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MBS Says John Kirby Needs Some Mouth Wash
Saudi Arabia isn't happy with claims made by NSC spokesperson John Kirby:
On-the-Record Press Gaggle by NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby – White House, Feb 6 2024
Q Hey, Kirby. Thank you so much for doing this. When America is talking about a hostages deal, is it part of a bigger deal of normalization with Saudi Arabia, or are we talking about two different paths here?
MR. KIRBY: No, these are two different things. […]
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At the same time, we were, before the 7th of October, and are still now having discussions with our counterparts in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia — obviously, the two key ones — about trying to move forward with a normalization arrangement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
So those discussions are ongoing as well. We certainly received positive feedback from both sides that they’re willing to continue to have those discussions. But that is a separate track and not related specifically to trying to get this extended humanitarian pause in place. Both are really important though.
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Kirby says US received ‘positive feedback’ on Israel-Saudi normalization talks – Times of Israel (via Reuters), Feb 6 2024
The Biden administration has received positive feedback that Saudi Arabia and Israel are willing to continue to have normalization discussions, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby tells reporters today. …
The Saudis disagreed with that characterization:
Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 @KSAmofaEN – 0:09 UTC · Feb 7, 2024
A Statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the discussions between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America on the Arab-Israeli peace process.
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From the statement:
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The Kingdom has communicated its firm position to the U.S. administration that there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capitol, and that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops and all Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the Gaza strip.
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Added comment:
asad abukhalil أسعد أبو خليل @asadabukhalil – 2:04 UTC · Feb 7, 2024
This Saudi foreign ministry statement is unusual and it announces that Gaza will form an earthquake in Arab politics. MbS in his policies on Palestine disregarded Saudi and Arab public opinion. This statement tells us that he is retrenching and adjusting. Kushner on hold.
Just to make it clear. I am not saying it is a good statement. But before Gaza MbS merely asked for “easing the lives of Palestinians”. Nothing else.
Re: Saudi Arabia
The change in Saudi Arabia’s association with and policy toward the US is mainly a function of US decline in the world. Never since 1945 has US power in the Middle East reached such a nadir as now, and it is disliked by the masses in Arab and non-Arab countries like Turkey more than ever, which puts pressure on all the collaborationist regimes. As someone here pointed out on an earlier thread, the UAE has virtually no native population, so it is freer to ignore public opinion, but there is quite a population of Saudi nationals. But apart from popular pressure which has strengthened over Gaza, there is simply the opportunity the US funk has afforded for Saudi Arabia to declare at least some independence from its US colonial master, and such a domineering and possibly arrogant personality as MBS seems to be tempted to carry it out.
This is really surprising to me, because I remember back 50 or more years ago when the US conventional wisdom was, oh, why don’t we just invade and seize the oil. Since then, there has been a continuous shrinkage in US ability to push people around and to get its way through threats, so that Saudi Arabia no longer fears US invasion, and the catastrophe of Iraq was a good lesson in the limits of US power, where the US couldn’t even successfully dominate that country, where most of the population was alienated from the Ba`thist regime, and indeed couldn’t even control the minority Sunni Arab part of the country. The US has never been able to defeat a guerilla war: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Israel faces the same with Gaza and Lebanon.
So, while Saudi Arabia still bears some aspects of a US client state, the US has not been able and will not be able to get it to conform to its wishes over Israel, especially while the Gaza wound is still burning, and other aspects of Saudi independence are likely to become more accentuated as well.
Also, in reply to those who have been saying the Saudi royal family were imposed by the Britain or the US, nope, they weren’t. Three Saudi states were formed, c.1745-1818, 1821-1891, and 1902 to the present, each formed with the support of the native population of Najd. Yes, it is a monarchy and has always been classist to an extent, and yes, it has had to take tribal loyalties and considerations into account. Also, the British were around Arabia from the eighteenth century and started colonizing its fringes directly in the 19th century, but they had no influence over the interior. Najd also produced its own variation of Muslim ideology through the figure of Muhammad ibn `Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792), who made a pact with the first Saudi ruler that Ibn `Abd al-Wahhab would run the religious ideological aspects while the Saudi ran the political and military ones, and family compact that continues to this day. As modernizing reformist ideology spread, the British started to blame “Wahhabism,” a colonialist theme the US has picked up. Of course, King `Abd al-`Aziz (ruled 1902-1953), the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, who has been succeeded by six (!) of his sons, had to deal with the British and the Americans, but he was never a puppet of either.
The story of how the Americans got the oil exploration contract in 1930 is that the British consul in Jiddah, Harold St. John Philby, despite being an atheist, had embraced Islam, which enabled him to get close to `Abd al-`Aziz, and he for some reason really hated his own country, so that he persuaded the king to give the contract to the Americans instead of the British. Philby of course was the father of Kim Philby, the notorious Cold War spy for the Soviet Union, who fled there to escape prosecution. Be that all as it may, it would seem to me more likely that `Abd al-`Aziz wanted to avoid too close an embrace by the British, so he went to the Americans, much like his grandson is now avoiding too close an embrace by the Americans by going to Russia and China.
Posted by: Cabe | Feb 8 2024 3:39 utc | 142
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