Shadow Play in the Middle East
Much of the reporting of President Bush's trip to the Middle East is shadow play, an incredible con game. The suckers are the American public.
Today's headline, for instance, has Bush telling Saudi King Abdullah that the high price of oil is hurting the U.S. economy. This, the White House press people, reporters and editors apparently all agree, is front page material. But who are they kidding?
The Saudi leaders and their good, old family friend, George Bush have known for ages about the havoc that rocketing oil prices are wreaking on the U.S. economy. All along, in fact, the Bush administration has been cautiously attempting to convince the Saudis, OPEC's largest producer, to keep prices down. To no avail.
Back in April 2005, for instance, in Crawford Texas, when Bush last met King Abdullah face to face before he took over the Saudi throne, the subject of high oil prices came up. Oil then was selling for $54 a barrel. It's now $94.
What new leverage does George W. Bush suddenly have?
Instead, he comes bearing gifts. To thank the Saudis for supporting the latest, feeble U.S. peace efforts in the Middle East, Bush is promising them 20 billion dollars in sophisticated weapons--including 121 million dollars worth of precision guided bombs.
But to defend the Saudis against whom? Iran? Does anyone really think the mullahs in Tehran are going to dispatch their forces to attack the Saudis? Or are the Saudis supposed to use those arms against Iraq's shattered forces? Or is it just a great way for the Saudis to recycle some of their petroleum wealth back to U.S. industry?
Which brings us to another irony of the current Bush trip. A few days ago in Abu Dhabi, trying to whip up support for U.S. policy, he gave a speech condemning Iran and extolling the virtues of democracy from the cavernous marble auditorium of a 3 billion dollar gold plated hotel.
A strange choice of venue: the rulers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai and the rest of the emirates give short shrift to democracy themselves.
They still run their lands as tribal domains, hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into the coffers of a few thousand incredibly wealthy individuals. One after another, their new, high walled, sprawling mansions line the broad residential avenues in Abu Dhabi.
The tribal sheiks maintain their hold over the 4 million residents of the Emirates by distributing enough of their vast wealth to the small proportion--only 17%- of their population, who are actually citizens, to keep them fat and happy, and unconcerned about such issues as freedom of the press. There are estimates, for instance, that the average citizen of Abu Dhabi is a millionaire.
Their rulers, on the other hand, are not dumb. Many have been educated in top U.S. and European universities.
Ironically, while George W. Bush has consistently avoided the tough policy decisions that would be necessary to wean American from its dependence on petroleum, the oil producing states, who face the problem themselves, have been no where as passive.
The rulers of Dubai for instance, realizing that their oil deposits are rapidly running out, have launched a massive investment program to transform the Emirate into one of the worlds major destinations for international business and tourism.
They've also spent billions to launch their own airline and what will soon be the largest airport in the world. Their neighbors in Abu Dhabi though they have much greater petroleum deposits, are following suit.
At this moment, more than 2.3 trillion dollars is being spent on the construction of new apartment complexes, skyscrapers, high speed monorails and highways in just Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
To carry out this vast enterprise they've enlisted tens of thousands of expats, professionals from around the world who have flocked to the Gulf to manage and profit from the spectacular economic boom.
The expats enjoy salaries, spacious homes with servants and maids and drivers and schools. But no real hope of ever becoming citizens of the countries they are transforming. After a few years, they're out.
They in turn oversee an underclass of millions of temporary migrants primarily from India, Pakistan Sri Lanka and the Philippines, the ones actually building the startling new skyline that so awed George W. Bush. These foreign workers, admitted without their wives, make two or three hundred dollars a month, and send much of it back home.
You don't see them in the sprawling new shopping malls, the surrealistic hotel lobbies, indoor ski domes, or wide boulevards. They live apart in distant military-style barracks, transported back and forth to work in large buses. Their visas are tied directly to their employers, which means, if the construction workers or maids or drivers become too uppity, complain about salaries or living conditions, unpaid wages, or being raped or brutalized by their employers, they're expelled. In any case, they're out after a couple of years.
As even the U.S. State Department pointed out, abuses are legion:
"trafficking in women and children; legal and societal discrimination against women and non citizens; corruption and lack of government transparency; common abuse of foreign domestic servants; and severe restrictions on and abuses of workers' rights."
One would think that the ability of the Emirate's rulers (and the Saudi princes) to continue milking the region, as their fortunes swell from the hundreds of billions to the trillions, would have to be limited. After all, they are just a few thousand immensely rich living in a vast swathe across the Middle East and Central Asia now ravaged by poverty and political turbulence.
Indeed, that same political chaos has proved a gold mine for the Emirates. Wealthy Lebanese, for instance, have fled their own once prosperous now shattered land to invest in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The same is true for Iraqis, Egyptians, Pakistanis and Afghans--and even Saudis, leery of future stability in their own country.
The U.S. threat to freeze suspicious accounts from Middle East states has also convinced many wealthy Arabs they are safer investing at least a part of their fortunes much closer to home in the Emirates.
But still the question remains: how much longer before the whole surreal economic edifice in the Gulf comes tumbling down?
That's, of course, the fear that George W. Bush aims to exploit to fortify an alliance against Iran, just as Saddam Hussein did with the same sheiks when he sought their support against Iran in the 1980s. (Remember, from the very beginning, Khomeini railed against the corrupt, feudal rulers of the Gulf, threatening to expand the Shiite revolution across the Gulf. At that time, of course, the U.S. enlisted Saddam to head the anti-Khomeini coalition.)
But though, on one level, the sheiks may fear their Iranian neighbor, they know that Iranian leaders also have a major financial stake in the Emirates' well-being. Iranian government leaders and businessmen -- often one and the same -- are investing huge sums of money in the Emirates.
While U.S. authorities do their best to banish Iranians from the international banking system, in fact Iranians don't have to put their money into accounts in the Emirates. They put their billions to work buying and selling the huge apartments , condominiums and office buildings sprouting like mushrooms all along the Gulf coast and making enormous profits in the process.
Al Qaeda, it is whispered, also speculates in the booming real estate market.
But rather than being upset about such involvement, the Emirate sheiks are supposedly delighted. As an American ex pat banker told me, "It's the best insurance the sheiks have got,"
At the same time, it's also said that Islamic militants receive huge "protection" payments from the Emirate Sheiks.
Otherwise, how explain the fact that though the sumptuous modern hotels and malls, nightclubs and bikini-clad beach resorts would, in theory, be ideal targets for Islamic terrorists, there's been not a single attack.
The West should be as lucky.
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This trip is the last gasp of Gdubya to grasp at some sort of legacy of foreign affairs. He has failed at the Israelie/Palestine peace efforts. Syria, is just counting the days when they along with Hezzbollah fighter, will kick the crap out of the IDF. Iran is laughing all the way to the banks of Venezuela, Russia, China! Afhganistan is lost due to poor performances by NATO INEPT MILITARY TACTICS.
China is getting ready to take the free nation of Taiwan by force and we can do nothing about it. North Korea has smoked us again just like they did to Caherine Albright/Bill Clinton.
Castro/Ven
How can the next President deal with this mess! Acquiescence isN'T going to win the free world anything! War won't either! Dollars, they're all spent.
Is this now to the point where prayer might help? What's a secular humanists to do?
Great blog . . . thank you . . . the Carlyle Group and Halliburton are making a bomb in the Emirates too . . .
I really don't undersand the millions in arms the chimp has given to the Saudis . . . the biggest loser is the US taxpayer . . .
When the price of oil moves from the 90s in the 100s, do you think that a Saudi guy in robes is just sitting there arbitrarily moving the price up and down?
No, its almost all speculative, as the result of US trading practices, and is IN NO WAY tied to the behavior of the Saudis. The people who profit from the vast majority of each $100 barrel are traders.
The strange thing is that it is percieved that the Saudis are in control of the price of oil, not the US.
Bush's saber-rattling toward Iran greatly increases world worries about future supplies.
Iraq still isn't producing as much as it should, again thanks to the Administration's incompetence.
Bush's spendthrift economic policies have undermined the value of the dollar. Is is any surprise that when the dollar buys less commodity producers in other countries (not just oil) will want more of them for their products?
Bush's attempts to improve America's energy independence still consists more of talk and corporate welfare than of Apollo-Program like urgency.
And yet we want to blame the Saudis
The biggest con is Bush's supposed compassion for the plight of the Palestinians. No sooner did he leave the region than the brutal oppression of the Palestinians by the IDF went into high gear again. Israel doesn't show any sincere desire to end their cruel and criminal occupation of the remnants of historical Palestine.
When a suicide bomber has a bomb! innocent people will die! When Iran gets a nuke they have already said they want to eliminate Israel. Iran don't think out of the sand box. no other country is going to join Iran in Hell. middle east peace will finally arrive to bad no one will be there to see it.
It is clear to us that the goal is to bring down America. What is not clear is how to stop it. There are enough layers between us and the powers that be that we cannot get to them, they are not listening, and all we seem to be able to do is sit back and watch. Any suggestions? Keep in mind we have no senate and congress on our side.
The Oligarchy is squirming because Neoliberalism is as dead as their idol Friedman.
Strauss, Machiavelli are neutered, Reagans' real legacy is finally coming to light and change is actually taking the world and money, assassinations, cohersion, mass murder nor deception can stop it this time.
Shrub has not only failed to coherse his ememies, he can't even bribe his friends to support his rape/pillage policies in the Middleast (hasn't his family and friends become wealthy enough from that anyway??)
The empire has collapsed, let's rebuild the Republic and bring these criminals to justice.
Some of these wealthy leaders are also laughing
at Bush, or in some cases, critical of his
policy in Iraq.
Everyone is making deals right now. Lot's of
nations are shoring up their military might,
signing agreements for nuclear technologies,
and oil or natural gas purchases. Some like China, are threatening others,as with Taiwan,
because the US sells arms to them. Russia is
stronger now as far as military and trade than
in the Cold War. And what about American
mortgage companies like Citicorp, who are getting foreign investors to bail them out of
disaster.
The Big 5+1 meet very soon on more Iranian
sanctions. Let's see how long we go before
war starts with Iran.
Wulfstan: Did you read my statment or agreec? Do you know anything at all about the free market system and its relationship to natural resources?
Supply and Demand dictates cost of oil. So does speculators. The saudis have the right to their greed b/c you see the oil belongs to them and the MARKET decides what that oil is worth.
Our economcy is not being drained by the high cost of oil, it's the war dummie. It's also the recession, the markets, real estate crash and mortgage crisis and increasing investor fears about investing in American economy which is leading to higher unemployment levels.
And your solution to this multi-pronged disaster is to invade Saudi Arabia?
Grow up.
The Saudis and Al Qaeda: the Saudi royals retain their legitimacy to the throne only because the fundamentalist Wahabis support them. The royals have been paying Al Queda for protection from local attacks for a long time. How many of the weapons Bush sold will go right into the hands of Al Qaeda?
The Saudis founded and funded the Wahabi Al Qaeda fanatics who attacked us on 9/11: Bushes best friends for life.
Impeach before Bush Kills again!
To LoveourGold - for the official visit we call it "to spread democracy.
Hypocrisy is recognized by everybody other than the 'smirking chimp's followers!
This Clown (Bush) is the biggest embarrassment this country has ever had to suffer.
The way he swaggers around acting tough and showing how proud he is of himself only adds to the buffoonery!
Our ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES should be ashamed of themselves and colleges for not IMPEACHING this war criminal!
Everything you said is factually correct, yet the media has recited none of these facts in their coverage.
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