By Douglas V. Gibbs
There is an old saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." - Or at least, temporarily.
The temporary alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States seems to be reaching that end, under the watch of the President of the United States that campaigned on ushering in a new international age of understanding and cooperation. Barack Obama, back in 2008, argued that the world hates America because of his dreaded predecessor, George W. Bush, but he was going to change that, and the world was going to love us, especially the Middle East.
An Arab Spring has emerged, and we have lost any working relationship with Libya, Egypt, Syria, and now Saudi Arabia. Iraq is falling back under the grip of al-Qaeda. A number of Muslim nations have fallen under the spell of radical Islamic jihad, including Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and possibly Turkey. Iran has advanced its move towards nuclear weapons, and is in full force of financing the Assad regime in Syria. Afghanistan is lost. Pakistan has become more radicalized, and our relationship with them is all but severed. Crimea has fallen into Russian hands, and Ukraine fears invasion by Putin's forces. North Korea's saber rattling has become deafening. Europe has been abandoned, the United States is working to reduce our military force to pre-World War II levels, and around the world Barack Obama's foreign policy has become an ongoing fuel source for jokes, and criticism.
Saudi Arabia, though never an ally in the sense that we could call them friends, has been one of the countries that has helped maintain a certain level of stability in the Middle East. A shared interest in their oil help facilitate that relationship, there is no doubt. But the seven decade long strategic alliance has disintegrated under the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.
President Obama arrived in Riyadh on Friday, and the the rulers of Saudi Arabia say they feel increasingly compelled to go their own way, pursuing starkly different strategies from Washington in dealing with Iran, Syria, Egypt and the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region.
“Their view of Mr. Obama is that his entire understanding is wrong,” said Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center who is close to the Saudi monarchy. “The trust in him is not very high, so he will not have an easy ride, and a lot of hard questions will be put on the table.”
Obama's understanding is not wrong, his motives are.
Saudi Arabian officials say that has forced them to pursue their own course, to try to contain Iran, oust President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and support the military-backed government that has taken over in Egypt.
Middle Eastern peace, or a rough-edged facsimile of peace, is now hanging in the balance, as is the oil flow to the United States - where Obama and his democrats have all but forbidden a free market pursuit of domestic drilling, and new pipelines for both American, and Canadian, oil.
Obama is still touting the need for diplomacy. "We need to talk," he keeps saying. They don't care what he has to say.
How do you mediate diplomacy for sides that not only don't want to talk, but they definitely don't want to talk to YOU.
The Saudis have now taken the lead in a campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood across the region, not because of reasons that we may think, or embrace ourselves. They do not do it to stop terror, or to quell any Islamic jihad. They simply see the Muslim Brotherhood's style of jihad as being the wrong kind. It is their jihad they want in place. An easier, calmer, incremental jihad that steals your freedom without you even realizing it.
You know, Jasmius' ol' "Right Tribe, Wrong Tribe" thing.
“It is a war,” said a former Saudi official with ties to members of the royal family. “They see the Muslim Brotherhood as an existential threat, and there are some people who think that it is possible to eradicate the Brotherhood throughout the region.”
The Saudis finance jihadists when it serves their interests. The Muslim Brotherhood, and al-Qaeda, do not serve their interests.
In the Muslim World, the Saudi opinion is not well received. Muslims believe that the Sunni approach of the Saudi's is passed, and now it is time to create chaos. The Shiite model has emerged, and a desire to end the domination of The West, and attack the infidels, has become a priority among the Muslim Brotherhood supporters.
The Saudis fear the Muslim Brotherhood, and al-Qaeda. The war for Islam is not what people think, however. The differences of the Sunnis and Shiites are not as different as we hope, and they are not going to simply kill each other off. Islam unites when in opposition to non-Islam nations. Sunnis and Shiites alike danced in the streets on September 11, 2001.
They all believe the caliphate is coming, it is just a matter of who will control it.
In the past month, Saudi Arabia criminalized membership in the Muslim Brotherhood and classified it as a terrorist organization on par with al-Qaeda.
Its Interior Ministry issued a new law imposing harsh penalties on Saudis who join the fighting in Syria. And to punish neighboring Qatar for its support of the Brotherhood, King Abdullah led the coordinated withdrawal from Qatar of his own ambassador and the envoys from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt.
At a private gathering of Arab security chiefs at the Four Seasons Hotel in Marrakesh, Morocco, two weeks ago, the Saudi interior minister asked every Arab country to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood, to heated opposition. Brotherhood-aligned parties have become accepted parts of the political establishment in much of the Muslim World.
Saudi leaders are already vexed at Mr. Obama for failing to throw America’s military might behind their proxy war with Tehran in Syria, where the Saudis are sending money and weapons to back the Sunni-dominated rebels. And the Saudis were flabbergasted last year when Mr. Obama reversed course at the last minute, calling off missile strikes against the Assad government for its use of chemical weapons.
The Saudis, and most folks, don't understand the reality of who Barack Obama is. Barack Obama is like a chihuahua approaching a sled normally pulled by huskies. He barks a lot, convinces everyone he is capable of pulling the sled, and he even approaches the sled to convince you he is prepared to do so, but in the end, he knows, and pretty much everyone else knows, he can't do it. All he does is bark. We need huskies.
The fact is, he doesn't want to pull the sled. His focus isn't really on foreign affairs. Obama has a greater enemy he is facing off against. . . conservatism, and those that dare defy him domestically.
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