WASHINGTON, Nov 30: The deteriorating situation in Iraq has put a strain on Washington's relations with Saudi Arabia, a top Middle East ally seeking greater US involvement in the region to counter Iran's influence.
An adviser to the Sunni-dominated Saudi kingdom warned on Wednesday that if US troops withdraw from Iraq, Riyadh could arm Iraq's Sunni minority in the face of similar aid from Iran to Iraqi Shia.
A top aid to President George W. Bush, meanwhile, reportedly recommended that the administration pressure Saudi Arabia into using its influence to convince Sunnis to stop resorting to violence.
Nawaf Obaid, a security adviser to the Saudi ambassador in the United States, wrote in a Washington Post column that a US pullout from Iraq would lead to “massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shia militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis.” “Options now include providing Sunni military leaders with the same types of assistance -- funding, arms and logistical support -- that Iran has been giving to Shia armed groups for years,” wrote Obaid.
“To turn a blind eye to the massacre of Iraqi Sunnis would be to abandon the principles upon which the kingdom was founded. It would undermine Saudi Arabia's credibility in the Sunni world and would be a capitulation to Iran's militarist actions in the region,” he wrote.
Obaid said Saudi King Abdullah has fended off “intense” pressure to provide financial and arms support for Iraq's Sunnis from Sunni leaders inside Saudi Arabia and around the Middle East.
But Obaid said Abdullah pledged to Bush that he would not intervene, despite the rise in bloody sectarian reprisal killings between Iraq's majority Shia and Sunnis, in what some describe as a civil war.
Bush has so far rejected mounting calls for a troop withdrawal from Iraq.
Obaid's column, which he said reflected his own views and not the Saudi government's, appeared as Bush was in Amman to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to discuss Iraq's sectarian violence. The meeting was postponed from Wednesday to Thursday.
It also came just days after US Vice President Dick Cheney flew to Riyadh to consult with the Saudi ruler on Iraq.
Little information has leaked from Cheney's meeting with the king, but Steve Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation think-tank, said Obaid's article is likely indicated the message conveyed by Abdullah.
“Obaid is a personal national security adviser to Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Turki al-Faisal and what he is writing is no doubt the public version of what King Abdullah told Cheney when the VP was summoned to Riyadh,” Clemons wrote in his Internet blog, “The Washington Note”. The United States may also press Saudi Arabia on Iraq.
Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, wrote in a memorandum on Iraq quoted by The New York Times that the United States should “step up efforts to get Saudi Arabia to take a leadership role in supporting Iraq by using its influence to move Sunni populations out of violence into politics” The administration could connect “this role with other areas in which Saudi Arabia wants to see US action,” Hadley's Nov 8 memo said, suggesting that Washington could link its involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Saudi engagement in Iraq.
Saudi Arabia, usually discreet about its private discussions with US officials, has also begun showing signs of impatience toward US diplomacy in the Middle East.
The Saudi government urged the United States on Monday to pursue fair and stabilizing policies in the conflict-ridden region.
US influence should be used in a manner “compatible with the realities of the region and its historic balances” and “supportive of its stability,” said a statement carried by the state SPA news agency.
Washington should “seek equitable ways of helping end the conflicts” of the area, it added.
Saudi Arabia also said “it was time to take seriously the call for an international conference” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Riyadh has repeatedly made in recent weeks.—AFP
