John Kerry: Bringing Peace to the Middle East.

I've decided that if I begin with when God first spoke to Abraham this might take a while. So you'll excuse me if I cut a few corners.

Despite claiming that they were responsible for the whole thing the so-called "Arab Spring" caught the US by surprise and their reaction was particularly chaotic. This is especially true of the decision to support the invasions of Libya and Syria which set off chain reactions across the entire region and beyond the effects of which are not yet fully understood and constantly changing.

So in an effort to get back in the game the US decided to chair another round of peace talks between Israel and Palestine. As this is a conflict that involves pretty much everybody in the region and a fair few beyond the true purpose of this exercise was to make the US the centre of attention so they can work out where everybody stands as everybody tries to work out what is going on in these talks.

Quite apart from all the usual problems of Palestinian/Israeli talks this latest round has been plagued by more specific ones. For example through the Rihanna operation and its support for the invasion of Syria the US has lost all credibility with the Israelis meaning that the US has very little influence over Israeli policy. The other major problem is that the US has chosen the Fatah Party to represent the Palestinians in these talks. Fatah only control the ever shrinking West Bank portion of Palestine and they had to take control of this through force because they failed to win the last election meaning that they do not have the support of the majority of the Palestinian people. Also Fatah are stone cold broke only continuing to exist through financial backing from Saudi Arabia. As a result Saudi Arabia more or less controls Fatah policy meaning that they are able to manipulate the talks with the US to discuss a range of regional issues that have nothing to do with either Israel or Palestine.

On January 1st 2014 (1/1/14) US Secretary of State John Kerry set off for another round of talks with Israel and Fatah. After several days of shuttling between Israel and the West Bank on Sunday (5/1/14) Kerry headed off to Saudi Arabia via Jordan. Although they knew exactly what was said between Kerry and Fatah Saudi Arabia were keen to use Kerry's visited to find out what he had discussed with the Israelis. So in preparation for his visit they decided to rough him up a bit.

This involved chartered passenger plane carrying pilgrims from Iran making a crash landing at Medina airport injuring 29. This obviously could have be a reference to any number of plane crashes the US have caused in a effort to keep international interest in its Rihanna operation going. However mainly it focused on the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran who absolutely loathe each other. As a result Saudi Arabia is very opposed to the US having direct talks with Iran over its nuclear or any other issue and the two nations have been engaged in a Sunni via Shia proxy war across the region. This is probably most noticeable in Syria and Iraq. On Friday (3/1/14) Sunni clerics in Iraq's Anbar province broke of their allegiance with the Shia dominated Iraqi government allowing Sunni Al Qaeda fighters to force the Iraqi government out of Anbar. This is a situation that warrants a post all of its own but it goes without saying that the US is coming under a lot of pressure to support the Iraqi government in retaking Anbar but are waiting for permission from Saudi Arabia before making a decision.

In response to the Saudi plane crash Egyptian authorities banned a group of Shia pilgrims form Canada from entering the country in a effort find out what was going on. Egypt obviously shares a land border with both Israel and Palestine. More importantly Egypt shares a land border with the bit of Palestine that is run by Hamas, the elected government of Palestine. Although being a Sunni organisation Hamas used to enjoy a long relationship with Shia Iran. This all changed when Mohamed Morsi came to power in Egypt and Hamas broke of all ties with Iran in the hope of forming a alliance with an Egypt run by its parent organisation the Muslim Brotherhood. The fall of Morsi obviously left Hamas in a very vulnerable position and they're certainly not stopping people crossing into Egypt to help with the fight against the government.

In response to the Egyptian ban a passenger plane from Toronto, Canada made a crash landing in New York. Apart from putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what was meant by its plane crash this was intended to blind the Egyptians and allow the US to talk to the Canadians about what they were saying to the Egyptians about the Saudi plane crash.

As it's now widely acknowledged that US foreign policy is written in Riyadh rather then in Washington there was a lot of international interest in what was being said during Kerry's visit. As result my brother decided to pop up for dinner and while I was supposed to be out at the pub with him and my father a "serious incident" occurred at the G4S run HMP Oakwood prison in the UK This could have been interpreted in any number of ways about personal safety and security and to say UK authorities are remaining tight-lipped about the exact nature of the incident is an understatement.

In an effort to throw up a smokescreen around the visit to Saudi Arabia a private jet manufactured by Canadair crashed in the Aspen ski resort in Colorado, US and was witnessed by at least one celebrity. There probably isn't an alarm bell that this story did not ring because Micheal Schumacher was injured whilst skiing, Colorado recently legalised the sale of marijuana and Aspen is a resort used by the rich meaning there was initial speculation about whether celebrities of captains of industry had been killed in the crash. As it turns out all the people on the plane were Mexicans which feeds into the immigration debate. Also plane crashes have recently been used as a metaphor for the Rihanna operation which quite a few people think has gone down in flames - just like the plane did. Perhaps inadvertently by clouding the Saudi meeting in this way the US also gave the impression that it feels it needs to gain Saudi permission before making a decision on the Rihanna operation.

The Aspen plane crash was followed up by a legal decision - coming two days early - to release Jahi McMath "to her family who will be taking her to an undisclosed location." This of course posed more questions then it answered. For example does it mean that Rihanna is going to be released wide 'family' that is opposed to the US' operation or does it mean that Rihanna will be taken off 'life-support.' It also brings up the issue of Rihanna's actual mother who by the sounds of things is a key witness in the Berdon LLP case.

All it actually means of course is that Jahi McMath is going to be transported to an unscrupulous nursing home in New York state who will proceed to bleed the McMath family dry by charging them thousands of dollars a month to essentially warehouse a corpse. Therefore this seems to be morphing into a discussion about the infamous Obamacare death panels because the compassionate part of me thinks someone should have intervened to stop this by now. The problem is that California Courts already provide that mechanism it's just as with Chris Brown the US government feels it can unilaterally waive those protections as it sees fit.


12:25 on 6/1/14 (UK date).