Thread: With Gulf crisis apparently ending I wonder what happens to those groups and influence peddling operations that were operationalized over the last three years to spread stories based on this crisis.

Some would just *happen* to focus critique on UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia...claiming it's because these are US allies...even though Qatar and Turkey are also allies...

I have an email from a group that claimed it will highlight US allies Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. The group would provide documentation of prosecutions in these countries. Ummm but not Qatar...not Turkey...

Be interesting to see if there is a quiet shift in Ankara's regime media and other places too...with those westerners who write there who had carte blanche to slam Egypt or Saudi but of course not Turkey's friends (i.e Hamas, Iran...); will they get the word "tone it down"

I thought it was interesting in 2017 how after the crisis I used to get these private messages and emails from people who wanted to "tell me about Saudi" all of a sudden...writers and analysts who just a year or so before were pro-Saudi and now had to peddle influence for Doha

Media is always susceptible to these operations...people who just *happen* to suddenly want to tell you about "terror finance" in country *****....because some other country doesn't like that country...not because terror finance is actually worse suddenly.

Remember during the anti-corruption raids in November 2017 how there just *happened * to be a story about the 'Salvator Mundi' painting...just *happened* by coincidence right...a major story about this after the raids?

People who I'd never heard of came out of the woodwork in 2017 suddenly had to "tell me" about things...they had stories to tell...the influence peddling lasted about eight months and then got boring I guess.

There is a lesson in all this. When "human rights" experts suddenly shift focus from one country to another and the countries are similar you have to wonder what's going on...when commentators who loved one place suddenly dislike it...one has to wonder.

When writers in the West who, a year before couldn't tell one country from another, are suddenly experts at "palace intrigue"...you have to wonder...who operationalized them to suddenly focus on this?

And let's not even discuss the supposed former "intelligence" people who suddenly are writing or feeding information about these issues to others...who probably aren't what they say they are...but have "inside information"...which they don't or which is fed them.

And what about the people who were suddenly concerned about the use of "armed drones" by one country...but not another...who suddenly opposed F-35s for one country but not another...because suddenly F-35s were a waste of money or something...

If you're concerned about armed drones...you can't possibly ignore the Ankara elephant in the room and complain about some other country...unless of course the funding you get is predicated quietly on not critiquing countries ***** and *****.

This went both ways during the last three years...I wrote about some of it...like the bizarre attempts to influence some far-right voices in the US in order to "get to Trump"...the quid-pro-quo...who knows. Some of it was so obvious...with opeds by ***** suddenly in favor of ***

And of course I'm not even touching on the vile people, more connected to Turkey than the Gulf, who sought to fan flames of war in the Caucasus during this period or to cause harm to poor Syrians. Those people are vile, the influence peddlers are more ridiculous and mundane

But I think we might expect to see a shift in the Ankara lobby also maybe...the people who had once been pro-Israel but never even mentioned the Abraham Accords...because they were not in Ankara's pocket. Will they return to normal?

The lesson of the last years is how easily think tanks, commentators, politicians, even experts, activists, religious groups, media and so many can be easily influenced.

The flood of ridiculous comments bashing the peace deals with Israel as "authoritarian"...hmmmm