It began with Saddam, say Iraqis Sunday,
30 January 2011 02:37
-thepeninsulaqatar--

BAGHDAD: Iraqis yesterday welcomed the revolt in Egypt that threatens to topple President Hosni Mubarak, with some claiming the tremors shaking Arab rulers had begun with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

“Saddam was their teacher, and all of these dictators are his little pupils,” declared Hussein Mohammed, taking a break from loading boxes of imported toys into a truck.

“The dictator (Mubarak) must leave — all dictators must go,” the 55-year-old added, noting that he stayed up until 4.00am listening to the radio for news from Cairo.

“From Morocco to Saudi Arabia, we Arabs want all dictators out.”

Other Iraqis remained glued to their television sets throughout the day, with electronics store owner Maher Minjal tuning four televisions to different Arabic news channels reporting events in Egypt.

“The fuse was lit by Iraq, because we became the first Arab country to achieve democracy and get an elected government,” said Minjal, 28, from his store in Baghdad’s commercial Karrada district.

“If the regime in Egypt falls, all other Arab regimes will fall, because Egypt is the biggest and most powerful country in the Arab world.” Anti-regime riots that raged yesterday for a fifth straight day in Egypt, inspired by the overthrow of Tunisian strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali earlier this month, have sent shockwaves across the region.

At least one Iraqi political analyst agreed with the assessment that Iraq had begun a process that seemed to be spreading across the Middle East.

“It is absolutely true that (former US president George W) Bush was right when he said that democracy in Iraq would sweep through the Arab world,” Baghdad-based analyst Ihsan
Al Shammari said.

“In fact, Iraq was the first democratic regime in the region, but we are different from Egypt and Tunisia in that we were changed by foreign forces (the US-led coalition) and they are being changed by popular uprisings.

Iraq’s Al Mashriq newspaper pejoratively referred to Mubarak as a “Pharaoh,” and said the day of reckoning had come for a leader who had been a friend to the enemies of Arabs, which it said were Israel and the United States. “The American ally and the friend of Israel has been ruling Egypt since 1981, but the ground is shaking beneath the feet of the Pharaoh,” the Arabic-language newspaper said in an editoria. AFP

Violent Government Oppression Leads to Self-Immolation in Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Mauritia, and Algeria

--L.A.Times.com--

--HyperVocal.com--

--theStar.com--

--aljazeera.net--

Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old, set himself on fire in the provincial town of Sidi Bouzid. The man had been selling fruits and vegetables from a stand without a license when state police stopped him and confiscated his produce.

Commentators argue Bouazizi's act sparked the inital rounds of rioting in Tunisia. Within a week, protests had spread the 125 miles to the capital of Tunis and soon after President Ben Ali, who had ruled the country for 23 years, was forced out of power.

Bouazizi’s self-immolation does not stand alone Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Mauritania all saw similar acts of martyrdom. Two Saudi Arabian men committed the same acts, one a 60 year old actually died.

Abdou Abdel-Monaam Hamadah, a 48-year-old owner of a small restaurant from Qantara, an area close to the Suez Canal city of Ismailia east of Cairo, set himself on fire outside the parliament building Monday to protest the government’s policy preventing restaurant owners from buying cheap subsidized bread to resell to their patrons. According to the Associated Press, “He escaped with only light burns on his neck, face and legs after policemen guarding the building and motorists driving by at the time used fire extinguishers to quickly put out the blaze engulfing him.”

The Grand Mosque Seizure on November 20, 1979, was an armed attack and takeover by armed Islamic fundamentalist dissidents of the Al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest place in Islam.

In the 1960s Osama bin Laden's half-brother Mahrous bin Laden joined a rebel group opposed to the Saudi government. With his assistance, in 1979 the rebels smuggled weapons into Mecca, Saudi Arabia, using trucks belonging to the bin Laden family company. 500 rebels then seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca (sic), Islam's holiest mosque in its holiest city. They try, but fail, to overthrow the Saudi royal family. All the men who took part are later beheaded except Mahrous. Eventually he is released from prison because of the close ties between the bin Ladens and the Saudi royal family. Mahrous apparently abandons the rebel cause and joins the family business. He is eventually made a head of the Medina branch and a member of the board. He will still hold these positions on 9/11. But a newspaper reports that "his past [is] not forgiven and most important decisions in the [bin Laden family business] are made without Mahrous' input."

Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 10/7/2001
Ha'aretz, 12/18/2002
New Yorker, 11/5/2001

Saudi doubts over Iran sanctions
01:37 GMT, Tuesday, 16 February 2010
--bbc.co.uk--

Imposing more sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme would not be a quick enough solution, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister has said. Prince Saud al-Faisal said the threat posed by Iran demanded a "more immediate solution" than sanctions.

He spoke in Riyadh alongside US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who earlier said Iran was "becoming a military dictatorship". On Tuesday Turkey's foreign minister is due in Iran aiming to mediate. Turkey is a Nato member, and Ahmet Davutoglu is expected to try and promote a deal on Tehran's nuclear programme between Turkey's western allies and Iran's Islamic government.

More sanctions?

Speaking at a joint Riyadh news conference with Mrs Clinton, Prince Saud said: "Sanctions are a long-term solution. They may work, we can't judge.
"But we see the issue in the shorter term maybe because we are closer to the threat... So we need an immediate resolution rather than a gradual resolution."

While the Saudi minister did not detail his vision of a quick solution in public, it is likely that options were discussed behind closed doors in the meeting between Mrs Clinton and King Abdullah, says the BBC's Kim Ghattas, who is travelling with the top US diplomat.

Earlier, aides to Mrs Clinton - who is on a tour of the Gulf to try to build support for more sanctions on Iran - revealed she would press Saudi Arabia to help persuade China to support a tougher stand against Iran's nuclear ambitions.

China, which can wield a veto on the UN Security Council as a permanent member, is against imposing more sanctions. Beijing fears a major loss of revenue from investments in Iran, and disruption of oil supplies from a country providing it with 400,000 barrels a day, our correspondent says. The Saudi foreign minister said that China, also a top importer of Saudi oil, did not need to be prodded by the kingdom to know what it ought to do about sanctions against Iran.

He added that efforts to rid the Middle East of nuclear weapons must also apply to Israel.

'Dictatorship'


Speaking to students at a Qatar university earlier on Monday, she said Iran's elite army corps, the Revolutionary Guard, had gained so much power they had effectively supplanted the government. "We see that the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament, is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship. That is our view," Mrs Clinton said on her maiden visit to the kingdom.

On Sunday, she urged Iran to reconsider its "dangerous policy decisions". Mrs Clinton told a conference in Qatar it was leaving the international community little choice but to impose further sanctions. The US and its allies fear Iran is attempting to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.

Turkish mediation

Turkey has already offered to store Iran's nuclear material as part of a swap arrangement agreed last year. Under terms of that deal, Iran would get medical isotopes from France in return for handing over its own enriched uranium. Turkey's government hopes its offer to act as a nuclear repository will appeal more to Iran than storing its uranium elsewhere, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Istanbul. But Iran is still insisting that any nuclear swap must take place on its own soil.

If no deal can be done with Iran, Turkey will soon be forced to choose its historically strong alliance with the US and Europe, and its desire for closer friendship with its eastern neighbour, our correspondent adds. Iran, meanwhile, rejected criticism from the West about its human rights record. "Iran is becoming one of the predominant democratic states in the region," said Javad Larijani, secretary general of the Iranian High Council for Human Rights.

"Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you."

-Last Sermon, Prophet Muhammad


Ethics of reciprocity = the golden rule

Yemen conflict raises Gulf tensions

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2009
19:58 MECCA TIME, 16:58 GMT

Saudi Arabia is continuing to attack a Shia rebel stronghold in northern Yemen by air, while Saudi troops and Houthi rebels have been engaged in bloody clashes for more than a week. At least two Saudi soldiers have been killed in the latest fighting, and the conflict is further raising tensions in the region, with Iran warning Saudi Arabia not to interfere in Yemen's internal affairs. Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, said on Sunday: "The intervention of Saudi government in Yemen and repeated bombardment of unprotected Yemeni Muslims by Tornado and F-15 fighters is astounding.

"How has his Excellency, the servant of the two honourable shrines, allowed Muslims' blood be split in Yemen by means of its military devices? The news proves that the US government has been the accomplice and assistance in such suppressive measures." The Iranian parliament also called on the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to intervene to stop the killing of Yemeni Muslims. Hashem Ahelbarra reports from Sana'a, the Yemeni capital, where he's been gauging the fallout from this ongoing battle.

Source: Al Jazeera.net