Prince Turki's Mendacity and the Coming Blowback

Yesterday Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal speaking at the World Policy Conference taking place on the French Riviera in the sovereign city-state monarchy of Monaco once again blamed the United States for "almost a criminal negligence" in not removing Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria. Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" on the use of chemical weapons in the August 21 Ghouta attack (which Seymour Hersh says is proof not of Obama abiding by American anti-war sentiment but of knowledge linking Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front to the use of sarin) sent the Saudis into a rage, prompting them to decline a seat on the United Nations Security Council for which they had worked long and hard.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, who learned foreign policy at Georgetown University with Bill Clinton, will go down in history as the Director of Saudi Arabia General Intelligence Directorate from the Grand Mosque Seizure in 1979 to ten days prior the 9/11 attacks, a time that corresponds to the rise of global jihad as a replacement of communism as an organizing principle for U.S. Hyperpower. While Turki no longer holds an official position in government, he is acknowledged as speaking for the Kingdom.

Prince Turki was also critical of the secret talks the U.S. held with Iran prior to the announcement of a breakthrough deal on the Iranian nuclear program. Almost as an afterthought, as proof of Pan-Arabist bonafides, Turki mentioned the plight of the Palastinians and their search for statehood.

All of this is dutifully reported in Steven Erlanger's story this morning, "Saudi Prince Criticizes Obama Administration, Citing Indecision in Mideast," with nary a word of what is common knowledge -- and regularly reported in the Gray Lady herself -- that Saudi Arabia is the prime funder and advocate of the Sunni jihadis in their quest for a caliphate in the Levant.

The daily suicide bombings wreaking havoc in Iraq against the Shia? The constant kidnappings of secular anti-Assad activists in Syria? Blame the Saudis. So when Erlanger ends his piece with Turki crying crocodile tears for the failed Free Syrian Army without the slightest mention of the Wahhabi and Salafi groups that led to the FSA's demise, the New York Times is doing a grave disservice to her readers:

In separate remarks here to the Reuters news agency, Prince Turki said that the United States and Britain had done too little to help the more moderate, more secular Syrian rebels, leaving them to fend for themselves against both “Al Assad’s killing machine” and the better-armed radical Islamist rebel groups. 

“Why should he stop the killing?” he said of Mr. Assad. 

“That to me is why the F.S.A. is not in as prominent position as it should be today,” he said, referring to the Free Syrian Army, “because of the lack of international support for it. The fighting is going to continue, and the killing is going to continue.”

Maybe Erlanger had it in there but it was edited out; he is a decent reporter but one who always grants a great deal of deference to established powers. I remember back in the days of the war in Kosovo; he faithfully carried water for the NATO air campaign.

A more illuminating story, "The Deadly Pawns of Saudi Arabia," is one that appeared last Monday on the Counterpunch web site. Written by the longtime Middle East reporter Patrick Cockburn it has a different take on who is responsible for unrest in the region:

Saudi Arabia as a government for a long time took a back seat to Qatar in funding rebels in Syria, and it is only since this summer that they have taken over the file. . . 

The directors of Saudi policy in Syria – the Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, the head of the Saudi intelligence agency Prince Bandar bin Sultan and the Deputy Defence Minister Prince Salman bin Sultan – plan to spend billions raising a militant Sunni army some 40,000 to 50,000 strong. Already local warlords are uniting to share in Saudi largesse for which their enthusiasm is probably greater than their willingness to fight. 

The Saudi initiative is partly fuelled by rage in Riyadh at President Obama’s decision not to go to war with Syria after Assad used chemical weapons on 21 August. Nothing but an all-out air attack by the US similar to that of Nato in Libya in 2011 would overthrow Assad, so the US has essentially decided he will stay for the moment. Saudi anger has been further exacerbated by the successful US-led negotiations on an interim deal with Iran over its nuclear programme.

Cockburn says that United States is looking the other way because the Saudi Sunni jihadi army is aimed at the Shia. But Cockburn doesn't think that it is going to end well, that any unity prevailing now among jihadi groups due to Saudi largesse will not last. Then, like in post-Soviet Afghanistan, it will be the United States and Saudi Arabia itself that will be the target.