Winds of Change (Imgur guide to recent big developments in the Middle East in March 2023)

The Middle East is facing some of the biggest changes it’s seen in twenty years.

Nothing is certain yet, everything is up for grabs, but from the Mediterranean coast all the way to Pakistan, there have been some extraordinary developments that could utterly transform the entire dynamic of the region.

What follows is me trying to cover everything- so nothing in too much depth, but a LOT of material. If you want to read something that will at least get you up to speed on the region, maybe being able to understand events behind headline flashes and maybe spot stories before they break? Read on.
There is a TL;DR if you scroll down to the picture of the cat as well.

Most Viral Edit: I am NEVER not surprised and humbled that User-Sub shows love to me indulging my OCD on all things Middle East. I am a grateful little being. Thank you

The missing uranium

Let us start with a very boring story. Nothing to be worried about at all. A remote desert facility in the middle of the Libyan desert. UN Nuclear safety inspectors turn up about 3 years after their last inspection to check this place as it contains a lot of uranium. And guess what?

A shed load was missing. About 2 tons. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/15/africa/libya-uranium-missing-iaea-intl-hnk/index.html

So, first things first; no, you cannot use this uranium to make a nuclear bomb. PHEW. However you COULD possibly use this material to make weapons stuff.

Who had it? We did not know. Then, Libyan rebel forces (nominally under the control of the self-styled liberator of Libya, General Hafta) claimed they have found the uranium- it’s fine.

It was only a couple of miles away from where it was supposed to be… but the UN has NOT verified that claim.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-64981875

So it just got moved. 2 tons of uranium. A couple of miles. It’s all fine… we can stop looking… and maybe stop asking ‘WHY did someone move 2 tons of uranium a couple of miles through the desert?’… and… er…

“I’ll take ‘Crap that looks like the start of an action movie and makes you go ‘WTF’ and order a stuff drink’ for $500 Alex”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/16/uranium-reported-missing-by-iaea-in-libya-recovered

Libya by the way? Fighting has stalled. Peace treaty/ceasefire is holding. Country is still a failed state. Nothing has changed there.

Meanwhile to the north? Turkey. Oh Dear Lord…

The King is losing his crown

President Erdogan could actually lose the next election. No, seriously, the great survivor, the man who has confounded everyone for years with his ability to remain in power, is actually in trouble. He is down in the polls- and he is down in the polls against an opponent he has beaten twice before and who, by all accounts, has the personality of block of wood. https://www.politico.eu/article/recep-tayyip-erdogan-turkey-election-may-14/
Why?

Partly its down to his utter mishandling of the economy. Erdogan has made a screaming pigs ear of it; it’s not global conditions, or the impact of the Earthquake, Erdogan has utterly screwed the pooch with it. For years. It’s ALL on him. So the Turkish people are finally just getting tired of his ineptitude in this region.

“It’s about the economy stupid!”

This is probably why reports have the draft manifesto of Erdogan rejecting his OWN economic policies and endorsing mainstream ones https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/turkey-president-erdogan-party-return-to-orthodox-free-market-economic-policies-2347691-2023-03-17

This beings said, his handling of the Earthquake has brought him into sharp criticism and led to a rare abject apology from him. https://www.politico.eu/article/recep-tayyip-erdogan-turkey-says-sorry-for-delays-in-earthquake-rescue-efforts/

Not only did his government approve the change in building standards which caused a LOT of unsafe buildings to be built (whose subsequent collapses caused the horrific death toll in the Earthquake zone), https://news.sky.com/story/turkey-earthquake-anger-grows-over-building-standards-in-wake-of-deadly-disaster-12813291 he seemed to bungle the response and it has only made things worse for him.

Want a sign just how serious it is for Erdogan? The Turkish football fans are against him. This is significant. The fans of the Turkish league are not just sports fans- they are also large organisations in Turkey with the loyalty of thousands of young males. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkey-bans-fenerbahce-fans-attending-match-following-anti-government-slogans

When football fans threw toys for children left orphaned from the Earthquake onto the pitches of matches? That’s big. When they follow it up by chanting for him to resign? That’s bigger.

The response was to ban the fans from travelling to other games. That’s just plain dumb. Now Turkish fans have never shown the level of significance Arab football fans have reached (where football fans have been behind huge protests in Egypt, Algeria and Syria over the decade- see https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/12/football-fans-and-political-activism-arab-world for a great 2 minute guide to their impact), but it is an ominous sign.

As for his rival? Many wonder why a man with no personality is doing so well in the polls. Basically because he simply isn’t Erdogan. He was chosen by Turkey’s usually fractious opposition as the single ‘lets all pull together to get rid of the Big E’ candidate, and he was the only one everyone could agree on as the opposition only hate each other less than Erdogan. But let’s not be thinking the main candidate against Erdogan is a saint here… he has been MORE strident than Erdogan in deporting Syrian refugees back to Syria https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/18/anti-immigration-sentiment-threatens-topple-erdogan-ahead-turkish/ (GENUINE apologies that I am linking to a Telegraph story- they are an odious bunch of lying douche-canoes, but they made a thing about this story).

The implications of Erdogan losing are vast. While his handling of the economy has been akin to art produced by a 4 year old on a wall, the Turkish president has been rather deft at handling foreign policy and Turkey’s much higher profile in the Middle East region has been down to his clever posturing. Erdogan has been able to make Turkey a regional superpower. He recently threw his NATO allies a bone with the approval of Finlands membership of the alliance https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/17/turkeys-erdogan-to-back-finlands-nato-bid (He is still holding out on Sweden joining for a while yet).

Erdogan is more vulnerable than he has EVER been. BUT…

Worth remembering, he is the great survivor. This is the guy who has changed Turkey beyond all recognition to keep himself in power; the powers of the president have increased significantly from when he first took power; he runs the media in Turkey and toppling him even if he loses the election isn’t a natural foregone conclusion https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-elections-recep-tayyip-erdogan-president-media/

It doesn’t help that not ALL the opposition are united behind the other candidate… the Kurd’s are not and they are a powerful block. https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/elections/hdp-splits-turkish-opposition-bloc-ahead-of-elections

Turkey is currently about to undergo the most interesting two months of recent political history…

But that is nothing compared to what’s going on south of them.

The Israeli Civil War

Israel is in a mess. No, seriously, it’s a huge mess.

Six days ago the President of Israel, Issac Herzog said the following words: “The last few weeks have been tearing us apart… Israel is in the throes of a profound crisis. Anyone who thinks that a real civil war, of human life, is a line that we will not reach has no idea. The abyss is within touching distance.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/15/israeli-president-civil-war-is-within-touching-distance

Er… wow.

This has led to some highly emotive dialogue; the Chief Sephardi Rabbi of Israel has begged all sides come together to prevent a civil war https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-734739
(this is a man whose only notable previous political statement was to call the leader of the far-right political party who entered the Temple Mount a ‘fool’ and point out that according to the judgment of just about every Rabbi in Israel, Israeli leaders were forbidden to enter the Temple Mount https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-709788)

Right wing commentators have replied to the President by saying there will NOT be a civil war as Israeli’s are not that stupid (fair point) BUT that everyone must obey their wishes as they have a mandate of the people (which is utter BS; even if it wasn’t the clarion call of EVERY dictator ever (‘my popular support supersedes the rule of law’); winning the 5th election in only a few years is NOT a clear mandate; it’s a lucky break). https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/03/17/there-will-be-no-civil-war/

Be that as it may… Israel is stuck in a DEEPLY emotive political crisis.

There are those patriotic Israeli’s who believe, deep in their hearts, that having an independent judiciary means a bunch of secular judges hold the rest of the country to ransom. They get this belief because Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a trail where he appears guilty of graft and fraud and criminal activities but he wins elections (sometimes).

Opposite them there are a bunch of patriotic Israeli’s who believe, deep in their heart, that eroding the independent judiciary will remove the last bastion of free and democratic Israel, and will turn it into ‘just any other Middle East country’ where far right religious forces can erode LGBTQ/womens/everyones rights and protections.

And while the far-right in Israeli politics has been using violence and talking about violence for years, the more liberal side of Israel’s political fractures are talking about the same. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2258101

The divisions are MARROW deep. A bunch of IDF veterans on a visit to New York openly lambasted the Prime Minister for his judicial reforms https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-level-idf-veterans-issue-warning-against-judicial-overhaul-in-us/ and hitting hardest? An open letter published which accuses Netanyahu of placing his own interests above the interests of Israel- signed by none other than commandos of the Sayeret Matkal. Who they?

They are the elite Israeli special forces unit who carried out the rescue at Entebbe hostage rescue operation- during which Yoni Netanyahu, the Prime Minister’s older brother, was killed. https://allisrael.com/idf-veterans-of-famous-entebbe-rescue-operation-speak-out-against-netanyahu. The divisions are deep indeed…

What does this all mean for the Palestinians? Well, the Palestinians have their own unique problems.
And they are big ones also.

The political miasma that is the Palestinian state continues; with the President refusing to hold elections because he knows he will lose and Hamas refusing to obey the laws of the Palestinian state on the grounds they never get the majority of any vote unless its set up justtttttt right… so know they cannot gain the mandate to represent Palestine even IF a free and Democratic election were ever held. Between Fatah being useless and Hamas being useless and both too worried about losing power because the voters are sick of them… things are falling apart.

Where do I get that from? The Palestinians themselves- to quote the latest figures “If new presidential elections were held today and ONLY two were nominated, Mahmoud Abbas [Head of Fatah and current President] and Ismail Haniyeh [Head of Hamas], only 46% would participate and from among those, Abbas would receive 36% and Haniyeh 52% of the votes… If the competition was between Marwan Barghouti [Independent Palestinian leader; currently in Israeli jail; represents the hope of Palestinians to NOT have to vote for either Fatah OR Hamas] and Ismail Haniyeh, participation would increase to 62% and from among those, Barghouti receives 58% and Haniyeh 37%.”
Basically MOST Palestinians want Fatah AND Hamas to simply piss off…)
https://pcpsr.org/en/node/935

The stark reality however is that, as always, rather than be allowed to discuss reforms to their nation and its political systems, the Palestinians are once again caught up in a miasma of conflict and tensions. In the West Bank alone this year communal violence between Israeli extremists living in illegal settlements and Palestinians has seen 14 Israelis and 80 Palestinians killed. https://www.irishtimes.com/world/middle-east/2023/03/17/settler-violence-sows-west-bank-terror-as-palestinians-say-there-is-no-sense-of-security/

Egypt and Jordan have been trying to calm the situation and host talks… but the violence seems to be growing. https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/two-hurt-in-shooting-as-egypt-attempts-to-lower-tensions-in-west-bank-1449946.html

What’s triggered this? The STANDARD explanation is that its caused by the conditions the Palestinians are enduring coupled with an increase in Israeli settler activity.

And that is correct… https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-64757995

But we need to add another factor here that has nothing to do with either the Israelis or the Palestinian peoples. But small groups of men with guns. On the Israeli side we know who those small groups are. Settlers living in illegal settlements. We know all about them- they will get hold of guns and weapons and deliberately go out and cause violence with Palestinians living nearby. On the other side however, you can’t do that openly. So you get secret groups.

Back in October a bunch of ‘militant’ groups emerged- understand these are men who claim they support Palestine but whose governing ideology is extreme Salafist Jihadism; not so much pro-Palestinians as more ‘Pro-Palestinian _provided_ Palestine eventually becomes a hard core Islamist state’; Hamas believe in that but they tend not to say it so openly (caveat: Hamas is a hard core Islamist group not Salafist).

For the last year or so, specialist journalists who report on the War on Terror (aka the war everyone assumes is over), had been reporting that extremist Jihadist groups like the PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad- an organisation closely affiliated to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards) were working with Hamas and infiltrating the West Bank.

But then ‘seemingly’ out of nowhere (nothing is ever simple when it comes to the Middle East- the only folks who tell us this are trying to hide something; be they Israeli OR Palestinian) a new group arose called The Lions Den.

The Lions Den (TLD) suddenly burst into the scene, with high profile attacks upon Israelis, and a very successful social media campaign to highlight their successes. They were seen as a bit of a game changer in terms of violent Palestinian movements being as they were new and had no clear affiliation to either Iran nor any other foreign nation.

Nor did they seem to wish to impose strict Islamic morality upon the Palestinians.

The TLD attacked Israeli targets, but Israel did what Israel does best- it fights back HARD.

Senior TLD member Tamer al-Kilani was killed in Nablus. TLD accused Israel of planting TNT inside a motorcycle rigged to detonate when Kilani walked by. Which to be honest… yeah. That’s the kind of thing Israel does to those who to cause the death of Israeli citizens. Then on Oct. 25 last year, Wadee al-Houh, the founder of TLD was killed by Israeli security forces in Nablus.

The Anti-TLD operations were an example of Israeli and Palestinian Security working together; the remaining high profile TLD gunmen surrendered to Palestinian security forces. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-720715 (FYI- they surrendered to the Palestinian’s as the Palestinian police do not shoot on sight…)

But while the joint operations had seen the level of tension between Israel and Palestine drop after October, it flared up again towards the end of last year, with short-lived spin-offs from The Lion’s Den emerging and fading away. https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2022/10/analysis-the-lions-den-and-the-future-of-militant-activity-in-the-west-bank.php

By December 2022, there was a noticeable upsurge in violence in the West Bank. This was being caused by other groups NOT The Lion’s Den (so Hamas, and the PIJ) gaining traction in the region; understand for all of the reasons described above, the Palestinian Authorities power is eroding, and they are unable to police the militants, all of whom want the PA to fail so they themselves can impose their will upon the Palestinians. https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2022/12/analysis-west-bank-violence-trending-upward.php

These groups are organising and recruiting in the West Bank. And existing ‘way out there’ groups who have been hiding out in Gaza (where Hamas gives them shelter) are now claiming to be operating in the West Bank also (like the recent statement by a group calling itself the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2023/02/gaza-based-militant-group-formally-acknowledges-presence-in-the-west-bank.php )

The Palestinian Authority weakens under Abbas, and the vultures are circling.

According to the Israeli military intelligence (who likes to occasionally reveal how much they know about the operations of the militants to screw with ‘em), this is all part of an overall campaign designed to capitalise upon Israel being torn politically while Abbas is just holding onto power while it crumbles around him- the aim is to try and keep Israel busy and distracted while Hamas rebuilds its arsenal of missiles after they depleted them in their last big anti-Israeli operation.
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2023/01/shin-bet-hamas-attempting-to-recruit-palestinians-in-the-west-bank.php

That does seem to be the pattern; with a bevvy of bombing attempts and attacks, at least one in the north APPEARS to be linked to Hezbollah (https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2023/03/hezbollah-suspected-in-cross-border-attack.php).

And IF it is true- it’s well timed.

(FYI- the reason I have sideways stares at The Lion’s Den is that their MO matches a bunch of groups who briefly flourished two years ago in Iraq- Rab’Allah. SUDDEN appearance of a organised force on social media; made up of desperate members who do not seem to fit into any existing groups; supposedly brand new but also appearing polished? Yep, that reminds me of Rab’Allah and they were a spin off the Iranian backed militias over in Iraq; I did a whole section on ‘em in a post a couple of years ago https://imgur.com/gallery/4HIVTsV hence why I say- if you read guides to TLD most experts say they represent something new; but cynical assholes like me who don’t limit themselves to just one country will go ‘My MY! What a coincidence…’; take on board MY bias here please).

The situation now is so bad that there is talk of the region facing an inevitable 3rd Intifada (general uprising by the Palestinian peoples), with support for the two-state solution at it’s lowest rate ever.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/31/the-guardian-view-on-violence-in-israel-palestine-the-risk-of-a-third-intifada

Basically the situation in the West Bank is a powder keg; the legal authorities in the Palestinian Authority have lost control, and the legal authority in Israel is too busy trying to erode the power of the judiciary and giving right-wing demagogues a say on how the nation runs itself.

I have no idea where this is going to go. I’m just staring in horror…

Peace in Our Time

MEANWHILE, the biggest headline right now is peace in the Middle East. But not the peace we were thinking off…

Simply put, behind everything in the Middle East has been, for the last ten years or so, an ongoing Cold War between the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran. This Cold War has driven and fuelled everything.
Israeli/Palestinian conflict? Check.
Crippling of Lebanon? Check.
Syrian Civil War? Check.
Increased tensions in the gulf? Check.
The Solomon Accords (aka ‘a whole bunch of Arab states normalise relations with Israel’)? Check.

The tension between the two, the hatred between the two regimes, has been all consuming.

And then there were peace talks. Organised by China.
https://time.com/6262985/china-saudi-arabia-iran-ukraine-peace-talks/

There is loads going on here. So, firstly, the deal was mostly brokered by the Iraqi government, with China coming in at the last minute to help seal the deal, acting as a powerful neutral broker. That in itself is significant and grants China all the reward they need…

What reward? China gets to go, “Oh look! Peace talks in the Middle East. And no one bothered to notify the USA. WIN!”

China will be loving this (and it is also a measure of current Middle East attitudes towards the USA that they allowed China facilitate this).

Let’s get the deal in perspective however. ALL that was agreed was Iran and Saudi should open up embassies and established diplomatic relations after seven years of glaring at each other. Saudi has asked the President of Iran to come visit. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-65010185 It’s nothing big. And it does NOT get rid of the rivalry between the two nations… that isn’t gonna go away.

But it does turn down the heat towards the prospects of a regional war and that’s good.

Except for Israel. Because Israel has been building a foreign policy based on building alliances against Iran; this is what caused the Abraham Accords to be signed. It is interesting that after the Iran-Saudi deal was announced the two sides in Israel’s political divide blamed the other for ‘allowing this’ to happen.

What is MORE significant to regional security is not the Saudi’s and Iran doing a kiss and make up routine; it’s Iran and UAE apparently have started doing also, with Iranian security officials even visiting the UAE. https://apnews.com/article/iran-uae-diplomacy-gulf-d308a43b6076a9a3977117d9c085a2f9. The UAE, unlike Saudi, are not afraid of a fight with Iran. In fact they have been building up to a fight with them for years. So a kiss and make up session with them is significant.

What will this lead to? No one really knows. Some talking heads are saying it will help the Palestinians (I can see it thwarting Israel, but not offer any actual benefit for the Palestinians in regards to the things THEY need to solve- unemployment; Gaza being occupied by an NGO; endemic corruption by ALL leaders). Some say the Iran-Saudi deal won’t amount to much as it’s just Saudi hedging their bets and we will see relations break down in the future; and many have said it will help end the civil war in Yemen.
https://mondoweiss.net/2023/03/what-the-saudi-iran-deal-means-for-palestine-israel-the-u-s-and-the-mideast/
&
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/15/does-chinas-role-in-saudi-iran-rapprochement-represent-a-new-order-.html

Time will prove what comes.

Bringing peace to Yemen would be a huge victory for the human race. But more on Yemen below.

Iran, as we know, is facing the ongoing protests, and this move with Saudi is interesting. Because we have to see it in light of attempts to erode Iran’s influence in Iraq AND the recent protests in Iran.

Most analysts say, that regardless of the relations with Saudi, Iraq is firmly under Iran’s thumb and will remain so for a while at least.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/20/analysis-irans-influence-prevents-iraqs-arab-reintegration

And Iran has been fighting back against the protests any which way it can. Including a significant step up in on-line operations. There is a massive disinformation campaign going on, with Iranian online actors undermining the protests by causing distractions, posing as supporters to cause confusion and hacking anyone reporting the protests. It’s arguably their most effective weapon https://www.wired.com/story/iran-cyber-army-protests-disinformation/

According to the authorities they have pardoned 22,000 people arrested during the protests as part of the build up to Ramadan. https://news.sky.com/story/iran-protests-pardons-issued-for-22-000-people-arrested-in-demonstrations-after-mahsa-aminis-death-12832880
But that overlooks the obvious question- ‘Just how many have been arrested in the first place?’

Iran is holding on for the long haul here.

They will not back down.

Neither will the protestors.

Meanwhile on the other side of Iran? Border clashes between Iran and the Taliban continue. https://crisis24.garda.com/alerts/2023/03/iran-afghanistan-border-security-forces-clash-near-zaranj-march-5

Local Taliban forces (aka militias who make their money from smuggling a tsunami wave of heroin out of Afghanistan and into Iran and will say they are loyal to the Taliban provided the central Taliban leadership leaves them alone) get very upset when Iranians try and stem the flow of heroin into Iran (All that heroin flooding into Europe and America from Afghanistan? It mostly passes through Iran and has created a huge number of addicts in Iran https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13011-020-00279-1 ).

Added to this Iran is seemingly getting worried that the Taliban are unable to actually RUN Afghanistan (news flash: they have never been able to run Afghanistan, in any way, and now seem incapable of even providing security for Afghans); the truth is the Taliban could do ONE thing (be a violent bunch of fighters) and that was it, and this has led to Iran sending mixed signals about their relations with the Taliban. Distancing themselves but needing to stay engaged… https://thediplomat.com/2023/03/is-iran-distancing-itself-from-the-taliban-government/

The Taliban is, of course, breaking the one thing they ‘Special Pinky Promised’ President Trump so he would sign the Doha agreement and surrender to them in 2020- they are exporting their brand of Islamic Revolution.

Recent reports have as many as 20 armed insurgent/terrorist groups now based in Afghanistan, with them attacking targets in Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-counterterrorism-commitments-face-growing-doubts-/7004663.html

There remain a lot of foreign fighters in Afghanistan with Pakistan in particular being upset by this…
https://themedialine.org/by-region/pakistan-insists-afghanistan-stop-harboring-international-terrorist-groups/ with there being a long known number of groups finding shelter in the Taliban territory https://www.voanews.com/a/how-afghanistan-s-militant-groups-are-evolving-under-taliban-rule/6492194.html

Which doesn’t help as right now? Pakistan is gripped with the failed attempt to arrest former prime minister Imran Khan. I am not going to go into the whole back story of this- I did an entire post on the entire backstory to this 11 months ago: https://imgur.com/gallery/NsvDQcG

But suffice to say, the new regime went to arrest Khan on grounds of corruption; it failed; triggered an explosion in protests by Khan’s followers. Pakistan lurches towards a political crisis. Again. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/20/imran-khans-fascism-jibe-as-pakistan-police-file-new-cases

So, yeah.
That’s the Middle East right now.
Just the big headlines.

Is there more?
Lots, way way more. This is NOT a deep dive. A deep dive would have 3 times as many links.

But let’s give some good news from the Middle East.
Kinda good news. About a ship. A ship called the FSO Safer (above)

The FSO Safer (pronounced Saffer) has been this ticking time bomb of an environmental disaster waiting to explode for years; outside of the Middle East/environmentalist groups this was getting zero coverage but for many in the region and many environmentalists, this thing was pure nightmare fuel.
What is it?

Alright, go all the way back to 1976. In Japan a new oil tanker is launched, going by the name of Esso Japan. It’s huge- over 1100 feet long and 230 feet wide. With a deadweight of over 406,000 tonnes she was, in her day, one of the new generation of big oil tankers travelling the seas, and was in service from 1976 until 1987. And then she was retired.

Safer was purchased by the Yemeni government, and they did some modifications, as well as changing her name to FSO Safer. Her engines were removed and she was moored about four and a half miles off the coast of Yemen. Her she became a storage unit for oil extraction and exportation by the Yemeni government. They would pump oil out to the ship and use it so other oil tankers would sail up to it and remove the oil and sail on. Safer could hold up to three MILLIONS tonnes of oil in her tanks, and was basically a floating oil storage tank. All well and good.

In March 2015, during the fighting involved in the seemingly never ending Yemeni Civil War, the coastal region nearest to share the Safer was moored was overrun by the Houthi rebels. They had no interest in the ship, focused as they were on the civil war. So they ignored Safer. Everyone ignored Safer. She was abandoned and ignored.

But the thing is, as we have seen in Venezuela- if you ignore machinery involved in oil extraction/storage then that machinery will break down eventually.
It always does.

Regular maintenance is crucial.

Only there was no one around to maintain the SFO Safer. And so it just sat there. A huge ship. With over one million barrels of oil on it. Waiting to fail.

This is not to say there were not talks about it. There were. Both sides in the civil war agreed the oil needed to be removed.

But that 1.14 million barrels of oil had a cash value of around US$80 million (more when the price of oil spiked), and so the Yemeni government and the Houthi’s were basically arguing over who gets the money when the oil was removed. Neither side would concede.

Years passed. And the Safer began to deteriorate.

In 2019 the media reported that a leak had began, but that was debunked. The Safer still held. Just.

By July 2020, there was a leak in the ships cooling system and water entered the machine room. High level meetings were held about the tanker at the United Nations (as, simply, no one else seemed to be giving a crap about it).

They estimated that if Safer broke up, it could dump about four times MORE oil into the waters off the coast of Yemen than the Exxon Valdez spilled onto Alaska. And that is nothing compared to the impact that would happen if it caught fire…

Later that year Saudi experts saw that the pipeline that ran from the coast to the Safer had become separated from the stabilisers which kept it on the sea bed and was supposedly now floating on the surface of the water. By the following January the UN and the Houthi’s agreed to send a safety team to inspect the conditions on the ship, but the inspection wasn’t able to be carried out as the Houthis could not guarantee the safety of the UN inspection team due to the ongoing fighting in Yemen.

By October 2021 it was announced that Safer was at imminent risk of sinking, or fire, or even worse, exploding. The implications of such an event were immediate.

A huge oil spill in the region would close the nearby ports of Hudaydah and As-Salif; these are crucial for the importation and distribution of food aid, which is barely enough to feed the population as it is. Safer breaking apart could also cause a disruptions to desalination plants, devastated the local fishing industry across the Red Sea (which 1.7 million people depend upon), and even disrupt traffic passing through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

It’s estimated that if Safer breaks apart it’s at least US$20 billion to clean up the mess.

So in 2022 an emergency summit was held in the Netherlands; to salvage the Safer, get the oil off it and so forth, was gonna cost about US$80-144 million. The summit was held to get support from the international community. It raised US$40 million. THAT was it.

Simply put- this time last year people had other things on their mind. It wasn’t enough cash. The FCS Safer remained sat there, rotting a way.
The United Nations launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise the money to help prevent a massive environmental disaster.

Yep, it’s not just American’s with insane hospital bills using crown funding. The United Nations is forced to do it to prevent very preventable environmental disasters from happening.

Welcome to the year 2023.

Now the good news… it kinda worked. The UN has enough money to buy a very big ship. This ship will sail up to the Safer and remove the oil on it, which at least prevents a massive oil spill.

The ship in question is currently in dry-dock in China being fitted out for the operation ahead, and now we just have to hope that Safer will hold on until it can get there. https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/03/1134422

So yay… good news. Kinda.

And that’s it.

The above sure does have personal spin (I do not try and hide it, advise you to read my sources and look up others and make up your own minds), but as I said, I’m mostly posting this so folks can just be aware that while we fret about runs on bank shares, the arrest of former Presidents, and the war in Ukraine… the rest of the world doesn’t stop.

TL;DR: Turkey is facing the most intense election campaign in decades; Israel and Palestine are about to face not just renewed tensions between themselves but also internal ones in their own peoples; Iran is making nice with Saudi ‘cos it has too much on it’s plate it seems; Afghanistan is doing what they said they wouldn’t do and exporting terrorism again (like we said they would); Pakistani is having ANOTHER political crisis (it’s been 11 months since its last one); someone moved 2 tons of uranium material across the Libyan desert for no apparent reason and the UN is trying desperately to stop a ship blowing up off the coast of Yemen.

It must be a Wednesday…
*************

I’ve done quite a few posts on the Middle East over the years. Always just trying to condense and explain the wider events just to keep others informed. Any bias I have is informed by the sources in these.
So far these have been…

*Current Events May 2018:
Just some news stories I posted at the time.
https://imgur.com/gallery/Ao5dJKI

*More Current Events May 2018:
Again, random news stories; only keep these as several themes I mention in them appear a lot (including clandestine war between Iran and Israel).
https://imgur.com/gallery/T1yx4DS

*Para Bellum: an Imgur guide to the conflict between Iran and the US (early Jan 2020) and it’s possible ramifications for the whole region... this feeds directly into the posts that come after.
https://imgur.com/gallery/qz9nhQu

*The Shadow War (or ‘why does Iran keep having mysterious explosions’); follow up to Para Bellum (above); exploring the clandestine warfare between Iran and Israel going on at the time (May 2020)
https://imgur.com/gallery/JZD3pmL

*A murder in Tehran: direct follow on from Shadow War (above) detailing the the ongoing events in the undeclared war between Iran and Israel, with wider implications across the Middle East (November 2020)
https://imgur.com/gallery/E03126K

*Realm of the Red Queen: guide to the GenZ protests erupting across the Middle East, especially in Iraq (early 2020)
https://imgur.com/gallery/R77avyK

*The Disaster To Come: an introduction to the Libya civil war, what was causing it and how it could go (March 2020)
https://imgur.com/gallery/i9BdXe7

*The return of ISIS (Imgur guide to recent events in Iraq) which covers events in Iraq at the time and the attempts to reform the country in the face of powerful forces. (Feb 2021)
https://imgur.com/gallery/4HIVTsV

*A burning land: Imgur guide to internal issues within Palestine and how in the recent conflict with Israel no one mentioned the Palestinian General Elections...(May 2021)
https://imgur.com/gallery/fXCgpZ9

*Meanwhile… in Pakistan: a guide to the fall of the government of Imran Khan
https://imgur.com/gallery/NsvDQcG

*The enemy of my enemy: guide to what the death of the Emir of Al-Qaeda meant and the actual origins of modern Jihadi terrorist movements.
https://imgur.com/gallery/pOe8lij

*The Uprising: Guide to the events in Iran from September 13th until about September 25th 2022- the opening salvos of the uprising; and prognostications that it wouldn’t topple the regime no matter how much we wish it to.
https://imgur.com/gallery/w0A7D6e

*Left for the wolves: Guide to tensions on the Turkish border with Syria and the ramifications for the region; January 2023
https://imgur.com/gallery/Oqeh1g6

And if you are so inclined, and found this stuff useful, and have the means, you could always buy me a coffee as these posts are fuelled by black coffee on the most part www.BuyMeACoffee.com/thefeck