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Prince Bandar’s New Hissy Fit
When the Saudis rejected their just won UN Security Council seat I, like others, asked Why and "What is their plan?".
I still don't get it. The new additional hissy fit the Saudis are throwing today towards the U.S. in the Wall Street Journal and via Reuters makes no sense either.
From the WSJ piece:
Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief told European diplomats this weekend that he plans to scale back cooperating with the U.S. to arm and train Syrian rebels in protest of Washington's policy in the region, participants in the meeting said.
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In Washington in recent days, Saudi officials have privately complained to U.S. lawmakers that they increasingly feel cut out of U.S. decision-making on Syria and Iran. A senior American official described the king as "angry."
Another senior U.S. official added: "Our interests increasingly don't align."
From Reuters:
Prince Bandar bin Sultan told European diplomats that Washington had failed to act effectively on the Syria crisis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was growing closer to Tehran, and had failed to back Saudi support for Bahrain when it crushed an anti-government revolt in 2011, the source said.
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"The shift away from the U.S. is a major one," the source close to Saudi policy said. "Saudi doesn't want to find itself any longer in a situation where it is dependent."
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"Prince Bandar told diplomats that he plans to limit interaction with the U.S.," the source close to Saudi policy said. "This happens after the U.S. failed to take any effective action on Syria and Palestine.
Prince Bandar, who was ambassador to U.S. for 22 years and now runs the campaign against Syria, is leading this move. One wonders if the foreign minister and King Abdullah fully agree with it. Threatening to change the 80+ year old relations with the U.S. is quite offensive and the Saudis seem to believe that the U.S. has no choice but to follow their way.
They are wrong in this.
Reuters suggest that changes could come in Saudi arms purchases, in their oil sales or in their investment in U.S. government bonds. But these threats are not credible. The Saudis just ordered more ammunition for a cool $10 billion and their oil sales are fungible. There are also few other safe assets to invest in.
Prince Bandar and his media shills suggest that the Saudis could go rogue over Syria where Bandar's project to get rid of Assad has failed despite him spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the mercenary Jihadists. But what else but paying more can Bandar actually do? The Saudi's military logistics are run by unreliable foreigners. The Saudi army has good equipment but zero expeditionary capability.
There are also no other partners that could prop up the Saudi family regime. While Bandar suggests that France may be a candidate, that country does no longer have the serious military capability to support such a colonial scheme. The Chinese may well be willing to sell arms to the Saudis but, as I wrote:
China will deliver but will be smart enough to not interfere in Gulf politics like the U.S. is doing day by day.
Bandar will also know that the open U.S. attack on Syria, which he demands, will not come as the U.S. public and the U.S. congress are overwhelmingly against it. Washington has no interest in a longterm broken Syria that is run by Saudi supported Al Qaeda types.
Saudi Arabia does not have the means to seriously pressure the United States. It also does not have a strategic alternative to staying in the U.S. realm. In the end the relation is a protection racket. The Saudis pay the U.S. military industrial complex for not getting attacked by it. Throwing hissy fits in such position is senseless nonsense.
The only thing that this Saudi strategy may achieve is a faster reconciliation between Washington and Tehran. Should the U.S. sympathies move to the eastern side of the Persian Gulf Saudi Arabia could soon become the target of new animosities.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/10/saudi-turki-syria-us-reaction.html
Al-Monitor: You stated in your speech that one of the rationales for the King and his policies in Syria is the concern about Iranian influence there. Do you feel that the kingdom may be dismissing the prospects of a thaw in relations with Iran under Rouhani too soon? Shouldn’t it be tested more?
Prince Turki: That was exactly what I said in my speech, and what I said was, King Abdullah congratulated Rouhani when he was elected President and expressed hope for cooperation. Rouhani himself has been very positive on the kingdom, so there is this rhetorical engagement between the two countries, but it is up to the Iranians to show that their sweet and sensible talk is going to be translated into action.
When and if that happens, then there is a chance for the situation between, not just the kingdom and Iran, but also between Iran and the rest of the world to improve.
I will give you an example. King Abdullah was the one who engineered, if you like, with then President Rafsanjani back in 1994 or 1995, the removal of any bad spirits between the kingdom and Iran and the renewal of diplomatic relations, which had been cut during Khomeini’s time because of the Iranian efforts to influence the pilgrimage demonstrations and at one point, to occupy the Great Mosque
So, the king also welcomed the election of Mohammad Khatami [as president of Iran in 1997]. And Khatami, if you remember, paid an official visit to the kingdom back in the late nineties and toured the kingdom. Rafsanjani himself, when he left the presidency, actually asked to spend one month in the kingdom, and he came and he toured ten cities [there], and you know had hopefully a nice time.
[Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, when he was elected [president in 2005], he came for the Islamic summit conference in 2005, in January, that was held at the call of King Abdullah. And King Abdullah talked to him about issues like nuclear proliferation, Iranian interference at that time in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Bahrain etc., the issue of the islands and so on. Alas, no visible signs that he [Ahmadinejad] did anything to improve those issues. And before Ahmadinejad left office, last year, in Ramadan, Holiest month of the year for Muslims, the King also called for another conference, Islamic conference, in Mecca where Ahmadinejad came, representing Iran. And the whole purpose of that conference was to improve relations between the Shia and the Sunni. And all the Islamic countries, 57 of them, agreed that there would be a center set up in the second holiest city, in Medina al-Munawarrah, to look into the issue of how we can improve relations between Sunni and Shia. I see by your expression that you may have not known about these things.
Well, these are the things I refer to when I said that people are not listening to us. There are things that we say and that we do that people ignore. And then, when something comes like denying the seat or not accepting the seat, everybody is surprised and taken aback and shocked. It doesn’t come from thin air. We never act impulsively. It’s a hallmark of Saudi character. We were patient for a long time, but when we need to take action, we take it quickly. So, these are the efforts that we were making with Iran. A quote by Prince Saud during Ahmadinejad’s term, this was I think going back to 2009 perhaps, we had a visit by the then foreign minister of Iran [Manouchehr Mottaki].
And in answer to a question about relations between Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud, in front of the minister, responded by saying we welcome improved relations with Iran, and we urge Iran, in its dealings with the Arab world, to deal with the representative governments of the Arab world, not the super government groups that foment trouble and mayhem of the Arab countries. And so, this is where the kingdom has been. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t deal with us and then go and support somebody who wants to overturn us. And this is what they’ve been doing in Lebanon, this is what they’ve been doing in Syria, this is what they’re doing in Bahrain, and what they’re doing in Iraq etc. so this is how we deal with Iran. Above board, across the table, in public and without any inhibitions: when we have views on how they conduct themselves, to tell them those views. Thank you very much.
WAPO:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/10/23/the-u-s-saudi-crackup-hits-a-dramatic-tipping-point/
What should worry the Obama administration is that Saudi concern about U.S. policy in the Middle East is shared by the four other traditional U.S. allies in the region: Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. They argue (mostly privately) that Obama has shredded U.S. influence by dumping President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, backing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, opposing the coup that toppled Morsi, vacillating in its Syria policy, and now embarking on negotiations with Iran — all without consulting close Arab allies.
Saudi King Abdullah privately voiced his frustration with U.S. policy in a lunch in Riyadh Monday with King Abdullah of Jordan and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the U.A.E., according to a knowledgeable Arab official. The Saudi monarch “is convinced the U.S. is unreliable,” this official said. “I don’t see a genuine desire to fix it” on either side, he added.When Secretary of State John Kerry was in the region a few weeks ago, he asked to visit Bandar. The Saudi prince is said to have responded that he was on his way out of the kingdom, but that Kerry could meet him at the airport. This response struck U.S. officials as high-handed.
Saudi Arabia obviously wants attention,…”
Posted by: some1 | Oct 24 2013 21:55 utc | 68
Turkey is out of the picture for the forseeable future, neo-Ottamanism is dead for the time being which must suit the saudis immensely since it was the growth of Wahabism, which emphasised the need for Islamic purity, that later peversions of Islam were rooted in the malign influence of non-Arabs and which by 1815 which first cracked the foundations of the Ottoman empire. The Wahabi uprising against the Ottomans was beaten by fellow Arabs in the mercenary employ of Egypt under direction of the Turks.
Worse the al-Saud’s totally missed out because it was eventually Britain & France who swooped in to pick up the choice cuts of the dismembered empire.
Bandar has never underestimated his talents & it wouldn’t be the least suprising if he actually believed that Saudi Arabia can be the next HQ for what Bandar would claim was ‘The Caliphate’ but was in fact merely an old empire with a new name.
The al-Sauds may temporarily align with the zionist invaders just has they have had temporary alliances with england & amerika, but they don’t appear to see any of those opponents a real threat in their long game of dominating the ME.
There is always going to come a time when Saudi turns on the ersatz state of israel because even setting aside Wahabi loathing of non-Arabic interference in the ME, at which the al-Sauds are expert, disgust at the illegal invasion occupation and genocide which the zionists are conducting is the one issue that all arabs can fundamentally agree on.
Sending out the Palestine dog-whistle pricks up the ears of all soon to be subjects of the al-Sauds and gets them moving in a common direction towards unification. Or so Bandar believes.
The major fly in the ointment which isn’t a dilettante just passing through, is the oldest enemy, Persia/Iran.
Bandar undoubtedly sees Iran as it’s major long term opponent in his plans for al-Sauds to rule the ME, even if Iran has no particular interest in running an empire again.
I don’t believe they do. Once is enough seems to be the rule of thumb with imperialism – at least major world domination style imperialism. Internal opposition from citizens who know their history appears to bring undone all attempts to turn back the clock. The englanders may get a few thin slices of the africa pie, but much more than that will get their own citizens upset as well as provoking the former colonies. The same goes for Turkey. Italy invaded Libya & Ethiopia at the height of Mussolini’s fantasy of Rome redux, but Italians rightly baulked at the thought of a ‘new Roman Empire’.
Why? because as amerikans are currently learning, running an empire is a two way street, the thugs of empire or grunts as amerikans prefer to call em, eventually come home and inflict their violence on the empire’s own citizens. Generally much worse damage than the victims of empire manage although they can cause a fair amount of blowback as well.
Living in an empire is great for the elites, but for normal non-sociopathic individuals it makes life worse, not better.
So Iran likely has no designs on re-invigorating the Persian Empire, what Iran wants though, is the one thing they are never likely to get.
They want to get back the money amerika stole from them. amerika won’t do it, it is simply too large a sum to pay back. Even in the 1970’s when the amerikan economy wasn’t overloaded with debt & in hock to Chinese paper, amerika dismissed partial repayment out of hand.
Even if amerika had the means to repay the vast sums pillaged out of Iran, they won’t do this – ever, to a certain extent because amerikan policymakers are in the back-pockets of the banksters who would have to pay the money back, but chiefly because the post world war 2 US economy was founded on the belief that Iranian oil belonged to amerika as just payment for aiding Russia in WW2.
Forget about the fact that it wasn’t Russia’s oil to give away, a deal is a deal especially when going back on it would destroy both the federal reserve and the empire.
Who knows if Bandar recognises this and is just laying it on to remind amerika that doing as he says won’t prematurely destroy amerika.
One thing is for sure though, Bandar has decided that the amerikan backdown over Syria signals something much bigger, that the empire is in decline and this time al-Sauds won’t make the same mistake as last time and be gazumped by interlopers.
Bandar is manouvering for the long game with an end that puts Saudi in charge of the ME.
We may see that plan as impractical, even impossible if only because Saudi lacks the population to draw its ‘thugs for empire’ from and the alternative, slow growth of the empire to provide a source of new recruits at every expansion is unlikely to succeed, that sort of strategy may once have worked but it relies too heavily upon slow response & imperfect communication between potential targets.
Bandar may even believe that the drone tactic of destruction without boots on the ground is a goer. He’s wrong, but still maybe that is what he thinks, or perhaps he has an alternative, but he is one Saudi national who has never been constrained by someone else’s notion of what is achievable. First time around back about 1810 when the whitefellas were too busy fighting among themselves over Bonaparte, the Saudi plans were quashed by Muhammad Ali Pasha’s mercenary army. A force which was raised in Egypt – maybe Bandar plans on doing the same. After all the current Egyptian regime is unlikely to ever regain it’s Mubarak era power and is plainly doomed long term.
Bandar spent 22 years in amerika up close, watching the most corrupt & brutal regime the world has yet known coming up smelling like roses every time, copping kisses on the ass from all & sundry, whilst Saudi Arabia’s unquestioning loyalty to that awful bunch was treated with disrespect & disdain.
The crimes of the Saudi ruling elite may be terrible, but they pale into insignificance when measured against the daily butcher’s bill which emanates from the amerikan empire.
The regular humiliations the Saudi administration suffers in western media are enough to crank up a normal human, Bandar a staunch nationalist, is far from ordinary, and he has probably correctly concluded than respect isn’t earned from western hypocrites through being fair and reasonable, respect is given out to the cruelest, shittiest & most unjust player on the paddock.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 24 2013 23:42 utc | 70
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