Saturday, August 31, 2013

Obama -- "Repeal AUMF"

This afternoon's remarks by the president may sound new or ad hoc to those who have not been paying attention, but they are consistent with views he has expressed in the past, most recently three months ago at the National Defense University. 
Look at this...
AUMF Repeal: Obama Once Again Stands Up For Democracy
Medha Chandorkar
[May 23, 2013], during a speech at the National Defense University, President Obama took an unexpected step towards the first real peace-time that America has seen since 2001 by advocating for a repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF. 
“Unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don't need to fight, or continue to grant presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states,” stated Obama. “So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF's mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end.” 
The AUMF was passed in 2001 as a response to the 9/11 attacks. Then-President George W. Bush pushed for Congress to allow him to take any “necessary and appropriate force” against all international terrorism, but Congress, recognizing the boundless power that that would entail, limited the mandate to only actions that targeted those who “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the 9/11 attacks. 
Even with this caveat, the AUMF provided the executive branch with unprecedented powers that were easily abused. To name just a few of those abuses, the AUMF has been cited as justification for controversial drone attacks, holding prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, and warrantless surveillance of the American people by the National Security Agency. 
Regardless, Congress is not only considering keeping the AUMF, but expanding it. Recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearings have seen many push to allow the executive to maintain this secretive use of force against all groups that potentially threaten the U.S., even if entirely unrelated to 9/11. What Congress found reprehensible and unconstitutional in 2001, it is now supporting in 2013. 
Thankfully, President Obama is not the kind of politician to jump on the bandwagon. In his aforementioned speech, Obama defied Congress and even members of his own party, simply by stating the facts: Al-Qaeda has mostly been disassembled and is no longer a real threat to the U.S. The U.S. is withdrawing from Afghanistan. We are entering a peacetime state. With the lack of a real, concrete enemy, there is absolutely no need to drag this dwindling conflict into a perpetual and never-ending state of war. And in this vein, Obama is not only openly calling for a repeal of the AUMF, but is also successfully pushing Congress to begin drafting a bill to “sunset” the mandate. 
More transparent military proceedings? Giving the American people back their constitutional rights? Ensuring that other countries aren’t too scared to share intelligence with us? And a president who isn’t afraid to limit his own powers to further democracy? Yes please.
The full text of the president's speech is linked above. It includes these paragraphs:
Now make no mistake: our nation is still threatened by terrorists. From Benghazi to Boston, we have been tragically reminded of that truth. We must recognize, however, that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11. With a decade of experience to draw from, now is the time to ask ourselves hard questions – about the nature of today’s threats, and how we should confront them. 
These questions matter to every American. For over the last decade, our nation has spent well over a trillion dollars on war, exploding our deficits and constraining our ability to nation build here at home. Our service-members and their families have sacrificed far more on our behalf. Nearly 7,000 Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice. Many more have left a part of themselves on the battlefield, or brought the shadows of battle back home. From our use of drones to the detention of terrorist suspects, the decisions we are making will define the type of nation – and world – that we leave to our children. 
So America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison’s warning that “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” Neither I, nor any President, can promise the total defeat of terror. We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society. What we can do – what we must do – is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend. To define that strategy, we must make decisions based not on fear, but hard-earned wisdom. And that begins with understanding the threat we face.
This speech was more about the detainees at Guantanamo than conflicts elsewhere, but he cited the importance of not giving the chief executive, even when it is himself, a blank check. 
All these issues remind us that the choices we make about war can impact – in sometimes unintended ways – the openness and freedom on which our way of life depends. And that is why I intend to engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorists without keeping America on a perpetual war-time footing. 
The AUMF is now nearly twelve years old. The Afghan War is coming to an end. Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. Groups like AQAP must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states. So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.
Here is a link to a transcript of this afternoon's statement to compare and contrast.  

 And while we are looking at interesting factoids, how about Syria's advancing the idea of making the Middle East a WMD-Free Zone?
That's right, but it was over a decade ago when circumstances were quite different.
Here's the link (April 2003)...
Syria has asked the UN Security Council to help transform the Middle East into a "zone free of weapons of mass destruction". Accused by the United States of developing chemical weapons, Syria insists it is not doing so but charges that Washington is ignoring Israel, which is widely assumed to have nuclear weapons. 
Syria has circulated a draft resolution in the 15-nation Security Council, welcoming all initiatives to create a "zone free of weapons of mass destruction, in particular nuclear weapons". 
But the US ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, says Syria is jumping the gun.
"We think the focus at the moment is the search for WMD in Iraq," he said. 
"Secondly, we are conerned about Syria's own WMD and obviously, if a council member or any member of the United Nations proposes a resolution for consideration, we are prepared to consider it, that doesn't mean to adopt it, embrace it or endorse it in any way, shape or form," Mr Negroponte said.
Israel not only is "assumed" to have nuclear weapons, I think she also is not a signatory of either the non-proliferation treaty or the UN chemical weapons convention.
Just saying...
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Saturday Links -- August 31

Center for a New American Century
[...] 
The larger danger of the United States being drawn into yet another war in the Middle East is that it consumes any possibility of seriously advancing an affirmative foreign policy agenda for the President’s second term. Right now the basic foreign policy accomplishments of this administration are three: ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; killing Bin Laden; and rebalancing to Asia. The first two are major accomplishments but they essentially involved navigating through inherited challenges. Rebalancing to Asia is really the only affirmative foreign policy accomplishment that is likely to resonate beyond the daily headlines into the history books. 
In the blink of an eye the first year of the second term will be over. Three years is not a lot of time to create new affirmative opportunities in foreign policy, reorient U.S. tools of statecraft in a meaningful way, and lock-in lasting accomplishments. Therefore any decision to use force in the Middle East needs to be considered as possibly obviating any chance to make substantial further forward progress in rebalancing to Asia.

As pressing as the challenge in Syria seems to be, it is not the long game. The story of the first fifty years of the 21st century will be the rise of China and India as major global players—superpowers even—affecting the very fiber of the international system in substantial ways simply by their rates of growth coupled with newly outward-looking foreign policies and national security interests. Closely intertwined with this fifty-year story will be whether or not President Obama and his successors husbanded and nurtured U.S. sources of economic, diplomatic, and military power in ways that helped secure American security and prosperity in a very competitive international environment.  [More at the link.]



C Fred Bergsten at the Peterson Institute is orgasmic about Sweden's deregulation drift.
Sweden’s economic growth has been much higher than that of the rest of Western Europe, or the United States, since 2006. Data from the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that Sweden has one of the lowest inflation rates in Europe; it runs a budget surplus every year; its corporate tax rates are considerably lower than U.S. rates; and it spends more on research and development, as a share of its economy, than we do. Its firms are highly competitive in the world economy, and it runs sizable current-account surpluses. 
After its crisis, Sweden reduced public expenditures by 20 percent of its gross domestic product, slashing social transfers such as unemployment benefits and sick-leave compensation. It cut its public debt in half (its debt, as a proportion of the economy, is now about half that of the United States). It cut marginal tax rates and simplified its tax code so much that nearly two-thirds of Swedes simply confirm by phone that the declaration automatically prepared for them by the tax authorities is correct. The banking system was thoroughly reformed and emerged unscathed from the global financial crises. 
Structural reforms were also adopted. Successive governments deregulated one market after another and privatized as market conditions permitted. All children receive vouchers so their parents can choose private or public schools at public expense. Swedish social security became a true insurance system, rather than a pay-as-you-go one with huge unfunded liabilities as in the United States.
Sweden remains a social welfare society, and government spending still accounts for half of its economy; it finances all education and health care, as is common throughout Europe. Sweden did not dismantle the social system but, in addition to drastically reducing its costs, adopted macroeconomic and structural reforms to make it sustainable and greatly enhanced its efficiency by privatizing the delivery of many educational and medical services. The country’s guiding principle is that a successful social welfare society must be fiscally conservative and administratively efficient. This is the central Swedish lesson for the crisis countries of the euro zone and elsewhere. 
These policies, based on competition and openness, have been implemented and endorsed by most Swedish political parties. They also enjoy an intellectual consensus. The Social Democrats continued the reforms initiated by the center-right and even added a few. The metalworkers’ union accepted major wage cuts at the height of the global crisis to protect its long-run prosperity, and its leader became chairman of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party. In 2010, the government was handily reelected while most European governments were falling because of the crisis. Sweden’s Anders Borg was named Europe’s top finance minister for 2011 by the Financial Times. 
Sweden now combines a social welfare society with a free-market economy and a high degree of government efficiency. The other Scandinavian countries pursue similar policies and have enjoyed similar success (if not quite as spectacular). This subregion of stability demonstrates that, with the right policies, European countries can prosper inside the euro zone (Finland, de facto Denmark) or outside it (Sweden and Norway). Obama should highlight their progress and convey this message of successful reform to his G-20 counterparts in St. Petersburg.
Amid all the excitement it is easy to overlook that "government spending still accounts for half of its economy" and the Scandinavian countries have been welfare states for several generations. And all that petroleum in the North Sea also doesn't hurt. It's no accident that Norway may be the only country in the world with a budget surplus.


Guerre chimique à Damas by lemondefr


I don't want to hear any excuses. Shit like this makes me sick:
...after 29 years on the bench of the 13th District Court in Montana, Judge G. Todd Baugh has brought the national spotlight to Yellowstone County and is hearing calls from across the country for his ouster after he imposed a 30-day sentence in a rape case, and said the 14-year-old victim was “as much in control of the situation” as the high school teacher who ultimately pleaded guilty. The judge also described the teenager as “being older than her chronological age,” even though the age of consent in Montana is 16. 
Perhaps the judge should have just used the words that too many rape victims have heard: “She was asking for it.” 
In this case, though, the victim could not hear those words. She killed herself in February 2010.
Plenty of others have heard those words. Tens of thousands of people have put their names on online petitions calling for Baugh to step down. Protesters crowded the lawn of the courthouse Thursday, vowing to campaign against him if he seeks reelection in 2014. 
The judge, for his part, has apologized for his comments but not for the sentence he imposed.




(Interesting. See Jenan Moussa's message above. Looks like something important is about to happen.)

Prohibition of alcohol, of course, was tried in the United States
and was a disastrous failure. It didn't stop alcohol use,
but it did empower a whole new criminal class. Protection rackets,
organised crime and gangland murders were more common
during Prohibition than when alcohol could be bought legally.






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Debate: The US Has No Dog In The Fight In Syria


Debate: The US Has No Dog In The Fight In Syria from Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates on FORA.tv
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Friday, August 30, 2013

Playing for Time, Waiting & Working for an Implosion

Edward Luttwak's opinion piece in last week's NY Times, In Syria, America Loses if Either Side Wins, is worth revisiting. 
At this point, a prolonged stalemate is the only outcome that would not be damaging to American interests. 
Indeed, it would be disastrous if President Bashar al-Assad’s regime were to emerge victorious after fully suppressing the rebellion and restoring its control over the entire country. Iranian money, weapons and operatives and Hezbollah troops have become key factors in the fighting, and Mr. Assad’s triumph would dramatically affirm the power and prestige of Shiite Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanon-based proxy — posing a direct threat both to the Sunni Arab states and to Israel. 
But a rebel victory would also be extremely dangerous for the United States and for many of its allies in Europe and the Middle East. That’s because extremist groups, some identified with Al Qaeda, have become the most effective fighting force in Syria. If those rebel groups manage to win, they would almost certainly try to form a government hostile to the United States. 
Moreover, Israel could not expect tranquillity on its northern border if the jihadis were to triumph in Syria.
A few days later I came across a detailed taxonomy of Bashar's opposition that could bring a history student to tears. Aron Lund in The Non-State Militant Landscape in Syria opens with this:
The uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that began in 2011 has always been disorganized, and it has become increasingly reliant on foreign support. It has grown large enough, however, to push regime forces out of vast areas of Syria’s north and east. According to a recent estimate by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, an estimated 1,200 rebel groups are currently fighting against the al-Assad government. 
Most of these factions first emerged out of a narrow local context, typically in a rural Sunni Arab village or neighborhood. With the passage of time, however, many have merged into bigger formations and connected across provincial boundaries, creating a web of interlocking alliances. These unity efforts have typically been initiated and sustained by foreign actors, including states, exiled Syrian businessmen and activists, and Islamist aid groups, which thereby gained leverage over their ideological and political agendas. The result is an extraordinarily complex insurgency, trapped in a political dynamic shaped by parochial roots on the one hand and international influences on the other, but seemingly unable to develop effective national actors.
Aron Lund is a freelance Swedish writer and author specializing in Middle Eastern issues. I find nothing with his name at Amazon or my favorite book source, abebooks.com, but anyone whose writing is a resource at West Point is important enough to cite as an expert. His scholarship is apparently well-respected. Here is a link to an "interview" via mail at The Angry Arab. And Josh Landis has an Aron Lund tag keeping up with his contributions to that scholarly blog.

Following a bewildering summary of the Syrian opposition groups, which he suggest represents only the most identifiable, he concludes:
Syria’s insurgent movement remains extraordinarily fractured, even after two years of warfare. The December 2012 creation of the SMC seems to have facilitated cooperation among the insurgents and established a framework for more effective unification, but it is still far from a functioning rebel leadership. Complicating matters further, several of the insurgency’s strongest factions—including the SIF, both al-Qa`ida wings, and the Kurdish YPG—actively oppose the SMC. The SMC’s influence is likely to grow only if it receives unified and sustained foreign support, including more advanced weapons, but the success of such a strategy depends on the uncertainties of American, European and Arab politics.
Regime forces, though more cohesive, are not in much better shape. In the opening paragraph he stated "[t]he Syrian regime has also begun to experience a fragmentation of its security apparatus, caused by its increased reliance on local and foreign militia forces, although these problems are still in their early stages." He ends by repeating that critical point.
Bashar al-Assad’s government is also becoming increasingly dependent on paramilitary groups, including autonomous or foreign-led militias. Their support has improved al-Assad’s staying power in many areas, but it also underlines the regime’s gradual loss of sovereignty and cohesion. The Ba`ath government’s strict messaging discipline and the centrality of Bashar al-Assad himself has delayed and obfuscated this slow unwinding of the state, but not stayed it. If the war drags on long enough, the al-Assad regime is likely to devolve into a decentralized patchwork of sectarian and client militias, only superficially resembling Syria’s pre-2011 dictatorship.
It is clear to me, as it must be to anyone paying attention, that the Syrian civil war is like one of those wildfires now burning up hundreds of square miles of the American West. It is too destructive and too important to ignore, but beyond the ability of any outside group to bring under control. Containment is the only rational response, along with all the diplomatic, economic and other resources available to minimize the damage. Following the wild fire analogy, military intervention is the equivalent to setting back-fires, or fighting fire with fire.

But in light of Lund's analysis, the argument for containment is more compelling than bringing matters to an early end. The Syrian civil war more nearly resembles a hostage situation than the usual struggle for hegemony. As Luttwak points out, America loses no matter what the outcome. No one is saying so, but as in the case of a hostage crisis, time is on our side. 

Misha Glenny, another scholarly expert expert of the region, made a strong point in a brief opinion piece today. 
The Syrian situation is not only about the use of chemical weapons (momentous though that may be). It threatens the stability of the entire region, beginning with Lebanon, because it is making the political dynamics in all neighboring countries even more volatile.
In the years after 1618, the attempts by tiny principalities in central Europe to challenge the status quo acted as a vortex, sucking in almost every major power. The now fragmented territories of Syria can exert a similar force on the neighborhood and beyond. 
The second similarity lies in the question of how you solve this. At the start of the First World War, the Balkans were referred to as a powder keg. One could have imagined the same being said about the myriad territories of the Holy Roman Empire in 1618. 
In fact, the Balkans of the early twentieth century weren’t powder kegs; the various principalities, Palatinates, free cities, and Imperial concessions of the seventeenth century weren’t, either. They were merely detonators laid by the great powers. 
Today’s Syrian detonator can only be disarmed if the outside parties who are indirectly engaged in the conflict are prepared to find a compromise agreement. This means the United States hammering out a deal with Russia. This agreement would then need to include the three major regional powers, Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Iran and Saudi Arabia would have to lean on their proxies to accept any deal, and Israel would have to take the peace negotiations with the Palestinians seriously.
It is certain that all the diplomatic resources of America and every ally with whom we claim even a shred of influence are diligently working toward a post-Syrian-civil-war roadmap. We can thank Edward Snowden and Private Manning for insuring that behind the scenes negotiations are now kept tightly under wraps. Call me a blind optimist, but I have confidence that the president and his staff are aware of the realities I have outlined, and are playing for time, looking for non-military openings, to contain this fire.

Glenny is not optimistic. 
What are the chances of that? The square root of very little. So with no viable political or diplomatic talks on track, I think we can be confident that regardless of whether the West intervenes or not, things are about to get very nasty.
I can only hope he is wrong.
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George Galloway Opposes Bombing Syria



One of the most colorful and persuasive speakers in Parliament makes compelling arguments against taking military action against Syria. 


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Morning Reading -- August 30

This morning's best discovery is Greg Djerejian has a Twitter account. I missed the first five hundred or so messages but I'm following him now. He will RT what he reads (I always like to know what smart people are reading) but he has a gift for trenchant prose like this...

...and a memory like this... 

His blog, Belgravia Dispatch was part of the intellectual bedrock of the web, but a blog takes too much time and energy, so it went fallow for a few years -- except when something happened that really pushed his button. 

This morning's commentary on the Syrian Non-intervention Technicolor Dreamcoat sez in part...
This past 72-96 hours have been a titanic embarrassment for anyone who cares about U.S. foreign policy. It appears a rush job to beat the St. Petersburg summitry on a quiet August weekend that everyone hopes will be quickly forgotten, except for the mighty 'lesson' learned. It’s worse than unprofessional and cowardly. It’s contemptible in the extreme. Make it stop. Declare the orgy of speculation and movement of naval carriers have already doubtless ensured the boy dictator will think more carefully in the future using such weaponry. Mission accomplished! Better than risking gross unintended consequences by a team that, alternatively, does not really have the stomach for the fight, or are simply not up to it strategy-wise, and in the President's case, perhaps both.
Go read the rest. 
And welcome back to the fight, Mr. Djerejian.


~~~~§§§~~~~


The decision by parliament did not spring from nowhere. A good deal of public and elite opinion in Britain remains badly bruised by former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s rampant enthusiasm for the US neocons’ drive to invade Iraq ten years ago. In a series of enquiries, Blair was badly tarnished — enquires that were not even contemplated in the United States for members of the administration of
President George W. Bush who got so much so wrong. In one of the most telling phrases, the Blair government was accused (with reason) of having concocted a “dodgy dossier” to support claims that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. While there was nothing quite as telling as US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council, which was, in the old British phrase, “economical with the truth,” there were the revelations that intelligence was to be “fixed” around conclusions that the Iraqi WMD did exist. “Fixed,” in this context, meant that the US was determined to go to war, come what may, and the British would go along or, more correctly, would be in the van.

Thus it should not have been that surprising that the lack of clarity in the intelligence picture about the source of the August 21st chemical weapons attacks in Syria led a lot of people in Britain, including in all three major political parties, to express doubts, so much so that the British now have to be ruled out of any military action that the US government might choose to initiate.


Here is the sixty-four dollar question.
Will Congress Block an Attack on Syria?
Congress members are clamoring to be consulted, but few publicly oppose intervention.
BY Cole Stangler
Excerpt: 
As the Obama administration mulls its course of action, opposition is slowly emerging in Congress, which is scheduled to be on summer recess until September 9. So far, nearly all of that opposition has focused not on the intervention itself, but on the executive branch’s lack of consultation with Congress.
Two main letters—one signed mostly by Republicans and the other signed by all Democrats—make essentially the same demand: that Congress be able to fulfill its constitutional obligation of approving any declaration of war. But Obama might argue that an attack on Syria would not amount to war. The president did not obtain congressional approval prior to the U.S. intervention in Libya in March 2011. 
On Wednesday, Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) sent a letter to the White House demanding that the President consult Congress before taking any action. The letter has 140 signatories as of Thursday afternoon, including a handful of Democrats. The letter also calls for Congress to reconvene at the President’s request. 
Meanwhile, on Thursday afternoon, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) sent another letter to the White House with the signatures of 54 Democratic members of Congress. The letter asks for “an affirmative decision of Congress prior to committing any U.S. military engagement to this complex crisis.” 
But while a growing number of legislators have raised objections on constitutional or procedural grounds, far fewer members of Congress have actually offered critiques of an eventual intervention itself. A recent poll found that a majority of Americans, 60 percent of respondents, were against intervening in Syria. Only 9 percent said they were in favor.
Bitching about leadership and responsibility seems to be part of the Congressional job description. They do it so awfully well -- and often. But when it comes time for individual members to go on the record the amount of equivocation, denial and dodging makes the administration's response to l'affaire Benghazi look like a model of transparency.  The US Congress, like the British parliament, now has a splendid opportunity to take a clear stand for or against a specific proposed military action.
No 'slam dunk' is the new Sixteen Words.  
Compared with parliament, Congress looks pusillanimous. 
~~~~§§§~~~~
BERLIN, JULY 25:
Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who exposed the most extensive US global surveillance operations, was today awarded this year’s German “Whistleblower Prize” worth $3,900 in absentia.

“Mr Snowden has done a great public service by exposing the massive and unsuspecting monitoring and storage of communication data by US and other western intelligence agencies, which cannot be accepted in democratic societies,” Berlin-based whistleblower prize jury said in a statement.

Top secret National Security Agency documents leaked by Snowden since the beginning of June “made it possible and unavoidable” intensive investigations to establish whether the operations of domestic and foreign intelligence services have violated the existing rules applicable to them, the jury said.

Snowden took great personal risks in leaking the documents on the operations of the US and other western intelligence agencies, aware of the current criminal prosecution of whistleblowers in security areas, the jury said in its citation.

The whistleblower prize is awarded once in two years to honour persons, who “expose in public interest grave social injustices and dangerous developments for individuals and the society, democracy, peace and environment“.

As an insider, Snowden “exposed the massive and unsuspecting surveillance and storage of e-mails, IP addresses as well as telephone and other communication data by US and western intelligence agencies. He fulfilled the criteria to receive the whistleblower prize,” the jury said.

Even when it is proved that the espionage operations partly or to a large extent were protected by the law, “Mr Snowden’s whistleblowing certainly helped to expose such a dangerous situation, which cannot be accepted in democratic societies,” they said.

The whistleblower prize was instituted in 1999 by the German section of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and the Association of German Scientists.

German chapter of the global anti-corruption organisation Transparency International joined the prize for the first time this year.
Fascinating. 
We have gone from "Loose lips sink ships" to announcing times and targets well in advance, while discussing strategy options in national newspapers.  
Am I hallucinating? 
What am I missing? 
~~~~§§§~~~~
Final word goes to Misha Glenny.

I became aware of Misha Glenny during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Of all the commentary about what is now unfolding, this man speaks with the clearest language.  Before I get to his current analysis of the Syrian conflict, here is a link to a convoluted story I came across in 2008 which brought Glenny to mind.
He is a guest of BBC in the video linked here.
One reason this item jumped out at me was that I followed closely the collapse of Yougoslavia at the time it was happening. Targets on the backs of people in Sarajevo, complicated maps of the ethnic and religious mixture of the region, history and all that... I also discovered Misha Glenny, a BBC journalist who seemed to be the best informed source of information and author of the most current book available at the time.
This BBC report  puts yesterday's arrest into perspective.
Regarding Syria, Glenny makes clear that this conflict is not about Syria. This is a proxy war, an extension of conflicts between what can be called contemporary super-powers -- US, Russia, Iran and a very fragmented Arab world.

On Syria, History Teaches Profound Skepticism
Posted by: MISHA GLENNY
AUGUST 30, 2013
Even the most serious situations have aspects that verge on the absurd. 
This week, as the United States was considering military strikes against Syria in response to the chemical weapons attack on a Damascus suburb, it was the know-all attitude of pundits across the world that provided this element. 
They expressed three basic positions, each with various justifications: 
  • a) Get in there and pummel Assad; 
  • b) Limited, clearly-defined strikes but please DO be careful; 
  • c) Any intervention is sheer madness.
Option B includes endless caveats and hand-wringing, but Options A and C are usually articulated with adamant resolve. That, of course, is the nature of the beast. In these situations, pundits and commentators are under enormous pressure to have a clear commitment.

Which is why I enjoyed one of Professor Dan Drezner’s tweets so much this week. The Fletcher School’s prolific blogger confessed he “does not have a firm opinion on what to do in Syria.” He also added the slightly self-deprecatory hashtag #badpundit. 
Perhaps it is advancing years that lead one to become indecisive and a #badpundit. But it could also be that in the golden post-Cold War age, we have witnessed so many interventions that we can now say with some confidence that their outcome does not often bear any relation to their intended aims. 
Take, for example, the intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, which was mainly launched in response to 9/11. Tony Blair, British prime minister at the time, also argued forcefully for sending in troops to rid the world of the scourge of heroin. 
What happened was the opposite. In effect, overproduction became such a problem for the major producers and traffickers of heroin in Afghanistan that they periodically held back distribution of the drug in order to prop up the global market. 
Idealism, as the Afghanistan war shows in many other ways, too, is not a very useful attitude to have when contemplating a military intervention. Looking at the Arab Spring and its historical antecedents, it may not serve the immediate participants all that well, either. 
It was Eric Hobsbawm, the eminent Marxist historian who died in 2012, who first compared the Arab Spring to Europe’s own Spring of Nations in1848, which ended very unhappily for the idealistic revolutionaries a year later. Over the following half century, European liberals went a long way to dismantling the anciens regimes, although they often needed an intolerant nationalism to do it, culminating in the First World War. 
More recently, pundits have been comparing the Arab Spring to the Thirty Years War, the horrific series of religious and great power conflicts which killed an estimated one third of the population of the territories which now make up Germany. 
Despite my earlier mockery of pundits, I find it useful to ponder such analogies. Of course, a European precedent like the Thirty Years War can only act as a rough guide to what could be about to happen in the Middle East. Aside from the specific cultural and geopolitical differences between the two territories, there are numerous variables from demography to communications and, indeed, the nature of weaponry that have changed over the past 300 years. 
But there are two elements of the war in Syria that may be comparable to this earlier conflict: they concern the scale of the conflict and the key to a final resolution. 
The Syrian situation is not only about the use of chemical weapons (momentous though that may be). It threatens the stability of the entire region, beginning with Lebanon, because it is making the political dynamics in all neighboring countries even more volatile. 
In the years after 1618, the attempts by tiny principalities in central Europe to challenge the status quo acted as a vortex, sucking in almost every major power. The now fragmented territories of Syria can exert a similar force on the neighborhood and beyond. 
The second similarity lies in the question of how you solve this. At the start of the First World War, the Balkans were referred to as a powder keg. One could have imagined the same being said about the myriad territories of the Holy Roman Empire in 1618. 
In fact, the Balkans of the early twentieth century weren’t powder kegs; the various principalities, Palatinates, free cities, and Imperial concessions of the seventeenth century weren’t, either. They were merely detonators laid by the great powers. 
Today’s Syrian detonator can only be disarmed if the outside parties who are indirectly engaged in the conflict are prepared to find a compromise agreement. This means the United States hammering out a deal with Russia. This agreement would then need to include the three major regional powers, Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Iran and Saudi Arabia would have to lean on their proxies to accept any deal, and Israel would have to take the peace negotiations with the Palestinians seriously. 
What are the chances of that? The square root of very little. So with no viable political or diplomatic talks on track, I think we can be confident that regardless of whether the West intervenes or not, things are about to get very nasty. 
Maybe Professor Drezner isn’t such a #badpundit after all.
If this description were not so obvious it would be called brilliant. But unfortunately it's another illustration of someone pointing to an emperor standing naked when everyone else pretends he is fully clothed.  Sharmine Narwani's article linked at the end of Yesterday's list makes essentially the same point. 
From one perspective, the common thread is the crisis in Syria, where a 29-month conflict has cemented divisions in the rest of the region and set the stage for an existential fight on multiple battlefields between two highly competitive Mideast blocs.
From another perspective, the common thread drawing these disparate crimes scenes together is the “culprit” – one who has strong political interest, material capabilities and the sense of urgency to commit rash and violent actions on many different fronts. 
In isolation, none of these acts are capable of producing a “result.” But combined, they are able to instill fear in populations, stir governments into action, and in the short term, to create the perception of a shift in regional “balances.” 
And no parties in the Mideast are more vested right now in urgently “correcting” the regional balance of power than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the state of Israel – both nations increasingly frustrated by the inaction of their western allies and the incremental gains of their regional rivals Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and now Iraq.
For different reasons Israel and KSA share a common enemy -- Iran. She puts a different spin on possible outcomes, but the dynamic of the conflict is clear. 

To put it into WWII terms Iran, Russia and Syria are the Axis and KSA, Israel and US (Nato, UK, et al) are the Allies. (Would it push the analogy too far to say China = Japan?)  Overly simplistic, of course. But no more crazy than most of what is being discussed in public -- with no hint of irony -- by leaders and opinion makes way above my pay grade
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Thursday, August 29, 2013

How To Kidnap a Foreigner in Yemen

 HOW TO KIDNAP A FOREIGNER IN YEMEN
Published on 29 August 2013
Yemen Times Opinion
By Haykal Bafana
The international media blames Al-Qaeda or Yemeni tribesmen for the recent spate of foreigners kidnapped in Sana’a. But what if kidnapping has evolved into a new business model for ordinary Yemenis? Here’s how I think kidnapping as a business could be done by the average Yemeni.

1. Recce all over Sana’a for foreigners who are suitable targets. Avoid those who are driving around in armored cars—these will be Western embassy types who have many guns to shoot you with.
2. Hadda area [see video below] is good for “recce” missions—a high concentration of Westerners due to the espresso bars and Western restaurants there. In fact, hanging out at espresso cafes is a good way to choose your potential targets. Do not order “shahi ahmar” or “bunni”—you reveal yourself as a “reefi” bumpkin type. You must speak Italian—order cafe latte (kaa-fay laa-tay) or cappuccino (kaa-fu-shi-no).
3. Choose a European target. Kidnapping Americans are useless, as the U.S. government will never pay ransom—they may also drone you dead instead. But then again, I may be wrong on this point, as America has changed—they now kill their own citizens in Yemen without charge, jury or trial. So maybe Americans are good targets nowadays—just make sure you have enough food supplies, as Americans eat a lot.
4. When your target foreigner has been chosen, it’s time to prepare. Borrow some guns and a Land Cruiser or Vitara, and ask two or three qat-chewing friends to help you. You must give them a commission—this is Yemen, after all. You don’t want to get lots of ransom money and then get kidnapped by your ex-accomplices for cheating them.
5. Kidnap the target foreigner from the streets of Sana’a in broad daylight. The best way to do this is to overtake the foreigner, suddenly swerve in and stop your car in front of his car. Foreigners are different from Yemenis—they will not purposely slam into your car to teach you a lesson. Grab and bundle the target into your car immediately and drive off. Leave the target’s car—many have GPS trackers.
6. Do not kidnap at night—power failures happen all the time and in darkness, you may kidnap the wrong target, like a Yemeni sheikh’s son. Remember: the goal is to make money and not to be shot dead on Khamsin Street by the sheikh’s bodyguards.
7. Very important—always leave a telltale Al-Qaeda signature during the kidnapping— for example, you and your friends can shout, “Allahu Akbar” three times before driving off. The police will never investigate when they think Al-Qaeda did it.
8. Contact the target’s embassy in Sana’a. Negotiate for tons of U.S. dollars (new notes, not the old ones— if not, the “hawala” chaps will stiff you). At the start, ask for at least $10 million—anything less, and they will know what a dumb “gabili” you are.
9. Issue a threatening video and upload to YouTube if the Western government involved tries to shylock you.
10. Important—when you get the ransom, go to Dubai, open a bank account and join the rest of the Yemeni criminals who hide there.


Hayka Bafana is one of my most important Yemen contacts. I suggested an additional point to consider when planning a kidnapping, but I haven't heard back from him.   Kidnap and ransom (K&R) insurance has been around for some time for people venturing into areas prone to that type of enterprise.
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About Those "Syrian Nerve Agents"

This post was first published April 26.
I am reposting today it since the subject of Syria's use of chemical weapons is once again in the news.
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Josh inspired me to post this.
Andrea Mitchell made an obvious point.

 Then Steve underscored the point with this:

 ==►  Syrian Chemical Weapons – Whatever Is Being Used, It Probably Isn’t Sarin


by Steve Hynd at Not the Singularity

We’ve been inundated with media reports over the past couple of days saying that samples taken after chemical attacks in Syria have tested positive for sarin, a.k.a. GB, a deadly nerve gas. Yesterday, Cheryl Rofer explained why she’s somewhat cautious about the claims, which have been catapulted by Israel, France and Britain – all more hawkish on Syria – until the Obama administration was forced to respond. Today, though, even more reasons are emerging for the strongest level of skepticism about these claims.

Firstly, sarin is a deadly nerve agent even in minuscule dosages. The U.S. National Response Team (NRT) is an organization of 15 Federal departments and agencies responsible for coordinating emergency preparedness and response to oil and hazardous substance pollution incidents. Sarin was used in terrorist attacks in Japan and is so deadly the NRT prepared a factsheet on the agent (PDF). The factsheet explains that sarin can persist on surfaces for up to 24 hours (more on absorbent surfaces like clothing), is easily taken up by skin contact, and that medics should treat victims wearing “NIOSH-certified Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA), Air Purifying Respirators (APR) or Powered Air Purifying Respirators (PAPR), full-face masks, & protective clothing.” Yet we’ve been shown videos of medics treating victims wearing only breathing masks and surgical gloves – utterly inadequate protection. If Syrian rebel medics are working with recently-exposed sarin victims without protective suits – how come the medics haven’t died or at least shown symptoms of exposure?

Next, Sarin is a weapon of mass destruction – it is designed to devastate entire battlefields. As John Hudson at FP magazine writes: “the question no one has been able to answer is this: Why would Bashar al-Assad have used chemical weapons on a small scale after repeated warnings from Barack Obama that any use of chemical weapons would be a “game-changer” for the United States?”
It’s a puzzle that baffled Ralf Trapp, a consultant and renowned expert on chemical weapons, who spoke with Foreign Policy over the phone from Geneva. “From a military perspective, it doesn’t make sense to use chemical weapons bit by bit,” he said. “Why would the regime just put it on a grenade here or a rocket launcher there? It’s just not the way you’d expect a military force to act.” 
But that’s precisely the scale at which the United States says Assad is using chemical weapons.
You know what it would make sense to deploy in non-battlefield amounts? Crowd control agents of the CS/CN family, also collectively known as “tear gas”. According to the Association of Forensic Physicians in the UK (PDF) these agents induce all the symptoms seen in the Syrian victims, including foaming at the mouth, difficulty breathing, skin blotching and death if the dosage is high enough. Oddly, foaming at the mouth is not one of the symptoms commonly associated with sarin exposure.

More and more chemical weapons experts are urging caution, if not being outright unbelieving of the media hype.
Chemical weapons experts have mostly reacted with caution over the claims. Referring to video footage purported to show victims foaming at the mouth, Richard Guthrie, a British chemical weapons expert and former head of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), said: “That would not be indicative of use of nerve agents, but is more likely to be a sign of a choking agent such as phosgene being used, if anything were used.” 
Jean-Pascal Zanders, another expert at the EU Institute for Strategic Studies said: “It’s not possible that what is being shown to the public is a chemical weapons attack. The video from Aleppo showing foaming at the mouth does not look like a nerve agent. I’m wholly unconvinced.”
But what about the blood and soil samples supposedly obtained by various intelligence agencies that have tested positive for sarin? Well, in the first place – they probably did not test positive for sarin because such tests don’t usually test for sarin itself, they test for the down-stream products of sarin breaking down in the body or in the environment(PDF). Sarin breaks down very quickly – within minutes – in the body, leaving behind various derivative compounds all of which are variants on methylphosphoric acid. Many of these chemicals are already present in the environment or easily available for accidental exposure – in pesticides, fertilizers, rust removers and in textile- and paper-processing compounds. The presence of such compounds in samples means squat unless there is a clear chain of custody for the samples.
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Assertions of chemical weapon use in Syria by Western and Israeli officials citing photos, sporadic shelling and traces of toxins do not meet the standard of proof needed for a U.N. team of experts waiting to gather their own field evidence.
Weapons inspectors will only determine whether banned chemical agents were used in the two-year-old conflict if they are able to access sites and take soil, blood, urine or tissue samples and examine them in certified laboratories. 
That type of evidence, needed to show definitively if banned chemicals were found, has not been presented by governments and intelligence agencies accusing Syria of using chemical weapons against insurgents. 
“This is the only basis on which the OPCW would provide a formal assessment of whether chemical weapons have been used,” Michael Luhan, a spokesman for the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said. 
…Ralf Trapp, an independent consultant on chemical and biological weapons control, said “there is a limit to what you can extract from photograph evidence alone. What you really need is to get information from on the ground, to gather physical evidence and to talk to witnesses as well as medical staff who treated victims.”
The Independent’s report by Kim Sengupta today summarizes all this neatly.
The picture which is emerging from accounts given by Western and Middle Eastern officials and members of the Syrian opposition is this: the test so far have not yielded conclusive results; they have been based on blood, hair and soil samples as well as photographs and video footage; the samples have not been collected independently by Western investigators inside Syria but handed over by the rebels or, at least on one occasion, by Turkish intelligence; some of the footage may have been faked; the tests had been carried out at the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratories ( DSTL) and multiple locations in America: conclusions on them vary within US intelligence agencies and the experience of ‘Iraq and WMD’ is a very present source of caution among officials in Washington and London. 
Dr Sally Leivesley, a chemical and biological analyst, a former scientific advisor to the Home Office who has worked for a number of western governments, said “There are things here which do not add up. A chemical attack using Sarin as a battlefield weapons would leave mass fatalities and very few people alive. From what one hears about the symptoms it’s possible that a harassing agent rather than a nerve agent was used”. 
Dr Leivesley, who had seen some of the photographs and videos, continued: ” the latest ones show people with eye disorder which is obviously worrying but does not mean that chemical or Sarin was involved. Some of the earlier photos we had seen were quite odd, people in masks and gloves, who were supposedly doctors, touching the victims, something which will not happen. The symptoms which we have seen could be caused by other elements, such as chlorine.
We could do with more of that kind of reporting, as neo-con U.S. senators and pundits take lurid media reports as a causus belli for what would be a disastrous intervention.
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Okay. So I stole Steve's whole damn post. But he put it together so well just taking a snip here and there would be like breaking the head off a statue. Steve Hynd may be THE sharpest knife in the drawer. What he sez you can take to the bank. 

==► UPDATE:
Go next to tomorrow's collection (April 27) and check out this:

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Syria Links -- August 29

Via Bloomberg News
Assad’s Brother Seen Linked to Syria Chemical Attack
By Terry Atlas & Sangwon Yoon
Aug 28, 2013 
The powerful brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is suspected of authorizing the chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of Syrian civilians, according to a United Nations official who monitors armed conflicts in the region. 
Maher al-Assad, the younger brother of the president, commands the regime’s Republican Guard and controls the Syrian Army’s 4th Armored Division, an elite unit that the opposition says launched the Aug. 21 attack on the eastern Ghouta suburbs of the capital, Damascus. 
The use of chemical weapons may have been a brash action by Maher al-Assad rather than a strategic decision by the president, according to the UN official, who asked not to be named. 
Identifying the chain of command behind the chemical attack would go into calculations about who, what and how to strike in any retaliatory action, the UN official said. If Maher al-Assad is the culprit, for example, a Republican Guard stronghold may be targeted rather than a presidential facility, the official said.
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The Assad brothers are bound together in a effort to maintain their family’s four-decade rule in the face of an uprising by the dominant Sunni population and an influx of radical Islamist fighters allied with al-Qaeda. More than 100,000 people have died since the uprising began with peaceful protests in March 2011, according to the UN. 
Their father, Hafez al-Assad, who took control of Syria in a 1970 coup, established a security structure that relied on loyalty from family, those who shared their minority Alawite faith, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and some members of the country’s Sunni elite, as well as some Christians and members of the Druze sect.

Hafez al-Assad put his younger brother, Rifaat, in charge of the elite Alawite forces that defend the leadership. Rifaat al-Assad led a crackdown against a 1982 Sunni uprising in which an estimated 25,000 people were killed in the city of Hama. 
Hafez chose Bashar, an ophthalmologist by training, over Maher as his heir after their brother Bassel, who was being groomed to follow his father, died in a car accident in 1994. Bashar, who took power in 2000 following his father’s death, installed Maher as his security chief. 
“Maher is the knee-capper in this operation,” said [Josh] Landis [director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma].  “He is in charge of doing the heavy lifting of punishing people and preserving the regime through military means.” 
Maher commands the Republican Guard, as well as having effective command of the elite 4th Armored Division’s force of 20,000 to 25,000 troops.
I recall a video [link here -- viewer advisory: bloody images] which captures this brother's physical resemblance and his cold-blooded composure in a scene of unspeakable horror.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, right, and his
brother Maher al-Assad, left, attending their
father's funeral in Damascus in this June 13, 2000
file photo. Photographer: Ramzi Haidar/AFP via Getty Images
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Eight Reasons Why US, Iran Must Manage Syria Crisis
By: Seyed Hossein Mousavian for Al-Monitor Iran Pulse
Posted on August 28.

The recent decisive position of John Kerry has increased the possibility of US involvement in this matter and the current political atmosphere of Washington indicates that the White House is seriously considering the military option. However, the most important element which the decision makers in the White House should consider is what the possible results of a military intervention could be.
  1. A UN delegation might confirm the use of chemical weapons, but it might not be able to determine whether the rebels or the Syrian government were behind the chemical attack. Even if the delegation names the Syrian government as the responsible party, this conclusion may be questioned by some members of the international community and thus will not be unanimous.
  2. Assuming that the international community does come to an areement regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria, the manner in which the problem should be tackled is a decision which should be made by the United Nations, not Washington. A one-sided decision by Washington would bring the legitimacy of the UN Security Council, as the only legitimate body responsible for peace and security in the world, under question. 
  3. Today, there is no doubt that the United States supported Saddam Hussein in using chemical weapons against Iran. The recent report by Foreign Policy and the documents from the US Congress show that United States strongly supported Saddam Hussein in his use of chemical weapons against the military personnel and the civilians of Iran during the eight-year war started in 1980. Therefore, Washington has neither a suitable position nor the credibility to act as the international police regarding the usage of chemical weapons. The United States itself is still in the position of an accused party, given that 100,000 Iranians were killed or injured during the chemical attacks against Iran. 
  4. Tehran and Moscow consider a military attack on Syria their red line, and it is unlikely that they will sit idly by in the case of a US operation against Syria. Therefore, any kind of military attack on Syria will have vast consequences in the region and beyond. If Russia and Iran were convinced the government of President Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons, they would alter their position, because Tehran is strongly against the production, stockpile and the use of all types of weapons of mass destruction. 
  5. It is unlikely for the United States to have the desire or the ability to engage in a new all-out war in the Middle East. In the case of a military operation, it is much more likely that the attack would be targeted and carried out in a short time frame. Such an attack will not result in the fall of Assad’s government and instead could strengthen the nationalist sentiments of the Syrian people in support of Assad and in opposition to foreign aggression. 
  6. The Islamists in the Middle East will not turn a blind eye on the United States violating the integrity of a Muslim country. The United States has previously attacked the Muslim nations of Afghanistan and Iraq and has withdrawn, leaving trillions of dollars in damage and thousands of dead and injured military personnel, in addition to having increased anti-US and anti-Israeli feelings in the Middle East.
  7. The Middle East is experiencing its most unstable period in history. Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Yemen are in dangerous states of emergency. Turkey, the lynchpin for the Western powers in the Middle East, is losing its position and has a tense relationship with most of its neighbors. Additionally, Ankara is experiencing tensions with the current Egyptian government, the United States and Israel over Egypt. Consequently, the United States and the West are without a friendly base in the Middle East.
  8. The victory of the moderates in the recent elections in Iran is the only encouraging sign of stability and democracy in the region. Jeffrey Feltman, the American UN undersecretary-general for political affairs, has traveled to Iran and met with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to discuss the issue of Syria. Tehran made it clear to Feltman that it is ready to engage in serious cooperation in order to peacefully resolve the crisis in Syria. At the same time, the sultan of Oman has traveled to Iran with a positive message from the White House, so the timing seems right for a constructive collaboration between Tehran and Washington.



~~~~§§§~~~~

For a different perspective from the popular narrative in the US and our Western allies (UK and Europe), here is an analysis by Sharmine Narwani offering a contrarian point of view. I'm sure some would dismiss her views as conspiratorial, but she makes a strong case that regional and global politics makes for some really unusual bedfellows, specifically that Israel and KSA see Iran as a threat serious enough to permit surreptitious pulling of a few strings regarding Syria -- by proxies, of course. 

 "Bandar ibn Israel"
By Sharmine Narwani
Wed, 2013-08-28
The recent acts of political violence in the Middle East’s Levant are not unrelated. 
Car bombings in the predominantly Shia southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh; twin bombings targeting Sunni mosques in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli; an alleged chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus blamed on the Syrian government; a secret IDF operation across the Lebanese border foiled by Hezbollah; rockets lobbed by an Al Qaeda-related group into Israel; an IDF airstrike on a pro-Damascus Palestinian resistance group base in Lebanon… 
From one perspective, the common thread is the crisis in Syria, where a 29-month conflict has cemented divisions in the rest of the region and set the stage for an existential fight on multiple battlefields between two highly competitive Mideast blocs. 
From another perspective, the common thread drawing these disparate crimes scenes together is the “culprit” – one who has strong political interest, material capabilities and the sense of urgency to commit rash and violent actions on many different fronts. 
In isolation, none of these acts are capable of producing a “result.” But combined, they are able to instill fear in populations, stir governments into action, and in the short term, to create the perception of a shift in regional “balances.” 
And no parties in the Mideast are more vested right now in urgently “correcting” the regional balance of power than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the state of Israel – both nations increasingly frustrated by the inaction of their western allies and the incremental gains of their regional rivals Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and now Iraq. 
Worse yet, with every passing month the “noose of multilateralism” tightens, as rising powers Russia, China and others offer protective international cover for those foes. Israel and Saudi Arabia are keenly aware that the age of American hegemony is fast declining, and with it, their own regional primacy. 
Common foes, common goals 
At the helm of efforts to “correct” the imbalance is Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the US’s longtime go-to man in Riyadh - whose 22-year reign as Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington provided him with excellent contacts throughout the Israeli political and military establishment. 
Like Israel, Bandar has long been a vocal advocate of curtailing the regional influences of Iran and Syria and forging a neocon-style “New Middle East” - sometimes to his detriment.
 If you don't already know, learn about this Saudi prince then check out this analysis, which she supports with arguments that ring true to me, particularly since KSA opted to block the article from the Web in their part of the world. 
Via Wikipedia:
Bandar considers himself an American Hamiltonian conservative. Before the 2000 U.S. presidential election was decided, he invited George H. W. Bush to go pheasant shooting on his English estate in a "Desert Storm reunion". After the September 11 attacks in 2001, in an interview in the New York Times, he stated, “Bin Laden used to come to us when America—underline, America—through the CIA and Saudi Arabia, were helping our brother mujahideen in Afghanistan, to get rid of the communist secularist Soviet Union forces. Osama bin Laden came and said ‘Thank you. Thank you for bringing the Americans to help us.’ At that time, I thought he couldn’t lead eight ducks across the street.” 
Bandar argued some researchers “learn to speak a few words of Arabic and call themselves experts about the affairs of my country.” In 2007, during his tenure as National Security Secretary, Bandar proposed that the Kingdom have greater contact with Israel, because he regarded Iran as a more serious threat than Israel.

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