http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-22/lack-syrian-aggression-will-not-stand-man-saudis-bandar-bin-sultan-furious-us
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/22/2013 07:31 -0400
3. Major Russian-Iranian arms deals will be a precedent for important weapons transactions brokered by Saudi Arabia with Egypt. Moscow sees the shape of a weapons-trading triangle that could be exploited in the future for Russia to serve in the role of mediator between Riyadh and Tehran.
Tehran has put in special requests for massive Russian technological assistance for upgrading its missile industry by extending the range of their ballistic missiles and improving their precision. The Iranians also see a chance to renovate their aging air force and have applied for Russian fighters, interceptors, transports and refueling planes as well as training facilities for air force flight crews.
After Moscow refused to deliver them advanced S-300 anti-air missile systems, the Iranians set up programs for developing home-made products. They claim to have built their own S-200 interceptor missiles and are offering to shell out hefty sums for the purchase of new Russian technology to improve them.
This Lack Of Syrian Aggression Will Not Stand, Man: Saudi's Bandar Bin Sultan Furious At US
That Saudi Arabia has been furious at the US for refusing to be the monarchy's puppet Globocop, and in the last minute declining to bomb Syria following Putin's gambit in which World War III seemed a distinctly possible consequence of John Kerry's hamheaded "YouTube-substantiated" false flag campaign, is no secret. However, while the US has largely forgotten this latest foreign policy debacle and the humiliation it brought upon the Department of State, Saudi Arabia is nowhere close to forgetting. Or forgiving. And this time the anger comes from the one man who truly matters, and whom we dubbed several months ago as the puppetmaster behind the Syrian campaign:the man in charge of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan.
The WSJ reports overnight, that Prince Bandar told European diplomats this weekend that he plans to scale back cooperating with the U.S. to arm and train Syrian rebels in protest of Washington's policy in the region, participants in the meeting said. This demonstratively framed announcement follows Saudi Arabia's surprise decision on Friday to renounce a seat on the United Nations Security Council. "The Saudi government, after preparing and campaigning for the seat for a year, cited what it said was the council's ineffectiveness in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian and Syrian conflicts."
In short: Bin Sultan has decided to take the stage and make it quite clear that this lack of aggression by the US will not stand. The question is: what can or will he do?
Diplomats here said Prince Bandar, who is leading the kingdom's efforts to fund, train and arm rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, invited a Western diplomat to the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah over the weekend to voice Riyadh's frustration with the Obama administration and its regional policies, including the decision not to bomb Syria in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons in August."This was a message for the U.S., not the U.N.," Prince Bandar was quoted by diplomats as specifying of Saudi Arabia's decision to walk away from the Security Council membership....U.S. officials said they interpreted Prince Bandar's message to the Western diplomat as an expression of discontent designed to push the U.S. in a different direction. "Obviously he wants us to do more," said a senior U.S. official.
Obviously. What is odd is that the "proxy" intelligence chief appears to have usurped foreign policy decision-making from the Saudi king himself.
Top decisions in Saudi Arabia come from the king, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud, and it isn't known if Prince Bandar's reported remarks reflected a decision by the monarch, or an effort by Prince Bandar to influence the king. However, the diplomats said, Prince Bandar told them he intends to roll back a partnership with the U.S. in which the Central Intelligence Agency and other nations' security bodies have covertly helped train Syrian rebels to fight Mr. Assad, Prince Bandar said, according to the diplomats. Saudi Arabia would work with other allies instead in that effort, including Jordan and France, the prince was quoted as saying.
If there was any confusion that the entire Syrian campaign was purely at the behest of the Qataris and the Saudis as we first suggested in May, it can finally be put to bed.
The monarchy was particularly angered by Mr. Obama's decision to scrap plans to bomb Syria in response to the alleged chemical-weapons attack in August and, more recently, tentative overtures between Mr. Obama and Iran's new president.Diplomats and officials familiar with events recounted two previously undisclosed episodes during the buildup to the aborted Western strike on Syria that allegedly further unsettled the Saudi-U.S. relationship.In the run-up to the expected U.S. strikes, Saudi leaders asked for detailed U.S. plans for posting Navy ships to guard the Saudi oil center, the Eastern Province, during any strike on Syria, an official familiar with that discussion said. The Saudis were surprised when the Americans told them U.S. ships wouldn't be able to fully protect the oil region, the official said.Disappointed, the Saudis told the U.S. that they were open to alternatives to their long-standing defense partnership, emphasizing that they would look for good weapons at good prices, whatever the source, the official said.In the second episode, one Western diplomat described Saudi Arabia as eager to be a military partner in what was to have been the U.S.-led military strikes on Syria. As part of that, the Saudis asked to be given the list of military targets for the proposed strikes. The Saudis indicated they never got the information, the diplomat said...."The Saudis are very upset. They don't know where the Americans want to go," said a senior European diplomat not in Riyadh.
To be sure, not just Prccne Bandar is angry - everyone else in Saudi is now fuming at Obama too:
In Washington in recent days, Saudi officials have privately complained to U.S. lawmakers that they increasingly feel cut out of U.S. decision-making on Syria and Iran. A senior American official described the king as "angry."Another senior U.S. official added: "Our interests increasingly don't align."
Fair enough: but what can it do? It is no secret, that as the primary hub of the petrodollar system which is instrumental to keeping the dollar's reserve status, Saudi has no choice but to cooperate with the US, or else risk even further deterioration of the USD reserve status. A development which would certainly please China... and Russia, both of which are actively engaging in Plan B preparations for the day when the USD is merely the latest dethroned reserve currency on the scrap heap of all such formerly world-dominant currencies.
Perhaps the only party that Saudi can lash out at, since it certainly fears escalating its animosity with the US even more, is Russia. And perhaps it did yesterday, when as we reported, a suicide-bombing terrorist incident captured on a dashcam killed many people, and was supposedly organized by an Islamist extremist - of the kind that Bandar told Putin several months ago are controlled and funded by Saudi intelligence chief.
If true, and if Saudi wants to project its impotence vis-a-vis the US by attacking Russia, this will likely culminate with the Sochi winter Olympics. So will Prince Bandar be crazy enough to take on none other than the former KGB chief? And more importantly, just like in the US Syrian fiasco, what happens when and if Putin retaliates against the true power that holds the USD in place?
http://www.debka.com/article/23376/Russia-and-Iran-expanding-military-cooperation-and-arms-trade
In his four-day trip to Tehran, Russian Air Force Chief Gen. Viktor Bondarev and his hosts, Brig. Gen. Hassan Shasafi and other senior Iranian military chiefs, laid the groundwork for a series of agreements to upgrade their military ties to a level unprecedented in their past relations. DEBKAfile’s military and Iranian sources report that Iran is deliberately accentuating those ties as a message to the Western powers that if they give the Islamic Republic a hard time over its nuclear program, it will go all the way to a full-dress defense pact with Russia.
Moscow has its own reasons for being keen to expand its military ties with Tehran:
1. Signing defense accords and arms transactions with Iran will give Russia its first serious military foothold in the Persian Gulf;
2. Moscow is not only seeking to compete with the US military presence in the Gulf but also displace America and China in the weapons markets of the Middle East.
3. Major Russian-Iranian arms deals will be a precedent for important weapons transactions brokered by Saudi Arabia with Egypt. Moscow sees the shape of a weapons-trading triangle that could be exploited in the future for Russia to serve in the role of mediator between Riyadh and Tehran.
These are long term strategic goals for the Kremlin.
Iran additionally keeps at the front of its mind the potential for an Israeli or American military strike on its nuclear program if the diplomatic track runs into the sand – especially since the Islamic regime has no intention of giving up what it considers its right to develop nuclear power and enrich uranium.
That is the truth behind the make-believe posture in some Western circles that Iran offered the Geneva conference last week a list of concessions on its nuclear program.
Tehran has put in special requests for massive Russian technological assistance for upgrading its missile industry by extending the range of their ballistic missiles and improving their precision. The Iranians also see a chance to renovate their aging air force and have applied for Russian fighters, interceptors, transports and refueling planes as well as training facilities for air force flight crews.
After Moscow refused to deliver them advanced S-300 anti-air missile systems, the Iranians set up programs for developing home-made products. They claim to have built their own S-200 interceptor missiles and are offering to shell out hefty sums for the purchase of new Russian technology to improve them.
The visiting Russian air force chief therefore had plenty to discuss with his Iranian hosts. Especially significant was his visit Monday, Oct. 21 to the Iranian anti-air command at Khatam Al-Anbiya and his conversation with its head, Brig. Gen. Farzad Esmaili.
Israel also upset.......
Would Israel ‘Go It Alone’ & Bomb Iran Amid Warmed Relations With US?
John Glaser, October 21, 2013
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is really upset that the U.S. and Iran seem to be getting closer to rapprochement. But would Israel go ahead and bomb Iran, as it has long threatened, without a green light from the U.S.?
Iran is in the process of offering significant concessions on its nuclear program and asking in return for the U.S. to recognize its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes and to lift economic sanctions. A simple deal, it appears. But, asks Uri Sadotof the Council on Foreign Relations, “With the renewed negotiations in place, will Israel dare strike a Middle Eastern nation in defiance of its closest allies?”
“It seems unlikely,” Sadot answers, “but 32 years ago, the answer was yes.”
On June 7, 1981, Israel launched Operation Opera. A squadron of fighter planes flew almost 1,000 miles over Saudi and Iraqi territory to bomb a French-built plutonium reactor on the outskirts of Baghdad, which Israeli leaders feared would be used by Saddam Hussein to build atomic bombs.The operation was successful, but the international reaction was severe. On the morning following the attack, the United States condemned Israel, suggesting it had violated U.S. law by using American-made military equipment in its assault. State Department spokesman Dean Fischerreiterated the American position that the reactor did not pose a potential security threat, and White House press secretary Larry Speakesadded that President Ronald Reagan had personally approved the condemnation.Israel didn’t hesitate back then to bomb what it viewed as a threatening nuclear program, even at the risk of provoking a conflict with the United States — and it will likely not hesitate today.
First, the notion that “the operation was successful” is dubious.
“To begin with, Hussein was not on the brink of a bomb in 1981,” writes Colin Kahl, for Obama administration deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. Saddam “Hussein had not decided to launch a full-fledged weapons program prior to the Israeli strike.”
“By demonstrating Iraq’s vulnerability,” Kahl explains, “the attack on Osirak actually increased Hussein’s determination to develop a nuclear deterrent,” and Iraq followed up by kicking out UN inspectors and reconstituting a nuclear weapons program in earnest (only to have it virtually destroyed in a 1991 war with the US).
But the point remains, Israel will embrace it’s rogue status if it wants to. This was demonstrated again in 2007, when Israel bombed a nuclear reactor in Syria despite opposition to the strike from President George W. Bush.
Hopefully, U.S.-Iranian rapprochement won’t be the driving force behind an Israeli decision to preventively bomb Iran. The consequences of such a strike would be disastrous. To start with, it would be a grave war crime. It would also ensure the Iranian hardliners who oppose détente win over the moderates like Rouhani, thus immediately rendering the historic U.S.-Iran negotiations kaput.
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