US War on terror has killed more than 4.5 million since 9/11

A report, by the Costs of War project at Brown University in the American state of Rhode Island reveals that around 4.5 million people have been killed due to the US-led military adventurism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia.

According to the research, the operations have indirectly killed millions more due to destruction of economies, public services, infrastructure, and the environment, which adds to the death toll long after bombs are dropped and increases over time.

Many long-term and under-appreciated consequences of war that was need to be studied in more detail.

The research indicates that the direct war fatalities or killing of nearly one million people is an undercount “precise mortality figure remains unknown”.

The estimates of war deaths in Iraq have been particularly controversial. A 2006 article in The Lancet estimated that approximately 600,000 Iraqis had died due to war violence between 2003 and 2006.

The controversy over the conflicting reports on the death toll in Iraq stems from news outlets that are opposed to the war, who overplayed the death toll, while those who supported the illegal invasion downplayed the death toll.

There have been various unbiased studies that concluded more than one million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2011.

The Iraqi deaths can be considered an undercount because of almost daily bombings that killed hundreds of Iraqis. Add to the era of the US and Daesh from 2014 to 2017 where hundreds of thousands of others were slaughtered and it’s not difficult to imagine more than one million Iraqis have died and continue to die today as a result of the US war on terror.   

There is little doubt that the US has brought nothing but insecurity and instability to West Asia, with its military presence. In January 2018, the Leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said,

"America's corrupting presence in this region should end… In this region, they brought war, discord, sedition, destruction, destruction of infrastructure.  Of course, wherever they stepped in the world, they acted the same way... this must end."

The report put special emphasis on the effects of US wars on women and children who suffer the brunt of these ongoing impacts the most.

The report notes that while people were killed in fighting, far more, especially children, have been killed by the reverberating effects of US wars, such as the spread of disease and damage to public services.

"More studies are necessary on the impact of war’s destruction of public services, especially beyond the healthcare system, on population health," the report says.

"Damage to water and sanitation systems, roads, and commercial infrastructure such as ports, for instance, have significant but less understood consequences."

The research says wars and conflicts which the US has waged or been engaged in under the pretext of countering terrorism since September 11, 2001 makes clear that the impacts of war's ongoing violence are so vast and complex that they are unquantifiable.

It should be noted that after the September 11 attacks, the US waged wars and sparked conflicts, especially in West Asia under the pretext of fighting terrorism. However, as a result of the US military adventurism, there has been an extremely sharp rise in terrorist groups that had no presence in West Asia or countries such as Somalia before Washington’s intervention in the region.

In other words, war on terror has had the complete opposite effect of the slogan under which the Pentagon waged a campaign of instability in West Asia that allowed terrorism to flourish.

Millions of people are still in distress, pain and traumatized in both current and former warzones, the study says, calling on the US as well as its allies to alleviate the ongoing losses and suffering of millions of people and provide the required reparations, though not easy or cheap. This is something imperative, the report points out.

The report focuses on Afghanistan as an example of how people, in particular women and children, the most vulnerable in society, are dying because, despite the US (shambolic) withdrawal, the damage Washington inflicted on Afghanistan’s vital services, such as the health sector and the damage the US caused to the country’s sanitation and other infrastructure in the 20 years of war and occupation means Afghans are still dying today.  

"Though in 2021 the United States withdrew military forces from Afghanistan, officially ending a war that began with its invasion 20 years’ prior, today Afghans are suffering and dying from war-related causes at higher rates than ever," the report alarmingly points out.

In the case of Somalia for example, US intervention and the war that followed has prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid, which the research says exacerbated famine; this is a natural disaster that could have been alleviated if the US instead chose to spend a vast amount of money in humanitarian assistance programs and not radicalizing the local population (and increasing terrorism and bloodshed) by bombing civilians with drones in the sky.  

Critics argue that if the United States had not waged war against countries in West Asia or provoked conflicts in the region, then other parties would not have engaged in any combat missions. In this case, the US must be solely held responsible for the disturbing direct and indirect death toll as a result of its provocative and illegal military measures. 

 

Yemen Key Test in China Middle East Diplomacy

China scored a diplomatic coup by restoration of ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, announced on Friday, March 10. But the two rivals for primacy in the Persian Gulf are still a long way off from sharing the neighborhood.

The first litmus test will be whether they can even share Yemen, where their proxies have been at war for eight years.

Given the intense rivalry and extreme volatility in their past relations, using terms like rapprochement and détente to describe the renewal of ties seem premature.

Even “reconciliation” remains to be seen. Since the I979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the two countries have gone through repeated cycles of intense hostility with only short-lived thaws.

The low points include the Saudi shooting down of four Iranian F-4 fighter jets in 1984, the Saudi killing of 275 Iranian pilgrims in Mecca in 1987, and the severance of diplomatic relations first from 1988 to 1991 and then again from 2016 to 2023.

Both breaks in relations were initiated by Saudi Arabia after Iranians ransacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran.

The high points saw visits to the Saudi kingdom by two former Iranian presidents.  Mohammed Khatami made the trip in 1999 - the first by any president since the Islamic revolution - and returned again for a four-day stay in 2002. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went three times, twice in 2007. Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah, in turn, traveled to Tehran in 1997 for an Islamic summit and received red carpet treatment.

The two sides have tried in vain, again and again, to formalize a working relationship. Since 1991, the Iranians have repeatedly put forth a proposal for an alliance with the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to establish security architecture for the Gulf. The Saudis have always viewed the proposition as a ruse to eliminate the US military presence there and therefore shown no interest.

Still the Saudis have at times signed pacts with the Iranians.  In May 1998, the two rivals signed a Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement and in 2001 a security agreement to fight together against terrorism, drug smuggling, and money laundering. The latter agreement was hailed in the Saudi press as historic and in the words of Iran’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia at that time, “the most important development in the history of relations between the two countries.” Neither agreement took hold.

Given this very checkered history in their relationship, the question is,  what chance does the latest restoration of ties have to, find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace, as Obama put it in his 2016 interview with The Atlantic?

Saudi leaders have long insisted it is up to Iran to take the first step by showing some sign of retreat in its relentless drive to establish a key political role in Arab nations of the Middle East.

The main indicator for them is Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor where it has long been the dominant foreign power. Houthi rebels seized control of the capital Sanaa in September 2014, and Iran quickly came to their military and political support.

The Saudis responded with an invasion the following March and armed Yemeni tribes opposed to the Houthis. They also established a rival Yemeni government based in the south that gained international recognition, even though its rule has been increasingly disputed by secessionists there.

For Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the Yemen venture has proven an albatross. He was personally responsible for leading it when the Saudi invasion began, as he had just been named defense minister by his father, King Salman. In fact, it was his first major foreign policy decision. It has led to the souring of his relations with the US Congress that has repeatedly demanded an end to all US military aid and sales to Saudi Arabia because of the disastrous outcomes of the war.

Right now, fighting between pro-Saudi and pro-Iranian Yemeni factions has reached a standstill, UN mediators last year negotiated a ceasefire, while periodically broken, still remains largely in place. Yemen itself is in ruins, however, and is one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, with 227,000 dead from famine alone, according to UN estimates.

The question now is whether Saudi Arabia and Iran can find a modus vivendi in Yemen upon which to build a real détente, or at least a cold peace.

This would probably require Saudi Arabia to recognize the Houthi government in Sanaa and its control over northern Yemen, where most of Yemen’s 33 million people live.

Iran would have to terminate arms supplies to the Houthis. These have included missiles and drones that the Houthis have rained down by the hundreds on strategic targets inside the Saudi kingdom, including its oil and gas facilities.

Saudi negotiators have held periodic talks for months now, with both emissaries from Iran in Baghdad and those of the Houthis in Muscat, Oman, but no agreement has been announced.

In any case, it remains far from clear if Iran is ready to stop arming the Houthis. On the contrary, a statement in early February from the US Central Command said, “US, British, and French warships had seized 5,000 rifles, 1.5 million rounds of ammunition, scores of anti-tank missiles, and parts for ballistic missiles from dhows plying the Gulf of Oman on their way from Iran to the Houthis.

They had carried out four seizures over the past two months. In addition, the British Navy declared it had captured more Iranian antitank missiles and fins for ballistic missiles from dhows on February 23.

These arms shipments could be the last before Iran stops as part of a deal with Saudi Arabia. Or, it could be a sign Iran is backing a new Houthi offensive in the making. The Houthis have been trying to extend their hold over Yemen to include its oil fields and pipelines in the center and south of the country.

A new campaign would almost certainly sink any hopes for an eventual Iranian-Saudi détente as well as China’s diplomatic bid to become a power player in the Gulf.

 

As the United States focuses on its showdown with Russia in Ukraine and its escalating competition with China, the Middle East has been left to run its affairs the way it always has: with marriages of convenience between rival powers. These are not Catholic-style ‘holy matrimonies’, comprehensive and permanent, but coolly pragmatic deals to survive through short-term relationships that fit changing strategic conditions. If only Israel understood that.

Of course, one relatively constant factor—religion—does play an important role in determining whether countries in the region are rivals or allies. But the Sunni–Shia divide has been accorded excessive weight in assessments of the Middle East’s diplomatic shifts. Geopolitical interests and regime survival always prevail over religious identities. This helps to explain why conservative Arab regimes have shown such a remarkable ability to withstand both internal upheaval—exemplified by the resounding defeat of pro-democracy forces during the Arab Spring—and external pressures.

The Gulf countries exemplify this hard-headed approach. Business-oriented and living in the shadow of predator states like Iraq and Iran, they are much more concerned with commerce and discreet security understandings than with ideology. A particularly striking display of such diplomatic pragmatism came last month, when Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni world and Shia Iran re-established relations.

Beyond the headlines trumpeting China’s role in mediating the rapprochement, the logic driving the shift is clear. For Iran—desperate to extricate itself from the economic and social crises that have fuelled popular uprisings in recent months—Saudi Arabia is a much-needed lifeline. For the Saudis, the failure of America’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran—thanks, not least, to its alliance with China and Russia—and Iran’s imminent emergence as a nuclear state make détente a necessity.

Saudi Arabia was most likely also motivated by the prospect of ending the war in Yemen, where it has suffered humiliating losses at the hands of the Houthis, Iran’s proxies. Peace would enable the kingdom to focus its attention on diversifying its economy away from oil and petrochemicals. As a trade-dependent economy, Saudi Arabia can thrive only in a context of peace and security.

Saudi Arabia’s opening with Iran is part of a broader regional accommodation. The United Arab Emirates re-established diplomatic relations with Iran last year, with Bahrain expected to follow suit soon. Turkey has reached out to both Syria and Israel, and the Arab states seem to be allowing Syria—with its distinctly secular and nationalist Ba’ath regime—back into the fold. Last month, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, long shunned as a pariah, visited the UAE, and a Saudi reconciliation with the ‘butcher of Damascus’ is now in the offing.

Here, too, pragmatism has been the guiding principle. Different conditions call for different policies, and at a time when the US—Assad’s main international nemesis—has become less assertive in the region, Syria has come to seem like a legitimate partner.

But no one should expect that the Arab League will welcome Syria back only if it pledges to reduce Iran’s military deployment on its territory. A key feature of Middle Eastern marriages of convenience is that they don’t entail policy changes that reflect the parties’ core interests. Iran won’t downgrade its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, whether it has embassies in Saudi Arabia or not.

Likewise, the Saudi–Iranian rapprochement won’t change the fact that the US is the ultimate guarantor of Saudi Arabia’s security. Nor does it rule out a Saudi–Israeli peace agreement. The House of Saud is always keen to diversify its strategic options.

Before a Saudi deal with Israel can happen, however, Israel will have to put its domestic political house in order, avoid escalation in the occupied territories, freeze settlement expansion and restore its relationship with the US. More fundamentally, Israelis must comprehend what the Arabs, Turks and Iranians already understand: pragmatic deal-making will do it a lot more good than an impossible quest for total victory.

The 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, were more a product of American pressure than diplomatic savoir faire on Israel’s part. And, in the eyes of its newfound Arab partners, Israel’s standing is already deteriorating, owing not only to its domestic crisis, but also to its refusal to rethink its Iran strategy.

While other Middle Eastern countries adapt to current strategic conditions, Israel remains committed to its longstanding ‘shadow war’ against Iran, with its covert attacks, including drone strikes and cyberattacks, as well as airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria. Despite the region’s recent surfeit of marriages, Israeli leaders’ lack of vision and courage implies that they are unlikely to step up to the altar any time soon.

Curtesy: The Strategist

Saudi Arabian visas for Yemenis

Saudi Arabian Embassy in Yemen has issued about 850,000 work visas and 350,000 family visit visas to Yemenis since 2018, according to Saudi Ambassador in Sanaa Muhammad Saeed Al-Jaber.

Al-Jaber made the remarks on his official Twitter account, indicating that the visas issued since mid-2018 included Yemenis from all governorates in the country without exception.

He noted that this came within the keenness of Saudi Arabia to support the Yemeni people.

Meanwhile, the Prosthetics and Rehabilitation Center in Taiz Governorate provided various medical services to 326 beneficiaries in March 2023, as part of the support extended by King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center.

The center, within the project, has offered 1,201 services, benefiting 67% males and 33% females. The percentage of displaced persons was 11% of the total beneficiaries.

The center manufactured, installed, and maintained prostheses for 77 patients, which included handing over the prostheses, measuring and maintaining them.

Among the services provided by the center includes physiotherapy, which benefited 249 patients who received the services in multiple sessions, in addition to specialized consultations.

This comes as an extension of the humanitarian work provided by the Kingdom, represented by the center, to increase the health sector's capabilities, and its attempt to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people.

 

Saudi Arabia and Yemen exchange prisoners

A total of 19 prisoners from the Coalition Forces, including 16 Saudis and three Sudanese, arrived at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday.

This was under a major prisoner swap deal in which 250 Houthi prisoners also left Abha International Airport for Sanaa, according to Brig. Gen. Turki Al-Maliki, spokesman of the Coalition Forces to Support Legitimacy in Yemen.

This was the second phase of the prisoner swap involving about 800 prisoners of war, initiated by the legitimate government and the Houthis in Yemen.

Brig. Gen Al-Maliki said the prisoner exchange process is of great concern for the political and military command of the Coalition to end the prisoner file and exchange all prisoners and detainees.

He also appreciated the efforts of the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as the Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary General to Yemen Hans Grundberg for supporting and making the swap of prisoners and detainees a great success.

The prisoners who landed at Riyadh airport were received by the Chief of the General Staff Gen. Fayyad Al-Ruwaili, Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Commander of the Joint Forces Lt. Gen. Mutlaq Al-Azima, commanders of the armed forces branches, Head of the Military Wing at the Ministry of National Guard Maj. Gen. Muhammad Al-Qahtani, and Military Attaché at the Sudanese embassy in the Kingdom Brig. Gen. Muhammad Abdul Wahed Absher.

The release of these prisoners was the second phase of the three-day prisoner swap between the legitimate Yemeni government and the Houthis that began on Friday.

A flight carrying 120 former detainees took off from the city of Abha on Saturday. The operation will continue on Saturday and Sunday to exchange about 800 prisoners from both sides, with operating 15 flights to six airports in Yemen.

Majid Fadael, spokesman of the government delegation to the prisoners’ negotiations, member of the negotiating delegation and undersecretary at the Ministry of Human Rights, said in a statement on his Twitter account that the second phase of the operation will take place through the airports of Mocha-Sanaa, Abha-Sanaa, and Sanaa-Riyadh, and it will be on board six flights operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The first phase of the exchange of prisoners between the two sides began Friday when the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) planes transported 318 prisoners to and from the Yemeni capital Sanaa and Aden.

Among the 69 prisoners, released by the Houthi group, included former Defense Minister Mahmoud Al-Subaihi and Nasser Mansour Hadi, the brother of Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

The Yemeni government released 249 prisoners who were transferred from Aden to Sanaa on board two flights.

Meanwhile the Yemeni Minister of Interior Ibrahim Ali Ahmed Haydan said that this operation, which took place at the initiative of Saudi Arabia and the Coalition to Support Legitimacy, is the largest ever prisoner swap in years.

He emphasized that the prisoner exchange will continue to include all prisoners after the upcoming Eid Al-Fitr. “There has been greater understanding regarding the peace process after the exchange of prisoners,” he pointed out.

It is noteworthy that in the last major exchange that took place in October 2020, more than 1,050 prisoners were released and they returned to their regions or countries, according to a report of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The release operations are the result of talks concluded on 20 March, 2023, in Bern, Switzerland, where the parties to the conflict in Yemen finalized the plan for the release. The ICRC co-chaired these meetings with the Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen

Saudi oil derivatives grant arrives in Yemen

According to Saudi Gazette, the fourth batch of the Saudi Oil Derivatives Grant for Yemen, consisting of 150,000 metric tons of diesel and 100,000 metric tons of mazut, has arrived at the oil port in Aden.

This initiative is part of Saudi Arabia's ongoing efforts to support the Yemeni people, in response to a request by the Yemeni government to help provide oil derivatives to operate over 70 power generation plants across Yemen.

The directive to provide this grant was issued by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman.

The grant is a testament to the Kingdom's commitment to achieving security, stability, and development in Yemen and is an extension of previous grants amounting to US$4.2 billion.

The Saudi Oil Derivatives Grant is part of the Saudi Program for the Development and Reconstruction of Yemen (SDRPY), which has implemented 229 projects and initiatives across Yemeni governorates to serve Yemenis in seven main sectors, including education, health, water, energy, transport, agriculture, and fishery, as well as building the capacity of government institutions, in addition to other development programs.

Saudi, Omani envoys hold peace talks with Houthi leaders in Sanaa

According to Reuters, Saudi and Omani delegations held talks with Houthi officials in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Sunday, as Riyadh seeks a permanent ceasefire to end its military involvement in the country's long-running war.

The visit indicates progress in the Oman-mediated consultations between Riyadh and Sanaa, which run in parallel to UN peace efforts. The peace initiatives have gained momentum after arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to re-establish ties in a deal brokered by China.

Oman, which shares borders with Yemen, has been trying for years to bridge differences between Yemen's warring parties, and more broadly between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The envoys, who landed late on Saturday, met with the head of Houthi Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, in Sanaa's presidential palace, Houthi news agency SABA reported.

President Al-Mashat reiterated the group's position that it seeks an honourable peace and that the Yemeni people aspire to freedom and independence, SABA said.

Both sides will negotiate ending hostilities and the lifting of a Saudi-led blockade on Yemeni ports, it added.

Sources have told Reuters that the Saudi-Houthi talks are focused on a full reopening of Houthi-controlled ports and the Sanaa airport, payment of wages for public servants, rebuilding efforts and a timeline for foreign forces to exit the country.

Yemen's war is seen as one of several proxy battles between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Houthis, aligned with Iran, ousted a Saudi-backed government from Sanaa in late 2014, and have de facto control of north Yemen, saying they are rising up against a corrupt system and foreign aggression.

They have been fighting against a Saudi-led military alliance since 2015 in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands and left 80% of Yemen's population dependent on humanitarian aid.

A Houthi official said on Saturday the group had received 13 detainees released by Saudi Arabia in exchange for a Saudi detainee freed earlier, ahead of a wider prisoner exchange agreed by the warring sides.

At talks in Switzerland last month attended by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Yemeni government and the Houthis agreed to free 887 detainees. The 13 prisoners are part of that agreement, Houthi official Abdul Qader al-Mortada said.

The Saudi government media office did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the prisoner exchange and the delegation visiting Sanaa.

 

 

 

 

United States always soliciting war, not peace

In a brilliant op-ed published in the New York Times, the Quincy Institute's Trita Parsi explained how China, with help from Iraq, was able to mediate and resolve the deeply-rooted conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, whereas the United States was in no position to do so after siding with the Saudi kingdom against Iran for decades.

The title of Parsi's article, "The US is not an indispensable peacemaker", refers to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's use of the term "indispensable nation" to describe the US role in the post Cold War world.

The irony in Parsi's use of Albright's term is that she generally used it to refer to US war-making, not peacemaking. In 1998, Albright toured the Middle East and then the United States to rally support for President Clinton's threat to bomb Iraq. After failing to win support in the Middle East, she was confronted by heckling and critical questions during a televised event at Ohio State University, and she appeared on the Today Show the next morning to respond to public opposition in a more controlled setting.

Albright claimed, "..if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see here the danger to all of us. I know that the American men and women in uniform are always prepared to sacrifice for freedom, democracy and the American way of life."

Albright's readiness to take the sacrifices of American troops for granted had already got her into trouble when she famously asked General Colin Powell, "What's the use of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" Powell wrote in his memoirs, "I thought I would have an aneurysm."

But Powell himself later caved to the neocons, or the "fucking crazies" as he called them in private, and dutifully read the lies they made up to try to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq to the UN Security Council in February 2003.

For the past 25 years, administrations of both parties have caved to the "crazies" at every turn. Albright and the neocons' exceptionalist rhetoric, now standard fare across the US political spectrum, leads the United States into conflicts all over the world, in an unequivocal, Manichean way that defines the side it supports as the side of good and the other side as evil, foreclosing any chance that the United States can later play the role of an impartial or credible mediator.

Today, this is true in the war in Yemen, where the US chose to join a Saudi-led alliance that committed systematic war crimes, instead of remaining neutral and preserving its credibility as a potential mediator.

It also applies, most notoriously, to the US blank check for endless Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, which doom its mediation efforts to failure.

For China, however, it is precisely its policy of neutrality that has enabled it to mediate a peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the same applies to the African Union's successful peace negotiations in Ethiopia, and to Turkey's promising mediation between Russia and Ukraine, which might have ended the slaughter in Ukraine in its first two months but for American and British determination to keep trying to pressure and weaken Russia.

Neutrality has become anathema to US policymakers. George W. Bush's threat, "You are with us, or you are with the terrorists," has become an established, if unspoken, core assumption of 21st century US foreign policy.

The response of the American public to the cognitive dissonance between our wrong assumptions about the world and the real world they keep colliding with has been to turn inward and embrace an ethos of individualism.

This can range from New Age spiritual disengagement to a chauvinistic America First attitude. Whatever form it takes for each of us, it allows us to persuade ourselves that the distant rumble of bombs, albeit mostly American ones, is not our problem.

The US corporate media has validated and increased our ignorance by drastically reducing foreign news coverage and turning TV news into a profit-driven echo chamber peopled by pundits in studios who seem to know even less about the world than the rest of us.

Most US politicians now rise through the legal bribery system from local to state to national politics, and arrive in Washington knowing next to nothing about foreign policy. This leaves them as vulnerable as the public to neocon clichés like the ten or twelve packed into Albright's vague justification for bombing Iraq: freedom, democracy, the American way of life, stand tall, the danger to all of us, we are America, indispensable nation, sacrifice, American men and women in uniform, and "we have to use force."

Faced with such a solid wall of nationalistic drivel, Republicans and Democrats alike have left foreign policy firmly in the experienced but deadly hands of the neocons, who have brought the world only chaos and violence for 25 years.

All but the most principled progressive or libertarian members of Congress go along to get along with policies so at odds with the real world that they risk destroying it, whether by ever-escalating warfare or by suicidal inaction on the climate crisis and other real-world problems that we must cooperate with other countries to solve if we are to survive.

It is no wonder that Americans think the world's problems are insoluble and that peace is unattainable, because our country has so totally abused its unipolar moment of global dominance to persuade us that that is the case. But these policies are choices, and there are alternatives, as China and other countries are dramatically demonstrating.

President Lula da Silva of Brazil is proposing to form a "peace club" of peacemaking nations to mediate an end to the war in Ukraine, and this offers new hope for peace.

During his election campaign and his first year in office, President Biden repeatedly promised to usher in a new era of American diplomacy, after decades of war and record military spending. Zach Vertin, now a senior adviser to UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield wrote in 2020 that Biden's effort to "rebuild a decimated State Department" should include setting up a "mediation support unit… staffed by experts whose sole mandate is to ensure our diplomats have the tools they need to succeed in waging peace."

Biden's meager response to this call from Vertin and others was finally unveiled in March 2022, after he dismissed Russia's diplomatic initiatives and Russia invaded Ukraine.

The State Department's new Negotiations Support Unit consists of three junior staffers quartered within the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. This is the extent of Biden's token commitment to peacemaking, as the barn door swings in the wind and the four horsemen of the apocalypse - War, Famine, Conquest and Death - run wild across the Earth.

As Zach Vertin wrote, "It is often assumed that mediation and negotiation are skills readily available to anyone engaged in politics or diplomacy, especially veteran diplomats and senior government appointees. But that is not the case. Professional mediation is a specialized, often highly technical, tradecraft in its own right."

The mass destruction of war is also specialized and technical, and the United States now invests close to a trillion dollars per year in it. The appointment of three junior State Department staffers to try to make peace in a world threatened and intimidated by their own country's trillion-dollar war machine only reaffirms that peace is not a priority for the US government.

By contrast, the European Union created its Mediation Support Team in 2009 and now has 20 team members working with other teams from individual EU countries. The UN's Department of Political and Peace Building Affairs has a staff of 4,500, spread all across the world.

The tragedy of American diplomacy today is that it is diplomacy for war, not for peace. The State Department's top priorities are not to make peace, nor even to actually win wars, which the United States has failed to do since 1945, apart from the reconquest of small neocolonial outposts in Grenada, Panama, and Kuwait.

Its actual priorities are to bully other countries to join US-led war coalitions and buy US weapons, to mute calls for peace in international fora, to enforce illegal and deadly coercive sanctions, and to manipulate other countries into sacrificing their people in US proxy wars.

The result is to keep spreading violence and chaos across the world. If we want to stop our rulers from marching us toward nuclear war, climate catastrophe, and mass extinction, we had better take off our blinders and start insisting on policies that reflect our best instincts and our common interests, instead of the interests of the warmongers and merchants of death who profit from war.

 

Saudi Arab trying to find path to dialogue with Iran

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said the kingdom was trying to find a path to dialogue with Iran as the best way to resolve differences.

He said a decision by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to focus on their economies and development was a strong signal to Iran and others in the region that there is a pathway beyond traditional arguments and disputes towards joint prosperity.

The Middle East's leading Sunni Muslim and Shi'ite powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran have for years vied for influence in a rivalry that has played out across the region in events such as the conflicts in Yemen and Syria and in Lebanon.

Riyadh and Tehran cut ties in 2016 but officials from the two countries have held five rounds of direct talks hosted by Iraq since last year, the last of which was in April, without achieving any diplomatic breakthroughs.

Gulf Arab states are concerned about Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and network of regional proxies, but want to contain tensions as they focus on economic priorities.

The Saudi foreign minister, speaking at a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, also said there was a need to find a route to ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict, otherwise global uncertainty would continue.

"This is complex question, but we will have to talk about how we find a pathway to ending the conflict," he said.

Prince Faisal said attention on the Middle East was also needed, citing Syria as well as regional concerns over provocative policies by Israel's new government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu in an alliance with ultra-nationalists.

Netanyahu has pledged to pursue formal Israeli ties with Riyadh to build on normalization pacts signed with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020 under his leadership.

Gulf powerhouse Saudi Arabia blessed the US-brokered pacts but stopped short of formally recognizing Israel in the absence of a resolution to Palestinian statehood goals.

 

US budget will support proxy wars in 2023

The US Senate has passed legislation for the Pentagon budget next year, whopping US$858 billion. The unprecedented package is US$45 billion more than President Joe Biden had requested and is set to have consequences for global peace and security. The bill passed so easily in both chambers tells about the priorities of Washington. 

The bill is the largest budget in the history of the world. It is about three to four times larger than the budget of China whose population last year was reported at 1.412 billion, in comparison to the 331.9 million of the United States.

It is also a conservative budget as it does not include other aspects of the US military such as America’s nuclear weapons program, which is in the region of trillions of dollars. Nor does it include the Central Intelligence Agency. Last year, Congress gave the CIA US$25 billion more than it asked for.

Experts say this huge US military budget supports a network of global occupation. An occupation that has a military presence that includes Europe, parts of East Asia, in particular Japan and South Korea, nations across West Asia, and parts of Africa.

The amount of money being spent on the military has been met with anger among Americans, especially during this period of economic hardship on the backdrop of a global pandemic and war in Ukraine.

Since 2001, conservative estimates suggest the US has spent at least US$20 trillion on war and military adventurism abroad.

This is while the latest US$858 billion bill has no purpose to protect the people of the United States. Nobody is threatening the US mainland which raises the question of why such a large amount is being spent by Washington on its military. Nearly half of the US discretionary budget is spent on the military.

The diversion of these resources could be used for feeding, clothing, educating, building, and treating Americans back home who are desperately in need of such services.

There is a lack of healthcare or enough housing, adequate food and clean water, or a clean environment inside the United States. These issues are rarely mentioned by the US media.

There has been a very extensive propaganda campaign inside the US in support of the US proxy war in Ukraine, which seems to have won. This campaign is being launched by bipartisan parties in Congress.

This is a war that could have easily been avoided and prevented the suffering of the Ukrainian people as well as citizens across Europe.

The huge amount of money in the military is being used to support the declining US worldwide empire. Washington has to resort to keeping this sinking empire in power and in place through militarism expenditure.

The US is slipping in many ways, as far as being the dominant world power when it comes to economics and finance, and diplomacy. But it does claim to be the world’s leading military power, which other countries can depend on.

History has proven that to be false and such a claim by Washington of being the world’s number one military power is not something to be proud of considering its multiple military defeats.

The budget also allocates funds to send more military aid to Ukraine which raises the question if Washington is seeking to prolong the war.

Experts say the aim is to seek regime change in Russia, in particular, after Moscow sent its forces to Syria to help Damascus fight terrorism.

The idea of dismantling the Russian Federation has been openly talked about at the US state department. It is actively holding public forums in various places with groups that the US claims are repressed nationalities in Russia under the context of liberation movements.

Critics say Washington is doing or trying to do what was done to the Soviet Union in 1991.

But critics also say some policymakers at the US State Department are under the illusion or delusional enough to believe that Washington can re-enact the events of 1991 (when the Soviet Union was dissolved) and have the Russian Federation collapse by expanding NATO.

Washington is playing with fire in Ukraine as Russia says if it sends Patriot missile batteries to Kyiv that means American military personnel would be operating the missile systems.

This could pit Russian forces in direct combat with American forces and could potentially expand the war. Should the US military sustain casualties by Russian retaliatory attacks, this would lead to nowhere but a third world war.

It highlights the instability of America’s delusional policy-making. The US invaded Afghanistan but never succeeded in occupying the country in 20 years with no plans on how to withdraw until it fled in a very chaotic nature in similar scenes to Afghanistan.

The massive military policy bill also includes the authorization of up to US$10 billion in military assistance and fast-tracked weapons procurement for Taiwan.

One think tank says it will allow a regional contingency stockpile that will allow the Pentagon to place weapons in Taiwan (which is part of China) for use if a military conflict with Beijing arises.

The US Indo-Pacific Command’s outgoing Admiral Phil Davidson, before leaving office, said the island chain countries have to be prepared for war. In other words, places like Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and others have to prepare for war triggered by the US.

Analysts have interpreted this until today, as meaning that countries surrounding China have to be built up militarily so that if a war occurs with China these countries and regions get hit and suffer casualties as well as destruction.

But Washington needs the same countries and regions to have so much weaponry so they can continue fighting or serve as the basis for the US to continue a war against China until victory.

It highlights how little concern the US has towards those countries and how cold-blooded the US approach to war is.

It also means the United States is disregarding the Shanghai Communique which recognizes on both sides of the strait, everyone recognizes only one China. Now Washington is not treating Taiwan as part of China which is very dangerous.

There has been an ongoing drive to militarize some nations surrounding China, in a similar fashion to Russia.

In Africa, the US is fighting in five or six places in addition to the Ukraine war, the Yemen war, and other civil wars that Washington is waging through various proxies.

The timing of the budget comes at a time when the US national debt stands at around US$31 trillion, which puts into question the thought process of those making decisions in America.

US senators backed the bill overwhelmingly which means there is always consensus on the war in a congress that the US arms companies have the lawmakers their pockets. The military-industrial complex, along with the banks and the oil companies are the only beneficiaries of war.

Unlike healthcare, abortion, gun control, and so many other issues that take so long to pass Congress amid deep divisions between the Republicans and the Democrats, when it comes to militarism, there is no bickering at all.

 

Why are United States assets not being frozen?

The European Union (EU) is planning to use frozen Russian assets to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine. A question arise, why United States and NATO countries having indulged in wars, invasions, and carpet bombings have not met the similar fate?

The EU’s plans include an attempt to re-invest the international reserves of the Russian Central Bank in Ukraine. 

Moscow’s assets frozen under sanctions imposed by the EU can be divided into two main sections. Private assets are worth nearly €19 billion while public assets held by state entities are about €300 billion of international reserves owned by the Russian Central Bank.

"Russia must also pay financially for the devastation that it caused,” European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said. Moscow has “to compensate Ukraine for the damage and cover the costs for rebuilding the country." she added.

In the midst of rising inflation across Europe, freezing and selling Russian assets is being viewed as an avenue by the 27-member bloc to raise funds for Ukraine.

However, EU sanctions are always temporary, so the assets at the end of the day must be returned to their original owners.

It seems that before this happens the EU is working hard to move the goalposts and ensure the frozen assets become a solid, bulletproof solution to make Russia pay, as von der Leyen put it.

NATO could have prevented this war by not expanding its military equipment and troops eastwards toward Russian borders in the years prior to the war.

The US could have avoided the crisis in Ukraine and the suffering of Ukrainians by choosing to negotiate rather than reject the Kremlin’s proposals of security guarantees, which were sent to Washington months before the conflict erupted.

The Minsk agreements which began in 2014 after fighting erupted between ethnic Russian forces and the Ukrainian army in the eastern Donbas region could have been implemented to avoid a war.

Experts have questioned the double standards of the EU asking why such efforts have not been applied to the US-led wars, proxy wars, invasions, and carpet bombings that have led to the complete destruction of many countries over the past decades.

The US invasion and 20-year occupation of Afghanistan saw an unprecedented rise in terrorism (ironically Washington invaded the country under the pretext of its war on terror). During the two-decade occupation, Afghans witnessed nothing but destruction, terror, violence, mass killings, and other atrocities.

As a result of the spike in terrorism and regular US attacks, the destruction of the country’s infrastructure and the damage caused to Afghan public sectors has left a humanitarian catastrophe after the US fled Afghanistan in 2020.

The Afghanistan Country Director of Save the Children said in mid-February: “I’ve never seen anything like the desperate situation we have here in Afghanistan. We treat frighteningly ill children every day who haven’t eaten anything except bread for months. Parents are having to make impossible decisions – which of their children do they feed? Do they send their children to work or let them starve? These are excruciating choices that no parent should have to make.”

America’s longest war killed at least 66,000 Afghan national military and police as well as tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians, with different monitoring groups providing different death tolls.

In an ideal, just world, US assets should have been frozen and used to finance the reconstruction of Afghanistan. American assets should have also been frozen and used to compensate the families of Afghans killed as a result of the US invasion.

Following its embarrassing and chaotic withdrawal, Washington seized Afghanistan’s assets leading to further humanitarian suffering for Afghans, the majority of whom now live in poverty.

Likewise, the US invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq saw widespread damage to the country’s infrastructure. Damage that has yet to be rebuilt.

Washington claims it waged war against Iraq to remove the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power. Everyone wanted to see the end of Saddam, but very few wanted the US to be involved, especially considering the widespread hatred of America among Iraqis.

Even before the American invasion, US-backed UN sanctions against Baghdad killed at least half a million Iraqi children, with some studies putting the number at around 1.5 million Iraqis, primarily children, who died as a direct consequence of the imposed sanctions, citing UNICEF estimates.

During the US war itself from 2003 to 2011, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died, again because of an unprecedented rise in terrorism as a result of the US war on terror and many other civilians were killed because of attacks by the US military.

The damage to Iraq's infrastructure as a result of US interference in the country (in the form of sanctions, airstrikes, and wars) from 1991 until its occupation which is ongoing until this day is estimated to have cost the nation trillions of dollars.

How many Iraqi civilians have been killed because of terrorist groups that did not exist before Washington’s 2003 invasion and US carpet bombings in cities such as Mosul?

With such vast oil wealth, Iraqi infrastructure has been damaged to such an extent that the country still relies on Iranian energy exports for its electricity.

Why are US assets not being frozen and used to finance the reconstruction of Iraq? Why are US assets not being frozen and used to compensate the families of civilians murdered because of terrorism that came with the US invasion?

As many reports have emerged over the years, NATO killed civilians when it waged war on Libya to allegedly help overthrow longtime ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi. The US-led military alliance’s bombing campaign had a devastating toll but, more than a decade after the war, NATO has yet to take any responsibility.

There was no terrorism before NATO bombed Libya. Since then, the country has been embroiled in terror with Daesh and other Takfiri groups wreaking havoc in the North African country.

The US military is occupying regions in eastern and northeastern Syria and looting the country’s oil in an attempt to prevent Damascus from restoring its own infrastructure and services following a decade of US-backed war on the country.

Yemen, the poorest country in West Asia, has faced an eight-year, US-backed bombing campaign that has destroyed the country’s entire infrastructure. Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have been killed because of US-made bombs that have been dropped using US intelligence with warplanes whose pilots were trained by the US and UK military.

Rights groups accuse the US and its allies, including Canada and European countries of being directly complicit in the war. Yemeni officials say Saudi Arabia was used as a proxy by Washington and that the US was the one that waged war on it in March 2015.

Such is the damage inflicted on Yemen, which is too difficult to estimate, and U.S. assets should be frozen and used to finance the reconstruction of Yemen.

Yemen is a country that the United Nations has described as having the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.  

Washington’s support for the Israeli regime’s ethnic cleansing, and genocidal terrorism campaign against the Palestinians is well documented.

The list of US wars is long. Washington economically survives on waging wars, and invasions and using proxies to trigger violence, unrest, terrorism, and civil wars in regions well beyond its borders.

From the Vietnam War to the shadow wars in Somalia, Pakistan, and the African continent, why isn’t the US being held accountable? Why are US assets not being frozen? Why are there no punitive actions against Washington? 

 

Ship survives drone attacks at Yemeni port

According to Seatrade Maritime News, Yemen’s Houthi militia has issued a warning to tankers loading at Yemeni oil terminals firing two armed drones at a Okeanis Eco Tankers VLCC as the vessel called for loading at the Al-Dabba oil terminal in Ash Shihr, Yemen. 

In a filing to the Oslo Stock Exchange, the Alafouzos-controlled company confirmed two “drone-driven explosions” in close proximity to its 300,000dwt newbuilding Nissos Kea on October 21, 2022.

The Greek owner of the Marshall Islands-flagged 2022-built tanker said it sustained no damage and no injuries to the crew in the attack which saw one drone explode ahead of it and another on its starboard side and came 14 minutes apart.

The Nissos Kea was scheduled to load 2 millio barrels of crude, but the vessel sailed from the loading port in international waters following the incident. “All necessary precautionary measures were duly taken beforehand and during the incident,” said Okeanis Eco Tankers.

The drone attack came two weeks after a cease-fire in the country’s civil war ended. Yemen’s Houthi militias said they were behind the attack, calling it a “warning strike.” to prevent pro-government forces from using terminals for oil exports. Meanwhile, the country’s Saudi-backed government said its forces had intercepted the drones.

The European Union (EU) said the flagrant menacing of international maritime commerce was unacceptable. “Houthi attacks on international shipping are an affront to core principles of the Law of the Sea, jeopardizing freedom of navigation through the region’s waterways and blocking access to Yemeni ports,” it added.

Cyprus-based, maritime security company Diaplous Group said: “The Company immediately emailed the Coast Guard to report the incident and request to stop. The coastguard warned that the vessel was in danger and prompted the master to abandon the operations at the terminal, to evacuate the area instantly and to inform accordingly when the vessel would be sailing in international waters.

Saudi Shoura Speaker asks Iran not to intervene in the affairs of other countries

The Shoura Council Speaker Sheikh Dr. Abdullah Bin Muhammad Bin Ibrahim Al-Sheikh stressed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — under the leadership of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and the Crown Prince — is on a path of prosperity and welfare.

He reiterated that the region needs to be without conflicts while solving all its issues, mainly the Palestinian cause. He renewed Saudi Arabia’s inviolable support to the Palestinian people and their full right to establishing their independent Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Dr. Al-Sheikh made the remarks while heading Saudi Arabia’s delegation participating in the 16th meeting of Heads of Shoura, Representatives, National Assembly, and Parliament Councils in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states hosted by Oman Wednesday.

He noted that the future of the region requires adopting a vision that prioritizes realizing security, stability and prosperity, while focusing on mutual respect among regional countries.

He added that the region needs to enhance joint cultural and social bonds, and faces security and political challenges in a bid to achieve a comprehensive economic development.

He said, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia calls on Iran, in its capacity as a neighboring country whose people share the same religious and cultural values, to cooperate with regional countries through adhering to principles of the international legitimacy and refraining from interference in domestic affairs of other countries.”

“The Kingdom calls on Iran to cooperated with International Atomic Energy Agency, and honor its relevant pledges,” he added, stressing Saudi Arabia’s rejection of Iran’s occupation of three Emirati islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs.

He emphasized, at the same time, calls on Iran to respond to the UAE endeavors to solve the issue through direct negotiations or resorting to the International Court of Justice.

Dr. Al-Sheikh also noted that Saudi Arabia is always keen on the success of the truce reached under the auspices of UN in Yemen and its full rejection for Houthi militia to exploit the keenness of the international community and the coalition on peace and the militia’s rejection to honor its pledges.

He stressed that Saudi Arabia praises the efforts of the UN’s Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen Hans Grundberg in enhancing commitment to truce that is in line with Saudi Arabia’s initiative to end the crisis in Yemen and reach a comprehensive political solution.

Best Pastime of United States: Selling Arms to Saudi Arabia

Selling arms appears to be the sole motive of the United States. It creates a crisis, fans it and sells arms. The Saudi-Yemen conflict has been lingering on only because the US keeps on supplying arms to Saudi Arabia, rather than resolving the crisis. 

The Biden administration has transferred a significant number of Patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia in the past several weeks after the country urgently requested a resupply, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

The transfers, which were not formally announced, are to make sure Saudi Arabia can defend itself against drone and missile attacks from the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, a senior US official said. 

While they would not specifically confirm a significant number of transfers, a State Department spokesman told The Hill that over the past several months the administration has been working with Saudi Arabia and its neighbors to help them strengthen their air defenses in response to a rising number of aerial attacks from Yemen. 

One official told the Journal the Patriot interceptors were moved from US stockpiles elsewhere in the Middle East. 

Washington’s relationship with Riyadh has been rocky for more than a year after President Biden took office, an issue that stems from the country’s human rights record and its involvement in Yemen’s civil war, which has dragged on since 2014 and killed thousands of civilians.  

Biden will not communicate directly with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and last year released an intelligence report implicating him in the murder of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. 

And the United States in September withdrew some of its own Patriot defense systems from Saudi Arabia amid ongoing Houthi attacks.

But Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s largest oil producers, is also a valuable strategic ally in the region, especially since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year. 

The US has supplied more than US$100 billion worth of weapons to the kingdom in the past decade and has used the country to keep a US force presence in the region amid ongoing tensions with Iran and counterterrorism missions against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.  

On Sunday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan condemned the Houthis for a series of major drone and missile strikes on water treatment facilities and Saudi-run Aramco oil infrastructure that started a fire at one site and temporarily reduced oil production at another. 

“We will continue to fully support our partners in the defense of their territory from Houthi attacks. We call on the international community to do the same,” Sullivan said in a statement. 

A person familiar with the transfers told The Hill that the recent movements of Patriots to the Saudis was not a new development and that the US has been working for months to bolster Saudi Arabia against cross-border attacks, which numbered at more than 400 last year, they said. 

Such attacks “affected Saudi infrastructure, schools, mosques, and workplaces, and endangered the civilian population, including 70,000 US citizens living in Saudi Arabia,” they said. 

“With US support, Saudi Arabia has been able to intercept 90 percent of the attacks, but we need to aim for 100 percent,” the person added.

US officials told the Journal that the decision to send the interceptors had taken so long because other US allies also have a high demand for the weapons and the need to go through the typical government vetting process, not due to a delay from the White House.  

The decision to green-light the arms transfer is also part of an administration effort to mend its relationship with Saudi Arabia and convince the kingdom to pump more oil to offset quickly rising crude oil prices, according to the officials.

Asked later on Monday about the Patriot deployments, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby would not confirm the transfers but said the US military is committed to helping Saudi Arabia defend itself against threats to its territory from Yemen.

"We're in constant discussions with the Saudis about this, about this threat environment, and always looking for ways to continue to help them defend themselves, but I've got nothing to say with respect to that press report," Kirby said.

 

 

 

Will Saudi Arabia quit Yemen war?

Reportedly, Biden administration has ramped up pressure on Saudi Arabia to bring war in Yemen to end and the Kingdom has reluctantly accepted to go along with the US initiative. In his early days as President of United States, Joe Biden sent a clear message to Saudi Arabia that the days of Washington giving unwavering support for Saudi military operations in Yemen are over. 

This war has to end. And to underscore our commitment, we’re ending all American support for offensive operations in Yemen, including arm sales, said Biden in a recent speech at the State Department.

Not only Biden administration removed Yemen’s Ansarullah movement from the US government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, Veteran diplomat, Timothy Lenderking has been appointed the US special envoy for Yemen.

The US approach towards Yemen changed after the new administration realized that Saudi Arabia can never win this war and there is an urgent need to offer the Monarchy a face-saving. 

Saudis don’t seem to agree with the US proposal. They still insist on excluding the Ansarallah movement and returning the obsolete, self-proclaimed government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who resigned in 2015 and left Yemen open for foreign intervention. 

Saudi intervention in Yemen was aimed at achieving one goal, eliminating Ansarallah and Sanaa-based government. To justify its assault on Yemen, Saudi Arabia claimed that Ansarallah is backed by Iran and that the war on Yemen was primarily focused on eliminating foreign influence in the country.

Saudis and their allies besieged Yemen and prevented free coming and going to Yemen. Despite the blockade, the Saudis failed to defeat the Sanaa government; which now seems to be stronger than ever given its recent attacks on several strategic targets deep inside Saudi Arabia.

An official spokesman at the ministry told Saudi Press Agency on Sunday that one of the petroleum tank farms at the Ras Tanura Port in the Eastern Region, one of the largest oil shipping ports in the world, was attacked by a drone.

The official added that another deliberate attempt was made to hit Saudi Aramco’s facilities. The spokesman said a ballistic missile fell near Saudi Aramco’s area in the city of Dhahran. The spokesman said that both attacks did not result in any injury or loss of life or property.

The Yemeni forces claimed responsibility for the attacks on Aramco facilities. They said the attack came in response to ongoing aggression and siege against Yemen. 

The latest attacks indicated that Saudi Arabia has not only unsuccessful in defeating Yemeni forces, but it also failed in protecting itself from Yemen’s retaliatory strikes.

Instead of ending the war in Yemen, Saudis continue to level accusations on Iran, claiming that the missile and drones used by the Yemeni forces to target Saudi Arabia’s oil port and facilities were supplied by Iran. 

Saudi Arabia can quit war by ending its military operations and leaving Yemeni factions to pursue a political solution at their own. Saudis have failed in finding ways out of the Yemen crisis. Now that the US is negotiating for an end to Yemen war, Saudis should put an end to this unwinnable war. 

If Saudis continue the war, they may lose not only the war, but also their credibility. Saudis may not like the US plan, but the effort may prove a blessing in disguise.

What United States loves the most? Saudi Crown Prince or US$134 billion arms sale

At present, the United States and Saudi Arabia are experiencing a new era in their 76-year relationships. The priorities have changed after the release of the CIA findings. The report says Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) had ‘approved’ the 2018 murder of prominent Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

Historically, an American president has never cut off personal links to the Saudi heir apparent, who has often served as de facto ruler of the kingdom. But the White House declared his intention to make that very heir a ‘pariah’ in Washington and internationally as well.

The State Department has also set a new precedent by issuing visa restrictions on 76 Saudis believed to have been engaged in threatening dissidents overseas’ under a new ‘Khashoggi ban’ created in memory of the Saudi journalist murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.

MBS has been deliberately spared from the Khashoggi ban, or any other sanction, to preserve a minimum communication and cooperation between the two governments. Former Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal noted, MBS is destined to live under a lifetime ‘stigma’ for his role in the affair. He is unlikely to be invited to the White House for years to come.     

Biden has said that from now on, he will only talk to King Salman, Mohammed’s father and the American President’s official counterpart. But the king is 85 years old and in failing health. When he dies, would Biden refuse to communicate with the kingdom’s new monarch? It will be an unprecedented situation in the history of US-Saudi relations dating back to World War II.

In the past, the personal relationship between the US President and reigning Saudi monarch has been a key determinant in setting both the tone and substance of ties between the two countries. At this point, the only senior US official authorized to talk to Crown Prince Mohammed, who is also minister of defense, is his counterpart, Secretary of Defense General Lloyd Austin III.

What impact the new Biden doctrine toward the crown prince will have on the overall US-Saudi relationship remains to be seen? It seems likely that the relationship will be reduced mostly to formal state-to-state transactions and to avoid an open break which neither side wants.

It is believed that the focal point of the relationship will remain the massive US arms sales to the Saudi kingdom and covert cooperation in demolishing Iran. Since 2010, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has notified Congress of US$134 billion arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which has been the most important foreign market for the American defense industry for decades.

The Biden administration has reiterated its commitment to defending Saudi Arabia from foreign aggression and will continue to provide ‘defensive’ arms. However, it has already announced the suspension of ‘offensive’ weapons being used against Houthi rebels, who have seized control of most of Yemen. Forthcoming arms sales to the Kingdom are now under review, presumably to determine which are defensive and which are offensive.

Other than MBS, the most divisive and immediate issue in US-Saudi relations is how to deal with Iran, the kingdom’s arch rival for regional primacy. Iran has proven itself to be the most serious military threat after demonstrating its ability to amass drones and cruise missiles to knock out nearly half of the kingdom’s oil production for several weeks in September 2019.

Biden has begun charting a diplomacy initiative to entice Iran back into the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Acton (JCPOA). This will certainly lead to even more discord in the fraught US-Saudi relationship. The two countries no longer see the personal ties bonding US and Saudi leaders had enjoyed in the past.

Can appointment of Timothy Lenderking bring peace in Yemen?

On 4th February 2021, the Biden administration announced the appointment of Timothy Lenderking as the US special envoy to Yemen. In a televised speech, President Joe Biden said that by appointing Lenderking, the US is stepping up its diplomatic efforts to end the war in Yemen and by extension the humanitarian catastrophe the war has created. “This war has to end,” Biden said. 

“To underscore our commitment, we are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war on Yemen, including relevant arms sales,” he added. Two days later, the administration revoked the designation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), citing humanitarian concerns.

While Lenderking’s appointment is a much-needed step, the “end the Yemen war” discourse championed by Western policy analysts, diplomats, and peace advocates is highly problematic and disconnected from the reality on the ground. Since 2014, successive UN special envoys for Yemen have tried to broker a political settlement between the Hadi government and the Houthis to end the conflict and resume the political transition process that was thwarted when Houthi forces allied with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and captured Sanaa in September 2014. This effort is commonly known as the “peace process” and is widely supported by the international community, including the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the European Union.

The urgency to reach a political settlement is largely driven by the desire to address the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen. The war has made the country the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. However, neither halting arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition nor reaching a power-sharing agreement between the Hadi government and the Houthis will end Yemen’s war or mitigate the humanitarian crisis. Yemen's conflict is multilayered and far too complex to be solved with a rushed political agreement. A political settlement under the current circumstances might be a quick win for American and Western diplomacy, but it will most likely reinforce the current power dynamics and lock Yemen into a cycle of perpetual war, bringing 30 million Yemenis closer to famine and pushing the country farther away from peace.

While the Biden administration can successfully put pressure on the Saudi-led coalition and the Yemeni government, it does not have the same leverage on the Houthis, who currently have the upper hand militarily. A political settlement risks tipping the military balance in favor of the Houthis, who have failed to demonstrate any commitment to cease-fires in the past.

The Biden administration appears to have revoked the FTO designation unconditionally in the hope that the Houthis will reciprocate and engage in negotiations in good faith. As former USAID official Dave Harden argues, the Houthis will perceive this rescission as a sign of American weakness. The move created widespread anger among Yemenis, who interpreted it as the Biden administration giving the Houthis a green light to continue their violence against civilians. The very next day after Biden’s decision to revoke the FTO designation, the Houthis mobilized their forces and launched a renewed offensive to seize the oil-rich city of Marib as well as cross-border drone attacks against Saudi Arabia.

In recent years, Yemen has paid the price for well-intentioned international interventions in the name of peace that have not only failed but also backfired. In 2011, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Initiative resulted in a power-sharing deal between former President Saleh and his opponents and outlined a plan for a political transition process. Focused primarily on the power struggle among the political elite while neglecting the long-standing grievances of ordinary Yemenis, the deal granted former President Saleh immunity, which effectively allowed him to remain in control of most of the armed forces. Saleh then allied with the Houthis and overthrew the government in September 2014, dragging the country into a devastating civil war.

Moving forward, the Biden administration should be cautious and assess the unintended consequences of using diplomacy to force a political negotiation process that fails to consider Yemen’s complex domestic dynamics and the reality on the ground. The Houthis are an ideologically-driven group that claims a divine right to rule as descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, defying the basic principles of democracy. They have built a police state that rules Yemenis through systematic repression. As part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” they have a jihadist agenda that poses a threat not only to Yemen, but to the entire region. Their threat must not be taken lightly.

In order to address the Yemen problem, the Biden administration should first embrace the complexity of the conflict and develop a Yemen policy that reflects it. The administration has to come to terms with the fact that conditions might not be ripe to end the conflict, much less bring about peace. While it can hold the Saudi-led coalition accountable for their role in mismanaging the war and for the civilian casualties their intervention has caused, it is not the responsibility of the United States to solve the conflict. Second, rather than using its political capital to push through a shaky deal that will likely be counterproductive, the US administration should work with the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Yemen Martin Griffiths to mitigate the impact of the conflict on civilians by easing access to humanitarian aid and opening airports, seaports, and key roads to cities. Third, it should work with Saudi Arabia to stabilize the Yemeni currency, support the local economy, and strengthen governance and security where possible.

Is the world ignoring Iran Israel tension?

Media across the Middle East during this past week was focused on Israel-Iran tensions, including inflammatory comments from Beirut to Baghdad about the war on the horizon. Yet much of the tension failed to attract the attention of international community. That doesn’t mean that behind the scenes the US, France and others were not working to calm the issue, but it does appear that most did not take the crises seriously.

The reason is that in Europe is engrossed Brexit, while Trump-centric news cycle spent time wondering if the US would buy Greenland, or if hurricanes would be nuked, or if the G7 would hold a meeting with Russia at a Trump resort.

In addition, there are protests in Hong Kong and a crisis in Kashmir. These are important issues, some of them with ramifications as important as what is taking place in the Middle East. Pakistan and India, for instance, have nuclear weapons.

The airstrike by Israel on 24^th August, and Hezbollah’s claims that it downed Israeli drones on August 25, also did not lend themselves to much of a crisis. A few little drones that looked more appropriate for a wedding planner and an airstrike where only a grainy video seems to underpin Israel’s claims of “killer drones” is not major news globally.

Also, the allegations of Israeli airstrikes in Iraq are opaque. Some storage containers blew up, but there are not many details. And there is fatigue in Western media for stories about violence in the Middle East. In addition, the US is trying to end the Afghan war in the coming months, a war that also gets almost no media attention anymore.

Nevertheless, the Israel-Hezbollah tensions and US-Iran tensions have major ramifications. Jerusalem has said that Tehran is entrenching in Syria, and that it sends precision guidance technology to upgrade Hezbollah’s arsenal of 130,000 missiles. Hezbollah says it can strike all of Israel. Iranian-backed Shi’ite paramilitaries in Iraq are important, as is their long-term affect on Iraq and the region. Hezbollah holds the US and Israel responsible.

That could have an impact on US-Iraqi relations, and the long-term strategy to defeat ISIS. It is no surprise that ISIS is trying to expand again in Syria and Iraq with small attacks. Baghdad has launched major offensives to crush the ISIS networks, but Iraqis are dying in these battles every day. These tensions also relate to other tensions in the Gulf, as well as between Saudi Arabia and Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The Houthis tried to use drones or rockets to attack Saudi Arabia almost every day over the last week. These conflicts are linked, from Hezbollah to Houthis to Iraq and Syria. Yet they are so complex and have so many different leaders and groups involved that many feel they are too complicated to understand.

Outside of simple binaries like “Hezbollah vs. Israel” or “Iran vs. America,” the story is difficult to explain. Trump’s comments about Greenland, or Boris Johnson suspending parliament, seem easier to understand. A million people protesting in Hong Kong seems more important than two Hezbollah operatives killed.