“Assad will run again… America will go along”

“Assad will run again… America will go along.” That's what renowned Lebanese political analyst and journalist Sami Kleib writes today for Beirut’s daily al-Akhbar, which speaks for Iran, Syria and Lebanese Hezbollah.

The article penned by Kleib, who formerly worked for Aljazeera but is now news director of the pro-Iran Al-Mayadeen TV, features simultaneously this morning on Syria’s online daily Champress as well as on the news portal of Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV.

Better still, Kleib is married to former Aljazeera anchorwoman Luna Shibl, who now serves as media advisor to President Bashar al-Assad.

To Kleib’s mind:

It is almost inevitable that Assad will again run for president come mid-2014. He won’t be standing down, or renewing or extending his term. He links his candidacy to the yearning of the people. He is also convinced renewal of his presidential mandate will happen.

American circles handling Syrian affairs are convinced Assad will run and win. It is consequently imperative to look for a credible way out to justify any likely American u-turn in Geneva or elsewhere, but not instantly.

The Americans tried long and hard to convince Russia and Iran to press Assad to leave office at the end of his current mandate next June. They offered keeping the régime and state institutions unchanged and suggested replacing Assad by an Alawite figure. Moscow and Tehran would have nothing of that.

The same happened when Secretary of State John Kerry told international troubleshooter for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi in the presence of Kerry aide Wendy Sherman, “Try pressuring the Russians and Iranians to advise Assad against running.”

Brahimi replied the first time he broached the subject he found Assad “flexible.” The second time Assad refused to discuss the matter saying the Syrian people decide on this. On his third visit to Damascus, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem advised Brahimi not to raise the matter as a precondition for the meeting. Brahimi did as told.

The Americans’ problem is how to save face after repeating for two years that Assad must step down.

All the above was before the world powers reached an agreement with Iran on her nuclear ambitions, prior to the outrage against the Iranian embassy in Beirut and ahead of the agreement between Baghdad and Washington to shore up Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki in his war against Jihadists and DAESH.

Since all issues revolve around the war on terrorism, the matter is bound to top the Geneva-2 agenda.

Provision 2 of Article 87 in the amended Syrian constitution states: “If the term of the President of the Republic finished and no new president was elected, the Existing President of the Republic continues to assume his duties until the new president is elected.”

This is to say the “Game of Nations” over Assad’s future will remain in full play well past June 2014.

Iran training and paying Iraqis to fight for Assad

Logos of six Iraqi Shiite militias fighting for Assad

The government of Iraq’s beleaguered Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is paying each Iraqi recruit $500 a month to receive free military training in Iran before being deployed in Syria to fight for President Bashar al-Assad.

Beirut correspondent Viviane Aqiqi reports the news exclusively today for Elaph, the first independent online Arab daily launched in London in 2001.

Ms Aqiqi suggests the Quds Force unit, which is under the command of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani and is responsible for the “extraterritorial operations” of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has so far recruited and trained in Iran and Iraq some 5,000 Iraqi Shiite militiamen to fight for Assad.

She specifically names nine Iraqi militia organizations feeding recruits to Assad via Soleimani.

They are:

As’ib Ahl al-Haq, which has 500 Shiite fighters in Syria, led by Kays al-Khazali.

Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq, which has 600 men fighting for Assad under the command of Haj Hashem al-Hamadani.

Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, which has 400 men fighting for Assad under the command of Haj Abu-Mustafa al-Sheibani.

Harakat al-Nujaba’ led by Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi.

The Promised Day Brigades, the biggest Iraqi Shiite organization with nearly 2,000 men fighting for Assad.

Saraya Tala’i al-Khurasani, whose leader Ali al-Yasiri has 200 men under his command.

Martyr Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr Forces comprise 300 militiamen led by Mohammad Jaafar.

Liwa Abul-Fadl al-Abbas, the most renowned of the Iraqi Shiite militias with 500 men fighting for Assad.

Imam Hussein Brigades, a brigade of 150 fighters headed by Abu-Shahd al-Jabbouri.

On 5 November 2008, the day following the U.S. presidential elections, Elaph reached an all-time record high of 18 million hits. As a result of its popularity and international readership, Elaph.com became one of the leading news portals in the Arab world.

The website was officially audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC). Its traffic was certified in May 2010, producing ABC’s certificate of 1,179,801 users and 8,565,601 page impressions. Also based on August 2010 data, the website had 1.3 million global users per month.

Who killed the “Arab Spring”?

Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab al-Hayat, penned this think piece in Arabic

Where are the young men and women who nearly three years ago crammed the plazas and public squares calling for the downfall of who they called the tyrant or the dictator or the despot?

Do they remember the victory signs they raised when they heard news of his escape or his standing down or his killing?

Do they recall the dreams they dared reflect upon in those days and their talk of democracy, state institutions, transparency, the transfer of power and the respect of human rights?

Was their behavior actually motivated by their fervor, their innocence or their naïveté?

Were they alien to their communities and ignorant of the degree of injustice permeating their depths and the wells of hatred waiting for an opportunity to explode?

Did it escape them that the problem is basically cultural rather than political and that it is not enough to open the ballot boxes to turn over the page of the past?

Did it escape them as well that centuries of darkness contributed to the incarceration of the Arab intellect and its disablement, rendering the Arab individual incapable of handling the keys to the future?

I have been obsessed for weeks by an irritating question: “Who killed the ‘Arab Spring’?”

That’s why I seize the opportunity of coming across anyone of the major players in the said “Spring” to ask for his assessment – especially now that some of the said ‘Spring’s’ theaters shut out the advocates of democracy and of modern state-building.

I will not name my respondents because our discussions were not to be published.

The man played an important role in his country’s “Arab Spring” when he dealt a painful blow to the despot under whose portrait he served for several years.

I asked him the question, “Who killed the ‘Arab Spring’?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“What you call the ‘Spring’ may have come early, before our societies became ready to embrace a transformation of this magnitude.

“It turned out we still live in the depths of history.

“With the tyrants’ fall, our societies began spewing all the blood, pus, hatreds, coercions and reprisals that accumulated in their guts.

“I think the transitional phase will be daunting and extended. In any case the French Revolution took eight decades before settling down.”

He added:

“We are in a terrible state of underdevelopment. Watch the screens. A university professor talks as if he has yet to enter the era of reading and writing.

“Look at nation-states, like for example Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Bahrain that are now paying the price of what took place between Ali and Muawiyah.

“We discuss globalization and technology and then go to sleep in the caves of history.

“Our capitals are closer to abattoirs overflowing with suicide bombers and assassins.

“Our countries fail to provide regular power supplies to their citizens.

“Our societies participated in killing the ‘Arab Spring’ by letting the prisoners of history take the lead.”

Another player put forward a different reading.

He said the most prominent killers of the “Arab Spring” are those who rushed to mold it, casting an image of their own interests.

He said the West acted as a crook, especially Obama’s America. Washington wanted the phenomenon to serve the policy she adopted years earlier – in essence the policy of promoting to power what she calls moderate Islam, thinking that the latter could contain terror.

He added: The Muslim Brothers, who were the better organized and widespread movement in the community, took this as an historic opportunity to devour it all.

He also said Turkey played a role in killing the “Arab Spring” when she considered a “Brotherhood Spring” victory gives her a trump card in her strategic wrestling with Iran.

He said Qatar used her financial might and international relations to prop up the “Brotherhood Spring” alongside Turkey.

Russia, he remarked was focusing on stifling the “Muslim Spring” lest it turned into a card in the hands of the West or spread to her vicinity.

He said Russia found in Syria’s events a chance to kill the “Arab Spring.” Iran was of the same opinion but for different purposes.

The two men’s words helped me understand what is now going on in more than one Arab country.

I got convinced the “Arab Spring” killers were more than one.

Most probably a stormy season is just about to kick off – a long and painful transition season.

The first condition for moving into the future is to exit the caves of history and bury the illusions of ready-made solutions.

Fatwa from Qom endorses fighting alongside Assad

Grand Ayatollah Kazim al-Haeri (above) and Saudi Prince Turki al Faisal (top)

“First ever fatwa from Qom endorses fighting alongside Assad,” Saudi Arabia’s newspaper of records, Asharq Alawsat, banners on its front page today.

The paper was referring to the first public religious edict issued by a leading Shiite Muslim cleric widely followed by Iraqi militants permitting Shiites to fight in Syria’s war alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces.

The fatwa by Iran-based Grand Ayatollah Kazim al-Haeri, one of the mentors of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, comes as thousands of Shiite fighters mostly from Iraq and Lebanon play a major role in the battles.

The call likely will increase the sectarian tones of the war, which pits overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim rebels against members of Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Al-Haeri is based in the holy city of Qom, Iran’s religious capital. Among his followers, according to The Associated Press, are many fighters with the feared Shiite militia, Asa’eb Ahl al-Haq, or Band of the Righteous, an Iranian-backed group that repeatedly attacked U.S. forces in Iraq and says it is sending fighters to Syria. That militia is headed by white-turbaned Shiite cleric Qais al-Khazali, who spent years in U.S. detention but was released after he was handed over to the Iraqi government.

Many Shiite gunmen already fight around the holy shrine of Sayyidah Zaynab just south of Damascus. The shrine is named after the Prophet Muhammad’s granddaughter and is popular with Iranian worshippers and tourists.

Asharq Alawsat says the fatwa sanctions the participation of Iraqi fighters in the protection of Sayyidah Zaynab shrine as well as in the defense of Assad’s regime.

Asked by a follower whether it is legitimate to travel to Syria to fight, al-Haeri replied: “The battle in Syria is not for the defense of the shrine of Sayyidah Zaynab but it is a battle of infidels against Islam and Islam should be defended.”

“Fighting in Syria is legitimate and those who die are martyrs,” al-Haeri said in comments posted on his official website. An official at his office confirmed that the comments are authentic.

Asa’eb Ahl al-Haq currently has about 1,000 fighters in Syria and many others were volunteering to go join the war, said Ashtar al-Kaabi, an Asa’eb Ahl al-Haq member who organizes sending Shiite fighters from Iraq to Syria. Asked whether the increase is related to al-Haeri’s fatwa, al-Kaabi said: “Yes. This fatwa has had wide effect.”

The rebels are mainly backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Sunni powerhouses in the Middle East.

The main Western-backed Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, claimed recently that Shiite fighters from 14 different factions are fighting alongside Assad forces in Syria. The coalition said those fighters are brought to Syria with the help of Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, another Iranian pawn.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Shiite Hezbollah also openly joined Assad’s forces in May after hiding its participation for months. Since then, the group has helped Assad forces recapture a string of towns and villages from rebels.

Separately, an influential Saudi Arabian prince said on Saturday Assad’s opponents have been at an impossible disadvantage since the start of the Syrian conflict because the United States and Britain refused to help them.

The United States and Britain suspended non-lethal aid to northern Syria last Thursday after reports that Islamic Front -- a union of six major rebel groups -- had taken buildings belonging to the Free Syrian Army's (FSA) Syrian Military Council on the border with Turkey.

Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal criticized the decision, saying the two countries had left the moderate FSA to fend for itself.

"What's more damaging is that since the beginning of this conflict, since the FSA arose as a response to Assad's impunity, Britain and the U.S. did not come forward and provide the necessary aid to allow it to defend itself and the Syrian people from Assad's killing machine," Prince Turki told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Policy Conference in Monaco.

"You have a situation where one side is lopsided with weapons like the Assad regime is, with tanks and missiles -- you name it, he is getting it -- and the other side is screaming out to get defensive weapons against these lethal weapons that Assad has," Turki said. "Why should he stop the killing?"

"That to me is why the FSA is in not as prominent position as it should be today, because of the lack of international support for it. The fighting is going to continue and the killing is going to continue."

The U.S. gave us the impression that they were going to do things in Syria that they finally didn't," Prince Turki said outside the World Policy Conference in Monaco. "The aid they're giving to the Free Syrian Army is irrelevant. Now they say they're going to stop the aid: OK, stop it. It's not doing anything anyway."

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the main backers of the main opposition Syrian National Coalition and the FSA.

Assad is backed by Iran, which struck a preliminary deal on with world powers in November to limit sanctions relief for more international oversight of its nuclear program.

Western countries have held back from giving heavy weapons such as anti-tank and missile launchers for fear they could fall into the wrong hands.

"For me ... (to bring a) successful end to this conflict would be to bring an end to the Assad regime. It is because of the Assad regime that everything is happening," Prince Turki said.

Commanders from the Islamic Front are due to hold talks with U.S. officials in Turkey in coming days, rebel and opposition sources said on Saturday, reflecting the extent to which the Islamic Front alliance has eclipsed the FSA brigades.

A rebel fighter with the Islamic Front said he expected the talks to discuss whether the United States would help arm the front and assign to it responsibility for maintaining order in the rebel-held areas of northern Syria.

Prince Turki told Reuters while he hoped Iran was serious with regard its interim nuclear deal, it needed to provide some confidence-building measures with its Gulf Arab neighbors, beginning in Syria.

"Iran is coming at us with a broad smile. Let's hope they are serious about that. We would like to see Iran first of all get out of Syria," he said.

Reporting in context for yesterday’s New York Times, Steven Erlanger wrote in part:

…The Saudis have been particularly shaken by Mr. Obama’s refusal to intervene forcefully in the Syrian civil war, especially his recent decision not to punish President Bashar al-Assad of Syria with military strikes even after evidence emerged that Mr. Assad’s government used chemical weapons on its own citizens.

Instead, Mr. Obama chose to seek congressional authorization for a strike, and when that proved difficult to obtain, he cooperated with Russia to get Syria to agree to give up its chemical weapons. Prince Turki and Israeli officials have argued that the agreement merely legitimized Mr. Assad, and on Sunday, the prince called the world’s failure to stop the conflict in Syria “almost a criminal negligence.”

Syria, Iran, nuclear issues and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were the main focus for Prince Turki, who spoke at the World Policy Conference, a gathering of officials and intellectuals largely drawn from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

Saudi unhappiness with Iran’s growing power in the region is no secret, and the Saudis, who themselves engage with Iran, have no problem with the United States trying to do the same, the prince said. But he complained that bilateral talks between Iranian and American officials had been kept secret from American allies, sowing further mistrust.

The prince said Iran must give up its ambitions for a nuclear weapons program — Iran says its nuclear program is only for civilian purposes — and stop using its own troops and those of Shiite allies like the Lebanese organization Hezbollah to fight in neighboring countries, like Syria and Iraq. “The game of hegemony toward the Arab countries is not acceptable,” the prince said. Just as Arabs will not dress as Westerners do, he said, “we won’t accept to wear Iranian clothes, either.”

A prevalent theme at the conference was the waning of American influence in the Middle East. Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, said: “Today we live in a zero-polar, or a-polar, world. No one power or group of powers can solve all the problems.”The United States, Mr. Fabius said, was often criticized for being “overpresent, but now it is being criticized for not being present enough.” While “it is perfectly understandable” that Mr. Obama would refrain from new military engagements in the Middle East, he said, “it creates a certain vacuum” that has allowed Russia “to make a comeback on the world scene” and has encouraged France to intervene in the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali…

Oman as Iran’s Trojan Horse in the GCC

Prince Turki al-Faisal addressing the Manama Dialogue

Oman is emerging as Iran’s Trojan Horse trying to destroy the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) from within.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the monarch of Oman since 1970, reportedly played a key role in facilitating the secret U.S.-Iran talks leading up to the November 24 “historic” nuclear deal, according to The Associated Press.

Oman is isolated from much of the rest of the Arabian Peninsula by a formidable mountain range, while Iran is just across the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for global oil shipments that has at times raised tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

As early as 2009, according to Wikileaks, the sultanate offered to arrange talks between the U.S. and Iran – which hadn’t had diplomatic relations for 30 years – on condition that they were kept quiet. But it was reportedly the hostage crisis of three American “hikers” that brought him into a mediating role between the two sides and helped win the release of the three Americans, who were arrested and accused of spying while hiking along the Iran-Iraq border.

With that success in his pocket, Sultan Qaboos offered to facilitate a U.S.-Iran rapprochement, the AP reports. In March, U.S. and Iranian officials met in Oman, Secretary of State John Kerry followed up in May, and the talks took on a momentum of their own after Hassan Rouhani replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran’s June elections.

Sultan Qaboos wasn’t in front of the cameras in Geneva, but a news report in the Saudi daily al-Hayat this morning speaks of “fears within the GCC of Iranian-Omani efforts to break up” the six-member club grouping Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Oman and Saudi Arabia bickered publicly over the GCC’s future last week at the three-day Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, a forum on Middle East security.

A much-anticipated Gulf union is inevitable and will happen because people in the region are keen on it, Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former Intelligence Chief who also served as ambassador in both the United States and United Kingdom, told the conference.

He was commenting on remarks made Saturday by Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, the Omani foreign minister, who said his country rejected the Gulf union and would pull out of the club if the union were approved.

“Everyone has the right to express their opinions,” Prince Turki retorted. “However, this will not prevent the union from happening. Oman can join it then or later, or not at all,” he said.

On the nuclear talks in Geneva last month between the 5+1 world powers and Iran, Prince Turki said they lacked a “very important factor” – namely, the participation of Iran’s Gulf neighbors.

“I don’t know the reasons for that… because eventually we are the ones that will be affected by anything -- a military event or a nuclear leak or any earthquake that may hit the [nuclear] sites in Iran,” he remarked.

“No doubt we are now facing a big smile from the Iranian leadership in the way they are dealing with the Gulf.”

Prince Turki added: “Iran must take concrete measures before we can judge whether it is going forward with a smile, or simply showing its teeth.”

Prince Turki said television and radio stations in Iran are targeting the Gulf Arabs with inflammatory broadcasts tackling “sensitive issues in our Arab world.”

Addressing Iran, he said: “Why don’t you close them down and show us your good intentions? Show us you are serious about this real, wide smile you are showing us.”

The six GCC partners hold their annual year-end summit in Kuwait, tomorrow, Tuesday.

Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of al-Hayat, has this word today to tell tomorrow’s summiteers:

The region is unlike the one that existed three years ago.

Governments are confused. Armies are anxious. Borders are violated or about to be…

Iraq’s disintegration is an undeniable fact. The dismemberment of Yemen is flagrant. What looked like a Syrian intifada turned out to be a sectarian war feeding tension into the neighbors’ arteries.

Lebanon’s institutions are in a coma and its doors are open to refugees and fire. Libya, which spent four decades under one leader, today terrorizes its people, neighbors and the world. From Yemen to Tunisia, al-Qaeda and its ilk are omnipresent…

Today’s world is much more dangerous than the world that witnessed the birth of the GCC in 1981.

Bar Israel, four key regional states will play a dominant role in this difficult phase depending on their respective internal stability, resources and alliances.

They are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Turkey.

GCC leaders who meet in Kuwait tomorrow are aware of the magnitude of the threats to stability and roles. They know the importance of adapting to change.

Oman’s attitude clearly unveiled that the Gulf union’s journey won’t be trouble-free.

But sensitivities should not forestall attempts to reconcile views of the various GCC member states on how to handle this phase of containing risks and assigning roles.  

After Iran’s triumphal moment in Geneva

Scenes from the Vietnam War

Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab al-Hayat, today penned this think piece in Arabic

People of the Middle East are generally emotional and gung-ho.

They love victories, not compromises. They prefer winning by knockout rather than on points.

But regional and international conditions are very tricky. They leave little room for sweeping victories and for building on them swiftly. So proceed with caution in drawing conclusions. We’re still at the beginning of the road.

We were young when America’s adventure in Vietnam ended in America’s overwhelming defeat. The United States lowered its Stars and Stripes and pulled out.

Much was said at the time of the humiliating rout and of the empire that turned inwards to lick its wounds in isolation.

Today, it’s been years since we started reading about the rising level of bilateral trade between the two countries; about Vietnam’s eagerness to attract U.S. investments and tourists; and Vietnam’s delight at welcoming visiting U.S. naval units to remind China she needs to curb her appetite to rule the roost in her neighborhood.

Iran did not achieve Vietnam’s landslide in Geneva.

She targeted Americans in Beirut. She also targeted them in Iraq and probably elsewhere. But Iran did not enter into a face-to-face confrontation with the U.S. military machine, which unintentionally gifted her Iraq and Afghanistan on a silver platter.

Iran was able to collect other cards in the region. She always reminded others of her ability to influence the region’s two political hot potatoes: oil security and the security of Israel.

She brought in Hassan Rouhani from the cold to take advantage of the opportunity presented by Barack Obama’s new priorities.

The Geneva deal followed and it was called a “victory.”

Even if what took place in Geneva were described as a triumph, it is premature to liken the agreement results to the upshot of Richard Nixon’s visit to Mao Zedong.

We are today in a different world than Mao’s – dissimilar in its checks and balances and power criteria.

Assuming Iran’s nuclear deal with the 5+1 powers was a triumph, we have to take into account the agreement is provisional. The November 24 deal has a six-month clock and future negotiations will be more difficult and call for taking more painful decisions.

The Obama Administration’s reluctance to fight new wars in the region and her leaning to prioritize another part of the world does not mean turning over the headship of the Middle East, or the task of drawing its features, to Iran.

We also have to take into account the Russian and European players and such regional heavyweights as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

It is essential as well to be aware of the objective hurdles that preclude Iran from leading the Islamic world, particularly that -- unlike most Arabs – she does not belong to its [Sunni] majority.

Moreover, assuming a role of such magnitude requires means that go beyond the current Iranian economy, which have been drained by Western sanctions and “Soviet” commitments from Afghanistan to Lebanon.

Iran cannot be the region’s star player unless she changed.

Star roles depend on a propensity to promote and uphold stability. They hinge on creating compromises instead of establishing beachheads.

Bringing stability to Iraq necessitates the involvement of her Sunni component in the decision-making process. However, co-opting this component in earnest undermines Iran’s aptitude to manage Iraq.

Any viable compromise in Syria calls for drawing in her Sunni majority. That would ipso facto mean a Syria that is less glued to Tehran.

The same can be said of Lebanon, where the systematic undermining of the position of the [Sunni] prime minister has already galvanized militants in the Sunni community.

These are post-victory matters.

Generations were raised to the slogan, “Death to America.” What will Iran now do with the slogan?

How can relations with “Great Satan” be normalized if talk of beachheads and strikes continues?  

And what of “exporting the [Islamic Republic] revolution,” which perturbed the region before it was agitated by fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions?

Iran realizes fully well the slogan of “eradicating the cancerous tumor” [i.e. Israel] does not only raise America’s hackles but those of Russia’s Putin as well.

In addition, opening the door to investors assumes a transformed political and legal environment that would encourage young Iranians to aspire to a normal and prosperous state earmarking her resources for development and education rather than for perpetual dogfighting with her neighbors and the world powers.

Iran is a major country in the region.

To be acceptable and durable, her role must break up from the ambers of the revolution.

It is premature to compare Hassan Rouhani to Mikhail Gorbachev. Perhaps Iran needs someone who takes after China’s Deng Xiaoping.

She probably has to remember Vietnam defeated the United States, but referred her triumph to the history books.

And Vietnam is busy today inviting investors and tourists to improve the living conditions of the people behind the epic victory and their descendants.

Why should Saudi Arabia feel anxious and lonely?

This is my paraphrasing of the weekly think piece penned in Arabic by Saudi mass media celebrity Jamal Khashoggi for pan-Arab daily al-Hayat

Saeed al-Wahhabi is a young Saudi writer with a blunt and concise style of expressing himself in writing.

After the Saudis were crammed all day long with news analyses of the nuclear deal between the 5+1 world powers and Iran, he encapsulated the general Saudi mood last Sunday night with a tweet saying, “No doubt, Saudi Arabia feels lonely tonight.”

Yes, it was a tough night.

Until an official (Saudi) statement cautiously welcoming the agreement was released, the ghosts and illusions of threats and isolation made the rounds.

At the same time, analysts were piling up the jitters: “Iran is the region’s policeman” and “As customary, the United States double-crosses her allies and lets them down.”

In context, I personally told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Iran softened her nuclear ambitions in order to win hegemony over the region.

But the public’s anxiety and dejected feeling were unwarranted. The agreement reached in Geneva last Sunday is natural and a commonplace occurrence in history, which should rid the region from the specter of war that has been hovering in its skies for over a decade.

When serving as Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal coined a brief answer explaining Saudi Arabia’s position on Iran’s nuclear program. This was because he would be asked about the subject each time he held a stateside press conference or met with U.S. officials.

Prince Turki’s cliché answer went like this: “We live today between two nightmares. The first is Iran making a nuclear bomb. The other is Israel blitzing Iran’s nuclear facilities and dragging the region into a war of unknown scope and outcome.”

The new Iran deal dispels our bad dreams – at least during its six-month timeframe when Tehran will freeze its progress towards a possible nuclear bomb and Israel won’t launch a preventive strike against Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons.

There is also a chance of the November 24 interim agreement making a permanent check on Iran’s nuclear ambitions and bringing permanent peace to the region.

What should be a matter of concern for us Saudis are the state of “anxiety and apprehension” and the case of “going to bed (if at all) feeling lonely” as Wahhabi suggested in his tweet.

Abdullah al-Askar, who heads the foreign relations committee in the Shura (Consultative) Council, said, “Denizens of the region won’t be getting much shut-eye.”

Such negative reactions are a source of concern for the express and endemic lack of confidence in our ability to cope with overdue change in the region.

I put forward that this is because:

• We got “used” to being dependent on the U.S. as a strategic ally that will invariably lend us a hand in times of crises.
• We realized the region started to wobble and lose its balance after the fall of Iraq and Saddam Hussein (and this is not to bemoan the loss of the man or his regime)
• Then came Turkey’s rise as a regional power, Egypt’s eclipse for internal reasons associated with the Arab Spring, and Pakistan’s hibernation after the wounds it sustained post 9/11 and its mini civil war with the Taliban.

It can be argued that Saudi Arabia stand alone in facing up to Iran and her regional ambitions. That’s despite the kingdom having common interests with Turkey and Qatar for instance in the Syria war, and with the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar in Bahrain’s turmoil.

Nonetheless, there is no united front or agreement to confront Iran. All the countries I mentioned now and earlier have links and interests with Iran. But they all lack a common strategic agenda for action on the Syria front. This has allowed the Syrian regime and its Iranian backer to score victories over opposition forces.

The November 24 agreement did not give Iran a free hand in the region. But her hands were not exactly tied behind her back before the agreement.

Proof is Tehran’s unchallenged military intervention in Syria.

Iran is thus aware the West is not particularly interested in what she is doing in Yemen or in Bahrain so long as the IAEA inspectors are going about their jobs freely and the enrichment of uranium is not exceeding the agreed level.

Iran will thus enhance its activities in places like Yemen and Bahrain in order to test her new relations with the West.

Saudi Arabia would have to face this alone, but not necessarily. She still has common interests with regional heavyweights.

But a restructuring of Saudi Arabia’s defense policy is imperative – starting with an acknowledgement that reliance on the United States is unhealthy.

The fact America turned her back on us was not a whimsical Obama move. It was a well thought out U.S. policy resulting from ongoing changes in America’s priorities.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would thus have to redraw the map of her regional alliances. Turkey is key. Her leaders want special relations with the kingdom.

But Egypt is yet to come back from the wilderness. The most that can be heard from Cairo is, “We support all what you do” – except that Cairo did nothing for Syria.

Pakistan too needs a friend’s help to make up with the Taliban, allowing the Pakistani army to resume its national duties.

It will also be necessary to open channels of communication with Iran, even while the confrontation persists. Tehran repeats every five minutes that it wants good relations with the kingdom. Let’s take after the Iranians’ diligence and hear what they have to say.

The region’s problems are many. They multiply when neglected but they can be solved. The region also harbors allies and friends of ours. We don’t have to feel lonely after that dreary Sunday.

Washington luring Turkey into Iran’s lap

Ailing Arabs caught between Iran (L) and Turkey (R)  -- by Syrian cartoonist Fahd Bahady

Turkish strategic affairs analyst Ali Hasan Bakir believes the precipitous rapprochement between Turkey, the region’s Sunni heavyweight, and Shiite powerhouse Iran could be aimed at giving “a Sunni cover to America’s nuclear deal with Iran.”

The nuclear agreement between the 5+1 world powers and Iran was reached in Geneva last Sunday.

Ankara-based Bakir tells today’s edition of the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat: “There has been frantic efforts of late by Iran and the United States to cajole Turkey by offering to iron out some of her regional hurdles.

“Iran, for instance, played a key role in pushing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to open up to Turkey.

“This, in addition to addressing some of Turkey’s foreign policy concerns such as reducing secular tensions in the area and fighting terror. That could pave the way for closer bilateral cooperation to take Ankara’s interests into consideration as regards Syria or at least cut its losses in case [Bashar al-] Assad stays in power for a short while.”

Bakir is of the opinion “Iran’s aim is to win over Turkey and isolate the Gulf Arab states at the regional level and secure a Sunni cover to America’s nuclear deal with Iran -- a deal that strongly exasperated Saudi Arabia…”

Enhanced cooperation between Turkey and Iran would improve regional stability, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on a visit to Tehran this week.

The countries’ foreign ministers demonstrated their growing unity Wednesday by jointly calling for a cease-fire in Syria ahead of peace talks between its civil war factions set for January 22 in Geneva.

Additionally, Davutoglu announced that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani would visit Turkey in January.

“It is true that we have some differences with neighboring countries, but the tenets of our foreign policy have not changed,” Davutoglu said at a press conference with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who will be visiting Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia shortly.

In Syria, Iran is supporting the Assad regime, while the Turkish government is backing the opposition.

Davutoglu said Tehran and Ankara need not wait two months for Geneva-2, but “before then, the ground should be paved for a cease-fire that will also contribute to the success of that conference.”

Rouhani said in a meeting with Davutoglu yesterday the Syria conflict “has no military solution, and the country’s crisis should be ended through serious negotiations.”

The Turkish foreign minister also called for greater energy cooperation between the two countries.

“At a place and time where some try to instigate sectarian conflicts, dialogue between Iran and Turkey is the most important dialogue in the region,” Davutoglu said.

Asharq Alawsat quotes unnamed Turkish sources as saying their country’s spymaster, Hakan Fidan, shapes Iran policy and “is not an enemy of Iran.”