Diplomacy: Saudi and Offline Israeli
A worried Saudi Arabia has begun to engage in Middle East diplomacy – on the one hand bringing together Hamas and Fatah; and on the other, meeting with Ahmadinejad to discuss Lebanon and Iraq. The first irritated the State Department (but makes us happy in a twisted sort of way); the second may hold some seed of promise.
A worried Saudi Arabia has begun to engage in Middle East diplomacy – on the one hand bringing together Hamas and Fatah; and on the other, meeting with Ahmadinejad to discuss Lebanon and Iraq. The first irritated the State Department (but makes us happy in a twisted sort of way); the second may hold some seed of promise.
The Hamas-Fatah head banging was designed to tamp down the burgeoning Palestinian civil war in Gaza and form a united governing front – laudable from a humanitarian and political viewpoint (intra-Palestinian bloodletting makes no one safer). The State Department, however, had been advocating a stricter separation of Hamas and Fatah to “strengthen Abu Mazen.” They wanted to funnel aid to the Palestinians through him and hold him up as a man with whom the U.S. and Israel could do business. The corollary was to “weaken Hamas,” by quarantining it. The temporary unified front makes it impossible for Washington and Jerusalem to help the one and hurt the other.
We thank the Saudis for that. We never thought Abu Mazen had the strength and/or desire to make a serious deal with Israel. At best he was committed to day-to-day matters that might help the Palestinians and might provide limited security to Israel but he, like his mentor Arafat, does not accept the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel – the sine qua non of negotiations about a “political horizon” for a “two state solution.” He still believes the creation of Israel was a mistake that needs correction. The difference between Hamas and Fatah is that Hamas never pretended otherwise. Now, no one can pretend that the “push-me pull-you” PA meets the U.S. requirement for aid. Congress has forced the administration to retreat on the proposed $86 million that would have gone to “Abu Mazen’s government.”
As for Saudi-Iranian conversations, Professor Saleh Alkhatlan of King Saud University in Riyadh said this week, “It is not about the Sunni-Shiite split, but about Iran’s blatant intervention in Arab affairs, whether in Lebanon or in Iraq, and its hegemonic drive.” The priorities sound about right. The fall of the Siniora government and a recurrence of the Lebanese civil war would be disastrous for Israel and the West, not to mention the Lebanese. Hizballah got ahead of its Iranian sponsors last summer and it now appears that Iran is willing to hold back its proxy in Beirut – to the discomfiture of Syria (see next JINSA Report). As for Iraq, an increased threat of an intra-Muslim religious war serves neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia – not to mention not serving the Iraqis. If the Saudis are willing to accept that Iraqi Shiites are Arabs, and that Arab Iraq is an Arab priority, it may be possible for Saudi Arabia to help strengthen the Iraqi government. Egyptian participation in this endeavor would be most important.
On balance, it is a good thing for Saudi Arabia to be worried about its position in the region and to be worried enough about Iran to make diplomatic overtures that the U.S. cannot and should not make – as long as we are in agreement on the fundamental point – as Professor Alkhatlan said, “The Saudis will never accept a nuclear Iran.”
Next: Offline Israeli diplomacy.