The Saudis, Iraq, and Iran (Steve Clemons)

[swag]

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001808.php

A very brief excerpt from a much longer, post, which is very interesting whether or not one agrees with Clemons:

. . . Obaid is a personal national security advisor to Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Turki al-Faisal and what he is writing is no doubt the public version of what King Abdullah told Cheney when the VP was summoned to Riyadh.

What (Saudi National Security Advisor to al-Faisal) Obaid has articulated ... is not offered as a threat if the US leaves Iraq, which the US must do in my view. This is the first robust declaration that the Saudis are willing to fill the vacuum left by the United State in the region and knock back some of the unchecked expansion of Iranian influence in the region.

It's not good to have rising powers with pretensions of future greatness clashing like this -- but there is NO CHOICE.

And frankly, it's much better to have the Saudis engaged that not engaged in Iraq. Iran must be balanced -- and while this may seem like an escalation, it actually is an important potential cap on a worsening of this increasingly ulcerous mess in Iraq.

But what the Saudis are doing and what they need to be do is not new -- it has been predicted for quite a while. And this is the consequence of the Bush administration's failure to think strategically. We have now drawn Saudi Arabia into a potential collision that could destabilize that nation and seriously harm our access to vital oil and natural gas supplies.

So don't blame the Saudis for seeing the world and their region as it is -- not as George W. Bush fantasizes.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Interesting take

The Saudis have the Shia to fight, and may leap at the chance because it will keep its own fundamentalist faction engaged fighting someone over there rather than the Saudi royal family. My fear is that fighting will only embolden the fundamentalists and make things worse rather than better.

[grizmaster]

3. there's no way the Saudi royal family will back the sunnis

exactly because of how connected they are to their own extremists at home.

[grizmaster]

2. Clemons is a moron

The Saudis, as they always do, will do nothing. If it doesn't involve protecting the royal family's personal bottom line they don't give a damn. They won't even lift a finger for their own people, they never did anything about Saddam, and they certainly won't touch the clusterfvk bush has created.

The most the Saudis will do is beef up their own border security.

The shiites and Iran have already won and the bloodshed is bush's head and so is his responsibility for the islamic fundamentalist regime the Iraqis will be forced to live under.

[leveymg]

4. Here's my response to Clemons

Steve -

My first reaction when I heard this was to scoff at the Saudis. "Will all 6,000 shiekhs now strap on kevlar and chopper into Baghdad?", I wrote at DU.

But, a few hours have given me a chance to think through the consequences of what the pending U.S. withdrawal from Iraq really means. I now think it's more likely that the Saudi Royals will be lined up at the USCIS Asylum Office in Arlington, VA before the second Bush term is over.

I'm also going to buy some long, flannel underwear before Winter sets in here in Washington.

All nervous kidding aside, this looks to be a very mixed-bag for all parties involved:

THE UP SIDE: Six months ago, I would have said War was next. Now, it looks more like the Grand Compromise with Iran that's been urged by realists from a lot of sides for a long time.

There's still plenty of room for spoilers in the kitchen, though. There will be a price to pay for this, of course, and how that breaks down isn't too hard to see. Dubya is being dragged into this with his nails in the sod, the present Israeli government probably will not survive, gas prices may go up and the Dollar down (we did LOSE the war in Iraq, after all), the Chinese are getting ready to dump our bonds (but, maybe have been convinced to again delay that inevitability), and the Russians are delighted.

Keeping my fingers crossed and nose held.

THE DOWN-SIDE: Houston - we have a problem.

If we give Iraq to the Saudis to tussle with Iran, who will likely end up eating the smaller dog? And, then the Turks will have to fight for Kurdistan, and the Euros will fight us (in the shadows), the Israelis will fight Hamas and Hezbollah, and the Russian and Chinese and the multinational oil companies will clean up after the ashes settle in Saudi Arabia.

Got the picture?

We can't let that happen. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States supply a quarter of the world's oil. What do you think's going to happen to the price of energy if we wipe our hands and go home, leaving them to their own devices?

What do you think is going to happen to the price of oil if we send in the Marines? Same thing.

Either there's a comprehesive regional settlement -- the Grand Compromise that realists have been praying for -- or we're all going to be cold and broke by the end of this Winter.


- Mark


Posted by: leveymg at November 29, 2006 03:25 PM