Saudi diplomacy pioneering

Some MPs not good at playing game of politics

“THE Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been a good supporter of the United States for many years. Yes, Saudi Arabia has helped the United States financially and diplomatically, and I will mention some examples documented by history,” columnist, former Kuwaiti Ambassador wrote for

daily. “In 1981, the Middle East was experiencing political turmoil. The Shah of Iran was ousted and a religious leadership came to power in Iran. The Soviet Union had occupied Afghanistan two years earlier and the danger lurked along the coasts of the Gulf, certainly threatening the stability of the Arab region.

“The situation was at its worst and coincided with the election of Ronald Reagan as the President of the United States of America. Here Reagan wanted to contain the threat of the Soviet expansion and prevent its military seeping into the rest of the world.

“Regan’s attempt was known as the Reagan Doctrine, that is to say an attempt to weaken the Soviets by supporting its opponents. However, Reagan encountered a problem to promote his doctrine because it was ‘expensive’ and America was exhausted, particularly after the end of the Vietnam War. The US was finding it difficult to find its feet and to add insult to injury the barrel of oil had risen from about $4 a barrel to more than $21.

“The American administration, particularly the then US intelligence director William Casey was studying how to solve the financial problem and looking for countries which can be relied upon to save money to counter the Communist threat.

“The US found a friend in Riyadh which was ready to support Washington financially. Saudi Arabia also wanted to prevent the risk of sharp Soviet ideology, and interpreted Moscow’s adventure in Kabul as part of a Soviet plan to encircle the Arabian Peninsula with radical regimes, as evidenced then by the presence of the Soviets in Yemen and Ethiopia.

“Saudi Arabia alone funded both the Nicaraguan rebels against the Marxist government in their country and to the Sudan against the threat of its Ethiopian neighbor to counter the pro-Soviet communist government of Mengistu Haile Mariam.

“Saudi Arabia also helped the leader of the Angolan rebels Jonas Savimbi against the country’s communist government and thwarted the risk of Communism gaining a foothold in five countries — Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and Cambodia during the reign of Ronald Regan.

“Saudi Arabia played a big influential role in warding off the dangers that threatened the security of the peoples, to such an extent Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the then Saudi ambassador to the United States told one of the American journalists in 1981, perhaps as a joke: ‘If you had actually known what we did for the benefit of America, you would have not given us only AWACS aircraft but nuclear weapons’.

“Over time, the Saudi diplomacy became the epicenter and replaced the historic role of Egypt. In 2002 the Kingdom proposed to Arab leaders to support and recognize the peace initiative with Israel in return for withdrawing from the Arab territories it occupied in 1967, and hosted a Palestinian reconciliation meeting in Makkah.

“The political influential center moved since the middle of the summer of 2006 from Cairo to the Gulf States, and Riyadh mediated between America and Iran when Ali Larijani visited the Kingdom with a message from the Iranian leadership asking Saudi mediation to remove the existing tensions with the United States on Iran’s nuclear program.

“Saudi Arabia also offered financial assistance to the Afghans to bring them to the negotiating table and supported Bahrain to thwart foreign attempts to breach its security and preserve national unity.

“The Saudi leadership also succeeded in resolving the dispute between Egypt and Qatar in December 2014, therefore Riyadh has become the Arab political decision-making center.

“The intervention of Saudi Arabia in Yemen came at the request of the legitimate leadership in Sana’a.”

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“After a quick review of a series of headlines in daily newspapers, can we think of concepts such as the prestige of the state, respect for the law, the development of the nation, the level of performance in all government departments and institutions in all disciplines with respect to their tasks?” columnist, Professor at Kuwait University’s Political Science Department and former MP wrote for daily.

“These headlines were published in just one day by the Kuwaiti press, and are supposed to be highly credible, which reflects the credibility of our reasonably free press, not news from the social media, which may sometimes be ‘pure exaggeration’ due to personal objectives targeting individuals, groups or even institutions — albeit sometimes.

“The date is May 7, 2017 when the local press printed: ‘Kuwait imports rotten meat and food products from more than 20 countries’, ‘Failure of the Consumer Protection Department and uppression of fraud’, Continued menace of flying of gravel from the streets’, ‘150 tons of rotten watermelons found in market, ‘Deportation of 20,000 expatriates in 2016’, ‘60 murders committed in 3 months’, ‘Russian woman embezzles 160 million dinars’, ‘39 groceries practice money exchange business’, ‘188 violations committed by five economic entities’, ‘Mangaf tunnel submerged underwater drowns the organizational structure of the Ministry of Public Works’, and ‘Saudi Arabia arrests a Kuwaiti escaped from prison’.

“One may say the everyday problems at all levels are normal in all countries and societies and that highlighting such issues is just a catch or a repeat of public criticism, and this certainly is untrue.

“Such daily reports actually affect the annual assessment of international and scientific indicators that measure the level of development, stability and the continuous growth of such problems is the logical explanation for the classification of Kuwait at lower levels in many human development indexes despite the high potential and financial strength and living standards in one of the richest countries of the world.

“These problems clearly demonstrate the extent of the structural imbalance in the structure of government departments and the failure to remain committed to their duties and responsibilities either due to inaction or as a result of the culture of ‘Who cares, it is none of my business’, or the absence of monitoring role.

“It also reflects the absence of commitment to the law and public order and the absence of firmness and punishment, means the deteriorating conditions in the community to the extent people have reached a state of frustration and despair due to either lack of reform or seriousness in dealing with problems which have become part of a reality.

“These problems are a natural result of what people hear about major crimes in the country — crimes related to embezzling millions, fictitious tenders and waste of public funds, add to this tarnishing the images and reputation of top executives and legislative institutions.

“Everyone says that he will not be the only one who adheres to the law and honesty and good citizenship while others are looting freely without accountability.”

“There is no doubt that Kuwait stands a good chance of witnessing the best political stability, especially with its unique strong democratic environment within the region, its stable economy and the fact that Kuwaitis enjoy the highest per capita income among nationalities across the globe,”

wrote for daily. “However, it is unfortunate that some politicians — certain lawmakers to be precise — are not good at playing the game of politics. It is an art of possibility, but some people want to transform the trend into an art of compulsion, imposition of opinions, chaos, exploitation of opportunities and playing with emotions. This is the reason why we have been seeing tensions, quarrels, exchange of verbal assaults and incessant instability in our political field for several decades.

“The real problem is that some lawmakers have not studied well or identified the agenda of citizens such that they have mixed up everything. This can be proven from the way of shifting talks from fundamental citizen-centered issues to insignificant issues. The language of logic should prevail over the language of paroxysm, suspicion and deception. The language of dialogue should prevail over the language of accusations and threat.”

“The Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET) is one of the institutions that suffer from various administrative disasters. Partisan, tribal and sectarian conflicts almost dominate some of its departments. The complaints of those who wish to apply therein are endless and include discrimination in selection of applicants,”

wrote for daily. “It is important to remember that the Minister of Education himself two years ago declared about a real crisis in the commitment of some of the teachers of PAAET in attending lectures. It reached such an extent that students were complaining about the repeated absence of teachers.

“More than a year ago, he had also highlighted the existence of 250 fake certificates among teachers of PAAET. The issue was then referred to the judiciary. To this day, we are still receiving stories about forgery of certificates. We hope this issue will be eliminated completely, and the forgers will be punished for their crime.

“Recently, the regulatory bodies revealed a new chapter of mismanagement in this institution and manipulation of some of its employees. No firm procedures are being taken to eliminate the sources of corruption and destroy its origins.

“Parliament’s Budget Committee announced the discovery of more than 450 fictitious classes besides another 14 classes set up with one student each. It has also been proven that 66 cases benefitted from allowances without the approval of the financial supervisory authority. This has resulted in wastage of millions of dinars because of the irresponsible practices in the authority.

“How long will the authority continue with this chaos? When is the government going to wake up from its slumber and eliminate this daylight corruption in the authority? Who will stop those scammers who are looking for quick wealth from state funds because of the negligence and complicity of some officials and leaders there?

“And the most important question for all those who put in their pockets the salaries or rewards they do not deserve — Where is honesty and seriousness in education, and credibility in the love for the nation? How do you enjoy taking something that you do not deserve?”

“The renowned veteran and creative Kuwaiti actor Abdul Hussein Abdul Redha “Abdu Adnan” uttered the statement “The sword is still inside the sheath ... Do not prompt me to draw out that sword from its sheath” in one of his dramas,” Ambassador

wrote for daily. “What a wonderful man you are, Abu Adnan! You spoke as if you were predicting the future. You had indeed predicted that the situation will reach the stage where we would see the sword being drawn out of the sheath. It has been eventually drawn from the sheath, but not in the method of the past. This time around, it will remain unsheathed for four years due to a decision that will be taken to suspend some provisions of the Constitution.

“This implies that we will be living without a National Assembly for a period of four years, especially with the barrage of grilling inquests against His Highness the Prime Minister and some ministers. This situation has prompted citizens to wonder whether the grilling inquests are really meant to serve the nation and citizens or to protect certain interests that are far from interests of the nation and citizens.”

“Last November, 50 lawmakers were elected to represent citizens. However, it was impossible for everybody to be satisfied with the new composition of the National Assembly,” wrote for daily.

“The lawmakers are expected to express the minds of citizens, try their best to embark on responsibilities related to oversight over the executive authority, and carry out legislations in favor of the country and citizens.

“I doubt anybody will argue with me over the fact that politics is like a football match whereby each team perfects its plans by selecting the best squad to ensure victory.

“Both teams should be working towards ensuring spectators enjoy the game, or more concisely, to attain the best results from political games through futuristic projects, block government wastage and employ youthful national manpower. It is unfortunate that the political game in Kuwait and majority of Arab nations is different from football matches or group games but rather like boxing match that is based on knockout.”

— Compiled by Ahmed Al-Shazli