al-qaeda chief ayman al-zawahiri the coordinator 2015 part 29-oil-jihad-14

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Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 29-Oil-Jihad-14

Saudi Arabia ‘playing very risky game’ with its oil policy; the Saudis are playing a very risky game. They have managed to keep political stability, social stability in the country by using their oil revenues to buy off a large portion of the population with all kinds of public spending, public welfare. If they have to cut back on that they risk social unrest. So they are playing a very, very risky game. They can’t go on that much longer, All the countries that depend heavily on oil exports are suffering, and this is a worldwide phenomenon that is going to continue for some time to come, says natural resources expert Michael Klare.. A Four-Dimensional Chess Board; We’re about to be plunged into a new oil war in the Middle East, this one with a possible nuclear dimension. Wars for control of oil have been instigated for more than a century since the dawn of the petroleum era around the time of the First World War.

Osama bin Laden You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of you international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.- the full text of Osama bin Laden's "letter to the American people"24 Nov 2002 1. C and today in the Oil War Saudi is “given it away”.

Saudi Arabia is burning through foreign reserves at an unsustainable rate and may be forced to give up its prized dollar exchange peg as the oil slump drags on, the country’s former reserve chief has warned.

“If anything happens to the riyal exchange peg, the consequences will be dramatic. There will be a serious loss of confidence,” said Khalid Alsweilem, the former head of asset management at the Saudi central bank (SAMA). “But if the reserves keep going down as they are now, they will not be able to keep the peg,” he told The Telegraph.

What we are seeing today in the oil market is no less than war to the death between Saudi Arabia and the North American oil industry, Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), a Washington based think tank focused on energy security, and a senior adviser to the United States Energy Security Council believes.

“Relying on their deep pockets and 800 billion dollars of cash reserves, the Saudis have taken a calculated risk to keep prices low enough for long enough time for the American drillers to go bust,” Luft told Trend.“They don't seem to care that in the process they are ruining the economies of other exporters like Nigeria, Angola, Iran and Venezuela who don't have such staying power,” he added.

“The North American market is showing weakness and most producers are in the 1 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver

The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.–Winston Churchill

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red. In the coming 12 months we will begin to see bankruptcies, defaults and consolidations,” he said.

'We will live in a different reality,' said a top Kremlin official. The message is aimed squarely at Saudi Arabia in a war for market share. Russia is battening down the hatches for a Biblical collapse in oil revenues, warning that crude prices could stay as low as $40 a barrel for another seven years.

Maxim Oreshkin, the deputy finance minister, said the country is drawing up plans based on a price band fluctuating between $40 to $60 as far out as 2022, a scenario that would have devastating implications for Opec.

During last month's OPEC meeting, Saudi Arabia again declined to cut oil production despite the world being awash with oil. The great unanswered question for Saudi Arabia is: How low can prices go, and for how long?

Saudi Arabia's refusal to reduce oil output shows no sign of abating, but its determination to drive out US shale producers is taking a toll on the kingdom's economy, recent data suggests.

And with the expectation of Iran's return to global oil markets already undermining fragile prices, Riyadh's strategy looks increasingly like it might be a gamble with declining odds.Although the kingdom has substantial reserves, it appears to be burning through its financial war chest at an alarming rate. According to the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, foreign exchange reserves fell to $648bn at the end of October from $742bn a year earlier. If OPEC does not compensate for the increase in Iran's oil exports by cutting oil production, the International Monetary Fund says oil prices could fall between five and 10 percent in the medium term. Energy giant BP estimates that Iran has the fourth-largest proven oil reserves in the world after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Canada, as well as the second-largest gas reserves, according to the IMF. Khalid al-Dakhil, an assistant professor of political sociology at King Saud University, told Al Jazeera that he did not expect Iran's output to have a dramatic effect."Politically, I do not see any impact of Iran's return to the oil market on Saudi Arabia," he said. "This return could [cause] oil prices to go further down - but remember, Iran is much more than Saudi Arabia in dire need to improve prices, because it is coming out of political and economic isolation."

"It only makes sense to cut production if the supply situation is such that a small output reduction results in a substantial price increase," Gracia told Al Jazeera. "In a situation of global oversupply this may not be the case, so the appeal of a production-cutting strategy is not clear."

Erdoğan’s Turkey, King Salman’s Saudi Arabia and the Coming “Sunni” War for Oil By F. William Engdahl Global Research, December 23, 2015We’re about to be plunged into a new oil war in the Middle East, this one with a possible nuclear dimension. Wars for control of oil have been instigated for more than a century since the dawn of the petroleum era around the time of the First World War.

This war for control of oil, however, promises to be of a scale that will change world politics in a spectacular and highly destructive manner. It is on one level, a Saudi war to redraw the national borders of the infamous Anglo-French Sykes-Picot carve-up of the bankrupt Ottoman Turkish Empire of 1916. This new war has as its foolish goal bringing the oil fields and pipeline routes of Iraq and Syria, and perhaps more of the region, under direct Saudi control, with Qatar and Erdogan’s Turkey as Riyadh’s partners





in crime. Unfortunately, as in all wars, there will be no winners.The EU will be a major loser as will the present citizens of Iraq and Syria, as well as the Kurdish Turkish and the very different Kurdish Syrian populations for starters. Erdogan’s Turkish “sultanate” will be destroyed at a great cost to lives and peace, as will King Salman’s pre-feudal Kingdom as an influence in world power games. First they will fall into a deadly trap that has been carefully prepared for them by NATO.It’s necessary to look more closely at the elements and key players preparing this new war, a war which it is likely will not last beyond perhaps the summer of 2016.

A Four-Dimensional Chess Board The key players in this cesspool of deception and betrayal on almost every side consist of four broad groupings, each with its own divergent goals.

The first group is the ultra-conservative Wahhabite Sunni Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under King Salman and his influential, erratic Defense Minister and son, 31-year-old Prince Salman; President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s war-ready Turkish regime, with the key role being played by his MIT intelligence head, Hakan Fidan; DAESH, or the mis-named Islamic State (IS), which is nothing but a thinly disguised extension of Wahhabite Saudi Arabia, financed by Saudi and Qatari money and backed and trained by Fidan’s MIT. They are recently being joined by the newly-announced 34-state Saudi-created “Islamic Coalition Against Terror,” based in Riyadh.

The second group consists of the Bashar al-Assad legitimate Syrian government, and the Syrian Army and other Syrian forces loyal to him; Shi’ite Iran; the 60% Shi’ite Iraq besieged by the same IS. Since September 30 Putin’s Russia has been a surprise added factor with a daring campaign of military backing for Assad. The second group also includes to varying degrees Assad allies Iran and Iraq, including the Teheran-backed Shi’ite Hezbollah, in fighting DAESH and other anti-regime terror groups in Syria. Since Russia’s entry on September 30 at the behest of the legitimate Syrian President Assad, the fortunes of Damascus have dramatically improved on the ground.

There then comes Netanyahu’s Israel, gleefully deceiving everyone, as it moves its own agenda in Syria. Netanyahu has recently made public strategic alliances with both Saudi Arabia’s Salman and with Turkey’s Erdoğan. Add to that Israel’s recent discovery of “huge” oil reserves in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights being illegally claimed by them, discovered we are told by the Israeli affiliate of a little-known spooky New Jersey oil company, Genie Energy, on whose board sits Dick Cheney, Jacob Lord Rothschild and former CIA head James Woolsey.

The fourth group is for the moment playing the most sly, deceptive role of all. It is led by Washington, and using the French, British and German entry into active military actions in Syria. Washington is preparing a devastating trap that will catch the foolish Saudis and their Turkish and other Wahhabite allies in a devastating defeat in Syria and Iraq that will no doubt then be proclaimed as “victory over terrorism” and “victory for the Syrian people.”

Pour it all together, shake vigorously, and you have the ingredients for the most explosive world war cocktail since 1945.

Deceptive Saudi ‘Anti-terror’ Coalition. On December 15, Saudi Arabian Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman announced the formation of what he called an “Islamic Anti-Terror Coalition.” Officially it will be headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Salman, refusing to be concrete as to which “terrorists” he has in mind targeting with military action, declared his coalition would “go after” terrorists in Iraq, Syria, Libya,





Egypt and Afghanistan.The list of 34 coalition members, besides Saudi Arabia, includes Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Turkey, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, Djibouti, Senegal, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Gabon, Somalia, Guinea, the Palestinian National Authority, the Union of the Comoros, Cote d ‘Ivoire, Kuwait, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Maldives, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Yemen. Ten other Islamic countries, including Indonesia, have expressed their support.

Saudi’s Prince Salman stated in an official release that the 34 Sunni states will act, “to counteract terrorism, which became a threat to the interests of the Islamic nation, on the basis of the right of peoples for self-defense.” The term Islamic nation might be better translated as Islamic State as in IS.

Notable about this Saudi coalition of her Sunni allied states across the Islamic world is the complete absence of any states of the Shi’ite Islam group including Iran, Iraq and of course, Bashar al Assad’s Syria.The name of the coalition, the Islamic Anti-Terror Coalition, is also notable. Sounding suspiciously like the terminology of Russia’s quite different war against anti-regime terrorist groups in Syria, the Saudis do not consider DAESH to be terrorists. They are made up of a significant number of Wahhabite Saudi nationals and financed with Saudi money to a major degree, as well as Qatari money, in order to topple the Assad regime and make way for a Saudi-controlled entity ruling Syria, or, at least, a major part of its oil regions. For the Saudis, those who support the “infidel” Assad are the real “terrorists.”

New Sykes-Picot? The key players in the new Riyadh “anti-terror” coalition are Erdoğan’s Turkey and Prince Salman’s Saudi Arabia. They plan to redraw the 1916 division of the Ottoman Middle East to suit their foolish ambitions to become “respected” world powers. Each is acting for his own motives of money and power, neither having the slightest thing to do with sincere religious belief.The Saudi’s Sunni Wahhabi Islam variant is what can only be called a pre-feudal Bedouin ideology, much like that of ISIL or DAESH, where extreme Sharia law, including public head and hand chopping, are regular fare; where women are treated as chattel somewhere near or even below the status of cattle or camels in rights and respect. It is a fanatical racist ideology where they merrily destroy historical monuments such as the ISIL demolition of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, some 3,300 years old.

So, there is little Saudi interest in destroying DAESH, perhaps if anything, fencing it later in to a piece of Syrian desert free of oil, instead, after its usefulness has been depleted. In the meantime the Saudi plan envisions using DAESH for ethnic cleansing of the legitimate Syrian populations in the oil-rich regions and potential natural gas pipeline regions that would flow from Qatar via Saudi across part of now-Syria into Erdogan’s Turkey to service the EU growing gas demand.

Erdoğan-Saudi War Aims. Erdoğan’s Turkish military and most especially his Turkish intelligence, MIT, headed by close crony, Hakan Fidan, is playing a key role in the planned Saudi-Turk-Qatari coalitions move to destroy the regime of Assad and at the same time seize control for them of the rich oil fields of Iraq between Mosul and Kirkuk.

In an October 18, 2015 interview with the Turkish news agency, Anadoly, Fidan stated the open Turkish support for DAESH: “The Islamic Emirate [IS-w.e.] is a reality and we must accept that we cannot eradicate a well-organized and popular institution as the Islamic State is. Therefore, I urge my colleagues in the West to revise their mindset on Islamic political currents, to put aside their cynical mentality and thwart Putin plans to





crush the Islamist Syrian revolutionaries.” In other words, for Turkey as for Saudi Arabia, DAESH is not a terrorist organization, nor Al Nusrah Front, rather they are “Islamist Syrian revolutionaries” fighting the “infidel” Assad regime and its Russian ally. Hakan Fidan’s involvement in the illegal downing of the Russian SU-24 in November in Syrian airspace is indication of what will come.Not only is Erdoğan’s son, Bilal Erdoğan, involved in illegally exporting the stolen Iraqi and Syrian oil. Erdoğan’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, was named by the President to be Turkish Energy Minister the day after the Turkish shooting of the SU-24, and it was Turkish Grey Wolves terrorists in Syria who murdered the SU-24 Russian pilot that Erdoğan’s Air Force shot down.The recent unwanted Turkish military incursion into Iraq’s Mosul region, ostensibly, ostensibly to train fighters linked to Iraqi Kurdistan’s president, Massoud Barzani, shows further that Turkey will be the battering ram of the planned Saudi conquest of Syrian and Iraqi oilfields, wrapped in the banner of Jihad and Allah.And on December 18 Turkey revealed it is building a military base in Qatar, a key financier of DAESH as well as Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra in Syria. Turkey’s Ambassador stated the Turkish base, which will station some 3,000 Turkish troops on the Persian Gulf base, which will include ground troops, air force and naval personnel, as well as instructors and special forces, will be for the purpose of confronting “common enemies” in the region. “Turkey and Qatar face common problems about developments in the region and uncertain policies of other countries…We confront common enemies,” Turkey’s Doha Ambassador stated. Now could those “common enemies” just possibly be Syria’s Assad who in 2009 refused a Qatar gas pipeline proposal in favor of remaining Russia’s ally in gas? Could they be Iran, whose own giant North Pars gas field is a geophysical extension in Iranian waters of Qatar’s gas in the Persian Gulf?Whether Pakistani fighters join or those of other less-trained Arab militaries, is secondary at this point.

Deceptive US Peace Offer in UN. Washington at this point appears to have organized a near-perfect deceptive maneuver to set the stage for the imminent Saudi-Turk oil wars and subsequent debacle in Syria and Iraq. Using the efforts of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) whose members are the Arab League, China, Egypt, the EU, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the United States, Washington Secretary of State John Kerry has just secured Russian and Chinese UN Security Council agreement to what sounds on the surface like a positive final process to end the Syrian war in the coming six months.Meeting in New York on December 18, the UN Security Council, including Russia and China, unanimously adopted Resolution 2254 (2015), “Endorsing Road Map for Peace Process in Syria, Setting Timetable for Talks.” The UNSC resolution 2254 is a devilish document. It calls for an immediate ceasefire beginning January 2016, in Syria by all signatories. That ceasefire excludes Saudi and Turkey-backed DAESH, and the Al Qaeda affiliate, Al Nusra Front. At the same time, it calls for an immediate, simultaneous start of a “political transition” which means completely contradictory things for the United States, Germany, France and the UK as it does for Syria, Iran, and Russia.The US, France and UK all made clear their interpretation of Resolution 2254 meant Assad must go. In his remarks to the document, US Secretary of State John Kerry declared “President Assad had lost the ability and credibility to unite the country.” Kerry was echoed by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius who told the Security Council on





voting for 2254, there must be “safeguards that included an exit by the current President,” Bashar al Assad. UK Foreign Minister, Philip Hammond repeated the Western lie that Assad is responsible for a majority of the 250,000 deaths in the Syrian war, and that the agreed political ‘transition’ process now beginning “involve the departure of President Assad.”For his part, Russia’s Lavrov at the same UN session on 2254 repeated that the UN process agreed to must find, “a mutually acceptable agreement between the Syrian Government and the opposition.” In brief, no mention that Assad must go, rather a form of mutually-agreed power-sharing between the Syrian parties, not a Saudi-approved “opposition” takeover.

The relity is that the agreed UN ceasefire and simultaneous political transition to Washington’s “moderate Syrian opposition” will force Russia, the Assad Syrian government, Hezbollah and Iran military actions to halt, while Saudi-Turkish-Qatari DAESH and Al Qaeda Al Nusra Front and allied terror bands will have free reign to grab the oil riches of Syria and then of northern Iraq.At that point, the trap will have been set and Washington will no doubt spring it, with Russia, Iran and Assad at that point able to do little to prevent it. Would it not be far better for the future of mankind were the real instigators of the war against Syria—Washington, Paris, London and their Saudi and Turkish and Qatari proxies—to genuinely abandon their war agenda and opt for true peace in Syria and Iraq and beyond? Sadly for world peace and freedom, the present state is what happens when everyone lies to everyone.F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Regards Cees***“… the Persian Gulf, the critical oil and natural gas-producing region that we fought so many wars to try and protect our economy from the adverse impact of losing that supply or having it available only at very high prices.” -John Bolton, George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations

Libya: Gaddafi Oil The following article was published two years ago on March 9, 2011, at the outset of the US-NATO intervention in Libya. Libya’s oil reserves are twice those of the United States.In retrospect. the 2011 US-NATO led war on Libya was a multi-trillion dollar trophy for the United States. It was also, as outlined in the article a means to establishing US hegemony in North Africa, a region historically dominated by France and to lesser extent by Italy and Spain.The US-NATO intervention was also intent upon excluding China from the region and edging out China’s National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), which was a major player in Libya.Libya is the gateway to the Sahel and Central Africa. More generally, what is at stake is the redrawing of the map of Africa at the expense of France’s historical spheres of influence, namely a process of neo-colonial redivision. Michel Chossudovsky, March 9, 2013 http://www.globalresearch.ca/operation-libya-and-the-battle-for-oil-redrawing-the-map-of-africa/23605

Iraq: Saddam Oil So Saddam's WMD was not really the issue - and neither was Saddam himself.The real issue is candidly described in a 2001 report on "energy security" - commissioned




http://www.globalresearch.ca/operation-libya-and-the-battle-for-oil-redrawing-the-map-of-africa/23605

http://www.globalresearch.ca/operation-libya-and-the-battle-for-oil-redrawing-the-map-of-africa/23605


by then US Vice-President Dick Cheney - published by the Council on Foreign Relations and the James Baker Institute for Public Policy. It warned of an impending global energy crisis that would increase "US and global vulnerability to disruption", and leave the US facing "unprecedented energy price volatility."The main source of disruption, the report observed, is "Middle East tension", in particular, the threat posed by Iraq. Critically, the documented illustrated that US officials had lost all faith in Saddam due his erratic and unpredictable energy export policies. In 2000, Iraq had "effectively become a swing producer, turning its taps on and off when it has felt such action was in its strategic interest to do so." There is a "possibility that Saddam Hussein may remove Iraqi oil from the market for an extended period of time" in order to damage prices:"Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets. This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a pan-Arab leader... and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against his regime. The United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments. The United States should then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia, and with key countries in the Middle East, to restate goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive coalition of key allies."The real goal - as Greg Muttitt documented in his book Fuel on the Fire citing declassified Foreign Office files from 2003 onwards - was stabilising global energy supplies as a whole by ensuring the free flow of Iraqi oil to world markets - benefits to US and UK companies constituted an important but secondary goal:"The most important strategic interest lay in expanding global energy supplies, through foreign investment, in some of the world's largest oil reserves – in particular Iraq. This meshed neatly with the secondary aim of securing contracts for their companies. Note that the strategy documents released here tend to refer to 'British and global energy supplies.' British energy security is to be obtained by there being ample global supplies – it is not about the specific flow." http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/20/iraq-war-oil-resources-energy-peak-scarcity-economy

Syria: Assad Oil All the hubbub over Syria is all about oil. And if you don’t believe me, believe John Bolton. On the surface, most Americans would agree that Assad is a brutal dictator and should be removed from office. But if you asked most Americans whether or not the US military should intervene in Syria to make sure the profit margins of oil companies remain strong, it’s likely most rational folks would say no. Digging just beneath the surface, it’s easy to see that US interest in Syria isn’t to provide Democracy to Syria, but to ensure the Kirkuk-Banias oil pipeline will be restored to profitable status. Even President Obama’s press secretary said that foreign policy isn’t driven by what the people want, but by what is best for “American interests.”The Kirkuk-Banias pipeline runs from Kirkuk in Northern Iraq, to the Syrian town of Banias, on the Mediterranean Sea between Turkey and Lebanon. Ever since US forces inadvertently destroyed it in 2003, most of the pipeline has been shut down. While there have been plans in the works to make the Iraqi portion of the pipeline functional again, those plans have yet to come to fruition. And Syria has at least 2.5 billion barrels of oil in its fields, making it the next largest Middle Eastern oil producer after Iraq. After ten unproductive years, the oil companies dependent on the Kirkuk-Banias pipeline’s output




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are eager to get the pipeline operational again. The tension over the Syrian oil situation is certainly being felt by wealthy investors in the markets, who are thus dictating US foreign policy. http://theantimedia.org/how-the-war-in-syria-is-about-oil-not-isis/

Russia and Central Asia: Putin Oil Russian President Vladimir Putin blasted the government for turning a blind eye on US dollar payments in the domestic oil trade."I would like to mention one crucial issue in the development of the energy industry, and the economy as a whole. It is a question of finally stopping the use of foreign currency in internal trade,” said Putin at the fuel and energy presidential commission. "We need to seriously consider strengthening the role of the ruble in settlements; this also includes Russian fuel and energy products. We also need greater use of national currencies in transactions with the countries which are our active trading partners,” the President added.

Who’s next?

Regards Cees*** BERLIN, 29 Dec—Containing the scourge of Islamist terror will be impossible without containing the ideology that drives it: Wahhabism, a messianic, jihad-extolling form of Sunni fundamentalism whose international expansion has been bankrolled by oil-rich sheikdoms, especially Saudi Arabia. That is why the newly announced Saudi-led antiterror coalition, the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism, should be viewed with profound skepticism.

Wahhabism promotes, among others, the subjugation of women and the death of “infidels.”

It is—to quote US President Barack Obama’s description of what motivated a married couple of Pakistani origin to carry out the recent mass shooting in San Bernardino, California—a “perverted interpretation of Islam,” and the ideological mother of jihadist terrorism. Its offspring include al-Qaida, the Taliban, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, and the Islamic State (IS), all of which blend hostility toward non-Sunnis and antimodern romanticism into nihilistic rage.Saudi Arabia has been bankrolling Islamist terrorism since the oil-price boom of the 1970s dramatically boosted the country’s wealth.

According to a 2013 European Parliament report, some of the $10 billion invested by Saudi Arabia for “its Wahhabi agenda” in South and Southeast Asia was “diverted” to terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Western leaders have recognized the Saudi role for many years. In a 2009 diplomatic cable, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton identified Saudi Arabia as “the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” But thanks largely to the West’s interest in Saudi oil, the kingdom has faced no international sanctions.

Now, with the growth of terrorist movements like the IS, priorities are changing. As German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said in a recent interview, “We must make it clear to the Saudis that the time of looking the other way is over.”

This shift has spurred the kingdom to announce a “crackdown” on individuals and groups that fund terror. But, according to a recent US State Department report, some Saudi-based charities and individual donors continue to fund Sunni militants.From this perspective, Saudi Arabia’s surprise announcement of a 34-country antiterror alliance, with a joint operations center based in Riyadh, is a logical step, aimed at blunting growing Western criticism, while boosting Sunni influence in the Middle East. But, of




http://theantimedia.org/how-the-war-in-syria-is-about-oil-not-isis/


course, the alliance is a sham—as a closer look at its membership makes clear. Tellingly, the alliance includes all of the world’s main sponsors of extremist and terrorist groups, from Qatar to Pakistan. It is as if a drug cartel claimed to be spearheading a counternarcotics campaign. Listed as members of the alliance are also all of the jihadist citadels other than Afghanistan, including war-torn Libya and Yemen, both of which are not currently governed by a single authority.Moreover, despite being touted as an “Islamic” alliance, with members coming from “all over the Islamic world,” the group includes predominantly Christian Uganda and Gabon, but not Oman (a fellow Gulf sheikdom), Algeria (Africa’s largest country), and Indonesia (the world’s most populous Muslim country).The failure to include Indonesia, which has almost twice as many Muslims as the entire Middle East, is striking not only because of its size: Whereas most countries in the alliance are ruled by despots or autocrats, Indonesia is a robust democracy. Autocratic rule in Islamic countries tends to strengthen jihadist forces. But when democracy takes root, as in tolerant and secular Indonesia, the clash between moderates and extremists can be better managed. Saudi Arabia’s dysfunctional approach is reflected in the fact that some alliance members—including Pakistan, Malaysia, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority—immediately declared that they had never actually joined. The kingdom seemed to think it could make that decision on behalf of the major recipients of its aid.Add to that the unsurprising exclusion of Shia-governed Iran and Iraq, along with Alawite-ruled Syria, and it is clear that Saudi Arabia has merely crafted another predominantly Sunni grouping to advance its sectarian and strategic objectives. This aligns with the more hardline policy approach that has taken root since King Salman ascended the throne last January. At home, Salman’s reign so far has meant a marked increase in the number of sentences to death by decapitation, often carried out in public—a method emulated by the IS. Abroad, it has meant a clear preference for violent solutions in Bahrain, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.A smaller Saudi-led Arab coalition has been bombing Yemen since March, with the goal of pushing back the Shia Houthi rebels who captured Sana’a, the capital, after driving the Saudi-backed government from power. Saudi warplanes have bombed homes, markets, hospitals, and refugee camps in Yemen, leading critics to accuse the kingdom of deliberately terrorizing civilians to turn public opinion against the Houthis.Saudi Arabia’s solutions have often controverted the objectives of its US allies. For example, the kingdom and its Arab partners have quietly slipped out of the US-led air war in Syria, leaving the campaign largely in American hands.But beyond its strategic manipulations lies the fundamental problem with which we started: The kingdom’s official ideology forms the heart of the terrorist creed. A devoted foe of Islamist terrorism does not promote violent jihadism. Nor does it arrest and charge with “terrorism” domestic critics of its medieval interpretation of Islam. Saudi Arabia does both. This speaks to the main shortcoming of today’s militarized approach to fighting terrorism. Unless the expansion of dangerous ideologies like Wahhabism is stopped, the global war on terror, now almost a generation old, will never be won. No matter how many bombs America and its allies drop, the Saudi-financed madrassas will continue to indoctrinate tomorrow’s jihadists. Project Syndicate Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research and fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of nine books.




al-qaeda chief ayman al-zawahiri the coordinator 2015 part 29-oil-jihad-14

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