Saudi King's Outburst Pushes an Embattled Bashar Further Into the Corner

The attack by Saudi Arabian King ‘Abdallah bin ‘Abd al-’Aziz al Sa’ud on Syria’s Bashar al-Assad during late August 2007 over Bashar’s sponsorship of the HAMAS takeover of Gaza in June 2007 has further isolated Damascus at a time when Bashar and the Iranian clerics are literally fighting for their lives.

Bashar and the Iranian clerics have been working for months to get all the pieces in place for a renewed conflict with Israel and possibly the US, as a means of broadening the Middle East conflict to Washington’s detriment. Now, the Saudi King’s attack serves to seriously undermine Bashar’s diminishing credibility at home and in the region. The Saudi King clearly feels betrayed by Bashar who had promised privately, during the Riyadh Arab Summit in March 2007, to ease his ties with Tehran. In fact, Bashar did the reverse. As well, Bashar has been working to ensure that a pro-Syrian President will be elected in Lebanon, to the point where Syrian agents began issuing death threats to the Saudi Ambassador in Beirut.

It’s already in the open media that Lebanese security officials told Prime Minister Fuad Siniora that they had information that Syria, Iran, and HizbAllah were planning a new wave of terror and assassinations in Beirut to prevent the election of the next Lebanese President by a simple parliamentary majority instead of the two-thirds majority required by the constitution.

All this angers not only the Saudi King, but also French President Nicholas Sarkozy. Only the US — which is fighting Syrian-sponsored terrorism inside Iraq — is supporting Bashar’s position in the Lebanese election. King ‘Abdallah will not be taken-in again by Bashar. But why does Washington persist in its naïveté over Bashar?

Ironically, the combination of the French and Saudi positions may awaken the State Department from its Foggy stupor. Either that, or the coming war will do it. Because Bashar and Ahmadi-Nejad cannot last much longer if the US current move in Iraq, with Gen. Petraeus’ successes against the range of Syrian- and Iranian-sponsored insurgents continues at its present pace, and if, as expected, a nationalist military coup takes power in Baghdad in September. Then, Bashar will have a lot less support from an embattled Ahmadi-Nejad in Tehran, and the isolation will begin to tell. The only solution, then, is to lash out. So watch from Bashar to push initially for another proxy war against Israel, using HizbAllah and others, and his new assets in Gaza.

Is this what Washington wants?