General Middle East & North Africa Thread

Fear, we've been having a big thing in the UK about it, people would rather not have their lives be destroyed because they dared to accuse a celebrity/political figure of something inappropriate, even if it's something that everyone knows is happening.

Here's how bad it is in the UK, we've had a massive abuse scandal (including child abuse) involving so much of the political establishment (either as abusers, people who covered up abuse or people who had friends who covered up abuse) that the only way to find an Independant judicial expert was to go to New Zeeland, all our qualified people are to close to the people involved.

Lebanon reports that an Australian woman and a Channel 9 news crew were released on bail after the former alledgly tried to kidnap her children from her Lebanaese husband.

Saudi Arabia agrees to plans to move away from oil The goal is to be able to "live without oil" by 2020. Their is also going to be a new Visa system to allow Muslims and other Arabs to work longterm in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia plans to make arms purchases local My god it looks like they are actually serious about economically developing their country.

edited 25th Apr '16 11:50:29 AM by JackOLantern1337

Saudia has been serious about it for the last five years? How do I know this? Because they've been kicking out non-Arabs from job positions en masse in a Saudization effort. This is the next step.

Gearing up for the post-oil times?

I read in an article that 80% of the working Saudis work for the government.

The prince is also trying to get in some social reforms without angering the local ultras, aimed at making SA more palatable for Western investors so that they come to Riyad instead of Dubai. In particular, allowing women to have a driving license on the basis that it was legal for them to ride camels in Muhammad's time.

It was a quite long article; I summarized it for Marq while asking him how much of it is true, only for him to say that he's hearing most of it from me first. Should I post the summary here?

Forgive my ignorance, but... is Syria primarily Sunni or Shia? And I mean what civilian population is still left, not the warlords.

edited 26th Apr '16 8:45:12 AM by amitakartok

Before the war it was mostly Sunni with a Alawis minority ruling body.

Ah, thanks. The reason why I'm asking is, Syria will need some serious monetary assistance to rebuild once ISIS is stomped out for good and the dust starts to settle. Would it be in-character for SA to help them out, Marshall Plan-style?

• Syria gets back on its feet faster. Win for Syria.
• SA gets an ally and Western goodwill, the latter potentially meaning Western investors, therefore opportunity for the crown prince to enact his reforms and shape up the Saudi economy. Win for SA.
• If the prince is actually being serious about approaching Israel to gang up on ISIS, that will earn him further points in the eye of the US. Win for SA.
• SA, a rebuilt Syria and Israel in one camp, backed by the US, means a power bloc strong enough to make Iran stop fanning sectarian proxy wars (not that SA isn't guilty of the same), potentially stabilizing the region in the long term. Win-win for everyone involved.
• In fact, if this bloc is strong enough, the US might seize the opportunity to jump ship with Turkey's human rights violations without handing the Middle East over to Russia. Win for the US due to no longer having to lose face for the sake of having a strong regional ally.

...this might be too optimistic, but we can always dream.

edited 26th Apr '16 9:55:03 AM by amitakartok

Doubtful. A Marshall Plan takes a lot of investment that the Saudis would rather focus on their home territory.

Plus, everyone in Syria would immediately smell a rat and think the Saudis were trying to buy their country.

Saudia will only help rebuild Syria if the rebels were to win, a scenario that is increasingly unlikely. If the Assad government holds on, it will be Iran and Russia doing the Marshall Plan, not Riyadh.

On the subject of Saudi employment, yeah they currently do work mostly for the government, but now the government wants them in other industries too, like services (usually handled by Indians and Pakistanis) and heavy labor (handled by most other migrants).

edited 26th Apr '16 11:33:17 AM by FFShinra

Saudi labor will need a cultural shift for that to work, including allowing women into the workforce if they desire to reduce their dependency towards foreign laborers.

Agreed. Hence why they are finally looking into letting women drive on their own. Modest but necessary first step and all that.

Can Russia or Iran afford to put up the kind of investment that a Marshal plan would require though?

Probably, the Russian government has been keeping Assad afloat for a while now, unless there was a serious shortfall in revenue due to a drop off in gas purchase or another oil price tank the Russian government seems to be holding together. Iran is if anything in a better spot, now that it's walked away from nuclear its economy is under less pressure and is liable to improve, though again an oil price tank could hurt it.

Russia is already making a profit on Syrian produce (to replace the Turkish produce now banned), so more deals like that and it won't seem like such a big deal. Especially since Russia (if not Assad) is perfectly fine with a smaller Syria.

Y'know, for all the shit I give Prince Mohammad bin Salman for his inept foreign policy, I have to give credit where its due: guy is trying to reform the economy. With the amount they spend on military toys, the idea to move 50 percent of purchases to local industry and require foreign providers to provide local industry tie ups with the deals isn't the worst idea in the world.

Is there any realistic chance of the Saudis managing to sort out the mess that is their economy enough for the next big geopolitical crisis to not affect them that much? Last time I researched the subject, they still had a huge chunk of their population literally being too proud to work.

Did the sanctions placed on Iran economically hurt them one bit?

Necessity is the mother of invention. Or in this case, innovation. Being too proud to work and being allowed to be too proud to work are two different things.

Difficult to gauge but I'd say that yes they did take its tool on Iran's economy.

Iran is also more diversified economically, so comparing the two in terms of effect isn't useful.

Sanctions don't really prevent a country from achieving its aims, if they are very determined. It does open them up to follow-up strike, but unless it comes....you're not going to convince them of much.

Saudi Oil Minister sacked in government overhall

... His replacement was sacked recently from being the health minister over "arguing with a citizen" (apparently his behavior in that argument was highly unbecoming of a man of his station; I wouldn't know, because I don't really keep tabs on such things, as pretty much all of the ministers are mouthpieces for the dynasty when you come down to it).

Well now, there certainly is going to be some real irony in the upcoming weeks...

First off, the U.S. Senate OKs bill to let 9/11 families sue Saudi Arabia. It's not a popular bill - Obama has stated that he will veto it, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan doesn't seem to like it either. Yet it does seem to have bi-partisan support from certain groups, Ruth Bader Ginsburg thinks it's a plausible bill, and now it's starting get some more stern reactions from across the Middle East. Guess everybody's worried about the U.S getting sue-happy in international affairs now...

In return, Saudi Arabia is threatening to retaliate by selling off a significant amount of U.S. stock Treasuries. It's dubious if they'll go through with it since it'll cause a ton of damage to our economy by screwing up the stock value of our bonds, but it might bite them back in the long term if another global recession hits.

And third, Iran wants U.S. to pay for 63 years of 'spiritual and material damage'. I'm pretty sure they aren't actually being serious about this one, but it's an interesting counter-point nonetheless. I doubt it's going to get a reasonable spin in the conservative circles though, especially with all of the jingoistic chest-thumping we've been seeing in the U.S. elections.