April 17, 2014 (TSR) – The Gulf Cooperation Council has invited Morocco and Jordan to form a military alliance.
In 2012, the GCC had presented the two monarchies with $ 5 billion to join the organization. It is now a matter of going one step further and placing the respective armies under a joint command, headed by prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, Minister of the Saudi Royal Guard.
The question of Egypt’s participation remains open, despite its republican political system.
The Joint Military Command, which should include all pro-US Arab states, was announced in December 2013 by U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. It will be supplied by the U.S. under a special dispensation granted by Congress, to facilitate the sale of sophisticated weapons.
Since 2004, the GCC has been a NATO partner within the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) .
The major stumbling block to achieving this alliance concerned the colonization of Palestine, Washington being an unwavering supporter of Tel Aviv. However, in November 2013, Israeli President Shimon Peres secretly addressed the Gulf Cooperation Council over videoconference.
The UAE, which organized the summit, chose Peres to open the assembly, via Livestream from his office in Jerusalem Ynetnews reported.
New York Times chief analyst Thomas Friedman, who attended the event, revealed Peres’ “performance”; yet he was not tempted to disclose what Peres had said.
Mr. Peres depicted the danger that he ascribes to a possible 5+1 and Iran agreement in Geneva. No minister left the room during his intervention, which was heartily applauded.
Several Foreign Ministers from the Muslim world were present, including (at least):
Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan (United Arab Emirates)
Anifah Aman (Malaysia)
Khalid ben Ahmed Al Khalifah (Bahrain)
Dipu Moni (Bangladesh)
Raden Mohammad Marty Muliana Natalegawa (Indonesia)
Qaboos bin Said al Said (Oman);? Abu-Bakr Abdullah Al-Qirbi (Qatar)
Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah (Koweit)
A son of King Abdallah (Saudi Arabia)
Also present, aside from Thomas Friedman, were:
Terje Rød-Larsen, Under-Secretary-General, serving as the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process?, and from Norway
Martin Indyk, U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations.
As a result, the Zionist Arab States concurred that they shared the same enemy as Israel: the Shiites and Iran.
Arabian Sea: Center Of West’s 21st Century War
Forming an Arab NATO is a U.S. project within CENTCOM.
Rick Rozoff explains these U.S. NATO military activities in a nutshell as a quarter of the world’s nuclear aircraft carriers have been piling up in the Arabian Sea since 2010:
The U.S. possesses half the world’s twenty-two aircraft carriers, all eleven supercarriers (those displacing over 70,000 tons) and eleven of twelve nuclear carriers.
The countries bordering the Arabian Sea are Somalia, Djibouti, Yemen, Oman, Iran, Pakistan, India and the island nation of Maldives.
USS Lincoln and USS Truman are currently assigned to the Fifth Fleet’s area of responsibility, which encompasses the Northern Indian Ocean and its branches and offshoots: The Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the eastern coast of Africa south to Kenya, the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.
The nations on the Red Sea and Persian Gulf are, in addition to those mentioned above, Egypt, Eritrea, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Sudan and Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, respectively.
The Fifth is the first fleet established in the post-Cold War period, recommissioned in 1995 after being deactivated in 1947. (Similarly, the Fourth Fleet, which is assigned to the Caribbean Sea and Central and South America, was reactivated two years ago after being decommissioned in 1950.)
It shares a commander and headquarters with U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (CENTCOM) at Manama, Bahrain, across the Persian Gulf from Iran. CENTCOM was the last regional military command launched by the Pentagon during the Cold War (1983) and its area of responsibility stretches across what has been referred to as the Broader Middle East from Egypt in the west to Kazakhstan, bordering China and Russia, to the east.
The Fifth Fleet and Naval Forces Central Command are jointly in charge of five naval task forces operating in and near the Arabian Sea which patrol several of the most strategic chokepoints on the planet: The Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean Sea, where the U.S. Sixth Fleet and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Operation Active Endeavor hold sway, to the Red Sea. The Bab Al Mandeb connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. The Strait of Hormuz between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.
Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) is a multinational naval group established in 2001 with logistics facilities in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti and operates from the Strait of Hormuz to the Gulf of Aden and past the Bab Al Mandeb to the Red Sea and south to the Indian Ocean nation of Seychelles. Last year the Pentagon secured a military facility in Seychelles, its second in an African nation, where it has deployed Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), PC-3 Orion anti-submarine and surveillance aircraft, and 112 Navy personnel. Other nations currently contributing ships and personnel to CTF-150 are Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Pakistan, South Korea and Thailand. Recent participants also include Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Spain and Turkey.
Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151) was launched in January of 2009, operates in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin and covers an area of 1.1 million square miles. Twenty nations are scheduled to participate in the U.S.-led task force and Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea and Turkey have already enlisted. Its commanders to date have been from the U.S., Britain, South Korea and Turkey.
Combined Task Force 152 (CTF-152) operates from the northern Persian Gulf to the Strait of Hormuz, between the areas of responsibility of CTF-150 and CTF-158, and is part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Combined Task Force 158 (CTF-158) operates in the northern-most part of the Persian Gulf, is also part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and consists of British and Australian as well as U.S. ships. Its main tasks are to oversee Iraqi oil installations and to create an Iraqi navy under the Pentagon’s control.
The U.S. has divided the world between six regional military commands and six navy fleets. The Arabian Sea is covered by three of the Pentagon’s overseas military commands – Central Command, Africa Command and Pacific Command – to provide an indication of the importance attached to the region.
In addition to the Fifth Fleet’s and Naval Forces Central Command’s headquarters in Bahrain, Central Command also maintains command, forward deployment, air and training bases and facilities in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf in addition to 56,000 troops and air, naval and infantry bases in Iraq.
Several months before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and on the Pentagon, the U.S. signed an agreement with the small nation of Djibouti (with a population of 725,000) to take over a former French base, Camp Lemonnier, which is now a United States Naval Expeditionary Base hosting the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa, assigned to Africa Command since the latter was activated two years ago. The Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa’s area of responsibility takes in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen, with the Indian Ocean nations of Comoros, Mauritius and Madagascar effectively included.
