THE ROVING EYE Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya deal
By Pepe Escobar
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is
the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the
House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently
confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the
go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy
movement in their neighbor in exchange for a "yes"
vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya - the main rationale that
led to United Nations Security Council resolution 1973.
The revelation came from two different diplomats, a European and a member of
the BRIC group, and was made separately to a US scholar and Asia Times Online.
According to diplomatic protocol, their names cannot be disclosed. One of the
diplomats said, "This is the reason why we could not support resolution 1973.
We were arguing that Libya, Bahrain and Yemen were similar cases, and calling
for a fact-finding mission. We maintain our official position that the
resolution is not clear, and may be interpreted in a belligerent manner."
As Asia Times Online has reported, a full Arab League endorsement of a no-fly
zone is a myth. Of the 22 full members, only 11 were present at the voting. Six
of them were Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, the US-supported club of
Gulf kingdoms/sheikhdoms, of which Saudi Arabia is the top dog. Syria and
Algeria were against it. Saudi Arabia only had to "seduce" three other members
to get the vote.
Translation: only nine out of 22 members of the Arab League voted for the
no-fly zone. The vote was essentially a House of Saud-led operation, with Arab
League secretary general Amr Moussa keen to polish his CV with Washington with
an eye to become the next Egyptian President.
Thus, in the beginning, there was the great 2011 Arab revolt. Then, inexorably,
came the US-Saudi counter-revolution.
Profiteers rejoice
Humanitarian imperialists will spin en masse this is a "conspiracy", as they
have been spinning the bombing of Libya prevented a hypothetical massacre in
Benghazi. They will be defending the House of Saud - saying it acted to squash
Iranian subversion in the Gulf; obviously R2P - "responsibility to protect"
does not apply to people in Bahrain. They will be heavily promoting
post-Gaddafi Libya as a new - oily - human rights Mecca, complete with US
intelligence assets, black ops, special forces and dodgy contractors.
Whatever they say won't alter the facts on the ground - the graphic results of
the US-Saudi dirty dancing. Asia Times Online has already reported on who
profits from the foreign intervention in Libya (see
There's no business like war business, March 30). Players include the
Pentagon (via Africom), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Saudi
Arabia, the Arab League's Moussa, and Qatar. Add to the list the al-Khalifa
dynasty in Bahrain, assorted weapons contractors, and the usual neo-liberal
suspects eager to privatize everything in sight in the new Libya - even the
water. And we're not even talking about the Western vultures hovering over the
Libyan oil and gas industry.
Exposed, above all, is the astonishing hypocrisy of the Obama administration,
selling a crass geopolitical coup involving northern Africa and the Persian
Gulf as a humanitarian operation. As for the fact of another US war on a Muslim
nation, that's just a "kinetic military action".
There's been wide speculation in both the US and across the Middle East that
considering the military stalemate - and short of the "coalition of the
willing" bombing the Gaddafi family to oblivion - Washington, London and Paris
might settle for the control of eastern Libya; a northern African version of an
oil-rich Gulf Emirate. Gaddafi would be left with a starving North Korea-style
Tripolitania.
But considering the latest high-value defections from the regime, plus the
desired endgame ("Gaddafi must go", in President Obama's own words),
Washington, London, Paris and Riyadh won't settle for nothing but the whole
kebab. Including a strategic base for both Africom and NATO.
Round up the unusual suspects
One of the side effects of the dirty US-Saudi deal is that the White House is
doing all it can to make sure the Bahrain drama is buried by US media. BBC
America news anchor Katty Kay at least had the decency to stress, "they would
like that one [Bahrain] to go away because there's no real upside for them in
supporting the rebellion by the Shi'ites."
For his part the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, showed up on
al-Jazeera and said that action was needed because the Libyan people were
attacked by Gaddafi. The otherwise excellent al-Jazeera journalists could have
politely asked the emir whether he would send his Mirages to protect the people
of Palestine from Israel, or his neighbors in Bahrain from Saudi Arabia.
The al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain is essentially a bunch of Sunni settlers who
took over 230 years ago. For a great deal of the 20th century they were
obliging slaves of the British empire. Modern Bahrain does not live under the
specter of a push from Iran; that's an al-Khalifa (and House of Saud) myth.
Bahrainis, historically, have always rejected being part of a sort of Shi'ite
nation led by Iran. The protests come a long way, and are part of a true
national movement - way beyond sectarianism. No wonder the slogan in the iconic
Pearl roundabout - smashed by the fearful al-Khalifa police state - was
"neither Sunni nor Shi'ite; Bahraini".
What the protesters wanted was essentially a constitutional monarchy; a
legitimate parliament; free and fair elections; and no more corruption. What
they got instead was "bullet-friendly Bahrain" replacing "business-friendly
Bahrain", and an invasion sponsored by the House of Saud.
And the repression goes on - invisible to US corporate media. Tweeters scream
that everybody and his neighbor are being arrested. According to Nabeel Rajab,
president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, over 400 people are either
missing or in custody, some of them "arrested at checkpoints controlled by
thugs brought in from other Arab and Asian countries - they wear black masks in
the streets." Even blogger Mahmood Al Yousif was arrested at 3 am, leading to
fears that the same will happen to any Bahraini who has blogged, tweeted, or
posted Facebook messages in favor of reform.
Globocop is on a roll
Odyssey Dawn is now over. Enter Unified Protector - led by Canadian Charles
Bouchard. Translation: the Pentagon (as in Africom) transfers the "kinetic
military action " to itself (as in NATO, which is nothing but the Pentagon
ruling over Europe). Africom and NATO are now one.
The NATO show will include air and cruise missile strikes; a naval blockade of
Libya; and shady, unspecified ground operations to help the "rebels". Hardcore
helicopter gunship raids a la AfPak - with attached "collateral damage" -
should be expected.
A curious development is already visible. NATO is deliberately allowing Gaddafi
forces to advance along the Mediterranean coast and repel the "rebels". There
have been no surgical air strikes for quite a while.
The objective is possibly to extract political and economic concessions from
the defector and Libyan exile-infested Interim National Council (INC) - a dodgy
cast of characters including former Justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil,
US-educated former secretary of planning Mahmoud Jibril, and former Virginia
resident, new "military commander" and CIA asset Khalifa Hifter. The laudable,
indigenous February 17 Youth movement - which was in the forefront of the
Benghazi uprising - has been completely sidelined.
This is NATO's first African war, as Afghanistan is NATO's first Central/South
Asian war. Now firmly configured as the UN's weaponized arm, Globocop NATO is
on a roll implementing its "strategic concept" approved at the Lisbon summit
last November (see
Welcome to NATOstan, Asia Times Online, November 20, 2010).
Gaddafi's Libya must be taken out so the Mediterranean - the mare nostrum
of ancient Rome - becomes a NATO lake. Libya is the only nation in northern
Africa not subordinated to Africom or Centcom or any one of the myriad NATO
"partnerships". The other non-NATO-related African nations are Eritrea,
Sawahiri Arab Democratic Republic, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Moreover, two members of NATO's "Istanbul Cooperation Initiative" - Qatar and
the United Arab Emirates - are now fighting alongside Africom/NATO for the fist
time. Translation: NATO and Persian Gulf partners are fighting a war in Africa.
Europe? That's too provincial. Globocop is the way to go.
According to the Obama administration's own official doublespeak, dictators who
are eligible for "US outreach" - such as in Bahrain and Yemen - may relax, and
get away with virtually anything. As for those eligible for "regime
alteration", from Africa to the Middle East and Asia, watch out. Globocop NATO
is coming to get you. With or without dirty deals.
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