Israel plans to occupy all the Hijaz, after Bandar coup d'etat in Saudi Arabia.
Prince Bandar’s Wake-Up Call
By Peter Chamberlin
Prince Bander. It feels like something sinister has just occurred, but it may be a long time until we figure-out just what that was (SEE: Saudi Appointment Suggests Bigger Regional Ambitions ).
When dealing with the Saudis, nothing is as it seems. Trying to
understand the Saudi royal family is something like trying to decipher a
hidden code–What does the advancing of Bandar Bush to the top job in
Saudi intelligence services really imply?
Whenever
there are major changes in the Saudi royal family, our first
impressions often prove to be wrong, since we can only see surface
appearances. Much like looking at an iceberg, most of the facts about
the Wahhabi kingdom are hidden beneath the surface. Bandar is the
biggest “berg” of the bunch. The move of Bandar to the top of the
Saudi’s “cia” is far more significant than just the replacement of the
previous spy boss (who had proven himself to be inadequate for the
Saudi’s needs), simply because of the baggage that Bandar carries with
him. He has served as Saudi Arabia’s primary connection to every
American Administration since Reagan, because of his strong connections
with the leaders of the Republican Party (this is how he earned the
title “Bandar Bush”).
Bandar
Bush has been the irreplaceable key to nearly all of the Grand Ole
Party’s secret foreign policy adventures. Even Democrats like Clinton
and Obama, who choose to act like Republicans, have been able to
motivate the Republican associates of Bandar, in order to obtain his
help in pulling together another of his “Islamist” armies for
“humanitarian interventions” in Muslim countries. Brother Bandar was
extremely active during the Bush years, advising both Cheney and Bush,
while organizing their secret deals to put his militant network to work.
During the Bush era, elements of his militant network came to be
called “al-Qaeda” (the base),
as their terrorist exploits were amplified in the Western press, to
create the impression of a massive army of international “Islamists”
waging war against the civilized world. The legendary “exploits” of
al-Qaeda are actually the acts of many separate, unconnected terror
outfits, writ larger than life on the Western TV screens, as if all the
terrorists worked for one Saudi boss.
The
Bush Administration successfully insulated the Saudis from any blame
for supporting and using this terrorist network, enabling Bandar’s boys
to provide the unified enemy nexus that Bush and Cheney so desperately
needed to justify their wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and half a dozen
other hot spots. This formula for creating new wars was intended to
empower the American war for Empire, as the flagship of predatory
capitalism ripped through a series of Middle Eastern and North African
countries (as revealed early on by General Wesley K. Clark).
War on Iran was scheduled to follow a quick victory in Iraq, which
anticlimactically, ended rather quickly, contrary to expectations,
proving to be another embarrassment to the Administration.
The
Neocon scheme began to unravel very quickly in Bush’s second term, as
he became a victim of his previous easy successes in starting new wars.
The American war machine too easily devoured the token resistance of
the Taliban and Saddam’s forces after that. Easy victories upset the
formula, as old battles could not “logically” (if perpetual war was your
goal) be finished until sufficient groundwork had been done, laying the
charges and lighting the fuses for new American wars. Iran would have
to wait for Bandar’s boys, or other assets (Mossad) to cause a strong
enoughIranian reaction to their probing attacks to provide an excuse for
a massive America counter-reaction. Meanwhile, similar excuses needed
to be engineered to justify the extended stays in Afghanistan and Iraq
(leading directly to the creation of the Pakistani Taliban and “al-Qaeda
in Iraq”). While they were at it, the Saudis produced terrorist
prodigy Ibn al-Khattab, who hailed from the same Saudi/Jordanian border town as the legendary boss of “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Bandar’s
Sunni “Islamist” network managed to produce two semi-effective
anti-Iranian Sunni outfits, Jundullah and Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), both
proved to be unsuited to the task of rallying terrorist armies to their
sides in Shia Iran. Bandar also came up short in his search for
satisfactory terrorist clients to oppose Iranian inroads in any of the
targeted Muslim countries with mixed populations of both Shia and Sunni,
like Lebanon, Syria, or the Palestinian territories.
Bandar seemed to fall out of favor with Bush after the failure of
Israel’s war against Hezbollah stalled in Lebanon in 2006.
Anticipated local insurgencies in Lebanon and Syria failed to
materialize, leaving Israel standing alone against Hezbollah with their
Zionist pants around their ankles. When the IDF did not live-up to
their exalted military prowess, failing to-led make quick work of the
Lebanese Shia resistance (like the US-supported Northern Alliance forces
had easily walked over the Taliban), it seemed to take the wind out of
Bush’s sails. The previous urgency is instigating war with Iran seemed
to quickly fade, as war fever started to cool and Bush appeared to lose
his taste for starting new aggressive wars.
Around
that same time, a feud between Bandar and Prince Turki broke out into
the open, ending with Turki’s resignation as US ambassador. It has been
reported that the feud was over Saudi policy regarding America’s
Iranian policy (SEE: Prince Bandar’s Ambitions: Turki-Bandar Feud Over US Politics Cause of Resignation).
Turki favored a more even-handed diplomatic approach, embodied in the
Arab Peace Initiative for Palestinian statehood at the UN and supporting
the moderates in Iraq, while Bandar wanted to butt heads with the
Iranians, in order to solve the Sunni/Shia problem once and for all
(SEE: Prince Bandar Allegedly Advocating Military Response Against Iran).
In short, Bandar represented the militant Cheney wing of the
Republicans, while Prince Turki was the Saudi advocate for the moderate
Baker/Scowcroft wing. Bush had grown tired of being let down by the
“Cheneys” and “Bandars” lined-up at the American seat of power.
Much
like his pal Cheney, Bandar seemed to skulk back into the shadows after
that, as efforts to drive the terror war covertly seemed to crash
head-on into operations intended to prolong the individual wars,
producing obvious contradictions, which began to arouse the suspicions
of the American people. Bush turned the wars over to the
Pentagon advisers, turning his deaf to the spies. Bandar disappeared
completely from the public eye in 2008, after the failed Georgian attempt to
expel Russia and Republican McCain’s defeat, giving rise to multiple
rumors, the most extreme of which was the theory that Bandar had
attempted a coup against King Abdullah by Bandar and about 200 loyalists
(SEE: In kingdom, Saudi prince’s coup ‘fails’). Whatever the truth was, Bandar remained hidden until 2010, when he emerged from obscurity amid great fanfare.
Perhaps
Bandar had emerged then to reclaim lost ground. In his absence, King
Abdullah had given cautious support to the diplomatic measures that
Prince Turki had been pushing. Abdullah had even given Turki’s ideas on
rapprochement with the dark sheep of the Arab fold, Syrian Bashar Hafez
al-Assad, meeting him in Damascus on Oct 7, 2009. Bandar’s father, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz had
undergone surgery in New York in February 2009 for an undisclosed
illness, forcing the Saudi second-in-command to spend the year
afterwards, recuperating in the United States and at a palace in
Morocco.
The heir to the Saudi throne, Crown Prince Sultan died on October 21, 2011,
whereupon Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz Al Saud became the next Crown
Prince, or heir apparent. Less than one month later, on Nov 11, 2011,
Prince Turki’s diplomatic plans for Palestinian Statehood at the United
Nations were effectively scuttled, as the security council put off the
vote on admitting Palestine as a state. On June 16 , 2012, Crown
Prince Naif (Nayef) also died. Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud became the
next Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
The man whom Bandar had sidelined as Prince Naif’s chief of Saudi Intelligence was Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz. The Institute For Gulf Affairs recently
revealed correspondence between Naif and his intelligence chief Muqrin,
concerning the Saudi handling of the Shia protests:
“The
letters discuss how a situation involving Shia instigation in the
Eastern Province should be handled. In the exchange Muqrin argued for a
much stronger and harsher approach, but was vetoed by Naif.”
On
Sunday, July 8, Muqrin’s “stronger and harsher approach” was given a
go, as Shia cleric Ayatollah Al-Nemer was shot during his brutal arrest,
setting-off massive Shia rioting in the Eastern Province, home of most
Saudi oil fields. Muqrin was supposed to be the kingdom’s top expert on
the eastern provinces, since his son-in-law, Mohammed bin Fahd,
was the governor of that province, but his insight into the Shia mind
was as incomplete as any other Sunni. Creating martyrs for the Shiite
cause is not the path to peace in Saudi Arabia, or in any other Muslim
nation. In addition to this royal disappointment, Muqrin had also
recently dealt a severe psychological blow to the kingdom’s most
important ally, Pakistan, by his cooperation with India and the United
States in the capture of wanted Lashkar e-Taiba militant, 26/11
co-conspirator Sayed Zabiuddin, alias Abu Jindal. These two
major embarrassments to the King are the primary reason for the outing
of the long-time Saudi security chief.
Does
the positioning of Bandar in Muqrin’s job herald a change for the worse
in Saudi Arabia’s treatment of its Shia citizens, or does it signify
that the Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques intends to take the effort to
force submission of the eastern Shiites to Tehran?
2 Comments
As salam aleykoum wa rahmatullah
Qu'en penses tu akhi Souleyman ?
Aucune confirmation pour le moment mais la guerre pour le pouvoir bat son plein et nous savons tous ce qui se passera. Le type est tres dangeureux pour les Musulmans, et il preparait un coup d'etat. Ce serait surprenant qu'ils le tuent aussi facilement.
Wa Allah swt 'alam