Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

according to wiki SA spends 60 billion a year on its military, three times as much as Israel, which seems incredible

If they didn't spend that the UK would be a whole lot poorer.

Well, Juan Cole is not the only one bugging people with comparisons re ISIS:

President Obama may have thought he was giving a straightforward history lesson at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday when he compared the atrocities of the Islamic State to the bloodshed committed in the name of Christianity in centuries past.

But that is not how many of his longtime critics saw it.

“The president’s comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime,” said Jim Gilmore, the former Republican governor of Virginia. “He has offended every believing Christian in the United States.”

Rush Limbaugh devoted a segment of his show to what he said were the president’s insults to the “whole gamut of Christians” and Twitter’s right wing piled on. Guests on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show spent 15 minutes airing objections to the president’s comments.

“Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” Mr. Obama said. “In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/us/politics/obama-national-prayer-breakfast-terrorism-islam.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

T. Coates is tweeting about the KKK and its use of fire too

gotta be honest that the argument "well they're only just as bad as european christianity + american slavery" is not so persuasive to me

"before we get on our high horses let's remember that the de facto leader of the EU was running gas chambers less than a decade ago"

I kinda enjoy seeing high-horse types saying dumb things when confronted with history. Whether you can persuade anyone that their religion has been used as cover for immoral actions, is not easy.

Meanwhile, the neo-cons (of various faiths) on the Washington Post editorial page are grumbling that because Obama wants a nuclear treaty with Iran, he is going easy on Iran's client state Syria, and is not providing enough weapons and support to the 'moderate rebels' in Syria who can overthrow Assad, and is not putting enough US special-op folks on the ground to spot ISIS movements so the alliance can take the fight to them more efficiently

obv i meant century not decade too early sorry xp

I also find it a not very effective or persuasive line of argument but it's hard to put my finger on exactly why. It just seems like the endgame of it is no one should ever criticize anyone lest they be hypocrites, and that's not a very productive stance in global politics.

the search for a productive stance in global politics continues

"Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, in Europe and Middle East of the 11th through 15th centuries, a people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."

Would probably be more effective if he was like "Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that I have an appointment to drop some drones in Yemen after lunch."

"Wow, that burning video, sick stuff. But let's be real, nobody's perfect."

i think i'd have to hear the whole context of obama's remarks to understand how they were intended.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/05/remarks-president-national-prayer-breakfast

it's better in context - i mean still hedgy as he goes on and on about humility, and says "part of humility is also recognizing in modern, complicated, diverse societies, the functioning of these rights, the concern for the protection of these rights calls for each of us to exercise civility and restraint and judgment," which sounds very nihilistic multicultural but then also he says, "No God condones terror. No grievance justifies the taking of innocent lives, or the oppression of those who are weaker or fewer in number," which is more direct.

and it's a national prayer breakfast where he's trying to answer the question "how can faith lead to such horrible things," so it's not like he's talking to the congress about the threat of religious extremism in the middle east and cautioning that, hey, we've done some bad things too so let's not get too worked up.

it's a national prayer breakfast

Say what?

Remarks by the President at National Prayer Breakfast

Washington Hilton
Washington, D.C.

9:13 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Well, good morning. Giving all praise and honor to God. It is wonderful to be back with you here. I want to thank our co-chairs, Bob and Roger. These two don’t always agree in the Senate, but in coming together and uniting us all in prayer, they embody the spirit of our gathering today.

i think non-americans don't realize exactly how religious we are over here lol

i think his comments are apposite if he's countering the argument that ISIS's violence is somehow intrinsic to islam, which is definitely an argument that's frequently bandied about. and i think that's what he's doing.

it's a weird argument (that ISIS's violence is intrinsic to Islam) just bc it's so unnecessary. there are 1.6 billion muslims in the world. radical islam only needs to attract 1% of that faith population for it to be a serious threat. an ideology that only attracts 1% of a faith group is obv not an intrinsic or dominant ideology by any means. i do somewhat buy the argument when it's phrased as that Islam as a faith community is ultimately the only group that can fully marginalize the ideology - but it doesn't make any sense to blame one billion five hundred eighty-four million people for the actions of sixteen million. (or however the figures ultimately work out)

yeah i agree it's a silly argument. but hard and soft versions of it can be heard pretty frequently in the mass media and in common conversation, so i imagine obama feels he had to address it, even if it's a little oblique as is his wont.

How can the intrinsic value of any metaphysical idea or religion ever be discussed or proven, though?

What makes one denomination more authentic or closer to its (almost made-up) essence?

I mean, I respect all religions, but you guys talk about all of this as if it can be proven. E.g., "My God is the real God--not yours", "My beliefs about X religion are authentic and yours aren't".

As an agnostic, I find those arguments hard to believe or take seriously.

I feel the same way. I don't raise the point much because I figure probably better that we make that claim than the reverse, but it doesn't hold much philosophical weight for me.

you're making a much broader point than i think is necessary in this context (and one i think we're well aware of; i'm an athiest FWIW). the point is simply that many people in the USA have used the violence of islamist jihad to condemn all muslims, and obama is reminding these folks that christians have committed similar acts of violence in the name of their god and religion, and that we wouldn't want people condemning all christians on that basis.

it's a simple point, and one that i would have thought fairly uncontroversial, except that by definition to the right wing everything obama utters is controversial, not to mention falling on deaf ears.

xpost

I don't see anyone doing that here; no one is making faith claims. But religion does exist as an ideological phenomenon discrete from the merits of its claims about God. Obama is somewhat making that argument (this isn't true Islam) which obv is absurd, but if you said that it doesn't represent the beliefs of the majority of adherents - that could be legit. I even think textualism has a place w the caveat that a sharp reader can read whatever they want into any text.

But if ur saying we can never discuss the role of religion in geopolitics - that's even more absurd imho.

xp to infinity sign

where i part ways with obama is when he says that no god permits or accepts x or y. obviously that's nonsense to an unbeliever like me, and frankly i imagine that obama thinks it's nonsense or at least dubious too. but he's the president and has to speak in the language of those he wants to address.

we're overthinking this i think. obama's words were not meant to be a theological intervention; they are carefully weighed words intended to nullify a certain form of rhetoric that's fairly abundant in the US (and europe). i don't think they'll achieve that goal, but then again "all religions are made up! they have no essence!" isn't going to do the trick either.

Like we can talk about Saudi Arabian Wahhabism or 15th century Spanish Catholicism and how those prevalent religious ideas permeates their societies and policies w/out ever addressing the question of whether God exists

But if ur saying we can never discuss the role of religion in geopolitics - that's even more absurd imho.

― Mordy, Friday, February 6, 2015 5:50 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
no, what i'm saying is it's equally as silly an argument to say "this-and-that" is what the majority of Muslims/Islamists/Christians believe, so this is the true essence of this religion. Because in history, the majority has changed throughout history. So which is it? I was raised in a Catholic household, and this is why many conventional/'normal' (non-academic) Catholics do not want Catholicism to change, because it would weaken their idea of what is true and right.

But who is making that argument besides maybe Obama? We're talking about Islam like you might talk about Democracy or Fascism or Socialism or whatever civic idea that might have a multitude of interpretation + offshoots but generally emerges from particular texts/ideas/figures. When we talk about "this-and-that" is what the majority of Muslims/Christians believe, we're talking about the mainstream trends among those self-identifying adherents. It's not necessarily a permanently fixed majority, and I think a lot of the discussion about 'what is Islam?' is really a discussion of 'which of these beliefs are mainstream?' But not a question of 'which of these beliefs are true Islam?'

yeah like i said i don't think obama is really getting into heavy theological/ontological speculation about islam's "essence," he's just pointing out that the forms of violence that ISIS has undertaken aren't remotely common or widely shared among present-day muslims. if he's doing this in language that a nonbeliever might take issue with, well, he kind of has to do that--consider the context.

things going well in Yemen today eh. Another proxy war front for the Saudis and Iran, I assume. and only 20 years after the last civil war.

Is American hostage Mueller still alive?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/07/this-is-isis-s-cruelest-move-yet.html#

http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2015/01/14/the-widow-of-a-paris-terrorist-and-other-real-wives-of-islamic-state/jcr:content/image.crop.800.500.jpg/1421252153250.cached.jpg

this is a bit like that newsweek oj simpson cover

The overture gets the attention, while the closing is just there

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/world/middleeast/overture-by-houthis-to-ousted-officials.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Mr. Houthi refrained from criticizing the United States or its drone strikes, as he always did in major speeches before the Houthi takeover in January. He said international and regional powers had nothing to fear from the government the Houthis had proposed. He also appealed several times for all of Yemen’s political parties to join with the Houthis in forming the government.

“Our hands are outstretched to you, and there’s still a chance to be included in the presidential commission and the national council,” he said.

Mr. Houthi’s speech was greeted by chants of the Houthi slogan, including “Death to America, death to Israel, damnation to the Jews.”

there's a nice bit in one of the vice episodes in houthi country in northern yemen where the filmmaker finds a fragment of an ex saudi air force missile casing with made in america written on it (as much as america is more directly concerned with their rivals aqap)

quite a complicated overlay of ethnic and sectarian elements, i would be interested in any recommendations for writing about yemen and the houthis in particular

Dunno how much is new to seasoned MENA watchers but I learned a lot from this:
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/2/what-do-the-leaders-of-yemens-houthis-want.html

Third, the state outlawed classical Zaidi theological views, especially those pertaining to the imamate. For example, the Zaidi endorsement of armed rebellion against an oppressive state was considered outside the scope of acceptable discourse and deemed treasonous. Finally, the new government kept Zaidis marginalized, severely underfinancing and often shutting down their educational centers for their alleged spread of subversive ideas.

Zaidism declined steadily through the republican period, exemplified by the rise of scholars from Zaidi backgrounds who adopted Sunni theological and legal views. This development has contributed to a popular but mistaken belief that Zaidism closely resembles Sunni Islam.

that is a lot better than the guardian piece last week

The Zaidis emerged from Shia Islam but of all the Shia they are the most similar to Sunnis in terms of religious practice.

this represents a serious attempt to differentiate isis from their predecessors

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/08/isis-islamic-state-ideology-sharia-syria-iraq-jordan-pilot

the three other articles by the author are worth reading and there is a book forthcoming

http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/book-review-isis-inside-army-terror/

30 Zamalek fans killed in clashes with police - mostly crushed into fences - prior to their match with ENPPI.

The players were ordered to continue with the match anyway and the only one who refused, Omar Gaber, has been suspended indefinitely.

http://www.kingfut.com/2015/02/09/least-30-zamalek-fans-killed-confrontation-police/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/10/drought-helped-caused-syrias-war-will-climate-change-bring-more-like-it/

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-02-04/meet-average-mohamed-gas-station-owner-whos-using-cartoons-fight-isis-recruitment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vJ-SlxjRrQ

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/09/remarks-president-obama-and-chancellor-merkel-joint-press-conference

Q Thank you, Mr. President. The Iran nuclear negotiators have now missed two deadlines. Should the upcoming March deadline for talks be the final one? And what are the circumstances in which you think it would be wise to extend those talks? Also, sir, some have suggested that you are outraged by the Israeli Prime Minister’s decision to address Congress. Is that so? And how would you advise Democrats who are considering a boycott?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: First of all, we understood I think from the start, when we set up the interim agreement with Iran, that it would take some time to work through incredibly complex issues and a huge trust deficit between the United States and Iran, and the world and Iran, when it comes to their nuclear program. So I think there was always the assumption that, although the interim agreement lasted a certain period of time, that we would probably need more time to move forward.

The good news is, is that there have been very serious discussions. That time has been well spent. During this period of time, issues have been clarified; gaps have been narrowed; the Iranians have abided by the agreement. So this is not a circumstance in which, by talking, they’ve been stalling and meanwhile advancing their program. To the contrary. What we know is the program has not only been frozen, but with respect to, for example, 20 percent enriched uranium, they’ve reversed it. And so we’re in a better position than we were before the interim program was set up.

Having said all that, the issues now are sufficiently narrowed and sufficiently clarified where we’re at point where they need to make a decision. We are presenting to them, in a unified fashion -- the P5-plus-1, supported by a coalition of countries around the world, are presenting to them a deal that allows them to have peaceful nuclear power but gives us the absolute assurance that is verifiable that they are not pursuing a nuclear weapon.

And if, in fact, what they claim in true -- which is they have no aspiration to get a nuclear weapon, that, in fact, according to their Supreme Leader, it would be contrary to their faith to obtain a nuclear weapon -- if that is true, there should be the possibility of getting a deal. They should be able to get to yes. But we don’t know if that’s going to happen. They have their hardliners; they have their politics.

And the point, I guess is, Christi, at this juncture, I don’t see a further extension being useful if they have not agreed to the basic formulation and the bottom line that the world requires to have confidence that they’re not pursuing a nuclear weapon.

Now, if a framework for a deal is done, if people have a clear sense of what is required and there’s some drafting and t’s to cross and i’s to dot, that’s a different issue. But my view -- and I’ve presented this to members of Congress -- is that we now know enough that the issues are no longer technical. The issues now are, does Iran have the political will and the desire to get a deal done?

And we could not be doing this were it not for the incredible cohesion and unity that’s been shown by Germany, by the other members of the P5-plus-1 -- which, I should acknowledge, includes Russia. I mean, this is an area where they’ve actually served a constructive role. And China has served a constructive role. And there has been no cracks in this on the P5-plus-1 side of the table. And I think that’s a testament to the degree to which we are acting reasonably in trying to actually solve a problem.

With respect to Prime Minister Netanyahu, as I’ve said before, I talk to him all the time, our teams constantly coordinate. We have a practice of not meeting with leaders right before their elections, two weeks before their elections. As much as I love Angela, if she was two weeks away from an election she probably would not have received an invitation to the White House -- (laughter) -- and I suspect she wouldn’t have asked for one. (Laughter.)

So this is just -- some of this just has to do with how we do business. And I think it’s important for us to maintain these protocols -- because the U.S.-Israeli relationship is not about a particular party. This isn’t a relationship founded on affinity between the Labor Party and the Democratic Party, or Likud and the Republican Party. This is the U.S.-Israeli relationship that extends beyond parties, and has to do with that unbreakable bond that we feel and our commitment to Israel’s security, and the shared values that we have.

And the way to preserve that is to make sure that it doesn’t get clouded with what could be perceived as partisan politics. Whether that’s accurate or not, that is a potential perception, and that’s something that we have to guard against.

Now, I don’t want to be coy. The Prime Minister and I have a very real difference around Iran, Iran sanctions. I have been very clear -- and Angela agrees with me, and David Cameron agrees with me, and the others who are a member of the negotiations agree -- that it does not make sense to sour the negotiations a month or two before they’re about to be completed. And we should play that out. If, in fact, we can get a deal, then we should embrace that. If we can’t get a deal, then we’ll have to make a set of decisions, and, as I’ve said to Congress, I’ll be the first one to work with them to apply even stronger measures against Iran.

But what’s the rush -- unless your view is that it’s not possible to get a deal with Iran and it shouldn’t even be tested? And that I cannot agree with because, as the President of the United States, I’m looking at what the options are if we don't get a diplomatic resolution. And those options are narrow and they're not attractive. And from the perspective of U.S. interests -- and I believe from the perspective of Israel’s interests, although I can't speak for, obviously, the Israeli government -- it is far better if we can get a diplomatic solution.

So there are real differences substantively, but that's separate and apart from the whole issue of Mr. Netanyahu coming to Washington. All right?

Not sure what your point is...

ISIS provided the family with "information," including photographic evidence that convinced the U.S. intelligence community that Mueller had been killed, according to a senior U.S. official. U.S. officials said it has not been possible to determine when or how Mueller actually died.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/officials-kayla-mueller-isis-commander/story?id=28870880

xp I think there are a few interesting things O says there

http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2015/02/obamas-secret-iran-strategy/
http://ottomansandzionists.com/2015/02/10/losing-the-forest-of-iran-policy-for-the-trees-of-a-nuclear-deal/

^ highly recommend reading both. i think there's room to disagree about obama's policy vis-a-vis iran (both its potential success and, more pointedly, exactly what it is), but i think these are very persuasive

most interesting to me is the question of whether the leader of the US can create a relationship w/ Iran (clandestinely?) despite misgivings from the american public, the congress, etc, and have it mean something. after all, obama is gone in 2 years - how can Iran at this point believe that any of his assurances will outlast his presidency? in that sense obama is trying to be an independent actor when really the office of POTUS continues to be a surrogate agent for american interests.