Too soon?
Posted on 12/13/2006 10:48:59 PM PST by MadIvan
Saudi Arabia would respond to an American withdrawal from Iraq by funding and arming Sunni insurgents to prevent them being massacred by Shia militias, the kingdom has told the White House.
The blunt warning, which diplomatic sources said was delivered by King Abdullah to Vice President Dick Cheney in Riyadh just over a fortnight ago, raises the spectre of an Iraqi civil war triggering a conflict between Sunni and Shia states across the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia fears that the United States might take the side of the Shia majority in Iraq or abandon the country altogether, leaving Sunnis at the mercy of Shias intent on vengeance for decades of Sunni domination and oppression.
Chas Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said that King Abdullah was also concerned that the US invasion of Iraq had "consolidated an Iranian hegemony in the northern tier of the Arab world".
The Saudi warning greatly complicates President George W Bush's plan for a fresh Iraq strategy. The White House this week announced that Mr Bush would not be addressing Americans about a changed Iraq policy until the New Year after previously indicating he would give a speech before Christmas.
Any Saudi intervention in Iraq would be fraught with difficulty because foreign al-Qa'eda fighters loyal to the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden are dedicated to bringing down the House of Saud.
The abrupt resignation this week of Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, after just 15 months in the post is believed to be connected to his opposition to the suggestion that the kingdom might intervene in Iraq.
The kingdom's hardening position is a reaction to what some Bush administration officials refer to as the "80 per cent solution" in Iraq — a US state department proposal to abandon moves to woo Iraq's Sunnis, who make up 20 per cent of Iraq's population of 26 million.
Mr Bush was at the Pentagon yesterday to discuss Iraq with senior generals, many of whom favour a "surge" in troop numbers in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad.
The president responded coolly to proposals by the independent Iraq Study Group last week to begin a gradual "draw-down" of US forces. Philip Zelikow, a senior aide to Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, is said to be the author of the "80 per cent" proposal, which argues that US attempts at reconciliation between Sunnis, who dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and Shia are too ambitious.
But Miss Rice is understood to oppose the plan and it has met stiff opposition from Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Baghdad, and military commanders in Iraq.
Miss Rice instead favours the creating of a "Sunni crescent" in the Middle East based on Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf states while building links between moderate Sunni tribal and provincial leaders in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki's Shia-led government.
This would isolate Shia-dominated Iran and Sunni-dominated Syria.
Saudi Arabia is particularly concerned about the growth of Iran and its client Hizbollah, which is also supported by Syria, in Lebanon.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
It's around 2-1 Shia to Sunni. They'll need more than guns.
"The Saudi warning greatly complicates President George W Bush's plan for a fresh Iraq strategy. "
Not really, it actually complicates the position of the surrender monkeys. It's the first concrete statement of what the price of failure would be, so it is good news.
Where were the Arabs when the Sunnis ruled and murdered, raped and minced the shiites for 30 years?
Too soon?
it's really called the Iraq Surrender Group
Grinning.
You mean, aside from pissing their pants that our anti-Iranian ally would cast his eyes to their oilfields?
Hmmmm.
The Saudis already are funding the Sunnis aspect of the insurgency in Iraq and Al Qaeda in Iraq isn't sponsored by the Danish. And the members of the ISG did spend time in Saudi Arabia during this report. It is refreshing that the ISG report reflected opinions about what is best for the Us rather than what is best for certain wealthy middle eastern nations with influential lobbying networks in DC. It is interesting that the criticisms directed at the ISg report never say that it is bad for America, but that it is bad for the Iraqis, Saudis, and Israelis.
When did Saudi Arabia's and Israel's interests become more important than America's interests? They are not the same thing regardless of what certain lobbying groups want to tell us.
As long as it lasts 100 years I think that may be a good thing. If they are busy killing each other, then they won't have a lot of energy to concentrate on killing us. Muslims hate each other with more or less the same fervor that they hate Christians and Jews.
But we'd better start drilling off shore and in Alaska.
Sarcasm is my right...
I agree 100%. I don't give a crap if to fanatical sects of Islam go to war. Perhaps Bush's plan was so ingenous nobody could understand it. Start a war between Sunnis terrorists and Shiite terrorists. He stated early on after 9/11 the we would turn our enemies on one another. if it wasn't his plan he should role with it. Americans shouldn't concern itself with internal muslim problems. Why would we want to choose sides in a muslim jihad against muslims?
I would strongly dispute the proposition that it is in America's best interest to allow Iraq to become a failed state, so that Sunni terrorists (read: al-Qaeda) and Shiite terrorists (Hezbollah) can vie to see which will set up shop in whatever is left of Iraq. Should the Shiite majority prevail, the new Iraq would simply become a catspaw of Iran. And if a Saudi (Wahhabi)-aided Sunni minority were to come out ahead--well, it's hard to see the upside of that, either.
Certainly, no two countries' interests are ever identical--not even, say, America's and Great Britain's. But until (and unless) Iraq stabilizes, Israel is the sole outpost of Western democracy in the Middle East; I feel very comfortable about America's being a close friend and ally of the Jewish state.
By the laws of cosmic balance, you just made the ghost of Jimmy Durante break dance....
/johnny (zoomie.. in a real Air Force)
applauding since they believe shiites are heretics who should be only used for slave labor.
I am not sure there are any other options except partition. Iraq has had democratic elections and they elected Shiites to a majority of positions. I think the notion of a secular democracy in Iraq is pure fantasy. And if history is any indicator, the moderate muslims don't usually dictate events in the middle east. The US can only act as an Iraqi police force so long, and it will ultimately be up to the Iraqis to work this out.
In the short term we should continue setting up Iraq's security and government for a couple more years, but our military has more pressing issues than babysitting Iraq for the next 10 years. If Iran and Saudi Arabia want to drive the country into chaos and war we should not interfere. America has no business getting involved in a fight between Sunni and Shiite extremists. Both groups hate us and neither is our ally. We should let them spend their resources fighting each other. We certainly shouldn't spend our soldiers lives and resources trying to stop them.
We should leave special forces and anti-terrorist units in Iraq to fight Al Qaeda for as long as Al Qaeda in in Iraq, but we should not leave large portions of our military resources in Iraq in order to govern and police their country for them.
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