Important info:Saudi Arabia: Consequences of Stepping Into the Iraqi Fray
edit this a HUGE matter and reveals how total the statement by Bush about Al Queda being THE enemy in Iraq was a premeditated lie.
This matter tells us Cheney went SA to form an aggressive alliance to have SA support The Sunni Jihadist in this Civil War on iraq--this fits my view totally--max)
Summary
via stratfor
Saudi Arabia's top strategic adviser warned Nov. 29 that Riyadh will intervene in Iraq to prevent Iran from gaining a foothold there if the United States withdraws its forces. The only viable option for intervention the Saudis have is to back jihadist forces against the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad. In the short term, this could benefit both the Saudis and Washington, as it could lessen Iranian influence in Iraq; however, in the long term, it will empower transnational Islamist militants who will threaten both Saudi and U.S. interests.
Analysis
Saudi Arabia will use money, oil and support for Sunni militants to thwart Iranian efforts to dominate Iraq in the wake of a U.S. military pullout, the kingdom's top strategic adviser wrote in the Nov. 29 edition of the Washington Post. In a blunt op-ed piece, Nawaf Obaid, managing director of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project -- a Riyadh-based government consultancy -- acknowledged that such a move on Riyadh's part could precipitate a regional war, but wrote, "So be it: The consequences of inaction are far worse."
Contrary to the disclaimer accompanying it, the article does not articulate the author's personal opinion; rather, it is the Saudi government's official view. The primary audience for Obaid's piece is the Bush administration, to which the al-Saud regime is sending a message: Washington should refrain from any agreement on Iraq that empowers the Iranians. The piece is also a direct message to the Iranians that the Saudis will not allow the Shiite Islamic republic to dominate Iraq (and hence the region), and they are willing to go to great lengths to prevent such a scenario.
The last time Riyadh felt it necessary to adopt a strategic policy to counter a major power, the target was the Soviet Union. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan convinced Riyadh that Moscow's end goal was the occupation of the Persian Gulf oil fields, so the Saudis created a multifaceted policy to counter the Soviet empire and ultimately contribute to its destruction. The two most significant arcs of this policy were sponsoring a religion-inspired crusade that supplied militants and money to Afghanistan in order to battle the Soviets, and flooding markets with extra oil to pressure the Soviet budget. The result bled the Soviet Union militarily and financially and contributed heavily to its dissolution.
However, Saudi intentions aside, the oil option is not likely to weaken the Iranians. The Saudis currently lack the technological means to pump the extra oil needed to flood the markets and cause a significant drop in prices. Moreover, the Iranians have not stretched themselves financially by supporting nonstate actors in the way that the Soviets had, so they would be able to sustain support for their allies in the event of a price drop.
Thus the Saudis have only one option to thwart Iran's attempts to consolidate its control over Iraq: backing anti-Shiite and anti-Iranian militias in Iraq. The Saudis engaged in a proxy war with the Iranians on a much smaller scale in Pakistan during the 1980s and 1990s. That conflict led to continuing sectarian violence in Pakistan and made it easier for al Qaeda to establish a presence in the South Asian country.
By unleashing jihadists and others against pro-Iranian Shiite forces in Iraq, the Saudis could halt Iran's geopolitical march into Iraq and the region. Washington, in an attempt to contain Iran's rising influence, could join the proxy war -- albeit discreetly, as was the case in Afghanistan against the Soviets and the Marxist government in Kabul. If U.S. forces follow through on plans to withdraw from volatile Sunni areas and Baghdad and leave it to the Sunnis and Shia to fight it out, Washington will want to maintain a robust Sunni fighting force to wear down the Iranians and their Shiite allies.
However, in the long term, this method of blocking Iran would prove extremely dangerous for U.S. and Saudi interests because it would lead to the empowerment of jihadists.
The Sunni insurgency in Iraq already is heavily dominated by Islamist-leaning forces. Not only are al Qaeda and other jihadist forces operating in Iraq and making inroads into the country's Sunni community, but the Sunni nationalists themselves are becoming more Islamist as the Baathist ideology continues to fade away. Moreover, religious and sectarian ideology usually trumps nationalism, especially where radical Arab/Muslim nonstate actors are concerned. Therefore, the only real potent Sunni fighting forces the Saudis could put up against the Iranian/Shiite threat would be those who share the Saudis' Wahhabi ideology.
Sunni Iraqi nationalists -- most of whom are not Wahhabis -- fight for their own material interests, such as more political power within a central Iraqi state, but would not be easily persuaded to fight for Saudi or sectarian interests. Riyadh will have to promote a pan-Sunni ideology against the Shia, and the best candidates to lead such a movement are the jihadists -- who are bound to the Saudis by mutual hatred for the Shia stemming from their common Wahhabi ideology.
Using jihadists to fight against Iranian influence in Iraq is a larger-scale version of ongoing Saudi moves to contain the jihadist threat within the kingdom. Riyadh has weakened the Saudi wing of al Qaeda enough that the spin doctors in the kingdom's religious establishment could introduce a new leadership among the jihadists with a new mission: to fight the existential threat from the "deviant" Shia. Jihadists in Iraq are already engaged in psychological warfare against the Shia in order to rally Iraqis and others against the Shia and Iran. In a communique issued Nov. 28, the so-called Islamic State of Iraq (also known as the Mujahideen Shura Council, an al Qaeda-led jihadist alliance) vowed to cleanse Baghdad of the Shiite leaders and militias.
In fact, Obaid pulls very few punches in expressing this in the Washington Post article, in which he says that "another possibility includes the establishment of new Sunni brigades to combat the Iranian-backed militias." Obviously, "Sunni brigades" is his politically correct way of identifying jihadists.
Riyadh would temporarily regain control of its jihadist assets that went rogue in the wake of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. However, the state of Iraq would be a casualty in this new war. Like the Geneva Accords -- which led to the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 and paved the way for a civil war between the Marxist regime and Islamist insurgents, followed by an intra-Islamist bloodbath from 1992 to 1996 -- a substantial drawdown of U.S. forces in the wake of a U.S.-Iranian accommodation could turn the central regions of Iraq into a battlefield for a Shiite-Sunni war, followed by a conflict between Sunnis and jihadists for control of central Iraq. Furthermore, the chaos likely would allow Iraq's southern Shiite-dominated provinces to fall within Tehran's geopolitical orbit.
This would have a boomerang effect on Saudi Arabia. Jihadists strengthened within the confines of a Sunni state could use it as a launchpad for their transnational ambitions, starting with a resurgence within the Saudi kingdom. Given the post-9/11 global security environment, the United States and (to a lesser degree) its European allies might be able to protect themselves from reinvigorated jihadists. As a result, the jihadists will focus on the Middle East as an operational theater; thus, Saudi Arabia and other regional states will have to deal with a jihadist as well as an Iranian threat.
Essentially, the Saudi option to back Sunni militants against Iraqi Shiite forces, in an effort to block Iran's attempts at regional hegemony, would not produce the desired results. Rather, it would give Iran the southern Shiite areas in Iraq to use as a springboard for Tehran's regional ambitions, and it would strengthen the jihadist specter in central Iraq's Sunni areas and add to the security threats against the Saudi kingdom. |
