Tuesday 4 July 2017

Stoking The Fires In The Middle East (Is Saudi Arabia Bullying Qatar?)




Once again the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf area is boiling as usual and several countries are involved in the proxy wars going on in the region. The Syrian civil war has been dragging on for about six years with no signs of an end to the conflict. Thousands of innocent civilians both women and children have been killed as a result of the various factions inability to resolve their differences. Then to add more fuel to the tension in the Middle East and the Gulf region, the Saudis, Emiratis, Egyptians and Bahrainis are accusing Qatar of sponsoring terrorism in the region. Most of the trumped up charges against Qatar are either demonstrably thin, false or totally fake.
Are the Americans not aware they asked the Qataris to open an office for the Taliban in Doha so as to facilitate peace talks? Qatar has also been accused of supporting some of the rebel groups in Syria, but a number of the Gulf States are equally guilty of this. Qatar is also being accused of allowing Hamas a political presence in the capital, Doha. Qatar is also being accused of punching above her weight, that’s politically. The last accusation is that, Qatar has been financing the Aljazeera News network and providing platforms for persons and groups hostile to the US and Israel, and at the same time hosting the biggest US military base in the region. All these allegations being leveled against Qatar are the most ridiculous allegations being leveled against another sovereign country by a group of so called spotless countries. The most interesting thing about this whole saga is that, these allegations surfaced just after the visit of the US President, Donald John Trump to the region. I hope you are reading some meanings into this. Was he bribed by the Saudis with the billions of dollars which were exchanged for arms and military hardware? Who does not know that Saudi Arabia is one of the worst abusers of human rights in the Middle East and the world? The world is mute about that, and have even allowed the Saudis to chair the Human Rights Council at the United Nations.
The whole world knows that the Egyptians clandestinely supported Hamas, but Israel did nothing to counter that. Saudi Arabia has also been supporting so called moderate opposition elements in the Syrian civil war and have also been conducting a series of bombings in Yemen against the Houthi rebels and this has led to the death of many innocent civilians with women and children being the worst affected. As usual, the Qataris have refused to kowtow to the demands of the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. Turkey has deployed thousands of troops and military hardware in Qatar to shore up the confidence and the strength of the Qataris. The Iranians are also sending food supplies and military hardware to support Doha. The Qataris have been given an ultimatum to stop supporting terrorists, to shut down the AlJazeera News network, close down the Turkish military base and other demands from Saudi Arabia and her allies made up of Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE. We all know that it is just a matter of time for the Russians and the Chinese to jump in. Saudi Arabia and her allies should not think of attacking Qatar, because they will forever regret doing that. There is too much hypocrisy being perpetuated in the region. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.”