Pepe Escobar on the US-Saudi Libya Deal: A Must Read

If anyone can refute this, I’d be interested in hearing how.

EXPOSED: THE U.S.-SAUDI LIBYAN DEAL

By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
April 2, 2011

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD02Ak01.html

You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in
Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck
between the Barack Obama administration and the House
of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations
independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi
Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy
movement in their neighbor in exchange for a “yes” vote
by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya – the
main rationale that led to United Nations Security
Council resolution 1973.

The revelation came from two different diplomats, a
European and a member of the BRIC group, and was made
separately to a US scholar and Asia Times Online.
According to diplomatic protocol, their names cannot be
disclosed. One of the diplomats said, “This is the
reason why we could not support resolution 1973. We
were arguing that Libya, Bahrain and Yemen were similar
cases, and calling for a fact-finding mission. We
maintain our official position that the resolution is
not clear, and may be interpreted in a belligerent
manner.”

As Asia Times Online has reported, a full Arab League
endorsement of a no-fly zone is a myth. Of the 22 full
members, only 11 were present at the voting. Six of
them were Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, the
US-supported club of Gulf kingdoms/sheikhdoms, of which
Saudi Arabia is the top dog. Syria and Algeria were
against it. Saudi Arabia only had to “seduce” three
other members to get the vote.

Translation: only nine out of 22 members of the Arab
League voted for the no-fly zone. The vote was
essentially a House of Saud-led operation, with Arab
League secretary general Amr Moussa keen to polish his
CV with Washington with an eye to become the next
Egyptian President.

Thus, in the beginning, there was the great 2011 Arab
revolt. Then, inexorably, came the US-Saudi counter-
revolution.

Profiteers rejoice Humanitarian imperialists will spin
en masse this is a “conspiracy”, as they have been
spinning the bombing of Libya prevented a hypothetical
massacre in Benghazi. They will be defending the House
of Saud – saying it acted to squash Iranian subversion
in the Gulf; obviously R2P – “responsibility to
protect” does not apply to people in Bahrain. They will
be heavily promoting post-Gaddafi Libya as a new – oily
– human rights Mecca, complete with US intelligence
assets, black ops, special forces and dodgy
contractors.

Whatever they say won’t alter the facts on the ground –
the graphic results of the US-Saudi dirty dancing. Asia
Times Online has already reported on who profits from
the foreign intervention in Libya (see There’s no
business like war business, March 30). Players include
the Pentagon (via Africom), the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), Saudi Arabia, the Arab League’s
Moussa, and Qatar. Add to the list the al-Khalifa
dynasty in Bahrain, assorted weapons contractors, and
the usual neo-liberal suspects eager to privatize
everything in sight in the new Libya – even the water.
And we’re not even talking about the Western vultures
hovering over the Libyan oil and gas industry.

Exposed, above all, is the astonishing hypocrisy of the
Obama administration, selling a crass geopolitical coup
involving northern Africa and the Persian Gulf as a
humanitarian operation. As for the fact of another US
war on a Muslim nation, that’s just a “kinetic military
action”.

There’s been wide speculation in both the US and across
the Middle East that considering the military stalemate
– and short of the “coalition of the willing” bombing
the Gaddafi family to oblivion – Washington, London and
Paris might settle for the control of eastern Libya; a
northern African version of an oil-rich Gulf Emirate.
Gaddafi would be left with a starving North Korea-style
Tripolitania.

But considering the latest high-value defections from
the regime, plus the desired endgame (“Gaddafi must
go”, in President Obama’s own words), Washington,
London, Paris and Riyadh won’t settle for nothing but
the whole kebab. Including a strategic base for both
Africom and NATO.

Round up the unusual suspects One of the side effects
of the dirty US-Saudi deal is that the White House is
doing all it can to make sure the Bahrain drama is
buried by US media. BBC America news anchor Katty Kay
at least had the decency to stress, “they would like
that one [Bahrain] to go away because there’s no real
upside for them in supporting the rebellion by the
Shi’ites.”

For his part the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin
Khalifa al Thani, showed up on al-Jazeera and said that
action was needed because the Libyan people were
attacked by Gaddafi. The otherwise excellent al-Jazeera
journalists could have politely asked the emir whether
he would send his Mirages to protect the people of
Palestine from Israel, or his neighbors in Bahrain from
Saudi Arabia.

The al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain is essentially a
bunch of Sunni settlers who took over 230 years ago.
For a great deal of the 20th century they were obliging
slaves of the British empire. Modern Bahrain does not
live under the specter of a push from Iran; that’s an
al-Khalifa (and House of Saud) myth.

Bahrainis, historically, have always rejected being
part of a sort of Shi’ite nation led by Iran. The
protests come a long way, and are part of a true
national movement – way beyond sectarianism. No wonder
the slogan in the iconic Pearl roundabout – smashed by
the fearful al-Khalifa police state – was “neither
Sunni nor Shi’ite; Bahraini”.

What the protesters wanted was essentially a
constitutional monarchy; a legitimate parliament; free
and fair elections; and no more corruption. What they
got instead was “bullet-friendly Bahrain” replacing
“business-friendly Bahrain”, and an invasion sponsored
by the House of Saud.

And the repression goes on – invisible to US corporate
media. Tweeters scream that everybody and his neighbor
are being arrested. According to Nabeel Rajab,
president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, over
400 people are either missing or in custody, some of
them “arrested at checkpoints controlled by thugs
brought in from other Arab and Asian countries – they
wear black masks in the streets.” Even blogger Mahmood
Al Yousif was arrested at 3 am, leading to fears that
the same will happen to any Bahraini who has blogged,
tweeted, or posted Facebook messages in favor of
reform.

Globocop is on a roll Odyssey Dawn is now over. Enter
Unified Protector – led by Canadian Charles Bouchard.
Translation: the Pentagon (as in Africom) transfers the
“kinetic military action ” to itself (as in NATO, which
is nothing but the Pentagon ruling over Europe).
Africom and NATO are now one.

The NATO show will include air and cruise missile
strikes; a naval blockade of Libyia; and shady,
unspecified ground operations to help the “rebels”.
Hardcore helicopter gunship raids a la AfPak – with
attached “collateral damage” – should be expected.

A curious development is already visible. NATO is
deliberately allowing Gaddafi forces to advance along
the Mediterranean coast and repel the “rebels”. There
have been no surgical air strikes for quite a while.

The objective is possibly to extract political and
economic concessions from the defector and Libyan
exile-infested Interim National Council (INC) – a dodgy
cast of characters including former Justice minister
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, US-educated former secretary of
planning Mahmoud Jibril, and former Virginia resident,
new “military commander” and CIA asset Khalifa Hifter.
The laudable, indigenous February 17 Youth movement –
which was in the forefront of the Benghazi uprising –
has been completely sidelined.

This is NATO’s first African war, as Afghanistan is
NATO’s first Central/South Asian war. Now firmly
configured as the UN’s weaponized arm, Globocop NATO is
on a roll implementing its “strategic concept” approved
at the Lisbon summit last November (see Welcome to
NATOstan, Asia Times Online, November 20, 2010).

Gaddafi’s Libya must be taken out so the Mediterranean
– the mare nostrum of ancient Rome – becomes a NATO
lake. Libya is the only nation in northern Africa not
subordinated to Africom or Centcom or any one of the
myriad NATO “partnerships”. The other non-NATO-related
African nations are Eritrea, Sawahiri Arab Democratic
Republic, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Moreover, two members of NATO’s “Istanbul Cooperation
Initiative” – Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – are
now fighting alongside Africom/NATO for the fist time.
Translation: NATO and Persian Gulf partners are
fighting a war in Africa. Europe? That’s too
provincial. Globocop is the way to go.

According to the Obama administration’s own official
doublespeak, dictators who are eligible for “US
outreach” – such as in Bahrain and Yemen – may relax,
and get away with virtually anything. As for those
eligible for “regime alteration”, from Africa to the
Middle East and Asia, watch out. Globocop NATO is
coming to get you. With or without dirty deals.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the
Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble
Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad
during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does
Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd.