FUNDAMENTALISM ON THE RISE; A SUNNI-JEWISH CONVERGENCE By Ghassan Kadi 13 March 2016

http://thesaker.is/fundamentalism-on-the-rise-a-sunni-jewish-convergence/

Fundamentalism on the rise: a Sunni-Jewish Convergence

22896 ViewsMarch 13, 2016 35 Comments

by Ghassan Kadi

In an article published in the Lebanese daily Assafir on 12th of March 2016 under the title of “Saudi Arabia paves the way for an Israelis war on Lebanon”, (1) the political editor sarcastically and mockingly made a comment to the effect that after the Arab League declared Hezbollah a terrorist organisation, it may formally ask Israel to engage in a war against it.

As a matter of fact, this is not a far-fetched possibility and more so, is increasingly becoming a geo-political “necessity”.

In December 2013, prominent analyst Sharmine Narwani, predicted that a “Security Arc” was on the rise (2). Taking all other outstanding articles that she has written into account, this one possibly stands out as her masterpiece thus far. I was privileged that I was asked by the author to translate it into Arabic. In that article, Sharmine predicted that the empire and its allies will sooner or later face a rising new alliance to counter their conspiracies in the region. She predicted that Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon (as represented by Hezbollah and allied forces) were going to eventually form a military alliance that will stand against terrorism, jihadi fundamentalism and the American/Israeli roadmap. Clearly, we can see this prediction coming to fruition. What Sharmine perhaps did not foresee was the Russian intervention in the manner and extent that we see today. In hindsight and in fairness, the magnitude of the Russian intervention was highly unforeseeable.

A lot has changed since the term “Security Arc” was coined, and the head of the serpent has already taken a jump and a skip.

Ever since ISIS took over Mosul and self-financed, it became clear to myself and many other analysts that we were seeing a major shift in the course of events. Whilst many others continue to promote the idea that ISIS is totally and entirely an American pawn that answers to American masters, the events on the ground clearly show that there has been at least a partial American–Jihadi divorce akin to the previous Bin Laden–American divorce. This time however, America seems to be wiping its hands clean and walking right out of this quagmire.

In his recent interview with Jeffrey Goldberg (3), President Obama made a scathing attack on his Saudi allies and other “free loaders” who want to drag America into regional wars that it is not at all interested in, in order for them to settle their own scores. Obama went further and bragged his decision not to attack Syria after all the bravado that followed the East Ghouta chemical attack of August 2013 and which was framed onto the Syrian Army. In reading in between the lines Obama is saying it for the first time to his Middle Eastern allies; when it comes to your sectarian vendettas, you’re on your own.

Certainly the issue of Israeli security will always be a soft spot for American foreign policy makers. At this stage however, the security of Israel per se is not an issue and any decisions made around it will be made independently.

As I have been reiterating for quite some time now, the “Anti-Syrian Cocktail” is a group of nations and organisations that were united only by their hatred for Syria and its President. Apart from that they had very diverse interests and goals. Given that America was unable to achieve its objective of toppling President Assad, it has no interest left in that war when it sees that the major players there have their own agendas. Also given that America clearly sees that the warring factions have scores that are centuries old and each party wishing to settle them on his own terms, America is literally walking out on many of its regional allies. The Iran nuclear deal was a part, a huge part, of this new understanding and revelation. It was not surprising then that soon after the Iran nuclear deal, Saudi Arabia pulled its own sleeves and went into Yemen; albeit to get bogged in. Obama must be gleefully saying thank God we didn’t get involved in that one as well.

In all of the above, Turkey was not mentioned.

Even though Turkey is a NATO member it was not allowed to free load and use its NATO-based clout to settle its scores with either the Kurds or what is sees as its Shia rivals.

Where does this leave Saudi Arabia, Turkey and to a lesser extent Qatar and the UAE? Without the direct support of America and NATO, those states that are run by Sunni zealots are going to find themselves out in the cold and hung out to dry. They will be in a desperate need to assert their military and regional geo-political superiority against the “Security Arc”. With America pulling out of the scene, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Turkey will have to, sooner or later, find a way to fill the void and forge a new alliance with a new partner, and there is none that fits the bill other than Israel. Only Israel shares their concerns and fears about the same regional opponent.

Saudi Arabia has been systematically talking about a forthcoming Shiite threat. Its involvement in the “War On Syria” is in essence instigated by this vision, and so is its more recent war against Yemen. For at least a decade now Saudi and Qatari funds have been flooding Sunni power bases and different media with anti-Shiite and anti-Hezbollah propaganda. From a popularity high after the July War of 2006 when Hezbollah banners were flown in major Sunni cities all over the Middle East, something that was seen as a serious threat by the Saudi royals back then, the Saudi royals have been able to brainwash and sway the minds of a significant percentage of the Sunni street.

In unprecedented speed and determination, the Arab nations have finally blacklisted Hezbollah. First, during an Arab Foreign Minister’s meeting in Jeddah in February 2016, followed by Arab Interior Minister’s meeting in Tunis in March 2016 and then last but not least, an Arab League Meeting that has formally declared Hezbollah as a terror organisation.

As mentioned in a previous article, the Palestinian Authority has endorsed the first two decisions, and since then has endorsed the third.

It is highly likely that the PA will finally receive its consolation prize and be given token statehood over a very tiny fraction of Palestine, thereby selling out Palestine, the Palestinian people and the right of return, in part of a bigger deal that will make Saudi Arabia appear to be the liberator of Jerusalem and the leader of the Sunni world in the hope that this will bolster its leadership and guise it with grandeur and might.

The Saudi camp Arabs have finally reached common ground with Israel.

The fundamentalist Sunni mind that Saudi and Gulf money has forged is one that sees Iran and Hezbollah as a bigger regional threat than Israel. The ground is becoming more fertile for a fundamentalist Sunni-Israeli alliance. The strategic “need” is already overwhelming, and the support of the masses is not very far away. Jihadi preachers will not find the task of providing “evidence” that Jews are closer to Sunnis than Shia a hard task to achieve. The fundamentalist Sunni street is quite ready for such a push. The formalisation of this alliance is only a question of time before it is overtly announced and before officials from both sides of the Abrahamic divide exchange visits, gifts, kisses and Ambassadors and before their armies fight together in the same trenches. In reality, however, this alliance is already in existence.

1 http://assafir.com/Article/480900

2 http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/17989

3 http://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2016/03/the-obama-doctrine-the-atlantics-exclusive-report-on-presidents-hardest-foreign-policy-decisions/473151/

ARAB DAYS OF SHAME By Ghassan Kadi 7 March 2016

 

http://thesaker.is/arab-days-of-shame-must-read/

Republished in  Information Clearing House
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44382.htm

Republished in Intifada Palestine
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2016/03/arab-days-shame-must-read/

Arab days of shame (MUST READ!)

38636 ViewsMarch 07, 2016 75 Comments

by Ghassan Kadi

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has finally had it its way. A meeting held last month of GCC and other Arab Foreign Ministers has condemned Iran for the attack on the Saudi Embassy incident, and the Lebanese Foreign Minister Basil; from the 8th of March Coalition pro-Hezbollah camp, abstained from voting. As a result, Lebanon was punished by Saudi Arabia as the latter decided to renege on the $4bn aid promise to the Lebanese Army and Internal Security.

And then just a few weeks later, the Arab Interior Ministers convened in Tunis and declared Lebanon’s Hezbollah a terror organization (1&2). Lebanon’s Interior Minister Mashnouk, a 14th of March Hariri man, also abstained from voting.

The debauched Saudi royals, the same lazy criminals who die from obesity and self-inflicted diabetes whilst they are starving and bombing Yemen, the same people who poured billions upon billions of dollars to kill Syrians in an attempt to create an Islamic state in lieu of its secular government, that scourge of a family that rules with an iron fist wreaking havoc and creating wars between Arabs and Muslims and never once fired a single bullet at Israel, they actually had the audacity to call the shots and had Hezbollah declared as a terrorist organization. Strange days indeed.

What is of significance here is the almost utter silence about this development in Western media. Try to Google this milestone event using any key words, and you will not find any references in the well-established highly-read mainstream Western news agencies. Interesting indeed.

What is even more interesting here as an observer is that quite often Western media go abuzz with what they believe is taking the Arab World by storm, but in reality, no one in the Arab World would be talking about it or least concerned.

The issues of Saudi military land intervention in Syria and their alleged ownership of nuclear weapons for example, are hardly ever discussed in the Levant and the whole Middle East. They are seen as some kind of bad-taste jokes. Such topics seem to only make news headlines in the West.

Back to the Tunis decision. The Arab states that did not vote in favour of the motion are Lebanon, Tunisia, Algeria and Iraq. I wonder if the readers are missing something here….Palestine, as represented by Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA), has in fact voted for declaring Hezbollah as a terror organization.

Whilst Hamas is not acknowledged as a representative of the Palestinian people, Ismail Haniyye, who is entirely in Qatar’s pocket, would probably also vote in favour had he been asked to vote. Mahmoud Zahhar, a prominent Hamas leader, has however condemned the decision. This is not surprising given that Zahar went against his rank when Hamas leaders went cahoots with Qatar against Syria. Zahhar had always been the voice of reason in Hamas. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP and the PFLP General Command have also condemned the decision, but Mahmoud Abbas is quite silent. He is probably feeling too sheepish to make any comments. Even if his heart is with Hezbollah, he cannot go against the Saudi dictates.

The Palestinian position is not taking keen observers by surprise. After all, earlier on, Hezbollah pioneered the tunnel technology and passed on the information to Hamas leaders in order to help with their fight against the Israelis in Gaza. When the “War On Syria” started and Hamas decided to align itself with Qatar against Syria and her people, Hamas passed on this technology to the terrorists. All the tunnels around greater Damascus, and especially in the Jobar region, were built by technology and information that was passed on to the terrorists by Hamas. So for Hamas a would-be vote against Hezbollah is not impossible to imagine.

Hezbollah is receiving quite a bit of support from progressive Arab parties, especially, and whilst its officials made quite a few verbal responses to the Saudis, it seems that Hezbollah is not trying to escalate the situation with the PA. In an Arabic article published on Al-Manar of the 3rd of March 2016 (3) and titled: “The Palestinian Authority And The “Terrorist” Decision Against Hezbollah), the author (Islam Al-Rawashda) opens his article by saying that it is not surprising to see the Saudis go after Hezbollah. In his next paragraph however, he is questioning how did the PA allow itself to join the “gang” and endorsed the decision against Hezbollah. Isn’t Hezbollah engaged in fighting Israel? Did it not liberate Arab land from occupation? Does is not support Palestine? These are the kind of questions he asked. But the official Hezbollah spokespeople seem to unwilling to engage in making anti-PA statements. Clearly, they don’t want to give their adversaries more ammunition and do not want to be seen standing against Palestinians; not even their corrupt pro-Saudi authority.

The schism inside the Arab World is reaching unprecedented levels. The pro-Western camp represented by Saudi Arabia and its followers has stooped to levels previously seen as unimaginable.

Even as Saudi Arabia is down on its knees financially, bogged down in a war it cannot win in Yemen and losing all control over the “War On Syria”, it still has a few billions stashed here and there to draw from and use to continue to buy friends.

And whilst it continues to spend billions on its terror campaigns and on destabilizing the region, whilst it is supporting all the fundamentalist Madrasas all over the globe, it withheld its promised gift to the Lebanese Army under the pretext that the Lebanese Government and Lebanese Army have become tools in the hand of Hezbollah and Iran.

As the Arab Saudi camp is becoming more audacious, audacious enough for the PA to vote against Hezbollah; the only army that disturbs Israel’s security, the only Arab organization that has taken back land from Israel militarily, the only Arab army that has actually threatened the depth of Israel, then no one should expect any good from other Arab pro-Saudi states that are distant geographically from Palestine. If the Palestinians themselves do not know who their enemies and friends are in standing up against Israel, why should the Moroccans?

And if the Palestinian people did not like what their government has done, why did they not take to the streets in protest? There are some reports of minor dissent, but nothing serious.

There is one word to describe the Palestinian reaction, and the word is “disgusting”, but in this literary context, I shall stick to the word “appalling”.

If we wind the clock back a bit, just a few years earlier, we can clearly remember how both the PA and Hamas have sided against the Syrian government. Here we ought to remember that had it not been for the Syrian government and its support to the different Palestinian organizations in the 1970’s onwards, they would have vanished. After all, the official Hamas HQ was actually in Damascus for many years, and it was in Syria where Khaled Mashaal operated until he moved to the Five Star Hotels of Qatar and Istanbul.

Palestinians have a great cause, but for a major part, their leaders have been nothing but rascals, ungrateful rascals. And how can we forget what happened to Lebanon?

It was because virtually half of the Lebanese have supported the Palestinian cause that the already existing political/religious division in Lebanon expanded and took the country to Civil War in 1975. The Palestinians played a huge part in pouring oil over fire, and their only objectives were what they could get out of it, and did not give a damn about the destruction that was inflicted upon Lebanon as a result.

And the whole breakdown between Arafat and Assad father in 1976 onwards was based on Arafat’s insistence on the so-called “Palestinian Decision”. Assad tried in vain to convince him that the Arab-Israeli conflict is much bigger than what the Palestinians can handle. He tried to convince him that this matter is as important for Syria as it is for Palestine. He reminded him that Palestine is the southern region of Syria, but to no avail. Arafat wanted to be the master of his decisions even if this screwed up the entire Arab World around him.

Half a century or so later, Palestinian leaders are not so much as dogmatic and indoctrinated as Arafat was. They are simply up for sale. The PA leaders have grown to love Saudi and other oil money, and Hamas leaders are up for sale and rent by any Sunni Muslim money. There is no difference between the two.

But as the Arab Saudi camp continues to stoop lower and lower, the resistance camp is growing more organized, more powerful, more successful and closer to victory.

Which day in history has marked the biggest day of shame for the Arabs? Arguably, it has always been said that Arab states reached their lowest point in history on June the 5th 1967 during the Six-Days War. The 3rd of March 2016 decree of the Arab interior ministers in Tunis is by far a much lower point, and one wonders if they are poised to stoop even lower. Shame on them.

1. http://www.arabnews.com/featured/news/889141

2. http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160303/1035689377/arab-states-hezbollah-terrorist-organization.html \

3. http://www.manar.com/page-29251-ar.html

CONSERVATISM VS. LIBERALISM, AND THE NEW-AGE FANATIC LEFT By Ghassan Kadi 7 March 2016

CONSERVATISM VS. LIBERALISM, AND THE NEW-AGE FANATIC LEFT 
By Ghassan Kadi 7 March 2016

http://katehon.com/article/conservatism-vs-liberalism-and-new-age-fanatic-left

CONSERVATISM VS. LIBERALISM, AND THE NEW-AGE FANATIC LEFT

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POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

07.03.2016

Ghassan Kadi

The concept of what is politically “right” versus what is politically “left” seems to be changing. Perhaps we need to put the brakes on and have a good look.

This is a subject worthy of a PhD study if not a few. It requires quite a bit of fact-finding and research. It cannot be given enough justice herein, but it won’t hurt anyone if we try to poke our noses into it.

Many opposing terms can be used to describe what is right and what is left. But this is not all. The way they are defined and perceived depends on one’s own position and views vis-à-vis the right-versus-left divide.

From a leftist perspective, the divide is based on issues that include tradition versus reform, past versus future, old ways versus new outlooks, stagnation versus moving forward, compliance versus questioning and rejection, exclusivity versus equality, racism versus inclusiveness, and many other descriptions and ideologies of similar context.       

From a rightist perspective however, the vantage point is quite different. The differences include preservation of values and traditions that have proven that their worth versus risking new ideas, discipline versus chaos, stark reality versus wishful thinking, pragmatism versus fantasy, and also many other related ideologies.

In citing the above differences, care was taken not to mention the differences on economical philosophies. This has been done because the objective herein is to focus on the underlying philosophical heart-felt differences.

For one to be fair and honest, both the right and the left have valid arguments. Therefore, for anyone to take a firm stand on either side of the fence without considering the counter argument is in reality tantamount to absolving oneself from the onus of responsible and fair decision-making.

Politics has however become one of the new world religions. The right will never formally consider having a look at the left, any more than the left will ever consider to do the same.

But the difference between right and left is not like the difference between good and bad, light and darkness… it is rather a conditional difference that changes with the changes of issues and circumstances; and most of all, perception.

There is therefore a lot of room for middle ground for the right and the left to come together. It is the extremists and zealots on both sides that dig the heels in and refuse to budge.

It should not be therefore surprising to see that a Western right protagonist supports an issue such gay marriage; a commonly Western left-wing ideology. Likewise, it should not be surprising to find a European left winger getting seriously concerned faced with what he/she sees as irresponsible European refugee policies coming into effect.

The difference between rightists and leftists is not at all different from that between right and left. It is not black and white as it is made out to look like. Most rightists have some left attributes within them and vice versa. Most of them, on both sides, will reject that they have anything in common. They will forcefully try to emphasize how different they are, but in reality, they have more in common than what they will ever be prepared to disclose and confess.

As a self-proclaimed staunch leftist, the left for me means much more than its political context. It means caring, giving, thinking long-term, helping others and so forth. On the mental/spiritual level, leftism to me stands for open-mindedness and rationality.

This however does not stop me from having views and aspirations that are perceived by many as right-wing. I therefore hereby confess that within my views of the world and humanity, I harbour many passions and outlooks that are regarded as conservative.

The right inside of me believes in God and this is an understatement, because I believe in nothing but God. I believe in traditional family values, cultural values, and the good-old principles of what is right and what is wrong. I don’t advocate arranged marriage, but I don’t stand against it either because I have seen how successful it can be. I totally reject new-age ideas that promote that there is no such thing as good and evil, as I believe that the human journey is nothing but a pursuit of the truth; a journey full of challenges to the soul and a test for her to discern good from evil and developing her wisdom enough to enable her to make the right choices.

This article is obviously not about me, and using myself is only intended to be an example, and each one of us is in fact a microcosm of humanity. 

The “funny” thing however is the major shift that we see today, a shift that has dramatically changed the definitions of right and left from wherever we left them back where they were during the Cold War. The old USA versus USSR definitions of right and left do not seem to be valid anymore.

If anything, modern Russia, the heiress of the USSR at many levels seems to be more conservative than the EU and the USA. On the other hand, whilst the NATO alliance remains steadfast with its political and geopolitical Cold War era policies and agendas, the EU is now, at least at the surface, engaging in what would be described as some leftist policies.

There is perhaps no better example to elaborate the seismic shift than the refugee crisis in Europe.

When speaking of Europe, both Eastern and Western Europe, we cannot but isolate its colonial history from the great achievements that it offered and afforded to humanity. Europe did not only give the world two world wars, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler and Tony Blair. Europe was the birthplace of Aristotle, Plato, Pythagoras, Socrates, Beethoven, DaVinci, Newton, Tchaikovsky, Tolstoy ….just to name a few.

Europe has been right at the centre of human development and its beacon and throbbing heart for centuries. The modern world, its technological achievements in medicine and industry, have almost all originated from Europe, and any denial of this is an act of ingratitude.

But apart from this, unlike the “New World” (ie the Americas and Oceania) the array of many cultures in Europe are all indigenous and based on traditions that are centuries old. The music, folklore, architecture and even fairytales are all the labour of ancient cultures that ought to be preserved.

Europe does not “need” migrants as such. However, it has a moral obligation to accept refugees given the EU has been instrumental in destabilizing many countries and creating refugees.

The irony here is that the traditional global right, specifically the EU governments are cloaking themselves with a humanitarian guise and taking a leftist stand vis-à-vis the migrants. Though the actions of Merkel, to be specific, are dubious to say the least, her stand towards the migrants are, without any shadow of doubt, ironically much further to the left than those of Russia.  

Russia can read in between the lines, and it is not going to allow its vision to be muddied by political correctness. Russia fully understands that first of all 1) many terrorists have embedded themselves with genuine refugees and that 2) Europe needs to protect its culture from dilution.

The biggest irony here is that there is now a new version of the left, a fanatic left that has inadvertently made itself a pawn under the microscope of political correctness. As an example, if and when someone speaks out truths relating to religious zealots taking advantage of loose laws of freedom of worship, then some loud-mouthed, and mostly ill-informed new-age fanatic leftist, will stand out and cry out mercy and start making accusations of Fascism and other descriptions. Those incurable irrational leftists seem to find it much better to allow mosques in the West to continue to teach and preach Jihadism than putting a moratorium on their teachings and activities. If this is left, I don’t want any part of it.

The fanatic left runs on witch-hunt passion and boogieman fear. It is irrational and ought to be faced where and when seen. It will only prosper if ignored and endorsed with silence. Its advocates are fifth columnists and they do not represent the true spirit of the left movement.

This is not a call for the left to attempt to monopolize goodness, but as the political dipoles of the world are no longer based on Communism versus Capitalism, and as the world is screaming out for a new reform platform and directive, the brave new world that humanity needs is one that can embrace human goodness. As the right is always fearful of change, only the left can lead such a quantum leap, but first, it will need to be prepared to reject its radical component and to allow its conservative side to come out of of the closet.

Right

Left

Politics

WHO ARE THE REAL MUSLIMS? By Ghassan Kadi 1 March 2016

Who are the Real Muslims?
By Ghassan Kadi
1 March  2016

http://katehon.com/article/who-are-real-muslims


It was re-published on April 12, 2017

http://katehon.com/article/real-muslims

THE NUCLEAR HOAX AND THE SAUDI NUCLEAR JOKE. By Ghassan Kadi, 2 March 2016

Forgot to add this back in March 2016

By Ghassan Kadi
2 March 2016|


http://thesaker.is/the-nuclear-hoax-and-the-saudi-nuclear-joke/

The Nuclear Hoax and the Saudi Nuclear Joke

31043 ViewsMarch 02, 2016 65 Comments

by Ghassan Kadi

The “War On Syria” has stirred up a lot of talk about nuclear threats being made, and further south in Yemen, there are even reports that nuclear weapons have in fact been used. There has also been considerable controversy about this subject, with the promoters being quite adamant of the authenticity of their reports.

To qualify such reports however as hearsay, would be a gross understatement.

The world does not need nuclear arms at all. This is another gross understatement. The world does not need any arms at all; if humans and their governments behaved sanely and humanely. However, we must admit that on the positive flip side, the presence of nuclear weapons in the hands of superpowers has played a huge role in preventing and averting a major escalation during the Cold War period and beyond.

After the USA bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stalin had no options other than to develop a Russian bomb. Can anyone just imagine what would have happened to the USSR if it didn’t develop its own nuclear power! And this has been the cutting edge restraining order for other nations, ending….at least thus far, with North Korea.

The nine states that are known to possess nuclear weapons are the United States, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. All of them have developed their own technology. Admittedly, a great deal of espionage was involved as well as many under the table deals that facilitated the bomb-building creation for some countries, and there is no need to go into details here.

The bottom line is that nuclear bombs are not commodities that one can buy from regular arms suppliers and/or manufacturers.

Furthermore, it takes years to build the right facilities in order to put all the pieces in the puzzle together in order to make it possible to build a bomb. This is why the West was very concerned about Iran’s nuclear program and its development of uranium enrichment facilities, as this would be a prime prerequisite for building an A-bomb.

For a country like Saudi Arabia therefore, it would be unfathomable by any stretch of imagination that it has the skills, ability, or infrastructure to build an A-bomb. The only manner in which Saudi Arabia can possess the bomb is by buying it from a “friendly” and willing nation.

It is argued that Saudi Arabia has tried very hard to pressure Pakistan into supplying a bomb. It is further reported that in the eyes of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan’s A-bombs are Muslim bombs the development program of which has been sponsored by Saudi Arabia, and that the financial help given by the Saudis stipulates that should Saudi Arabia need a bomb or two, Pakistan must oblige. However, those same reports also stated that Pakistan has declined.

Pakistan would not put its neck out and sully its name in the international community and risk severe sanctions by supplying atom bombs to Saudi Arabia. It has even been reported that Pakistan refused to join the recently-formed anti-terror Saudi initiative, because according to Pakistan –as the report claims- the coalition is meant to be against Iran, and Pakistan would not engage in a war against another Muslim nation. If this report is indeed accurate, and if Pakistan refuses to engage in a conventional conflict with another Muslim nation, would it risk giving nukes to another nation with the full knowledge that they may get used against another Muslim nation?

The only two other wild cards that might supply nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia are North Korea and Israel. Israel would not do it in the fear of it falling in wrong hands, or in the fear of a regime change in Saudi Arabia that is hostile to Israel. This leaves North Korea, and the possibilities there are highly unlikely. The two countries are very distant from each other, and any clandestine meetings and negotiations leading up to the sale of a bomb would have surfaced in some way or another.

So does Saudi Arabia have any A-bombs? It cannot be ruled out, but it is very highly unlikely, and even if it did, it would not need to make a test as some outrageous reports claims. Only manufacturers test. Saudi Arabia is not a manufacturer of atom bombs and will never reach this level of technology, not in the foreseeable future at least.

Having worked and lived in Saudi Arabia some moons ago, having seen how Saudis splurge and think that they have bought themselves superiority, I can say that it is not at all unlikely that Saudi Arabia may think it has an A-Bomb, paid for one, and had it delivered, but in reality it is a dud. And in reality, they cannot test it. It only goes off once, and if they bought a few and paid hundreds of billions of dollars, they cannot test one of them on their turf. And if they bought more than one, had a sample tested for them by the vendor, they still cannot guarantee that what they brought home works, because no one, absolutely no one will sell nuclear weapons to the Saudis.

And even if the Saudis indeed bought nukes that work, how does this put them in any different position from nuclear powers who have huge arsenals but cannot and will not use them? If in an infinitesimal possibility Saudi Arabia does have an A-Bomb and uses it say on Tehran, it will turn itself into a nuclear target, face huge sanctions, and become regarded as a rogue pariah state of an extreme.

On the other side of the current nuclear debacle, Russia would not threaten any state with its nuclear power any more than any other nuclear-able state would. Turkey knows well that Russia has nuclear power and that if push comes to shove, under certain conditions, Russia may have to resort to using them. Let us pray this time will never come, but Russia does not “need” to make this statement. Furthermore, the conventional power of Russia by far exceeds that of Turkey and even in the event of a full-on scale war with Turkey, Russia does not need to resort to the use of nuclear power.

And why should Russia need to use nuclear bombs in Turkey if she indeed needed to make huge blasts when it has its FOAB (Father Of All Bombs); the biggest conventional bomb ever, much bigger than America’s MOAB (Mother OF All Bombs). The power of the FOAB is 44 T of TNT, in fact bigger than the smallest of A-bombs which are equivalent to 10 T of TNT, but with a stark difference, the FOAB does not create a nuclear fallout.

Even “dirty bombs” create fallout, and this is all that they are designed to do. The difference between an A-bomb and a dirty bomb is that the former is based on nuclear fission; ie a large atom splitting into two, releasing a lot of energy and radiation. What makes those explosions large is the fact that a critical mass needs to be reached for the chain reaction to happen. This stipulates a minimal size below which the explosion cannot happen. Dirty bombs are however different. A dirty bomb is just an ordinary bomb bundled around radioactive material with the intention of spreading radioactivity upon exploding but without any atomic fission. Dirty bombs are therefore rather easy to make, but as highly radioactive material is not easy to come by, the world has been fortunate enough not to see any dirty bombs being used anywhere. In other words, if certain rogue countries and organizations are finding it hard to make dirty bombs, they will find it many times harder to make or obtain real A-bombs.

In any effect, whether dirty bombs or A-bombs are detonated by terrorists or by regular armies, they will leave an unmistakable highly detectable trail of radiation that will be harder to hide than hiding an elephant inside a matchbox.

Reports of A-bombs being used in Sep-11, Yemen, Gaza and reports of nuclear threats made by Russia to Turkey are unrealistic and beneath the dignity of Russia, and Russia would not engage in such actions; to put it mildly.

We do live in a crazy world with insane people in charge of highly lethal weapons, and they are capable of committing the most heinous of war crimes, but we must be thankful that this is not happening. The use of nuclear weapons at anytime and anywhere, now or in the near future, is highly unlikely, and let us pray it stays this way. Indications clearly point in this direction. There is still some sanity prevailing.