“Proxy” War No More: Qatar Threatens Military Intervention In Syria Alongside “Saudi, Turkish Brothers”
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
10/22/2015
Earlier this week, Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir had the following message for Tehran:
“We wish that Iran would change its policies and stop meddling in the affairs of other countries in the region, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. We will make sure that we confront Iran’s actions and shall use all our political, economic and military powers to defend our territory and people.”
In short, Riyadh and its allies in Doha and the UAE are uneasy about the fact that the P5+1 nuclear deal is set to effectively remove Iran from the pariah state list just as Tehran is expanding its regional influence via its Shiite militias in Iraq, the ground operation in Syria, and through the Houthis in Yemen.
Thanks to the fact that Tehran has more of an arm’s length relationship with the Houthis than it does with Hezbollah and its proxy armies in Iraq, the Saudis have been able to effectively counter anti-Hadi forces in Yemen without risking a direct conflict with Iran, but make no mistake, Sana’a is not the prize here. Yemen is a side show. The real fight is for the political future of Syria and for control of Iraq once the US finally packs up and leaves for good. Iran is winning on both of those fronts.
Over the last several weeks, we and others have suggested that one should not simply expect Washington, Riyadh, Ankara, and Doha to go gently into that good night in Syria after years of providing support for the various Sunni extremist groups fighting to destabilize the regime. There’s just too much at stake.
As noted on Tuesday, Assad’s ouster would have removed a key Iranian ally and cut off Tehran from Hezbollah. Not only would that outcome pave the way for deals like the Qatar-Turkey natural gas line, it would also cement Sunni control over the region on the way to dissuading Tehran at a time when the lifting of crippling economic sanctions is set to allow the Iranians to shed the pariah state label and return to the international stage not only in terms of energy exports, but in terms of diplomacy as well. Just about the last thing Riyadh wants to see ahead of Iran’s resurgence, is a powergrab on the doorstep of the Arabian peninsula.
Thanks to Washington’s schizophrenic foreign policy, there’s no effective way to counter Iran in Iraq but as Mustafa Alani, the Dubai-based director of National Security and Terrorism Studies at the Gulf Research Center told Bloomberg earlier this week, “The regional powers can give the Russians limited time to see if their intervention can lead to a political settlement — if not, there is going to be a proxy war.”
That’s not entirely accurate. There’s already a proxy war and the dangerous thing about it is that thanks to the fact that Iran is now overtly orchestrating the ground operation, one side of the “SAA vs. rebels” proxy label has been removed. Now it’s “Iran-Russia vs. rebels” which means we’re just one degree of separation away from a direct confrontation between NATO’s regional allies in Riyadh and Doha and the Russia-Iran “nexus.” Here’s Bloomberg with more on the Saudi’s predicament:
Powerful Saudi clerics are calling for a response to the Russian move, even though the kingdom is already bogged down in another war in Yemen. Analysts say the Saudi government will probably speed up the flow of cash and weapons to its allies in the opposition fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, who’s also supported by Saudi Arabia’s main rival, Iran.
While the Saudis may seek to direct their aid to “moderate forces” in Syria, “the definition of this word is subject to much debate,” said Theodore Karasik, a Dubai-based political analyst. Sending arms “is dangerous in the medium term because of how easily weapons can fall into the wrong hands,” he said.
The Rest…HERE
