Look south for an answer?
I would suggest that SWC look south for an indicator of what can be done with an apparently strongly entrenched government capable of suppressing internal and external dissent - I refer to the Republic of South Africa (RSA). Several factors undermined the RSA's strength: lack of external investment, internal demand for economic change (or growth), illegitimacy internally (notably within part of the white population) and externally. The list goes on.
What did the real world do? I exclude platitudes and UN "action".
Arms boycott (with holes), legislation reinforcing economic disinvestment (marked impact on internal debate in RSA), encouraging dialogue between businessmen and the ANC - which developed into politicians joining in. Low-profile, official dialogue between some Western governments with the ANC and internal dissidents.
Some of these steps will not apply to Saudi Arabia (KSA), or Eygpt. Nor will they work, e.g. Zimbabwe.
Many such options will now be seen as unthinkable - with KSA - and how would KSA react?
Not my area 'new' diplomacy, just some thoughts.
davidbfpo
A look at the Saudi - US relationship
Saudi Arabia is our Ally, but they are not our Friend
Saudi Arabia is a kingdom, and as such, not only do they not share the national interests of the United States, they do not even possess national interests at all. There is only one kind of interest in Saudi Arabia, and that is the interest of the King. It is extremely important for the U.S. to understand this simple point as it strives to establish a stable, Shia dominated, democratic Iraq on The Kingdom’s northern border, because that is the last thing that King Abdullah wants to see happen there.
There are arguably three things that King Abdullah fears more than anything else, and these fears shape the essence of Saudi policy. The first of these fears is a reemergence of Iran as a major regional power with normalized relations with the U.S. and the West; the second fear is a rise in power of Shia Muslims relative to that possessed by Sunnis; and the third great fear of the King of Saudi Arabia is of his own populace. These fears shape the policies of Saudi Arabia, and they shape the nature of the Saudi aspect of the Saudi-U.S. relationship. The U.S. aspect is shaped by oil; the need to keep the flow of Saudi oil moving to U.S. consumers, and also the terms of long-standing contracts that control how the profits of that oil market are distributed.
So long as the U.S. understands that these three great fears shape the policy of Saudi Arabia above all things, there is no reason end the alliance. The essence of the relationship however is not about alliance, it is about reliance, and therein lays the problem. The U.S. appears to confuse its need for Saudi oil with a need for sustaining the Saudi Governance in its current state; a position so out of context with everything that the U.S. stands for, that it can only be explained by an almost drug addict-like reliance on sustaining that flow of oil. The King, on the other hand, is equally reliant on the power of the U.S. to sustain the chokehold that he and his family have on the wealth and power of Saudi Arabia. A relationship this dysfunctional cannot help but produce unfortunate results.
A strong case can be made that the U.S. – Saudi relationship, more than any other thing, is the Decisive Point for achieving stability in the Middle East. In military terms, a Decisive Point is “A geographic place, specific key event, critical system, or function that allows commanders to gain a marked advantage over an enemy and greatly influence the outcome of an attack.” While that is a very tactical perspective, the potential from getting this relationship right could produce a domino effect of stability throughout the entire Middle East, and it is high time to stop allowing one man’s personal, self-serving interests to prevent that from occurring.
The Saudi populace, like so many in the Middle East, is in a state of emergent insurgency. It is essential to understand three elements of governance in order to deal appropriately with an insurgent populace: Effectiveness, Goodness, and Legitimacy. Effectiveness is an objective assessment of how well a government performs. Goodness is a subjective assessment through the eyes of the governed populace as to how they feel about their government and their options for effecting legal change. Legitimacy is the perceived source of power that creates and sustains a government. Of the three, it is a failure of “Goodness” that leads to insurgency; but it is the real or perceived source of “Legitimacy” that determines who the insurgent attacks.
The disgruntled segment of the Saudi populace understands full well that they must first break the support of the U.S. government to their own before they can have any hope of achieving good governance at home. Osama bin Laden, who shares this goal of disrupting U.S. control of the region and taking down the Saudi royals, makes this point very clear as his al Qaeda Network wages a very state-like unconventional warfare campaign to synergize the Sunni insurgencies of the region. This explains why 15 of the 19 attackers of 9/11 were Saudis. This explains why some 40% of the foreign fighters and the vast majority of suicide bombers in Iraq have been Saudis. To cast these men simply as “Terrorists” while accurate is both unfair to them and dangerous to the U.S. These men do not take these extreme measures to destroy America, they take these extreme measures to restore and preserve Saudi Arabia.
To be clear, this is a popular uprising, and not state sanctioned terrorism. It is highly unlikely that the King sanctions these attacks on U.S. interests. Far better to have the insurgent segment of his populace focused on frustrating U.S. interests in the region than on attacking the Saudi Government directly; particularly if this provides an outlet to his populace’s frustrations and prevents or slows the establishment of a Shia dominated Iraqi democracy and keeps the Iranians in check. After all, it is in his interest.
AQ as a UW campaign v/s TT and implications (Historical View)
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
[Osama bin Laden, who shares this goal of disrupting U.S. control of the region and taking down the Saudi royals, makes this point very clear as his al Qaeda Network wages a very state-like unconventional warfare campaign to synergize the Sunni insurgencies of the region. This explains why 15 of the 19 attackers of 9/11 were Saudis. This explains why some 40% of the foreign fighters and the vast majority of suicide bombers in Iraq have been Saudis. To cast these men simply as “Terrorists” while accurate is both unfair to them and dangerous to the U.S. These men do not take these extreme measures to destroy America, they take these extreme measures to restore and preserve Saudi Arabia.
Agree, BUT...
The charaterization of al Qaeda as a very state-like unconvential warfare campaign is a better description than a transnational terrorist organization; however, OBL only represents one moment in a rather long struggle to take down a state and establish a caliphate.
Arguably, this movement started back in the 1920's in Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of a non-secular government. The Muslim Brotherhood was formed, and they ventured to Egypt and conducted a UW campaign there. Sayid Qutb rose as the primary religious leader (as described by Albert Bergensen in The Sayyid Qutb Reader). Qutb along with other members were tortured and executed in Egyptian jails during the 1960's. These actions sparked the next movement of which Zawahari rose.
LCDR Youssef Aboul-Enein captures the link between Zawahiri and Qutb in
Ayman al-Zawahiri, A Mythic Figure or Fringe Leader within the Islamist Political Movement: Highlighting the 2006 Writings of Egyptian Journalist Gamal Abdal-Rahim.
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Psychosis is defined as a mental state involving a loss of contact with reality. However, Zawahiri can arguably be classified as a rational psychotic, whose ideas were formulated over decades and whose rational delusions are still evolving. To deconstruct his psychosis, it is important to examine his evolution from upper middle class medical student, successful doctor to a man who has chosen the life of caves and extremism. The trial and execution of Sayyid Qutb was a pivotal event in the formation of Zawahiri’s intellectual development and framed his political thought. He read Qutb in the ninth grade and was influenced by his two works “In the Shade of the Quran,” and “Milestones Along the Road.” His first analytical attempt at understanding the Quran (the Islamic book of divine revelation) came through Qutb and has shaped his views ever since. This is unfortunate as one can spend a lifetime studying the diverse commentaries on the Quran, and typically learned clerics delve into various and competing interpretations found in Islam’s fourteen century history. Zawahiri was obsessed with Qutb’s view on tawheed (monotheism) which not only defined the struggle between Muslims and non-Muslims, but was an ideological struggle as to who possesses sovereignty, God or man? It is the shariah (Islamic Law) or the man-made laws of secularism, materialism, communism, democracy, there is no middle road. In essence, Zawahiri’s argument is a self-defeating struggle of the creator versus the created and who will reign supreme?
The movement morphed and evolved. Eventually, AQ settled for a safe-haven in Afghanistan-Pakistan with the hopes of conducting UW against KSA. I'm not sure if this helps or hurts your argument. I wanted to include it for background. In the beginning, the movement was not about KSA or the US.
v/r
Mike
Can't quite hit the system target
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Bill, you are absolutely right we are missing something....and war is a system believe it or not. A couple of times in some of your posts you have come close to hitting it dead center as in pointing out what is missing and then you moved away from it for some reason.
Slapout, I'm still trying to zero my rifle, I think it is cheap replica from China, so I'm having some trouble. You know it is never the shooter's fault, must be something wrong with the weapon.
To me systems are like models, and to accept a model (system) is the first step to putting the blinders on, especially as the nature of the conflict morphs over time. I'm listening, still not buying it.
You're rejecting their organizing principle
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The Caliphate is BS. That's like someone saying they want to reestablish the Roman or Greek or Napoleonic empires.
This depends, perhaps it is not feasible, but that far from being B.S.. If this is the strategic end envisioned by Islamists, then it is there organizing strategic principle, and from my optic they seem to be pursuing this goal. This is part of understanding our enemy, you can't simply dismiss it as B.S.
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Even adding to ludicrousness is that fact that AQ must have the sanctuary of its non-state status to avoid being hammered by the strong states they have attacked.
This may not be a "must have", but it has enabled the insurgency to survive in Afghanistan since the Soviets invaded until present day. Having a safe have definitely makes these groups more effective, and I would argue considerable more effective.
Perhaps this ariticle I published last year helps.
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Originally Posted by
MikeF
After reading your initial post on US and KSA, I was trying to remember where I had seen that before...I just remembered that it flows throughout OBL's 21 year plan and much of the internal AQ philosophical/strategy debates.
I was going to post that OBL may concur with much of your logic.
So, I'm curious to see where you are headed.
v/r
Mike
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...magazine-tw-1/
OBL makes some excellent points. So, what do we do about that?? Say that because he is our enemy that everypoint he makes is wrong (oh, except what he say about ideology and the caliphate, that is all 100% true)?
All I ask is that people think for themselves. Don't just parrot what Glenn Beck says. The US cannot move forward in the Middle East until we recognize that our Cold War based policy there is obsolete, create new policy, and move forward in a way that help clean up some of the mess we made. If we have the moral courage to do this we will render OBL largely moot.
We need to stand up to the "experts" who defined this conflict for us 8 years ago and tell them they had their chance, and they made the problem worse. Now it is time to apply sound principle of populace based conflicts to this and move forward.