Saud’s tough talk on Syria and Kerry’s inshallah

John Kerry and Saud al-Faisal meet the press after their talks in Jeddah

As far as I can recall, yesterday was the first time I see Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal so spirited in public.

He was speaking at a joint news conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry after their talks on Syria in Jeddah.

The pair’s body language was also telling.

Showing no sign of his debilitating back pain, Prince Saud was blunt and passionate about the state of play in Syria. His words read like sheer exasperation.

Kerry on the other hand sounded listless and downcast.

Prince Saud’s tough language:

• Saudi Arabia cannot be silent at Hezbollah crossing from Lebanon to back regime forces in Syria.
• Syria is facing a double-edged attack by Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards with unlimited military support from Russia. Along with the regime's genocide against its own people, this adds an even deadlier element in the form of an all-out foreign invasion.
• Syria now can only be considered an occupied land. This requires resolute and swift action by the international community.
• There no longer is rhyme or reason to let pass Russia’s blatant and incessant arms supplies to the Syrian regime… Meantime, we are still failing to secure international protection for the Syrian people, or at least provide some sort of military assistance to help them defend themselves against abhorrent crimes being committed against them with nary an excuse.
• The kingdom demands a clear, unequivocal international resolution that bans any sort of weapons’ support for the Syrian regime and declares null and void the regime’s legitimacy.
• The illegitimate regime cannot possibly be part of any arrangement or play any role whatsoever in shaping the present and future of Syria.

Kerry’s inshallah:

• This is a situation that’s been made far more difficult and complicated by Assad’s invitation to Iran and to Hezbollah, Iran’s surrogate, to cross lines – international lines – and to become engaged on the ground in Syria. It is the Assad regime that has internationalized the violence on the ground in the worst of ways.
• We believe the best solution is a political solution in which the people of Syria have an opportunity to be able to make a choice about their future. And we believe that every minority can be respected, that there could be diversity and pluralism, and that people could do so in a climate of peace in the absence of oppression and violence or the involvement of foreign fighters, providing the Assad regime is prepared to live by the framework that was created in the Geneva communiqué for a transition government with full executive powers chosen by mutual consent of all the parties, which really has the best chance of bringing about peace in Syria.
• We continue to believe Geneva-2 offers the best opportunity to be able to try to bring that about.

Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem told a news conference in Damascus on Monday regime representatives will attend Geneva-2 -- but “not to hand over power to the other side.”

As Prince Saud and Kerry were speaking in Jeddah, Syria troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi was telling reporters in Geneva ahead of talks with American and Russian officials that Geneva-2 was unlikely to take place in July as he had hoped.

"I very, very much hope governments in the region and the Big Powers -- in particular the United States and Russia -- will act to contain this situation that is getting out of hand, not only in Syria but also in the region."

Brahimi voiced deep concern at the deadliest outbreak of violence in Lebanon since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011.

“Events in the city of Sidon in Lebanon yesterday, where over 50 people were killed, are a stern reminder to all of the risks of the conflict in Syria spreading across borders to neighboring countries,” he said.

Editorially, Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat’s former editor-in-chief Tariq Alhomayed writes:

Foreign fighters – whether from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard or Quds Force, or Hezbollah, or Iraqi Shiite militias, or regrettably other regional Shiites – swarmed into Syria at Bashar Assad’s invitation to save his regime. Even the security of Damascus is in the hands of Qassem Soleimani who hardly leaves the capital city.

Hezbollah rules Syria’s borders with Lebanon.

The Baghdad government controls Syria’s border with Iraq and directs its forces and the Iraqi Shiite militiamen to back Assad and stifle the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Israel occupies the Golan and allows Assad’s army to deploy tanks on the Heights to shut out FSA fighters from the Quneitra crossing.

Russian warships are off Syria’s Mediterranean waters.

All this shows Syria is splintered and occupied after Assad killed about 100,000 of his own people.

Prince Saud al-Faisal’s remarks mean Saudi Arabia does not accept a political solution in Syria that keeps Assad in office. This is the kingdom’s underlying position vis-à-vis current or future political initiatives that aim to save Assad, including the unlikely Geneva-2.

Prince Saud al-Faisal’s remarks were pivotal and conclusive. He called things by their name and gave the Syrian opposition a shot in the arm.

His remarks mean Riyadh is proceeding with propping up the FSA so it can defend peoples’ lives and land.

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.

Peace for Syria is a pipe dream for now

Russian evacuees from Syria, on the bus (top), to the plane in Beirut and on arrival in Moscow

Narrating the Syria logjam, Saudi Arabia and Russia believe a political settlement in the war-ravaged country is dead in the water.

President Bashar al-Assad’s actions make negotiations impossible, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh last night.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov retorted at an annual news conference in Moscow this morning there could be no peace so long as Assad’s opponents refuse to negotiate with his administration and demand his exit from power as a precondition for peace talks.

“Damascus... which has been a city for the longest period of time, is carpet-bombed. How can you conceive of the possibility of a negotiated settlement with somebody who does that to his own country, to his own history, to his own people? It is inconceivable to us,” Prince Saud told reporters in Riyadh.

He was speaking after an Arab summit focusing on economic development, which was not attended by Syria.

Prince Saud said the UN Security Council needed to take urgent action to end the crisis.

“We have a call to make to the Security Council, to finally show the responsibility that they must show... or otherwise I think it is the duty of the General Assembly to censure the Security Council for failing in its duty,” he added.

Lavrov told the Moscow press conference, called to draw a line under 2012 events: “Everything runs up against the opposition members' obsession with the idea of overthrowing the Assad regime. As long as this irreconcilable position remains in force, nothing good will happen, armed action will continue, people will die.”

“Our priority is not reaching some kind of a geopolitical goal, which ousting the existing regime definitely is,” he said.

Speaking of naval war games Russia is holding in the Black Sea and in the Mediterranean, not far from Syria, Lavrov said the naval presence was a positive factor.

"Of course we have no interest in the Mediterranean region becoming even more destabilized. And the presence of our fleet there is undoubtedly a stabilizing factor," Lavrov said.

He also said Moscow was not beginning a mass evacuation of its citizens from Syria.

Lavrov was speaking a few hours after a total of 77 Russian citizens, mostly women and children, were flown back to Moscow from Beirut after fleeing Syria by land as the security situation in the war-torn country continues to deteriorate.

The evacuees were bused to Beirut and flown home from there because of persistent fighting near Damascus airport.

"We have plans (for an evacuation), as we have plans for any country, in case of an escalation of the internal situation... but there is no talk of implementing them," Lavrov said.

But if Russian citizens decide to leave the country, Russian Emergencies Ministry jets can fly them back to Russia since they deliver humanitarian help to Syria regularly, he added.

Lavrov said Russia had pulled out the families of diplomats but there were no immediate plans to reduce embassy staff -- and Russia's embassy in Damascus was functioning normally.

The embassy told RIA Novosti 8,008 Russian nationals are registered in its official lists, but diplomatic sources estimate about 25,000 more Russian women married to Syrians live in the country without registering at Russian consular services.

RIA Novosti said the first group of 28 evacuees was delivered by a Yak-42 passenger plane, followed by a larger group of 49 Russian nationals transported by an Il-76 aircraft.

The planes landed at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport where medical personnel, psychologists and immigration officials met the passengers.

The evacuees include Russian women who married Syrians, their children and husbands who acquired Russian citizenship.

Voice of Russia today quotes one evacuee, an unnamed Damascus University professor, as saying: “Rebel fighters engage in plundering and keep bombing the capital, including the city center.”

"It's very dangerous there. Rockets, planes, tanks," one man named as Albert Omar, told state TV.

A Russian woman, who was not named, said: "It had become impossible to live there. There is no money. No work. We have lost everything."

Assad wins first round technical knockout

(Photo from foreignpolicy.com)

This is the major part of a remarkably candid opinion of diplomatic endeavors to solve the Syria crisis. It appears in Arabic in today’s edition of the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat. The author is Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, managing director of Alarabiya TV:

I am not happy to acknowledge, but truth is Assad’s regime foiled all Arab and international moves against it and turned the tables on its adversaries in three months. So much so that all sides’ demands dwindled to the mere brokering of a process of reconciliation, hopefully acceptable to President Bashar al-Assad.

He succeeded in fragmenting international positions – a scenario he used after his assassination of Lebanon’s late Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005. He also succeeded in making foreign countries – including his stalwart opponents such as Europe and the United States -- believe if they brought him down they would get Ayman al-Zawahiri instead and empower extremists to rule a multi-sectarian country.

The defeat became public yesterday, when Arab efforts suffered a setback. Proof is Arab countries openly supportive of the Syrian people caved in to the call for a conciliatory solution. The Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saudi al-Faisal, the two hawks in the diplomatic campaign against Damascus, accepted the decision to defer the Arab League solution to the Security Council. This is in spite of the loopholes the Arab League had incorporated in the solution to bail out the regime – such as negotiating reconciliation.

Of course, some would make a point of yesterday’s Arab statement deeming the Baba Amr massacre committed by Syrian military and security forces as a crime against humanity. But that’s a moral declaration, no more.

Whereas Assad’s reign was precarious six months ago and the international community was ready to draft a resolution mandating intervention and burial of his regime, Assad today is in a stronger position on the Arab and international stages. The drubbing (of Assad’s opponents) could be blamed on failure to unify the Syrian opposition groups and on the Damascus government changing its diplomatic strategy and going on the offensive.

Anyway, this is one round of many. I don’t know how Assad can escape the bloodbath he caused in the country… His diplomatic success on the external front does not mirror his routs on the home front. All he’s done so far is inflate the Syrian people’s hatred of his regime…