SAUDI ARABIA V. SYRIA: LET'S SPONSOR EACH OTHER'S OPPOSITION. OR LET'S QUIET DOWN, IN TANDEM.

UPDATED! s e c o n d and some rough draft. Serious.

The Syrian government is adopting a lesson from the British play book on dealing with Saudi Arabia: Try out blackmail; it worked for the British.

THIS NEWSLETTER WAS FIRST TO QUESTION THEIR MANHOOD.

Try to recall a post a long time ago which I co-authored, “Of British Blackmail and Saudi Manhood,” before Bashar Asad had called Saudi and other Arab leaders “half-men.” In that post, my co-author and I outlined the ingenious blackmail by Tony Blair and his British government against the Saudi. That blackmail has netted (and continues to) the UK vast arms contracts, seemingly unending, and eminently useless to Saudi Arabia. "Protection" money. And it wouldn't surprise me the least that, after this humiliating blackmail, the Saudi government should still be more than glad to kiss Tony Blair’s ass and wash his balls. (It may have done it already; I need to look at my notes. Didn't King Abdallah visit the blackmailers in their own country?)

The Saudi government, so helpless after the defeat of the harmful idiots in the Gulf, probably feels it has no other choice. It knows that Blair and George W. Bush have created uncounted numbers of Arab orphans, a few million refugees, and put an end to a country which once was Arab. But it'll care for Blair and Bush as a slave would a master, having internalized inferiority.

One important element of successful blackmail against Saudi Arabia is the hosting in your country of Saudi opposition figures. They don’t have to be important figures. Anyone with a Saudi citizenship should do. That opposition should be allowed a relative free range in broadcasting and other political activities. And, hey, by the way, you’d need to give it some money, but not directly. Re-route it multiple times.

Syria seems to be pursuing a similar course, with a twist -- a Shia twist. This started a while ago. (See the June 6, 2007 post, “Saudi Arabia to Syria: Screw You Shia Alawites.”) But the immediate re-start went as follows:


A SYRIAN (and, do lower your voice: IRANIAN) SATELLITE TELEVISION DIRECTED AT THE SAUDI EASTERN PROVINCE--AND AT THE U.A.E.


Mr. Farouq al-Sharaa, Syria’s Vice President, recently told a conference of political parties in Damascus that Syria, Iran, and Turkey stand for a united Iraq. He added, as an afterthought, that Saudi Arabia does too. Um, why, pray tell. Because, he said, a divided Iraq could jumpstart a bad omen, a domino effect so to speak, where the royal family in Saudi Arabia will see its country partitioned and would lose the income of most of the country’s oil, so concentrated in al-Ahsa' (the Eastern Province) where....um, let me guess...a majority Shia population lives.


He did say the "royal family" -- not "the Saudis" or "the Saudi government" -- as losing the oil income. This was a no no for the Saudi government. Besides, how dare he at a time when we had worked so hard to have Mr. Bush issue an invite to Syria to attend the Annapolis let’s-coalesce-against-Iran-and-not-ask-dear-Israel-to-shed-its-settlements-and-withdraw-to-pre-1967-borders-conference, and even had the harmful idiots include the Joulan Heights on the agenda?

Mr. Al-Sharaa’s statement was not an accident; it was studied. I’d go further: his statement likely was part of a shrewd Iranian-Syrian strategy --

-- to force Saudi Arabia to lift the Saudi-engineered Arab isolation of Syria-- fully;

-- to cease and desist from its efforts to erect an Arab Sunni front against the Arab Shia and Iran -- to in effect ignite sectarian tension; (you do see attacks on any party allied to Iran or to its proxies all over the pages of the Saudi-paid press);

-- to accept the fact that Syria has strategic interests in Lebanon, until the Joulan is truly and fully regained and a Palestinian state is formed;

-- to cease and desist from using its huge surpluses to eat away at Syria’s influence among the former Baath and Arab Sunni of Iraq, a policy coordinated among the Kingdom, Jordan, and the harmful idiots;

-- to coordinate with Iran and Syria about Plantation Iraq and Plantation Lebanon, not with the harmful idiots -- both plantations having become so in good part thanks to the harmful idiots' ingenious "calculations," the "protectors" of the Saudis, the Islraelis, and the Arab Gulf countries miscalculating. ( Oops, we just destroyed yet another Arab country, destabilized it and the region, fueled terrorism -- all to avoid asking the apple of our eye to withdraw to pre-1967 borders and create a Palestinian state. Oops, sorry Arab orphans.)

-- to cease and desist from supporting Syrian opposition abroad in tandem with the harmful idiots (e.g. , the little man who oversaw in good part the destruction of Lebanon, now living in a palace (!) in Paris, the so-called Damascus Declaration payees of the Saudis and the harmful idiots);

-- and what have you.

In short: to align Saudi regional policy (not the one on television, where hands are held, but the one run by Saudi intelligence) more closely with Iran's and Syria's and less with the harmful idiots. Or, to act as a genuine bridge between the harmful idiots and Iran and Syria, to have the harmful idiots be more accepting of the two countries.

You’re saying that Saudi King Abdallah recently has extended an invitation to Iranian President Ahmadi-Nejad for pilgrimage to Mecca; that he had held hands with him like a grandfather would with his grandson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s television. On a scale of one to ten, how naive are you?

Where’s the Syrian blackmail, learned from the ones who cannot protect anyone, but who are eminently good at destroying defenseless countries and robbing the parents away from Arab children? So that their Prime Minister could prove his manhood strutting in a white shirt among his useless troops (a la Bush landing on an aircraft carrier) having defeated a defenseless Arab country and inflicted immense pain to helpless Arab civilians -- Blair and his government?

It’s in the rumor now circulating that Syria will be using a former Iraqi opposition figure to start a satellite television. So what? Well, Farouq al-Sharaa talked about the royal family losing control over al-Ahsaa where most of the Saudi oil is found and where a majority Shia population lives. Right? Get it? That satellite television should be quite a nuisance to the Saudi government if it features Saudi Shia opposition activists.


(Wonder who will be paying for this one? Let me think for a moment.....um....Could it be...Iran?)

What a drag. The Saudi government is free from harassment by al-Jazirah (Qatar --al-Jazirah's funder -- and Saudi Arabia have made up) only to face harassment by Syria.

(NOTE/UPDATE:

The Financial Times recently reported that the U.A.E., especially the Sheikdom of Dubai, has been tightening regulations pertaining to the residency of the sizeable Iranian community in that country. That it hasn't been renewing visas for the Iranians. The Shia satellite station should therefore be used against the UAE in addition to Saudi Arabia since the UAE, too, has a sizeable Shia population.)


Well, we can dish it out, too, said the Saudis. They ordered their dailies to unleash terrific attacks on al-Sharaa and Syria -- nearly all of their dailies.

Which they did. But one such daily was more subtle. On December 17, Fayez Sara (who? What?) wrote up a meaningless article about the Damascus Declaration (Syrian opposition, likely funded by the harmful idiots’ intelligence services and the Saudi) having gotten its house in order by electing officers. Al-Hayat published it. What choice does it have? It’s Saudi-royal-owned. Here, you damn Alawites. You call yourselves Arab nationalists! Consider this a shot across the bow.

(At least one more intelligence-planted article appeared in Al-Hayat on or about December 22; al-Malaf, the harmful idiots/Jordanian intelligence sheet -- well, don't even ask!)

THE FUTURE

Mind you: I had a while ago thought the harmful idiots would be the ones hosting Saudi Shia opposition figures and nursing them.

Discuss among yourselves: Can the Saudis and other Sunni Gulf Arab governments withstand the financing of Shia opposition within their countries?

More urgently, can they withstand a Shia-Sunni Iraqi Arab nationalism, helped along by Syria and Iran -- with a sophisticated propaganda machine, and allies in Lebanon and Palestine?

Time to wrap up a deal. I already see its outlines -- and it's not what you think.