Posted on 08/16/2011 8:00:00 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
After months of protests and regime violence, King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, one of the last absolute monarchs in the world, has called on Syria’s embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, to stop the “killing machine” repressing his own people and accept at least some of the demands of Syrians calling for an end to Assad’s decade old dictatorship. The king backed up his statement by recalling Saudi Arabia’s ambassador from Damascus, and its clients Bahrain and Kuwait quickly followed Riyadh’s lead.
The Saudis sense a strategic opportunity has opened in Syria, a unique chance to deal a mortal blow to one of their enemies, the Shia terror group Hezbollah, and a serious blow to their regional adversary Iran. Since Israel’s foolish invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Syrian regime of Hafez and Bashar Assad has been Iran’s key partner in creating Hezbollah, arming it to the teeth with thousands of rockets and missiles and sending it to create terror throughout the region. For decades Damascus has allowed Tehran to use its airports and ports to transfer arms to Hezbollah, and more recently it has provided much of its own equipment directly to the Shia group. Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been based in Syria and thousands of Iranian tourists and spies have come to worship at Damascus’ Sayyidah Zaynab mosque, a traditional Shia holy site and an excellent place for extremists to get together under the protective eye of Syrian intelligence.
It was at the Zaynab mosque that Hezbollah and IRGC operatives met with Saudi Shia in 1996 to plan the attack on the American air force base at Dhahran in the Kingdom. Nineteen Americans were killed in the Khobar barracks attack, and dozens of Saudis were injured in a nearby neighborhood. Iran and Hezbollah orchestrated the attack. The Saudis have seen Hezbollah terror attacks on their neighbor Kuwait in the past and have accused the party of being behind Bahrain’s troubles this year. On top of all this the United Nations has determined Hezbollah responsible for the murder of the pro-Saudi former Lebanese prime minsiter Rafiq Harriri in 2005. The Saudi grudge against Hezbollah is deep.
The al-Sauds were especially outraged this July when pro-Assad demonstraters in Damascus and other Syrian cities hoisted Hezbollah flags along side Syrian flags to celebrate the anniversary of Bashar’s assumption of power after his father’s death in 2000. A key editorial in the Saudi paper Asharq al-Awsat at the time warned that this blatant display of support for Hezbollah was a step too far for the House of Saud, saying “the al-Assad regime is now wrapping itself in the flag of Hezbollah” a group that targets Sunni leaders and Sunni interests. This editorial prefigured Abdallah’s public remarks this month.
Riyadh worries that Assad will be replaced by chaos, but it has now come to the conclusion the risk is worth the price. If the Assad regime is destroyed, so too will Syrian support for Hezbollah be destroyed. If a new regime emerges that reflects the will of Syria’s majority-Sunni population, it can become a base for destabilizing the Hezbollah-dominated government in Beirut. The power balance in the Levant could be tilted decisively against Hezbollah and undercut Iranian regional influence.
Abdallah spoke with President Barack Obama at the end of last week,and both called for an end to the Syrian regime’s repression of its people. Undoubtedly the Saudis have also urged Washington to see the strategic opportunity in Syria. Washington and Riyadh will certainly continue to disagree on the merits of democracy in the Arab world, but they can cooperate on fighting Hezbollah. For the Saudis the time has come to settle scores with an old adversary.
Not surprised is my only comment. Other then for that, the sunni and shias can not stand each other.
This is a good move on the Saudis’ part. I wish we had hte guts to do it, but our Dear Leader is in the pocket of the mullahs.
Their most effective and skilled troops are probably the “National Guard” which is made up of tribal bedouins skilled in desert fighting.
Link:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/sang.htm
If the saudis open up a case of whoop-ass on Asshat, he will be gone fast. The hezbullah can go to ground and may later emerge in charge of Syria after, is the risk, but more likely the Iranians will have to work in the open to support their client. Could be the Hezbullah and related Hamass will exit stage left to Lebanon en masse and hand Syria over. Right now the Syrian public is very upset with the shootings and are likely to support Saudi intervention.
"What are you prepared to DO about it?"
Uh OH...... and the tremors continue....
Damascus will fall should this continue...it won't be pretty either.
We won't have the funds to keep them where they are much longer. Once are boys are taken out of the ME....they will all turn on each other and the winners will unite and go after Israel.
Syria is a secular dictatorship. If the Saudi’s knock them off, you will find a religious (sharia) dictatorship. You decide which will be more crazier.
Interesting. Gotta admit the Hezbollah angle on this was something I hadn’t given consideration to. It would be wonderful to see that group marginalized, if that is in fact what is ahead.
My perception of the Arab spring was that the Muslim Brotherhood hand in hand with the leadership of Iran was making a play for dominance of the region. I had referred to it as the initial stages of the creation of a United States of Iran.
What led me to think along these lines was Iran’s known blatant
willingness to create trouble in neighboring states, Iraq, Afhanistan, Lebanon, and by proxy in Isreal. No other nation in the Middle East had displayed anything near this degree of determination to assert it’s will
outside it’s borders.
It was a natural to think the so-called Arab Spring was just an expansion
of Iran’s grand master plan.
Now although Syria may have been a part of Iran’s game plan in the past,
it may be that Iran may want complete control wresting that away from Assad with Muslim Brotherhood participation. It seems the real test of that will be what in fact does happen to Hezbollah if Assad falls.
If Assad does fall and Hezbollah remains strong, it should be a key indicator of who was in fact behind the Arab Spring. However, if Hezbollah should be deminished as a result, my reasoning behind my perception regarding Iran’s involvement will appear to have ben faulty.
There isn’t a victory for America in the ME. Egypt & Libya were under the control of people the US had or had brought to heel. Don’t ever forget that the Saudi’s aren’t our friends.
They’ve worked hard to spread whabbism throughout the world. Their madrassa’s in Asia, Africa, South and North America, Europe, and Australia breed terror and hardline Islamism. What country provided 19 of the 9/11 hijackers?
What you are seeing is a family feud dating back to 632 AD and the death of Mohammed - the Shia/Sunni split started back then. They’ve been fighting each other to the death ever since. The only side we need to be on is the one doing our bidding and that’s neither, though in this instance the Al Sauds are our nominal allies, but they’d impose Sharia on America in a heartbeat.
This is also an ongoing battle between Arabs and Persians. That’s a centuries long fight as well. Iraq is majority Shia as is Iran. Saudi Arabia is Sunni and is Pan-Arabist, that is they seek to unite all Arabs.
Our best option - develop our own energy resources - coal, nuclear and oil. We’ll never be fully energy independent, but between coal and oil we’ll be able to run our factories/offices, warm/cool our homes, have abundant and cheap electricity, and a greater degree of ‘energy liberty’ than we have now. Oil is hard to replace and the internal combustion engine works well. It will someday be replaced and we can help it along by cutting regulations against improvements like diesel, etc. and getting rid of ethanol and ‘green’ subsidies.
Any energy policy the American government pursues contrary to this is a waste of money and serves our enemies.
The Saudi’s will need the help of the Israelis.
Stopped reading the article right then...
The Saudi’s will need the help of the Israelis.
Interesting comment.
Yes, I am surprised that alot of posters are openly cheering for the largest supporter of terrorism worldwide, the country where the most terrorists come from. Sunni’s are the masters of terrorism and the biggest sponsors financially of terrorism, they are also the biggest sponsors of opening mosques worldwide. Practically every mosque and all the spread of islam worldwide is attributed to these sunni kingdoms that we are buddying up to regardless of the fact that sunni terrorists have been targetting our forces and aiding terrorism in afghanistan, iraq and are helping terrorism in pakistan. We have already tried to help dislodge some secular leaders in the middle east and we are shooting ourselves or actually our kids in the foot, because all this will come back to bite us in the ass. Let them fight it out and we sohuldnt get involved. When it comes to which is the lesser of the two evils, it is clear shiite islam is lesser than sunni. The problems with hezbollah and syria and iran and israel is a political one, whereas the dream of islam conquering the world is a sunni one.
Let the sunnis and shias fight each other, the LESS likely it will happen as you said.
Syria-—Not exactly “secular” but then again not exactly as evil as the monstrous Sharia state of Saudi Arabia and their pals the genociding Turks.
Actually that is not exactly true.
A few months ago I posted some articles about protests in SA. Which is unusual as protests are not permitted. And we might not hear about such events as it is a closed society.
Of all places Wikipedia has a timeline of events that have been happening http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests
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