{"id":267,"date":"2007-03-30T05:56:01","date_gmt":"2007-03-30T10:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=267"},"modified":"2007-03-30T07:39:28","modified_gmt":"2007-03-30T12:39:28","slug":"trouble-with-abdullah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=267","title":{"rendered":"Trouble with Abdullah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>In several recent posts<\/title>In several recent posts (<a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=264\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=265\">here<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=266\">here<\/a>), I have been  speculating about growing tensions between King Abdullah and the Bush  administration.\u00c2\u00a0 At times, I thought I was going pretty far out on a limb.\u00c2\u00a0  Turns out&#8230; not very far at all.<\/p>\n<p>King Abdullah made <a href=\"http:\/\/www.middle-east-online.com\/english\/?id=20163\"><em>big<\/em> news<\/a>  at the Arab Summit meeting in Riyadh this week with a blast at US policy in  Iraq.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span id=\"intelliTXT\">&#8220;In beloved Iraq, blood is being shed among  \tbrothers in the shadow of <strong>an illegitimate foreign occupation<\/strong>, and  \tugly sectarianism threatens civil war,&#8221; Abdullah said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The King&#8217;s remark was also, implicitly, a swipe at the US-backed, Shiite-led  Iraqi government.\u00c2\u00a0 Needless to say, this did not escape the attention of <a href=\"http:\/\/jurnalo.com\/jurnalo\/storyPage.do?story_id=26438\">Iraqi officials<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshayr Zebari on Thursday rejected remarks by  \tSaudi Arabia that the US occupation of Iraq was illegal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t think there is an illegal occupation because these forces are  \tpresent and working according to international resolutions, and are accepted  \tby a representative elected Iraqi government,&#8221; Zebari said on the sidelines  \tof the Arab summit being held in Riyadh.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>At issue, among other things, is the legitimacy of the new balance of power  in Iraq that swept the Sunni Arab minority from power.<\/p>\n<p>Arab League foreign ministers at a side meeting of the summit <a href=\"http:\/\/archive.gulfnews.com\/articles\/07\/03\/27\/10114020.html\">adopted a  resolution<\/a> that seeks to redress the perceived imbalance in the Iraqi  security services and the political establishment.<\/p>\n<p>Again, Iraqi government officials seemed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.israelnationalnews.com\/News\/News.aspx\/122002\">miffed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Iraq&#8217;s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, called the League&#8217;s  \tdecision to call for changes in the Iraqi constitution that would tend to  \tfavor Sunni Muslims an &#8220;Arab diktat.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>All of this appears to fit well with the idea&#8211;suggested in <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=261\">an earlier post<\/a>&#8211;that  Abdullah represents a position that is relatively <a href=\"http:\/\/www.muslimnews.co.uk\/news\/news.php?article=12527\">soft on Iran<\/a>  but hard on Iraqi Shiite rule.<\/p>\n<p>It looks like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice knows that Abdullah, if not  the entire &#8220;Faisal&#8221; branch of the Saudi royal family, are all but lost to the  US.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/03\/30\/world\/middleeast\/30assess.html?_r=1&#038;ref=world&#038;oref=slogin\"> an article on the Arab Summit<\/a>, Helene Cooper of the <em>New York Times<\/em>  doesn&#8217;t make any mention of factionalism within the Saudi royal family, but does  report that Rice bypassed Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal, turning instead to Adel  al-Jubeir, a figure traditionally thought to be closer to Prince Bandar.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were a little surprised to see those remarks,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d R. Nicholas Burns, the  \tunder secretary of state for political affairs, told a Senate hearing,  \treferring to the statement by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the opening  \tof an Arab League summit meeting in Riyadh on Wednesday. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We disagree with  \tthem.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scheduled a telephone call with Saudi  \tArabia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, who was traveling  \tto Riyadh, an administration official said.<\/p>\n<p>The official said the <strong>State Department had resisted going straight to Ms.  \tRice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s counterpart, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal<\/strong>, so as to try to  \tlower the temperature of the rhetoric. He said Ms. Rice planned to question  \tMr. Jubeir about the Saudi monarch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remarks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Cooper seems to be overlooking some of the factionalism that runs through all  of this.\u00c2\u00a0 Consider, for example, Cooper&#8217;s depiction of King Abdullah&#8217;s  relations with Cheney:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In fact, King Abdullah has warned American officials, including Vice  \tPresident Dick Cheney, that Saudi Arabia might provide financial backing to  \tIraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Shiites if the United States pulled  \tits troops out of Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>Last fall, as a growing chorus in Washington advocated a draw-down of  \tAmerican troops in Iraq, coupled with a diplomatic outreach to the largely  \tShiite Iran, Saudi Arabia, which considers itself the leader of the Sunni  \tArab world, argued strenuously against an American pullout from Iraq, citing  \tfears that Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s minority Sunni Arab population would be massacred.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Mention of the &#8220;warning&#8221; about backing Iraqi Sunnis almost certainly refers  to a now-famous<em> Washington Post <\/em>Op-Ed piece by Nawaf Obaid, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2006\/11\/28\/AR2006112801277.html\">Stepping  Into Iraq<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=261\">a previous post on  Nawaf Obaid<\/a> (and again, <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=264\">here<\/a>), however, I  argued that Obaid was almost certainly <em>not<\/em>  representing King Abdullah or his faction within the Saudi royal family.\u00c2\u00a0  Indeed, I think a strong case could be made that Obaid was speaking for Prince  Bandar, if not Bandar&#8217;s father, Saudi Defense Minister Crown Prince Sultan.<\/p>\n<p>If I am correct about the nature of the factional split, the Bandar crowd  represents something like the opposite of the Abdullah position: they are <em> hawkish on Iran<\/em> and potentially reconciled to the prospect of Sistani-led  Shiite rule in Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 They are Cheney&#8217;s Saudis.<\/p>\n<p>All of which means that at least some in the US may not only be increasingly  uncomfortable with Saudi King Abdullah but may also have strong preferences for  Crown Prince Sultan.<\/p>\n<p>To borrow <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/pubID.13383\/pub_detail.asp\">a map of  Saudi factionalism<\/a> from Cheney&#8217;s Middle East guru, David Wurmser, Crown  Prince Sultan allegedly represents something like the &#8220;King Fahd&#8221; branch of the  Saudi family.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile, King Abdullah and his allies&#8211;Foreign Minister  Faisal and former Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki&#8211;appear to represent something  like the &#8220;Faisal&#8221; branch of the family.<\/p>\n<p>According to Wurmser, all the trouble stems from the &#8220;Faisal&#8221; branch of the  family.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1970s, there was a previous Saudi King from the &#8220;Faisal&#8221; branch.\u00c2\u00a0  In 1975, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/onthisday\/hi\/dates\/stories\/march\/25\/newsid_4233000\/4233595.stm\"> he was assassinated<\/a>, under murky circumstances, by a nephew recently  returned from the United States.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In several recent postsIn several recent posts (here, here, and here), I have been speculating about growing tensions between King Abdullah and the Bush administration.\u00c2\u00a0 At times, I thought I was going pretty far out on a limb.\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out&#8230; not very far at all. King Abdullah made big news at the Arab Summit meeting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,3,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267"}],"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=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}