Cheetah786
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guess who is in bed with the Americans and will not let the Muslims grow
If ever the need arose to differentiate between brothers and friends, that was last week when Saudi King Abdullah bin-Abd al-Aziz al-Saud spoke of Iran as a "friend" of the Saudi state.
The king said this while receiving Iranian Ambassador Hossein Sadeqi during the latter's farewell call on the conclusion of an eventful two-year tour, which witnessed, arguably, a steady rise in
the warmth and coziness of Saudi-Iranian relations.
The king praised the trend in the relations between the two countries in recent years, and stressed the importance of bolstering Saudi-Iranian relations "in all fields", adding that Saudi Arabia had "confidence" in Iran. But what stood out was Saudi Arabia's characterization of ties between the two most important countries of the Muslim world as being between "friends".
Nevertheless, Iran's sense of unease about the shadows falling on Saudi-Iranian ties and the potentially deleterious trust deficit developing between them over issues of regional stability and peace was apparent in its decision last week to keep out Saudi Arabia from the trilateral summit that Tehran proposed, involving the heads of states of Syria and Iraq. What has led to a chill in Saudi-Iranian relations is the eruption of vicious sectarian strife in Iraq, apart from the crisis unfolding in Lebanon.
Saudi Arabia has viewed with disquiet the rapid ascendancy of Iranian influence in Iraq since the US invasion. The reasons are several, but primarily the Shi'ite claim of political empowerment in the region haunts Riyadh, coupled with the prospect of Iran's seemingly unstoppable march as the premier regional power in the Persian Gulf region and the Middle East. The disquiet has turned into dismay as the incipient murmurs of a likely shift in the United States' strategy in Iraq have lately become audible, and given the likelihood of the shift involving a constructive engagement of the regimes in Tehran and Damascus by Washington.
Despite sustained Saudi (and Egyptian) efforts to carve out a niche of influence in the fragmented Iraqi political landscape, the desired results haven't been forthcoming. The latest Saudi attempt was the Mecca Document of October 20, endorsed by 29 Iraqi Sunni and Shi'ite senior clerics who assembled in the Muslim holy city of Mecca. They vowed to God in front of the blessed Kaaba "not to violate the sanctity of Muslim blood and to incriminate those who shed [it]".
But not only has the Mecca Document not arrested Shi'ite-Sunni hostilities within Iraq, the sectarian divide has since dramatically widened. Iran alleges that conspiracies pitting the Sunnis against Shi'ites are afoot. The powerful Speaker of the Iranian majlis (parliament), Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, while visiting the eastern province of Sistan-Balochistan (bordering Pakistan's restive Balochistan province), said on Saturday, "Today the enemies wish to sow the seed of discord among Shi'ites and Sunnis and make them insult each other ... The enemies of Islam are attempting to disrupt Muslim vigilance, lay their hand on the wealth of Muslim lands and plunder their oil reserves. To achieve this goal, they are attempting to sow the seed of discord among Muslims."
Indeed, Western media have also reported that in recent months US and Israeli intelligence have been working together in equipping and training Kurdish, Azeri and Baloch tribesmen to undertake covert operations in Iran's northern and southeastern provinces. Tehran already visualizes that in Lebanon, too, in the latest confrontation, the battle lines will fast assume a Sunni-Shi'ite dimension.
The latent Saudi-Iranian rivalry is likely to play out in Lebanon. Unlike with the Iraq problem, there is a convergence of Saudi and US interests over Lebanon. Saudi commentators have been counseling Washington not to compartmentalize Iraq and Lebanon as separate issues.
From the Saudi perspective, any US-Iranian engagement in the region should not be limited to a US "exit strategy" in Iraq. The fear of a resurgent Iran is palpable. The London-based Al-Hayat newspaper recently compared Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad to Osama bin Laden as two renegades equally bent on destabilizing the region.
That is why Saudi diplomacy worked in tandem with the US to get a "global consensus" over the setting up of an international tribunal to look into the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. Saudi commentators heaved a sigh of relief when Moscow decided to delink from Syria's (and Iran's) dogged opposition to the tribunal. But what was extraordinary was that the Saudis publicly commended the "significant and remarkable cooperation" from China in making it clear to the Russians that China was "on the side of the US, France and Britain" in the United Nations Security Council negotiations over the decision to set up the tribunal.
A Saudi commentator boasted, "By doing so, China left Russia with the sole option of cooperating and not obstructing." Indeed, the People's Daily recently took note of Washington's Middle East plan, which aims to unite moderate Arab countries who are concerned about the rise of Iran and rampant extremist forces, to form an anti-Iran and anti-extremist alliance" - though it doubted what a mere course correction could do in "extricating the US from the quagmire it created by itself in the Middle East".
The Saudi expectation is that the UN decision to set up the tribunal (which was promptly approved by the Lebanese cabinet of Saudi-backed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Friday, despite
warnings from Hezbollah) signifies a development of historic proportions in redrawing political alignments in the Middle East.
From the Saudi point of view, the tribunal will inexorably lead to the unraveling of the Ba'athist regime in Damascus; the breakup of the Iranian-Syrian nexus in the region; the return of Syria to the mainstream Arab fold; the near-total isolation of Hezbollah within Lebanon, which in turn could pave the way for its eventual co-option (once it is cleansed of militancy and sanitized from Iranian influence); and the overall weakening of Iran's standing as the Shi'ite powerhouse in the region, especially in Iraq.
Equally, the Saudis are displaying in Lebanon their true grit as a US ally in the region. They are showing that in countering Iranian influence they are prepared to dig in, no matter what it takes. Riyadh has cast aside its proclivity to remain on the sidelines while the Iraq crisis matured in the critical 2003-05 period, which led to its disastrous isolation (and Egypt's).
Riyadh expects Washington to take note that Iran's rising regional influence can still be arrested. Significantly, US Vice President Dick Cheney lost no time arriving in Riyadh on Saturday for a hurried two-hour meeting with King Abdullah. During the meeting, to quote the Saudi Press Agency, the two sides discussed "the whole range of events and developments on the regional and international scenes ... the Palestinian problem and the situation in Iraq in particular".
The choice of Cheney to undertake such a sensitive mission at this point speaks something of the thought processes of President George W Bush regarding Iraq. It also speaks something about the importance of Cheney in the last two years of Bush's presidency. Three things must be said about Cheney's beliefs. First, he is steadfast in his belief that the Iraq war is still a "doable" job. Second, he consistently maintains that an Iraq settlement is inconceivable without a regime change in Iran.
Most important, Cheney believes that when it comes to Israel's security, US politicians are alike. Name them, they are all "friends of Israel" - Democratic presidential hopefuls Senators Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, and the incoming chairman of the House Committee on International Affairs, Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos.
Thus it is of immense consequence that Bush decided to give Cheney a chance to perform (rather than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) in the center stage of the Middle East's geopolitics at this crucial turning point. The United States' strategy in the Iraq war is under intense scrutiny, and the White House should soon receive the report of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) co-chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton.
Cheney's consultations in Riyadh mesh with what Seymour Hersh wrote in the current issue of The New Yorker: "Sources with direct knowledge of the [ISG] panel's proceedings have told me that the group, as of mid-November, had ruled out calling for an immediate and complete American withdrawal but would recommend focusing on the improved training of Iraqi forces and on redeploying American troops."
What does this portend for Tehran? Certainly, what is becoming clear is that it is small change for Iran, even if the ISG recommends that Syria and Iraq should be brought into a regional conference to help stabilize Iraq, and if Bush accepts such a recommendation.
The point is Iran is inherently at a disadvantage with regard to the Saudi stratagem. The specter of a Shi'ite crescent is a useful rallying cry for the beleaguered regimes in Riyadh (and Cairo and Amman), whereas for Tehran it is a huge embarrassment and a major obstacle. For Iran, Shi'ite empowerment is a means to an end. Iran considers its manifest destiny to be the leader of the Islamic world.
As Tehran sees it, it has been a long wait but Iraq and Syria are finally emerging as a new center of gravity in the Arab world. And Iran is in alliance with it. Also, Iran sees a historic opportunity in that almost 100 years after the Sykes-Picot agreement carved up the Middle East, the regional powers may finally be able to fill the power vacuum to ensure the US withdrawal from Iraq. The process is no doubt cataclysmic and, therefore, imperfect, stuttering and difficult. Iran nonetheless must pursue it to its optimal potential.
But the brusqueness with which Washington moved last week to stifle the Iranian initiative on the trilateral summit with Iraq and Syria also underscores what Tehran is up against. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani just couldn't emplane for Tehran on Saturday. The Americans clamped a curfew on Baghdad and simply shut down the city's airport.
realization of the need of a "new direction" in its Middle East policy - "a new Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also stayed in Damascus on Saturday instead of proceeding to Tehran. The Iranian initiative seems all but stillborn. Iran has since clarified that the tripartite summit would be "good" but no such meeting had been planned "of the kind reported by certain sections of the media".
Meanwhile, the Arab League's 10-member Iraq Committee came up with an announcement on Saturday that it would hold a foreign minister-level meeting in Cairo on December 5 with a view to
finding a way to end the "cascades of blood in Iraq".
No doubt, neither Iran nor Syria is likely to take lying low the US attempt to isolate them in the region. As prominent Middle East commentator Rami Khouri put it, they are "unlikely to behave like Libya by caving into the pressure and unilaterally giving the US what it wants ... They will demand a high price for cooperating with the US and helping it leave Iraq."
Therefore, it remains to be seen whether an international process in the form of the tribunal over Lebanon was a judicious move after all. In a region where assassinations form part of the political culture (and often, as for Israel, constitute an instrument of state policy), the setting up of a tribunal over Lebanon smacks of cynicism. Besides, such processes often acquire a momentum of their own, and it may so happen that the tribunal over Lebanon may spin out of US control. In essence, the international tribunal is a "new form of neo-colonial behavior" (to quote Khouri), even if the US is acting in league with Britain and France, two veteran battle-scarred colonial powers in the region, and despite China and Russia having acquiesced for reasons of their own.
To be sure, Iran and Syria will resist with all their capacity. For the present, though, the Iranians find themselves somewhat in the same predicament as Banquo in William Shakespeare's play Macbeth when "through the fog and ****** air", the noble warrior heard the witches' prophesy, "Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none."
