Category Archives: UAE

Dubai’s skyscrapers, stained by the blood of migrant workers

Nesrine Malik writes:

Visiting Dubai on a work trip, I was wandering the resplendent hallways of my a hotel searching for an ATM when a commotion occurred. Some of the hotel staff were scurrying about, looking obviously distressed. I asked one of them if there was any trouble and he responded with a glossy smile. There was no trouble, madam, and was there anything he could help me with?

A few hours later, I discovered that there had indeed been trouble. A man – an Indian worker – had jumped from Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, and a symbol of Dubai’s prowess. It is a needle-shaped skyscraper which impales the bleak Dubai sky.

Originally known as Burj Dubai, the building was planned during the city’s orgiastic construction phase, where the sky was the limit, but completed after the bubble had burst. It was then renamed in honour of Abu Dhabi’s ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, who rescued Dubai from its debt crisis.

Gossip about the suicide was horrifyingly callous. “It only took 10 months” [after the opening of the hotel], one person said. “He’s inaugurated the building,” another almost laughed. “Why did he jump?” I asked. People shrugged. He’s probably an expatriate worker, I was told – it’s usually them.

There is nothing remarkable about people being desensitised to suicides. London commuters on the underground can probably understand, but when the suicides are almost exclusively from one minority working in certain jobs, it is nothing short of inhumane. The dark underbelly of Dubai is never far away and sometimes we see the effect of this uglier side lying lifeless on a pavement.

The man, apparently an Indian cleaner who had been denied a holiday, was scraped off the floor on which he landed on and life went back to normal. Tourists and expats lapped up the luxury and sunshine, while workers from south Asia, little moving dots on the facades of the buildings under construction throughout the city, were ferried in buses to and from their living quarters. A couple of days later, another Indian man jumped from Jumeirah Lake Towers.

The Indian consulate in Dubai has since revealed that at least two Indian expats commit suicide each week. The consul-general stated that most are blue-collar workers who are either semi-skilled or skilled.

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Secret desert force set up by Blackwater’s founder

The New York Times reports from Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates:

Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.

The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.

Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.

The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.

The U.A.E.’s rulers, viewing their own military as inadequate, also hope that the troops could blunt the regional aggression of Iran, the country’s biggest foe, the former employees said. The training camp, located on a sprawling Emirati base called Zayed Military City, is hidden behind concrete walls laced with barbed wire. Photographs show rows of identical yellow temporary buildings, used for barracks and mess halls, and a motor pool, which houses Humvees and fuel trucks. The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, are trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, according to the former employees and American officials.

In outsourcing critical parts of their defense to mercenaries — the soldiers of choice for medieval kings, Italian Renaissance dukes and African dictators — the Emiratis have begun a new era in the boom in wartime contracting that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And by relying on a force largely created by Americans, they have introduced a volatile element in an already combustible region where the United States is widely viewed with suspicion.

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Bahrain regime promoting sectarian division

Marc Lynch writes:

While the American and international debate over Libya continues, the situation in Bahrain has just taken a sharp turn for the worse. A brutal crackdown on the protestors followed the controversial entry of security forces from Saudi Arabia and three other GCC states. Media access has been curtailed, with journalists finding it difficult to gain entry to the Kingdom (I was supposed to be in Bahrain right now myself, but elected not to try after several journalists let me know that they were being denied entry and several Embassies in Doha warned me off). The road to political compromise and meaningful reform now appears to be blocked, which places the long-term viability of the Bahraini regime in serious question.

The response of the Bahraini regime has implications far beyond the borders of the tiny island Kingdom — not only because along with Libya it has turned the hopeful Arab uprisings into something uglier, but because it is unleashing a regionwide resurgence of sectarian Sunni-Shi’a animosity. Regional actors have enthusiastically bought in to the sectarian framing, with Saudi Arabia fanning the flames of sectarian hostility in defense of the Bahraini regime and leading Shia figures rising to the defense of the protestors. The tenor of Sunni-Shi’a relations across the region is suddenly worse than at any time since the frightening days following the spread of the viral video of Sadrists celebrating the execution of Saddam Hussein.

The sectarian framing in Bahrain is a deliberate regime strategy, not an obvious “reality.” The Bahraini protest movement, which emerged out of years of online and offline activism and campaigns, explicitly rejected sectarianism and sought to emphasize instead calls for democratic reform and national unity. While a majority of the protestors were Shi’a, like the population of the Kingdom itself, they insisted firmly that they represented the discontent of both Sunnis and Shi’ites, and framed the events as part of the Arab uprisings seen from Tunisia to Libya. Their slogans were about democracy and human rights, not Shi’a particularism, and there is virtually no evidence to support the oft-repeated claim that their efforts were inspired or led by Iran.

Mohammed Ayoob writes:

The real reason for the establishment of the GCC in 1981 was not defense against external enemies threatening the security of GCC states but cooperation against domestic challenges to authoritarian regimes. Its main task was and continues to be coordination of internal security measures, including sharing of intelligence, aimed at controlling and suppressing the populations of member states in order to provide security to the autocratic monarchies of the Persian Gulf. The establishment of the GCC was in large measure a reaction on the part of the Gulf monarchies to the Iranian revolution of 1979 in which people’s power toppled the strongest autocracy in the neighborhood. The Arab autocracies of the Gulf did not want to share the Shah’s fate.

That ensuring the security of autocratic regimes was the principal reason for the existence of GCC has become crystal clear with the military intervention by Saudi-led forces in Bahrain to put down the democracy movement and prevent the freedom contagion from spreading to other parts of the Gulf. It is true that the Saudis are apprehensive of the Shia majority coming to power in Bahrain because of the impact it could have on its own restive Shia minority in the oil-rich east of the country. Riyadh is also worried about the impact of a change in regime in Bahrain on the balance of power between Saudi Arabia and Iran in the region. (One can, however, argue that Saudi military intervention in Bahrain’s affairs will in fact redound to Iran’s benefit in the long run by further de-legitimizing the al-Khalifa rule in Bahrain).

But these are secondary explanations. The primary concern of the Arab autocracies in the Gulf is the suppression of democratic movements regardless of the sectarian character of the populations engaging in democratic struggles. They are worried that if any of the autocracies fall or even reach a substantial compromise with democratic movements it will have a domino effect in the entire Gulf region consigning all of them to the dustbin of history. The GCC was established as an instrument to protect and prolong autocratic rule on the Arabian littoral of the Gulf. Its military operation in Bahrain has clearly shown this true colors.

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Arming democracy’s opponents

The Daily Telegraph reports:

Facing budget cuts at home, western arms firms are desperate for a share of the lucrative Middle East market. “The post-financial crisis reality,” said Herve Guillou, president of Cassidian Systems, a subsidiary of European aviation defence group EADS, “is that today it is clearly the Middle East that is seeing the biggest growth.” Iran’s growing military power has pushed Gulf states into their largest-ever military build up, making purchases worth £76 billion from the US alone in 2010. The largest acquisitions were made by Saudi Arabia, which is spending £41 billion on F-15 fighter jets and upgrades for its naval fleet.

The six Gulf Cooperation Council countries – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait – along with Jordan will spend another £41 billion on defence in 2011, according to Frost and Sullivan, a research firm.

Libya and Egypt are among the states which have representatives at IDEX [the International Defence Exhibition and Conference in Abu Dhabi]. Global Industrial and Defence Solutions, a Pakistani exhibitor, lists Libya as being among the “key customers of our products.” Renault also issued a press release before the exhibition, saying it had contracted to supply military trucks to Egypt. Libya’s al-Musallah magazine, which covers arms-trade related issues in the country, is also among the exhibitors.

Simon Jenkins writes:

I must be missing something. The present British government, like its predecessor, claims to pursue a policy of “liberal interventionism”, seeking the downfall of undemocratic regimes round the globe, notably in the Muslim world. The same British government, again like its predecessor, sends these undemocratic regimes copious weapons to suppress the only plausible means of the said downfall, popular insurrection. The contradiction is glaring.

Downing Street is clearly embarrassed by Egypt, Bahrain and Libya having had the impertinence to rebel just as David Cameron was embarking on an important arms-sales trip to the Gulf, not an area much addicted to democracy. Fifty British arms makers were present at last year’s sickening Libyan arms fair, while the resulting weapons are reportedly prominent in gunning down this week’s rioters. Cameron reads from the Foreign Office script, claiming that all guns, tanks, armoured vehicles, stun grenades, tear gas and riot-control equipment are “covered by assurances that they would not be used in human rights repression”. He must know this is absurd.

What did the FO think Colonel Gaddafi meant to do with sniper rifles and tear-gas grenades – go mole hunting? Britain has tried to cover its publicity flank by “revoking 52 export licences” to Bahrain and Libya for weapons used against demonstrators, in effect admitting its guilt. This merely locks the moral stable after the horse has fled, while also being a poor advertisement for British after-sales service. What is the point of selling someone a gun and telling him not to use it?

Gaddafi turns US and British guns on his own people

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How the Dubai debacle showcased Israeli arrogance and Mossad’s incompetence

In a feature article for GQ Magazine, Ronen Bergman, senior political and military analyst for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, describes the rise and fall of Israel’s Mossad under the leadership of Meir Dagan.

“Dagan’s unique expertise,” Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon once said, “is the separation of an Arab from his head.”

Under Dagan’s command, dozens of Mossad’s elite operatives are now fugitives as a result of the bungled assassination of the Hamas commander, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, in Dubai in January 2010.

The organization Dagan is credited with having resuscitated from a coma has now been thrown into disarray.

[I]n 2002, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tapped Dagan, a former military commander with a reputation for ruthless, brutal efficiency, to restore the spy agency to its former glory and preside over, as he put it, “a Mossad with a knife between its teeth.” “Dagan’s unique expertise,” Sharon said in closed meetings, “is the separation of an Arab from his head.”

Notorious for his aggressive, verbally abusive style of leadership, he is an ideologically rigid man who, according to several people inside the organization, shows the door to anyone who dares to voice an opinion different from his. As one Mossad veteran told me, “It is extremely difficult to get your opinion heard in his presence, unless it supports his. He is unable to accept criticism or even another opinion. It’s almost as if he treats his opposition like an enemy.” Dagan is also reported to have stated on several occasions that he does not believe there is anyone within the Mossad today who is worthy to replace him.

Bergman provides a detailed account of the Dubai operation and the numerous mistakes made by the Israelis in spite of the risks they were running, operating in a hostile country.

As far as the Mossad is concerned, there are two types of countries in the world. There are “base countries” (essentially, the West), in which the Mossad, like most other intelligence agencies, is able to operate with relative ease. In these countries, operatives have access to multiple getaway routes in case of emergency (and there are Israeli embassies to escape to as a last resort); it is assumed that if a Mossad spy is caught in a base country, a discreet solution can likely be found with the assistance of the local intelligence services—an option referred to in the Mossad as the “soft cushion”). “Target countries,” however, are enemy states in which operating undercover is significantly more dangerous. There are no easy escape routes (and no friendly embassy to run to), and being caught in these countries will almost certainly result in physical torture and either a protracted jail term or, quite possibly, death.

[On January 19, 2010] Al-Mabhouh is expected to land in Dubai at 3 p.m. At 1:30, Kevin Daveron [who along with Gail Folliard and Peter Elvinger were the operation’s commanders — each of these being assumed names] leaves his hotel and heads to the team’s designated meeting place—the lobby of a different hotel, where none of the team members is staying, that was selected in advance for its convenient location. On the way to the meeting, he walks through the lobby of a third hotel and enters the rest­room. When he emerges, he is no longer bald but now has a full head of hair and is wearing glasses. The security camera outside the entrance to the men’s and women’s bathrooms was recording all of this in real time. Had an alert guard noticed what was going on, the mission might have ended quite differently, with the target alive and the team members imprisoned in a hostile country.

Gail Folliard also leaves her hotel and on her way to the meeting uses the same restroom entrance as Daveron, from which she too emerges in a wig. Oddly, Folliard and Daveron are the only ones at the meeting who have changed their appearances. Given that the operatives are under the constant gaze of security cameras throughout the city, the “new” Daveron and Folliard run the risk of being linked to the “old” Daveron and Folliard through the identity of the individuals they’ve met with and passed by throughout the day—the kind of mistake that is almost incomprehensible for an elite Mossad team to make.

Despite the fact that Dubai is a hostile environment—a distant Arab state with ties to Iran—many details of the mission suggest the Mossad treated it as if they were operating inside a base country. The use of Payoneer cards is one obvious example. For the most part, prepaid debit cards are only used domestically within the United States, and while Payoneer does issue debit cards that are valid internationally, these are relatively rare. That several of the team members were using the same type of unusual card issued by the same company—one whose CEO, Yuval Tal, is a veteran of an elite Israeli Defense Force commando unit—gave the Dubai police a common denominator to connect the various members of the team.

Why did the Mossad permit things to go so wrong in Dubai? In a word, the answer is leadership. Because Dagan refashioned the Mossad in his own image, and because he drove out anyone who was willing to question his decisions, there was no one in the agency to tell him that the Dubai operation was badly conceived and badly planned. They simply did not believe that a minnow in the world of intelligence services such as Dubai would be any match for Israel’s Caesarea fighters.* As one very senior German intelligence expert told me: “The Israelis’ problem has always been that they underestimate everyone—the Arabs, the Iranians, Hamas. They are always the smartest and think they can hoodwink everyone all the time. A little more respect for the other side—even if you think he is a dumb Arab or a German without imagination—and a little more modesty would have saved us all from this embarrassing entanglement.”

The Dubai fiasco caused a great deal of damage to Israel, to the Mossad, and to its relations with other Western intelligence organizations. It led to unprecedented revelations of Mossad personnel and methods, far more than any previous bungled operation. A number of states who believe that their passports were forged or otherwise misused by the agency have expelled Mossad representatives. The British response in particular was furious. And Israel’s long-standing security-and-intelligence cooperation with Germany has also been dealt a hugely damaging blow. In early June, the head of the Caesarea unit in the Mossad—who had been considered the leading contender to eventually replace Dagan—offered his resignation. As for Dagan’s future, before Dubai he had hoped that the liquidation of Al-Mabhouh would ensure yet another extension of his tenure as director of the agency. But that has not come to pass. At the time of this writing, it is assumed that he will not continue. And so the Mossad “with a knife between its teeth” likely is entering another period of confusion and self-doubt.

“There is no doubt Dagan received an organization on the verge of coma and brought it back to its feet,” one Mossad veteran of many years told me. “He increased its budget, won great successes, and most important, he rebuilt its pride. The problem is that multiplying its volume of activity many times over came with the price of compromising on security protocols. And along with success came hubris. Together, they brought the Dubai debacle. And now, in some areas, his successor will find a Mossad even worse off than Dagan found in 2002.”

*Most of the operatives here are members of a secretive unit within the Mossad known as Caesarea, a self-contained organization that is responsible for the agency’s most dangerous and critical missions: assassinations, sabotage, penetration of high-security installations. Caesarea’s “fighters,” as they are known, are the elite of the Mossad. They rarely interact with other operatives and stay away from Mossad headquarters north of Tel Aviv, instead undergoing intensive training at a separate facility to which no one else in the agency has access. They are forbidden from ever using their real names, even in private conversation, and—with the exception of their spouses—their families and closest friends are unaware of what they do. As one longtime Caesarea fighter recently told me, “If the Mossad is the temple of Israel’s intelligence community, then Caesarea is its holy of holies.”

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State Dept spokesman P J Crowley is a liar

Richard Silverstein writes:

On February 25, 2010, State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley lied when he told a press conference that he wasn’t aware of any request from Dubai for assistance in tracking the Mossad killers of Mahmoud al-Mabouh. To those who say that Wikileaks hasn’t told us anything we didn’t already know–think again.

Wikileaks has just released a February 24, 2010 cable in which the embassy relays the specific credit card numbers used by 14 of the 27 known Mossad suspects to State with a request for assistance from authorities investigating the killing, and confirms that the UAE foreign minister made the exact same request directly to Secretary Clinton on February 23rd:

On the margins of a meeting with visiting Secretary [of Energy] Chu, on Feb 24 MFA Minister of State Gargash made a formal request to the Ambassador for assistance in providing cardholder details and related information or credit cards reportedly issued by a U.S. bank to several suspects in last month’s killing of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai. According to a letter Gargash gave the Ambassador (which transmitted details of the request from Dubai Security authorities to the UAE Central Bank), the credit cards were issued by MetaBank, in Iowa.

Comment: Ambassador requests expeditious handling of and reply to the UAEG request, which was also raised by UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed in a February 23 meeting with Secretary Clinton in Washington.

Given that the State of Israel’s role in the assassination of Mahmoud al Mabhouh and in the theft and fraudulent use of British and other passports, it comes as no surprise that as these facts become matters of public record, the new chief of Mossad is about to issue an apology to the British government and promise not to commit such crimes in the future. This is not to suggest that either the Israelis or the British are opposed to similar assassinations being conducted in the future — merely that Mossad is expected operate its death squads in such a way that Israel’s allies can be saved from embarrassment.

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WikiLeaks to show Israel role in Hamas murder

Gulf News reports:

The founder of WikiLeaks has said leaked US diplomatic cables, to be released soon, will prove that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad was involved in the murder of Hamas commander Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in Dubai last January.

The statement by Julian Assange in an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday, proves what the Dubai Police have been saying all along, police chief Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim told Gulf News Thursday.

“The documents will surely prove to those who doubted us,” Lt Gen Dahi said, “but I still believe that some people will still deny the fact, despite the leaked documents.”

Assange said his website is due to release 3,700 more files related to Israel particularly dealing with the Al Mabhouh assassination in Dubai and the second Lebanon war.

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Dubai murder suspect arrested in Canada

(Update below)
Gulf News reports:

Dubai Police Chief Tuesday confirmed the arrest in Canada of a suspect, believed to be involved in the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud Al Mabhouh last January.

Speaking to reporters, Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim said Canadian authorities have arrested another suspect who is connected to the murder of Al Mabhouh that took place in a Dubai Hotel on January 19.

Lt Gen Dahi refused to give further details, but according to Al Ittihad Arabic daily, the suspect was one two people caught by the hotel’s CCTV cameras wearing tennis gears as they staked out Al Mabhouh’s room in the Bustan Rotana Hotel.

Update: Richard Silverstein reports: “Israel’s Channel 10 has revealed that the alias of the arrested Mossad agent is Eric Rassineux. His passport is displayed here. It is the first Israeli source also to confirm that Canada is holding him.”

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Is Payoneer under US investigation for role in Dubai murder?

The Wall Street Journal reports:

American investigators, cooperating in a probe of the January assassination of a top Palestinian leader in Dubai, have identified a handful of U.S.-based companies believed to have been used to transfer money to suspects in the case, a finding that brings international authorities closer to identifying who funded the operation.

The findings show American authorities playing a bigger role in the investigation than previously revealed. The case is especially delicate for the U.S., because Dubai police have said their prime suspect in the case is Mossad, the intelligence service of Israel, a key U.S. ally.

International investigators see money transfers made through the U.S. companies as key clues in a globe-spanning manhunt aimed at identifying more than two dozen suspects in the case, according to officials familiar with the matter.

The U.S. companies identified by investigators include Internet-based businesses that match freelance job-seekers with employers and process payments between the two sides. Authorities have identified financial transfers from several of these intermediary businesses into prepaid, cash-card accounts used by suspects in the Dubai killing, according to international investigators.

U.S. authorities say they don’t believe the intermediary companies had any way of knowing the money would be used in the plot, according to a U.S. official familiar with the investigation.

Instead, U.S. investigators believe, suspects might have posed as freelancers in order to get money in a way that obscured their funding source, and used the money for operational expenses, such as buying plane tickets.

The next step in the investigation would be to determine who the employers were in the transactions.

Representatives of several companies identified in the probe said they hadn’t been contacted by U.S. authorities and weren’t aware of any investigation.

Note that the report says “several companies” — it does not say “all the companies” — which leaves open the possibility that Payoneer, the New York-based company run by the former IDF special ops commando, Yuval Tal, is indeed under investigation.

In March Al Jazeera reported: “The UAE central bank is investigating how 24 suspects obtained credit cards from US company, Payoneer. Although registered in the US, Payoneer’s employees are mostly in Israel, this creating a stir on the internet about possible Mossad connections.”

In March, Gulf News reported:

The Payoneer connection unveils a network of links to Israel, specifically its intelligence community.

Its CEO is Yuval Tal, an Israeli citizen who, according to media reports, described himself as a former Israeli special forces commando in a 2006 Fox News interview.

Clips of the interview on video sharing websites have been removed.

However, a person who said he met Tal a couple of times but did not want to be named told Gulf News that “there is no question in my mind that Yuval has contacts with [Israel’s spy agency] Mossad”.
He recalled a conversation Tal had with attendees of a Jewish charity event in New York, where he spoke of his connections with Mossad.

“Yuval was entertaining a small group of people with tales of his IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] exploits… Specifically, he was commending Israeli intelligence and how Mossad and [Israel’s internal security agency] Shin Bet always gave him great information on his commando raids. He said his ‘colleagues’ are tracking [Hamas leaders Khaled] Mesha’al and [Esmail] Haniyeh’s movements almost every day,” he said.

Payoneer is held by three venture capital firms: Greylock Partners, Carmel Ventures, and Crossbar Capital.
Greylock, which has offices in the US, India and Herzliya, Israel, was established by Moshe Mor, a former military intelligence captain in the Israeli army.

Carmel Ventures is an Israeli venture capital fund based in Herzliya. Crossbar Partners is run by Charlie Federman, who is also managing director of the BRM Group, a venture capital fund also in Herzliya that was founded by Nir and Eli Barkat, the former of whom is the mayor of occupied Jerusalem.

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UAE ambassador confirms: Palestine is the core issue

During a stage interview with Yousel al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, Jeffrey Goldberg made it clear that even when acting as a representative of The Atlantic and helping facilitate a forum in Aspen, Colorado, he still sees himself first and foremost as an Israeli.

When the ambassador pointed out that Iran’s nuclear program presents a greater risk to the UAE than it does to the US — the US being separated from Iran by two oceans — Goldberg requested clarification. Was he being addressed as an American or as a “representative of the Jewish people”? In Goldberg’s mind, to be Jewish means to have ones heart in Israel irrespective of where one might reside on the planet.

As Goldberg’s blog posts after the interview also made clear, when it comes to Iran, the topic that interests him above all else right now is pumping up support for a military strike against Iran. When the UAE ambassador pointed out that Palestine is the core issue in the region, Goldberg simply glossed over the fact.

This is the key section of the interview — the part Goldberg ignored, as did his friend Eli Lake at the Washington Times, when pumping out this week’s rendition of Israel’s Arabs-united-against-Iran narrative. Here the ambassador makes it clear that the only significant leverage Obama has on the issue of Iran is to push hard for the creation of a Palestinian state.

YOUSEF AL OTAIBA: I think President Obama has inherited two very difficult campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has inherited the worst financial crisis since 1929. He is now dealing with what seems to be an unfixable oil spill, not just environmentally, but economically, from an energy standpoint. So President Obama has his hands full.

Do I think he recognize the threat from Iran? Yes, I do. Do I think he has very limited options and not necessarily a lot of ability to fix it? Yes. I think President Obama is just constrained with the lack of resources and tools at his disposal. And if he’s heard anything from the Arab leaders that he talks to, most of them, and I’m fairly sure that King Abdullah when he was here mentioned the same thing.

For him to really make progress on the Iran issue and to deal with extremism and to deal with terrorism in the region, to deal with radicalized home-grown terrorism in the U.S., you need to address the peace process. That is the one core issue everyone tends to blame, and that’s what the people hang all their problems on.

Well, the Palestinians are, you know, they are — they don’t have a country, they are abused, they are oppressed, and the U.S. always sides with Israel. So the sooner U.S. appears to be objective and impartial and create a Palestinian state, we take that argument away from everyone, and that is in everyone’s best interest.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Why would that stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon?

OTAIBA: It won’t stop. It will get you all the Arab countries more aligned on containing Iran because now they use Palestine as an excuse, and the Palestine issue is a deep political problem. And I’m not saying it’s only the U.S.’ fault, I’m saying it is as much Israel and Palestine’s fault for not making any progress on it themselves. But lack of their kind of commitment, the U.S. needs to step in and say, you need to do this. And you need to do this for your sake, for our sake, and for the region’s sake. [Emphasis mine.]

So, contrary to the claims being made by Jeffrey Goldberg and others in the Israel lobby, the principal call coming from the Arab world is not for the US to strike Iran but rather that it apply its influence on Israel and hasten the creation of a Palestinian state.

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Who’s pushing to strike Iran?

[Update: See this post which confirms that Goldberg twisted the narrative here.]

After an exchange between the UAE ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba and Jeffrey Goldberg on Tuesday we learn that “the UAE would sooner see military action against Iran’s nuclear program than see the program succeed” — at least that’s what Goldberg says.

But the ambassador also said: “There are many countries in the region who, if they lack the assurance the US is willing to confront Iran, they will start running for cover towards Iran.”

In other words, countries like the UAE will ultimately align themselves with whichever ends up being the most durable power in the region. Even so, autocratic rulers who rely on American support would naturally like the defender of their tenuous legitimacy to maintain its regional dominance.

The Washington Times quotes from the same exchange between Goldberg and al-Otaiba in Aspen:

“I think it’s a cost-benefit analysis,” Mr al-Otaiba said. “I think despite the large amount of trade we do with Iran, which is close to $12 billion … there will be consequences, there will be a backlash and there will be problems with people protesting and rioting and very unhappy that there is an outside force attacking a Muslim country; that is going to happen no matter what.”

“If you are asking me, ‘Am I willing to live with that versus living with a nuclear Iran?,’ my answer is still the same: ‘We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.’ I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the UAE.”

And this is how Goldberg interprets the UAE/Arab position:

It is not only Israel that fears the rise of a nuclear Iran; the Arabs, if anything, fear such a development to a greater degree. The Jews and Arabs have been fighting for one hundred years. The Arabs and the Persians have been going at for a thousand. The idea of a group of Persian Shi’ites having possession of a nuclear bomb scares Arab leader like nothing else — it certainly scares them more than the reality of the Jewish bomb.

Goldberg speaks for Netanyahu and the lobby, but the UAE government does not accept his interpretation of their ambassador’s remarks:

The UAE Assistant Foreign Minister for Political Affairs, Tareq al Haidan said today that the statements attributed by the Washington Times to the UAE Ambassador to the United States, Youssef al Otaiba “are not precise”.

“These statements came as part of general discussions held on the sidelines of an unofficial gathering and were taken out of their context in which Mr. Otaiba was speaking,” Mr al Haidanl said.

“Iran is a neighboring country and we maintain historic relations with it.” He stressed that “the UAE respects and believes in the sovereignty of other states and in the principle of non-interference, of all forms, in their internal affairs.”

“Already, the UAE declared, more than one time and in official statements issued by the Foreign Ministry, its position on the Iranian nuclear issue,” Mr al Haidan added.

“The UAE totally rejects the use of force as a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue and rather calls for a solution through political means that are based on the international legitimacy, transparency as well as the need for working, through the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], on the right of all states to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

“The UAE, at the same time, believes in the need of keeping the Gulf region free of nuclear weapons,” Mr al Haidan said.

As for whether the Arab world is as vexed about Iran as Goldberg claims, perhaps a clearer indication came from one of Israel’s few allies, Jordan, when King Abdullah spoke to the Wall Street Journal in April:

WSJ: What do you think when you look at Iran and international policy. There’s a lot of talk now about how active Iran is in Iraq as far as trying to push their political clients. Do you see it active in Hezbollah/Lebanon? In the Palestinian territories? Is the engagement track working?

HM KING ABDULLAH: Again, I look at it from a different angle. If there are those that are saying that Iran is playing mischief, then I say it is being allowed to play mischief. The platform they use is the injustice of the Palestinians and Jerusalem. So if you start taking those cards off the table, then Iranian influence on the Mediterranean through Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza diminishes or becomes non existent. My view is that I am really against any military action in Iran, that is Pandora’s box. But by dealing with the core issue, that’s when you start taking cards away from the Iranian regime.

The core issue is Palestine — not an Iranian bomb — and a strike on Iran, that’s Pandora’s box.

Just because Obama put on a shameless performance yesterday to please the Israelis and the lobby, and just because there is no evidence that he is a man of principle, doesn’t mean he’s stupid. He knows what Pandora’s box looks like and he’s just as reluctant as anyone else to find out what it contains.

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Poland arrests alleged Mossad agent in connection with Hamas commander’s murder

For almost six months, at least 32 Mossad agents wanted in connection with the murder of the Hamas commander, Mahmoud Mabhouh, have managed to avoid arrest. Now that Uri Brodsky (or whatever his real name might be) has been caught, the Israeli government is going to be forced to break its silence on the case. For the Israelis, still struggling to deal with the political fallout from the Mavi Marmara massacre, the timing could not be worse.

The National reports:

Polish police have arrested a suspected Mossad agent sought by German authorities on suspicion of helping prepare for the assassination of Mahmoud al Mabhouh, a senior Hamas figure, in a Dubai hotel in January.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Germany said the man was detained by Polish police on suspicion of illegally obtaining a German passport for one of the members of the hit squad.

Authorities in Poland were reviewing a request to extradite him to Germany, the office said.

“A person was arrested in Poland based on a European arrest warrant issued by Germany, and his extradition has been requested,” a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said. “The matter is now in the hands of the Polish authorities.”

The Dubai Police chief, Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim, said last night that his department had been informed of the arrest. He could not be reached for further comment.

The German spokesman said the arrest was linked to the German investigation into the illegal obtaining of a passport in the name of Michael Bodenheimer, which was allegedly used by one of the assassins.

“There is a suspicion that he was involved in intelligence activity and that the procurement of the passport was linked to that,” the spokesman said, adding that the arrest took place at the Frederic Chopin International Airport in Warsaw early this month.

On February 23, 2010, Der Spiegel reported:

In the early summer of 2009, a man named Michael Bodenheimer went to the local residents’ registration office in Cologne, where he applied for a new passport and a new identification card. He claimed that he was a German citizen, unmarried, who had been born in Israel. He invoked Article 116 of the Germany constitution, which permits individuals persecuted by the Nazi regime, as well as family members who were expatriated, to regain German citizenship. He presented the Cologne authorities with the supposed marriage certificate of his parents and an Israeli passport, issued in Tel Aviv in November 2008.

Bodenheimer provided the authorities with an address in Cologne’s Eigelstein district. However his name is not listed on the mailbox at the address, a modest beige-colored apartment building. The building is in an area near the train station and has a high turnover of tenants — the perfect place for someone who doesn’t want to be noticed.

Bodenheimer claimed that his Israeli residence was in Herzliya, a city north of Tel Aviv. But the trail ends there, in the city’s business district. Although Michael Bodenheimer is listed as the name of a company in the lobby of a modern, four-story office building, a security guard says that the company moved out half a year ago. As coincidence would have it, the Mossad headquarters is only one kilometer away.

Bodenheimer received his German papers on June 18, and it seems very likely that the assassination was completed with the help of an official German government document. Bodenheimer was apparently in charge of communications for the hit team. The Cologne public prosecutor’s office launched an investigation on Friday into alleged document falsification. Federal prosecutors are considering initiating an investigation into possible activities by intelligence agents. Because of such investigations, the affair could expand into a serious strain on German-Israeli relations.

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Sanctions-busting is in Dubai’s DNA

In The Guardian, Raymond Barrett writes:

Dubai – separated from Iran by the waters of the Gulf – has excelled as a channel for circumventing the variety of international sanctions that have built up over the decades. Be it restrictions on badly needed aviation spare parts, “dual use” electronics or blackballed financial institutions, Dubai is one of several major ventricles through which contraband and money flow in and out of Iran.

Yet Dubai has always preferred the term “re-exporting” to “sanctions busting”, and the process itself is relatively straightforward. Iranian firms establish legitimate trading concerns in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone or in the bustling district of Deira close to the city’s famous reek; prohibited items are then purchased, with Dubai listed as the final destination on the manifest. Depending on the scale of the enterprise, cargo planes or diesel-powered dhows then transport the goods to Iranian ports such as Bandar Abbas or Kish.

Dubai has long been a vibrant regional entrepot for trade, both legitimate and illicit, and this was a natural role for it to assume. Along with an estimated 400,000 Iranians living in Dubai, around 40% of the “local” population are ajam – an Arabic term used to denote emigrants from the southern coast of Iran who moved to Dubai more than a century ago.

Over the years, this Dubai connection has morphed into a $10bn-a-year import/export industry vital to both parties and supplying Iran with everything from electronics to cosmetics.

While much of the re-export trade involves innocuous consumer goods such as air-conditioners and tyres, criminal cases in US courts occasionally shine a light on “sanctions busters”. In the eyes of the US department of justice, the big fish that got away must be AQ Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, who sold centrifuges used to enrich uranium to Tehran while using Dubai as the trans-shipment point.

As America’s desire to pursue sanctions has waxed and waned under different presidents, Dubai has rolled with the prevailing winds. When the shortlived “Persian detente” of the latter Clinton years changed to the “axis of evil” mantra of the junior Bush administration, Dubai demurred accordingly. The local authorities were always most welcoming when US officials swept into town calling for tougher enforcement of export controls and financial transactions. While such visits were sometimes followed by minor crackdowns, words alone were never going to get of rid of a business model embedded deep in Dubai’s DNA.

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Dubai tells spies to clear out

Newsweek reports:

Police in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai have advised all foreign spies to get out of town—and preferably out of the region—within a week. Although it is widely known in international spy circles, news of the expulsion threat has received little circulation beyond media in the Arab world. However, Gulf News, a newspaper based in Dubai, said the demand that foreign spies leave the area was confirmed to it by Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai’s police chief and leader of the investigation into the Mahmoud al-Mabhouh murder.

“Those spies that are currently present in the Gulf must leave the region within one week. If not, then we will cross that bridge when we come to it,” Tamim reportedly said. When asked whether the spies he was talking about were holders of European passports, Tamim said “Europeans and others,” but offered no further details.

Gulf News says:

The ultimatum indicates that Dubai Police are aware of the identities of spies operating in the UAE and the Gulf region and appears to be a warning of exposure if they do not comply.

If Dubai is really serious about kicking out its resident spies, the consequences will be far reaching.

As Zvi Bar’el noted earlier this month:

Dubai has several masks. It helps Iran, but behind its back it provides the United States with an opportunity to gather intelligence about that country. The U.S. Consulate in Dubai also operates as a station for gathering information and enlisting agents. A few years ago the U.S. State Department wanted to close the consulate, but the CIA succeeded in convincing it to leave it open and even to boost the number of employees so that it could handle the hundreds and perhaps thousands of Iranians who come to request visas.

It’s not only the U.S. intelligence services that love Dubai: The tremendous scope of commerce and the large number of companies and foreign agencies there are an excellent cover and an appropriate disguise for any city of spies.

Dubai has now replaced 20th-century Istanbul, Nicosia, Casablanca and Berlin as a hotbed of spying activity. Russians exchange information with Pakistanis, Afghans and Chechens trade tactics, members of Hezbollah convert illegal money and diamonds in bank transactions “for widows and orphans,” and all while enjoying car races and performances by international artists.

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What the Dubai assassination reveals

Robert Baer considers some of the wider implications of the assassination of the Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai in January:

If Mossad was indeed responsible, it means that blame for Mabhouh’s assassination can be put at the doorstep of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel’s Prime Minister has historically approved hits staged in countries with which Israel is not at war. Such details are unlikely to be made public any time soon, but it does make you wonder what the deliberations might have been leading up to Mabhouh’s assassination.

More than a few Middle East hands shrugged their shoulders at the question: Netanyahu wouldn’t have cared whether Israel was fingered for the assassination of Mabhouh or not. The whole point, they argue, was to send a reminder to Israel’s enemies that it will eliminate them anywhere it can find them. When Mossad went after the Palestinian Black September movement in retaliation for the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, it didn’t give a damn about the diplomatic blowback. It was a case of an eye for an eye, and the belief that the best deterrence is to strike fear into your enemies.

But the evidence that the assassins tried to make it look as if Mabhouh died in his sleep belies the deterrence explanation. And it doesn’t answer the question why Mossad would risk exposing 26 operatives. A small intelligence service, Mossad cannot afford to take this many people out of circulation by having their pictures beamed around the world. It also doesn’t explain why the alleged assassins stole the identities of Israeli citizens. Israelis may be proud that their secret service can reach its enemies anywhere, but it serves no national or political interests to expose their own people to retribution.

If Netanyahu authorized the hit, though, the real question is whether he really considered the strategic implications. Look at the map. If Israel goes ahead and bombs Iran’s nuclear facilities, it will need over-flight clearances from the Gulf Arabs. Antagonizing the U.A.E. in this way, leaving almost no doubt Israel was behind Mabhouh’s assassination, does not seem the best way to facilitate such clearances.

Baer makes a good point. If everything had gone as planned not only would there have been no news about the killing, but Hamas’ leaders themselves would have had little reason to doubt that Mabhouh had died of natural causes.

As for Netanyahu’s strategic thinking, there are at least two ways of interpreting his action. Either it was purely opportunistic and a decision made without clearly thinking through the implications. Or, it can be taken as further evidence that despite the Israeli leader’s bellicose posture he does in fact have no intention of asking Arab states for over-flight clearances because — and this would be Israel’s most closely guarded secret — Netanyahu has in truth no intention of attacking Iran and that his thinly veiled threats are hollow.

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Dubai assassins employed by US companies

Bloomberg reports:

Suspected assassins of a Hamas leader in Dubai “fraudulently” acquired prepaid payroll cards and stole identities to obtain jobs at U.S. companies, according to card-issuer MetaBank.

Authorities informed Meta, a unit of publicly traded Meta Financial Group Inc., that the suspects used fake passports to get cards issued by the firm and other banks, according to an e- mailed statement from Meta yesterday. The lender, rooted in regions of Iowa and South Dakota tied to farming, said it followed proper procedures and that the people weren’t on federal lists designed to block potential terrorists.

“No other readily apparent method existed for Meta to determine that identity theft had been perpetrated on valid governments and their citizens,” said MetaBank, based in Storm Lake, Iowa.

Fourteen of the suspects in the January killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh used payment cards issued by MetaBank to book hotel rooms and pay for air travel, Dubai police said last month. Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim accused Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, of orchestrating the murder of al-Mabhouh, a founder of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Palestinian movement Hamas.

Next question: which US companies?

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Dubai police chief says to seek Netanyahu arrest

Reuters reports:

Dubai’s police chief plans to seek the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Israel’s spy agency over the killing of a Hamas leader in the emirate, Al Jazeera television reported.

Dahi Khalfan Tamim “said he would ask the Dubai prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for … Netanyahu and the head of Mossad,” the television said. It did not give details.

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