The usual response to danger, by Western diplomats and policy makers, is usually the result of initiatives based on the rule of law. The foundation of every framework that maintains a balance between political differences people express in any society can be traced back to legal arguments in support of or against a certain policy even if the ideologies are extremists at both ends of the divide.
What is often missed is how the Western civilization, as any observant of the modern conduct of politics can affirm, relies upon the resolutions of all international problems on the same basis of conduct it relies upon to resolve domestic issues, mainly through the rule of law. Even when the argument cries out for the use of force, as often it does against men of violence, Western diplomats often feel the need, or rather embrace the belief, that they can turn men of violence into abiding men of law by simply demonstrating how civilizations behave when differences between people arise.
Never in the history of humankind have one group of people misunderstood another as have the US and EU politicians of the nature of violent Islamic extremism. Their natural and un-evolutionary response is to always negotiate, debate, or argue with men whose patience for the use of words is as short as the fuse on the suicide belts or massive car bombs they invented. The exception has been al-Qaeda because the public opinion will not tolerate negotiating with the 9/11 terrorists. Not so, of the terrorists who killed US Marines in Lebanon and Iraq because the US public opinion has been sufficiently lacking in knowledge about Iranian and Hezbollah terror.
What clearly should be an attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure has turned into an exercise in diplomacy that will inevitably lead us to more initiatives until that firmament moment when the use of force becomes the only viable answer at a much higher cost to lives and taxpayers than originally anticipated. If there was ever a strong case to destroy nuclear capabilities by force, Iran represents the ultimate reason. The world has witnessed over 30 years of extreme violence by the Iranian Mullahs that has spread around the globe and every time we used words to talk to them, they responded with bullets.
President Obama has inherited a stable Middle East and by the time he leaves office, the region is poised to become far more violent than possibly ever in modern history. Obama has fed Syria with Jihadists many are coming back home to Europe to cause trouble and having learned little from his mistakes, he struck a deal with Iran that will ultimately spread Sunni extremism, to offset against the violent Shia extremism, across all the Arab lands. As of November of 2013, 350 million Arabs will have three choices; either they join to fight the aggressive behavior of Iran in Syria and elsewhere, immigrate to western lands, or become victims of the upcoming Sunni Shia war we have witnessed its violent microcosm in Syria already. Sunnis will never submit to Shia and Shia will never want to submit to Sunnis ever again regardless of geo-political and religious realities. That monster is awake and growling.
Unless Western Diplomats change their perspective about the Sunni-Shia crevasse, which is not about lands or countries as the Cold War has been about, grave mistakes will happen. Our divide is about people and their religious belief systems. This transcends borders in ways the West is unable to absorb within the context of settling religious differences. No US Diplomat, as far as I know, has ever been tasked with resolving violent differences arising as a result of violence from two Christian faiths each solely based on the advantages of its missionaries’ work.
Iran has already extended a fake hand of friendship to Saudi Arabia the way it has done to the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood in the past. The aim is simple. Unite with the Muslim nations to destroy Israel because it is by far the most lethal enemy to Iranian hegemony. I am willing to bet my future Las Vegas winnings that during the meetings taking place these days between UAE and Iran, the discussions are centered on demonizing Israel. Syria, as far as the Mullahs are concerned, is theirs to keep after Obama offered it on a silver platter to Khamenei, a move the US may yet come to regret deeply in the near future.
UAE is not Saudi Arabia though, and even if there are all kinds of diplomatic va et viens to keep the region under control, al-Sauds are fuming over Obama’s betrayal of long standing traditions between the Kingdom and the United States. It is one thing to argue over differences of opinions with regard to a certain policy, but quite another when the US simply washes its hands from the region and decides that Iran should control it.
To avoid the upcoming violence, Iran is playing its diplomatic card to anesthetize the masses. However, Syria has shown the true colors of the regime in Iran and Arabs are not about to forgive its violence against women and children. The Arab rulers may feel compelled to walk the plank carefully but the Arab masses will tweet a different argument. The Arab Social Media will decide what Arabs will do with regard to Iran, not the rulers.
This means that hawks, like Prince Bandar bin Sultan, is far more popular amongst Arabs than the President of UAE who just received the Foreign Minister of Iran today. Bandar, however, has his hands tied behind his back because al-Saud, as outraged as they are by the Obama Deal, they are not about to declare war by taking the first step to pick a fight with Iran. They will wait patiently until Iran overplays its hands, which I believe is a mistake because by that time, it is a Rook Check with a quick Checkmate to follow.
In my honest opinion, Bandar bin Sultan may be the only Saudi Official with enough Cohunes to confront Iran — while al-Saud massage the ego of the Iranian Mullahs — if he is given the authority to conduct an aggressive counter-policy against Iranian aggression and hegemony soon to show its ugly face once Iran appeases the Arabs with calls to destroy Israel.
Some 15 years ago, Hezbollah tasked Imad Mughneyieh, now swarmed by the flesh of 72 virgins, the task of killing Bandar bin Sultan when he was the Saudi Ambassador to the US – as Iran attempted to murder today’s Ambassador to the US Adel al-Jubeir – and there is a good reason for that. Iran will kill those it fears (i.e. Rafik al-Hariri) and it is exactly those it fears we must trust to defeat them.
My hope King Abdullah or his successor Prince Salman has given the green light to Bandar to defeat the Iranians at their own game. My bigger hope is that Saudi Arabia plays a good defensive game by acquiring a nuclear capability. At the end of the day, those Langley men working the clock to prevent such an event actually live in McLean, Virginia not Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and al-Sauds may be beginning to understand what this means for them.
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