Bandar Bush,
'liberator' of Syria
By Pepe
Escobar
Asia times
The
four-hour meeting between Bandar Bush and Vlad the Hammer by now has acquired
mythic status. Essentially, according to diplomatic leaks, Bandar asked Vlad to
drop Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and forget about blocking a possible UN
Security Council resolution on a no-fly zone (as if Moscow would ever allow a
replay of UN resolution 1973 against Libya) . In return the House of Saud would
buy loads of Russian weapons.
Vlad,
predictably, was not impressed. Not even when Bandar brazenly insisted that
whatever form a post-Assad situation would take, the Saudis will be
"completely" in control. Then Bandar went over the top, promising
that Saudi Arabia would not allow any Gulf Cooperation Council member country -
as in Qatar - to invest in Pipelineistan across Syria to sell natural gas to
Europe and thus damage Russian - as in Gazprom's - interests.
When Bandar
saw he was going nowhere, he reverted to his fallback position; the only way
out in Syria is war - and Moscow should forget about the perennially postponed
Geneva II peace conference because the "rebels" will be a no show.
Once again,
Vlad did not need a reminder that the Saudis - in "cooperation" with
Washington - have now taken over the "rebel" galaxy. Qatar has been
confined to a (expensive) dustbin. This is part of Washington's plan - if there
is one - to isolate the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and its shady jihadi
ramifications / connections.
Wily Bandar,
for his part, is not a fool to believe his own propaganda; he knows Moscow has
more complex geostrategic interests other than just keeping Syria as a weapons
client. And he might have suspected that Moscow simply does not bother with
Gulf competition in Pipelineistan targeting European markets.
It's
instructive to remember that in 2009, Damascus did not sign an agreement with
Qatar for a pipeline via Syria; but they did sign the memorandum of
understanding last year for the US $ 10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline. So
the point is for Damascus, the deal with Iran was much better; and if the
pipeline is ever built Gazprom may even be part of it, in infrastructure and
distribution. What Moscow has concluded is that Gazprom won't lose its energy
grip over Europe to the benefit of Qatari natural gas. A case can be made
that Gazprom holds more power over the distressed, decaying, virtually
insolvent eurozone than the European Central Bank (ECB).
What Vlad
does fear is a potential post-Assad utter chaos, to be fully exploited by
Salafi-jihadis. It's never enough to remember that from Aleppo to Grozny it's
roughly 900 kilometers. The next stop for the Global Jihad in Syria would be
the Caucasus. And that's where Bandar Bush and Vlad the Hammer might converge;
their mutual strategic interest is to reign in jihadis - although Bandar, in
fact, is also weaponizing them.
The new
Afghanistan
Moscow won't
drop Damascus. Period. At the same time, as Bandar threatened, Geneva II seems
more unlikely to happen than the Obama administration ceasing to drone Yemen to
death.
As Asia
Times Online has extensively reported, the name of the game, in practice,
remains Syria as the new Afghanistan, with the House of Saud in control of all
aspects of jihad (with Washington "leading from behind"). Deadly
historic irony also applies; instead of clashing with the Soviet Union, now the
Saudis clash with the Russian federation. Bandar is simultaneously the new
Weaponizer-in-Chief, as well as Liberator-in-Chief of Syria. The Comeback Spy
is not accounting for future, inevitable, ghastly blowback; what's alarming is
that the Obama administration is right behind him.
Bandar
Bush's visit to Moscow simply could not have happened without a green light
from Washington. So what's the (muddled) master plan?
The Obama
administration seems to believe in a remixed Sykes-Picot - almost a century
after the original. The problem is they are clueless on how to configure the new
zones of influence. Meanwhile, they're letting the Saudis do the heavy lifting.
The first step was to eliminate Qatar from the picture. It's astonishing how
fast the emirate, up to two months ago a prospective mini-superpower, now has
been reduced to less than an afterthought.
Yet Bandar
by now may have seen the writing on the (bloody) wall; Bashar al-Assad will be
in power until the 2014 elections in Syria, and may even win those elections.
The Saudis might accept a form of compensation in Lebanon, with their protege,
the cosmically incompetent Saad al-Hariri, back in power in a coalition
government including the political branch of Hezbollah - not the other one
which the European poodles branded "terrorist". This also seems
unlikely.
So what is
Bandar the Liberator to do? Well, he can always direct his private jet to
Dallas and liberate his sorrows in a sea of single malt, provided by the House
of Dubya
No comments:
Post a Comment