U.S. to arm Syria rebels, set no-fly zone near Jordan

Hot on the heels of U.S. President Barack Obama’s push into Syria, Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz is said to have cut short his private visit to Morocco to return to the kingdom overnight.

The monarch and his entourage have already left Morocco, according to Naharnet news portal.

The news follows reports of the Saudi military command ordering an “above normal defense readiness” at the kingdom’s largest air force base in Tabouk, close to the Jordan-Saudi border.

Observers associate the developments to the Syria war.

Two senior Western diplomats in Turkey told Reuters today the United States is studying setting up a limited no-fly zone in Syria close to the southern border with Jordan.

Their comments, confirmed by a third regional diplomat, came after the White House said overnight it would step up military assistance to rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad in response to proof of chemical weapons use by Assad forces.

"Washington is considering a no-fly zone to help Assad's opponents," one diplomat told Reuters. He said it would be limited "time-wise and area-wise, possibly near the Jordanian border," without giving details.

U.S. military planners, responding to a request by the White House to develop options for Syria, recommended the limited no-fly zone along the Syrian border to protect rebels and refugees inside Jordan.

The plan, according to the Wall Street Journal, would create what one official called a "no fighting zone" that would stretch up to 25 miles into Syrian territory along the Jordanian border, preventing Assad forces from launching attacks against the rebels and refugees and protecting U.S. personnel involved in distributing weapons and providing training.

Under this plan, the U.S. and its allies would enforce the zone using aircraft flown from Jordanian bases and flying inside the kingdom, according to U.S. officials.

Jordan has been inundated by a flood of refugees Jordanian and U.S. officials say is a growing threat to the kingdom, a key U.S. ally in the region.

The U.S. has already moved Patriot air defense batteries and F-16 fighter planes to Jordan, which could be integral to any no-fly zone if President Obama approves the military proposal.

Proponents of the proposal think a no-fly zone could be imposed without a UN Security Council resolution, since the U.S. would not regularly enter Syrian airspace and wouldn't hold Syrian territory.

U.S. warplanes have air-to-air missiles that could destroy Syrian planes from long ranges.

The U.S. is to supply direct military aid to the Syrian opposition for the first time, the White House announced overnight.

Ben Rhodes, spokesman for President Obama, did not give details about the military aid other than to say it would be "different in scope and scale to what we have provided before".

He said, "I can't go through an inventory of the type of assistance we are providing but suffice to say it's going to be substantively different from what we were providing."

The U.S. had warned any use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line.”

The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says the White House announcement is one the Syrian opposition has been pushing and praying for for months.

The Syrian opposition’s clamoring for U.S. arms peaked after thousands of guerillas from Iran’s Lebanese Hezbollah movement crossed into Syria last month to fight alongside Assad’s troops.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen welcomed Washington’s “clear” statement.

"Urgent that Syria regime should let UN investigate all reports of chemical weapons use," he said on his official Twitter feed.

Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Obama, said the U.S. intelligence community believed the "Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times over the last year".

He said intelligence officials had a "high confidence" in their assessment, and also estimated that 100 to 150 people had died from chemical weapons attacks, "however, casualty data is likely incomplete".

"We have consistently said the use of chemical weapons violates international norms and crosses red lines that have existed in the international community for decades," Rhodes said.

He highlighted four instances in which the U.S. believes chemical weapons were used: on March 19 in the Aleppo suburb of Khan Al-Asal; April 13 in the Aleppo neighborhood of Sheikh Maksoud; May 14, in Qasr Abu Samra, which is north of Homs; and on May 23 in an attack in eastern Damascus.

Rhodes said President Obama had made the decision to increase assistance, including "military support", to the Supreme Military Council (SMC) and Syrian Opposition Coalition.

He did not give details of the aid, but U.S. media quoted administration officials as saying it will most likely include sending small arms and ammunition.

The New York Times quoted U.S. officials as saying Washington could provide anti-tank weapons.

Syria's rebels have been calling for both anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry.

The Wall Street Journal said Washington is also considering a no-fly zone inside Syria, possibly near the border with Jordan, which would protect refugees and rebels who are training there.

When asked whether Obama would back a no-fly zone over Syria, Rhodes said one would not make a "huge difference" on the ground -- but would be costly.

He said further actions would be taken "on our own timeline."

The CIA is expected to co-ordinate delivery of the military equipment and to train the rebel soldiers on how to use it.

Until now, the U.S. has limited its help to rebel forces by providing food rations and medical supplies.

Rhodes said the White House hoped the increased support would bolster the effectiveness and legitimacy of both the political and military arms of Syria's rebels, and said the U.S. was "comfortable" working with SMC chief Gen. Salim Idriss.

"It's been important to work through them while aiming to isolate some of the more extremist elements of the opposition, such as (Jabhat) al-Nusra," he said.

A senior pro-Kremlin politician in Russia -- the Damascus government’s chief ally and arms supplier -- said U.S. claims of the Assad government's use of chemical weapons were "fabricated.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin's senior foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said information provided by the United States to Russia over suspected use of chemical weapons by President Assad's forces "does not look convincing.”

Obama and Putin will hold a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of the summit of eight leading industrial nations early next week in Northern Ireland.

The White House announcement immediately shook up the ongoing debate in Washington DC over how the U.S. might provide assistance to the rebels.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who have been particularly strident in their calls for military aid, said the finding must change US policy in Syria. They called for further action, saying US credibility was on the line.

"A decision to provide lethal assistance, especially ammunition and heavy weapons, to opposition forces in Syria is long overdue, and we hope the president will take this urgently needed step," they said in a joint statement.

"But providing arms alone is not sufficient. The president must rally an international coalition to take military actions to degrade Assad's ability to use airpower and ballistic missiles and to move and resupply his forces around the battlefield by air."

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, was also pleased with the decision and had a call for further action.

"It is long past time to bring the Assad regime's bloodshed in Syria to an end," said Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck. "As President Obama examines his options, it is our hope he will properly consult with Congress before taking any action."

And House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., released a statement saying, "I am pleased that President Obama's Administration has joined the growing international chorus declaring that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons in Syria, crossing the red line drawn by the president last August."

But Rogers doesn’t want the assistance to stop there: “As I called for in a USA Today op-ed earlier this week," Rogers said, "the United States should assist the Turks and our Arab League partners to create safe zones in Syria from which the U.S. and our allies can train, arm, and equip vetted opposition forces."

Syria, Iran and the Mecca Declaration of 2012

The Mecca Declaration of 2006 was signed by 29 Iraqi Sunnite and Shiite clerics. It demanded an end to sectarian violence in Iraq. Six years on, the violence and political infighting continues unabated.

The Mecca Declaration of 2007, signed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal, committed to the formation of national unity government. Five years on, Fateh and Hamas are still trying.

The Mecca Declaration of 2012, expected tomorrow, would probably call for negotiated solutions of the Syria crisis and Iran’s nuclear program. But what would certainly need serious disambiguation is the document’s wording of the ways forward to wrest Syria from President Bashar al-Assad’s clutches and a blitz on Iran’s nuclear work.

The two-day emergency summit meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), called by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah earlier this month, opened in Mecca today.

A preliminary meeting of IOC foreign ministers in Jeddah agreed to suspend the membership of Syria from the international body, which comprises 56 member states plus the Palestinian Authority and aims to represent Muslim interests on the world stage.

“I am openly against the suspension of the membership of any country [from] any organization,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters in Jeddah.

“By suspending the membership, this does not mean you are moving towards resolving an issue. By this, you are erasing the issue,” he said of the 17-month Syria bloodletting.

“Every country, especially OIC countries must join hands to resolve this issue in such a way that will help peace, security and stability in the region,” he added on the eve of the summit in Mecca.

But the big question is how?

In the optimists’ corner is columnist Rajeh el-Khoury, who writes for the Lebanese daily an-Nahar.

In his view, the upcoming Mecca Declaration of 2012 will open the way for Lakhdar Brahimi to receive the Syria troubleshooting baton from Kofi Annan.

In calling for the Mecca emergency summit, Khoury writes, “the Saudi monarch sought to prod Muslim countries to assume their historic responsibilities at this stage. When the world remains suspiciously tightlipped vis-à-vis Syria, it is important for the Mecca Declaration to contain whatever is needed to effectively spur the world to help Brahimi in his mission.”

In the pessimists’ corner sits Abdelbari Atwan, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the London-based pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi.

In his view, “Good intentions, the sanctity of the [Mecca] venue, and the summit’s timing in the last 10 days of the holy fasting month of Ramadan are all good omens. But they are not enough to agree a solution to this intricate [Syria] crisis, which is getting more complicated by the day and hemorrhaging the Syrian people…

“Without wanting to prejudge or jump into conclusions,” Atwan says he would summarize his expectations with two observations:

1. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be the summit’s megastar. His every move and word will be closely scrutinized by Arab, Muslim and absent Western leaders… Should he utter any words on Syria, they would be intensely analyzed. Any threats he makes against Israel will make banner headlines across the world.
2. The number of martyrs in Syria will swell significantly as insurgents try to draw the summit’s attention and the regime seeks to show that it remains in control of the situation on the ground.

“Very briefly,” writes Atwan, “we live, as Arabs and Muslims, outside the world’s action circle. We are a marginalized, worthless and ineffective lot. World powers conspire against us, compete to grab our wealth and plunder our cash, oil and gas. They divide us along confessional and ethnic lines to facilitate the execution of their schemes.

“We first have to learn how to live together and bury our sectarian and ethnic differences. Once we do that, solidarity will follow and gel without conferences...”

Sitting in the realists’ corner – without touching on the OIC summit from far or near -- is Kuwaiti political sociologist and analyst Dr. Mohammed Rumaihi.

Shiite clerics Mohammed al-Ameen and Hani Fahs

He writes today for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat about the Arab Shiites’ stance on the Arab Spring.

Rumaihi’s comments sing the praises of two prominent Lebanese Shiite clerics – Mohammed Hassan al-Ameen, a scholar and theologian, and Hani Fahs, a member of the Supreme Shiite Islamic Council in Lebanon.

The two sayyeds issued a joint statement last Thursday fully endorsing the Arab Spring uprisings, particularly in Syria now.

“We declare, unambiguously and without bellicosity, our unequivocal support for the Syrian uprising, much as we backed the Palestinian, Iranian, Egyptian, Tunisian, Yemeni and Libyan revolutions and sympathized with the reformist current and the popular opposition movement in Iran and the reform movements in Bahrain, Mauritania and Sudan,” al-Ameen and Fahs avowed in their written statement.

Held Revolutionary Guards include Abeddin Kharam (left)

Rumaihi’s think piece also comes in the wake of mounting signs of Iran, and its Lebanese cat’s-paw Hezbollah, playing an active military role against the opposition in Syria.

A group of 48 Iranians abducted by rebels in Damascus earlier this month have turned out to be mostly Revolutionary Guards from West Azerbaijan province, presumably led by Brig. Gen. Abeddin Kharam.

And video footage posted on YouTube overnight shows a Lebanese citizen telling his Free Syrian Army captors he was one of “1,500 Hezbollah snipers who entered Syria on August 3” to lend a hand to Syrian security forces. The man, who gave his name as Hassan Salim Mokdad, said he was abducted in Damascus.

Hezbollah's Hassan Salim Mokdad

Sunnite Rumaihi, in his think piece, decries religious bigots and says he would make the following observations as an addendum to the joint statement by Shiite clerics al-Ameen and Fahs:

1. After its liberation, Iraq was supposed to become a democracy where citizens have equal rights. That’s not the end result we see today. Iraq has become a satellite state turning in Iran’s orbit in both religious and political terms. The final say as to who rules Iraq or does not is in Tehran, not Baghdad. And whereas post-Saddam Iraq was expected to oppose one-party rule in Syria, it joined Iran in trying to shore up a regime that kills its people.
2. Hezbollah is supposed to represent the Mustadafin – or downtrodden – and to fight oppressors. But the party’s doings against the downtrodden in Syria are worse than Iran’s.
3. “If I were asked to give my great friend Lakhdar Brahimi a word of advise, I would say this: ‘Should you be asked to replace Kofi Annan as Syria troubleshooter, decline the offer. You are aware, more than many others, of the regime’s loathsome obduracy and the amount of blood drained from the Syrian people’s veins simply to keep a clique in power. Passing up the offer is far better than expected failure’.” 

Abductions in Syria raise Lebanon suspense

The Lebanese women were flown back to Beirut

overnight (Photo by Haitham Mousawi for al-Akhbar)

What’s wrong in Lebanon?

Someone apparently asked Siri the same question on her iPhone 4S.

She later tweeted:

I don’t own an iPhone and I don’t plan asking Siri.

My short answer to “wassup in Lebanon” is: “Here are the pointers, so draw your own conclusions.”

The pointers:

=== The bad news is that Syrian rebels Tuesday abducted 11 Lebanese Shiite men and their Syrian bus driver in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo on their way back from a religious trip to Iran. Women traveling in the group were allowed to go free and flown back to Beirut overnight.

=== The good news is that Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour, who usually speaks for Syria, expects the men to be released “within hours, according to information provided by an Arab country.” Earlier, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who strongly backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, appealed for calm. At the same time, former Sunnite premier Saad Hariri, who leads the anti-Assad opposition in Lebanon, strongly denounced the abduction “of our Lebanese brothers in Syria” and called for the men’s “immediate release.”

=== The bad news is that Michel Aoun, head of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc and who Assad crowned leader of the Orient’s Christians, Tuesday came out in support of the May 17 letter by Syria’s UN ambassador Bashar Ja’afari to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The letter depicts Lebanon as a Taliban-infested Afghanistan, its eastern and northern regions as the hills and caves of Tora Bora and its seaport city of Tripoli as Kandahar (see my May 19 post). Aoun told reporters Ja’afari “has data and does not lie.”

=== The good news is that Lebanon’s pro- and anti-Assad political factions Wednesday welcomed Saudi King Abdullah’s call for national dialogue to help steer Lebanon clear of regional turmoil, chiefly in Syria. The monarch said in a letter to President Michel Suleiman: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia follows with great concern developments in Tripoli, mainly the targeting of one of the main sects in the Lebanese communal fabric…

“Considering the gravity of the crisis and the possibility of its relapse into sectarian sedition – reviving, God forbid, the specter of civil war -- we look forward to Your Excellency’s wisdom, hoping you would intervene to end the crisis by initiating a national dialogue in keeping with your eagerness to dissociate Lebanon from external conflicts, particularly from the Syrian crisis next door.”

=== The bad news is that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today told a televised news conference in Moscow the Syrian conflict might spread to Lebanon. "Now, there is a real risk that the conflict may start spilling over into Lebanon where, given the historical context, the ethnic and religious make-up of the population, as well as the principles that Lebanon rests on, things may end badly indeed.”

Editorially, Lebanese political analyst Abdelwahhab Badrakhan says Lebanon’s current predicament was expected.

Detachment from events in Syria, he writes today for Beirut’s an-Nahar, was “neither Lebanon’s choice nor decision.”

The Lebanese government’s avowed policy of “self-distancing” itself from the Syria crisis was the upshot of Damascus’ quest “for breathing space from international sanctions.” It was also the upshot of Iran’s need to ease Hezbollah’s burden in running the country. The result was a period of quasi-stability that earned the Beirut government cautious, but uncertified, praise.

Badrakhan says, “Only a strong and independent government can self-distance itself from whatever is prejudicial to Lebanese interests – but not a government submissive to the Syrian regime and fearful of the regime’s Lebanese tentacles inside and outside state institutions.”

Badrakhan recalls that within days of Foreign Minister Mansour confiding the government had “disappointed” Damascus, Ja’afari was accusing Lebanon of harboring terrorists and arms smugglers and “a Lebanese army checkpoint sought to ‘assuage’ Syria’s disappointment.”

He says the killing of two sheikhs at an army checkpoint in Akkar and the way anti-Assad activist Shadi Mawlawi was arrested in Tripoli were probably the beginning of something more sinister.

According to Badrakhan, “Renewed talk of insubordinate (security) elements brings to mind similar 1975 (civil war) scenarios… In the 37 years since, it does not seem like the army has fortified the state. Nor has the army build up muscle to protect the state. What took place in Tripoli and Akkar, then Beirut, is not as alarming as making the Lebanese deem a return to civil war likely because the state and the army are threatened.”

Why then this frenetic drive to inflame and detonate?

Simply because the Syrian regime is dispirited by its treatment at the hands of international players, “save for Russia and China.” Damascus feels accepting Annan’s plan, and proving it remained in control of the situation, went unrewarded… Still, the players are not relenting. In view of that, says Badrakhan, Damascus decided to poke around in Lebanon while telling the international players, “Talk to me. Otherwise, I will destabilize and destroy Lebanon.” 

Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the suspected drug mule

Ahmad al-Gizawi and wife Shahinda (Photos from al-Ahram)

Riyadh and Cairo seem inclined to bury the hatchet after Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who leads the military council currently governing Egypt, telephoned Saudi King Abdullah and asked that Saudi Arabia’s decision to close its embassy and consulates in Egypt be reconsidered.

The monarch promised to “look into the matter” in light of the fraternal relations between the two countries.

Saudi Ambassador Ahmad al-Qattan was Saturday recalled for “consultations” following “unwarranted protests” in front of the Saudi embassy in Cairo and consulates in Alexandria and Suez.

Dozens of Egyptians demonstrated outside the Saudi missions on April 24 demanding the release of Ahmad Mohammed Tharwat, better known as Ahmad al-Gizawi, a human rights activist and lawyer.

Saudi customs detained Gizawi at King Abdulaziz Airport in Jeddah on April 18 for trying to smuggle over 21,000 pills of the tranquillizer drug Zanax (a common misspelling of Xanax) in his luggage.

Gizawi was traveling with his wife on Umrah visas to make the offseason pilgrimage to Mecca.

Cairo daily al-Ahram today says Egypt’s semi-official Middle East News Agency (MENA) obtained a copy of an affidavit signed by Gizawi stating: “I, the undersigned, Ahmad Mohammed Tharwat, an Egyptian citizen holding passport number 5627816A, issued on 3 February 2012, certify that upon my arrival on Saudi Airlines flight 308 at 5.40 a.m. on Wednesday 18 April 2012, I picked up my three pieces of luggage. A customs official found in the suitcases eight cans of powdered milk and three Quran boxes containing the sedative drug Zanax. (Signed and fingerprinted).”

Gizawi’s wife, Dr. Shahinda Fat’hi, told the Saudi daily al-Watan before flying back to Cairo this morning she was allowed a short visit to her detained husband by courtesy of the Egyptian embassy. She told al-Watan she didn’t feel her husband was coerced to own up.

Separately, al-Watan says the tiff between the two countries could affect the flow of Saudi tourists to Egypt, “where Saudi Arabia has a $25 billion investment in the Egyptian tourism industry.”

According to the Egyptian Tourism Authority, Egypt took in 18,764 Saudi tourists last month, as opposed to 10,711 in March 2011 -- a 75.2 percent increase.

Saudi Arabia in turn hosts a massive Egyptian expatriate community numbering 1.7 million.

Egyptian columnist Mahmoud an-Nuba, writing for al-Ahram today, says, “It seems our brothers in the Kingdom expected Egyptian authorities to secure their embassy and put up barriers to prevent protesters from reaching the embassy doors. But why, I wonder, did we allow the crisis to get out of hand, knowing we have community of more than 1.5 million Egyptians in Saudi Arabia?”

Nevertheless, an-Nuba is confident “deep-rooted strategic relations between the two brotherly countries” are bound to help them overcome occasional hiccups.

Turki al-Dakheel, Saudi Arabia’s prominent journalist and number one interviewer, is less conciliatory.

Saudi-Egyptian relations, he writes in his daily column for al-Watan, have ebbed and flowed over the years. “They reached rock bottom under Egypt’s Gamal Abdel-Nasser, who wanted to put an end to Arab monarchies and repeatedly described Saudi Arabia’s political discourse as reactionary.”

Another dip in bilateral ties, Dakheel recalls, came in the wake of Anwar Sadat’s November 1977 trip to Israel and his subsequent signing of the Camp David Accords in September 1978.

Relations flowed again “on Egypt’s return to the Arab fold” in the 1980s.

But since the outbreak of the Egypt Spring in January 2011, Dakheel writes, “many of our brothers in the Egyptian revolution took to maligning Saudi Arabia, its rulers and its regime with or without occasion. They mistook the placidity of the Saudi side at the official and popular levels as a sign of weakness. They are mistaken. The ‘sons of the desert’ – as some of them enjoy calling us – choose tolerance because it denotes their wisdom, not failing…

“We Saudis are not chauvinists as to prevent others from discussing our affairs. Our country is key – geopolitically, economically and religiously. But we won’t tolerate being used as a peg to hang on all the shortcomings Egyptians see in their country.”

Dakheel says Saudi customs detained lawyer Gizawi for trying to smuggle in 21,000 sedative pills. The Egyptian consul acknowledged the cause of the arrest but said Gizawi was a drug mule.

Even so, says Dakheel, how could a lawyer ignore the legal implications of becoming a Saudi-bound drug mule? 

Moscow’s bad long-distance call to Riyadh

King Abdullah decorating Vladimir Putin with the Order of King Abdulaziz (photo from en.rian.ru)

Tariq Alhomayed, editor in chief of Saudi Arabia's leading daily Asharq Alawsat, says Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's long-distance call to Saudi King Abdullah was meant to throw today's "Friends of Syria" conference in Tunis into confusion.

Looking at the wider picture, Lebanese analyst Rajeh el-Khoury says the monarch's curt response to Medvedev's explanation of the Russian position on Syria is proof the Arab-Islamic world's relations with Moscow are now on the downgrade.

Medvedev got on the telephone Wednesday to make three long-distance calls to explain Russia’s position on Syria. His explanation fell on receptive ears in Tehran and Baghdad but didn’t sit well with the Saudi monarch in Riyadh.

King Abdullah told the Russian president, "It would have been better if our Russian friends coordinated with the Arabs before using the veto in the Security Council" to block a resolution co-opting the Arab League peace plan.

“But now, any dialogue about the situation (in Syria) would be futile… We cannot forsake our moral and religious stance in Syria,” the Saudi state news agency SPA quoted the Saudi monarch as telling the Russian president.

In his editorial, Alhomayed describes the conversation as “uncommon” and “historic” in that “it drew a clear line between someone who wants to protect the killer of Syrians and someone who wants to protect them.”

In suggesting negotiations at this time, “the Russians clearly aim to bypass the ‘Friends of Syria’ conference, otherwise why didn’t they champion such a dialogue before? Why didn’t they -- on the same day Medvedev phoned the monarch -- publicly urge the Damascus tyrant to stop the killings and lift the Homs blockade? The answer is self-evident. They want to muddle the ‘Friends of Syria’ conference.”

King Abdullah, Alhomayed continues, took similar firm positions in his contacts with U.S. presidents over the years. He was the one to write George W. Bush telling him Saudi-U.S. relations were at risk if Washington did nothing to protect the Palestinians. He was the one to tell Bill Clinton:  “Mr. President, friendship has limits as well,” when the latter urged him to be more positive vis-à-vis Israel’s leaders. He was the one to stand up for protecting Syria after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, despite the enormity of the tragedy. And King Abdullah was also the one to take the floor at the Arab summit in Riyadh to declare that the U.S. Army in Iraq is an occupation army.

In contrast, says Alhomayed, Russia this week agreed to a daily two-hour cease-fire in Syria so emergency aid can reach beleaguered Syrian civilians. “Russia in other words, is telling Assad: Kill people 22 hours a day and spare their lives during the remaining two. That’s the difference between the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the values of those striving to protect the children-killer in Syria.

“That’s why the telephone conversation was both historic and uncommon.”

Rajeh el-Khoury, in Annahar, says the exchange between Medvedev and King Abdullah is bound to negatively affect Saudi-Russian ties as well as relations between the Arab-Islamic world and Moscow.

Though the conversation was brief, the monarch’s “curt response” to Medvedev’s “explanation” was effectively “an outcry in Moscow’s face.”

Khoury says the king used the words “our Russian friends” during the exchange because Riyadh had tried hard to refute claims it was a satellite in the U.S. orbit. The monarch must have had in mind his own ice-breaking 2003 trip to Russia and Vladimir Putin’s return visit to Riyadh in February 2007, when he was decorated with the Order of King Abdulaziz.