Syrian Kurds declare transitional administration

The PYD's Saleh Muslim and a map showing "Rojava" along Syria's border with Turkay

Syrian Kurds yesterday declared an interim administration in northeastern parts of the country (Rojava), further solidifying their geographic and political presence after driving out radical Islamist rebels. 

Long oppressed under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his father before him, Kurds view the Syria war as an opportunity to gain more autonomy -- like their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq. 

Control over Syria's northeast, where Kurds predominate, had in recent months swung back and forth between them and mainly Arab Islamist rebels, who strongly oppose what they suspect are Kurdish plans to secede.

But a Kurdish militia prevailed earlier this month, and at a meeting held in the Syrian city of Qamishli yesterday, a committee of Kurdish and other groups said it was now time to set up an administrative body to run the region. 

"In light of the current circumstances which Syria is going through, and in order to fill an administrative vacuum... we see it as an utmost necessity to reach a transitional, pluralistic, democratic administration," said a statement sent to Reuters.

The statement said they were committed to the unity of Syria and asked world powers and neighboring countries to back the new administration, which they said had won the support of different political groups and minorities in the area.

The dominant force on the ground in Syria's Kurdish areas is the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has a well-trained militia and is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PYD's growing clout has also dismayed some fellow Kurds, who accuse it of being in league with Assad and seeking to replace his authoritarian one-party rule with its own.

PYD representative Mohammed Reso said some Syrian Kurdish parties had refused to sign up to the plan.

Davutoglu

In his first remarks after the declaration of the interim administration, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused the PYD of "not keeping its promise."

"We told them to avoid a de facto administration declaration that could divide Syria. We told them to put a distance between themselves and the [al-Assad] regime," Davutoglu said during a live interview on private broadcaster NTV on Tuesday. 

He criticized the Kurdish group for adopting an "ambivalent" posture. "The most serious mistake that the PYD is making is to put under pressure on the other Kurdish opposition groups in [their] controlled areas. We receive a lot of complaints from Kurds [in northern Syria], and we hope they will change this attitude," Davutoglu added.

PYD leader Saleh Muslim had visited Turkey twice in a brief period in July and August as the open conflict between Kurdish militia groups and jihadist rebels mounted, causing a refugee outflow from Rojava. He reportedly discussed with Turkish officials PYD's plans of forming an autonomous administration that triggered concerns in Ankara.

Barzani

The Turkish government and Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have adopted a similar attitude on the situation in northern Syria. Both oppose the PYD's creation of a politically autonomous entity in the region.

KRG leader Massoud Barzani is troubled by the disputes among Kurds, particularly between the PYD and other Kurdish parties, over the areas in Syria's north.

The Turkish government and Barzani also backed the Syrian Kurdish National Council (KNC), a group that agreed to join the main Syrian opposition body, the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

“The KNC is close to Barzani. Barzani wanted to impose his policies in Rojava and Turkey wanted to use Barzani to establish an alternative group to the PYD, which was the KNC. They tried hard, but failed. The KNC is not stronger than the PYD,” Iso said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to meet Barzani in Diyarbakir at the weekend.

According to Turkish media sources, Erdogan will visit Diyarbakir, a predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey on Saturday, when he will be meeting the Iraqi Kurdistan president.

A source from Turkish Channel Show TV said renowned Kurdish singer Shivan Perwer will be back to Diyarbakir from self-exile in Germany to meet Barzani and Erdogan.

Relations between Iraq’s Kurdistan Region and Turkey have been improving steadily of late.

The volume of trade between Iraq and Turkey is about $12 billion, with three quarters of it being between Ankara and the Kurdistan Region.

Iran

Writing for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat today, former editor-in-chief Tariq Alhomayed quotes a Reuters dispatch yesterday as saying the Kurds’ military gains in Syria is posing a dilemma for regional powers.

Syrian Kurds view Syria’s civil war as an opportunity to gain the kind of autonomy enjoyed by their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq.

The seriousness of the report, says Alhomayed, is that their offensive has stirred mixed feelings, globally, regionally and locally, even among some fellow Kurds, who say the Kurdish fighters have drifted into an Iran-led regional axis supportive of Assad, something they deny.

To Assad and his Shiite allies, their gains mean more territory out of Sunni rebel hands two and a half years into a revolt against his rule.

Islamist rebels -- particularly the Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that have been imposing their will across rebel-held territory -- argue that their defeat says more about who was helping their foes than the strength of the Kurdish forces themselves. They said help from Assad's forces and Shiite-led Iraq was the reason for Kurdish gains.

The Iraqi government strongly denies supporting any faction in Syria, including Kurds.

A closer reading of this and other reports shows the Kurds’ military gains in Syria are posing a bigger dilemma for Syrian Kurds than for regional powers.

A senior Iraqi politician told Reuters Shiite powerhouse Iran, Assad's main regional ally, was also actively backing the PYD and emboldening the PKK, with which it is closely aligned.

"Iran supports these groups to guarantee having a powerful group in Syria in case things go out of control," he said, adding that Tehran was creating a network of allies from minority groups across the country to bolster their interests and to create alternative partners should Assad fall.

The Iraqi politician said Baghdad's Shiite government was supporting the Kurds to weaken cross-border ties among Sunnis.

"(They) may help them in cooperation with Iran to create an autonomous Kurdish region ... to establish a buffer zone between Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis."

This of course means the Kurds will have hostile and unbalanced relations with a predominantly Sunni region.

Also, can Syria’s Kurds genuinely withstand Turkey’s ire and eventually that of Tehran, which is home to eight million Iranian Kurds?

Syrian Kurds are set to realize that you don’t build nation-states by simply having minorities go their separate ways.

Syrian rebel tanks roll into the frontline

Syrian rebel tanks rolling into the field of battle yesterday

I have seen tank kills by Syrian rebels using anti-tank guided missiles.

I have also seen rebels driving away tanks captured from Syrian army facilities.

But it is the first time I see rebels in a tank formation rolling into Reef Dimashq (see above my screen grabs from a video posted on YouTube yesterday afternoon).

The formation included one or more of the following: T-72, BMP, Shilka and APC.

As I hinted in yesterday’s post, the Syrian rebels seem to have seized back the military initiative, launching major offensives against forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad on several fronts.

They used tanks and heavy artillery to advance to within 12 miles of the Assad family’s mountain hometown of Qardaha in the province of Latakia, according to activists and human rights groups quoted by the Washington Post.

Videos posted by rebel groups on YouTube showed tanks firing on mountain villages and rebel groups raising their flags over captured government positions in four villages belonging to members of Assad’s minority Alawite-cum-Shiite sect.

The Latakia Coordination Committee said scores of Alawites had fled from the countryside into the city.

Charles Lister of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center said the scale of the offensive, which appeared to be the biggest yet in Assad’s heartland, would come as a blow to the recent confidence displayed by the regime.

Aleppo's central prison under fire

Rebels in the northern province of Aleppo are meanwhile pounding Aleppo’s central prison ahead of storming it to free some 4,000 men and women being held there.

They are also threatening to seize Nubl and Zahra, two Shiite villages loyal to Assad. Activists say Assad’s allies, among them fighters from Iran and Hezbollah, had reinforced both villages.

The rebels had earlier revealed a list of six demands, including the surrender of Assad forces and their weapons, followed by a power sharing deal between the villagers and the rebels.

Assad said yesterday the country's crisis can only be solved by using an “iron fist” to eradicate “terror.”

Speaking at an Iftar meal in the countdown to the end of Ramadan, he also dismissed the political opposition as a “flop” that could play no role in solving the country's brutal war.

“No solution can be reached with terror except by striking it with an iron fist,” Assad said.

“I don't think any sane human being would think terrorism can be dealt with via politics… There may be a role for politics in dealing with terrorism preemptively,” but as soon as “terrorism” rears its head, it has to be struck down.

Also yesterday, Assad got cheering words from Tehran, where his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rohani said the Islamic Republic’s strong support of the Syrian president is unflinching.

“No force on earth can destabilize or undermine the deep-rooted, historic and strategic relations between the two friendly peoples and countries," Rohani told Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halki, who was in Tehran for the Iranian president’s inauguration.

In New York, Human Rights Watch today said in a press release: “Ballistic missiles fired by the Syrian military are hitting populated areas, causing large numbers of civilian deaths, including many children.

“The most recent attack Human Rights Watch investigated, in Aleppo governorate on July 26, 2013, killed at least 33 civilians, including 17 children.



“Human Rights Watch has investigated nine apparent ballistic missile attacks on populated areas that killed at least 215 people that local residents identified as civilians, including 100 children, between February and July.

“It visited seven of the sites. There were no apparent military targets in the vicinity of seven of the nine attacks investigated by Human Rights Watch. In two cases there were nearby military objectives that may have been the government force’s intended targets, but were not struck in either attack…”

“Three Syrias” to go with “three Iraqs”

Premier Erdogan and Turkey's top brass (top) and a march by Syrian Kurds

Syria is coming apart at the seams.

Having lost Syria, President Bashar al-Assad and his Shiite allies from Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah are waging a campaign of sectarian cleansing in order to carve out a rump state along the Mediterranean coast.

With its capital in Latakia, it would reflect the geographical contours of the traditional Alawite heartland.

At the same time, Syria’s Kurds are now fighting for an autonomous Syrian Kurdistan in their portion of the country bordering Turkey, with its putative capital in Qamishli.

The breakup of Syria into three enclaves for Kurds, Shiite Alawites and Sunnis mirrors the gradual dismemberment of Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion.

The northern province of Iraqi Kurdistan is today an independent country in all but name, while Sunni and Shiite Iraqis are more likely to splinter into distinct entities than remain part of a cohesive nation-state.

Image by Daniel Sitts

An autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Syria is the second piece in a four-part puzzle of a “Kurdistan country.” A 1983 map by the Financial Times shows a big Kurdish country separated into four pieces -- one in northern Iraq (which is in place), one in northeastern Syria (which is in the making), one in Iran and the last in Turkey’s southeast.

Turkish authorities -- already apprehensive about Syrian Kurdish militants' recent strengthening along Turkey's borders -- are further alarmed over reports that the Democratic Union Party (PYD), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is preparing to declare autonomy in northeastern Syria.

There is now talk of DYP leader Salih Muslim Muhammad announcing shortly a nine-member government to run the would-be enclave.  

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said the move would undermine Syria’s territorial integrity and pose a security threat to Turkey.

Speaking at a press conference after a cabinet meeting in Ankara on Monday, Arınç called efforts by the PYD to declare autonomy in northeastern Syria “irksome.”

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reiterated yesterday Ankara would not accept de facto autonomous regions in Syria before the country elects a legitimate national parliament.

He told reporters in Warsaw, "This does not mean Turkey is against the rights of any group in Syria, chiefly Kurds... So, this is not a position against our Kurdish brothers [in Syria]… We are concerned any de facto move could further deepen the crisis in Syria."

"With regards our security and the security of our border districts, villages and towns as well as Syria's future, we want everyone to avoid conflict pending a new democratic regime in Syria," Davutoglu said.

Turkey’s Yeni Şafak daily said last week Assad endorsed plans for an autonomous Syrian Kurdistan in a recent meeting with PYD representatives.

He reportedly agreed to recognize the autonomy of Kurds in an area covering al-Hasakah, Ras al-Ayn, Afreen, Ayn al-Arab and Qamishli.

If so, the move might force Turkey’s hand, according to Dr. Ghassan Shabaneh, a Mellon Fellow in Human Security at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Relations at the CUNY Graduate Center, and an Associate Professor of Middle East and International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College in NYC.

Shabaneh told Aljazeera TV earlier this week Turkey would most probably have no choice then other than to set up safe havens or a security zone in Syria’s Kurdish areas.

Israel held a 4-to-12-kilometer-deep South Lebanon Security Zone from 1985 to 1999.

Turkish political analyst, columnist and commentator on A9 TV Aylin Kokaman says Turkey is now facing the PKK threat it braved 30 years ago.

An autonomous Syrian Kurdish enclave is tantamount to “a declaration of war on Turkey,” she writes today for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat.

Ms Kokaman says Ankara will have no option but to use its armed forces to protect Turkey’s national unity and territorial integrity, with or without American and European backing.

“Greater Syria: From Dagestan to Xinjiang”

Al-Qaeda offshoots are set to declare an Islamist state in Syria’s north on Eid al-Fitr (August 8), according to Saudi Arabia’s leading daily Asharq Alawsat quoting a Free Syrian Army (FSA) top dog.

The paper quotes him saying the al-Qaeda-linked groups hope by then to have wrested control from the FSA of the two border crossings into Turkey: Bab al-Hawa and Harem.

Bab al-Hawa links Turkish and Syrian highways between the cities of Iskenderun and Aleppo. The closest town to Bab al-Hawa on the Turkish side of the border is Reyhanli in Hatay province, and the nearest town on the Syrian side is al-Dana.

Harem is right by the Turkish frontier in Syria’s northern Idlib Province.

The FSA official speaking to Asharq Alawsat linked plans to declare an Islamic state in Syria’s north to recent killings by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant of two senior FSA officers – namely, Fadi al-Qish, a local FSA commander in the village of al-Dana and Kamal Hamami (aka Abu Baseer al-Ladkani), member of the FSA Supreme Military Council.

Asharq Alawsat’s FSA source said the FSA was deploying units and checkpoints in areas targeted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to prevent them falling into its fighters’ hands.

Tariq Alhomayed, Asharq Alawsat’s former editor-in-chief, writes in his daily column for the newspaper:

Irrespective of the accuracy of reports about armed clashes between al-Qaeda and the FSA, and the attempt to assassinate the latter’s overall commander Gen. Salim Idriss, this is what is in the cards, whether now or later on.

The confrontation between al-Qaeda and the Syrians is inevitable because al-Qaeda is the fleeting anomaly while Syrian moderation is the established rule.

The danger in the Syrian scene today is that the FSA is now facing Bashar al-Assad’s regime, fighters from Iran, (Lebanese) Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militias, and al-Qaeda...

The irony is that the FSA is still being deprived of qualitative arms and left to face this array of forces singlehanded.

Gen. Idriss has accused David Cameron of betrayal after the British Prime Minister abandoned plans to arm the Syrian opposition.

He said the decision would "leave us alone to be killed" by Assad, and pave the way for al-Qaeda to dominate rebel ranks.

Gen. Idriss hit out in an interview with The Daily Telegraph after Downing Street confirmed Cameron had ruled out arming the opposition on advise from the British military. The government had previously hinted that it was strongly considering it, successfully lobbying two months ago for an end to the European Union arms embargo.

But military chiefs at Britain's National Security Council are understood to have warned Downing Street the conflict was now too advanced for basic weapons supplies to make much difference.

They said that could only be achieved by a much-larger scale intervention, involving jet strikes on regime air defenses and bases, which Britain has already ruled out.

Instead, Britain will draw up plans to train moderate rebel units and continue supplying "non-lethal" items like body armor and communications equipment.

Idriss greeted the British change of heart with fury. The FSA has spent much of the last two years trying to persuade the West to give it military backing.

"The West promises and promises. This is a joke now," Idriss said, the anger clear in his voice. "I have not had the opportunity to ask David Cameron personally if he will leave us alone to be killed. On behalf of all the Syrians, thank you very much."

"What are our friends in the West waiting for?" asked Idriss. "For Iran and Hezbollah to kill all the Syrian people?"

He also warned the West’s refusal to arm the more moderate elements of the insurgency would hand Syria's revolution to extremist groups, who already have better access to weapons.

"Soon there will be no FSA to arm," he said. "The Islamic groups will take control of everything, and this is not in the interests of Britain."

The British refusal will be seen as a particular blow to rebel morale given that recent signals suggested the government was planning the very opposite tack.

Only last month, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, insisted Britain "shouldn't rule any option out," claiming that concerns about arms earmarked for secular rebel groups falling into jihadist hands were exaggerated.

“Greater Syria: From Dagestan to Xinjiang” is the title of a related and enlightening think piece by veteran Lebanese political analyst Jihad el-Zein for today’s edition of the Beirut daily an-Nahar.

The gist of Zein’s opinion:

The Syria crisis is into a third “jihadist” phase, having already gone through “civil” then “militarized” chapters.

The “jihadist” phase currently underway elicits greater commitment by Russia and China because it touches on their home front concerns.

Earlier this month, for instance, Chinese state media blamed Syrians for unrest in Xinjiang, which is home to the minority Muslim Uighur population.

China has traditionally blamed violence in Xinjiang on Islamic separatists who want to establish an independent state of “East Turkestan.”

This time Beijing laid the blame squarely on terrorists in Syria, of which the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front is the most notorious, but the charge of a Syria connection still comports with a common government narrative of portraying Xinjiang’s violence as coming from other countries, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, rather than homegrown agitation.

While about 90 per cent of China is ethnic Han, more than 40 per cent of Xinjiang’s 22 million people are Uighurs.

The Global Times, a tabloid owned by the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily, said some members of the East Turkestan faction had moved from Turkey into Syria.

The rise of Salafist militancy in Syrian rebel groups is a tremendous concern for Russia too.

Moscow fears the numbers and efficacy of forces such as al-Nusra Front will one day turn their attention to oppressed Muslim regions in Russia such as Dagestan and Chechnya.

Dagestan, the region where the brothers who bombed this year's Boston Marathon once lived, borders on the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Georgia.

President Vladimir Putin has dismissed the leader of Dagestan, where an Islamist insurgency is raging. The region has taken over from neighboring Chechnya as Russia's most volatile province.

Salafist fighters, including some from al-Qaeda, fought in Chechnya in the 1990s; they may do so again. Syria and Chechnya are only five hundred miles apart.

If you looked at a map of Russia, you would see Dagestan’s seaports on the Caspian Sea can easily ferry arms and everything else to neighboring Iran and from there across the “Shiite Crescent” to Syria via Iraq.

The struggle for Syria is thus strategic, not tactical, for Russia and less so China. Both have a bigger stake now in the “jihadist” chapter of the Syria crisis as it impacts their respective home fronts.

That’s why the “Greater Syria” – i.e. an international and regional struggle with the following coordinates:

-- Longitude from Dagestan to Xinjiang via Peshawar, covering the Jihadist stretch

-- Latitude from South Lebanon’s Naqoura to Tehran, taking in the Shiite spread.

The state of play in Syria today

Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyib

“Syria was not drowning in her blood yet. She was being swept by peaceful protests suggesting an Arab Spring wind was blowing in her direction,” Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab al-Hayat, comments today.

He carries on:

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei received an Arab guest. The conversation centered on Syria.

A conclusive sentence by the host summarized the position: “The choice is obvious in Syria. She can be like she used to be or she won’t be anyone’s at all.”

I met Khamenei’s Arab visitor in Cairo. He was trying to explain to me why Lebanese Hezbollah crossed the border to join the fighting in Syria.

He said, “All sides have laid their cards on the table. From hereon, makeup and facelifts are good-for-nothing. We are in the throes a Sunni-Shiite conflict. The struggle taking place in and over Syria will determine future balances in the region.”

A few hours earlier, I had called on Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyib, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar. I saw him worrying lest the conflict in Syria turns sectarian. He felt bitter about Hezbollah hurling itself into the Syria war and tarnishing its image as a party solely devoted to standing up to Israel.

The Grand Imam of al-Azhar does not reproach Hezbollah only.

He did not get convincing answers from one of his visitors named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The dialogue last February was frank and transparent. The Grand Imam of al-Azhar quizzed his visitor about Iran’s position vis-à-vis Bahrain and the three UAE islands.

He also asked him about Iran’s role in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. And he did not hesitate to ask Ahmadinejad about the Sunnis’ circumstances in Iran itself.

Ahmadinejad answered the tough questions by encapsulating the Iranian stance in one sentence: “Resistance to the usurper Zionist entity.”

The tiff did not go unnoticed.

The gravity of the conflict in Syria has forced all countries concerned to outpace diplomatic phraseology and lay bare their true positions.

President Mohamed Morsi, who at one point fancied courting Iran and Russia to carve out a Syria peace role for Egypt, buried the idea after Hezbollah’s plunge. He also hardened his position against the regime and went overboard.

The ongoing bloodbath in Syria changed the images of countries and their roles. It unmasked the depth of their contradictory feelings, their conflicting policies and their old and new fears.

The perception of Iran forging ahead under the banner of bravado and resistance hit a brick wall of Sunni resentment across the region. Tehran’s immersion in the Syria crisis lost Iran her aura and image.

At the same time, the axis of resistance lost its sole Sunni interface, Hamas. The Hamas movement in turn repositioned itself in its natural camp.

Overt interference in Syria dramatically changed Hezbollah’s footing. Having said it was joining a life-or-death battle in Syria, the party is now on the first line of engagement with the Sunnis of Syria, Lebanon and the region.

Hezbollah’s venture accelerated the cracks in Lebanon’s state institutions, coupled the “Lebanese arena” with the “Syrian arena” and added new injuries to historic wounds.

There are those who believe Lebanon will suffer from the logic “it is either ours or no one else’s.” This means bringing the temple down if you can’t make it solely yours.

The battle for Qusayr thrust the region into a situation where governments have to be in sync with inflamed passions on their street.

Decisions taken at the Doha meeting show the conflict has reached the point of no return.

Measures by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) partners targeting Hezbollah loyalists and financiers sent an unmistakable signal. The battle in Syria has turned regional and international.

Russia’s behavior is in step with “Syria can be like she used to be or she won’t be anyone’s at all.”

Still dithering and fearful of Jabhat al-Nusra and its sisters, America has been whitewashed to accept arming the opposition.

The Syrian regime opted too soon for “Syria can be like she used to be or she won’t be anyone’s at all.”

For hardliners in the opposition, “Syria can be like we wish her to be or she won’t be anyone’s at all.”

A battle as vitriolic internally, regionally and internationally threatens to pulverize Syria and ravage the weak neighboring milieus.

No one country can endure this level of risks and this number of risk-takers.

Riyadh let down by the U.S. or its foreign policy?

File picture of King Abdullah and President Obama

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York back on September 20, 2005, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told his audience:

“…If you allow for this—for a civil war to happen between the Shiites and the Sunnis, Iraq is finished forever. It will be dismembered. It will be not only dismembered, it will cause so many conflicts in the region that it will bring the whole region into a turmoil that will be hard to resolve. The Iranians would enter the conflict, because of the south, the Turks because of the Kurds, and the Arabs—because both these countries are going to enter—will be definitely dragged into the conflict. So work to unite these people and then you can look at the practical aspects of how to hold them together…

“We fought a war together to keep Iran from occupying Iraq after Iraq was driven out of Kuwait. Now we are handing the whole country over to Iran without reason…

“Now, [Iraq’s] south is pretty much pacified. There is no conflict in there, because those who could cause conflicts, whether they’re supporters of Iran or others, are happy with the situation that is happening. The Iranians now go in this pacified area that the American forces have pacified, and they go into every government of Iraq, pay money, install their own people, put their own—even establish police forces for them, arms and militias that are there and reinforce their presence in these areas. And the British and the American forces in the area are protecting them in doing this…”

Dr. Khalid al-Dakheel, a Saudi academic with a PhD from the University of California who teaches political sociology at King Saud University, uses these quotes to introduce his think piece today for the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat.

Wondering whether the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was let down by the United States or its own foreign policy, he writes:

Has anything changed in the eight years since Prince Saud al-Faisal’s 2005 remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations?

America is still likely to disappoint the Saudi foreign minister further.

Eight years on, the U.S. under a Democratic administration seems to be giving an indifferent shrug to the killings and ruinations in Syria.

President Barack Obama is busy with Jabhat al-Nusra -- not the daily death toll, or Iran’s intervention, or Russia’s sponsorship of the regime in Syria.

Significantly, the president is not too concerned about the fallouts on America’s friends in the region.

The fact Israel is contented with his handling of the Syria war on her doorstep is telling -- the two share a concerted Syria policy.

The implications are many.

One of them is that Saudi weight on American policy in the region seems lacking and incommensurate with the breadth of political, security and economic interests shared by the two allies.

For instance, Washington under the Bush Administration chose to jump into bed with Iran on Iraq.

The fact this did not change under Obama shows Washington does not allow its relations with allies to impede its freedom of action and choice, even when the ties do not coincide.

Prince Saud al-Faisal’s 2005 remarks prove Washington ignored Riyadh’s interests when it formulated its Iraq policy during the occupation.

It is doing the same thing now under the Obama Administration as concerns Syria.

Unlike Riyadh, Obama continues to dither on supporting the Syrian revolution. The two agree on excluding Assad from the new Syria but differ on the way -- and the time it would take -- to do it.

They equally don’t see eye to eye on post-Assad Syria or Iran’s role in all of this.

Is Saudi Arabia undermining its status and political interests to sustain this relationship more than it is getting in return?

Why is Washington paying no heed to Saudi, Gulf and Arab interests in determining the U.S. stand on the Syria war?

Iran is the only side holding on to Assad because his fall would wreck her regional ambitions.

Israel, which cohabitated with the Assads for 40 years, is happy with the devil it knows. It is also happy to see the Syrians continue exterminating one another.

But how can the man who entered the White House as the champion of justice, freedom and equality turn his back on the oppressed Syrian people?

Obama has three problems:

1. The hemming and hawing nature of his foreign policy and his inability to shake off the legacy of Bush’s wars or tell apart Iraq’s case from Syria’s.

2. His rock-solid dedication to Israel’s interests.

3. His twin committals to a political solution of the Syria crisis in partnership with Russia and to a political deal with Iran.

So what is the nature of his planned understanding with Iran? What are its borderlines? What does it aim to achieve? How will it affect the political situation in post-Assad Syria?

America’s Iraq policy since 2003 shows Washington is familiar with the sectarian schism in the region and wishes – since 9/11 – to take the edge off Sunni clout in the region. That’s why it handed power in Iraq back then to Iran’s Shiite allies in Baghdad.

Is the Obama administration’s stand vis-à-vis Syria a follow-on objective in another place, in different ways and under dissimilar pretexts?

Saudi Arabia’s interests as regards Syria are twofold: the regime’s fall and Iran’s exit.

America’s stance puts the kingdom on the spot after the abject frustration of its Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Arab-Israel foreign policies.

The kingdom’s Iraq policy ended with Iraq’s catastrophic invasion of Kuwait, followed by America’s invasion of Iraq and the divisions of the Iraq spoils between Washington and Tehran.

Riyadh’s Syria-Lebanon policy saw Syria fall in Iran’s lap, Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri assassinated and Hezbollah crowned as Lebanon’s kingmaker and Iran’s regional cat’s paw.

Why all this failure?

Because the kingdom’s foreign policy was primarily based on cajoling and mollycoddling others in order to win them over for lack of assertiveness and military muscle commensurate with the kingdom’s regional role and national interests.