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Jewish World Review March 5, 2002 / 21 Adar, 5762

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

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The Saudi scam


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com -- ON occasion, theatrical productions of the ancient Greeks would end with a god being lowered onto the stage via a crane, a device that became known as a "deus ex machina." Websters' offers a contemporary definition of the term as "a person or thing (as in fiction or drama) that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty."

Such a "thing" was recently lowered by the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Abdullah, onto the stage on which the increasingly bloody Mideast passion play is being performed. It has taken the form of a so-called Saudi peace initiative and has been seized upon by everyone from President Bush and the European Union to Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon as a device that may allow resolution of the apparently insoluble Arab-Israeli conflict.

The only problem is that, given the true nature of this Saudi "initiative," it would be more accurate to describe it as a "deus ex Machiavelli" -- a stratagem worthy of the great and devious Italian Renaissance-era schemer who authored The Prince, a tutorial on the art of effective, if often unethical, statecraft. The Abdullah gambit is far more likely to propel the parties towards new regional war than produce a real and durable peace. Consider its attributes:

  • Saudi Arabia gets to change the subject. The fact that 15 out of 19 of the terrorists that executed the deadly attacks of September 11 were Saudi nationals was a wake-up call for many Americans -- including some Bush Administration officials -- about the true character of a regime long portrayed as one of the United States' most reliable allies in the Middle East.

    Now, the Saudi Arabian government apparently was not directly responsible for the actions of these al Qaeda operatives. The Saudis do bear responsibility, however, for the world-wide -- and ongoing -- promotion of the teachings of the radical and virulently anti-American Islamist sect known as Wahabbism that is spawning new recruits for such terrorist operations. This practice makes all the more troubling the kingdom's continuing refusal to make a full and public expression of regret over the attacks perpetrated by its citizens. And, under Abdullah (a member of the royal family long known for his hostility towards the United States), Saudi Arabia has constrained our ability to use American assets in the region as part of the war on terrorism's Phase I (Afghanistan), to say nothing of Phase II (Iraq).

    The hints about a Saudi peace initiative (there is, at this writing, no actual proposal, only hype, speculation and undeserved plaudits) have had the effect of giving its Prince an overnight diplomatic makeover worthy of Machiavelli. No more talk about a Saudi Arabia that actually spends more time in the "against us" category rather than the "with us" one. Today, the hope that the kingdom will finally play a constructive role in the Arab-Israeli conflict is giving it vital cover, even as Abdullah undermines U.S. efforts to mobilize international support for ending Saddam Hussein's malevolence in Iraq.

  • Saudi intervention helps its friends, hurts its foes. The Abdullah plan, such as it is, appears to call for Israel to relinquish all the territory it captured in 1967. That would mean all of the West Bank, not just the roughly 95% that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had on offer at Camp David. Its logic would also compel the return to Syria of the strategic Golan Heights. In other words, if this deus ex machina actually came to pass, the Arabs will be rewarded for launching the last year-and-a-half's violence.

    With the same stroke, Abdullah has reinvigorated the otherwise prostrate "peace camp" in Israel and its advocates elsewhere. Suddenly, if Saudi Arabia will participate, the "peace processors" insist, there are grounds for ignoring the abundant evidence that the previous process begun in Oslo a decade ago has only served to empower, arm and provide safe haven for terrorists aimed at liberating all of what Arafat calls "Palestine" (including the territory controlled by the Jewish State prior to the 1967 Six-Day War). If the Bush and Sharon governments are not careful, they will prompt Israelis who are understandably discouraged at the prospect of open-ended warfare to embrace a dangerous course of action in the belief that doing something, even if it is counterproductive, is better than doing nothing.

  • The Abdullah "plan" will reopen the Arabs' "war option." Just how counterproductive the surrender of all the territory Israel captured in defensive wars since June 1967 would be can be adduced from an obvious fact: The Jewish State is simply indefensible without the strategic depth and high ground along the West Bank's Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights adjacent to Syria.

    The surrender of the "occupied territories" will both 1) encourage Israel's enemies to realize their historic and oft-stated goal of "driving the Jews into the sea" and 2) give them the avenues of attack by which to do so. The very unreliability that prompted growing American concerns about Saudi Arabia -- to say nothing of the unrelenting hostility of the rulers of Syria, Libya, Iran and Iraq -- make such a prospect a formula for the destruction of the State of Israel, not its assured security thanks to a prince's undeliverable promise of normalized relations with the entire Arab world.

In due course, the Abdullah deus ex Machiavelli will be seen for what it is -- a Saudi scam that makes the Middle East far more dangerous, not less, for American interests and those of its ally, Israel. The question is, how much damage will be done before that reality is recognized for what it is?

JWR contributor Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. heads the Center for Security Policy. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

Up

02/26/02: Rumsfeld's 'now hear this'
02/19/02: Where's the outrage?
02/12/02: Post-mortem on 'Pearl Harbor II'
02/05/02: Spinning on the 'Evil Axis'
01/29/02: A challenge for the history books
01/22/02: Who pulled the plug on the Chinese 'bugs'?
01/15/02: No 'need to know'
01/08/02: Sentenced to de-nuclearize?
12/18/01: Missile defense mismanagement?
12/11/01: Is the Cold War 'over'?
12/04/01: A moment for truth
11/29/01: Send in the marines -- with the planes they need
11/27/01: 'Now Hear This': Does the President Mean What He Says?
11/20/01: Mideast 'vision thing'
11/13/01: The leitmotif of the next three days
11/06/01: Bush's Reykjavik Moment
10/30/01: Say it ain't true, 'W.
10/23/01: Getting history, and the future, right
10/16/01: Farewell to arms control
10/05/01: A time to choose
09/25/01: Don't drink the 'lemonade'
09/11/01: Sudan envoy an exercise in futility?
09/05/01: Strategy of a thousand cuts
08/28/01: Rummy's back
08/21/01: Prepare for 'two wars'
08/14/01: Why does the Bush Administration make a moral equivalence between terrorist attacks and Israel's restrained defensive responses?
08/07/01: A New bipartisanship in security policy?
07/31/01: Don't go there
07/17/01: The 'end of the beginning'
07/10/01: Testing President Bush
07/03/01: Market transparency works
06/27/01: Which Bush will it be on missile defense?
06/19/01: Don't politicize military matters
06/05/01: It's called leadership
06/05/01: With friends like these ...
05/31/01: Which way on missile defense?
05/23/01: Pearl Harbor, all over again
05/15/01: A tale of two Horatios
05/08/01: The real debate about missile defense
04/24/01: Sell aegis ships to Taiwan
04/17/01: The 'hi-tech for China' bill
04/10/01: Deal on China's hostages -- then what?
04/03/01: Defense fire sale redux
03/28/01: The defense we need
03/21/01: Critical mass
03/13/01: The Bush doctrine
03/08/01: Self-Deterred from Defending America
02/27/01: Truth and consequences for Saddam
02/21/01: Defense fire sale
02/13/01: Dubya's Marshall Plan
02/05/01: Doing the right thing on an 'Arab-Arab dispute'
01/30/01: The missile defense decision
01/23/01: The Osprey as Phoenix
01/17/01: Clinton's Parting Shot at Religious Freedom
01/09/01: Wake-up call on space
01/02/01: Secretary Rumsfeld
12/27/00: Redefining our Ukraine policy
12/19/00: Deploy missile defense now
12/12/00: Sabotaging space power
12/05/00: Preempting Bush
11/28/00: What Clinton hath wrought
11/21/00: HE'S BAAAACK
11/14/00: The world won't wait

© 2001, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.