Did Bin Laden Come Home To Rule?

December 12, 2006

Do the Saudi’s think they got screwed? Or did Bin Laden come home to rule? Recent Saudi action, especially today resignation, may tell the tale.

There had been a series of warnings from Saudi Arabia over U.S. policy in Iraq. The most explicit one, which also includes a carrot offer of cheap oil, came in a November 29 OpEd which we did discuss here.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was summoned by the king to receive an official down-dressing.

Given that the Saudi-U.S. relations have deep roots and are usually very good, these public warnings were serious, but they seem to have been disregarded.

Additionally, the Iraq Study Group report, delivered by longtime Saudi consultant James Baker has been deep-sixed by Bush/Cheney.

Today the Washington Post buries this sensation on page A23: Saudi Ambassador Abruptly Resigns, Leaves Washington. The ambassador, Prince Turki al-Faisal, is the former head of the Saudi intelligence services, a serious player in the Saudi power game.

The usual "to spend time with his family" is given as official reason for the sudden resignation but that is of course bullshit. As is WaPo’s speculation about illness of Prince Turki’s brother. Steve Clemons’ explanation of backstabbing in Riyadh does not sound credible to me either. So why is the ambassador being recalled?

The relations beween Washington and Riyadh are now tanking fast.

As was just published, in the first half of this year (newer numbers are not yet available) Saudi Arabia has moved further away from the Dollar and put a bigger share of its reserves into Euros.

Today the Saudi Arabia’s National Air Services annouced to spend $2 billion on new planes, mostly European Airbuses, no Boeings.

While the Saudi "offer" for cheaper oil was on the table earlier, the Saudi Arabian oil minister now calls for serious production cuts by OPEC.

Also today 30 prominent Saudi clerics have called for Sunnis worldwide to mobilize against Iraqi Shiites.

The last issue can be seen as an open declaration of war against U.S. troops in Iraq and their allies in the mostly Shia Iraqi army. Such a call to the weapons could never have happend without the explicite agreement of the highest authorities in Rihyad.

All these issues are related. So what has happened? Did Cheney rebuke all Saudi recommendations? Did Bin Laden come home to rule? Why isn’t the U.S. media all over this issue?

Posted by b on December 12, 2006 at 17:56 UTC | Permalink

Comments

So the Bushies creep out and alienate everyone. Prince Bandar quit in mysterious circumstances also, 15 months before, after 20+ years of loyal service..and it had nothing to do with Fahd, whose death was as a figure was long past; SA is coerced into pumping and pumping and manipulating prices, and is blamed for terrorism (the 15 of the 19 didn’t go down well in SA, to put it mildly), is endlessly critisised as in need for ‘reform’ and is prevented from using its petro dollars as it would wish in the US. So if you can’t spend those petro-dollars, what use are they? It all gets a bit much. They are fed up. The bumbling in Iraq – really alarming – is too much. Don’t forget, these people are all temperamental, Turki more so than Bandar (afaik.)

Posted by: Noirette | Dec 13 2006 20:39 utc | 101

IB @ 99,
I doubt Cheney was there to tell King Abdullah the US was pulling out – more likely to say that Abdullah shouldn’t take the neo-Cons’ 80% solution (to back the non-Sadrist Shiites and “moderate Sunnis” and Kurds) personally – and that SA should get with the program of “reconciliation”. After all, smiles Cheney, Abdullah knows that backing the AQ-lead Sunni insurgents in western Iraq could produce very nasty blowback in SA. Who’s got who over a barrel here and what the hell are the Chinese doing – just biding time, or waiting to pull the plug on the $, or what?

Posted by: Hamburger | Dec 13 2006 20:44 utc | 102

hamburger- that’s not exactly a new excuse
aug 2005: Bush gives new reason for Iraq war: Says US must prevent oil fields from falling into hands of terrorists

President Bush answered growing antiwar protests yesterday with a fresh reason for US troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country’s vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists.
…
“If Zarqawi and [Osama] bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks,” Bush said. ”They’d seize oil fields to fund their ambitions. They could recruit more terrorists by claiming a historic victory over the United States and our coalition.”

Posted by: b real | Dec 13 2006 20:58 utc | 103

What is it they are lynching the Socialist dictator Saddam Hussein for again? Oh yeah… Executing 182 Iraqis for treason.

Posted by: pb | Dec 13 2006 21:30 utc | 104

b real,
Right. Above, he tells us to worry about Z and OBL taking Iraqi fields to fund their ambitions. Americans now know these 2 bad guys are not in Iraq or have little chance of controlling Iraq oil.
What I find notable in Bush’s more recent rants is that he is now more consistently mainstreaming generic “threats” of “terrorists” and “the enemy” using Iraq oil as a “weapon” and for purposes of blackmail – which will end up being anyone in Iraq that he defines as the enemy — something the average American might find plausible — such as the guy wearing the black hat, nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr, i.e., someone like Hugo Chavez, e.g., whom Americans may already understand in the same way, in Bush-speak.
It looks to me that he is in the process of making believable to the public that it’s “not about the oil”, it’s about the “oil threat”. And I think Americans just might buy it. Like: OK, Bush went in to unseat Saddam and liberate the Iraqi people, but goddamit, now we’ve got to keep the oil out of the bad guys’ hands till the “good” (as designated by W) Iraqis themselves can control things. Which, of course will be never.

Posted by: Hamburger | Dec 13 2006 21:45 utc | 105

hamburger- the real public – not necessarily that composite we attempt to grok from polls and other media-supplied perception-modeling – has a pretty good grip on what role oil plays in the occupation. bush’s spin may help some of them to continue role-playing to justify conquest in order to satiate their black gold fever & preserve their std of living, but bush ain’t foolin’ nobody.

Posted by: b real | Dec 13 2006 22:27 utc | 106

Next, Bush will probably justify privatizing the oil infrastructure and production as being to keep it out of the hands of “extremists”, citing how almost half of production is black-marketed into their hands. This of course obscures and cloaks the fact that privitization of the PSA’s would skim a similar amount from Iraqi revenues. An how dare they use our oil as a weapon against us.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 13 2006 23:00 utc | 107

Bush’s spin isn’t fooling us.
The public I grok is that of my extended family in the heartland and their ilk I hold personally responsible for putting these gangsters in office. Americans are now familiar with the Russians turning off the gas in Ukraine last winter and Bush’s notion of evildoers using oil for blackmail à la Putin or Chavez is grokkable by the masses. With peak oil on our heels, they might even come around to thinking that it’s a good thing that Jr. is “protecting” it for us, I mean the (good) Iraqis.

Posted by: Hamburger | Dec 13 2006 23:09 utc | 108

anna missed,
yes. exactly. My 108 was in response to b real’s 106. I’m a slow poster.

Posted by: Hamburger | Dec 13 2006 23:14 utc | 109

With peak oil on our heels, they might even come around to thinking that it’s a good thing that Jr. is “protecting” it for us
that’s certainly one card they’re playing up
here’s a good (humorous) example of the type of propaganda that’s being disseminated in whitefella-in-golfshirt-land: Venezuela poses increasing anti-U.S. threat [if it’s an anti-u.s. threat, wouldn’t that mean it’s not directed at the u.s.?]

While most energy observers fear Mideast turbulence as the main concern in ongoing crude oil availability, Venezuela represents a much more immediate and crucial danger to America’s ongoing energy weakness. After dictator Hugo Chavez’s lopsided presidential victory last Sunday, it’s doubtful that regime change will happen there in the foreseeable future.
Although Iran poses a sinister concern of oil availability to all Western nations, Venezuela has the power to destabilize America’s gigantic economy at will. The greatest threat of all to the U.S. is a cutoff of Venezuela-produced oil supplies, which comprise 13 percent of America’s daily consumption. In fact, this process is already proceeding as the Latin American oil superpower is now increasingly signing substantial new contracts with China, India, and others. Prior to the ascendance to power of Venezuela’s Marxist dictator Hugo Chavez in 1999, all of that nation’s oil was headed for the United States. Ironically, it was American technology that was responsible for putting Venezuela on the energy map in the first place.

and that doesn’t get them shaking in their golfcarts,

It has also been reported, although not confirmed, that Cuba’s bio-weapons lab, long known to exist near Havana, has been airlifted out of that Castro-dominated island and relocated to San Antonio Los Altos near Caracas, Venezuela’s capital.

maybe we can put this guy & bolton on slow shuttle to the new moon colony

Posted by: b real | Dec 13 2006 23:38 utc | 110

Ironically, it was American technology that was responsible for putting Venezuela on the energy map in the first place.
I may have helped. Lots of OPEC guys from SA, Gulf states, Libya, and Venezuela in the first classes I taught as a grad student.
Thanks for that link, b real. It’s beginning to seem to me that Jr. could turn things around for himself by hammering this new oil threat.
What’s gonna happen if baby, it’s cold inside?
Voters may come to an appreciation of Cheney’s “the American way of life is non-negotiable” and accept the coming oil wars.

Posted by: Hamburger | Dec 14 2006 0:03 utc | 111

fauxreal@97
agreed, it is about economic war. And economic leverage on China.
the initial plan may have been to fight the petro-terrists in Baghdad so we do’nt have to fight them in Caracas.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 14 2006 0:46 utc | 112

As long as Sunni propaganda claims that Iran is in a secret alliance with the US and Israel, and Shia progapanda claims that the Sunnis are in a secret alliance with the US and Israel, it seems the antiwar movement in the US is paralyzed. It’s opposed to the US-Israel neocon axis, but it doesn’t know which side in Iraq is the axis’ secret puppet. We could all just consider the possibility that the Iraqi propagandists are so busy just surviving a walk around the block that their perceptions are highly paranoid and distorted.
If we are to settle this mystery, we need to figure out what the US’ real goal is in the Middle East. The goal of the British Empire was to prevent the rise of a single Arab nation-state, which would eventually absorb the Arab world as nation-states had done in Europe. The oil was sufficient reason to desire this, but perhaps not the only one. After all, such an Arab state might have become a new Great Power using the oil of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. So it is not surprising that when the US more or less inherited Britain’s role in the world it took over its agenda – nowhere better illustrated than Britain’s frequent wars against Iraq up to 1969, then followed by two American wars against Iraq with Britain as No. 1 flunky.
While the Neocons may be insane, their bible, the Project for a New American Century, is in synch with all this history. No matter how much they babble about democracy, the PNAC calls first and foremost for America to prevent the rise of a new superpower by any means necessary. Of course, since “democracy” in their mouths is about exporting an election system already entirely corrupted by American business, this may be a good way to weaken sovereign states.
So the game is to prevent both Arabs and Persians from attaining superpower status. If a Neocon wants to make a deal with a Shiite, it’s only because he’s certain this deal will not result in a rising power. Same with the Saudis. But our use of violence reduced the entire Middle East to a zero-sum game, where any loss by the Tehran team is a gain for the Riyadh team, and vice versa. Zero-sum games end in winner take all, which means “take all the oil in both the Peninsula and Iraq”. That violates the PNAC bible.
There may now be a battle within the Neocon ranks in the White House itself over which side is a greater threat to become a superpower. But if the US could not create its own empire over there, the obvious final option was always to create a 2nd Iran-Iraq War, with the US calibrating aid to both sides to create an exhausting stalemate. (We sent military help to both sides in the 1st War.) Unfortunately this monstrous option is still available. It occurred to me in the past that in such a war, both Saudi and Iran would have to try to pump more oil to raise revenue, but that would collapse oil prices, which would increase Bush’s popularity. I think any maneuvers by Cheney and his stooges that seem to favor one side over the other should first be examined as ways of setting up that stalemate.
I wonder if ordinary Arabs and Iranians, over the bluster of both blocs’ state media, have already discerned a lot more of this than I’m hearing from our own propaganda organs. I wonder if Turki al-Faisal thinks about it.

Posted by: super390 | Dec 14 2006 1:33 utc | 113

Juan Cole writes of the “The New Middle East Cold War: Saudi/Israel/Lebanon versus Iran/Syria/Iraq/Hizbullah”.
I don’t know what he’s thinking here, or if this is just a provocative headline. I mean he’s the expert, but I don’t see Lebanon in the Sunni-Israeli camp (the Sunni-Israeli camp???!!!).
Although he does have Hizbullah on the right hand side of his equation, Hizbullah looks to me to be the force in Lebanon right now. Juan Cole has never mentioned the Hizbullah action in Lebanon, so maybe it doesn’t exist if he doesn’t acknowledge it.
Wouldn’t the Saudis’ cred utterly collapse if they backed Israel? What could they possibly hope to gain to offset being irrevocably branded by the US/Israeli Axis?
Which dog in this fight is Juan Cole’s?

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 14 2006 2:59 utc | 114

to be frank jfl i have given up on this so called expert some time ago

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 14 2006 3:04 utc | 115

After dictator Hugo Chavez’s lopsided presidential victory last Sunday, it’s doubtful that regime change will happen there in the foreseeable future.
My education was apparently seriously inferior. Can someone pls. explain how you can have a dictator that won re-election by ~60% in internationally supervised elections! If he’s a dictator, just what does that make BabyBush who stole the WH in a coup d’etat not once but twice!!!
By the way, Chavez isn’t a Marxist – he comes from the Catholic Liberation Theology tradition, NOT the Left 🙂
That said there’s no question that the flowering of democracy in Latin America is a consequence of the Evil Empire being involved w/ME… This is a bad time for Castro to be fading from the scene. They have plans already on the shelf to destroy Cuba as soon as he’s gone. They’ve decided he owes the Elites 6%/yr. + interest for their ownings he expropriated…

Posted by: jj | Dec 14 2006 3:07 utc | 116

JFL, I believe that Juan Cole is appropriately dividing Lebanon into its two (roughly) halves: The pro-US/Christian/Sunni Muslim half that is currently in the government, and the disaffected Hizbullah/Shia/pro-Iran half that is presently trying to topple the US-backed government. It is not that clear-cut as in fact a large sub-group of CHristians (eg, Aoun) are in the disaffected camp with Hizbullah. If you explore the history of Lebanon, you will see that in the past Israel has tried to ally itself with the Christian Phalange (such as President Bashir Gemayel, uncle of Pierre, who was slain in 1982). It’s complicated but I suppose that even if today this group is not enamored of Israel, to say the least–in the wake of the war–it is correct to place it in the pro-US camp and therefore on this general “side” of the emerging “Cold War.” And as with any other ethnic situation, it is not all clear-cut with one group neatly stacked against another, but roughly speaking this is how it falls out. If you just think of Lebanon as a battleground where the US-Iranian conflict is being played out, then you’ll have it about right.

Posted by: Bea | Dec 14 2006 3:34 utc | 117

Bea:
Thanks for the tips I’ll just try to think as you suggest… and not bother my pretty little head with the details.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 14 2006 5:13 utc | 118

Prince Turki al-Faisal goes to Washington
New envoy attempts to boost Saudi image

On the future of Iraq, Turki is encouraging direct negotiations with Iran and Syria, and is cautioning Washington not to consider partitioning Iraq into separate states of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. Since arriving here from his post as Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland (where he served for almost three years), Turki has been extremely frank with Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top Washington officials, he says, while paying a compliment to his predecessor. “Prince Bandar,” he says, “had an excellent relationship with the leadership in this country.”

Juan Cole, or a reader of Juan Cole’s who gave him the above link, seems to thing that Turki’s antipathy toward a partitioned Iraq, and his belief that Syria and Iran needed to be brought into the picture are what caused the break with the regime in Washington.
It may be that the Bushes were so used to Bandar that they called home on Turki and asked, “What is this guy, a Democrat?”

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 14 2006 12:06 utc | 119

Is James Baker a Match for AIPAC?

The real problem is the Israeli Lobby’s powerful influence – about which the Lobby brags – over U.S. policy in the Middle East and Israel’s inflexibility toward the Palestinians, whose land Israel has stolen. As long as Israel exercises a veto over U.S. policy in the Middle East, the powder keg will remain alight.
The members of the ISG are elder statesmen. They have held high positions and accumulated the honors. Their careers are behind them. They have nothing to lose. They can afford to tell the truth and to address the real problem.
If news reports are correct (see, for example, this), former Secretary of State James Baker has proposed a Middle East peace conference without Israeli participation. According to an official quoted by Insight magazine, “As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without Jewish pressure. This has become the hottest proposal examined by the foreign policy people over the last month.”
According to Insight, “officials said the Baker proposal to exclude Israel garnered support in the wake of Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 25. They said Mr. Cheney spent most of his meetings listening to Saudi warnings that Israel, rather than Iran, is the leading cause of instability in the Middle East.” The official told Insight that the administration “has fallen in line,” but that “Bush is not in the daily loop. He is shocked by the elections and he’s hoping for a miracle on Iraq.”
President Bush lacks the knowledge, judgment, and experience to be in the Oval Office. He has been deceived and manipulated by neoconservatives who live in the fantasy world of their own ideology and who have been aligned with Israel’s right-wing Likud Party for most of their careers.
The neoconservatives put Bush and the U.S., along with Iraqis, Afghans, and Lebanese, in harm’s way. Their fantasy enterprise failed, and now they damn Bush for a lost war that they said would be a cakewalk. Neoconservatives told Bush that U.S. troops would have flowers thrown at them, not bombs.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 15 2006 2:39 utc | 120

via Steve Clemons (on Huffpo, sorry…)
Saudi Royal Family Split on Iraq
The split played a key role in this week’s abrupt resignation of the Saudi ambassador to Washington. It also could hurt U.S. efforts to forge a new overall strategy to calm Iraq.
More broadly, the internal dispute shows how Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, long key partners in U.S. efforts to stabilize the Middle East, are struggling to decide how to proceed as Iraq boils over and Iran gains influence.
…The split played a key role in this week’s abrupt resignation of the Saudi ambassador to Washington. It also could hurt U.S. efforts to forge a new overall strategy to calm Iraq.
More broadly, the internal dispute shows how Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, long key partners in U.S. efforts to stabilize the Middle East, are struggling to decide how to proceed as Iraq boils over and Iran gains influence.
Clemons responds to this report by saying:
The escalating tension between Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the current Saudi National Security Advisor and former Saudi Ambassador to the United States, and Prince Turki al-Faisal, who only this this week resigned his position as Saudi Ambassador in Washington, is taking some new and disturbing turns.
Clemons claims this is a power play b/t Bandar and Turki…not quite the same thing as “jealousy.”
Sources also confirm that Ambassador Turki’s decision to resign not only had to do with his refusal to tolerate the unprofessionalism of Bandar and Massoud [more at the link above] — but with the signals that Bandar and Massoud have sent to Cheney, David Addington and others on Cheney’s national security staff that Saudi Arabia would “acquiesce to, accept, and not interfere with” American military action against Iran.

Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 15 2006 3:09 utc | 121

So, faux, between the Clemons and the Guardian, Juan Cole’s line up of Saudi Arabia and Israel on the left hand side of his equation arrayed against Iran and Syria on the right is the product of Bandar and his Royal supporters’ “understanding”, while the Insight report that Mr. Cheney spent most of his meetings listening to Saudi warnings that Israel, rather than Iran, is the leading cause of instability in the Middle East.” and that the administration has fallen in line is the product of Turki and his Royal supporters’ understanding?
And Lebanon is simultaeously beheld as a component of both sides by the members of that side respectively.
The former sounds like more of the Neocons’ wishful thinking.
The later sounds like what passes for realpolitik and the ISG.
And XLIII is waiting for one side to win, then tell him what to do.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 15 2006 3:48 utc | 122

Who the hell knows, JFL.
“The Administration” has fallen in line? I thought that Cheney was pushing the 80% “solution” up unti the point Turki left…whatever he heard before…which, again, would make sense for Turki to leave if the “talking to” in SA didn’t achieve the desired results.
I like what Robert Parry has to say about the situation in “Lessons for the Future.”
among other things, he says U.S. troops should move out of Iraq and into the settlements to dismantle them. then help with Palestinian infrastructure.
And Baker’s idea of peace talks without Israel might be a very good way start negotiations toward that action.
As far as the Sunni/Saudi v. Iran/Shi’a conflict… who knows. The cynical asses in DC probably see it as another Iran/Iraq war opportunity.

Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 15 2006 5:28 utc | 123

As far as the Sunni/Saudi v. Iran/Shi’a conflict… who knows. The cynical asses in DC probably see it as another Iran/Iraq war opportunity.
Yeah. That sounds like the Neocon strategy. And the War lobby likes it too of course. While the ISG is no, wait, if we dump Israel we might still get the oil.
None of these people have any interest at all in the people of the region… or of any people of any region anywhere, actually.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 15 2006 6:26 utc | 124

Billions of corruption – Blair, Thatcher and the House of Saud …
But Blair squashed the investigation:
‘National interest’ halts arms corruption inquiry

A major criminal investigation into alleged corruption by the arms company BAE Systems and its executives was stopped in its tracks yesterday when the prime minister claimed it would endanger Britain’s security if the inquiry was allowed to continue.
The remarkable intervention was announced by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, who took the decision to end the Serious Fraud Office inquiry into alleged bribes paid by the company to Saudi officials, after consulting cabinet colleagues.
Article continues
In recent weeks, BAE and the Saudi embassy had frantically lobbied the government for the long-running investigation to be discontinued, with the company insisting it was poised to lose another lucrative Saudi contract if it was allowed to go on. This came at a time when the SFO appeared to have made a significant breakthrough, with investigators on the brink of accessing key Swiss bank accounts.
However, Lord Goldsmith consulted the prime minister, the defence secretary, foreign secretary, and the intelligence services, and they decided that “the wider public interest” “outweighed the need to maintain the rule of law”. Mr Blair said it would be bad for Britain’s security if the SFO was allowed to go ahead, according to the statement made in the Lords by Lord Goldsmith. The statement did not elaborate on the nature of the threat.
BAE claimed that it was about to lose out on a third phase of the Al-Yamamah deal, in which the Saudis would buy 72 Typhoon aircraft in a deal worth £6bn. The Saudis had also hinted that they would do a deal with the French instead if the inquiry pushed ahead. A 10-day ultimatum was reportedly issued by the Saudis earlier this month.
…

Posted by: b | Dec 15 2006 7:06 utc | 125

Weird guy, this Bush: he is determined not to let anyone else get the blame, let alone the credit, for coming up with any idea whatsoever. That’s the point about the guy: he’s so unsure of his being president that he hires people only to fire them (or just ignore them, and wait for them to walk away)–as if they’d never been there in the first place.
Baker, oddly, didn’t see this coming. Maybe he thought the kid would be grateful, like his dad. He must have thought that the kid really wanted his advice–that he valued his advice. But no, but no! When the kid saw Baker stand up in front of a press conference, the only thing he thought about was how to chop him off at the knees.
Who besisdes James Webb has figured out how to keep this asshole at arm’s length? Did any candidates for elective office keep him away from their fundraisers, even in their absence?

Posted by: alabama | Dec 15 2006 7:24 utc | 126

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