Plus, a weakened Syria would not only mean that Iran is forced to divert more resources to saving Assad but that Lebanon's pro-Assad Hezbollah also would be more distracted and Palestine's Hamas more isolated. Hamas has sided with Sunni rebels fighting Assad and thus has estranged its former allies: Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.
The odd-couple alliance of Israel and Saudi Arabia also has teamed up in support of Egypt's military coup against the elected Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi. The Saudis have poured in billions of dollars to prop up Egypt's economy as the Israelis have lobbied Washington to prevent a cutoff of U.S. military aid to Egypt.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni movement, but it is too populist for the taste of the Saudi monarchists. The Saudi princes fear the spread of democracy in the region and far prefer an authoritarian regime in Egypt. Meanwhile, Israel benefits by having the Egyptian military again seal off the border with Hamas-ruled Gaza. All the better for Israel to dictate peace terms to a weakened Palestinian movement.
Doomsday Threat
So, President Obama's chances of using the prospect of a destabilizing U.S. military strike against Syria to break through the logjam of geopolitical obstacles to peace may seem slim. The strategy appears even to be a distinctly minority position within the Obama administration, although Obama is seen as an advocate.
To pull it off, however, Obama must find a way to get Bandar and the Saudis to desist in their financial and military support of the radical Sunnis jihadists in Syria, while convincing the Israelis to keep their political clout in Washington on the sidelines. Some thought has even been given to enlisting former President George W. Bush, a close friend of Bandar, to act as an intermediary.
Yet, while Obama pressures the Saudis behind the scenes, he must -- for domestic political reasons -- keep up the drumbeat that the real problem is with the Assad government. Thus, he continues to lay blame on Assad for the apparent poison gas attack of Aug. 21, despite continuing doubts about the U.S. intelligence case.
The incident in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta occurred more than two weeks ago, but the Obama administration has still not presented any verifiable evidence to the American public that would prove Assad's forces are to blame. All the details have been kept classified, shared only with members of Congress who are famously inept at evaluating such allegations.
And, since the U.S. government was quick in fingering Assad for blame, it has been unwilling to consider other evidence that seems to point to the rebels as being at fault for release of the chemical weapons on Aug. 21.
For instance, a report by MintPress News -- based on interviews with people in Damascus and Ghouta -- presented evidence that "the U.S. and its allies may be targeting the wrong culprit. ... [F]rom numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, ... many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the ... gas attack."
The article also cites comments by rebel-connected Ghouta residents indicating that the release of the poison gas may have resulted from a conventional artillery strike by government forces accidentally hitting a rebel storage site for chemical weapons or from careless rebel handling of the dangerous material.
Even the Obama administration's white paper, citing U.S. intelligence assessments that blamed the Syrian government for the Aug. 21 attack, danced around the question of whether Syrian rebels have chemical weapons in their arsenal.
"We assess that the scenario in which the opposition executed the attack on August 21 is highly unlikely," the white paper said. "Our intelligence sources in the Damascus area did not detect any indications in the days prior to the attack that opposition affiliates were planning to use chemical weapons."
Yet, why would the U.S. intelligence agencies employ such phrasing discounting the likelihood of a rebel attack if they could simply assert that the rebel forces have no chemical weapons, period? The deep involvement of Saudi intelligence in Syria makes the prospect of the rebels possessing chemical weapons not at all far-fetched.
However, that depth of Saudi involvement also makes the task of shutting down Bandar's operation all the more difficult. Indeed, Obama may have few levers to use against Bandar, other than arguments that a U.S. military intervention in Syria could spin out of control, leading to disruptions of oil supplies and a global financial crisis. Given the vast stock portfolios of the Saudi royals, they could suffer heavy losses as they did during the Wall Street meltdown of 2008.
In that sense, what Obama has created in his timetable for bombing Syria is a kind of "doomsday machine," a device that can cause severe damage to the geopolitical and economic stability of the world if it is not disarmed in time. Assuming that Obama gets congressional approval to start the machine ticking, the "doomsday" moment could come in the next few weeks.
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