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An Al-Sabah’s understanding of the Middle East

A letter to the FT strikes a chord with thousands

 

Though I’ve yet been unable to confirm categorically that it is indeed from him, a letter to the Financial Times last week from, I presume, my old friend Sheikh Khaled Naser Hamoud Al-Sabah of the London office of the Kuwait Investment Office (KIO), is a must read. It surmises the current situation in the Middle East perfectly and given my knowledge of this particular individual, I do believe it has to be from him as it is both wise and witty.

 

K. N. Al-Sabah’s letter to the “Financial Times”, published 22nd August 2013

The letter reads:

 

From Mr K N Al-Sabah.

 

Sir, Iran is backing Assad. Gulf states are against Assad!

 

Assad is against Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood and Obama are against General Sisi.

 

But Gulf states are pro Sisi! Which means they are against Muslim Brotherhood!

 

Iran is pro Hamas, but Hamas is backing Muslim Brotherhood!

 

Obama is backing Muslim Brotherhood, yet Hamas is against the US!

 

Gulf states are pro US. But Turkey is with Gulf states against Assad; yet Turkey is pro Muslim Brotherhood against General Sisi. And General Sisi is being backed by the Gulf states!

 

Welcome to the Middle East and have a nice day.

 

K N Al-Sabah, London EC4, UK

 

Unusually for a piece of correspondence that would normally have been lost in the letters pages, this particular member of the Al-Sabah family’s points have attracted great interest both there and elsewhere.

 

A short guide to the Middle East in diagram form by @pdmsero on Twitter

In the newspaper, Abigail Fielding-Smith produced an analysis of the reaction to the letter today and on Twitter and Facebook, it has supposedly been shared by thousands. Chat show host Piers Morgan and Islamic scholar Hayder al-Khoei have discussed it and Felix Salmon of Reuters persuaded someone to turn it into a diagram.

 

Whilst some may criticise this letter as an oversimplification, it has raised a number of valid points in a succinct and clever manner. The Middle East is a web and it is one that will prove virtually impossible to disentangle.

 

 

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