Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It | Hacker News Reader

Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

nytimes.com

134 pointsSREinSF142 comments

This is as good a summary of what's going on in the GCC these days as I've seen since the blockade began in July, which is to say that everyone can describe what is happening, but no one seems to be able to explain why it is happening. The article's focus on regional leaders' egos is misplaced, I think, and fairly representative of our media's tendency to scrape the surface of any regional conflict that isn't in Europe or North America instead of looking for deeper explanations.

Given the absence of any analytical clarity, pet theories abound. Mine is that the Saudi-UAE nexus doesn't want the crisis to be resolved anytime soon: having a crisis on the periphery to distract from their domestic tribulations is too damned useful. Citizens are are less likely to complain about reduced government subsidies if the government periodically reminds them that there's a cold war with Qatar, a hot war in Yemen, and an existential crisis in the form Iran right on their periphery.

Qatar has natural gas and connections to Iran. And is still in the black economically.

When I look at Saudi Arabia it looks like over time their oil income which pays all the bills is fixed while their population keeps growing. Both common poor people and the number of ultra rich. Divide one by the other and it's not pretty.

UAE has no oil or gas income and is living off loans.

Probably part of the reason the current king in waiting is trying to also jack his more distant relations for cash.

UAE has the seventh [1] largest oil reserves in the world, and is the eighth [2] largest producer, according to Wikipedia. How does it not have any income? Meanwhile, Qatar produces about half as much, on par with nations such as Norway.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_Ara...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ...

UAE royals spend a great deal more on racehorses...

Parent said income, not profits.

> UAE has no oil or gas income and is living off loans.

You're thinking of Dubai. The major emirate has always been Abu Dhabi and they're resource rich a.f (and they provider of many loans to Dubai, including financing of the Burj Khalifa)

You're correct, was thinking of Dubai. My bad.

Al Jazeera has got to have something to do with it, right? The biggest threats to royalty are always their subjects, and even if AJ is somewhat discredited as Qatari propaganda in its neighbor's societies, it is also certainly more than that. As someone from a different hemisphere, I have to say the AJ Roku app is the single best way I've found to watch news. No one is risking the ire of his rulers to check out what the Saudi news department is saying.

The Al Jazeera thing always struck me as a canard: it's been in operation for the last 20 years, why did it suddenly become such a sticking point in 2017?

Few year prior, a Saudi King died at a surprisingly convenient moment

ISTM it probably happened in 2011? The young prince wasn't in a position to do anything at that time, although one can imagine that Salman was bringing him around to listen to the various old dudes then, and the topic probably came up. He certainly hit the ground running in 2015.

Running is such an overstatement of what he's been up to though...

"Hit the ground running" is an English (well, actually American) idiom. It seems to have originated among the hobos, who judged it the best way to jump from a moving train. MbS might not physically be ready to run anywhere. Still, no one outside Saudi had heard of him four years ago. Since then, he seems to have been much more effective in pursuing his political goals than anyone else on the peninsula?

I don't think there was anything sudden about it. From a 2003 BBC article

  Its rival, al-Jazeera, has ruffled feathers among
  governments in the West by screening videotapes from al
  Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. And by giving a platform to
  exiled Middle East dissidents, al-Jazeera has upset Jordan,
  Kuwait, Algeria and the Palestinian Authority, among others.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3236654.stm

Here's a 2014 article about Al Jazeera journalists being criminally sentenced in Egypt for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/egypts-imprisoned-al-jazeera-journa...

If you search Google News, you'll see that Al Jazeera has had local offices shuttered and journalists arrested on-and-off since its beginning in just about every Arab country. It's been outright banned at times in several countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and India.

Al Jazeera been a continuous thorn in the rest of the Arab world's side, yes, but what caused tensions to boil over in 2017? Their arabic language coverage wasn't really any more abrasive last year than it was in 2011, 2005 or 1999.

Hearst's aphorism "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war" comes to mind. AJ was only a pretext for this mess.

Right. It's _not_ just Al Jazeera. But that doesn't make Al Jazeera a canard in their justifications. Al Jazeera needn't have done anything contemporaneous with the embargo for it to be legitimately part of Arab countries' grievances. It's obvious that what immediately precipitated the embargo was the rise of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, but what precipitates an event is rarely the only cause.

If we accept that Al Jazeera has promoted narratives that materially threaten the power structures of some Arab countries (see my previous news links), and which support factions in Libya and Syria opposed by Arab-backed factions, to the extent that Al Jazeera is a tool of the Qatar state those narratives implicate Qatar and its leadership.

The real question is to what extent is Al Jazeera a tool of Qatar foreign policy; specifically, to what extent has Qatar weaponized Al Jazeera? I don't know enough to have an informed opinion, but it seems clear to me that at the very least the answer is not simple.

(FWIW, none of this is to say that I think there's anything wrong, objectively, with most Al Jazeera reporting or even of Qatari foreign policy generally.)

Remember, these are all royalties where power is concentrated in a few people. Local politics consists basically of various family factions jockeying for power, so it gets very personal very fast and egos are a huge thing.

Pretty good article although, it is still very soft on Saudi Arabia and too intent to glamorize bin Salman. But american media has always been intent on glamorizing bin Salman.

What really pisses me off about this whole story is the role Trump played. It is not surprising to see Saudi Arabia and the Emirates to suddenly gang up in an surprising all out attack on Qatar in one morning. These types of intrigues happen in the Middle East quite often. What is unusual and very disappointing is that the US president also joined in the gang with his tweets. And the initial tweet was timed to come in exactly before the sanctions were announced ... it looked like the whole thing was carefully coordinated (even if it wasn't, it looked like it was and that is enough to damage the US reputation).

And then when Tillerson was out there trying to diffuse the subject and ensure the safety of out base, Trump actually undermined him.

don't forget the pictures of them all touching the orb...

Here is my question for HN readers: do you trust this article? Because it tries to fool us.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Europe, US and Turkey was the big alliance which tried to take down Syria. Please check the records western news channels in 2013, it was full of joyful propaganda about Free Syrian Army fighting for democracy in Syria. The actual goal was of course had nothing to do with democracy and Arab spring was total bullshit. The goal was to create a new pipeline from Qatar to Europe so Europe don’t have to buy gas from Russia. Syria, between Turkey and Jordan was the only barrier for this project. If they removed Assad, Russia would be screwed. This is why Russia got in the field and started fighting back to protect Assad.

In 2014, Qatar and Turkey splitted from this alliance because they realized that Russia will not let Syria down. That was also the time FSA split into bunch of groups; Wahabist ISIS and socialist YPG. Noone ever questioned how a group backed by Saudi money would fight another backed by American money. Western news brainwashed the whole world with ISIS and YPG, people don’t even remember what did happen before; Russia won the war in both Ukraine and Syria, at same time.

This is the deal; the war is lost, and the alliance is defeated & splitted. Qatar and Turkey are now enemies on the Russian side. The western alliance tried hard to take down their presidents by organizing coups but it failed. Qatar will survive just as Iran, Syria and Russia.

The article is just another Western propaganda painting a middle eastern enemy as “little lone wolf”, and people just buy this stuff easily in the propaganda bubble they live in.

You are completely misreading this article. It isn't painting Qatar as any kind of enemy - the article reads as very sympathetic to the Qatari position (which basically is that the Saudis consider it a vassal and aren't happy with it daring to have an independent foreign policy).

I can't imagine a "very sympathetic" article accusing a country for hosting "terrorists". Did we read the same article ?

I read it as going both ways. Accuses the Qataris of, at the very least, turning a blind eye towards terrorism while also depicting their sympathetic plight. It isn't black and white. If anything, it's too sympathetic and glamourizing.

Every story has two versions as you know. If you ask Qatari leaders, they'll show the proofs of how Saudi planes carrying drugs and weapons to ISIS got busted in Lebanon.

It referred to the case of one alleged terrorist financier who was put before their courts and not convicted. That hardly seems like an accusation against the country, accused people are found not guilty in countries all over the world every day.

Your information has depth. What articles have you been reading? I want to learn more.

I suspect RT and Sputnik both will be able to provide a wealth of similar viewpoints

So, how can be US propaganda from NYT any better? I understand that for people living in the US it's easier to believe in because it always says: "We bomb half of the world and spy on all the world just because we want to give everybody democracy and happy life". But that doesn't make it objective and true.

It seems odd to conflate a freely owned news source that’s seen as public enemy number one by the executive branch with Russian state news sources. Looking forward to those RT and Sputnik op-eds criticising Putin!

For the news source being freely owned might be a necessary condition to be objective but it is definitely not sufficient.

Sure. That’s why a hundred years of vigorously criticising the government is important to take into account.

Also: your comment history seems unusually political when it comes to Russia.

You can check out Globalresearch [0], they tend to have a different take on current affairs. It’s always interesting to read the “Other side’s” perspective (with a little heap of salt nearby)

  [0] https://www.globalresearch.ca

Seymour Hersh has written a phenomenal amount about Syria. Here are a couple of interesting articles:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-a...

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-mi...

Stratfor, something like a private intelligence organization - well beyond a think tank, also has written a vast amount on Syria to the point that I think just googling for 'strator syria' would be more productive than me listing a slew of articles. In general I find news that's from first party analysts tends to be vastly more informative than the filtered drivel that you end up getting from most US news sites.

As an aside, I am not suggesting that that the above directly support OP's hypothesis. What it does support is the fact that what's stated in most US mainstream outlets is a childlike misrepresentation of the war over there framing it as the 'good guys' (which is naturally us) are trying to take out a pure evil 'bad guy.' I'm not sure if that's propaganda or just something that gets clicks. In either case, it's false. The interactions are complex, motivations rarely benevolent, and the whole thing an entire mess in general.

Ultimately the reason I stopped reading about Syria is because I think it's futile to try to 'truly' understand what's happening. We'll only be able to begin to actually dig into the truth 50 or so years from now when the documentation around the war is declassified.

Hersh's recent work has been pointedly criticized as that of a conspiracy theorist versus an investigative journalist. [1]

Generalizing reporting in "most US mainstream outlets" as "childlike misrepresentation" is the kind of fake news doubt-sowing that is killing our (America's) relationship with facts.

There has been some excellent reporting on the relatively complex Syrian Civil War from stalwarts such as the Washington Post and the New York Times. Even upstart Buzzfeed News has done some great stuff that was carefully sourced and thoroughly investigated - regardless of how bad it made the US look.

My perspective is that of someone who has been professionally and personally following the Syrian Civil War since 2012.

[1] - https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bi...

In the end none of us are on the ground and so we're left to rely on the integrity of the individuals and organizations that are reporting on issues. If you would rather rely on Vox, WaPo, Buzzfeed, and increasingly even the NYT for in depth and critical analysis then that's certainly your prerogative.

At the same time, hailing them as beacons of integrity and truth is unreasonable. They increasingly routinely print news that later turns out to be entirely fake with corrections and updates often tucked away from site of their readers - though we also certainly contribute to that in that a million people may share a sensationalized story that turns out to be fake, but only a handful will share the correction stating it was all false. In a world where many receive their news through social media and implicitly virally, one thing I would certainly agree with you is that America is having an increasingly challenged "relationship with facts."

Another issue is that the US is obviously not monolithic. Speaking poorly of the US in one way or another will be either widely hailed or widely condemned depending on the person speaking and whom they're speaking of and to. This sort of split in society has become particularly true in the media today. All organizations you listed, for instance, are intermingled to the point of incestuousness and you will rarely find disagreement between them, in no small part due to this. See, for instance, things like JournoList [1] turned CabaList in which participating journalists at times conspired to kill stories that reflected poorly on their own personal biases, and at other times they even discussed ways they could conspire to try to kill off media outlets that did not conform to their biases. Perhaps it's fit to conclude there that the creator of JournoList was none other than Ezra Klein, the founder and now editor in chief of Vox.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList

I am not sure where I said anything about "beacons of integrity and truth," but I will take institutions that routinely call themselves out for their mistakes over Hersh who appears to stand by all of his reporting despite serious flaws in his stories.

I get my news from the sources you mentioned along with many others. I was taking issue with your disposal of babies with bathwater. If you are discounting information coming from flawed institutions with actual policies and procedures in favor of dubiously sourced "investigative" reporting by people like Hersh, we are in deep doo-doo.

FWIW, I am about as close to being on the ground as just about anyone outside of the actual participants in the war.

The sites do not routinely call themselves out. Rather they acknowledge to creating fake stories once overwhelming evidence of such is presented and spread to the point that it can no longer be ignored. And of course such acknowledgements invariably come with appeals to plausible deniability in their own culpability -- which I think should become decreasingly plausible to anybody of the slightest bit of objectivty, given the regularity of such 'errors.' The only reason it might seem routine is that the sites you've named have all put out an increasingly large number of false stories.

However, we're not in "deep doo-doo" just because you happen to think these organizations have value. When we would be in "deep doo-doo" is if we became monolithic in thought. It's great that you think Seymour Hersh has no credibility. It's great that I think your preferred sources have no credibility. It ensures we remain a critical audience which helps work as a safeguard against falsehoods. As your preferred sources are regularly outted, it is in large part thanks to people like me. And should Seymour indeed be shown to be generating fake news, it will be largely be thanks to people like you.

The only thing that's really changed in society is this fear of conflict. Disagreement, or the belief that 'others' are being misled by fake information, is hardly a novel thing. It's the self righteousness and fear of disagreement, arguably driven by social media echo chambers, that is the novel thing -- and that is the thing that, if anything, might leave us in "deep doo-doo."

> Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Europe, US and Turkey was the big alliance which tried to take down Syria.

This isn't true - they have all backed different factions in the conflict against the Syrian government, against ISIS and today against one another in Idlib.

Assuming they defeated the Syria government this conflict was always going to split down the differing interests between the Saudis and Qataris

The succinct way (as always, this stuff is a lot more complicated than surface reporting) Qatar are the largest foreign opposition backers in Syria and supported in order the Army of Conquest and today Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)

The Saudi's are likely the second largest foreign backers in Syria and started out supporting FSA and other groups but today have their own umbrella group called Ahrar al-Sham.

HTS and Ahrar al-Sham have been in conflict for some time now and in all out war for some months now in Idlib (would always eventually happen - they're just squabbling over a lot less today)

The USA, Russia and Turkey all have their own groups that they support but the alliances have almost always fallen along axis of Turkey-Qatar on one side and Saudi-Jordan-UAE-USA on the other

What the OP article has left out is the conflict in Libya which makes this split a lot clearer. Qatar backed the Islamist group that took over a lot of Libya. In the new civil war (the one that no one cares about) the Saudi's and former Gadaffi loyalists have formed an anti-Islamist alternate government.

The UAE and Egypt have sent fighter jets to bomb the Qatari-backed side in this conflict[0][1]

It was a big deal in the Arab world (and I can't believe it isn't mentioned in the NYTimes piece) when militants raised a Qatari flag over Ghadaffi's palace - that was a "holy shit that could be us next" moment for many of these Arab nations and hardened their opposition to Qatar[2]

Also only vaguely mentioned in the article is that Qatar and Kuwait are a huge source of the financing for ISIS. The governments there may not have an official position of supporting ISIS - but they sure as hell aren't doing much to stop the flow of money from Kuwaiti and Qatari citizens to ISIS[3]

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/26/united-arab-em...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/26/qatar-troops-l...

[2] http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/qatar/raising-of-qatar-s-flag-...

[3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/kuwait/...

A well thought-out and researched response to a breathless conspiracy theory.

Nicely done.

From here, I can’t tell which is the conspiracy theory and which (if any) is the truth.

(I wonder if my complete lack of clue about what is plausible in this context is a common theme amongst conspiracy theory believers?)

When someone writes about "a big alliance", which however is not evidenced by any public formal contracts of alliance, that is a fairly good indicator that a theory could be considered conspiratorial.

In this thread, both the conspiracist and the "conventional wisdom" rebuttalist seem to be talking about big alliances?

As anyone who has tried to get anything done on multiple continents knows, any complicated goal (e.g., build a multinational pipeline through remote and wildly insecure areas) will tend to lose out to the interests of locals. A necessary but insufficient condition for success of such goals is to spend enough to make locals' interests coincide with one's own. The difficulties faced by this hypothetical pipeline lead one to doubt its construction would profit in the long run.

The advantage of the USA military-industrial complex is that they actually DGAF what happens as a result of all of our profligate and evil war spending. The spending itself is the goal, and they're just as happy to siphon off a stream of resources supporting ISIS in Syria as off some other stream supporting Kurds in northern Iraq. That's why our international policy (and the media narrative carefully curated to provide cover for it) is so schizophrenic. We believe in democracy!/Down with Morsi!/We DGAF!/War! That is a big conspiracy, but nobody wants to talk about that.

Welcome to Middle East politics. The people who live here are in the same boat with rumours and complex theories about who is in cahootz and what they really want.

In truth, I think the ME is a relatively uncoordinated place. All these different motivations and intesrests exist. Thhe pipeline idea is real-ish, the Qatari support for "extremist Islamists" is too, though Saudis support Islamists too when it lines up. So, it's hard to entirety dismiss or disprove any of these overarching motivation theories. The US and Russia have always proxy-fought in the region, but they never really knew what they wanted there.

My thought is that there is no coherent actor, just a mishmash of interests, ideologies and unpredictable chaos.

Yes this stuff has been endlessly thought-out and researched. Obviously USA and Saudi Arabia are there fighting for freedom and human rights! * Sarcasm * in case it is not clear

> The article is just another Western propaganda

Your rebuttal appears to be very close to the viewpoint that Russian propaganda is trying to promote

I'm sure Russian propaganda could be more reliable than American propaganda when it comes to Middle East :)

My sources are not media and propaganda though. I read & also travel a lot. Before the war my cousin and I were importing carpet from Syria. During the war I traveled along Turkey - Syria border twice, also to the south side, Jordan.

And since the beginning of this war, I think about it almost every day, feel deeply sad about how a beautiful country got ruined by some dickheads for no reason...

> I'm sure Russian propaganda could be more reliable than American propaganda

Propaganda is rarely reliable, from any side.

However, your conflation of the consensus view of the free world’s press with “propaganda” of the type explicitly pumped out by state-controlled Russian outlets is disingenuous to the extreme.

I believe that people are also affected by local propaganda and they told you propaganda instead of something real. Same is happening with Russia and Ukraine. My ex-wife have Ukranian roots and i am from russia. Ukranian part of her family stopped to talk to russian one and both sides always turn on propaganda when talking to other side. No one of them know what's happening and the truth as always somewhere in the middle.

> the truth as always somewhere in the middle

This is a common logical fallacy used by propagandists.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle-ground

From the link itself: "Much of the time the truth does indeed lie between two extreme points"

That's the problem with all these fallacies lists: things are a fallacy, except when they are not. So most often, they are just used as rhetoric weapons in verbal jousts.

> That's the problem with all these fallacies lists: things are a fallacy, except when they are not.

No, fallacies are always fallacy, but a fallacy is an error in logic that does not imply that the conclusion is wrong [0], only that the argument offered fails to establish the truth of the conclusion it seeks to justify.

[0] An argument for the negation of a conclusion based solely on a fallacy in an argument offered for that conclusion is the definition of the fallacy fallacy.

Fair, but establishing the truth from a mathematical standpoint and navigating in life, which involves a huge amount of (most often serviceable) rules of thumbs, are two different things. So there seems to be some arbitrary threshold where the rules of thumb is deemed good enough (eg. my toddler has chocolate all over him near the empty cookie jar) and when it's not (eg. put-up job). And from my experience, people will very, very often set that arbitrary threshold according to their own opinions.

I wonder how often you consider “the truth as always somewhere in the middle” and decide that your toddler has been partially framed by the cat, while also having stolen some of the cookies.

I suspect not often.

Hardly anyone ever seriously accuses the cat, which is why the rule of thumb works in the first place. That's pretty much my point.

The goal was to create a new pipeline from Qatar to Europe so Europe don’t have to buy gas from Russia.

Your missing something obvious with this conspiracy theory. Look at a map. Iraq borders both SA and Turkey. It would be cheaper to build through Iraq than destabilize an entire country.

Believe it or not, every time something goes wrong in the world, the US is not behind it. These conspiracy theories help no one.

Would Iran let a pipeline pass through the Shia land next to it ? There is a short pipeline from North Iraq to Turkey, you need to research about it. Syria was the best bet and that also didn't work.

Believe it or not, every time something goes wrong in the world, the US is not behind it.

Ok, so you're just working on other people's democracies for their benefit. Gotcha.

Indeed, my first thought when I read that was "why can't it just go through Iraq instead?" And as it turns out you've pointed out that there already is such a pipeline. So the whole theory stops making sense then.

I would not entirely see them as conspiracy theories, but by now we all know.. conflicts or military operations are conducted for one reason but are "sold" to public with different kind of marketing.. one in which they appeal to our better angles and in other to our worst fears.

So some of these stated items may be sub-plots, the truth is Iran - Saudi rivalry plays a major part in ME politics. Syria was a proxy battleground so was Yemen.

"It would be cheaper to build through Iraq than destabilize an entire country."

Except that at the time, Iraq was itself a highly unstable conflict zone. Building a pipeline in those conditions was not viable, and probably still isn't.

Also Iraq is a buffer zone between SA and Iran which prevents Iran invading and taking control of the pipeline.

But we're comparing Iraq with destabilizing a country, re-securing it, establishing a relationship with the leaders, etc.. and then building a pipeline.

Iraq is further along in that process.. than starting anew with Syria.

> Except that at the time, Iraq was itself a highly unstable conflict zone.

I fail to see how turning Syria into an unstable conflict zone would help.

Nobody set out to cause a long-lasting, destructive conflict in Syria. Those who were backing the opposition factions were no doubt hoping for a quick, orderly transition of power. But obviously it didn't work out that way.

Does it ever work out that way? This myth of USA military effectiveness isn't promoted in order to ensure transfers of power or [snicker, haha] natural gas in pipelines. It is promoted to ensure the continuing transfer of wealth from American taxpayers to armaments manufacturers and their sockpuppets in government and media.

> Nobody set out to cause a long-lasting, destructive conflict in Syria.

That's precisely the point. Nobody set out to cause long-lasting, destructive conflict in Iraq as well.

Furthermore, in Iraq there was a multinational coallition allocating hefty amounts of resourses to ensure a clean politically advantgeous outcome, while the war in Syria would be, according to that conspiracy theory, at best a covert operation leading to a drawn out conflict.

Worth the read: https://www.mintpressnews.com/wikileaks-us-israel-and-saudi-...

Have a link to the original cable?

A lot of what is written there doesn't pass the basic smell test of anybody even vaguely familiar with the conflict

MintPress is a rather unreliable source. [0][1]

[0] https://www.minnpost.com/media/2015/11/mystery-mintpress-new...

[1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/the-inside-story-of-one-w...

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DAMASCUS5399_a.html

I know that cable - it's rather famous for predicting a lot of what took place but is far from a US plot to overthrow Assad

The other conspiracy that exist, there is three countries that surround occupied Palestine two of them already in USA pocket and one still refuse to make relation with occupied Palestine so destabilize Syria is big win for USA.

What is "occupied Palestine" in your count?

Just to clarify if it is Gaza+West Bank, or the usual Arab definition that includes all of Israel, or all of the old Palestine mandate that included also present-day Jordan?

Depending on what is "Palestine", it s surrounded by 5 to 7 countries: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi-Arabia and Egypt.

It may be a conspiracy theory but we must not be naive usually the marketed reasons have nothing to do with the real geopolitical ones. Remember the Iraq invasion?

You say "usually" but you only give one single example. Not to say that you couldn't come up with others but I'm not sure I agree with the "usually".

Being french this argument annoys me particularly because if you remember France was against this intervention because we thought the WMD menace was bullshit. Turns out that we were right. Then a few years ago France was saying "Assad is using chemical weapons against civilians, we must do something!" and the whole internet started parroting the russian talking points "But remember Iraq!!! It's all a bunch of lies!!!".

Not to say that french intelligence is infallible or can't be manipulated but using the garbage fire that was the "Gulf War Episode 2: The Empire Strikes Back" to immediately dismiss any kind of foreign intervention is rather disingenuous. Yet an other terrible long term consequence of the Bush administration years I suppose.

You seem to be leaving something out, here. What was the French position on Libya? In the end, was it different than the position of BHL?

A public reticence to create further disasters, if indeed it existed, would be among the best possible long-term consequences of that foolish administration.

Yes, it’s 100% a foreign policy goal for the US and all NATO and EU members to wean Eastern Europe and Germany off Russian oil, that’s no secret!

>Here is my question for HN readers: do you trust this article? Because it tries to fool us.

Genuine question, why should we trust you more than the article? How do we know you aren’t trying to fool us?

what are you talking about. that's a weird conspiracy theory you've got (and i know a lot of weird theories).

but where do i begin. oil - yes europe want to reduce reliance on russian gas but there are a LOT of countries between qatar and europe.

Arab spring - did NOT start in syria. in syria the flames were fanned by all interested countries in the hopes that a bunch of autocratic dictators would be overthrown with no effort required. didn't work, total balls up, in every case the cure was worse than the problem.

Turkey - got involved for 3 reasons: 1) the shit-show was on their borders. 2) the more the kurds got involved the more turkey saw a need to reduce their power. 3) turkey now sees it self as a regional super-power and wants a show of force.

Russia - they inserted themselves into the mess and claim Syria under there sphere of influence. their troops get a bit of practice, they get an ally and a port in the Mediterranean.

Iran and Saudi - they have been having a proxy war in yemen and the US has re-affirmed it's support of the saudi (they would be crazy not to). they made a BIG flashy show about stopping terrorism. very next thing that happens they all turn on qatar.

'Russia won the war in both Ukraine and Syria, at same time' what is your sentence meant to imply? these weren't wars they were minor deployments of resources that wouldn't tax any reasonably large country.

stop spreading propaganda.

I am betting on the Kurds to kick their ass. The Kurds are a well trained, well equipped (for the moment at least), motivated force defending themselves.

The Turks (IMHO) are unseasoned forces are fighting battle that is against international laws, and is for a country run by a dictator. Both points that are huge factors against their success.

It will probably come down to air power, I wonder what the Kurds have in the way of surface to air missiles?

alas, since the crack downs, turkey just does not care about international opinion (they have a cordial relationship with russia, and donald seems to admire Erdoğan). they will probably just shell it for a while.

I actually think they care a lot about international opinion, but not always in the most healthy way. Turkey seems to be primarily interested in playing spoiler, keeping an eye on economic interests, and exercising their refugee destination card in a beneficial manner. They've got an interesting balancing act going between their increasingly strong Russian alliance and their membership in the European community.

Turkey has the second largest standing military force in NATO. They are also, well, in NATO. The current situation is uncomfortable for a whole lot of people, but when push comes to shove, I don't see how a proxy force with questionable allegiance stands up to a NATO country with a massive air and ground force.

NATO is hardly going to support Turkey's adventures in Syria so it'll have little relevance for that fight.

And while the Turkish have far more firepower and air power than Kurds, the terrain is extremely favourable for a defending force, particularly when it is as motivated and well-trained as the Kurdish fighters. A Turkish attack can become a debacle, or at militarily "best", a massacre of civilian population resulting in further alienating Turkey from civilization.

I don't disagree, but they certainly won't support the kurds' efforts against a NATO member.

Don't misunderstand that I think this is a) a good idea, or b) ultimately going to work out the way Turkey wants it to work out.

I don't think the kurds will choose to live and die by Afrin.

Yes, NATO as an organisation will hardly support Kurds either, but I can see that individual NATO members as well as other countries will start giving more and more moral and possibly economical support.

What the Kurds would need is surface to air missile, so they don't get slaughter from the air.

Is it even "likely" that you can shoot down a jet with an manually operated anti aircraft gun? Sure it's "possible"

Not likely at all unless you have masses of them (which the Kurds don't have), though they may successfully harass attackers and reduce their bombing accuracy.

Does Turkey have guided bombs? And will they be re-supplied so that Turkish air force could use them at will?

Qatar produce gas not oil. I know Americans call oil "gas" but this is actually the gaseous stuff. Europe is very dependent on Rusdian gas, not so much oil.

my apologies, mis-remembered.

> these weren’t wars they were minor redeployments of resources

There have been 470,000 casualties in Syria. For comparison, that’s more than the US suffered in WW2, and that loss was felt. It’s a colossal humanatarian disaster and very much a war.

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/syria

i was referring just to russian deployments not to the whole mess. i agree about the whole thing being a disaster, a total clusterf.

russia didn't need to do to much due to all the efforts of the 4+ sides fighting each other.

It's the first time I see such a complete garbage Putin-propaganda comment at the top on HN (I won't repeat the reasons here - just read the other top answers). I find it very, very worrying.

I don't see how you connected my thoughts to Russia. I'm just a guy who has been praying for the people in Syria since the beginning of the war.

I linked it because I keep a close eye on Putin's propaganda war on democracy and, specifically, on the EU (me being in the EU). But just re-read your comment and the connection is pretty obvious...

> The goal was to create a new pipeline from Qatar to Europe so Europe don’t have to buy gas from Russia

> Russia won the war in both Ukraine and Syria, at same time

> Qatar and Turkey are now enemies on the Russian side. The western alliance tried hard to take down their presidents by organizing coups but it failed.

Either you follow Russian media agencies closely so you can categorize information by national news agencies, or you're just labeling me for telling facts that you don't like to hear. Neither behavior is not smart.

The conspiracy theory crowd is always full of "facts" (ahem) that "people just don't want to hear". Because people "live in their bubble", obviously.

One of my fears is that I might be in a bubble, a conspiracy theory, of my own. Suggestions?

Having that fear is a very very good place to be, where most people at any one time is not.

If you're interested, I regularly read what some of Putin's supporter I know post on Reddit (mostly coming from RT and Sputnik). This way, I keep up on that kind of propaganda without having to read all the Russian media agencies directly.

To anticipate your next point: is there propaganda in the West? Yes, absolutely. Is it the same level BS as Putin's propaganda? No way - in the West there are just so many more independent sources of information, that finding out most BS is easy enough if you try. In Russia, things are very tightly controlled by Putin and his system.

Most people in the west don't try and find impartial information or counter arguments as generally people don't like having their opinion challenged. Worse still, many of the most popular news networks are also the the worst for political bias (Fox News, News UK (Sun), The Daily Mail, etc.)

Let's also not forget just how many people get their news from untrusted sources posted on social media and other similar communication mediums.

So I think it's a stretch to say things are significantly better in the west. If anything, people are just as badly misled here but with the added misconception that the free market and freedom of press means their news is automatically also free of political bias (or sometimes they do know but simply don't care because they had that bias to begin with)

Re people how downvoted me. I appreciate this is an opinion so others will differ but it would be nice to have a counterargument so I can understand why you disagree

I'm Russian. And while I agree that we have a propaganda, I can't say that the situation is any better in the West.

When I was living in UK for a while, I was amazed by how some really smart people have 100% level of trust to national media, so that they can't even perceive another point of view. All arguments were based on the fact that their media is historically old and never lies because it can't risk its reputation. And all Russian media is propaganda and controlled by Putin. It was 2014 and I can't say how much I was asked what I think about Putin. Honestly I didn't know what to answer because I don't like to talk about politics.

But since that time I know that if you look around the world you will notice the same BS but in different boxing. And people are equally vulnerable to buy it.

I agree with you that there are many people in the West who have (almost) 100% trust in national media, and that that level of trust is misplaced, but I don't agree at all that the situation is the same as in Russia (where I've been and where I know some people).

The difference is that here in the West there are lots of agendas being pushed, but there are also lots of competing ones, lots of different points of view, and much more freedom to express them. The end result is - or at least was, the situation isn't improving lately - that the government can't get away with lies as big as the ones Putin pushes (eg: "we have no soldiers in Ukraine" "we're never going to annex Crimea" etc. etc.)

I cannot disagree with your point. But we still have a lot of people who refuse to get information from propaganda sources. And this is a good sign. I hope we will get even better in this in the future and there will be more freedom in media.

Absolutely, I didn't mean that all Russians buy the propaganda - I also know how distrustful of the government you are on average. But it's a fact that it's very difficult to get good news sources for those who only understand Russian.

Yes we have lots of agendas, but in my lifetime only one agenda has been constant through all the surface changes: spend more money fighting more wars. At least when the Russians fight a war, they win, sometimes. The lie about USA military/LEO effectiveness is so big you can't even see it as a proposition that could be true or false. It's like water to a fish.

When it comes to big issues (eg the UKs EU referendum or national elections in either the US or UK) I don't believe there are a lot of agendas being pushed. If anything, the majority of the mainstream press tend to rally behind the same interests and that position is usually the one that the owners of said news outlet stand to gain the most. (eg leaving the EU, supporting a corporation friendly government such as Trump / Tories, even denying climate change so they have fewer restrictions et al running their business).

Just because there is more choice in "independent" news outlets, it doesn't mean there is more independent opinions being voiced.

Well, if the NYT or The Guardian aren't mainstream, then what is? And they were both against the outcome of those two situations..

Obviously there are going to be exceptions to the rule, hence why the language I used didn't say "all" or other exclusive terms. However the ratio would seem to be in the favour of right wing politics Vs left wing - and particularly so if you also factor in copies sold of each specific publication into your analysis.

What are your news sources?

My thought exactly.

This breaks the HN guideline against name-calling in arguments. Just because the rest of the internet is full of this does not make it ok to do here, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are.

Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post civilly and substantively, or not at all, from now on.

Sorry, I should have used the "complete garbage" expression.

I read something rather different; depicts Trump as clueless, infantile, and manipulated by Saudi Arabia; all these countries have a risky excess of American made arms, Qatar in 2017 alone ordered enough military jets to increase its holdings by a factor of 8. The mere possibility of Emirates or Saudi Arabia let alone both, starting a war or attempting a coup of Tamim should bother anyone. I don't see how it's remotely propaganda, what's the motive? And is it really such good propaganda to depict the leader of the free world as inept and a compulsive Twitter junkie?

And Erdogan staged his own failed coup. By all rights even before the coup attempt Turkey should be ejected from NATO. A conspiracy is not required to oppose an autocrat in violation of his country's constitution, and has made it a good deal less secure by showing to its enemies how easy it is make it react contrary to its own law, its international agreements, and the will of its own citizens. But I don't really know why you bring up Turkey, as this article doesn't mention it.

VP, Biden indirectly confirmed your points [1] Every one must watch this for a candid view.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25aDP7io30U

Surprised to see tinfoil hat theories on top of a HN thread. Not to say that there's not some truth in there but reducing the extremely complex geopolitical situation in the middle east to "they wanted to build a pipeline" is rather laughable.

I mean seriously:

>The actual goal was of course had nothing to do with democracy and Arab spring was total bullshit.

>Western news brainwashed the whole world with ISIS and YPG

>The western alliance tried hard to take down their presidents by organizing coups but it failed.

And the most amusing part of your comment:

>people just buy this stuff easily in the propaganda bubble they live in

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!

This whole comment is one big huge [citation needed] tag.

You could reroot the pipeline through israel? or egypt?

The syrian crisis was a sunni -shia powerblock escalation. The problem i have is that we - the west side with the wrong faction here. Assad had many minorities somehow getting along, no sunni country has that. Iran is quite inventive - even if the relgious fanatics try to come down on that. Western money flows through saudi arabia an finances wahabit missionarys everywhere.

Are we really assisting the good guys here?

Do you think hacker news is the good place to find the answer to such a question? This is the place where you ask about Javascript libraries and Go vs. Rust comparisons, not geopolitical advice. That's why I tend to dismiss any comment in this thread that's not properly sourced.

You are propably right. But sometimes such discussion can meta-stasize into intersting ones.

For example- what is the definition of a good guy? Is a good guy something stable, reliable, someone behaving reproducable?

Is a good guy somebody who gives you a short term reward, and costs you dearly in the long run? Or can a good guy be someone who costs you short term, but becomes a long term positiv force. What if somebody is hostile, but stabilizes out of self-interest a otherwise negative are in the world.

Its all very complicated, and the dynamics playing into it, can be horrifying for anyone idealistic.

Mr. Nuance/Intellectual Peace Prize winner would disagree with this.

> That was also the time FSA split into bunch of groups; Wahabist ISIS and socialist YPG

Well that's completely wrong. The idea that ISIS and YPG would ever fight together is so stupid it's hilarious. Maybe read less RT.

YPG has always been independent, they're Kurds, you idiot. ISIS has always been its own group, but started turning on everyone else at the end of 2014. The FSA is a mix of radical to less radical Arabs that sometimes fought with AQ (decent amount of times) and maybe a long time ago with ISIS (rather rare). Can't blame them considering what they're up against. I see russian propaganda has been very effective in making you think FSA==ISIS, not surprising they would do that considering how consistently they never bomb ISIS and always target groups like the FSA instead.

Isn't it possible to say the same without calling the parent an idiot?

> you idiot

Personal attacks and uncivil swipes will get you banned on Hacker News. You've done this several times before. If you want to keep commenting here, please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again.

Sure. Syrians are ponds in a vicious game managed by the US over some pipe - a pipe they apparently care for more than their own lives. How could it be otherwise? The world was a peaceful place before the US was funded and started destabilizing it.

<disclaimer: though I live in the middle east, and in a good day can see Syria - am brainwashed by evil media>

This article sounds like it was funded by Qatar. If it got published then it probably means the US is souring on the Saudi/UAE ruse.

If only we would sour on the ongoing atrocities in Yemen...

Why would this article be funded by Qatar? Because it's the same narrative that has existed and been written about for months or because the component facts can be independently researched and verified.

Qatar is the biggest sponsor of Islamic radicalism and terrorism all over the world. They also pay western politicians and media to tarnish their neighbor countries especially Egypt.

Seriously? where are you proofs? and if your fictional proofs exist then why they didn't took Qatar into international court.

If you really want to look for proofs, you can google it. I am an Arab and since the the mid 90s Qatar has been providing all Sunni islamic groups from MB, Hamas and Al Qaeda with all kinds of support (money, media, bribing western politicians, etc...)

If I google for this Saudi Arabia comes up first, by a big margin.

They are both the biggest sponsors of terrorism then come Turkey and Pakistan. The key difference between Qatar and Saudi Arabia is that Qatar always supports the more extremist faction in every conflict. Saudi Arabia may not do that in every case. For instance, Saudi Arabia funds MB in Syria and supported the revolution against them in Egypt.

So you’re saying you have all the inside scoop on terrorism just because you’re an Arab? You should get a job in the US intelligence agencies, they seem to have similar thoughts!

I would guess a lot of it is not really inside information, just the ability to read Arabic-language media.

My knowledge of middle eastern politics is not good, but how does Oman factor into this?

A while ago I saw that Qatar was getting around some of the transport restrictions imposed in the Gulf by using ports in Oman.

Edit: Here's an article that tries to answer your question: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/oman-stance-qatar-gul...

It doesn't. Both Kuwait and Oman try hard not to make waves so they can profit off both sides.

Incidentally, so does the UAE: a huge portion of local investment, especially in Dubai, is linked to Iran, and not just regular trade but sanctions busting, money laundering, etc.

Oman has maintained neutrality in the conflict, and their Sultan is doing shuttle diplomacy between Doha and Riyadh.

In the interim, Qatar has rerouted all of its trans-shipping activity from Dubai to Muscat.

Anyone has a non-paywalled link for this?

I thought hacker news is a politics-free site?

Not completely. We had that as a rule for a short while, but it wasn't really workable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zruGBWLk9s8

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