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How Saudis Are Working Obama Over To Attack Syria
27 August 2013
(EIRNS)—An AP article carried by the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 26 shows the role of Saudi intelligence chief Bandar bin-Sultan in leading the Obama administration, with the help of some of U.S. legislators, to attack Syria and remove Bashar al-Assad. Bandar did all that because "he could deliver what the CIA couldn’t: planeloads of money and arms, and, as one U.S. diplomat put it, wasta, Arabic for under-the-table clout." It is evident that the plan was put into motion months ago when Bandar began "jetting from covert command centers near the Syrian front lines to the Élysée Palace in Paris and the Kremlin in Moscow, seeking to undermine the Assad regime," Arab, American, and European officials told the authors. The target of Bandar was the Damascus suburbs as part of the "southern strategy" of the Saudis for strengthening the rebels in that area where the chemical weapons have been allegedly used recently. Bandar, who was involved in the 1980s Contra operation— drugs for arms—does not visit Washington, but brings in influential U.S. legislators to Turkey and Saudi Arabia to make his case. It is his wasta, again. He is the closest Saudi confidant of the new CIA chief, John Brennan, who has been in periodic contact by phone with Prince Bandar, officials told the authors. Bandar found early support from Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He set up a rare one-on-one meeting for one of them, then-Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.), with King Abdullah in Riyadh. Sen. Nelson said he told the king that if regional powers pulled together with a common strategy, it would be easier for the U.S. to become a partner. "In September 2012, Sens. McCain and Graham, who were in Istanbul, went to a meeting at an opulent hotel suite on the banks of the Bosporus. Mr. McCain said he made the case to Prince Bandar that the rebels weren’t getting the kinds of weapons they needed, and the prince, in turn, described the kingdom’s plans. The senator said that in succeeding months he saw a ’dramatic increase in Saudi involvement, hands-on, by Bandar,’" the article said. Also, when U.S. intelligence agencies saw worrisome signs that Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia, in response to the influx of Saudi arms, were ramping up support to Assad, Bandar used his wasta. With the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ready to back arming the rebels, Bandar turned his attention to skeptics on the House and Senate intelligence committees. Saudis arranged a trip for committee leaders, which included Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D- Calif.), to Riyadh, where Prince Bandar laid out the Saudi strategy. "It was a reunion of sorts," officials told the authors. In Washington Bandar works through Saudi Ambassador to Washington Adel al-Jubeir, who, according to the article, has used his access to policy makers, including the President, to push the message that U.S. inaction would lead to greater Middle East instability down the road, American officials told the authors. [RMA] |