A Message from the Saudi Ambassador

His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud wrote an opinion piece, "Saudi Arabia Will Go It Alone," that apparently appeared yesterday in the New York Times (I get the national edition of the paper delivered to my home and I didn't see it on the Op-Ed Page) that is being highly cited on the Internet. In it Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, a Georgetown and Harvard educated Saudi ambassador to England, indulges in a ham-handed, dated, tone-deaf attack on the West's reluctance to militarily topple the Syrian government.

The Saudi prince's argument goes something like this: Evil Iranian forces are coursing through the country of Syria raping and pillaging its innocent civilians while the evil head of state Bashar al-Assad gleefully chortles and grunts in a pool of his people's blood; the indecisive Western colossus cravenly looks on, citing the threat of Al Qaeda as a reason for its inaction; therefore, the world can expect the heroic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to rise to the occasion and restore peace, tranquility and order to the Middle East.

The whole editorial is laughable if it wasn't so mendaciously perverse -- a dark, warped pre-school cartoon version of reality. It is the Saudis and their generous funding of Wahhabi and Salafi fighters in Iraq and Syria who are destabilizing the region.

Who does the prince think he will persuade? The American people? No, your average American in all his or her benighted smart phone confusion is not a friend of the House of Saud; he/she never got past the fact that the overwhelming composition of the 9/11 hijack team was Saudi. Nor did your average American ever forgive and forget that while all flights were grounded in the United States following the attacks select Saudi nationals were allowed to jet out of country. Then there is also the unpleasant fact that Saudi Arabia is a despotic monarchical kleptarchy where public floggings are still common and driving while female is a dangerous subversion of the state. No, for your average American a visage like that of Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud conjures up evil spirits.

The Saudis know all this. Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud's opinion piece is aimed at an audience whose attention the Kingdom commands, the governmental elites in Western capitals dependent in one form or another on the largesse of the Gulf sheikhdoms. The message will be loud and clear: The jihad in Iraq and Syria will continue; the region will continue to be destabilized; a caliphate will be erected.