Great analysis on where Saudi Arabia and the broader Gulf competition stand in Somalia.
Saudi Arabia has been deliberately trying to supplant Emirati influence in Somalia since at least January of this year after the Saudi-UAE rift in Yemen.
Great analysis on where Saudi Arabia and the broader Gulf competition stand in Somalia.
Saudi Arabia has been deliberately trying to supplant Emirati influence in Somalia since at least January of this year after the Saudi-UAE rift in Yemen.
Also some interesting evidence supporting an assessment we had earlier this year that the new Northeastern state would become a key node in regional competition in the Gulf of Aden/Horn of Africa.
More at the link
Posted by: badanov ||
07/14/2026 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[238 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia
#1
Salt the earth, they aren't worth a fuck for anything.
Posted by: Chris ||
07/14/2026 1:34 Comments ||
Top||
[IsraelNationalNews] What is currently materializing is a highly pragmatic, transactional alliance between two regimes which are setting aside deep historical grievances to challenge the strategic interests of Israel and its Western allies.
The arrival of Egyptian Defense Minister Ashraf Salem Zaher in Ankara represents a profound structural shift in the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean. For over a decade, Western strategic planning rested on a comfortable assumption that the ideological enmity between Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was a permanent feature of the regional landscape. The bitter rivalry between Ankara’s Islamist populism and Cairo’s military praetorianism was treated as a reliable geopolitical anchor. That anchor has been cut loose; the military convergence unfolding in July 2026 exposes the limits of viewing foreign policy through a purely ideological lens.
What is currently materializing is a highly pragmatic, transactional alliance between two distinct autocracies. These regimes are setting aside deep historical grievances to build a revisionist security architecture designed to project collective power, alter maritime boundaries, and directly challenge the strategic interests of Israel and its Western allies.
To understand the latent danger of this alignment, one must look past the diplomatic theater and analyze the unique internal pressures driving both leaders.
Erdogan remains a committed neo-Ottoman Islamist ideologue who has systematically transformed The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... member, but not the most reliable... into a primary state sponsor for destabilizing actors across the Levant, most notably Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... . His grand strategy seeks to dismantle the post-Cold War regional status quo, positioning Ankara as the undisputed leader of a revisionist bloc capable of dictating terms in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
Sisi, conversely, presides over an economically bankrupt military dictatorship that is currently hollowed out by a catastrophic fiscal crisis. Characterized by runaway inflation and a crushing debt burden managed by a privileged military class, Egypt is inherently unstable. While autocrats in Cairo traditionally relied on domestic coercion to maintain stability, Sisi is increasingly looking to external defense diversification and regional posturing to mask profound internal fragility.
By pooling their strategic assets, both regimes gain vital leverage. Sisi secures access to advanced military technology without Western human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. conditions, while Erdogan gains a massive conventional partner to legitimize his maritime ambitions.
The military cooperation between Cairo and Ankara has quickly evolved past superficial diplomacy into deep, structural integration. The joint maneuvers executed over the past weeks reveal an alarming level of operational alignment. The Anatolian Eagle aerial exercises in Turkey allowed Egyptian pilots to train under simulated high-threat environments alongside Ottoman Turkish assets, which was immediately paired with the Golden Eagle special forces drills in Egypt focusing on cross-theater command interoperability.
These are not routine bilateral exchanges; they are deliberate calibration exercises aimed at synthesizing the doctrine of two of the region's largest standing armies.
This operational blending is reinforced by an aggressive defense-industrial partnership. Under current frameworks, Cairo and Ankara have established localized production lines for advanced vertical take-off and landing combat drones. Far more critical, however, is Egypt's formal entry into Turkey’s KAAN fifth-generation stealth fighter program as both a development and manufacturing partner. The co-development of the KAAN platform is a calculated attempt to bypass Western export controls and systematically erode Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge. If successful, this partnership will provide an authoritarian axis with domestic stealth capabilities, directly challenging the long-term air superiority that has guaranteed Israeli security for decades.
For Israel, this alignment presents an immediate, multi-domain national security threat. Israel's maritime safety and energy independence have long relied on a fragmented Eastern Mediterranean, which allowed Israel to cultivate deep, democratic trilateral partnerships with Greece and Cyprus. A unified Ottoman Turkish-Egyptian front effectively isolates Athens and Nicosia, leaving them vulnerable to Ankara’s aggressive Blue Homeland maritime doctrine.
With Egypt acting as a strategic multiplier rather than a regional counterweight, Turkey gains unprecedented freedom of action to dominate vital shipping lanes, international communication cables, and transit corridors in the Levant Basin. Furthermore, Israel's multi-billion-dollar offshore natural gas infrastructure sits squarely within this contested zone, where a coordinated Ottoman Turkish-Egyptian naval and drone presence creates a permanent conventional challenge on Israel's western flank.
The most volatile danger, however, is the risk of a diversionary conflict. Because both the Erdogan and Sisi regimes are ideologically brittle and facing deep domestic vulnerabilities, anti-Israel hostility remains their most effective political currency. If Egypt's economic collapse sparks renewed domestic unrest, or if Erdogan faces severe political headwinds at home, a manufactured crisis in the Mediterranean offers both autocrats a highly effective tool to redirect public anger outward.
The rapid expansion of the Ankara-Cairo axis demands an immediate, clear-eyed shift in strategic posture from both Israel and the United States. The US must move beyond routine conditionality and treat Egypt’s deepening integration with Turkey as a de facto realignment. Washington should immediately freeze new major arms packages and place Egypt’s Foreign Military Financing under a strict "strategic decoupling" review, tying future disbursements not only to the suspension of joint KAAN and drone programs with Turkey, but also to verifiable limits on Egyptian port access for Ottoman Turkish naval vessels and intelligence-sharing protocols.
American taxpayers must not underwrite a regime that is actively helping build an alternative authoritarian defense ecosystem hostile to US interests.
For Israel, the response must be multi-layered and proactive. Israel should accelerate the development and deployment of an integrated "Mediterranean Shield" - a networked system combining AI-driven drone swarms, autonomous maritime patrol vessels, and advanced directed-energy weapons optimized to counter coordinated Ottoman Turkish-Egyptian aerial and naval operations. Beyond hardware, Israel must launch a sophisticated "Energy Diplomacy Initiative," offering joint development and revenue-sharing agreements on Eastern Mediterranean gas fields to European nations (particularly La Belle France, Italia, and Germany) in exchange for formal security guarantees and forward-deployed naval assets. This would transform Israel’s gas fields from vulnerable targets into magnets for Western strategic presence.
Finally, Israel should move decisively to institutionalize a new "Eastern Mediterranean Democratic Security Forum" - an expanded, operational alliance that upgrades the existing Greece-Cyprus-Israel trilateral into a standing framework with rotating joint command elements, shared maritime domain awareness satellites, and pre-positioned munitions stockpiles. This forum should actively court additional partners such as India (for drone and naval technology cooperation) and select Gulf states wary of Ottoman Turkish overreach. Covert and overt information operations should also be intensified to highlight the authoritarian character of the Erdogan-Sisi axis and its inherent instability to both domestic audiences in Egypt and Turkey and key audiences in the US and Europe.
The Erdogan-Sisi axis is not a temporary diplomatic anomaly; it is a calculated, militarized partnership born of geopolitical ambition and domestic survival. Israel cannot afford to treat this realignment as business as usual. It must act with urgency and creativity to reinforce its strategic depth before the balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean tilts decisively against it.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM.RU] Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani (Hamad II), the former emir of Qatar and one of the Middle East's most prominent reformers, has died at the age of 74. His legacy includes dozens of political and economic conflicts, major geopolitical games, and a reputation as the Middle East's power broker.
Although Hamad II was not the first leader of independent Qatar (he ranks seventh in the annals of emirs and twelfth in the al-Thani dynasty), his contribution to Qatar's current power outshines most of his ancestors. The "Emir Father" possessed a keen sense of direction and was able to make decisions that, over time, repeatedly saved the monarchy.
And although he made many enemies during his turbulent years, most of the Gulf royal houses sincerely mourn his passing. Not least because his death firmly cements the reins of power in the hands of the young emir.
THE PERSISTENT PRINCE
Hamad al-Thani's youth coincided with a time of change. In 1971, when Qatar gained independence from Great Britain, the future reformer was barely 19 years old. However, this did not prevent him from receiving the rank of general almost immediately after graduating from the British Military Academy, under the patronage of his father, the emir, Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, and assuming the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the country's armed forces.
For Qatar, independence itself was nothing extraordinary—the al-Thani clan had ruled the region since the second half of the 19th century (first as Ottoman governors, or hakims, and later as pro-British protectors) and had always felt quite at ease, only occasionally glancing back at the mother country. Therefore, in the early 1970s, London expected the formally independent country to remain an obedient junior partner of Britain.
For a time, this was indeed the case—the august emir, the Khalifa, was in no hurry to sever ties with his former patron and sought to ensure his continued favor. Even when this ran counter to national interests, it served as a constant source of friction between him and Hamad II, who called for more decisive autonomy.
To avoid provoking scandals, it was decided to channel the impetuous young man's energy into military matters. As commander-in-chief, Hamad launched large-scale reforms. He placed emphasis on accelerated modernization and the transformation of "golden children," who had been merely serving as officers, into fully-fledged command units.
The measure proved extremely unpopular with the Qatari elite, accustomed to quietly commanding regiments from the windows of expensive hotels rather than from field tents. Nevertheless, thanks to the young prince's persistence, a fully-fledged officer culture was gradually established.
By comparison, Saudi Arabia only launched similar reforms in the early 2000s, and they were postponed several times due to the monarchy's reluctance to confront noble families.
Incidentally, by partially overturning the conservative foundations of the army and narrowing the gap between soldier and officer, Hamad II gave himself a serious gift for the long term: in 2011, when the Middle East was engulfed by the "Arab Spring," the commanders nurtured by the persistent prince were able to keep the soldiers from revolting.
The storm of street protests passed Qatar by – unlike Bahrain, which effectively had to be saved from the fall of its monarchy by the bayonets of its neighbors.
FATHER OF THE NATION
Despite the expectations of his royal father, Hamad II's enthusiasm for military reforms did not wane. With each passing year, the young leader increasingly sought to project his vision of the future onto other sectors, simultaneously finding like-minded individuals and increasing his influence.
Finally, in 1995, Hamad al-Thani staged a coup and deposed his father, sending him into honorable exile in Europe. At the time, the ambitious prince was barely 43 years old, posing a challenge to his Gulf neighbors.
In the eyes of other kings, Hamad II was a youthful upstart. The closest in age to him was Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman (52), and the gap with the most venerable Gulf leader, UAE President Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, was almost 34 years.
However, his relative youth didn't prevent Hamad from quickly becoming a worthy rival to his experienced neighbors. Primarily thanks to his skillful use of contrasts, the small Gulf monarchy, with his arrival, no longer hesitated to flaunt its virtues.
For example, in its rivalry with Saudi Arabia, Doha boasted a more prudent approach to tourist attractions than conservative Riyadh; it outperformed the UAE in terms of resource extraction efficiency; it publicly competed with Oman for the title of "digital pioneer," and so on. Even when the balance of power was unfavorable for Doha, Hamad II sought to demonstrate that his country was no weaker or worse than its neighbors.
One of Qatar's signature victories in the image race was granting women the right to vote. Hamad II was among the first to take this step. Oman had allowed a small number of women to vote on a trial basis back in 1994, but only legalized the procedure a decade later; others only took the plunge in the early 2000s. The House of Al-Thani, however, gave the go-ahead immediately and without preconditions.
Moreover, the young emir completely revolutionized the country's economy by embracing liquefied natural gas (LNG), which his peers considered a lesser commodity than oil. Through Hamad II's efforts, Doha rapidly developed LNG production and exports, transforming itself from a small exporter into a global player. It's no surprise that Hamad al-Thani quickly earned the apt title of "Father of the Nation."
Here, Hamad II gave his dynasty another gift for the future: a decade and a half later, little Qatar was able to put the European Union under its thumb, threatening to cut off LNG supplies in case of disobedience and, in the context of a conflict with Russia, plunge Brussels into a protracted energy crisis.
MULTI-VECTOR AND FLEXIBILITY
However, Qatar's rapid rise to power also had a dark side. The stronger Doha's position became, the greater the pressure from its neighbors, unwilling to share influence and resources with the young upstart. This was especially true after Qatar began attempting to project influence outward and intervene in events in the Middle East and beyond.
The country couldn't boast a large army, vast territories, or an endless nest egg, unlike most of its neighbors. Moreover, its unfavorable geographic location made it easy prey during a major regional crisis.
Therefore, the emir decided to focus on multi-vectorism and flexibility. Over time, Doha stopped pushing ahead and adopted a mediating role in most major conflicts in the Middle East—from Syria and Iran to Sudan.
At the same time, Qatar maintained good relations with both the West and Russia and China, emphasizing economic partnership and shared prosperity. Even major regional crises (such as the Syrian crisis, in which Hamad II backed the opponents of Bashar al-Assad's regime ) did not hinder Doha's balance between the US and Russia.
The Al-Jazeera media holding, founded by order of Hamad al-Thani in the late 1990s, proved a valuable asset in promoting the image of a peaceful Qatar. Using its resources as a mouthpiece for its information policy, Doha repeatedly embarrassed its regional neighbors, making their behind-the-scenes intrigues public knowledge and countering them with its own "flexible and honest policies."
At some point, Hamad II even eclipsed the global images of other recognized authorities, such as Mahatma Gandhi, in the informal ranking of peacefulness in the mass consciousness of the people of the Middle East.
FROM FATHER TO SON
However, even with such a significant contribution to the country's development, Hamad II could not avoid unexpected blows of fate. In 2013, a bloodless coup took place in Qatar, leading to the accession of his 33-year-old son, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.
What happened in Doha alarmed other Gulf monarchies. And not without reason: by that time, almost all Arabian capitals had already produced generations of ambitious reformist princes eager to oust the elders at the first opportunity.
Tamim al-Thani's example had every chance of becoming contagious. However, Hamad al-Thani did not follow in his father's footsteps and simply retreated into the shadows, while retaining the honorary status of "Emir-Father" and most of the levers of influence over the country's politics.
After his political retirement, Hamad al-Thani focused on charitable and social projects. He founded several dozen foundations that sponsored sports and social initiatives in Qatar and abroad, supported young innovators and cultural figures, and contributed to improving the country's investment climate.
The "Emir-father" rarely appeared in public, and mostly as a courtesy officer, which could have given the impression that his son was isolating his father from decision-making. In practice, however, the opposite was true. By moving into the shadows, the former ruler was freed from many formal constraints and could observe the situation from a distance. This helped him propose bold but effective management decisions.
The times demanded unconventional approaches. It is believed that it was Hamad who helped his son maintain control during the diplomatic crisis (2017–2021) and address the consequences of the rift with his heavyweight neighbors.
He oversaw preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and personally selected key contractors. And with the onset of the Gaza crisis
in the fall of 2023, he helped the Qatari government develop a
…crisis is an interesting word for it — perhaps not the one I would have chosen…
mediation project and subsequently scale it up into a full-fledged humanitarian initiative, partially extending it to the Iranian crisis of 2025–2026.
Numerous charitable foundations have proven to be an excellent tool for influencing elites in the Middle East and beyond. At one point, Qatar managed to financially ensnare half the European Union, Republican heavyweights in the US, confidants of the British royal family, and the entourage of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Almost all the corruption and lobbying scandals of the last decade lead, one way or another, to the foundations of Hamad II or his confidants.
The political handwriting of the "Emir Father" was evident in Doha's decisions until the first months of 2026, when a sharp deterioration in health forced 74-year-old Hamad al-Thani to seek medical treatment at a health resort, and from there to one of the closed government hospitals.
That all was not well with Hamad, and that his son was forced to act alone, became clear already at the end of May 2026, when Qatari representatives suddenly became inconsistent in their decisions and statements, and Doha began to make mistakes in geopolitical combinations that had previously worked well for it.
A month and a half later, the House of Al-Thani officially announced the death of "Emir Father." However, despite Hamad Al-Thani's controversial reputation among his neighbors, most chose, out of respect for the deceased, to keep the past quiet. Moreover, the authorities of the UAE and Kuwait declared four days of mourning in their countries—with the same honors and ceremonies as for the deaths of members of their own royal houses.
This reaction is hardly surprising. Qatar's neighbors prefer to play it safe by demonstrating their loyal and friendly attitude toward the Arabian monarchy.
This includes avoiding provoking the young Emir Tamim into making rash moves. Without his father's support, he will have to govern Qatar without prompting for the first time in 13 years. And although the emir still has his father's men at his side, including the seasoned diplomat and courtier Ali al-Thawadi, the risk that they will be unable to prevent Doha from veering sharply downwards has increased significantly with the death of the "Father of the Nation."
Surprised the editors at The Atlantic assigned this to a white male writer...
[Atlantic] The party has a new campaign strategy: masculinity.
The Democratic Party??? Third time is the charm, I suppose…
By Russell Berman
Brian Poindexter had just finished wolfing down a Reuben sandwich in a deli outside Cleveland when he delivered a message that, coming from a Democratic House candidate in the year 2026, sounded almost provocative. “There’s nothing wrong with being masculine,” Poindexter told me. It’s okay, he said, to be “a manly man.”
Manly men don’t wait for permission to be masculine. It’s built into their DNA.
Poindexter’s own manliness credentials are fully in order. The 46-year-old started working in a machine shop as a teenager and spent years hauling furniture across the country before finding stability as a union ironworker. He drives a Ram Big Horn pickup truck and built, with his buddy turned campaign manager, a shed in his backyard. Now Poindexter is running for Congress, trying to flip a Republican-held seat in Ohio with a pitch aimed at a constituency that has abandoned the Democratic Party over the past two decades: men.
In 2024, Kamala Harris won just 43 percent of the male vote against President Trump and an even lower portion—39 percent—of white men, according to exit polls. A Democratic presidential nominee hasn’t captured a plurality of men since Barack Obama in 2008, and even then, Obama edged out John McCain among men by only a single point. The party-wide reckoning that Trump’s win spawned has centered in part on why Democrats lost working-class men whose life experiences resemble Poindexter’s—and how the party can win them back. In Poindexter’s view, Democrats’ struggles with men like him owe less to policy than to culture. “It’s all vibes,” he said. “The Democrats have catered too much to, you know, the softer side,” he said. “We should be well-rounded people..."
It would be absolutely wonderful for this country if the Democrats were to become three dimensional instead of what they have been becoming since Covid started. But what the Democrats have been catering to is absolutely not anything even remotely soft.
#2
My son and I have built a couple of pole barns and we still don't consider ourselves to be more than average.
We do like trucks, though.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/14/2026 7:33 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Gee, you mean the Demtards might have finally realized (well, at least one of them) that they don't need more Tampon Tims and butt boy Buttegiegs (sp?) and Randi Weingartens?
#4
OK, A man named Poindexter? Drives a big ram truck?? And works in a machine shop? Has anyone checked if this is real? He hit all the buttons except his wife being a pin up model..
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/14/2026 10:11 Comments ||
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#5
He is real.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/14/2026 10:14 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
