Pt. 2: The 2016 Elections & and the Saudi Crisis
Pumping one trillion dollars into the ailing economy helped stave off mass bankruptcies of major banks and other businesses, thus preventing a total economic meltdown and bringing about stabilization. Though the Democrats had eventually agreed to a compromise in the 2014 Debt Ceiling Crisis to prevent disaster, they remained quarrelsome in terms of how to resolve the current depression and essentially made the last two years of Bush’s tenure a lame duck presidency, unsurprising given growing polarization.
The Democrats opposed policies that would spare the rich and major corporations while negatively affecting the lower middle class and working class, with popular senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders spearheading them. They could count on Facebook and Twitter, both run by a left-wing oriented management, to spread their message: the message was that the Republicans were intending to let ordinary Americans bleed for the crisis while with tax increases and a higher VAT; moreover, the Democrats said the Republicans wanted to let corporations and people with high incomes, including the bankers who the Democrats held responsible, get away scot-free instead of contributing their fair share as the broadest shoulders should; even worse, if new Republican policies got passed, top earners would pay less taxes than middle and working class people in terms of percentage. The Democrats started to conclude their Facebook posts with #party-of-the-rich whenever they criticized the Republicans, to which the Republicans responded by denouncing their Democratic opponents as “#socialists”, a slur in the American political vocabulary.
This social media war would continue with varying degrees of fervour and reached maximum intensity during the 2016 Presidential elections. Deciding that in 2016 her chances at winning were much better than in and 2012 and no other serious contenders for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton decided to run. Barack Obama hadn’t been severely tarnished by his defeat in 2012 and was still highly popular in Illinois as a Senator. Moreover, he had remained popular among younger voters, the African American community, Hispanics and other minorities. Meanwhile, Vice President John McCain decided not to run on account of his age and emerging health issues and who would become the Republican nominee was up in the air. The convincing winner of the Republican primaries was popular Senator from Texas Ted Cruz, a Born Again Christian with Cuban American roots. As his running mate he chose Florida Senator Marco Rubio, another Republican with Cuban American roots and also Christian (albeit a Catholic rather than an Evangelical Christian). Both candidates were members of the Hispanic community and younger than fifty (as opposed to Clinton, who was 68) and the Republicans hoped both facts would attract younger voters and part of the minority vote. Other than that, the Cruz/Rubio ticket demonstrated that the Republicans were moving even further to economic neoliberalism and heavy Christian-based social conservativism.
The Democrats blamed the Republicans for the depression that had started in 2014 and that the US economy was only beginning to crawl out of in late 2016. The Democrats also once again heckled economic policies to combat the crisis that spared the rich, but affected practically everybody else. The Republicans, on the other hand, argued their policies were the reason for signs of recovery and that recovery would be going even faster if they hadn’t been forced to seek a compromise because of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. In the end, bankers getting off with a slap on the wrist while their banks got bailed out with tax money alienated a lot of swing voters and the Clinton/Obama ticket convincingly defeated the Cruz/Rubio ticket. Clinton won 24 states + DC, getting 302 electoral votes and 50.3% of the popular vote while Cruz got 27 states, 229 electoral votes and 47.1% of the vote.
It was a revolutionary victory for the Democrats: they had produced the first female President as well as the first African-American Vice President while Bill Clinton was the very first “First Gentleman” and the only ex-President who would get to live in the White House again after serving two terms. After being inaugurated in January 2017, Clinton rapidly began using her majority in the House of Representatives and her fifty Senators (out of one hundred, which meant a tie but Clinton could count on Obama for that) to carry out her election promises at breakneck speed before the Republicans could regain the House and/or the Senate. If they did regain either in the future after the Democrat agenda was passed, Clinton could just veto Republican proposals. The VAT was lowered from 7% back to 5%, taxes for the existing top two tax brackets were raised by another 1.5 percent points, a new “millionaire tax bracket” with a marginal tax rate of 52% was passed, large corporations had to pay more taxes, and funding for Clintoncare and social security was increased.
In her foreign policy, Hillary Clinton intended to achieve a goal that had been set by the previous, Republican, administration: the previous administration had become very upset at the Saudis supporting genocidal madman Saddam Hussein and siding with the Soviets in the matter of the Iraqi Civil War, despite American guarantees that they would help develop Iraq into a democracy and wouldn’t allow Iranian domination. That carried over into the new administration, which was no surprise. George H.W. Bush had overseen the Gulf War and subsequent sanctions while Bill Clinton had launched Desert Fox, a four day offensive in 1998 with cruise missiles and aerial attacks against military and security targets in Iraq that contributed to Iraq's ability to produce, store, maintain and deliver weapons of mass destruction. George W. Bush had hoped to finish the job, but the Soviet nuclear umbrella made that hard and lavish Saudi support decisively gave Saddam the upper hand over the opposition. The anti-Saddam position was something Democrats and Republicans, even from different generations, had in common. Bush considered the support of Saudi Arabia for the clearly godless Iraqi tyrant, while it had previously supported Desert Storm in 1990-’91, an unforgivable betrayal and Hillary Clinton wasn’t much more sympathetic.
The Bush Administration had become determined to cause some kind of “internal consequences” in Saudi Arabia and had started by stopping all new armaments deliveries to America’s erstwhile ally in 2014, followed by ceasing delivery of spare parts, ammunitions and logistical support to the Royal Saudi Armed Forces in 2015. Europe followed the example. That made it difficult to maintain their M1 Abrams and M60 tanks, Eurofighter Typhoons, F-15s, F-16s etc. etc. as these required US or European support. The new Clinton Administration intended to continue punishing the Saudis for their unilateral decision to support Saddam over their longstanding relationship with the US.
The question was how they were going to do that. A direct military campaign against Saudi Arabia was out of the question since many Muslims worldwide would be outraged about infidel soldiers invading the sacred soil on which the holy cities Mecca and Medina had been built (just the mere presence of US troops during Desert Storm had caused Osama Bin-Laden to turn against America in 1990). Medina was the location of the world’s three oldest mosques and of the prophet Muhammad’s burial site; Mecca was the holy city of Islam, to which each Muslim must go on pilgrimage at least once in his life, barring special circumstances. Secondly, Saudi Arabia wasn’t some banana republic run by a tinpot dictator the US could overthrow at a whim, but an influential member of the G-20.
But there were other options. One that the US chose was supporting the Yemeni Houthi rebels against Yemen’s central government, as the Iranians had been doing from the start. A second step required the cooperation of Teheran: Iran was covertly asked to increase oil production way beyond agreed to OPEC production quotas to drastically lower oil prices. It wasn’t really in Iran’s economic best interests either, but the US agreed to help build five nuclear power plants with light water reactors (unsuitable for weaponization purposes), provide other major investments into Iran’s infrastructure assist in diversifying Iran’s economy. That, and the opportunity to screw over the Saudis, was enough for the ayatollahs to go along with this.
There was more to work with. Saudi Arabia was a theocratic absolute monarchy upholding a very strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. For starters, alcohol and any kind of narcotics were strictly forbidden and the act of being homosexual was punishable by death. Women’s rights in Saudi Arabia were poor: women required the permission of a male guardian to travel, study or work; in courts Saudi women were discriminated as the testimony of one man equaled that of two women in family and inheritance law; polygamy was admitted for men; they weren’t allowed to drive; women were legally obligated to cover their hair and most of their body; and men had the right to unilaterally divorce their wife while a woman could only do so with her husband’s consent or if her husband had harmed her. Religious minorities were discriminated against too. Hindus and Buddhists from India working in Saudi Arabia weren’t allowed to practice (additionally, there were reports of foreign workers being tortured). Shias were discriminated against in religion, education, justice and employment (they were not allowed to become cabinet members, mayors and police chiefs and couldn’t advance in the military and security forces). Christianity was discriminated against too and Saudi Christians officially didn’t exist as apostasy was illegal. Atheism, which under Saudi law also included the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, was a crime. As far as the criminal justice system went, courts observed few formalities and punishments were severe. Crimes such as apostasy, adultery, witchcraft, sorcery, and political dissent could be punished by lashes, long prison sentences or even death. As if the prolific use of capital punishment wasn’t bad enough, cruel methods of execution made it worse: beheading by a sword, stoning or death by firing squad followed by crucifixion.
Saudi Arabia had seen some minor protests in 2012 during the Arab Fall, but those had been suppressed. The potential for a much more destabilizing crisis was there: needless to say, women composed roughly half of the population and were treated like second-rate citizens; besides that actual atheists numbered at least 5% of the population, over 1.5 million people, but couldn’t admit to it without running the risk of execution; the small, unknown number of Saudi Christians worshipped underground for the same reason; Shias formed roughly 15% of the population but were heavily discriminated against. Low oil prices caused a recession in Saudi Arabia and in May 2017 new protests erupted in the Eastern Province, where large concentrations of Shias were concentrated, mostly in the cities of Qatif, Al-Hasa and Dammam. The government responded with mass arrests and super swift “justice” in which many arrestees were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences or death, with the “main culprits” being beheaded publicly to intimidate other opponents.
The difference between 2012 and 2017 was that faith in the government was lessened due to the persistent economic recession. Moreover, protests in the Shia inhabited areas in the Eastern Province not only continued but also escalated as soldiers were first deployed alongside and later instead of riot police over the course of the summer of 2017. Shia resistance and other opposition groups were being supported by the US, Iran, India and Israel at this point and protests spread from the eastern part of Saudi Arabia to cities in the rest of the country like Riyad, Jedda, Al Jawf and Hafar al-Batin demanding reforms and liberalizations ever more insistently as the regime refused to change. Demands included equality for women in family and divorce court, the freedom for women to drive, travel, study and work without needing permission from a male relative, freedom of religion, removing atheism, sorcery, witchcraft, homosexuality, apostasy and political dissent from criminal law, no more cruel punishments, and a government with some kind of system of checks and balances. The regime refused all but cosmetic changes, refusing anything that conflicted with their interpretation of Sharia law, and therefore protests continued.
Shia groupings in the east coalesced into a unified militia calling itself the People’s Protection Force (PPS) that focused on a guerrilla campaign focused on the eastern province. In the rest of the countries, resistance groupings formed that by early 2018 coordinated their efforts and adopted the name “Free Arabian Army.” The groups that the FAA was composed of had differing ideas about what the country’s future should look like: some wanted the country to remain based on Sharia law, albeit a relaxed interpretation of it, and a separate legal system for non-Wahhabi Muslims as well as non-Muslims similar to the Ottoman millet system; others wanted to transform the country into a constitutional parliamentary monarchy; a third alternative was a secular Arabian republic, either a democratic one or one based on Ba’ath style Arab Socialism and Arab Nationalism; a variant on all three models was independence for the Shia dominated areas, proposed by some Shias. Despite differences in opinion regarding the future of the country, the opposition groups cooperated in the face of the Saudis’ unwillingness to commit to major change.
The enormous wealth of the Saudis financed an efficient war machine, but the opposition was more numerous and supported by powerful foreign backers. A stalemate was the result in which the Saudis held on to the more populous southwest of the country while the north and east were largely under opposition control, save for a few loyal cities. That changed when King Salman died in early 2018 and was succeeded by his son Mohammad bin Salman: after promises of forming a constitutional assembly elected by the people, most opposition parties agreed to come to the negotiating table as they recognized a total overthrowal of the Saudis, given their military strength, would entail a lengthy war that would cost the country’s people dearly, if it succeeded at all. The constitution produced by early 2019 provided a bicameral legislature; the Upper House would be elected through a district based system once every six years, the Lower House through proportional representation once every four years; the Prime Minister was henceforth generally provided by the party with the largest number of seats in the Lower House; the King did retain significant legislative and executive power, like his command of the army as commander-in-chief and the power to declare war and peace, to ratify laws and treaties, to convene and close legislative sessions, to call and postpone elections, to dismiss the government, to dissolve parliament and issue a royal veto; the royal veto could be overridden by a two-thirds majority in a joint session of both houses of parliament; religious minorities would henceforth be allowed to lease land from the government to build their houses of worship, and, along with the right to vote, women obtained the right to drive, travel, study and work without needing permission from a male relative and received legal equality. Aside from the new constitution, the lawbook was also altered: cruel forms of capital punishment such as beheading, stoning and crucifixion were abolished, leaving only the firing squad and the gallows; corporal punishments such as lashes were also abolished; court procedures became much more formalized, putting the burden of proof on the accusing party; things like adultery, apostasy, atheism, dissent, sorcery, witchcraft were no longer crimes. Homosexuals in Saudi Arabia were now tolerated on the condition that they didn’t disclose their sexual orientation and didn’t speak of their relationships (doing so was still a crime in the category “public lewdness”, punishable by a minimum mandatory 45-day sentence). In other words, they were tolerated as long as they outwardly pretended to be heterosexual and carried out their liaisons clandestinely.
In the meantime, while reaping the benefits of the economy recovering from the depression, had been concerning herself with another foreign policy issue from the very first day of her presidency: the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Quartet on the Middle East composed of the United States, the European Union, the Soviet Union and the United Nations reconvened, still focusing on a two-state solution given that the UN had granted Palestine non-member observer status. Clinton wanted a diplomatic victory under her belt to shore her up before the 2018 midterm elections, given that she had rushed her progressive domestic agenda through Congress and probably pissed off some of the more conservative swing voters. That was unsurprising given the ongoing heavy polarization. After two years of talks, the White House giving the Israelis some very stern looks, US threats of sanctions, more veiled threats of letting Moscow settle the matter, and Washington agreeing to help Israel compensate Israeli settlers for being forced to move out of settlements in Palestinian territory, the Israelis reluctantly agreed to what the Palestinians wanted. In September 2018 the Palestinian Arab Republic, composed of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, was founded.
With the economy still going good and this rather unprecedented foreign policy success, albeit at the cost of souring relations with Israel, Hillary Clinton’s popularity reached new heights. She also initiated an ambitious program to make the US entirely independent of foreign fuels by the year 2045, something that struck a chord because of the role played by high oil prices in the recent depression. The Democrats were successful in the 2018 midterm elections and in November 2020 Hillary was re-elected to a second term, leading the country into the third decade of the 21st century.
Epilogue: Korea in 2020
When the Second Korean War ended in 1995, the South Korean government faced the daunting prospect of rebuilding from the war while simultaneously having to uplift the impoverished, famine stricken and underdeveloped former Democratic People’s Republic of Korea while deprogramming its extremely indoctrinated population. The task the unified Republic of Korea faced after 1995 was one that many believed would take decades. Fortunately, Korea’s many friends and the World Bank pooled 7.5 trillion dollars, which funded a tremendous reconstruction and development program. Secondly, major Korean companies like Kia, Samsung and Daewoo launched their own initiatives to develop the north’s resources and human capital.
The extreme repression mechanisms of the old regime dissolved within days after the country’s surrender and all kinds of materials from secret archives were released, such as video images, interrogation reports, secret orders and so on. Horrible imagery from concentration camps and speakers that had survived them were used to impress on the population that the Kim Dynasty was cruel and totalitarian. Coupled with information reaching the people of former North Korea on how much more wealthy and free the south was, it was clear that the old regime had lied. Now it was a matter of repeating the message over and over, and in some cases forcing the worst deniers to see a concentration camp with their own eyes.
Deprogramming the youngest who had only seen the madness of the Kim regime was the easiest. Older people who had consciously experienced the 1960s and 70s, when North Korea was actually doing better than the south, had been exposed to the regime’s poisonous propaganda for much longer and were more difficult to convince. Most of them would change their mind as the program to develop the north provided visible increases in living standards. Conditions like rickets and cataract caused by malnutrition and/or the North’s poor medical care were cured easily as emergency supplies of food and medicine arrived. As years progressed, construction sites popped up everywhere to asphalt existing roads, build highways, modernize and expand the railroad network, build modern port facilities, expand existing airfields, build new airfields, provide modern telecommunications, build factories and offices for foreign companies investing in this new market etc. etc. Pyongyang was the prime example, with tower cranes dominating the cityscape as skyscrapers arose.
By the year 2020 twenty-five years have passed since the fall of the Kim Dynasty. In material terms, living standards have improved exponentially since then. A significant gap in living standards remains: while the southern half has a GDP per capita of $29.900, the north has a GDP per capita of 20.050 (similar to the Czech Republic). No-one, however, fell below the minimum wage, which is $1.218,53 a month based on a 40-hour workweek (or $7.03 an hour), with 21 paid vacation days. Nevertheless, this disparity has led to a new political party being founded and gaining traction: the Left Alternative, which is predominantly successful in the north, as it’s composed of many members of the former regime who have abandoned Juche for democratic socialism, anti-capitalism, anti-militarism and left wing populism. It argues for higher taxes for the rich, more government interventionism in the economy, an increase in the minimum wage, state control of the healthcare sector, a focus on public housing and nationalization of the banking sector. When the first nationwide elections took place in 2001, they obtained 18% of the vote and have remained a constant factor.
The former DPRK nonetheless has a fairly modern infrastructure, with car ownership being considered normal, computer ownership up to 70 % of all households, TV ownership up to 90% and cell phone ownership also up to 90% (with thanks to Samsung, which was the first cell phone producer to gain a foothold in former North Korea). Healthcare is up to Western standards and all of the illnesses caused by poverty and malnutrition have been eliminated. Even the poorest in northern Korea now get a 2.000 calorie per day diet. The memory of the mid 90s famine and the modern availability of food has led to the odd cultural phenomenon of “fat fetishism” being fairly common in the north, particularly among millennials, while in the south it’s still considered every bit as weird as it is in the rest of the Western world.
North Korea’s psyche has been radically altered as well, with virulent denunciation of the old regime being coupled with a morbid fascination for it as more and more has become known of its inner workings and the horrors it produced. Similar to Nazi Germany, northern Koreans denounce the regime but they, and many others around the world, retain a fascination for this hermit kingdom that had existed for nearly fifty years. Loads of documentaries and history books have been produced after 1995, using released materials from the former DPRK state archives. This has produced numerous history buffs interested in obtaining anything relating to the former regime and northern tourist agencies cater to serve all categories of tourists. Miniature plastic busts, plastic North Korean style military medals, fake but realistic uniforms etc. are available.
Rarer original marble, bronze and golden busts, statuettes and in rare cases life-sized statues have been the subject of online auctions in which hundreds of thousands of dollars sometimes exchange hands for a single item. Items than can be authenticated as coming from the Kim court have been sold for much more, while Kim Il-Sung’s grandson and Kim Jong-Il’s son Kim Jong-Un has become a celebrity through TV interviews and publishing his autobiography, which became a bestseller overnight upon publication in 2007, followed by a revised edition released in 2014 that also covered his father’s trial. Both books earned him millions of dollars in royalties, in addition to the significant amount of money and assets the family had managed to hold onto. Hollywood movie rights have been secured for a movie in the style of “The Last Emperor”, reportedly, and the fascination for the obscurant Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continues. Thusly the regime casts its shadow forward well into the 21st century.