{"id":236,"date":"2007-01-30T12:16:18","date_gmt":"2007-01-30T17:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=236"},"modified":"2007-01-30T14:49:58","modified_gmt":"2007-01-30T19:49:58","slug":"a-house-divided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=236","title":{"rendered":"A House Divided"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>James Baker<\/title><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehill.com\/thehill\/export\/TheHill\/News\/Frontpage\/013007\/baker.html\"> James Baker&#8217;s testimony<\/a> before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee  promises to once again bring into focus the ongoing significance of US foreign  policy factionalism, both in relation to Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, etc.<\/p>\n<p>That factionalism appears to have divided many long-time friends of the House  of Saud.\u00c2\u00a0 The House of Saud continues to show <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=226\">similar signs of stress<\/a>  although it is far from clear how much the Saudi fissures are developing  autonomously and how much they are being cultivated by US factions.\u00c2\u00a0 I  suppose there is also a scenario that would have US factionalism cultivated by  the Saudis, although I do not find this particularly plausible.<\/p>\n<p>I would continue to code the Baker faction of Right Arabists as allied with  Saudi King Abdullah, <span class=\"lead\">Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal<\/span>,  and Prince Turki al-Faisal, the recently recalled Saudi Ambassador to the US.\u00c2\u00a0  This Baker\/Faisal faction <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpost.com\/servlet\/Satellite?cid=1167467847854&#038;pagename=JPost\/JPArticle\/ShowFull\"> continues to try to mediate strained relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0  Right Arabists at the New America Foundation, including <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=213\">Flynt Leverett<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewashingtonnote.com\/archives\/001825.php\">Steven Clemons<\/a>  appear very <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newamerica.net\/pressroom\/2006\/afp_quotes_steven_clemons_on_saudi_ambassadors_resignation\"> closely aligned with the faction<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Iran hawks are represented by the Cheney coalition of Right Arabists and  Right Zionists and appear allied with Prince Bandar and his father, Saudi  Defense Minister and Crown Prince, <span class=\"txtmn\">Sultan Bin Abdulaziz.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"txtmn\">A recent newspaper interview with Saudi King Abdullah  prompted some strikingly different interpretations.\u00c2\u00a0 The <em>Financial Times<\/em>  suggested that the King had issued <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/529420f8-aef1-11db-a446-0000779e2340.html\">a  stark warning to Iran<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 But &#8220;Badger&#8221;&#8211;the Arab press translator over at  Missing Links&#8211;offered up <a href=\"http:\/\/arablinks.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/saudi-king-stakes-out-his-position.html\"> a very different interpretation<\/a> that emphasized reconciliation between Iran  and Saudi Arabia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"txtmn\">More recently, Badger notes that his interpretation is  actively contested by <\/span>Mamoun Fandy<span class=\"txtmn\">.\u00c2\u00a0 Badger  describes Fandy as a &#8220;Saudi bigshot,&#8221; a columnist for <\/span>Asharq al-Awsat,  and a former senior fellow at the James A Baker III Institute of Public Policy.\u00c2\u00a0  [Are there other &#8220;former&#8221; Baker Institute Fellows who side with Cheney on Iran?\u00c2\u00a0  Or does Fandy&#8217;s link to the Baker crowd imply that Baker is not quite so dovish  on Iran after all?\u00c2\u00a0 Or is Fandy simply <em>interpreting<\/em> but not <em> endorsing<\/em> the King&#8217;s remarks?]<\/p>\n<p>Badger doesn&#8217;t say much in his post about the larger factional context, but I  think it emerges from his discussion of the Fandy article.\u00c2\u00a0 Badger <a href=\"http:\/\/arablinks.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/saudi-bigshot-presents-hard-line.html\"> writes\/translates\/paraphrases<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Fandy says the king&#8217;s whole point in talking about an &#8220;unsatisfactory  \tsituation&#8221; in the Middle East was to warn Iran: First against  \tunderestimating the danger it is facing from the United States; and second  \tagainst the consequences of its continued involvement in Palestine&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It was on account of the seriousness of the situation, Fandy says, that  \tthe king sent Prince Bandar to Tehran for talks. Bandar is the person that  \tis used when a tough message has to be presented bluntly and unvarnished. He  \tis like Cheney in that respect, Fandy explains&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>[T]he king referred in the interview to &#8220;nests&#8221; or &#8220;dens&#8221;&#8211;Fandy doesn&#8217;t  \tquote the exact interview remarks here&#8211;but Fandy says this is a reference  \tto &#8220;cancerous colonies&#8221; broadcasting on internet sites of unknown origin  \tdeceptive and lying reports about Arab affairs, and more than that, they  \thave penetrated <strong>Arab news (outlets) &#8220;including the official ones&#8221; with  \tthe aim of upsetting regional stability, and making it appear that any Arab  \teffort to stand up to Iran is merely a case of doing America&#8217;s bidding<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It is possible that Fandy&#8217;s remark about penetration of Arab news outlets  \t&#8220;including the official ones&#8221; is tantamount to <strong>an admission that the  \tFandy hard-line position isn&#8217;t the only position, even within the sphere of  \tSaudi officialdom<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Indeed, Fandy&#8217;s position is almost certainly <em>not<\/em> the only position  within Saudi officialdom.\u00c2\u00a0 Hence the signs of factional strife, with Iraq,  Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and more hanging in the balance.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Baker James Baker&#8217;s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee promises to once again bring into focus the ongoing significance of US foreign policy factionalism, both in relation to Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, etc. That factionalism appears to have divided many long-time friends of the House of Saud.\u00c2\u00a0 The House of Saud continues to show [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}