Let Saudi Arabia Go It Alone

On December 17, 2013, the ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Great Britain published an op-ed in the New York Times accusing the West of not having confronted Syria and Iran head-on. An ambassador is traditionally the mouthpiece of his government. But the used political rhetoric indicates that he even acts as a megaphone of the neocons, certain Zionist circles and their rubber stamps in the US Congress, which are very critical of Obama’s policy towards Syria and Iran. Finally, the US and its Western allies should know what the Saudi Arabian regime thinks about Obama and what it expects from the West. But for sure, the West won’t be led astray by these fundamentalist warmongers.

Apparently, the Saudis are concerned about the stability and security of the region, and they would not stand idly by. For the outside observer it seems bizarre that one of the last feudal and most Islamic fundamentalist regimes under the sun complains about the dangers, which the Assad regime and its supporter, Iran, pose to the Middle Eastern region. The Saudis were the first, after the US and Israel, which applauded the Egyptian military coup against the only democratically elected government of Egypt. Usually, this should tell a lot about the close cooperation between democracies and authoritarian fundamentalist regimes.

It’s just chutzpah that the Saudi ambassador accuses Iran of not only supporting an “evil regime” in Syria but also that Iran uses a familiar pattern, “which has financed and trained militias in Iraq, Hezbollah terrorists, in Lebanon and militants in Yemen and Bahrain”. All allegations lack any basis and are mere political rhetoric. Not enough of the impudence. He adds: “The West has allowed one regime to survive and the other to continue its program for uranium enrichment, with all the consequent dangers of weaponization.” Are not the Saudis the one that finance not only fundamentalist movements all over the world but also the terrorist groups in Syria?

In reality, the Saudis are not so much concerned about the “stability of the region”, as the ambassador pretends, but rather to secure their own Islamic fundamentalist regime. He tries to intimidate not only the Islamic world by reminding them that their feudal and backward version of Islam is the “cradle of Islam” but also the West by mentioning Saudi’s role as “de facto central banker for energy”. It seems as if the Saudis fear that the “national interest” of the US could switch from Saudi Arabia to Iran. From a geopolitical standpoint such a change would make much sense.

The Saudi ambassador possesses the impudence and arrogance to ridicule the United Nations Security Council by calling it a “talking shop”. The Saudis have rejected their seat in the UN Security Council to which they have been elected by the UN General Assembly. By turning down this honor, one could ask, whether the Saudis were afraid that their evil regime would become a topic of debate in the UN Security Council?

At the end of the article, it is quite clear in whose name this ambassador speaks, when he uses the excuse of the lack of support of the West, because of the involvement of Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups in Syria, as an example of Western inaction to topple the Assad regime. Even president Obama’s so-called “red lines” are dismisses as mere talk. At least now, the neoconservative handwriting of this article seems so evident that the Saudi ambassador should make the “ghostwriter” of this article public.

The headline of the NYT article is as ridiculous as the content: If “Saudi Arabia Will Go It alone”, the answer of the West should be: Let them go it alone!

Dr. Ludwig Watzal works as a journalist and editor in Bonn, Germany. He runs the bilingual blog Between the lines. He can be reached at: www.watzal.com. Read other articles by Ludwig.