Saudi Arabia: how should the West act in the face of human rights contraventions?

Saudi Arabia is the world’s last absolute monarchy with an extremely arbitrary, reactionary and obscurantist justice system based on the most fundamental codification of Sharia law.

The kingdom’s medieval system of punishment includes chopping off the hands of thieves, flogging homosexuals, and beheading women for alleged adultery. The death penalty can also be carried out by stoning or firing squad followed by crucifixion.

In 2012, some 79 executions took place. One woman was beheaded for witchcraft and sorcery.

The country’s official murder and rape rates are one of the lowest in the world. The actual number, however, is far higher, and is corrupted by women and other minorities’ fear to report assaults committed against them.

The law is more often on the side of the aggressor than on the side of the victim, especially if the victim is not Saudi and male.

Foreign workers, in particular, have absolutely no protection or rights in the kingdom. At the moment, over 1.5 million female foreign maids live and work in Saudi Arabia, of which the majority is from Indonesia. Physical and mental abuse against them is not a rarity; it is a common practice. Many have had their passports taken away by their bosses. They are second class human beings – modern slaves – and are subject to random and unscrupulous attacks from their masters.

In 2010, an Indonesia maid was hospitalised after her boss burned her with an iron, cut off her lips with a pair of scissors and left her to die. Another maid was seriously injured by nails and other metal objects which were hammered into her body, after she complained about over-work.

Months later, Saudi Arabia beheaded a foreign worker and hanged her mutilated body from a helicopter as a warning to her colleagues.

According to Freedom House’sWorld Index, Saudi Arabia belongs to the ‘worst of the worst’ countries in the world.

Despite such an appalling human rights record, the kingdom is the West’s oldest and one of our closest allies in the Arab world.

This is our history. It is nothing to be proud of.

But what are the options on the table? Can we distance ourselves from the House of Saud? Should we encourage their overthrow if and when the Arab Spring hits the country? The brutal truth is that if the House of Saud were to fall, it would have serious repercussions for the West and several Middle Eastern countries, and would likely make the situation worse – even if that seems hard to imagine now.

The fall of the monarchy would touch upon central security and economic interests.

1. Iran: Saudi Arabia is the major counterbalance to Iran in the Arab world, especially since the end of the Saddam Hussein tyranny, and has contained its influence for decades. The demise of the House of Saud would considerably strengthen the regime in Teheran. While it is not an intelligent policy to control one dictatorship with another, as it is likely to result in a disaster in the long-term, it is of critical importance to take the consequences of that scenario into account.

2.  Regional stability: At the same time, the fall of the monarchy would considerably weaken the sheikdoms of the Gulf and the Hashemite Empire of Jordan. The collapse of King Abdullah’s reign, in return, would put the peace with Israel at high risk and undermine the stability of the region even further, with Syria drowning in blood and Egypt ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood.

3. Oil: The oil for security pact between the US and Saudi Arabia was forged by President Roosevelt and Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud on board of the U.S.S. Quincy in 1945. Nowadays, the US retrieves only 8.1% of its oil from the kingdom, as it is one of the world’s largest oil producers itself. Close to 40% of its oil needs are met at home. Europe, however, is far more dependent on the oil supply from the kingdom and would be subject to another economic crisis, if that flow were to stop.

So, how likely is it that Saudi Arabia will be hit by the tidal wave of change that is sweeping across the region? At the moment, it seems unlikely, but possible, that the Arab Spring will have a major impact on the country. It cannot be ruled out, as the kingdom shares some of the key criteria with other countries affected by the revolutions. For example, it suffers from high unemployment among the youth, no freedom of expression, oppression of minorities (in the case of Saudi Arabia, the Shia minority), and gender apartheid.

The House of Saud is indeed concerned and troubled by that scenario. It has significantly increased its security budget, forged closer ties with allies through the Gulf Cooperation Council (Jordan and Morocco were invited to join), supported revolutions that weakened arch-enemy Iran, such as in Libya and Syria, and on the other hand, supported the embattled monarchy of Bahrain, and pumped millions of dollars into Jordan.

But what should be of uppermost concern for the West is the make-up of the opposition to the House of Saud. Although there are some secularist democrats and moderates, the strongest and best organised opposition faction by far, is that of the Wahhabis. They have been part of the establishment ever since the existence of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, due to the alliance between the House of Saud and the clerics. That puts them into a privileged position and makes them the most likely successors to the monarchy.

Wahhabism is the most extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism prevalent in the Middle East and the origin of the radical ideology to which al-Qaeda is subscribed. Given Saudi Arabia’s immense wealth and largest oil reserves in the world, they could spread terror not only across the entire region but the entire planet.

Where does is leave us? Saudi Arabia remains the most complicated case in the Arab World for Western policy-makers. There is no easy way out of our moral dilemma. Tony Blair once said that if one cannot solve a problem, one has to manage it. As we cannot solve the Saudi problem, the best chance we have is to manage it by continuing to put pressure on the monarchy to engage in genuine reform.

Some steps into the right direction have already been taken; women were allowed to represent the country in the Olympics, and last week the king announced that from now on women can join the national assembly. We should be under no illusion, however, that progress in Saudi Arabia will be anything but painfully slow, and there will be many setbacks still to come.

The Saudi dilemma will stay with us for the foreseeable future, but while the West cannot fix the problem, it can at least apply pressure to make a bad situation better.

Hezbollah proves EU incapable of having common Foreign & Security Policy

Bulgarian authorities confirmed last week that Iranian-backed, Lebanese Shi’ite terror-organisation Hezbollah was the architect behind the deadly bus bombing that killed five Israeli civilians and the local bus driver in Burgas last summer.

The country’s Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov declared that two of the three suicide bombers “were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah” and that data was “showing the financing and connection between Hezbollah and the two suspects.”

Despite the evidence, both Hezbollah and Iran categorically deny involvement in the attack.

Deputy Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said Israel was directing “allegations and incitements and accusations against Hezbollah” and added that the organisation “will not submit to these pressures (…) and that the compass will remain directed towards Israel.”

A similar message was conveyed by the regime in Theran: “This has nothing to do with Iran,” Gholamreza Bageri told reporters. “We are against any form of terrorism and strongly condemn such actions.”

What makes the Burgas attack particularly explosive is the fact that it happened on European soil sparking new debate over the EU’s policy towards Hezbollah, which varies widely across the Union. The pressure from the US and Canada to ban Hezbollah once and for all is steadily growing.

Right now, the Netherlands is the only country that has Hezbollah on its official terrorist list. It allows the government to outlaw the organisation’s activities, freeze bank accounts and assets, and put suspected members under surveillance.

The UK has a more ambiguous and problematic policy, making a distinction between the organisation’s ‘political’ and ‘military’ wings, although Foreign Secretary William Hague has indicated that the government would likely back a full ban of the organisation.

Throughout the rest of Europe, Hezbollah can engage freely in political activities and fundraising.

In Germany, up to 950 are believed to operate in the country, which is regarded as a stronghold for the organisation in Europe and key to its fundraising capabilities.

Several EU countries remain in strong opposition to a potential EU ban, most notably France and the Scandinavian countries. The latter have a history of remaining neutral and opposing legislation that takes a stance against one group or another. According to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, the EU needs to “reflect seriously on consequences of [the] Bulgarian probe naming Hezbollah as behind [the] terrorist attack.”

France, Lebanon’s former colonial power, believes that outlawing the organisation would put French lives at risk and have a negative impact on the relationship between Paris and Beirut.

So it seems highly unlikely that the Bulgarian attack will eventually lead to a significant change in the EU’s approach towards Hezbollah. To alter the current policy, a unanimous vote would be required by the 27 member states. A full and comprehensive ban is thus almost impossible to achieve. The best compromise seems to be following the British example, whereby the EU would make a distinction between Hezbollah’s political and military wing.

The self-defeating structure and decision-making processes of the EU bring out the worst of the organisation. It makes it incapable of taking decisive action and always reduces it to finding agreement on the lowest common denominator, with the result that the problem remains unsolved.

No one is satisfied with the outcome, but at least no one officially rebels against the decision. That is the EU’s modus operandi.

Such sentiments were reflected by the spokesman of the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton, who issued a statement in which Hezbollah was not even mentioned by name: “the terrorists who planned and carried out the Burgas attack must be brought to justice.”

But if the EU cannot even resolve a dispute over such a clear cut case, how is it supposed to deal with far more complex and controversial foreign and security policy issues in a competent way?

Hezbollah’s record leaves little doubt over the organisation’s nature and ideology, which is in clear breach of the EU’s fundamental principles.

Hezbollah is Iran’s terror proxy, a country regarded by several EU member states as the greatest current threat to peace and stability in the world, and responsible for the death of thousands of innocent civilians. The EU itself declared in 2012 that there was “clear evidence of terrorist activity” by Hezbollah.

The dichotomy of a political and military wing is misguided and dangerous. Just as much as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness had influence over the IRA’s military council, so has Hassan Nasrallah the ultimate power over all Hezbollah activities. Hezbollah is not a charitable, social movement. It is a terrorist organisation with global outreach, funded by pariah state Iran, which hides behind hospitals and schools to cover up its true agenda and ideology.

The trail of blood speaks for itself.

Hezbollah was responsible for the 1983 Beirut bombing that killed 58 French peacekeepers and 241 American Marines, regularly engages in deadly attacks against Israeli civilians, and supports the mass-murdering regime of Bashar al Assad in Syria.

But the EU’s incompetence to speak with one voice in the wake of a crisis has once more been exposed. All the evidence is not enough to compete with the different national policy agendas of EU member states, and to lead to an unequivocal ban of Hezbollah.

The winners are our enemies. They take advantage of such weakness, and exploit our differences. And Europe is letting them.

Syrian dilemma – Death toll tops 60,000

The United Nations announced today that the total death toll in Syria has passed 60,000. In summer of 2011, roughly 1,000 people lost their lives per month. The figure has now risen to 5,000.  It is said to be a conservative estimate with the actual numbers likely to be far higher.

Compared to other conflicts, the number of Syrian casualties now equals the total killed in the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1948 or, put differently, Assad butchered half the number of people over 22 months that Milosevic killed between 1992-1995 in the Balkans.

Yet there are no signs of any potential intervention by the international community, as long as Assad is not resorting to chemical and biological weapons — also known as the ‘red line’ policy of the Obama administration.

But I am asking myself: shouldn’t tens of thousands of men, women and children not be a ‘red line’ in themselves? What is the acceptable human threshold of pain, given that we have said so many times: ‘never again!’

Some commentators suggest that we cannot do anything or that it is already too late to intervene effectively.

It is too late in the sense that the worst case scenario has already unfolded. What we see is that everything the Obama administration said would happen in the case of intervention, is actually taking place in the absence of leadership.

Islamists have hijacked the revolution and the opposition increasingly resorts to the tactics of terrorists.

Yet just because the situation on the ground is immensely bleak, and the post-Assad era likely to be chaotic, does not mean there is nothing we can do at all.

Damage control is still an option.

The Patriots along the Turkish/Syrian border could be utilised to establish a partial no-fly-zone without entering Syrian airspace. This is significant, as the Assad regime‘s preferred modus operandi is to kill from the air.

It would also allow us to establish humanitarian corridors to provide shelter. Right now, refugees are pouring into Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey, at a rate of up to several thousand a day, and they have reached a breaking point of capacity.

The violence in Syria has also spilled into neighbouring countries. For instance, it manifests itself in the noteworthy increase of terrorist attacks in Iraq over the last few months. The crisis in Syria allowed Al Qaida to slip back into the country and with US troops gone, Iraq once more is at risk of descending into chaos.

It would also make sense to consider arming parts of the opposition. Such undertaking would not be without risk but what is happening right now is that while we refuse to engage with the secularists, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are arming the Islamist rebels with our weapons. The extremists grow stronger by the day. The people we should support, however, are side-lined.

The Syrian problem is not going away and the longer we wait, the uglier it will become. That is a lesson history has taught us many times.

We still have a choice. We always have one, even if it is a choice between the lesser of two evils.

Right now, Washington appears to be the major obstacle to intervention. No Western country has taken the full initiative but France, for instance, suggested the establishment of a no-fly-zone months ago.

With his inaction, Obama is betraying the core principles of American benevolence and is belittling his country’s power and influence in the world. Syria is one of his greatest failures and will haunt him throughout his second term.

As one Syrian woman put it:  ‘We will not forget that you forgot about us.’

The Collapse of Obama’s Foreign Policy

Nations that enjoy the benefits of freedom and prosperity have the greatest responsibility to protect these principles at home and abroad. America is the most powerful nation on Earth and remains the one most indispensable in world affairs.

Its leadership is essential. Isolationism is not an option.

Of course, America shall not carry the flag of liberty alone. We must work hand in hand, stand shoulder to shoulder to face the most terrifying threats which are all too real. Those threats must be met with decisive action, willingness to withstand criticism, and courage.

Under the Obama administration, we have seen the devastating effect of America leading from behind. The change in the balance of power has created a much less certain and more dangerous status-quo. The resulting vacuum of power has been filled by countries that do not identify with our norms and laws and do not share our way of life, values, and virtues.

Barack Obama has left America exposed, vulnerable, and at the mercy of events, in particular in the Middle East. While it is true that the President could, only to a certain extent, have foreseen the tidal wave of change that swept across the region, his administration has reacted, at best, with a mixture of silence, indifference, and incompetence rather than a pro-active, offensive strategy to help shape the future of the region.

America’s position is as weak as it has not been in a long time. Its allies question its ability and commitment to its role as a hegemon. Its enemies treat it with contempt. Bush might have been hated but he was also feared and respected. Obama’s appeasement approach, however, has bitterly failed. Recent polls suggest that he is no less, or even more, unpopular than his controversial predecessor.

It is hard to conclude anything but that Obama’s “hand of friendship policy” equates to a car crash, ending in an embarrassing disaster. The President offered the government of Iran a fresh start, but he badly let down the Iranian people in the summer of 2009, as they tried to overthrow their oppressive regime. He also invited a high-profile delegation of the Muslim Brotherhood to Washington D.C. before elections had taken place, thus giving them legitimacy they did not deserve. Morsi’s outrageous response to attacks on Americans in Egypt has brutally exposed the zero-sum rationale that now defines the relationship between Egypt and the USA.

One the other hand, America’s partnership with its long-standing ally, Israel, has been badly damaged. Certainly, Netanyahu shares some responsibility for the crisis of relations between the two countries but Obama, more than almost any other President before him, has undermined the strong commitment and deep trust that usually characterised the American-Israeli relationship.

The winners are reactionary-pariah regimes like Iran, which has exploited the rift in the Western-Israeli alliance to push forward with its nuclear programme. Iran has exploited America’s defensive strategy in Syria in order to prop up Assad’s regime. Instead of taking the opportunity to topple Ahmadinejad’s brother in arms, which would considerably weaken Iran’s position, and at the same time resolve a heart-breaking humanitarian catastrophe, Washington is committing a gross strategic error and is to be found cowering behind the Russian and Chinese veto in the UN Security Council in order to justify its inaction.

The result of American isolationism is breath-taking: Israel is left alone in dealing with Iran’s nuclear programme, the death toll in Syria has reached 45,000 or more and Turkey, a NATO member-state, is under attack. When America lost three brave servicemen in Libya and its ambassador, Christopher Stevens, the President and the Secretary of State apologised for an anti-Islam video, which was nothing but a smoke screen for pathological, deep-rooted anti-Americanism.

Hope is no strategy.

The clock is ticking – no time to lose in Syria and Iran

2011 was not a good year for dictators and tyrants, as Ben Ali, Mubarak and finally Gaddafi were all successfully unseated from power.

But let us not forget that many are still killing, torturing, and raping their own people – right now. Although Assad is on the brink in Syria, so far more than 6,129 innocent souls have lost their lives and the actual number is likely to be much higher.

While the UN half-masted the flag for North Korea’s ex-dictator, the international community failed to act in concert and protect the Syrian people from Assad’s crime family. It was strategic suicide on behalf of NATO to rule out intervention right from the start and at the same time an invitation for Assad’s snipers to commit mass civilian atrocities with impunity.

It is no longer a battle over freedom and democracy in Syria. It has literally become a matter of life and death.

The other country we must pay close attention to is Iran, which is currently defying the West with its quest for nuclear weapons. Under no circumstances whatsoever we should tolerate Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The country plans to produce 7000MW of nuclear energy by the year 2020, which will require at least seven nuclear power plants. When Saddam tried to build his dirty bomb, he already had in stock a total of more than 30 lbs of fresh Russian supplied 80% enriched uranium. One only needs to look at developments in Iran and it would appear that history is repeating itself.

How irresponsible, ignorant and naive are we?

According to the IAEA, Iran has already practically completed a front end of cycle, including conversion, enrichment and uranium mining and milling.  What if Iran enriches uranium to a level higher than 20% U-235?

In 2010, the UNSC passed a Resolution, 1929, which called on Iran to immediately suspend its enrichment activities and fully cooperate with the IAEA inspectors. Ever since, Iran has been in breach and has crossed several thresholds relevant to the development of nuclear weapons. Just two days ago, the regime reported that it produced its first nuclear fuel rod.

Iran is a serious  and profound threat to stability and peace in the region, which arguably makes it the greatest present danger per se. It undoubtedly continues to support organisations committed to destroying Israel, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas in Gaza and global jihad.

It is essential that we -  the West – understand that those regimes do not hate us because of what we do but who we are. They are fighting hard and so must we. There should be no place for death-worshipping, religious fundamentalist, barbaric, pro-terrorist and anti-Semitic regimes in our freedom-loving minds.