AFTER THE RETREAT: SAUDI ARABIA COVERS THE BASES

Rough draft

FACTS

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia visits Syria. Turki al-Faisal dispenses advice to the Obama Administration.

SAUDI ARABIA CROWNS SYRIA THE LIAISON BETWEEN IRAN AND SAUDI ARABIA

First: the King’s visit.

I found the explanations for the Saudi King’s visit to Damascus lacking. He went there to discuss Lebanon. He visited Damascus to lure it away from Iran.

I believe that the King went to Damascus to crown Syria THE liaison between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In that, Saudi Arabia is admitting that Iran-as-a-great-power is here to stay - - but only temporarily. That is, until such time when the Kingdom is able to use harmful idiots other than Saddam Hussein or Crusader-and-the-American-Jewish-Right (if ever others like them could be found) to defeat the Islamic Republic.

Until such time: Arab Syria will have to be the liaison.

Why not approach Iran directly? The most persuasive reason would be that the two (Iran and Saudi Arabia) distrust each other, immensely. Note for instance the disappearance of the Iranian nuclear scientist while in Saudi Arabia. Covering the American base, Saudi Arabia likely had delivered the scientist to the reluctant ones.

Another reason for not approaching Iran directly: Saudi Arabia would hope that the reluctant ones wouldn’t close off the option of the war-on-Iran-directly-or-through-sanctions. Here, easing relations with Iran might provide the wrong Saudi message to the reluctant ones. In other words, the Saudi ruling elite would hope that the reluctant ones would stay in the neighborhood, Iran’s neighborhood, and NOT in the Kingdom itself. Hence: Turki al-Faisal’s appeal. (See below.) If the reluctant ones stay in Iran’s neighborhood, the Saudi ruling elite would then nurse two other alternative hopes: (1) that the reluctant ones would eventually finish the Islamic regime; or (2) that the reluctant ones would remain engaged in encircling Iran - - suffocate it until the regime changes.

A third reason (related to the second) yet for not approaching Iran directly likely has to do with the fact that the Saudi ruling elite wouldn't want to give legitimacy to the Islamic Republic both within the circles of allied Arab rulers and before the reluctant ones and their allies.

In essence: Saudi Arabia is on a war footing with Iran but doesn’t have the professional armed forces to wage its own war.

That President Assad and the Saudi King were reported to have spent substantial time discussing Palestine - - I do believe that. Be mindful that “Palestine talk” is the means to various ends which may or may not relate to Palestine. In other words, the King wasn’t about to ask Mr. Assad point blank for help with Iran. His strategists likely already had done the asking and, likely too, a price had been set for Arab Syria’s services. Palestine was the excuse - - the medium through which the agreement for Syria to act as liaison was expressed. Tangentially, therefore, expect Palestine to regain in importance since (1) Palestine is and always has been central to any Arab consensus, even when superficial; and (2) Syria would insist on it since Syria’s stability depends in good part on its faithfulness to Arab nationalism.

Accordingly, Arab Syria’s services as liaison should be seen as a function not only of financial profit (Syria is quite poor) but, too, as a function of Arab nationalism. Syria nurses the latter to keep links among the Arabs, project power, and to assure that Arab Syria doesn’t become another Lebanon or Iraq.

Saudi Arabia is hedging its bets by covering the Arab Syrian base - - the Iran base, really. Should the reluctant ones stage a retreat, even if only half-way, and NOT engage extensively in the Indian subcontinent/Iran's neighborhood (see below), the Saudi ruling elite would put on its Arab nationalist hat and direct its “full” support for Syria (and Hezbollah) in their war to liberate Arab lands. In that sense, the Saudi rapprochement with Syria is meant as a message to the American Jewish community and its organizations that unless these help steer the idiots to full war-and-engagement in Iran’s neighborhood, the Saudi ruling elite would have no choice but to lend its full support to Syria and, indirectly, to Hezbollah. Call it the flip side of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic statements - - just as you can brand the same such phenomena as the reliance by the harmful idiots on the Jewish community for legitimacy in waging war and dismembering an Arab country, or the use of informants, with links to American Jewish organizations, to spy-and-snoop and deliver information (finger prints, writing sample, DNA) on Arab Americans with views and participate in campaigns to intimidate and harass them.

It’s too early to tell whether this Saudi rapprochement (with Syria and, indirectly. with Hezbollah) would rein in Iranian-Saudi tension. For one, the Saudis should expect all bets to be off if, for instance, they deliver yet another important Iranian to the reluctant ones. Arab Syria-as-liaison likely would no longer do when it comes to the Iranians.

Saudi-Iranian tension might rear its head anyway because Saudi Arabia’s heart is with the reluctant ones as the only ones who could defeat Iran once-and-for-all. Saudi Arabia is lobbying for these to remain intensively involved in the Indian subcontinent - - Iran’s (not Saudi Arabia’s!) neighborhood. In doing that Saudi Arabia is trying to cover the bases. The U.S. base is the most important; Syria is only a side-show—a way to hedge a bet. Recently, for instance, Turki al-Faisal published an article in the Washington Post. In that article, he most definitely dispensed advice to President Obama. He offered the Kingdom’s help in Afghanistan. He seemed motivated by a concern that the reluctant ones would pack and go in Afghanistan. Too, he called on the reluctant ones to engage extensively in the region of India and Pakistan. In other words, he outlined a strategy for the Obama Administration to remain in Iran’s neighborhood to - - encircle Iran without saying so - - as he tried to weigh in on the American debate on Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia, he seemed to be saying, wouldn’t be satisfied with an American commitment to protect the Kingdom militarily - - to place it under a U.S. military defense cover - - and convey that to the Iranians. For reasons of war-with-Iran this wouldn’t do.

A few posts ago (or maybe a couple of posts ago) I had commented that Turki al-Faisal was screaming for attention, not to himself but to the Kingdom. He was and still is trying to have Saudi Arabia gain a seat on the White House team of strategists. It seems that that effort is ongoing. And because it is, one cannot but conclude that the Obama Administration still isn’t giving Saudi Arabia (or its advice on Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan - on Iran, really) the attention to which the elite of that country had been accustomed. Still, it’s fair to see in Turki’s appeals Saudi nervousness about the extent of the retreat by the reluctant ones and the fact that the Saudi ruling elite wouldn’t be accepting-or-satisfied with only an American commitment to defend the Kingdom. It’s important to note here that it’s likely not about the Saudi public not accepting U.S. bases in the Kingdom. Saudi bases, after all, can be stocked and used as they had when U.S. troops had liberated Kuwait after the Arab Iraqi idiot had fallen into the harmful idiots’ trap - - the very trap we fell into, the one of our own making. As I’ve maintained in prior posts: a trip wire (and the training of a professional army in Saudi Arabia?) would do for the Arabian Peninsula. It would save a lot of money and be effective.

(By the way, Turki al-Faisal is making the same mistake the mediocre strategists had made when they ha kept on entrapping until we fell into the Iraq trap. The mistake: not tying foreign military adventures to domestic politics and economic realities at home.)

BY WAY OF CONCLUSION

Turki’s proposals aim to further U.S. engagement in the Indian subcontinent - - Iran’s very neighborhood and not Saudi Arabia’s. It can be interpreted as a continued call for war on Iran - - but not by the Saudi army. As such, one can see that the hearts-and-hopes of the Saudi rulers are with the reluctant ones changing ways and clearly taking on the task of re-arranging the Indian subcontinent, and pacifying it. The heart of the Saudi rulers, therefore, is hardly with Arab Syria. Arab Syria for now is a minor Saudi side show. In essence, Syria is Saudi Arabia hedging its bets and staging an indirect and cautious rapprochement (from afar) with Iran and Hezbollah- - not much more. More correctly, the use of Arab Syria as liaison is a payoff to Iran, protection money, a ruse, for a truce while the Saudi ruling elite waits for what’s coming from the reluctant ones. Saudi Arabia should be expected to quit on Syria as soon as it senses that the country of the harmful idiots-and-the-reluctant ones is back to its overwhelming (to our country) military campaigns and miscalculations.

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

I have no connection to any government. My analysis is based solely on my review of newspaper articles.