As I predicted, President Bush's little fantasy about creating a Sunni Bloc against Iran and Syria is a non-starter, with about as much creedence as his `Arab democracy' fetish.
For openers, our `eternal friends' the Saudis took time out from threatening Israel to indulge in some anti-US bashing as Saudi King Abdullah condemned the 'illegitimate occupation' of Iraq.
"In beloved Iraq, blood is being shed among brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and ugly sectarianism threatens civil war," Abdullah said.
He also said that Arab nations would not allow any foreign force to decide the future of the region.
If Arab leaders recover trust in each other and regain their credibility, "the winds of hope will blow on the nation, and then, we will not allow forces from outside the region to determine the future of the region, and only the flag of Arabism will be raised on Arab soil," Abdullah said.
Of course, you realize that he's talking about Israel as `Arab soil', and is fantasizing about the US being out of the picture entirely.
Unless they need us infidel slaves to take out Saddam or something.
The Arab foreign ministers also agreed to call for an amendment of Iraq's 2005 constitution to give Sunni Arabs a greater share of power in Iraq. And of course, a bigger split of the oil wealth.
The Saudis also spent a great deal of time massaging our enemy Iran, with Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud saying "We have no inhibitions about the role of Iran...It is a large country. It wants to play a leading role in the region, and it has every right to do so. It is an historic country."
This is a followup to the little covered but historic meeting between King Abdullah and Iran's President Ahmadinejad in Riyadh. This was nothing less than a setting up of spheres of influence and common goals, like destroying Israel and pursuing jihad against the infidels.
However much Sunnis and Shiites might despise one another, they will always put that aside for the common goal of jihad against the West.
Another sign of the increasing distance the Saudis are putting between themselves and the Bush Administration is the Saudi bow out on a scheduled State dinner in Washington on April 17th Bush was planning to honor King Abdullah.
As the WAPO's Jim Hoagland revealed in his column today, Prince Bandar went to Washington and explained that there was a `scheduling conflict' and that a state dinner was `not convenient' for the King.
Jordan's King Abdullah, a poster boy for the Bush Administration as an `Arab Ally' also dialed out on the White House for a state visit scheduled for September...scheduling conflicts again.
It wasn't so long ago that the administration was talking `realignment' and `realpolitik' based on the assumption that the Sunni autocracies President Bush is so enamored of could be trusted as allies. That turgid, wrongheaded notion seems to have melted like a popsicle in the hot desert sun.
No comments:
Post a Comment