US President Barack Obama has learned a
lot about the camera's eye over his six and a half years in office,
but it won't be until Tuesday night that reporters will see whether
he's learned to balance image with diplomacy.
On Tuesday, Obama will make a detour
from India to Riyadh to pay his final respects to the late King
Abdullah and offer condolences to his half-brother, the new King
Salman bin Abdulaziz. With luck, Crown Prince Muqrin will be by
Salman's side.
Obama was smart enough on Sunday to
realize that as important to America as Asia is, Saudia Arabia and
its central role in the Middle East is absolutely key. Nor is he
unaware of the fact that as it is, he is not in the best odor
possible with the royal family in Riyadh.
So as much as he wanted to see the Taj
Mahal and strengthen ties with India, he courteously explained the
situation and penciled in a trip to Mecca. Too late for apologies to
the late monarch, he will now have to continue the efforts he began
during his last trip to Riyadh and try to explain his latest actions
to the new king and his advisers.
Abdullah was disappointed with his
American protege, from whom he clearly expected better when he first
took office and made his first visit abroad to bow to the king.
The United States under Obama frankly –
to coin a phrase – “made a mess of things” in the Middle East.
Starting with Obama's 2009 Cairo speech, America's foreign policy in
the region resembles nothing so much as that of a 3-year-old wielding
an AK-47, fully loaded.
In fact, he touched off the absolute
conflagration in the Middle East that became what locals referred to
euphemistically as the “Arab Spring.” Nations are still reeling
from the hurricane. Endless murders, rivers of blood and more than
four fallen regimes later, the region is still more tense as a coiled
spring than refreshed as that December 2010 “Arab Spring” was to
be.
Obama had started reaching out to
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad well before he was even elected to
the White House, and by the time he entered the Oval Office he was
all set to send a new ambassador to Damascus. Never mind that Assad was
systematically torturing and murdering his own people. Not to mention playing with his scattered arsenals of illicit chemical weapons of mass
destruction.
(Of course, Obama's new ambassador –
and his embassy – didn't last very long. Crimes against humanity
don't go down very well with the American public. American officials
who insist on poking their noses into Syrian affairs don't do well in
Damascus, either.)
Nor did Obama seem overly concerned
that Saudi King Abdullah was concerned over America's interest in the
Assad regime. Ditto for the king's concern over Obama's behavior in
Cairo, where he stomped on Egyptian presidential hospitality in muddy
shoes, inviting top officials of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to
sit in front row seats during his speech.
How could President Hosni Mubarak be
expected to even attend the event where his own mortal enemies,
outlawed for decades, were invited by the leader of the free world in
his own capital city?
One must assume that Obama's Middle
East adviser had already told him what the ramifications of that
would be, so either it was a deliberately provocative chess move, or
his adviser was incredibly stupid. Or both.
What message did Obama's behavior send
to Muslim extremists in Egypt, and to the average grassroots
Egyptian? Abdullah was horrified and exasperated at Obama's
stupidity. Later he was sad but unsurprised at the Arab Spring
washing ashore in Cairo to pull Mubarak from his seat. He made very
sure, however, that it did not wash away his own throne.
(One might be prompted to wonder about
Obama's relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, given that
scenario, and some of those that followed. One example is Obama's
order to cut off the new administration of President Abdel Fattah
el-Sisi after he deposed Muslim Brotherhood-backed former president
Mohammed Morsi a year after election to office. It took some time for
Washington's ire to thaw, despite the fact that millions of Egyptians
had supported the coup. And it's not as if Washington has ever been
finicky about supporting dictators or military generals who depose
others. Assad was and is no angel.)
Even Obama's brash insistence that he
could and would find a way to bring Israel and the Palestinian
Authority “to their senses” at the negotiating table to find
peace made no sense, as the more experienced king knew.
But what concerned the late Saudi king
most of all in diplomatic discussions was America's move towards
Iran. Obama was and still remains convinced that “talks” will win
the day. He appears to believe diplomacy will bring an
“understanding” between Tehran and world powers that its nuclear
development program must have limits.
What Obama does not understand – and
what the average American diplomat rarely understands about most
rulers in the Middle East – is that agreements are almost never
worth the paper they are written on. If one is very lucky, they may
last as long as the whim of the person who signed the agreement,
maybe. One has to secure such agreements with more than just
diplomacy.
One creates security in the Middle East
only by moving the pieces on the chessboard, as the old Saudi king
well knew. This is something he tried very hard to explain to the
younger American president, but it is a culture code that he never
seems to have understood – or simply chose to ignore, to the peril
of those living in the region and ultimately even his own people back
home.
Nuclear power is not something to
trifle with – not in the hands of the fickle extremist Islamist
Shi'ite Iranian government and certainly not in the hands of the
radical Islamist terrorists to whom they will definitely gift their
powerful weapons once they have created them.
More than half a century ago, two
single atomic bombs wiped out two entire cities half a world away.
The fallout has taken forever to address. Literally.
Now Iran is racing towards the very
same technology and Obama is still allowing Tehran to stall for time
and talk about it until they can secure it.
No wonder the Saudis are worried. King
Abdullah left this world deeply concerned about this problem, and
over the past several years began to form interfaith ties in an
effort never before seen from a Saudi monarch.
Here is a possible reason why:
Consider the rise of a new Persian
Empire fueled by nuclear weapons of mass destruction and possibly
even backed by an updated Ottoman Emirate armed by the Muslim
Brotherhood. Now add to that a rogue Islamic State masquerading as a
Caliphate and deciding it's time to capture Mecca, the seat of
ultimate Islamic authority.
Suddenly it was Saudi Arabia that came
to the aid of Egypt in brokering a ceasefire between Israel and
Gaza's ruling Hamas terror organization, keeping its Muslim
Brotherhood backers along with Qatar and Turkey at bay.
Saudi Arabia reined in its resistance
to military force and likewise suddenly sent its air force pilots to
join the US-led coalition in fighting against the Islamic State in
Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist organization.
That's essential, because to its south,
the Iranian-backed Shi'ite Houthi rebels have just completed a coup
against the Yemeni government and the palace is in the hands of the
Houthi tribe.
Iran also now effectively controls
Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Saudi Arabia's two longest borders reach
along Yemen and Iraq – both controlled now by Iran and the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group. Via Iraq, Iran has a
direct land route to Saudi Arabia, in fact, should it choose to
attempt an invasion. But even if not, Tehran already has a good head
start on the resurrection of a Persian Empire. All that's missing is
the ultimate weapon.
The Saudis are terrified that Obama, in
his naivete, may allow Tehran to reach that goal. It will be up to
the American president to convince the new Saudi monarch that he has
learned the harder lessons of Mideast diplomacy, the language of the
desert. Obama must be able to prove he can be trusted to keep his
allies – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and yes, even Israel – safe.
King Salman must be able to remember
whatever Obama says to him for long enough to at least repeat it to
whomever else in the kingdom needs to really know, for the new
monarch is already failing, and his time is limited. Suffering from
dementia, upon taking the throne Salman immediately named his
half-brother Muqrin Crown Prince, as his older half-brother Abdullah
had wisely directed prior to his death.
It may very well be that Muqrin will
join Salman for meetings, as did Abdullah with his older half-brother
Fahd in the final ten years of his reign, following the stroke that
felled him. That clearly would be in the best interests of all.
The stability and economy of the
kingdom will determine the stability of the region, because Saudi
Arabia is the largest exporter of oil in the world. Should that
supply or its transport be disturbed in any way, more than just the
Middle East will be at stake.
If Saudi Arabia fails, World War III
will look like a walk in the park.
