Syrian Civil War Developments

[Tennetc]

I'm probably going to be lambasted for this post of mine but I've got this very strong opinion of the Middle East (less Israel) in general: if they are not fighting someone else, they are fighting each other.

International support is not going to do shit, sooner or later they are going to kill each other again over something. It's as though.. how do I phrase it appropriately.. culture?

About The Milddle East nations, one thing I want to know is what plans do they have for when the oil is all used up, which is predicted to be around 2050.

[Chogy]

About The Milddle East nations, one thing I want to know is what plans do they have for when the oil is all used up, which is predicted to be around 2050.

The wise ruler of an oil-rich ME nation would be using oil revenues to build up an economic infrastructure that will sustain and be profitable post-oil. Desalination plants, foundries, aggregate/concrete, low & medium tech industries.

Education is critical. Petrodollars need to be funneled into teaching the young, who will make the above happen.

Instead, we see Gulfstream jets and solid gold bathroom fixtures. I don't think the future will be very bright for some of those nations.

[astralis]

The wise ruler of an oil-rich ME nation would be using oil revenues to build up an economic infrastructure that will sustain and be profitable post-oil. Desalination plants, foundries, aggregate/concrete, low & medium tech industries.

Education is critical. Petrodollars need to be funneled into teaching the young, who will make the above happen.

Instead, we see Gulfstream jets and solid gold bathroom fixtures. I don't think the future will be very bright for some of those nations.

yup, precisely.

UAE's probably the best out of all of them, although as with the other arab states there's a huge fixation on the showy, expensive flipperies. even then, in terms of development, there's a fixation on cool-looking infrastructure, creating "science and technology" cities which don't seem too sustainable. it's akin to US college problem of a glut of "communications" majors in the US; for young wealthy arabs, why bother with hard S&T when one can just go into religious studies?

also there's the arab cultural bias against doing manual labor. i recall going through dubai in 2010 and seeing vast colonies of imported southeast asian/filipino labor. indian labor in the less well-to-do areas.

along with huge, empty skyscrapers and half-deserted malls-- all newer and stuffed with more technology than their equivalent in the US (every hotel elevator had nice flat screen LCDs). i went to a mall and bought some PinkBerry yogurt (staffed by filipinos, from manager on down) and walked along an empty promenade. i drove by a half-built "S&T city" whose completion had been postponed indefinitely due to dubai's then-dead economy. beautiful half-completed infrastructure and immaculate gardens-- which were still being fed enormous amounts of water in the desert sun.

the only part of dubai which felt remotely alive was the Old Quarter. i have a feeling when oil has had its day, all the new stuff will sink back into the sand and the Old Quarter will be the only thing left, just as it was there in the beginning.

and that's the -best- of the oil states.

[JAD_333]

yup, precisely.

UAE's probably the best out of all of them, although as with the other arab states there's a huge fixation on the showy, expensive flipperies. even then, in terms of development, there's a fixation on cool-looking infrastructure, creating "science and technology" cities which don't seem too sustainable. it's akin to US college problem of a glut of "communications" majors in the US; for young wealthy arabs, why bother with hard S&T when one can just go into religious studies?

also there's the arab cultural bias against doing manual labor. i recall going through dubai in 2010 and seeing vast colonies of imported southeast asian/filipino labor. indian labor in the less well-to-do areas.

along with huge, empty skyscrapers and half-deserted malls-- all newer and stuffed with more technology than their equivalent in the US (every hotel elevator had nice flat screen LCDs). i went to a mall and bought some PinkBerry yogurt (staffed by filipinos, from manager on down) and walked along an empty promenade. i drove by a half-built "S&T city" whose completion had been postponed indefinitely due to dubai's then-dead economy. beautiful half-completed infrastructure and immaculate gardens-- which were still being fed enormous amounts of water in the desert sun.

the only part of dubai which felt remotely alive was the Old Quarter. i have a feeling when oil has had its day, all the new stuff will sink back into the sand and the Old Quarter will be the only thing left, just as it was there in the beginning.

and that's the -best- of the oil states.

wow...it's still like that. I was in Kuwait in the 1970s and saw a beautiful 4-lane highway that simple ended in the desert. There was a saying out there that when the ashtrays got full, it was time to buy a new car.

The suggestion made by someone that the oil countries need to build alternate economies would seem to make sense, but when you look at their arid topography and their geographical locations, it's hard to imagine them being bustling economic countries. I think Iraq and Iran will do ok in the long run, but Saudia Arabia, Kuwait and the Emirates will struggle when the oil is gone.

[citanon]

It's hard for any society to make radical change in their life style and work ethics. Here in the US for example Medicare will make us bankrupt given enough time but are we doing anything about it? And the the magnitude of changes we'd face if we jettisoned Medicare entirely would not amount to the type of change that the Arab countries would experience without oil derived government handouts.

I suspect that both will get down and maybe over the wire. The difference will be that we are a continent onto ourselves with vast and diverse resources and a very deep and wide economy. The Arabs are on a desert with nothing. And then there's the issue of what will all of us do when the oil runs out.

At least the oil won't run out for a while yet. Given the pace of technological improvements and new discoveries I very seriously doubt the 2050 date, or even 2100. Then again the new sources at the moment seem to be mostly in North America. Which all go to prove one thing:

God truly does favor fools, drunkards, and the United States.

[astralis]

JAD,

wow...it's still like that. I was in Kuwait in the 1970s and saw a beautiful 4-lane highway that simple ended in the desert. There was a saying out there that when the ashtrays got full, it was time to buy a new car.

doesn't even begin to cover it. it was something to see SO MANY half-constructed skyscrapers, with the cranes just rusting in the open air. i had a local friend take me to the Formula 1 hotel/racetrack-- only people i saw were the filipino and malaysian waitstaff. because it was just after the recession hit, deep discounts on everything. i got a suite at the Dubai Hilton for 40% under the government allowance.

and every hotel and skyscraper i went to had maybe 10% occupancy. Gordon Ramsey has a restaurant at the Dubai Hilton-- i went in for dinner by myself on a Saturday night and there were two other tables.

abu dhabi wasn't as bad; it had just bailed out dubai at the time. but 30% occupancy vice 10% is still bad. at least i got to see the hotel that had gold bar vending machines.

the only places actually filled with people were the hotel bars, crammed with ex-pats and hookers (russian women decked out in prada if you had the wallet; eastern european in faux fur-- in dubai!-- if you were middle-class; if you went to the Old Quarter there was the "economy" version, indians and i'd guess natives).

while i applaud the UAE attempt to try to diversify its economy, i think it'll ultimately fail. the Emirates-- Dubai in particular-- may survive on its location as a transit point, but not much more. there's no real drive to build a middle-class that's essential towards scientific development. meanwhile the wealthy are literally all at the (many, many) malls. nothing like seeing a woman in an abaya clutching Gucci and strolling into Victoria's Secret...

[Mihais]

The Arabs are on a desert with nothing. And then there's the issue of what will all of us do when the oil runs out.

They'll still have the Sun.Same in Sahara or any other fvcked up place.Lots of energy,lots of empty space(not useful as farmland or for residential purposes) and lots of brain that goes into green energy(not their brain,but that's beside the point.Meaning that in 2 decades such tech will be an order of magnitude more efficient.

[Doktor]

So in effect, they will still produce energy. That wont run out.

No biggie for them then.

[Bigfella]

The trick would be to follow the example of a place like Singapore, which has used wise fiscal management and quality education to create a successful society with no natural resources. Of course, that is all easier said than done. Clearly the UAE is trying to do something like that. Singapore, however, had generations as a mercantile hub behind it & no other choice if it wanted to avoid being absorbed back into Malaysia on poor terms. The Saudi penninsula was basically a bunch of impoverished desert tribes & their more settled versions suddenly gifted seemingly endless wealth - a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies on a vast scale. What usually happens to poor people when they win the lottery? they blow the dough. Unfortunately I suspect the sudden influx of wealth has played to many of the worst aspects in Arab culture just as the 'tiny nation under constant threat' seemed to bring out some useful aspects of Chinese/confucian culture.

Asty. I don't know a lot about Arab culture, but I'm betting there are an awful lot of them who work as hard physically as anyone else. I'm wondering if the phenomenon you saw might be a combination of 'why the hell work if I don't have to' and some sort of cultural bias about poverty = physical work, affluence = no physical work. Your remarks on all the menial staff being Fillipinos etc reminds me of one of my lingering impressions of America when I visited as a kid a couple of times in the early 80s - all the menial jobs seemed to be done by blacks & hispanics. It stuck out to us because we rarely saw either here in Australia. I'm sure that we mispercieved to a point, but it was fascinating to see.

[astralis]

BF,

I'm wondering if the phenomenon you saw might be a combination of 'why the hell work if I don't have to' and some sort of cultural bias about poverty = physical work, affluence = no physical work. Your remarks on all the menial staff being Fillipinos etc reminds me of one of my lingering impressions of America when I visited as a kid a couple of times in the early 80s - all the menial jobs seemed to be done by blacks & hispanics. It stuck out to us because we rarely saw either here in Australia. I'm sure that we mispercieved to a point, but it was fascinating to see.

certainly, it's very cultural in that aspect-- the places where i visited, with the exception of the Old Quarter, were full of wealthy folks.

but it was absolutely striking to see how few natives were working in the malls, or wherever wealthy people were. it's as if they didn't want to be reminded that there were poor natives running around...even the nannies carting kids around were filipino.

similarly, there were huge tent-cities/blockhouses in the desert, housing for tens of thousands of migrant workers. most of the housing was abandoned with the dubai depression.

I'm sure that we mispercieved to a point, but it was fascinating to see.

yeah, i'm sure there's some aspect of that too. then again, dubai and abu dhabi aren't huge, and i had a local friend whom pretty much pointed this out (son of indian migrants, incidentally, one of the relatively few migrants whom made it in dubai). he laughed when i asked him what the chances of the "dubai knowledge village" and the "dubai international academic city" actually working to diversify dubai, before he said more seriously, 'at least they're TRYING.'

the funny thing is that right after warning me that if i ever brought my better half here, i couldn't hold hands with her in public (or else risk getting arrested by the vice police), he told me, "at least this isn't saudi, land of the crazy racist nuts." ah, all relative i guess.

[astralis]

doktor, mihais,

problem with substituting solar energy is that the monopoly won't be half so great, nor will the energy be as transferrable as petroleum.

[Doktor]

doktor, mihais,

problem with substituting solar energy is that the monopoly won't be half so great, nor will the energy be as transferrable as petroleum.

asty,

I have no doubts about it. Well maybe few :) Noone will be willing to spend water to get electricity, or coal, or to make huge solar plants. Especially if there is someone in the NA/ME making it cheaper.

And electricity IS easily transferable. Tho not to USA.

[astralis]

doktor,

Noone will be willing to spend water to get electricity, or coal, or to make huge solar plants. Especially if there is someone in the NA/ME making it cheaper.

the main cost to solar is the one-time cost of actually creating the cells. which means high-tech areas, such as the US, will benefit more. especially the US, because we have lots of desert land lying around too. :)

And electricity IS easily transferable. Tho not to USA.

not as easily transferable as petroleum, which means a bunch of local markets. i know the ME will concentrate on solar as a lifeline (libya is already starting this) but the proceeds aren't going to be anywhere close to what they're making currently.

[Mihais]

Nobody says they'll be the same.And depending on the political situation they might not even get there.But they have an opportunity which is way better than nothing.
They'll still need water and food.Of which there is plenty in Europe and US.And we might need some extra energy.We can make our own energy,but we might not have enough.
At least they won't starve,much.Maybe then they'll have an incentive to go to school.But that future is at least 2 generations away.

[cyppok]

Phase 2 of what I think will happen. Ergo disintegration. (Phase 3 is fracture into multi-states btw with Iraq fracturing as well)

Rebel unity has always been a bit of a fiction. Al-Khatib, a moderate former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, sought to present himself as a conciliatory figure, but he also frequently drew criticism from different groups, for example for extending an offer of negotiations to the regime earlier this year.

Recently, however, things have gotten worse on the ground, to the point where different rebel groups are on the verge of an open war with each other. Particularly bad is the divide between more secular opposition groups and Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra. In this context, al-Khatib's departure is seen by many as a victory for the extremists.

A recent Time Magazine story documented major clashes between Jabhat al-Nusra and the Farouq Brigades, another prominent rebel group. "They are just here to try and impose their rules on us," Farouq's commander Mohammad al-Daher told journalist Rania Abouzeid shortly before being injured in one of several successive attempts on his life. [2]

Moreover, Riad al-Asaad, the top commander of the Free Syrian Army of which the Farouq Brigades are a part, was injured on Monday in a car bomb attack that was attributed to the Syrian regime. However, what is known about the circumstances of his injury shows some remarkable similarities with the methods used to target al-Daher. A full-blown civil war among the rebels is not out of question.

Asia Times Online :: The Syrianization of Syria rolls on

In fact, the period when the Syrian civil war could be described as having two sides may be over. Numerous other rifts besides the moderate-extremist divide, such as the Kurdish issue and the private interests of a myriad of rebel fiefdoms throughout the country, are rearing their heads.

A little-known issue that could be likened to the east-west divide in Libya is the rift between north and south, exemplified by the rivalry of the two largest cities in Syria, Aleppo and Damascus. "Many Damascenes are fearful of being overrun by the North," wrote in his blog Joshua Landis, a prominent Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma. "The time-honored divide between North and South Syria is again gaining relevance. There is precedence for war between north and south. In 1954, at the end of General Shishakli's four year rule of Syria, which developed into the country's first real dictatorship, Syria split in half." [3]

Alawites get their state, the Druze in the south may get another, and you get a Kurdish state added to the Iraqi Kurdistan de-facto sooner or later.