Well, duh!

I haven't posted lately because I try to avoid belaboring the obvious. but I'll make an exception this time to reassure my readers that I'm still alive:

• Voter suppression works, as demonstrated by Brian Kemp, the new governor of Georgia.  
• "Florida Man" can be a woman, as demonstrated by Brenda C. Snipes, election commissioner of Broward County.   
• Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker again, if only because nobody else is willing to take all that grief; but she's also the only one capable of doing the job at this time.   
• MbS personally ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, but the Tr*mp Administration will find a way to ignore that fact.   
• Fox News and Russia's TASS news agency are locked in a bitter struggle to determine which can be more slanted and misleading.   
• Nobody has any clear idea of how to cope with the ecological catastrophe that is California.   
• Matt Whitaker is an affront to the rule of law, but then so is the rest of the Tr*mp Administration.   
• You can't fight a trade war with China and expect them to maintain sanctions against North Korea at the same time.

Khashoggi, part two

I suppose this is conjecture, but it really feels right: Erdogan went public with lurid details of Jamal Khashoggi's murder because the Saudis didn't respond to his first blackmail attempt.  MbS couldn't imagine that anybody — especially the President of the United States of America — would be all that upset by the loss of a troublesome journalist.  After all, nobody paid much attention to the Kingdom's numerous other egregious abuses; how much difference could one more dead body make?

MbS was right about Tr*mp, of course, but others were less sanguine, and/or more opportunistic.  Under pressure, all MbS could do was "blame the help;" but given that the Turks almost certainly do have audiotapes, and possibly video as well, we can expect the negotiation of some very inexpensive "loans" to Turkey by the Kingdom in the near future.

Nobody actually believes the latest Saudi narrative, and even some Republicans will resist looking like complete idiots by pretending to swallow it — but it's the best anyone can do right now.  Will the whole thing blow over before Congress can curtail US participation in war crimes in Yemen?  As the Magic 8-Ball might say, "Ask again later."

The Real Khashoggi Question

A journalist is missing, probably dead, and whatever happened to him can be attributed to the government of Saudi Arabia.  That certainly is upsetting, but one wonders why it has drawn more media and Congressional censure than ongoing war crimes in Yemen; the imprisonment of women's rights advocates, including one sentenced to death; the imprisonment and near-fatal flogging of a mildly dissident blogger; the kidnapping and mistreatment of the Prime Minister of Lebanon; the Qatar blockade; and an host of other abuses.

Oh, yeah, there was that little matter of the Saudi royal family's involvement with al Qaeda prior to 9/11.

Jamal Khashoggi's reputation for "liberalism" dates from when he lost his job as editor of the Saudi journal Al Watan for failure to censor an article suggesting that Ibn Taymiyya, the 14th century founder of Wahabbism, may have been less than infallible.  It was just a minor glitch, though — more significant, since the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, were close ties to ousted defense minister Turki al-Faisal.  One suspects that most of Khashoggi's royal friends were among those rounded up by MbS for the great Ritz Carleton shakedown.

Clearly, criticism of MbS is enough to get a person murdered these days, but there seems to be one question nobody is asking: why did Turkey go so public so soon, and what's in it for Recip Tayyip Erdogan?  It would have been easy enough for the Turks to pretend ignorance: instead, they leapt at the chance to spread grisly tales of torture and dismemberment, thereby revealing a practice of bugging foreign embassies and consulates.  (Nobody actually will believe the "Apple watch" story.)

My guess is that Turkey is tired of being pushed aside as America's favored partner in the Middle East, especially now that Erdogan has tanked the Turkish economy.  How can Americans complain about a little Turkish authoritarianism when the Saudis are so much worse?  The release of Evangelical agitator Andrew Brunson signals renewed Turkish interest in close partnership with the United States — not just an end to sanctions, but some sort of financial rescue.

Crown Ponce Jared won't like the idea, and neither will his "uncle" Bibi: a falling out with MbS will throw their alleged "peace plan" into disarray.  It won't go over too well with American corporations heavily financed by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund either.  Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!

Can the Middle East get even worse?

Sure it can — and the cheerful young man you see here is just the one to bring that about.  Now apparently in complete control of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman already has exacerbated regional turmoil, and promises to do more.

For the past four decades, Saudi Arabia was stabilized by oil revenues, religious authority, and gerontocracy.  MbS, as he's known, aims for continued stability, with special emphasis on the stability of monarchical rule.  He very much enjoys being the man in charge — of everything.

Admittedly, keeping Saudi Arabia stable will not be simple for anybody, direct descendant of Ibn Saud or not.  MbS needs to diversify the national economy away from oil and gas while engaged in a complex contest for power with Islamic authorities.  Ultraconservative Islam has been the foundation of his family's rule, but also its most significant rival for power.  Attempts to relax the Kingdom's medieval interpretation of Sharia Law are met with powerful opposition.

The greatest potential for making things "even worse," though, arises from MbS's efforts against regional rival Iran.  After over two years of war crimes in Yemen (with US collusion) and spending many times what Iranians give Houthi rebels, he has produced what the UN calls the worst humanitarian crisis on Earth, and no sign of resolution of the conflict.

Nobody doubts considerable Saudi pressure on Saad Hariri when he announced his resignation as Prime Minister of Lebanon from Riyadh, nor that the move was intended to delegitimize Iranian ally Hezbollah's role in Lebanese government.  Apparently, MbS thought the pleasure of sticking a finger in Iran's eye was worth the risk of the Syrian Civil War spilling over the border into Lebanon.

The boycott and blockade of Qatar continues, punishing the Qataris for the sin of conducting diplomacy with Iran, with which they share vast natural gas reserves under the Persian Gulf.  The pure, spiteful pique involved is positively Tr*mpian.

Actually, it was just after a sleepover party with First Boy Jared Kushner that MbS seized all police power for himself and had about two hundred potential rivals arrested, including the oft-mentioned eleven princes.  The White House is quite fond of MbS, who exercises the kind of arbitrary authority Our President wishes he could have for himself.  In return for American support, we can expect MbS to weigh in on upcoming Israeli-Palestinian "negotiations," pressuring the Palestinians to accept whatever Bibi deigns to offer them.  (The Tr*mp "negotiating team" consists of three Orthodox Jews and a Coptic Christian.)

Saudi Arabia has potential as a manufacturing center because of its energy resources — including a huge and uninterrupted supply of solar when the oil runs out.  All MbS will need is a reliable pool of cheap labor.  Saudi men are unlikely to take those jobs, so "progress" in allowing women to work outside the home is a strong possibility, provided religious authorities can be brought along.  Failing that, there are bound to be plenty of impoverished Palestinians in the neighborhood.

Mideast somehow manages to get worse

The Saudis are at it again, and the USofA, as usual, is letting them get away with murder. Literally.  Murder.

The beheading of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr (along with sixteen others who apparently don't matter to anyone) has sent any hope of diplomacy to solve regional problems into a tailspin.  The best known spokesperson for the Shi'a minority in eastern Saudi Arabia as well as for the Shi'a majority in Bahrain was exactly the wrong person to kill at this juncture if there is to be any hope of something resembling peace in Syria or Yemen, an effective coalition against IS, or a little more stability in Lebanon.

So the USofA sent a "naughty-naughty" message to King Salman the Senile, which will have no impact whatsoever on the likely instigator of the crisis, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud.  My heavens!  But what more can we do?

Here are a few suggestions:

• Stop providing logistic support to the Saudis in Yemen.  It hasn't done anything to limit Saudi aerial massacres of civilians; and without it, they just might lose and go home.
• Stop selling the Saudis advanced weapons systems.  Yes, the military contractors will whine about it, but there are plenty of other autocrats to arm around the world.
• Invite President Hassan Rouhani of Iran to meet privately with Obama.  Hint that they're close to relaxing the sanctions against Iranian oil.
• In diplomatic cables, refer to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the young dipshit behind the current mess, as "the young dipshit." Leak the cables to Wikileaks.

There no longer is any real need to suck up to Saudi Arabia.  Their control over oil prices has been sharply reduced by American fracking, and now that the USofA is exporting oil again, higher oil prices might even help the American economy.  Using the Saudis as a foil against Iran also no longer is necessary now that there's been at least a little thaw with the Iranians; but also because Saudi financed Salafists have done us a lot more damage than Iranian backed terrorists in recent years.  We wouldn't be inclined, nor encouraged, to build any sort of alliance with Iran, but there's no reason to take sides any more.  If we think "getting tough" works, let's get tough with both.