All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I am the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and I've recorded more than 5,000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org.
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Okay, guys, on the line, I've got Giorgio Caffiero.
He is the founder and CEO of Gulf State Analytics, and boy, does he analyze the Gulf States well.
Welcome back to the show.
How's it going, Giorgio?
Scott, it's great to be with you.
Thanks for having me on your show.
Oh, yeah, happy to have you here.
So listen, there's this whole thing going on now with the UAE and Bahrain and rumors of Saudi and other countries even, we'll get to those in a second, but these guys already making what they're calling peace deals with Israel.
We've talked on the show about how this is, you know, essentially, as Ted Snyder says, this is really all about selling out the Palestinians since these countries really weren't at war with Israel anyway, and the deal always was that they had promised not to normalize Israel until the Palestinians at least got the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and now they're giving up their one demand and going ahead and normalizing relations for the money and for the weapons, I guess.
And then, so the latest chapter of this is Sudan, and Sudan is only, what, one year into a popular revolution that overthrew their longtime dictatorship and is attempting, right, they're still in the process of attempting to institute some new form of democracy in that country.
This is after the Americans split the South away in the last decade.
And now they are already moving, it's already a done deal, or what, they're having their own peace deal with Israel now.
What does it mean?
What is it all about?
I think you laid that out very well.
Yes, this year, 2020, has so far seen three Arab countries, as you mentioned, UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan, normalize diplomatic relations with Israel.
Now, these three countries had not been confrontational with Israel for quite some time, and there had been some warming up between these three Arab states and Tel Aviv that took place in various ways, in various contexts.
Most notably, the UAE had established a very strong, albeit somewhat tacit, partnership with Israel that involves a lot of coordination in sectors such as defense, technology, commerce, so on and so forth.
Nonetheless, what is significant, though, is this step to formalize diplomatic relations.
As you mentioned, from 2002 up until this year, 2020, the entire Arab region was made up of states that had reached a consensus behind the so-called Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, which was put forth by the then Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
This peace initiative set out the terms for Israel's normalization of relations with Arab League members, and it was very simple.
If Israel would return to the 1967 borders and give the Palestinians a state that would be making up 22% of historic Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, Israel would have full-fledged diplomatic relations with all of the Arab League members.
With these three countries, the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan, normalizing ties with Israel following no concessions from the Israelis to the Palestinians, this marks the end of an Arab consensus behind the Arab Peace Initiative from 2002.
There's a lot to take away from this.
There are different motivations that these three different countries had for signing these accords with Israel.
This will play out in the region in many ways that we have yet to realize, and I hope we can definitely discuss some of these many, many dimensions to the so-called Abraham Accords.
Yeah.
Well, so I guess my first question is, what's your take on and how do you know about public opinion in Sudan?
It doesn't seem like this is probably the first priority of the population of the country after overthrowing their dictator, and I wonder if you think this will jeopardize the new civilian government there.
I mean, I don't even know how even civilian and democratic it's turned out to be in the last year or so.
Yeah.
Well, it's important for us to note that Sudan is different from United Arab Emirates.
Sudan is not the GCC country.
It is a much larger country than the UAE, and an important difference between Sudan and the UAE is that in Sudan you have a civil society.
Even though there's a history of the Bashir regime and then also some elements of the deep state that had power after the revolution of April 2019 oppressing civil society, you still have a civil society in Sudan, which is quite strong.
You have diverse political factions.
In Sudan you have communists, Islamists, Arab nationalists, so on and so forth.
Many politically active individuals in organizations that are pro-Palestinian and are firmly anti-Israeli, and they definitely have a big problem with their government normalizing relations with Tel Aviv.
What we've seen in recent days has been a number of protests in Sudan, also statements from important people within the country voicing their opposition to this new agreement with Israel.
You make an important point that Sudan is in the middle of a democratic transition.
To help put this into a little bit of context for your listeners, the Bashir regime came to power in 1989, and it was in power for three decades up until last year, 2019.
Bashir fell because there were a wave of protests that got started in 2018 with people demanding his stepping down from power.
When that finally happened in April 2019, the military took over the country.
While the protesters were very thrilled about the fact that Bashir was removed from power, they did not simply trust the military to run the country.
The view on the street was that the military was going to maintain a status quo but just have another figure replace Bashir.
The protests continued with these Sudanese citizens demanding that power be in civilian hands.
The view at that point was that the revolution was not complete until there was a democratically elected and civilian government.
There was a massacre that took place in the summer of 2019 in the capital city that created many international headlines and raised a lot of alarm, concern about Sudan moving in the Egypt direction, talking about Egypt of 2013 with the military takeover and the harsh human rights abuses.
Nonetheless, the Sudanese citizens continued protesting and what happened was remarkable.
In August 2019, the military decided to sign a power sharing agreement with civilian groups representing those on the street.
Ever since that point, August 2019, this military and civilian hybrid government has been in power as a transitional government.
This transition is to last for three years and ideally, if it succeeds, it will lead to Sudan having a democratic system of government with free and fair elections.
But there are so many problems going on in Sudan right now.
There are horrible floods in the country.
The COVID-19 situation is awful.
Inflation is high.
We've got food security problems.
These issues, each of them by themselves, would be very, very difficult and challenging for Sudan to deal with.
To say nothing about all of these problems taking place at the same time, there is so much pressure on this hybrid government that came together from the power sharing agreement last year that many are concerned that this transitional government will lose legitimacy.
If that happens, this transition to democracy could get derailed very quickly.
You could see the military take over or you could see right-wing reactionary Islamists who completely oppose some of the changes that are taking place in Sudan taking advantage of this situation.
So now with this accord with Israel, which Sudan only agreed to because of so much pressure from the United States and the United Arab Emirates, there are big concerns that this accord could just add one more layer of instability to the country during an extremely sensitive period of time.
What's the rush from Washington and UAE and Israel to get Sudan back on board?
These three countries have their own interests.
Obviously Israel wants to integrate itself into the wider Arab and Islamic world's diplomatic fold.
This is not new.
What is new though is sort of the recent success that Israel has had with these three Arab countries taking this step.
Netanyahu, he wants to tell Israelis that when he has been at the helm, Israel has been able to integrate into the region, and they haven't had to make any concessions to the Palestinians, and that's something that all Israelis welcome for the most part.
When it comes to the United Arab Emirates, they had their own interests in normalizing relations with Israel.
The fact of the matter is the Palestinian cause is not a priority to the UAE.
What is a priority to the UAE and the region has to do with countering Turkey and Iran.
On a lot of issues related to Turkey and Iran, UAE and Israel have been in the same boat.
UAE also wanted to be able to benefit as much as possible from deals with Israel in domains of tourism, technology, investment, defense, so on and so forth.
The UAE also wants Trump to have, when I say the UAE, I'm talking about the leadership in Abu Dhabi, just to be clear.
The leadership in Abu Dhabi wants Trump to be reelected next month, and they understood that this would be a big boost to Trump.
At the same time, UAE wants to hedge its bets.
They know that Biden could possibly win the election, and this is a move that bought the UAE a lot of goodwill among politicians on both sides of the aisle, so regardless of who wins this election, the UAE will have a better image, a better reputation in Washington.
There were many interests on the UAE's part.
For the United States, let's be clear, pushing for Arab-Israeli normalization has been a priority not only for Trump's administration, but all administrations going back to the foundation of Israel in 1948.
I think, though, what's unique about this current period is how cynical the U.S. is being with countries like Sudan, and also the extent to which a sitting U.S. president is pushing for these so-called peace agreements in such close proximity to a U.S. election, and having domestic politics at the front and center of his approach to dealing with these issues of Arab-Israeli normalization.
Trump obviously has his eye on a number of swing states where you have many evangelical Christians who care deeply about Israel-related issues, and I think Trump believes that these diplomatic agreements between these three Arab countries and Israel is something that's going to further mobilize these evangelical voters.
Hold on just one second.
Be right back.
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Okay, so now tell us a bit about Oman.
They're somewhat neutral in their relations, at least between America and Iran and things like that.
They serve as the middlemen sometimes, but they are members of the GCC or not?
Yes, Oman is a founding member of the GCC.
As you mentioned, Oman has a very good relationship with both the U.S. as well as really the entire Western world, but also a very good relationship with Iran.
This has required Oman to serve a balancing role in the region, especially at times when U.S.-Iran brinkmanship heats up.
For the Omanis, it's important that they maintain good relations with Washington.
For decades, the U.S. has been Oman's security guarantor, and there's a relationship that's literally hundreds of years old between the United States and the Sultanate.
At the same time, Iran is a permanent neighbor of Oman, and there are very close links between these two countries that bond Omanis and Iranians together.
One important historic example that continues to have an impact on this relationship brings us back to the Dhofar War taking place in the 60s and 70s.
There was a Marxist uprising, a Marxist insurgency in the country that sought to overthrow the leadership of the Sultanate, first Sultan Qaboos's father and then Sultan Qaboos himself.
Anyway, during this conflict, the Shah of Iran sent Iranian military forces into Oman to help the government crush this insurgency, and a number of Iranians lost their lives in that conflict, a fact that Omanis always remember.
Then after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Oman was the most sensitive of all GCC states to Iran's interests.
Oman was neutral in the Iran-Iraq War when most of the other Gulf Arab states were supporting Iraq, and usually Oman breaks from other GCC states on anti-Iranian initiatives.
So Oman, despite being a member of the mostly anti-Iranian GCC, Oman has always maintained a very cordial relationship, what I would describe as an excellent relationship with Iran, and that has not come at the expense of its very close relationship with the United States.
So from a geopolitical sense, Oman is a very, very special actor in the Middle East.
And then so now what's their position in this new, the Abraham Accords and the rest of those?
Are they going to go ahead and, I mean, I have to assume that if they're going to cozy up to Israel, they're going to have to jettison that relationship with Tehran, right?
Some really good questions.
So ever since the UAE's agreement with Israel was announced on August 13th, many pundits as well as Israeli officials have been speculating that Oman will be next to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel.
That hasn't happened yet.
And my personal opinion is that we should be quite skeptical about that happening anytime soon.
I wrote, I co-wrote an article for Middle East Institute, which looked at the reasons why Oman has not gone the normalization route, or at least has not done so, so far.
And this has to do with a number of factors, but one of them brings us back to what we were just talking about a minute ago, which is Oman's good relationship with Iran.
The Omanis understand that Iran's government views the Abraham Accords as a threat to Iran.
And if Oman were to join the UAE and Bahrain in formalizing diplomatic ties with Israel, that would add to Iran's sense of vulnerability.
Then there's a new sultan in power in Oman.
He ascended to the throne earlier this year.
So he's still a new leader, and he is not trying to rock the boat when it comes to Oman's relationships and the delicate balances, which must got strikes.
In other words, he is not looking to create any problems with Iran.
He would like for there to be a continuity in the good ties between Muscat and Tehran.
And I think signing an accord with Israel, as you mentioned, or as you asked a moment ago, that could definitely throw off the careful balance which Oman has in its foreign policy, especially vis-a-vis Iran.
So I definitely think that this is one reason why Oman might not sign an accord with Israel.
Maybe the question is, how much is it going to cost the American taxpayer to get them on board?
Well, this is interesting, this point about economic pressure that you were bringing up.
It should be noted that Oman has some very serious economic problems right now, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and low oil prices.
By global standards, Oman is a rich country, but compared to GCC states such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman is much less wealthy.
And during this tough period of low oil prices and also COVID-19, there is an effort on the part of Oman to get financial help from other countries, such as its wealthier GCC countries.
This brings me to the point that if the United Arab Emirates is going to help out Oman economically during this period, Abu Dhabi might tell Muscat that there are certain political strings attached to this aid, and one has to consider how a normalization of relations with Israel could possibly be one of those conditions.
And especially if Trump has a second term, we could imagine the U.S. and UAE working to put pressure on numerous countries to move in the normalization direction, and Oman certainly could be one of those countries.
All right, so this brings me to a third article of yours.
Well, not much of a segue there.
Anyway, segue here.
Third article of yours is in the New Arab, alarabi.co.uk, Biden and the Saudi quagmire in Yemen.
And I only just found out this article exists, so I haven't read it yet.
So please do tell me everything that I need to know about Biden and the war in Yemen.
Giorgio?
Well, I think it's safe to say that the only hope for U.S. ending its support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen would come from a Biden presidency, but that does not mean that a Biden administration would necessarily stop supporting the Saudis in relation to their conflict with the Houthis in Yemen.
There is strong campaign rhetoric from Joe Biden which tells us that his official position is against U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen.
He has also used very strong language to criticize and condemn certain aspects of the Saudi leadership.
He said that Saudi Arabia should be a pariah state.
That was his word at a November 2019 Democratic primary debate.
He says that he will cut off the arms sales to Saudi Arabia as long as this war in Yemen is going on.
So obviously that would have a big impact on the U.S.-Saudi relationship given that arms sales is such an important component of bilateral affairs.
At the same time though, I think we need to be skeptical and consider the possibility of there being a gap between campaign rhetoric and what he would actually do in office.
So what I'm basically saying in this article is that anything is possible, but again, the only hope for a reduction of U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen would come from a Biden win.
And what we can certainly bet on if Trump is re-elected is just probably the U.S. doubling down on its policies of selling arms to Saudi Arabia without any consideration of human rights issues or humanitarian issues in Yemen.
The recent Saudi-U.S. strategic dialogue that just took place, we heard from the U.S. leadership, we heard from Pompeo, this vision for continuing the arms sales and jobs, jobs, jobs, as Trump likes to put it.
So at least when it comes to the campaigns and the two candidates as presidential hopeful and the president seeking re-election, we do see a contrast in their positions on Yemen.
Yeah.
Well, what's funny is, of course, that he was the vice president back when Obama started the war.
And I don't know if there's ever been any solid reporting on the story of his role in that argument at all, whether he was on the right side of it.
I suppose it's possible, but he apparently wasn't persuasive enough to stop Barack Obama.
So will he be able to stop Michelle Flournoy and Susan Rice?
Well, you know, you are right that when the war started in March 2015, the U.S., not only did the U.S. support it, but the war was possible due to the support that the United States was giving Saudi Arabia.
And as you mentioned, yes, that was taking place when Joe Biden was the vice president.
It's very fair to point that out.
At the same time, he has sought to distance himself from the Obama administration when talking about Yemen as a presidential candidate in 2019, 2020.
So if he wins, we'll find out how sincere he is about changing U.S. foreign policy in relation to Yemen.
Yeah.
I mean, of course, you know, campaign statements, you can't take that to the bank, maybe the dollar store or something, but you know, maybe not even that.
Biden says lots.
Yes.
So but you're right, though, that Trump is certainly the guy who's sitting in the chair now who's currently prosecuting this war.
Although that brings me to another important question, which is, do you know, can you report to us or do you know of any solid recent reporting about the extent of American help for the Saudis?
I know that it's still going on from one source that I have, but I don't know details.
I wonder if you do.
In terms of U.S. support for the Saudi led war in Yemen.
Yeah.
For example, American civilian and military intelligence officials gathering intelligence, helping pick targets, American contractors, you know, taking care of all the maintenance on the planes and whatever other, you know, logistical support for the war itself, the naval blockade and the rest of that.
Well, yeah, with with Trump at the helm, the U.S. has stepped up its support for the Saudi led war in Yemen that that's continuing full throttle.
And not just in terms of bombs, but on all those different aspects, as you're understanding.
Yeah.
And what I would add to that is politically, too, there's the Trump administration is considering designating the dominant Houthi militia, a terrorist organization, which the Obama administration never did.
And up until now, the Trump administration has not done.
What would that mean?
What would be the practical implications of this designation?
Well, it would give further justification for U.S. support to the Saudi led war against the Houthi rebels.
You know, up until now, the understanding is that our anti-terrorist operations in Yemen have been against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, ACAP and other hardline Salafist jihadist groups.
So this would add the Houthi rebels to that set of targets in the so-called war on terrorism in Yemen.
And it would also make diplomacy far less realistic.
You know, as of now, the view of the Houthis is that they represent a community within the country that has its communal grievances and is fighting on one side of a civil war.
But to designate it a terrorist organization would be to deprive it of really any sort of legitimacy.
So that, you know, if the Trump administration takes that step, that would be a severe sort of escalation of U.S. support for Saudi Arabia in this conflict.
Yeah.
Well, and it should never go without saying, people can read it in Al-Monitor and the Wall Street Journal from January 2015, that CENTCOM had allied with the Houthis and was providing them intelligence to use to kill Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, just two months before Barack Obama turned the entire policy around.
And that's one more thing I was told recently was that the head of CENTCOM, General McKenzie, hates this policy, but does it anyway, because those are his orders.
But it would make sense that they would think, geez, we really got a fight on the side of Al Qaeda in this thing again.
And then they click their heels and commit their treason anyway, but they recognize it for the treason that it is.
So at least there's that.
Yeah.
You know, I would say there's two important points to consider here.
One is that the Yemen war has lost its popularity and its support among lawmakers in D.C.
And this is not just among Democrats.
This is also among many Republicans, too.
The narratives that were used in 2015 to justify U.S. support for this war have pretty much lost their ground in 2020.
And we know this from resolutions passed by the U.S. House, which, of course, Trump vetoed.
So if Biden is president and one of those resolutions comes on his desk, I mean, there's going to be some political pressure on him to not veto it and to approach that differently than Trump has and to let these resolutions, and for him to sign on to them and support them.
Because again, it's politically popular in the United States to be against U.S. support for the Yemen war.
At the same time, let's keep in mind that these arms sales to Saudi Arabia do lead to high paying jobs in the United States, which Trump constantly reminds us.
And you have to wonder, does Biden want to be the president who sort of turns that valve off?
Again, I don't know.
I'm not looking into crystal ball here.
I don't know what Biden would do.
But I would just say that it's really not clear.
And Biden could approach Yemen in some different ways.
And there's just a lot of speculation that has to go into any conversation about what we could expect for U.S. foreign policy with Biden in the Oval Office.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know if you saw this, and leave it to the marketplace to make the safer bets, I think, when it comes to political questions like this, where the CEO of Raytheon was responding to, you know, anxiety that Trump, I mean, that Biden, if elected, might cut the defense budget.
And he just laughed and said, that's ridiculous.
There's no way in the world that's going to happen.
Trust me.
You know, so that seems to me like a pretty realistic take, honestly.
Yeah.
Well, Biden is no dove.
That said, I mean, he could also be hawkish in certain ways while also trying to impose some restrictions on arms sales, specifically to Saudi Arabia.
So again, we don't know what's going on.
But of course, I mean, based on, you know, the point you just made a moment ago, we should not be naive about Biden's foreign policy track record.
And of course, he is definitely not a dove.
Yeah.
And, you know, by the way, too, Trump's numbers on why it's so important that we keep this going on, that the Saudis are going to spend $450 billion on American weapons in some near term is a complete hoax.
And William Hartung ran the numbers.
And, you know, they spend, I forgot what it was, maybe a couple hundred million a year, a couple of billion a year, something like that.
No, that was what it was.
It was a couple of billion, maybe a couple of $10 billion a year.
Nothing like $450 billion.
It would take decades to get to $450 billion at the current rate.
And rather than providing millions of jobs, as Trump says, it's more like $40,000 or $50,000, which you're right, are pretty high paying jobs in some counties and some precincts, which matter in some swing states and these kinds of things.
And they, you know, as we know from great reporting in the past that, God, I'm trying to think of the guy's name, the great reporting of Richard Cummings and others in the past that the way that they do this is, you know, Lockheed and these other companies, they deliberately build their factories in swing precincts, in swing states and this kind of thing to ensure compliance.
And in order to, you know, to be the margin of victory for these congressmen to keep their businesses in business at the expense of the captive customer, the American taxpayer, by way of the Pentagon.
It's all true.
Yeah, we can't overlook, you know, how much Trump has been focused on these domestic concerns and his interests in gaining popularity in swing states when he's making decisions on Yemen and other foreign policy issues too.
It's really crazy, but you're right to point that out.
You know, Justin Raimondo, that was his his big contribution was libertarian realism that says that at the end of the day, all foreign policy comes down to domestic politics, right?
Like Clinton expanding NATO so he could get Polish votes in Illinois in 1996 or, you know, whatever other million examples.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, listen, I really appreciate your time on the show, Giorgio.
I always learn a lot.
And I'm glad to see you writing for Al Arabi.
That's interesting.
And it's a very interesting paper.
Those guys, I don't know if it's still a paper or not.
Great website.
And then here you are.
OK, so that one, I'm sorry, is called Biden and the Saudi quagmire in Yemen.
And then at Middle East Institute, Oman plays it safe on Israel and at Responsible Statecraft.
That's the Quincy Institute over there.
The U.S. push for Sudan to normalize relations with Israel won't be so easy.
Appreciate your time.
Oh, that that's a previous article.
Oh, you had a more recent one.
I'm sorry, man.
Say that one.
I believe this one is called Trump twists Sudan's arm.
And that one's at Responsible Statecraft, too.
Yes.
OK.
And then at Responsible Statecraft, Trump twists Sudan's arm.
And there's one more before that, too.
Thanks again for your time.
I appreciate it.
Hey, Scott, thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
Have a good one.
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