Crown Prince Abdullah worked behind de scenes for an Isreali-Palestinian peace settlement in 2000. Took the initiative for Saudi Arabia to accept the State of Israel in a new peace plan endorsed by all Arab states in 2002. Even George Bush the Elder intervened in an attempt to clear the air between the Saudis and the Bush/Cheney administration. It was all in vain as the US had their own agenda set with military sight on Iraq and Saddam Hussain. A new attempt was made in December 2003 to rebuild good relationships between the two nations. The WikiLeaks publication gives much needed insight to what depth the US standing had deteriorated in the Muslim world. The repeated failure of the US to act as an honest broker for peace between the Palestinians and Israel has left an indelible mark.
The large picture of what is happening these last few years starts to make sense. It becomes clear the United States and Western powers will be ousted from the Arab nations now participating in the Arab Spring. Because of Europe’s rejection of Turkey and the Mavi Marmara incident with Israel, Prime Minister Erdogan has decided to look towards its Muslim neighbours in the Middle-East. As Russia is oudted from Syria and Obama has decided to be passive in his support for military intervention, it’s precisely where Saudi Arabia and the GCC countries want to be. Momentarily these nations are rebuilding the Arab states with funding of $$ billions and shipping arms to the rebels or jihadists from Mali to Syria.
Un understatement of the last decade …
Tony Blair: Life in Iraq 10 years on not quite as I hoped
(BBC News) – Mr Blair was speaking exclusively to Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark as part of a special programme marking the upcoming 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, which will be broadcast later on today.
He said that the price paid in the lives of British troops and civilian casualties had been high, but he pointed to the numbers of people who had suffered under Saddam Hussein and the significant numbers killed under his regime in Kurdish areas and during the Iran-Iraq war.
Tony Blair shows to be more incompetent than I ever imagined .. and he was better than his evil twin George Bush!
Think of the opposite if we had done nothing, the consequences …
Mr Blair said that he thinks about those who died and the consequences for their families, but added that “in the end you are elected as prime minister to make these decisions”.
“Sometimes you come to a decision where whichever choice you take
the consequences are difficult and the choice is ugly…”“The question is, supposing I had taken the opposite decision? Sometimes what happens in politics, and unfortunately these things get mixed up with allegations of deceit and lying and so on, in the end sometimes you come to a decision where whichever choice you take the consequences are difficult and the choice is ugly. This was one such case.
“If we hadn’t removed Saddam from power just think, for example, what would be happening if these Arab revolutions were continuing now and Saddam, who’s probably 20 times as bad as Assad in Syria, was trying to suppress an uprising in Iraq? Think of the consequences of leaving that regime in power.
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Tony Blair meets George Bush in Maryland - 2001 (Photo Luke Frazza EPA)“So when you say ‘do you think of the loss of life since 2003’, of course I do, you would have to be inhumane not to, but think of what would have happened if he had been left there.”
Doing the bidding of the Saudi King in the region, after Syria we will have to take care bring democracy the people of Iran.
“In a sense what I try to persuade people of now is to understand how complex and difficult
a decision it was because I think if we don’t understand we won’t take the right decision about
what I think will be a series of these types of problems that will arise over the next few years.You’ve got one in Syria right now, you’ve got one in Iran to come, the issue is how
do you make the world a safer place?”
WikiLeaks: Saudis on Iran: ‘Cut off the head of the snake’ – April 2008(JPost) Nov. 28, 2010 – US diplomats have cast doubts on the reliabilty of Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan as a partner and portrayed Turkey’s leadership as divided and permeated by Islamists.
According to a report that appeared on The Guardian‘s website, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah asked the US repeatedly to attack Iran and destroy its nuclear program, and in 2008 the monarchy’s envoy to Washington told US Gen. David Petraeus to “cut off the head of the snake.”
Bandar al-Bush, an alliance lasting three decades « click for article (translated from Arabic)
Prine Bandar meets with President Bush without prior appointment, poured millions into Republican campaigns (Photo Luke Frazza EPA)King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme, according to leaked US diplomatic cables that describe how other Arab allies have secretly agitated for military action against Tehran. The revelations, in secret memos from US embassies across the Middle East, expose behind-the-scenes pressures in the scramble to contain the Islamic Republic, which the US, Arab states and Israel suspect is close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Bombing Iranian nuclear facilities has hitherto been viewed as a desperate last resort that could ignite a far wider war.
The Saudi king was recorded as having “frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme”, one cable stated. “He told you [Americans] to cut off the head of the snake,” the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir said, according to a report on Abdullah’s meeting with the US general David Petraeus in April 2008.
The cables also highlight Israel’s anxiety to preserve its regional nuclear monopoly, its readiness to go it alone against Iran– and its unstinting attempts to influence American policy
In the interest of expansion our military industrial complex …
WikiLeaks: BAE secret papers reveal threats from Saudi Prince Bandar
(Guardian) Feb. 15, 2008 – Saudi Arabia’s rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.
Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced “another 7/7” and the loss of “British lives on British streets” if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.
Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.
He was accused in yesterday’s high court hearings of flying to London in December 2006 and uttering threats which made the prime minister, Tony Blair, force an end to the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving Bandar and his family.
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Obama to notify Congress soon of $60bn package, largest ever for U.S.
In its notification to Congress, the administration will authorise the Saudis to buy as many as 84 new F-15 fighters, upgrade 70 more, and purchase three different types of helicopters – 70 Apaches, 72 Black Hawks and 36 Little Birds.
The US is the world’s largest arms supplier and the Saudi deal alone is said to support up to 75,000 jobs, according to firms such as Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and General Electric. Last year, despite a recession that hit global arms sales, the US increased its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals.
Prince Bandar and the Middle-East peace negotiations
In an interview with the 2003 New Yorker magazine, Prince Bandar noted he never recovered from the failure of the peace talks on the Middle East. Bandar was speaking specifically about the unspoken role he played in the final weeks of negotiations Bill Clinton’s presidency in the year two thousand.
The Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz graduated from the Royal College of the Air Force in Cranwell, England, and joined the Air Force after Saudi Arabia in 1968 as a fighter pilot for 17 years.
Ambassador Extraordinaire: Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi’s new spy chief
