Saudi Arabia and the $3B gift to Lebanon's Army; what could go wrong?

For one thing, the fact that the biggest banker and supplier of the jihadist factions in Syria is becoming the de facto banker of the Lebanese army implies a certain common interest between the State of Lebanon and the jihadists. Will that translate into direct military support of anti-Assad fighters? And when it does, will Assad's army feel free to take the battle to the Lebanese Army?

Secondly, any encroachment by the Lebanese army on Hezbollah's area of influence in southern Lebanon will be fiercely resisted. While Hezbollah is widely portrayed as an Iranian proxy in Western media, the reality is that the Shite population of Lebanon sees them as a legitimate defense force, and only those Lebanese completely blinded by wishful thinking believe that more hardware would allow the Lebanese army to rout Hezbollah military forces.

Thirdly, what impact will internecine violence in southern Lebanon have on the relative stability that has obtained on the Lebanon-Israel border since Hezbollah forced the end of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon? Even Lebanese who are not Hezbollah supporters understand that the Israeli withdrawal was a Hezbollah victory for all Lebanese, not just the Shia. 

Finally, while three billions may buy a lot of deadly hardware, the generosity of the Saudis can only have the effect of stimulating reciprocal generosity on the part of Iran and Russia, who have thus far shown no inclination to back away from their support of Assad. This Saudi gesture will inevitably lead to a massive escalation in the regional arms race. 

Given that the Syrian conflict is already leaking across Syria's borders on all sides, such an influx of weaponry will all but guarantee a regional conflagration that is bound to engulf not only Lebanon, but Turkey, Jordan, and Israel as well.

The Syria end game; one possible scenario

The Syrian "uprising" was well into its second year when Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush, was promoted to the top post in the Saudi intelligence apparatus.

Days later unconfirmed reports briefly circulated claiming that Bandar bin Sultan had been assassinated. Though that story was roundly denied by various Saudi spokesmen, the fact remains that we haven't seen him since.

Not that there haven't been plenty of claims that he is alive and well. The Saudi house organ Al Arabiya speaks as though he is very much alive and masterminding the "game-changing" strategy that will have us rid of Assad "in months." (Al Arabiya, 13 April 2013)  Israeli website Debkafile routinely asserts that Bandar is still in charge. 

Perhaps what the case of Bandar Bush underlines is the fact that spokespersons on all sides have been busy as can be shovelling disinformation into the public realm to bolster their particular points of view. The Saudis have considerable prestige invested in the success of the anti-Assad struggle. Likewise, Turkey and Qatar.

The Americans have maintained the position that they are a hands-off bystander, although no serious person imagines that the Turkey-Saud-Qatar triumvirate embarked on their Syrian adventure without the blessing of the White House. In terms of the public perception of Obama's domestic audience, the Americans maintain deniability.

Nowhere is tension between public pronouncements and the national interest as extreme as in Israel. At the time of the recent Israeli attacks on Syria, we were told that the actions were intended to prevent the shipment of "advanced Syrian weapons" to Hezbollah in Lebanon. That's a good story, but one suspects that for the moment Assad has greater need for those missiles himself.

It is more than plausible that the intent of the Israeli action was to keep those weapons out of the hands of some faction or another of the Free Syrian Army. There have emerged two distinct "Syrian Free Armies" since the Syrian uprising began. On the one hand, you have the US-friendly officially-endorsed "good guys."

These are the FSA  types who are seen regularly on TV screens in the West. They talk a good revolution but command little or nothing on the ground in Syria.

On the other hand are the Al Nusra Front and their assorted fellow travellers, a collection of Wahabi radicals who do virtually all of the fighting. When Washington politicians voice their fears of having weapons fall into the "wrong hands," these are the people whose hands they are talking about. While they are more than happy to fight Assad today, they will be even happier to take their battle to the Israelis or the Americans tomorrow.

This is obviously of great concern in Tel Aviv. Since Israel's last foray into Lebanon in 2006 there's been no enthusiasm for the next round. Plenty of talk, yes, but a keen interest in ensuring that talk is all it is.

When IDF intel boss Aviv Kochavi claimed in February last year that 200,000 missiles were pointed at Israel, he was inadvertently making an acknowledgement that perhaps needn't have been made. While his statement was at least in part intended to pressure the Americans to fund more Iron Dome units, those additional Iron Domes are going to expand the envelope of immunity by mere minutes in the event of an all out war. Telling the Israeli people that they now have protection from the first two hundred incoming instead of the first one hundred isn't all that reassuring after you've told them 200,000 are on the way.

Which is why in spite of all the warlike rhetoric, Israel has no interest in a war with Hezbollah or anyone else, including Syria or any elements of the so-called Syrian opposition. 

That leaves both Israel and Hezbollah with a common interest in ensuring that Assad remains. And while it would be impossible for any American politician to say so, this is also were America's best interests lie, at least for the foreseeable future. Owing to their usual toxic combination of hubris and over-reach, the Americans had convinced themselves that their Syrian proxy opposition would make short work of the Assad regime. 

The past two-plus years have disabused them of that delusion.

That leaves the Americans in the position of having to make a climb-down without it appearing as such. While there are plenty of voices on the American political scene encouraging a more robust US involvement in Syria (see for example John McCain's visit to Syria today) there are many more cautioning against it.

Look for Assad to run Syria for years to come.

Saudi Arabia arrests 18 spies, but where's the Spymaster?

Good news out of The Kingdom today; they've broken a spy ring that was working to subvert Saudi democracy.

Yup, got them in the nick of time, and while it's early days it looks plain as day that the Persians are behind this.

But what puzzles me is that nowhere in the reportage of this story does the name of The Kingdoms's spymaster come up.

Last July Prince Bandar Bin Sultan was promoted to Director General of the Saudi Intelligence Agency by none other than King Abdullah himself.

A day or two later he was allegedly blown up by a bomb planted by Syrian agents. That story was denied by reputable sources here and there and everywhere.

Crazy thing is, Bandar ain't been seen or heard from since...

Coincidence?

Bandar Bush assassinated?

There are "unconfirmed reports" floating around that Bandar bin Sultan  was blown up by a bomb just days into his new gig as Saudi Chief of all intelligence agencies. The unconfirmed reporters claim this was payback for the Saudi-engineered blast in Damascus that took out a number of Syrian senior defense officials  a couple of weeks back.

The trouble with unconfirmed reports is that you never know if you're dealing with wishful thinking. One of the sites claims Press TV, the semi-official Iranian news site, broke the story, although I can't find it there. None of the usual Big News sites have the story, which doesn't mean it didn't happen, nor does it prove it did.

Maybe I'll just send him an e-mail and ask if he's OK.

There's a surprise brewing in Syria

Everybody knows the broad outlines of the story. Arab Spring swept into Syria a year and a half ago and the Syrian masses rose up against the evil dictator etc.

Most people by now know the subtext too. The "spontaneous uprising" in  Syria has been orchestrated by US vassal states Saudi Arabia and Qatar from the beginning. It's the "road to Damascus leads to Tehran" scenario much ballyhooed from this blog and many others.

Behind the masses yearning for freedom lies the realpolitik of US-Russia power struggles and the simmering Shia-Sunni war of attrition for dominance of the Islamist agenda.

So this story has a discombobulation factor that's off the scale. The headline and most of the text are what we expect. Iranian warships through the Suez on their way to Syria causes alarm in Israel!

That on the face of it is a scary story. What could those dodgy Persians be up to? And lets not forget that once they've cleared the Suez and are sailing past the Israeli coast, ISRAEL WILL BE SURROUNDED BY THE IRANIAN WAR MACHINE OH MY GOD!!!

But wait a minute, what's this? Three paragraphs from the bottom, we learn that the two-ship Iranian flotilla has put into Jedda for a couple of days r & r.

Jedda? That's in Saudi Arabia! That's where Bandar Bush, the CIA's favorite Arab, has just been promoted to Chief of Chiefs of secret service intel stuff of all sorts. He's the top spook, and probably the most powerful man in the land of Saud!


And this is where our arch-enemies the Iranians stop off for a few days on their way to Syria?


Something's not adding up here...