the expectations that we have. The Saudis are friends, and when friends have conversations, you tell them what your expectations are.”

Pompeo’s expectations include joint action with the Saudi regime and other Middle East autocracies to “counter Iranian malign influence,” which he regards as an even higher priority than “working against authoritarian regimes” in Latin America, which Washington is determined to dominate. Pompeo’s objections to authoritarianism are highly selective, for in his Cairo speech he confined himself to describing Iran “malevolent,” and “oppressive” while denouncing “Iranian expansion” and “regional destruction,” which is a trifle ironic, coming from a Secretary of State whose military devastated Iran’s neighbours, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pompeo’s ethical approach is decidedly ambiguous and his moral flexibility would attract the admiration of a trampoline gymnast. His Cairo speech was titled “A Force for Good: America's Reinvigorated Role in the Middle East,” but it is apparent that reinvigoration is confined to plans for destruction of Iran, in which Washington will be assisted by Pompeo’s friends — the Middle East’s authoritarian regimes.