SAUDI ARABIA: COUNTERING IRAN ON MULTIPLE FRONTS
Opinion: Pakistan Just Became Saudi Arabia’s Client State, and Turned Its Back on Tehran: Kunwar Khuldune Shahid, Haaretz, Feb. 24, 2019 — Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have got the cold shoulder from protesting crowds in Tunisia and been publicly sidelined at the G20 conference last November, but he was treated to a hero’s welcome in Pakistan this week.
Saudi Gas Export Plan Shines New Light on Efforts to Isolate Iran: Dr. James M. Dorsey, BESA, Mar. 15, 2019 — Officially, both Saudi Arabia and the US, which withdrew last year from the 2015 international accord that curbs the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and imposed harsh economic sanctions, are demanding a change of Iran’s regional and defense policies rather than of its regime.
Some Palestinians Worry Saudis Reconciling with Israel: Adnan Abu Amer, Al-Monitor, March 22, 2019 — Palestinian-Saudi ties have grown stronger in recent weeks, which some Palestinians welcome and others reject.
Israel and the Gulf States: Some Things Change, Some Stay the Same: Dr. Joshua Krasnow, TV7 Publications, Mar. 25, 2019 — In the past month, there has been an upsurge in overt visits by senior Israeli officials in several Arab Gulf states with which Israel does not have official bilateral diplomatic relations, as well as in positive public statements by Gulf leaders regarding Israel.
ON TOPIC LINKS:
The Relationship Between Israel and the Gulf States, INSS, Jan. 28, 2019, Video — Dore Gold: It is clear as day that Israel and many of the Sunni Arab states have common interests.
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt Oppose Bids Against Normalization Of Ties With Israel: Report: Press TV, Mar. 4, 2019 — Russia’s RT Arabic television news network reported on Monday that Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al ash-Sheikh, the speaker of Saudi Arabia’s Consultative Assembly, together with his Emirati and Egyptian counterparts opposed a paragraph in the final communiqué of the 29th Conference of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union in the Jordanian capital city of Amman, which demands an end to efforts aimed at normalizing ties with Israel and condemns all forms of rapprochement with the occupying regime.
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel Collaborated to Weaken Turkey: Middle East Monitor, Jan. 9, 2019 — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel held a secret meeting to coordinate a plan which would see Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad reintegrated into the Arab League in an effort to weaken Turkey’s position in the region.
A New Turkey-Saudi Crisis Is Brewing: Birol Baskan, Middle East Institute, January 8, 2019 — Turkey-Saudi Arabia relations had been as good as they could get in the 2000s. In 2010, the kingdom even gave Turkey’s then-prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, its most prestigious award, the King Faisal Prize for Service to Islam. Since the eruption of the Arab Spring, however, relations between the two countries have gradually, but systematically, deteriorated.
OPINION: PAKISTAN JUST BECAME SAUDI ARABIA’S CLIENT STATE, AND TURNED ITS BACK ON TEHRAN
Kunwar Khuldune Shahid
Haaretz, Feb. 24, 2019
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have got the cold shoulder from protesting crowds in Tunisia and been publicly sidelined at the G20 conference last November, but he was treated to a hero’s welcome in Pakistan this week.
It was more of a savior’s welcome, bearing in mind the financial lifeline he threw to Prime Minister Imran Khan. And that aid was part of a significant bargain struck between Islamabad and Riyadh.
Khan has acquiesced to MBS’ pointed demand: to join the Sunni Muslim axis against Iran. That formalization of an anti-Tehran alliance that Pakistan has previously hesitated to endorse will have ripple effects both within Pakistan, and across the region.
The first leg of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s Asia tour saw him strike $20 billion worth of deals in Pakistan. The financing comes as much needed relief for Islamabad, which is looking to dodge a thirteenth International Monetary Fund bailout amid a balance of payment crisis that is crippling the economy.
During the two-day trip that culminated on Monday, MBS further provided diplomatic support to Islamabad at a tense period of relations with India due to last week’s bombing in Indian-administered Kashmir, which killed over 40 Indian security officials. Just as India threatens war in retaliation, assurances Pakistan received from both Saudi Arabia and China bolstered its decision that there was no need to go after Jaish-e-Mohammad, the terror group that took responsibility, and whose leadership is still living openly inside Pakistan.
Where China has reiterated it has no plans to reconsider its veto on the move to designate JeM Chief Masood Azhar a terrorist by the United Nations, Saudi Arabia’s joint statement with Pakistan following MBS’s visit highlighted the need to “avoid politicization of the UN listing regime.”
MBS’s financial and diplomatic support comes in exchange for Pakistan’s increased involvement in the so-called Islamic Counter Terrorism Military Coalition (IMCTC). Islamabad was informed about its new role by former Army Chief General (retired) Raheel Sharif – who now commands the IMCTC – in the lead up to the MBS visit.
The IMCTC was formed in December 2015, nine months into Saudi military campaign in Yemen. At the time Riyadh was planning the execution of influential Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, which brought Saudi Arabia and Iran to a standoff, leading to a severing of diplomatic ties.
It also coincided with the peak of the Islamic State (ISIS)’s powers in Iraq and Syria, confident enough even to launch attacks in Saudi Arabia. That synchronicity gave the IMCTC cover as a military alliance designed to counter ISIS, disguising its counter-Iran aims, with the obvious feel-good factor of an unprecedented formation of Muslim states uniting to fight a group orchestrating Islamist terrorism across the world… [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
SAUDI GAS EXPORT PLAN SHINES NEW LIGHT ON EFFORTS TO ISOLATE IRAN
Dr. James M. Dorsey
BESA, Mar. 15, 2019
Officially, both Saudi Arabia and the US, which withdrew last year from the 2015 international accord that curbs the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and imposed harsh economic sanctions, are demanding a change of Iran’s regional and defense policies rather than of its regime.
Yet statements in recent years by some Saudi leaders and US officials – as well a string of declarations at the recent US-sponsored Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Stability in the Middle East in Warsaw by officials of the Trump administration, as well as Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain – suggested that regime change was on their radar.
President Donald Trump’s hard-line national security advisor John Bolton, a past advocate of regime change and a covert war to destabilize Iran, concluded an outline on the White House’s official Twitter account of Washington’s long list of grievances and accusations levelled at Iranian leaders by addressing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, directly. “I don’t think you’ll have too many more anniversaries,” Bolton said, as Iran celebrated the 40th anniversary of its Islamic Revolution.
Multiple indicators bolster the notion that the real goal of Saudi and US policy is regime change, prompted by the sanctions and a destabilization campaign that would foster unrest among Iran’s ethnic minorities.
These include statements by Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and by Bolton before he became Trump’s advisor; a flow of funds from the kingdom to militant, ultra-conservative, anti-Shiite, anti-Iranian madrassas that dot the Iranian border in the troubled Pakistani province of Balochistan; US and Saudi support for an exile Iranian group that demands regime change in Tehran; and a string of recent attacks inside Iran.
However, Saudi Arabia’s announcement that it will invest US$150 billion to enable it to export three billion cubic meters of gas a year by 2030 suggests that imminent regime change may not be in the kingdom’s immediate interest.
Viewed through the lens of the timeline of Saudi Arabia’s gas plans, the kingdom is likely to benefit more from an Iran that is isolated and weakened for years to come, which would give Riyadh time to get up to speed on gas. That would serve Saudi Arabia’s gas plans better than an Iran that returns to the international fold under a new, more accommodating government. A potential destabilization campaign that is low-level and intermittent but not regime-threatening would serve that purpose…[To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
SOME PALESTINIANS WORRY SAUDIS RECONCILING WITH ISRAEL
Adnan Abu Amer
Al-Monitor, March 22, 2019
Palestinian-Saudi ties have grown stronger in recent weeks, which some Palestinians welcome and others reject.
On March 11, Manssour bin Mussallam, a Saudi citizen who is head of the Switzerland-based NGO the Education Relief Foundation, visited the West Bank. He was received by recently resigned Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, who praised ongoing Saudi support for the Palestinian cause, and called on Arabs to visit more often.
Bin Mussallam met with Palestinian Minister of Education Sabri Saidam. A Palestinian official close to President Mahmoud Abbas told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “Bin Mussallam’s visit focused on signing an educational partnership agreement with the Palestinian Ministry of Education and strengthening Palestinian relations with Saudi Arabia.” The two sides will form a joint action committee to carry out training programs and exchange visits.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrived Feb. 12 in Riyadh on a visit that hadn’t been unannounced publicly. He met with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss the current political situation and developments relating to the Palestinian cause and Jerusalem.
It appears the visits concern many Palestinian citizens, who oppose the Saudis’ growing coziness with Israel and fear the meetings could hasten the normalization of Arab-Israeli relations. Any Arab visit requires permission from and coordination with Israeli authorities, who control the border crossings. Some Palestinians argue that such coordination reflects a recognition of Israel’s control over the Palestinian territories.
“Palestinians are against the Saudi visit, as well as all visits by any Arab officials to their lands, because they pave the way to Arab-Israeli normalization,” Hani al-Masri, director general of the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies-Masarat, told Al-Monitor. “A Saudi-Israeli rapprochement has been taking place recently, and bin Mussallam’s visit couldn’t have happened without prior coordination with Israel.”
Abdel Sattar Qassem, a political science professor at An-Najah National University in Nablus, told Al-Monitor, “Bin Mussallam’s visit aimed to contain the Palestinian and Arab anger at any normalization with Israel should Saudi officials decide to visit Jerusalem under the pretext of praying [in the city’s holy sites]. With bin Mussallam’s visit, Saudi Arabia is attempting to obtain a formal Palestinian cover for possible future normalization with Israel.” … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
ISRAEL AND THE GULF STATES: SOME THINGS CHANGE,SOME STAY THE SAME
Dr. Joshua Krasnow
TV7 Publications, Mar. 25, 2019
In the past month, there has been an upsurge in overt visits by senior Israeli officials in several Arab Gulf states with which Israel does not have official bilateral diplomatic relations, as well as in positive public statements by Gulf leaders regarding Israel. The most significant was the visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu in Oman, the first overt visit in over twenty years by an Israeli prime minister to an Arab country without diplomatic relations with Israel. These developments have fueled euphoria and speculation in Israel about the possibility of increased normalization, or even diplomatic relations, with additional Arab states.
This paper will look at the strategic and political underpinnings of the recent uptick in overt relations between Israel and several Gulf States, and analyze their positions and interests, as well as those of major international and regional players; and make a cautious estimate regarding the likely next steps. (It will not examine in depth the United Arab Emirates or Kuwait, where no significant policy change has occurred or been indicated in the past few months).
What’s New?
The recent spate of overt visits includes those of:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a high-level Israeli delegation to Oman (October 26), without prior announcement by either country. The Prime Minister was accompanied by his wife, by the head of Israel’s foreign intelligence service, Mossad (who is reported to be the helmsman of the improved relations with the Gulf States, and to oversee deep covert cooperation with them), by the National Security Adviser, by the Director General of the Foreign Ministry and by other defense officials. Speaking to Cabinet colleagues after his return, Netanyahu said, “This visit comes against the background of diplomatic efforts that I have been promoting in recent years vis-à-vis the Arab countries. There will be more.”
Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev, who visited Abu Dhabi for the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam Judo tournament. Israel’s team won two gold medals in the tournament, and the Israeli flag was flown, and the national anthem played. The next day, in a surprising development, Regev was accompanied by Emirati officials to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, a site regularly shown to world leaders visiting the country.
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, who visited Oman shortly after the Prime Minister, to participate in the World Road Transport Union World Congress, where he presented an American-supported regional rail project, called “Tracks for Middle East Peace”. This is based on the use of the Israeli port of Haifa, with Jordan serving as a regional rail hub attached to existing or planned regional rail infrastructure, to shorten transit times of goods from Asia to the Mediterranean. International and regional media made much of the fact that Katz also serves as Israel’s Intelligence Minister (though that office does not have an operational function).
Communications Minister Ayoub Kara, who visited the UAE for a week in early November to participate in the International Telecommunication Union Plenipotentiary Conference in Dubai.
Economy Minister Eli Cohen was invited in early November to participate in the “Startup Nations Ministerial” conference, sponsored by the World Bank and the Global Entrepreneurship Network, to be held in Bahrain in April 2019… [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
