Opuscula GCC looks westward To counter Iran nukes

 

An item from the May 22 issue of The Israel Project (TIP) proved interesting, but left me with a "Why Morocco" question.

The item:

Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Tuesday conveyed a statement from a joint committee established by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates committing to confronting "regional challenges," the latest in what increasingly appear to be systematic moves by Riyadh to bolster its regional position opposite Iran. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) had already in late April formally invited Jordan and Morocco to integrate themselves into a conventional military alliance under which the Gulf states would trade aid and the new members would potentially provide 300,000 troops to collective efforts. Meanwhile Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal - a top figure in the country’s royal family and its former intelligence chief - went further, speculating that Gulf states would have to acquire "nuclear know-how" to offset Iran. AFP also read a new Saudi-UAE "supreme committee" against the backdrop of tensions between most Arab states, on the one hand, and Qatar, on the other. The wire bluntly assessed that "Qatar is accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies have long been hostile." Tensions have recently been dampened by Qatari moves to return to the GCC fold, but many analysts take it as a given that the region remains divided between three overarching blocs: the Iranian camp that includes Syria and Hezbollah, the camp of America's traditional Arab allies plus Israel, and an axis composed of Turkey, Qatar, and various country-by-country Brotherhood groups. The Obama administration has faced sustained criticism for being insufficiently supportive of its traditional allies.

I can understand why the GCC would want to include Jordan in its military pact. Saudia and Jordan are neighbors, albeit Jordon is hardly more than a spot on the map when comparing land mass. (Jordon still is bigger than Israel, even with the "disputed territories.")

The distance between Rabat, Morocco and Riyadh Saudia Arabia is roughly 3300 miles or a little less than seven (7) hours flight time (at commercial jet speeds).

The Gulf Corporation Council is composed of six nations, alphabetically:

1. Bahrain
2. Kuwait
4. Sultanate of Oman
6. Qatar
8. Saudi Arabia (GCC Hq in Riyadh)
10. United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Population and wealth information at http://useconomy.about.com/od/worldeconomy/p/gcc.htm

All of the GCC members, and Jordan, are distant from Morocco. While all are politically similar in their distrust of Iran and its proxies, including the Muslim Brotherhood, it seems strange - if the GCC is looking for troops to come to its rescue, that it would ignore closer, more or less moderate, Arab states including Egypt, Libya, Tunis, and Algeria. The GCC also is ignoring perhaps potential, but questionable, allies Sudan and Yemen - which sits next to Oman.

Saudia, along with Jordan, must be concerned not only with Iran and its visions of nuclear domination of the area, but also of Syria and Hezbollah.

In truth, the best friend the GCC would wish for would be Israel, but if Israeli politicians are smart - and THAT IS HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE - they won't agree to any "boots on the ground" arrangements with the GCC or any other Arab state (including Egypt and Jordan). After all, Israel is alleged to "have the bomb" - something Saudi ever more desperately wants for its own protection.

What the GCC needs, and perhaps what it is seeking by courting Morocco, et al, is a "second strike" option. Given the Iranian crazies, the ayatollahs will strike without warning (or perhaps in conjunction with a North Korean attack on South Korea and maybe Japan); all the GCC can do is hope for retaliation to come from a distant state, e.g., Morocco.

The question the GCC states need to ask: will any of their Arab citizens want to defend "their" country that, after all, is only tribal land with artificial borders.

Arabs know it but EU Hides its head in the sand

6 Arab states blacklist
All of Hezbollah

According to an article in the Times of Israel ( http://www.timesofisrael.com/one-upping-eu-gulf-states-blacklist-all-of-hezbollah/ ) headlined One-upping EU, Gulf states blacklist all of Hezbollah, “The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a political and economic umbrella organization encompassing Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, has begun implementing a decision adopted by its foreign ministers on June 2 to place financial and security restrictions on Hezbollah, “making no distinction whatsoever between its military and political arms,” the Saudi daily Al-Watan reported on Sunday.”

Thumbing his nose at the EU, the Times of Israel reports that Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah ridiculed the European distinction between his party’s armed and political wings.

“This invention of a military wing, a political wing; this is a British act. They usually try to find such ways out,” Nasrallah said at dinner marking the end of a Ramadan fast day on July 24.

“Despite my disagreement with this division and distinction, I propose that our ministers in the next Lebanese government come from Hezbollah’s military wing,” Nasrallah joked.

“The Arab League, based in Cairo, on June 5 strongly condemned Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria, but fell short of dubbing it a “terror organization.”, the Times of Israel reported.

Hezbollah, in the Iranian ayatollahs’ pockets, is aligned with Bashar Assad, Syria’s despotic “president” and this alignment with Iran worries the GCC member states.

The Arabs get it.

The EU doesn’t, and the EU states are as vulnerable – if not more so – to an Islamist takeover as are the GCC states.

While the U.S. recognizes Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, it does very little to stop Hezbollah infiltration into the U.S.

Hamas, in Aza, is no better, but because it is a smaller organization and does not threaten the Gulf states as Hezbollah does, only Egypt and Israel are concerned.

Recent events in Egypt unmasked both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist intents. Fortunately the army, as also happened in Algeria, reclaimed power. While not “democratic,” there was, and there is now more freedom in Egypt than during the year the Muslim Brotherhood was in political control.

Europe is an 80-year-old prostitute, syphilitic, sagging, and staggering in her years, yet trying to convince the world that she’s still as spry and desirable as she was at 20. The world has passed her by, yet she still makes noises of no consequence so people will notice her. They do notice her, but either laugh at her delusions or pity her for her memories of former glory days when she was, at least in her own mind, a queen crowned with imperial adornment.

Refusing to call Hezbollah in toto a terrorist organization proves Europe’s inability to come to terms with reality. It, like the U.S. – and unlike the GCC – is more concerned with political correctness that the reality in its face.

The Arabs finally “got” it.

Too late to save Lebanon, but the GCC is using the only muscle it has to thwart Hezbollah’s intentions; that muscle is financial power. For military power the GCC will have to beg troops from the West – the U.S. and the weak sister Europeans. The GCC would be better served by making peace agreements with Israel.

Europe continues to totter in its delusions of the glory days of long ago while it welcomes its new masters with open arms and raised skirts.

And America watches and does nothing to defend its increasingly besmirched honor.

I give you political correctness on a field of fatal foolishness.