Last week’s Arab League summit in Riyadh will be looked on by future historians as a major turning point in the War on Jihad. Along with the Mecca Summit and the historic meeting between Iran's President Ahmadinejad and Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh last month, it symbolized the failure of President Bush's Middle East policy and his efforts to enlist Sunni `allies' against Shiite Iran.
The Saudis, like Iran have taken note of the composition of the new Congress, the tilt towards appeasement and the votes to undercut President Bush's role as commander in chief as well as the West's feeble response to Iran's defiance of the UN and the seizure of British hostages at sea.
The non-Arab guests of honor at Riyadh were Iranian foreign minister Manoucher Mottaki and Iranian Chief of Staff General Hassan Fayrouz Abadi , who were there to solidify the understandings between King Abdullah and Ahmadinejad at their earlier meeting.
The Iranians had a solid proposition for the various Arab delegations: a mutual defense treaty between Iran and the Arabs along the lines of the Iran-Syria pact. Mottaki explained that a treaty of this kind would end any Arab fears of an Iranian nuclear threat, join the Arabs and Iran in a united stance against Israel and set up an Arab-Persian Islamic front against the West.
Mottaki apparently made a great deal of headway. He spent a long time in conference with Saudi foreign minister Prince Saudi al-Faisal, and they ended up agreeing that their defense ministries would assign special negotiating teams to explore the details.
The Saudi foreign minister also arranged a four-way meeting between King Abdullah, Mottaki, and the two Palestinian leaders, Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. Together they discussed how Iran and Saudi Arabia could work together to aid the Palestinians in the War Against the Jews, and work together to help the new Palestinian unity government of Fatah and Hamas. Iran is now assured of the Saudis' approval of the military assistance Iran gives the Palestinians and of formal, collective Arab backing for it.
This was the background for Saudi King Abdullah's characterization of America's occupation of Iraq as `illegitimate', the UAE's demand that American airfields and ports in their countries not be used for attacks on Iran and the harsh ultimatum given to Israel that it unconditionally accept the Saudi Peace plan calling for withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines or face war.
Another significant meeting at the Riyadh summit occurred between the Iranian and Egyptian delegations on the resumption of diplomatic ties. Iran and our `ally' Egypt have not had diplomatic relations since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
This was a follow up of arrangements made between Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak Egyptian prime minister Ahmed Natif, and Iranian ex-president Muhammad Khatami in Cairo a week ago. At that meeting they agreed that an Iranian delegation would visit Cairo in April to set up arrangements for the two embassies to re-open.
The Bush Administration was under the mistaken impression that they could manipulate the historic Sunni-Shiite conflict for their own purposes. They didn't realize that when it comes to jihad against the West, these two antagonists have always been prepared to bury their differences temporarily to combine against the infidel for the conquest of dar harb.
We face an historic alignment of forces against the West at a time when we seem to be grasping at another isolationist exit from history with both hands.
We continue to ignore it at our peril.
"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
- Winston Churchill, 1938
Well said. I am very concerned with the lack of interest by the "West."
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