http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/how-long-will-russia-be-given-a-free-hand-in-syria#full

As the Syrian regime totters and begins to show signs of cracking, it’s no surprise that its allies are intensifying their commitment to maintaining the dictatorship at all costs. As Russian and Iranian forces begin to play an increasingly direct role in the Syrian conflict, several straightforward truths about that war, and its international ramifications, are becoming painfully obvious.

The extent of the direct involvement of Russian forces is unclear. Some maintain that Russian advisers are merely in Syria to train Syrian government forces. But others suggest that, at the very least, Russia is preparing to defend key areas of strategic interest to itself, particularly related to its naval base at the Mediterranean port of Tartus.

It is the last remaining Russian base outside the former Soviet Union, and is the warm water port that was a valued Russian prize since the time of the tsars. There are also strong indications that Russia is preparing a military airbase south of the port city of Latakia, a major stronghold of Bashar Al Assad. Moreover, Russian troops may already have been involved in some of the fighting.

American intelligence believes that Russia is preparing to deploy Mikoyan MiG 31 and Sukhoi Su-25 fighter planes to the Latakia area.

Russia has said that it has Iranian permission for military overflights to Syria, after being denied such privileges by Bulgaria, which had come under American pressure to say no to Moscow.

Iran is also reportedly increasingly involved in the fighting on the ground in Syria, with Israeli and other sources saying that hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been deployed recently in support of Hizbollah fighters. These forces are key elements in the struggle for the area around Zabadani near the Lebanese border.

The regime now controls about a quarter of the territory of Syria. Mr Al Assad still holds most areas crucial to his regime: the Lebanese border, a corridor leading north to and through Damascus, and all the way to the Alawite coastal area.

But the stepped-up international intervention on behalf of Mr Al Assad clearly demonstrates the extent to which he is losing. For most of the past four years, American inaction has been predicated on not wishing to see the collapse of governance institutions in the country, as if they were somehow separable from the regime itself. But given that the regime has been reduced to operating in a small part of the country, this logic has long since broken down.

The Russian and Iranian interventions also demonstrate that the supporters of the Syrian dictatorship are much more committed to maintaining their ally and securing the necessary outcome than Mr Al Assad’s international opponents have been. We can safely assume this is just the beginning of their increased commitment.

Russia claims it is surprised by the international outcry, pointing out that it has made no secret of arming and supporting the dictatorship throughout the entire conflict. In a sense, that’s fair: Russia has indeed been blatant in its support for a government that has waged an unrelenting war on its own people for the sake of power, and has suffered no international consequences for doing so.

Iran, too, has made it clear from the outset that it was prepared to stop at nothing, including risking the political and military well-being of its key proxy group, Hizbollah in Lebanon, in a major intervention in the Syrian conflict that has been going on for several years. It was only a matter of time before Iran’s Revolutionary Guards themselves began fighting on the ground, and for Russian advisers, pilots and special forces to also act decisively in defence of their ally.

It is extraordinary that Russia has received a free pass in all of this, particularly in parts of the Arab world. The bitterness displayed towards American policy, which indeed has been misguided and counterproductive, is quite unmatched by anything similar directly towards Russia, which is infinitely more culpable. American “sins” in Syria are those of omission. Russia has been guilty of innumerable crimes of commission, and has been a direct partner in the Syrian calamity.

Russia is attempting to frame its intervention in terms of “counterterrorism” and the international campaign against ISIL. This is laughably hypocritical, because Mr Al Assad and ISIL enjoy a symbiotic relationship in which they need each other to thrive and survive. Yet there are disturbing signs that several European states, anxious about refugees and other spillover effects of the Syrian conflict, may be moving in the direction of seeing the dictatorship not as a cause of terrorism, which it is, but as a potential counterweight. That would be a tragic error.

The forces that have brought us the Syrian calamity, including the rise of ISIL, are intensifying their intervention and their determination to shape the future of that country. The question for everybody else is whether they will continue to have a relatively free hand. Or will they finally face concerted, coordinated opposition that, at the very least, forces them to accept a political compromise that involves the end of a brutal dictatorship that has been willing to crucify its own society in the name of raw power?

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/yemen-losses-will-bolster-regions-determination

The Arab intervention in Yemen has reached a critical point. The loss of 45 Emirati, 10 Saudi and five Bahraini soldiers in rebel attacks only underscores how high the stakes have become. It will surely redouble the commitment to restore stability and political legitimacy to Yemen. But it’s essential that the Arab states proceed with clarity and caution as well as determination.

These casualties come in the context of a series of victories that have confounded critics. Yemeni government and allied Arab forces have rid most of the south of Houthi control. They are now moving towards the capital, Sanaa, in a pincer-like formation. Other key areas have also either been recovered or may well be soon. The essential outlines of a viable endgame scenario are starting to emerge.

These successes fly in the face of received wisdom, particularly in the West. From the outset of the intervention until very recently, and even in some quarters to this day, the ability of the Gulf states to act militarily in their own defence has been dismissed. Within a few weeks, Yemen was already being labelled a “quagmire” with no potential endgame and no prospect of significant Arab gains.

The dangers attending the intervention, however, have also increased.

It’s not just a matter of painful and, for the UAE, unprecedented battlefield losses of fallen soldiers. The political implications of the fighting are also exceptionally complex.

One of the most important strategic aims of the coalition from the outset was surely to break the alliance between the Houthis and Yemeni forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. This is essential to politically isolate and militarily weaken the Houthis.

Such a rupture, more than anything else, would induce the Houthis to come to reasonable terms in an agreement. Without it, even despite their recent setbacks, the Houthis will probably continue to be able to operate successfully outside their base areas. As long as that alliance is intact, a stalemate remains plausible. So Mr Saleh must be given something. But that remains totally unresolved.

Yemeni government and Arab forces may be closing in on the capital, but actually taking Sanaa is a challenge of a very different magnitude.

Because of the alliance with Mr Saleh, and several other factors, the Houthis have significant support in and around Sanaa. The cost of a protracted urban conflict there is both militarily and politically prohibitive. The same applies to the prospect of a siege.

One of the greatest pitfalls of the conflict so far has been the suffering it has caused, or exacerbated, for the civilian population. Even though most observers concede that there are faults on all sides, nobody expects the Houthis to pay attention to humanitarian considerations.

These concerns intensify when it comes to how to liberate Sanaa. Unless there is a workable strategy for a quick victory, the future of Sanaa, much like Yemen itself, will ultimately require a political resolution.

As pressure builds on the Houthis and their pro-Saleh allies, and until that affiliation is finally broken, the potential for southern political autonomy, if not independence, is likely to increase. The Al Hirak forces may be an implausible mishmash, but they agree on the need for a separate future for the South.

Given the setbacks experienced by the Houthis in recent weeks, the ability of Al Hirak to argue that only southern secession can prevent pro-Iranian domination of all of Yemen has evaporated. But that doesn’t mean that the issue is resolved.

On the contrary, if the south is relatively stable and most of the fighting takes place in the north, particularly with no end in sight, the impulse to break away may actually become stronger than ever.

The degree to which the conflict has strengthened Al Qaeda in Yemen is exaggerated in some quarters. However, extremist groups have taken advantage of the chaos and sectarian tensions, and, over time, there is a distinct danger that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula could become emboldened.

So the pitfalls facing the Arab coalition in Yemen include empowered extremists and secessionists, prospects of a stalemate, increasing humanitarian concerns, and the considerable difficulties of crafting a political formula that is acceptable to all parties.

But the loss of troops in the field is likely to redouble the determination to summon the diplomatic finesse that will be required to complement military effectiveness.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/the-road-to-statehood-is-blocked-in-all-directions

The quest for Palestinian independence appears to be simultaneously at death’s doorstep and stronger than ever. At the granular level of on-the-ground realities and national policies, the very existence of the Palestinian national cause as a coherent and even extant political programme appears increasingly tenuous. Yet at the same time, the emerging state of Palestine is becoming increasingly recognised, and almost universally accepted, as a part of the international community, a participant in major multilateral organisations and an integrated fixture in the global diplomatic environment.

Israel’s government has dropped all pretences. The appointment of right-wing extremist Danny Danon to be Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations confirms that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement during the last Israeli election categorically opposing the creation of a Palestinian state was an accurate representation of policy. Mr Danon is a strident opponent of peace who instead advocates the annexation of as much territory in the West Bank as possible with “the minimum number of Palestinians”.

Mr Netanyahu and his colleagues know exactly the message – so blatant that it is actually crude – that they are communicating by sending Mr Danon to represent Israel in the UN. To engage with the centre of international support for, and expectation of, peace based on two states, Israel is dispatching one of its most strident annexationists.

It is no longer possible to argue honestly that Israel’s government is open to, let alone supportive of, peace with the Palestinians. And there is no basis for hoping that this is a temporary aberration that will be corrected in future elections. Supporters of the status quo such as Mr Netanyahu are fighting off those, like Mr Danon, who want to annexe Palestinian land.

A majority of Jewish Israelis might still favour peace. But various shades of extremism have captured the policymaking process, and only a dramatic set of developments could significantly alter that.

As Israelis are turning away from any notion of accommodating the Palestinian national movement, Palestinian leaders themselves appear to be further burying, rather than rescuing, their own cause.

President Mahmoud Abbas has recently sprung into uncharacteristically vigorous action. But his energies have been focused inward, on consolidating his own authority and attempting to purge both real and perceived rivals. He is increasingly acting like the autocratic mayor of Ramallah rather than the responsible national leader of Palestine.

Appearances notwithstanding, Mr Abbas’s recent resignation from the Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee, along with nine other members, is almost certainly a ploy to purge his critics and strengthen his control of the PLO. Worse, Mr Abbas has escalated his long-standing feud with former Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan into a vendetta against two of the most responsible and respectable Palestinians political figures.

Long-serving PLO secretary-general Yasser Abed Rabbo has been summarily dismissed from that post. His NGO, the Palestinian Peace Coalition, was raided and closed, drawing angry rebukes from its European funders. Former prime minister Salam Fayyad has also been a target, with repeated efforts to seize funds belonging to his organisation, Future for Palestine.

With Hamas lurching from crisis to crisis, and offering no plausible alternative to the Palestinian people whatsoever, Mr Abbas has squandered numerous opportunities to reintroduce the Palestinian Authority into Gaza in a number of realistic capacities.

But all of these subtle and complex opportunities would have required adroit and delicate diplomatic handling and involved considerable political risk. Sadly, Mr Abbas has preferred to chase shadows in Ramallah and issue empty threats about the International Criminal Court.

Palestine is increasingly accepted as a diplomatic reality at the highest theoretical levels. The chair is fluffed and the nameplate polished and waiting for the representatives of Palestine in countless multilateral forums the world over.

But the painful process of actually creating a Palestinian state – which perforce involves getting Israel, through a complex and difficult process, to reverse itself and accept and facilitate this outcome – has strikingly receded from the international, and even the Arab, agenda. This dire Palestinian national crisis requires a response from a strong and assertive national leadership.

However, Mr Abbas hasn’t been behaving like a national leader. And Hamas, which is infinitely worse in every respect, is currently making itself available to the highest regional bidder – although whether they prefer to be paid in cash or guns depends on which faction is bargaining.

Israel has dismissed Palestinian statehood, although without proposing an alternative. It’s possible that a sustained period of Israeli opposition to a two-state solution might even induce the United States itself to de-prioritise its own commitment to that outcome, rather than Washington pressuring Israel to accept the need for peace – especially since the Palestinians themselves lack a national leadership that is pursuing their own cause with any degree of seriousness.

The world clearly expects the creation of a Palestinian state. That expectation is meaningful and has significant long-term implications.

However, events on the ground, and the attitudes and conduct of both the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, point to a very different and extremely dangerous future. Viewed from that perspective, the cause of Palestine appears to be a rapidly vanishing aspiration.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/the-gulfs-backing-of-the-iran-deal-is-smart-politics#full

The Gulf Cooperation Council’s public endorsement of the nuclear agreement with Iran is a smart move, but it’s neither a blank cheque for Washington nor the last word from the Gulf states on the international community’s relationship with Tehran. Indeed, behind the commitment of the Gulf states to give the agreement a chance lies an equally, if not more, evident determination to try to strengthen control over their own security arrangements.

The irony is that as the Gulf states’ position on the nuclear agreement moves closer to Washington’s, the experience has underscored their need to move beyond an excessive reliance on the United States.

Since the signing of the nuclear agreement, the Gulf states have all issued their own individual reactions. As one would expect from such a diverse group, their responses covered a wide spectrum. Oman unreservedly welcomed the accord, while Saudi Arabia emphasised the need for Iran to amend its aggressive and destabilising regional policies. Others sought to emphasise the potential benefits, while reminding Iran that it cannot continue to meddle as it has in the past.

US secretary of state John Kerry joined a meeting of GCC foreign ministers in Doha on August 3. The joint statement issued after the meeting finally brings the GCC position together, unanimously, in support of the nuclear agreement. It states “the Ministers agreed that, once fully implemented, the deal contributes to the region’s long-term security, including by preventing Iran from developing or acquiring a military nuclear capability”.

Whatever doubts some, or even all, of the GCC countries might have about the effectiveness of the agreement and its likely positive effect on regional security, issuing such a statement was a wise decision.

The GCC states had already secured some significant reassurances and commitments from the United States at Camp David, and presumably received more since then. Even if this well has run dry, and the United States has provided all the inducements it is willing and able to give to the Gulf states in connection with the Iran agreement, securing what has been achieved through such an endorsement is the correct policy.

The August 3 joint statement contains strong and important language committing the United States to work with the Gulf countries to ensure their security from external threats and to combat “Iran’s support for terrorism and its destabilising activities in the region…particularly attempts to undermine the security of and interfere in the domestic affairs of GCC member states, most recently in Bahrain”.

The Gulf states must, and apparently do, understand that the agreement is for all intents and purposes a fait accompli. It’s true that Barack Obama and his administration are facing a much tougher battle in Congress than was initially anticipated. Most notably, the third highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Charles Schumer of New York, has announced his opposition to the agreement.

But he may well have done so after calculating that, because Congress will eventually not kill the deal, his party will forgive him for opposing the president in this case.

Mr Obama’s recent approach to the debate has not strengthened his hand. He has an impressive case to make, but his repeated suggestions, most recently at an address last week at American University, that opposition is simply opportunistically partisan, disingenuous, irrational or, ultimately, inexplicable greatly undermine his arguments.

It’s possible that Mr Obama sincerely cannot understand how or why anyone would disagree with his judgment regarding this agreement, which he compared to finding a cure for cancer. But when he strays from the zealous and powerful advocacy of his position into the territory of contemptuous dismissal of any serious disagreement, he begins to sound not so much arrogant as insecure and overly defensive.

Nonetheless, as both Mr Obama and Mr Schumer, and the leaderships of the GCC countries, understand, in the end it is virtually unthinkable that Congress will overrule the president on an issue of this magnitude. Few Democrats will want to emulate Mr Schumer, and the argument about the damage to American international credibility if Congress scuppers this agreement before it has really been born will eventually win the day.

So the Gulf countries were well advised to come together in support of an agreement that is going to be implemented no matter what they say.

Saudi Arabia, which is most sceptical of the agreement, had the choice of joining Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who is, at least in part, driven by domestic political calculations – as the only major international player to openly and vociferously oppose the accord. It’s an understatement to suggest that such an identification is not in Riyadh’s interests.

There is nothing to be gained for the Gulf states at this point by opposing the agreement, and a real value in striking this unified position that consolidates the partnership with the United States. Nothing else makes sense.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/israel-must-figure-out-the-true-cost-of-occupation#full

As expected, the Iran nuclear deal is reshaping the strategic landscape of the Middle East. Some of these new developments – such as Saudi Arabia’s reported outreach to Hamas and other Muslim Brotherhood organisations – are innovative but hardly unthinkable. But when it comes to Israel’s relationship with Gulf Arab states, shared concerns can only go so far.

Last week, Dore Gold, the director general of Israel’s foreign ministry, raised eyebrows across the political world when he remarked of Iran: “What we have is a regime on a roll that is trying to conquer the Middle East, and it’s not Israel talking, that is our Sunni Arab neighbours – and you know what? I’ll use another expression – that is our Sunni Arab allies talking.”

Mr Gold is hardly the exemplar of Israeli enthusiasm for the Arab world. Indeed, the author of the 2003 book Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism would have to be listed among those Israeli right-wing hardliners whose rhetoric can border on Islamophobic.

Mr Gold is not alone in thinking along these lines. Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Arab states against “talking with Israel and even negotiating with it”. This may have “disastrous results”, he blustered.

Some might note that Mr Nasrallah – whose militia is squandering the better part of its manpower, treasury and Lebanese political capital in an all-out intervention designed to shore up the brutal regime of Bashar Al Assad in Syria – is in no position to lecture anyone about disastrous results or dire consequences. Or that his reckless adventure serves the interests of Iran, not Lebanon or any other part of the Arab world. But Mr Nasrallah’s outburst demonstrates how concerned Iran and its proxies have become about the potential for Israel and the Arab states to unite to thwart the rise of an Iranian-led axis.

They needn’t fret so much. Mr Gold’s comments may be based on a shared opinion about the rise of Iran between Israel and some Arab states. But, in fact, this is an instance of wishful thinking.

Israel is misreading the Arab world in several unfortunate respects. It does not recognise the diversity of strategic thinking and policies among the Gulf states, and treats them as if they had a single, homogeneous perspective and set of interests. And, even more importantly, it does not seem to understand that its conduct in the occupied Palestinian territories remains an insurmountable obstacle to close or open cooperation, even though that might otherwise make some strategic sense.

Since the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Israelis have been deluding themselves that, because Arab societies face a series of profound immediate challenges, somehow the issue of Palestine has been forgotten or permanently relegated to the back burner. But the occupation remains absolutely unacceptable to the Arab world, and, while the Arab Peace Initiative commits the entire Arab League to a two-state solution involving the recognition and normalisation of relations with Israel, this depends on ending the occupation and allowing the creation of a state of Palestine.

Mr Gold’s comments amply illustrate the extraordinary opportunity Israel has for creating a completely new relationship with much of the Arab world based on shared interests. Unfortunately, it is precisely the occupation and settlement policies that Mr Gold and his allies strongly support that will preclude Israel from taking advantage of this unprecedented strategic opening.

Israel cannot have diplomatic progress, let alone anything approaching an alliance, with the Arab world as long as millions of Palestinians remain non-citizens in their own land, with no realistic prospect for freedom. In particular, Israel cannot successfully engage with the Arab states while it is conducting an aggressive settlement project, gobbling up Palestinian land in violation of black-letter international law.

Jordan and Egypt made peace with Israel in their own interests, and those agreements are rock-solid. But Arab states in the Gulf region don’t share the same imperatives. Limited progress might be possible in specific areas. Israel might be able to cooperate with Qatar on reconstruction in Gaza, or with Saudi Arabia on Palestinian national reconciliation and relations between Hamas and Fatah. But despite the diversity in their policies none of the Gulf states will be prepared to enter into anything remotely resembling an alliance with Israel, despite the threat of Iranian hegemony, as long as the occupation continues with no end in sight.

Israelis often debate the cost of the occupation. The fact that it precludes them from building strong working relationships with Arab states with whom they share powerful strategic concerns needs to be factored in as a very high cost indeed.

Imagine a reality in which Mr Gold was completely accurate in referring to Israel’s “Sunni Arab allies”, and what that would mean for Israel’s regional interests and long-term security. And now return to today’s diplomatic reality, in which no matter how much Israel and many of the Arab states agree on the threat posed by Iran’s and the urgent need to counter it, there is a strict limit to how far they can coordinate, largely because of Israel’s own indefensible policies towards the Palestinians. The cost is clear, and prohibitive.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/opinion/hussein-ibish-saudi-arabias-new-sunni-alliance.htm

WASHINGTON — If the Iran nuclear deal was an earthquake shaking the Middle East’s strategic landscape, one of the most dramatic aftershocks was the surprising arrival last month in Saudi Arabia of a high-level delegation from Hamas. The visit by the Islamist organization that rules Gaza is the latest sign of an about-face in Saudi policy, which is now seeking a rapprochement with the regional Muslim Brotherhood movement, to which Hamas belongs.

Saudi Arabia has long been mistrustful of the Brotherhood. Traditionally, the kingdom has regarded the Islamists as a political threat and a rival source of Islamic authority in the Middle East. This suspicion deteriorated into open hostility as Brotherhood parties threatened to take over key Arab states following the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in 2011.

The Saudis therefore welcomed the ouster of the Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader, in 2013. That was the first of a series of major setbacks for the Brotherhood throughout the region. The low point came last year when the Saudi government declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group. (Hamas is the only Brotherhood party that is openly armed and advocates the use of violence, specifically against Israel.)

The Saudi foreign minister, Adel Al-Jubeir, insisted that the recent Hamas visit was for religious, not political, reasons and that “the position of the kingdom with regards to Hamas has not changed.” But pilgrimages to Mecca don’t usually involve extensive meetings with the entire leadership, including King Salman bin Abdulaziz and his principal deputies, Crown Prince Muhammed bin Nayef and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman.

The Hamas delegation included its chief representatives in Egypt and Turkey, which means that its leading factions were all represented: This was not a power play by one element. As a courtesy, during the visit the Saudis released eight Hamas members jailed for illegal political activities in Saudi Arabia.

In another sign of a Saudi opening to Brotherhood groups, Saudi-backed forces in Yemen last month installed Nayef al-Bakri of the Brotherhood-oriented Al-Islah party (also designated a terrorist group by Riyadh) as governor of the key southern city of Aden, which Saudi-backed forces had just recaptured.

Three other leading Brotherhood figures — Rachid al-Ghannouchi of Tunisia’s Ennahda Party, Abdul Majeed al-Zindani of Al-Islah and Hammam Saeed of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood — have all visited Saudi Arabia in recent weeks. There was even a rumor, as yet neither confirmed nor denied, that the Brotherhood has been quietly removed from the kingdom’s terrorism list.

A critical mass of circumstances accounts for this shift in Saudi attitudes. King Salman is more sympathetic to religious conservatives than his predecessor was. The weakened Brotherhood is now perceived as less of a threat, while the extremists of the Islamic State are viewed as far more dangerous. Above all, the new Saudi approach is shaped by the regional confrontation with Tehran in the wake of the nuclear agreement.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/washington-often-forgets-who-its-real-allies-are#full

Tensions between the United States and Saudi Arabia are becoming a disturbingly prominent feature of political discourse in the two countries.

Saudi commentators loudly complain about abandonment and betrayal by Washington, while unease about, and indeed resentment of, Riyadh is gaining ground in American analysis.

This friction, which originates at the top, primarily emerged during the second Obama term. The administration placed so much emphasis on a nuclear agreement with Iran that it sometimes seemed to care about little else in the Gulf region. Saudi anxiety about American commitment and leadership is mirrored by American doubts about Saudi Arabia’s commitment to fighting terrorism, and particularly to combating extremist sentiments and religious intolerance that are the fundamental basis of some of the most dangerous forms of violent radicalism, particularly among Sunnis.

The problem isn’t simply misrecognition and mistrust. There are genuine short-term policy differences that have emerged over the past few years that have seriously undermined practical cooperation between Washington and Riyadh on some issues.

The most obvious and dramatic, but by no means the only, examples of such divergence arise in the Syrian context.

Over the past four years, Saudi Arabia has been committed to the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad. The US, while initially appearing to back his ouster and predicting his imminent downfall, quickly abandoned a commitment to any specific outcome in Syria, instead focusing on the need to preserve basic social institutions and prevent a repetition of the meltdown in Iraq following the American invasion.

Washington wants the war in Syria to end as soon as possible, while Riyadh wants Mr Assad overthrown. And neither side seems terribly particular about the broader context in which these largely incompatible goals are to be achieved.

It has become obvious that if the war in Syria could essentially end in the near term, but with Mr Assad remaining in power in large parts of the country, Washington would accept, and even welcome, that outcome. The realisation of this has appalled and infuriated the Saudis and their allies, who would see it as a massive victory for Iran and the establishment of a new regional order that secures a Middle Eastern mini-empire for Tehran at the expense of the Arabs.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, has been willing to fund and support rebel groups that Washington regards as unacceptably radical, that demand the establishment of sharia law in Syria and frequently cooperate with the Al Qaeda affiliate in that country, Jabhat Al Nusra. US vice-president Joe Biden, in particular, expressed sweeping accusations about support for extremism with such anger that he had to apologise to Saudi Arabia, as well as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

The core reality that is frequently being obscured or overlooked is that the United States and Saudi Arabia still share many important strategic goals in the region, including the defeat of extremism and terrorism. The same cannot be said of the United States and Iran, which, apart from implementing the nuclear agreement, share almost no long-term goals.

Yet it sometimes appears that Washington finds it easier to cooperate with Tehran on a practical, day-to-day basis than it does with the Riyadh and some other traditional American Arab allies. As political analyst Karim Sadjadpour brilliantly explained: “There’s a growing perception at the White House that the US and Saudi Arabia are friends but not allies, while the US and Iran are allies but not friends.”

The idea that Saudi Arabia isn’t, or shouldn’t be, an ally of the United States despite the strong agreement between the two countries on so many broad and long-term policy goals, is being increasingly expressed in American commentary. A recent article by Sarah Chayes and Alex De Waal – which appeared on both The Atlantic and Defense One websites – predicts the imminent downfall of the kingdom, largely based on bizarre analogies with South Sudan and Somalia. It accuses Saudi Arabia of being “no state at all” but instead simply a “criminal organisation.”

This embarrassingly clumsy article is nonetheless a useful indication of how wild pronouncements against Saudi Arabia, at times even including comparisons with ISIL, are finding an increasing audience in Washington.

Such hyperbole is especially unfortunate because it undermines and trivialises serious, indeed crucial, issues regarding, for example, a troubling human rights record, some of Saudi Arabia’s social policies and dealing with intolerant religious rhetoric.

The Saudi-American relationship ought to be an important asset for both sides in working together to address these imperative and profoundly troubling concerns. But it can’t be done in the context of what amounts to schoolyard name-calling.

Meanwhile, it’s fashionable in some circles in Washington to go beyond sensible and proper support for successful, effective American diplomacy with Tehran, and express a credulous admiration for all things Persian, particularly in contrast with anything Arab, above all from the Gulf.

But despite the tensions and resentments of the moment, Saudi Arabia remains in broad agreement with the United States about most long-term strategic outcomes in the Middle East, while Iran is not. Sooner rather than later everybody will be reminded of this, even though many otherwise serious people on all sides seem, for the moment, to have somehow forgotten it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/opinion/why-america-turned-off-al-jazeera.html?_r=0

WASHINGTON — The closing of Al Jazeera America, expected in April, is a sad conclusion to a project that was by turns uplifting and inspiring as well as troubling and depressing. Its demise offers a lesson in both the limitations of public diplomacy and the obstacles to providing high-quality television journalism.

Al Jazeera America was the latest, and perhaps most ambitious, branch of a media empire that the tiny but wealthy Gulf emirate of Qatar has used to project its influence, first regionally and then globally. The American-specific incarnation, begun in 2013, was partly an effort to rebrand for the United States the earlier iterations of the franchise, Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English. But the American network was hobbled from the start by this very legacy.

Because Al Jazeera Arabic overtly promoted Doha’s foreign policy objectives, the network was controversial and disliked by virtually every other government in the region. The Arabic station introduced a freewheeling reporting style — except for avoiding any criticism of Qatar — that transfixed Arab audiences with previously unheard-of debates.

Impartial it was not: A hefty dose of old-fashioned Arab nationalism and a strong bias for the Muslim Brotherhood, which was supported by the Qatari government, were unmistakable. This ideological orientation led to exaggerated accusations in the United States, especially in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, that Al Jazeera served as a media affiliate of Al Qaeda.

Hyperbolic as such claims were, there was a distinctly anti-American bent to its reportage. The Iraq war, in particular, was portrayed virtually as a campaign of mass murder.

The real problem here was the Janus-faced nature of Qatari foreign policy, contradictory and ultimately unsustainable.

On one hand, the huge American military presence in Qatar is a key element of Qatari security strategy. Centcom largely ran the Iraq war out of its forward headquarters at the Udeid Air Base, which Qatar built to encourage a United States establishment there. On the other hand, Qatar gave a hugely influential platform on Al Jazeera to the Muslim Brotherhood cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who elsewhere preachedthat “Americans in Iraq are all fighters and invaders” whether they were military or civilian, and that it was “a duty for all Muslims” to kill them. Thus Qatar was indispensable to the American war effort in Iraq and at the same time gave credence to one of the most influential Islamic propagandists against it.

Al Jazeera English, the network’s global English-language incarnation, was much more subtle than its Arabic-language counterpart. But it, too, has played a distinct role in Qatar’s ambitious outreach.

The English channel reached its peak of influence through its unrivaled coverage of the Egyptian uprising in January 2011. Despite a pro-Brotherhood bias, its reporting of the insurrection was also extraordinarily detailed, comprehensive and informative. Even the White House was said to be relying on Al Jazeera English for information during the uprising.

Since then, though, Al Jazeera’s credibility has suffered, particularly in the Arab world. After the 2013 ouster of the Brotherhood government of President Mohamed Morsi, the English network’s Egyptian bureau fell apart when its staff members were arrested and charged with disseminating “false news.” Qatar was eventually forced to close its pro-Brotherhood Arabic service to repair relations with Egypt.

That is the baggage that Al Jazeera America inherited on its debut. Although run separately from its sister stations and with a completely different mission and approach, the American channel was always hobbled by the brand’s associations.

Even so, Al Jazeera America’s arrival brought a whiff of excitement and optimism into an American journalistic market starved for reasons to be upbeat. It appeared dedicated to fact-based, serious reporting focused on issues and constituencies often overlooked by established outlets. The station recruited some of the country’s finest broadcast journalists, providing opportunities in a news media environment long demoralized by cutbacks. Before long, its programming won awards and recognition within the industry.

However, the channel also faced built-in problems that proved impossible to overcome. It gained access to American living rooms by buying Al Gore’s Current TV. But that network was already struggling to gain audience share, and once branded as Al Jazeera, it soon lost even more viewers. Eventually, a TV station with national ambitions was being watched in some hours by as few as 10,000 people.

At the same time, disadvantageous agreements with cable providers placed onerous restrictions on Internet programming that prevented Al Jazeerafrom exploiting the potential for growth in streaming video. Worse, restricting American access to Al Jazeera English’s online content severely damaged what had been a thriving presence in the American market.

Al Jazeera America leaves a strong sense of lost opportunity, and a legacy of bitterness and disappointment at odds with the quality of its programming. Perhaps the timing was off: It may come to be seen as one of the last great failed projects of cable television before that industry gives way to a more stripped-down, decentralized news business dominated by online programming. But the channel was also plagued by chronic mismanagement from the start; a lack of professionalism at the top led to embarrassing lawsuits and badly mishandled layoffs.

Notwithstanding the economic downturn facing the Gulf Arab states, Doha could have continued funding the network. But with no sign that it would ever rise above 30,000 prime-time viewers, Al Jazeera America was unlikely to have any meaningful impact on American public opinion or the national conversation.

For its Qatari owners, Al Jazeera America’s failure is a costly lesson in how not to deploy soft power and public diplomacy

My friend Richard Byrne, author of Burn your Books, has a new play, Nero/Pseudo being performed by the WSC Avant Bard at The Shop at Fort Fringe in Washington DC. After watching Friday night’s performance, I sat down with him for the following conversation in which he discusses his “glam rock musical” about the first and most successful of the imposters who pretended to be the Emperor Nero after his death.

Ibishblog: Let’s begin with the title, which is not Pseudo-Nero but Nero/Pseudo. And the subtitle is “Imposters Rule” which seems to me to be intimately connected to the same idea, if I’m not mistaken.

Richard Byrne: The subheader was one of our marketing tools. But that’s very much one of the things that the play is about.

Ibishblog: Okay, so what are the principal themes of the play? The basic conceit is that in Greece, a little bit remote from Rome, as with the rest of the Empire, people can’t quite believe that Nero is dead and the end of the Empire, or at least the old Augustinian empire, is at hand. The Augustinian system is gone and they can’t quite believe it. And so a guy shows up, or is discovered, and is either willing or compelled to pretend to be Nero for a time. That’s the fundamental conceit. But you’ve done it in the form of a glam rock musical. But let’s begin with the question, why did you want to write about the most successful of the pseudo-Neros?

Richard Byrne: It began when I read that little digression in Tacitus, which is the main source of information about this and which was so startling. It was profoundly jarring and I felt drawn to it immediately. This was the kind of thing that happens when there is a tremendous rupture in the system and things that normally wouldn’t happen at all are not just happening, but are normal. And that appealed to me profoundly, so I almost immediately started making notes about it and dove into it, researching it. And it was interesting to me too in that there have been a lot of portrayals of Nero, and in fact even recently there have been some theater pieces about Nero and about the family drama of Nero. Another thing that appealed to me is, how do you get at Nero without having someone try to portray Nero as such. And that challenge really appealed to me too.

Ibishblog: Well, that’s really interesting, because you actually do stage the family drama with Agrippina and Poppaea, and all that legendary horrible family drama, as a play within a play with masks. But it’s a mocking and satirical version of it. You’re making fun of it.

Richard Byrne: Yes, it’s sort of a “Behind the Music” of Nero. And that’s what I wanted to do with it. It’s such an improbable and, on some level, a profoundly oppressive story. The carnage is just so intense in the story of Nero, his whole rise to power and then his maintenance of power. And, you know, the other thing that appealed to me was that you get a sense from the historians that Nero was always being acted upon, as opposed to acting directly; that he was capricious and you didn’t want to be in his immediate orbit, but that this was not a political player in any way, shape or form. The real politics of the Empire were happening outside his orbit and people were just sort of trying to keep him in some sort of lane, and yet he was persistently veering out of his lane.

Ibishblog: Okay, so Nero was like Mao Zedong between the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution? An icon who was basically being ignored?

Richard Byrne: Exactly! There’s a lot of that in Nero.

Ibishblog: But I guess he didn’t have Mao’s political genius to destabilize and overthrow the whole system and then take it over again from within.

Richard Byrne: No, he kind of had someone else do it for him. And why that is a particularly interesting comparison is that within Mao’s personal orbit during that time you could be destroyed very easily.

Ibishblog: Many of them were.

Richard Byrne: Right, but the larger events were happening sort of outside the room at some level.

Ibishblog: Well, Mao could only get to Peng Zhen, and then one by one all the others, culminating in Liu Shaoqi, through the streets. He couldn’t get at them, especially Liu, just through committees.

Richard Byrne: It is really interesting is that that model perpetuates itself a lot, of being very personally powerful but then the larger ripples are happening somewhere else, inside rooms and meetings that you’re not really in. It’s interesting.

Ibishblog: In a sense Nero/Pseudo is about “imposters rule,” but it also might’ve been called Nero, The Sequel. What I want to sort of get at is that you frame it in terms of a set of dynamics that emerge during a time of rupture, but also it’s very much reflective of a kind of static, frozen contemporary Hollywood culture where movies are expensive to make, and really almost the only way to pitch a movie, or play even now, is nostalgia. Tell the money people they’re going to get their cash back because people will attend due to familiarity. Or it has to be explained in terms of “this movie meets this other movie meets a third movie,” or it’s got to be based on a TV show or comic book that people grow up with or something. So what’s the relationship, if any, to this in Nero/Pseudo, or is it a very different kind of repetition compulsion?

Richard Byrne: No, I think that’s right, and it’s reflected in the history of that time. The Julio-Claudian empire was doomed. It was not going to last. The question is what was ultimately going to kill it. And what’s interesting historically is that the first pseudo-Nero was such a reflective phenomenon. What happened historically was that Nero was out, and then a more responsible military guy came in, but he didn’t last 3 months before they brought in Nero’s best friend to the throne. And then Nero’s best friend ended up in a miserable Civil War that bled the Empire. And then Vespasian basically reasserted order in a different way.

What was interesting was that the first pseudo-Nero had ripples way beyond his own brief misadventure because this first pseudo-Nero was seized upon by the Jewish and Christian apocalyptic writers. The whole notion that Nero could die and then return was, well, basically the Book of Revelation on some level.

Ibishblog: Or the much older myths of all the dying and resurrected gods.

Richard Byrne: Exactly, it also plays into all of those older myths, so it was at once familiar and very disruptive, and it had immense ripple effects. Which is why again, as I started researching and wanting to write it, this was one of the things that drew it to me most powerfully. It was clearly a very desperate and misbegotten episode, but it had all of these ripples in the culture that continue, well, until now. It was a very powerful, weird thing.

Ibishblog: So the present ripples include monotheistic apocalyptic millennialist thought?

Richard Byrne: I think there’s a direct link from the sort of thing to David Koresh or directly to all the Elvis sightings. There’s all sorts of these things.

Ibishblog: Or the “bin Laden isn’t really dead” phenomenon because, yeah, we need to see the body. Show us the body! “Where is your birth certificate, President Obama?” This business of, “I won’t believe it even if I see it.” It’s that old trope of Groucho, “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

Richard Byrne: I think when you’re not in it, you know, when you’re not soaking in it, it seems gullible. But the power structure and the need to buy into the power structure and maintain it is very, very powerful and it can induce what we would see objectively as gullibility. I don’t tend to reach for Freud too quickly, but it is a big concern in his writing: how do these things perpetuate themselves through time. How do these conflicts, desires and needs for structure, order etc. perpetuate themselves over time? That’s what the play’s getting at too.

Ibishblog: And so obviously that has a lot of contemporary resonance.

Richard Byrne: Definitely!

Ibishblog: So it began as a play, and then became a play with songs, and then it finally developed into a full-blown glam rock musical? Why a musical, apart from the fact that Nero was a “rock star” God-Emperor? Or is that basically it?

Richard Byrne: Honestly, I think it’s a play with music. It’s definitely flouting, and then tweaking, and at some points wreaking some havoc, with the traditional musical. But I basically call it a play with music.

Ibishblog: Here’s what it looks like from the audience: it looks like a play and a concert that oscillate back-and-forth.

Richard Byrne: Yeah and I think it’s very much what I wanted it to be and what it needed to be, because if we were going to go back a little bit to that family drama of Nero, I don’t think that that’s something that lends itself to anything interesting musically or emotionally. What’s interesting is how does the performative aspect of his rule play on the audience? What is it trying to do? How do people use it or not use it? Now that, for me, was interesting. And just knowing that he had written this epic poem about the fall of Troy, I wanted to use that.

Ibishblog: Is it true that those passages about Priam and such appear mainly at the end, because that’s how it seemed to me?

Richard Byrne: There are only three lines of it that actually survived. And they are towards the end. And again, that’s another thing that just kind of blossomed in my head, because this was probably the most famous poet of his age, and yet only three lines of his have survived. And why? Of course you can be the most famous poet of your time and still be horrible. It seems to have been doggerel on some level. Or worse than doggerel. I mean, when you read people writing about Nero there is a sense that he was competent, but not distinguished. And that it took him a hell of a lot of practice even to be competent. So, that again suggests that there was probably somebody in a monastery who thought Nero was a monster and just burned all his writings instead of transcribing them for us. And that’s a really interesting thing too.

Ibishblog: Okay, so we’ve got the musical, which is a concert playing merry havoc with the form, but specifically it’s very glam. Why?

Richard Byrne: I just thought that was the music that best reflected it. On some level it was a process of elimination, because Nero is not punk at all, and Nero is not really acid rock or anything like that. There are a lot of genres that aren’t bombastic and narcissistic enough to really lend themselves to a Neronian concert. Glam really does.

Ibishblog: Maybe there are some that are too much so, like prog? That should be bombastic enough, but maybe too much?

Richard Byrne: Yes, but also too musically subtle.

Ibishblog: Too cerebral?

Richard Byrne: Yes, too cerebral. It can’t really cow an audience.

Ibishblog: So you needed a genre that’s glamorous, bombastic and narcissistic and hard-driving but also very simple, and glam fit the bill perfectly.

Richard Byrne: Yes, exactly, that’s it. That’s why it’s perfect.

Ibishblog: And glam is also outrageous, and Nero was outrageous and flamboyant.

Richard Byrne: Yeah, and I think there is a lot of debate as to how exactly gender bending or whatever he was. But it’s very clear that he did marry this boy who looked like Poppaea. There’s a lot of debate about the other thing about him marrying his freedman, and whether that was just sort of vile gossip or whether that was part of a initiation rite into a specific cult. There’s just a lot of question about how ambisexual he was, but the historical residue about him is very ambisexual and pansexual and glam helps bring that out.

Ibishblog: Yes, you can build that into glam. There’s a lot of androgyny in glam, but also, which brings me to the other point about the genre, glam is such a broad category that there’s that saying, “it’s just rock ‘n roll with glitter.” Your musical cohort and co-author Jon Langford said it best when he pointed out, “glam covers everything from Brian Ferry to Slade.” So glam has a certain set of theatrical or modish stylistic touch points, but it doesn’t have a coherent set of musical stylistic identifiers, does it?

Richard Byrne: No, and that’s the thing, it was a mode. It was more than a fad, but it was a mode. And what’s interesting is to take just one very clear example of it. Mott the Hoople was essentially a pub rock band. They were a throwback. They were kind of an anachronistic band for 1969-70. They weren’t blazing any musical trails. But David Bowie just sort of, like Tinkerbell, gives them THE glam anthem.

Ibishblog: “All the Young Dudes.”

Richard Byrne: Exactly, and it’s the most “glam” song of all done by probably the least “glam” glam band of all. I find that very interesting. Roxy Music was much more consciously glam than Mott the Hoople. But what’s interesting is that you see groups like T. Rex and Slade who could not transcend the mode versus actual geniuses like Eno and Ferry and Bowie who transcended the mode: who went into the mode and then emerged from it again.

Ibishblog: Bowie came close to inventing it. T. Rex maybe comes first, but Bowie really solidifies what glam meant. By the time you get early Roxy Music, you’re getting at least 50% satire.

Richard Byrne: Yeah, but there’s just so much churning energy and intelligence that you know eventually it is going somewhere else.

Ibishblog: Completely, of course, you can already hear it in early Roxy Music because it’s such a bizarre mashup of styles and you’re talking about very intelligent people playing with everything they can dig out of everybody else’s dumpsters, usually making fun of it.

Richard Byrne: And take note of the way, especially after those first two Roxy Music records, how the third and fourth Roxy albums really run the gamut. There is everything there, from straight pub rock to prog rock. It’s all kind of muddled and mixed up. Like you say, it’s all there.

Ibishblog: I do think if you had to single out a specific glam band for maximal achievement artistically in that mode, it would have to be Roxy Music. With all due respect to Bowie, I think they went to a lot of different places a lot more quickly and moved beyond it really fast. Maybe they were seeing through it from the start. With Bowie, on the other hand, he simply leaves it behind.

Richard Byrne: He was bored with it, and he felt like ultimately it was both career defining and ending.

Ibishblog: It would’ve been.

Richard Byrne: It would have been, and he needed to reject it publicly and categorically.

Ibishblog: Probably the biggest difference is that he had more to say than anybody else, so he keeps on exploring, which is not quite true of Ferry. David Bowie’s the guy in that mix with the most ideas. Bowie and maybe Eno.

Richard Byrne: Ferry is comfortable now.

Ibishblog: With Bowie, you get the sense that he’ll never be comfortable. I mean he’s always going to be looking for the next thing, probably in his wheelchair.

Richard Byrne: So that’s why for me, glam was the most useful mode for this play.

Ibishblog: I have to say I think that it works spectacularly well, by the way. It’s something that makes no sense on paper, but the minute you walk into the theater, even before the play begins, as soon as the musician start playing you enter into that world very, very quickly and the glaminess of it all.

Richard Byrne: I have to give my applause to the director, Patrick Pearson, and the designers because they really did embrace the kind of anarchy and artistic anachronism that I was trying to foist on people and it really does work. They made it work, and I’m grateful to them for that.

Ibishblog: If there is a song that seems to define the mood, “Soul Love” seems to be a very strong presence.

Richard Byrne: Yes, and while I can’t speak for them, I think that when Jim Elkington and Jon Langford, who wrote the music, were looking for a way into the project that was helpful. Often you look for a touchtone first, that gives you an entry into a project. I think this was that for them. It’s a song that’s very recognizable from Ziggy Stardust, but it’s not one of the hits.

Ibishblog: Moving on from the glam stuff, at the end you have a remarkable piece of writing that’s beautifully delivered by your lead, Bradley Foster Smith, which is the decapitated head of the pseudo-Nero speaking in what would appear to be the voice of Nero himself. His voice certainly changes, and becomes contemptuous and angry and sounds embittered and imperial – whether of a monarch or a rock star. I find that passage, even though it comes at the end, to be a sort of the epicenter or the navel of the play. And most of the crucial ideas in the play, in my view, and correct me if I’m wrong, are expressed in that soliloquy. But the irony of the soliloquy is that it is in what would appear to be the voice of Nero, but coming out of the decapitated head of the pseudo-Nero, and so what is the audience to make of that, if you want to help us?

Richard Byrne: There are a couple of things, but I don’t want to tell you what to think. It’s not one thing. I tried to achieve a careful layering effect. I thought was very important that three things had to happen. One thing that had happened was that the two schemer characters of the play, the ones who make it all happen, had to see Nero for real. And I also felt that the audience needed to see Nero for real. The question is, how does that happen? And the ending is very much my attempt to, within the universe of the play, make that happen. And I do think it’s crucial, in a play about imposters, to have some nod to the real. Or at least to the author’s understanding of the real. I think the other thing that’s really important is that this was probably a very desperate and misbegotten misadventure, but it did have such powerful ripples and I wanted to acknowledge that. I felt responsible to the characters. I felt I needed to give them their due.

Ibishblog: Which character is getting his due here?

Richard Byrne: All of them. All of them are getting their due on some level. It helps to do a couple things. It gets the audience to a certain place. It recapitulates and underscores some of the earlier points. It brings the strands together. It serves a lot of functions, and the audience reaction to it has been really positive and I’m happy about that.

Ibishblog: Well, it’s a very thoughtful moment, I think without doubt the most powerful moment in the play, and anyone who thinks they’ve been watching a lark will be immediately disabused once that speech starts. I’d like to just push you a little bit more on the intersection between this ancient phenomenon and the quasi-contemporary, at least early 70s style, that you have put together here. What can we learn from this?

Richard Byrne: When you write something like this you want it to have layers, you want it to speak in different tongues, but with the unity within that difference. You want different voices that harmonize. Doing a play like this as a mere allegory on X is just not useful. I’m a little baffled by people who find it unclear. The spine of the play is an Emperor singing songs about the glory of elective war and conflagration as creative destruction as his acolytes are celebrating his divorce from the so-called reality-based community. There are definitely points of reference to our times.

Ibishblog: There is a hint of the “known unknowns” here?

Richard Byrne: There is definitely some of the “known unknowns” here, but I don’t want to give anyone answers. I really want people to use this collision of history and glam and politics and celebrity to just reflect a little bit on where we are, what do we clap for, and why do we engage or not engage with this very messy and often very narcissistic phenomenon of politics and celebrity and so forth.

Ibishblog: So what’s the future for Nero/Pseudo? This production cannot be the end of it! There is no way it’s just having this one run.

Richard Byrne: I’m talking with my musical collaborators and we will certainly be pursuing another production of it, and hopefully it will be as good as this one. I’m really proud of what we’ve done with it.

Ibishblog: You should be proud. I fully intend to see it again before it closes.