An excerpt from,
"Syria: The Saudis Can Not Lead" Moon of Alabama, November 4:
Bob Woodward propagandizes for the Saudi prince Bandar in the Washington Post:
Persian Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia, are moving to strengthen their military support for Syrian rebels
and develop policy options independent from the United States in the
wake of what they see as a failure of U.S. leadership following
President Obama’s decision not to launch airstrikes against Syria,
according to senior gulf officials.
In another attempt to unify the Syrian opposition the Saudis want to
build a complete new external army with weapons from France and
Pakistani special force training. That army is then supposed to defeat
the Syrian government.
It is not going to work writes Carnegie's Yezid Sayigh:
This Saudi effort will only serve to further polarize the rebels. The main losers are likely to be the currently recognized leaders of the opposition—the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces and the allied Higher Military Council of the Free Syrian Army.
...
Unless the Saudi-supported rebels adhere to an agreed political strategy
and buy into being represented by the National Coalition, they are
likely to suffer the same lack of cohesion and capacity as those they
seek to supplant. And by funding its own chosen group of rebels, Saudi
Arabia too risks slamming shut its windows of opportunity and
undercutting its goals in Syria.
That prediction was quite good. The head of Revolutionary Military
Council of the so called Free Syrian Army, Abdul-Jabbar-Akidi just resigned. This came after his loss
of Safira and the reopening of the government supply line between
Damascus and Aleppo. Several Damascus suburbs were also recently cleared
of insurgency forces.
An excerpt from,
"The Saudi Leadership Crisis" by Madawi Al-Rasheed, Al Monitor, November 1:
Externally, Saudi Arabia has failed to recognize its limited capacities
when dealing with regional issues from the occupation of Iraq to the
recent Syrian crisis. As it has inflated its role in the region and sold
propaganda about this role to its own constituency, any setback is
immediately considered as threatening its stature. Saudis have been sold
a good amount of propaganda about their government’s commitment not
only to Arab causes, but also those of the Muslim world. Statistics
about its overseas spending on these causes make big news, but not
recently.
While in the past Saudis took for granted that their government should
help Arabs and Muslims, more recently they have begun to resent this
charity. The more they experience duress in meeting basic needs, the
more they question the logic of dedicating a considerable amount of
wealth to helping others. Why should new housing complexes be built in
neighboring countries as gifts from the Saudi government while more than
70% of Saudis do not own a house? Such legitimate questions have been
suppressed in the past but now ordinary citizens often ask them. Saudis
are more inclined to question their government’s logic in pursuing
charitable projects abroad as they become more aware of their own unmet
needs. They have also learned the hard way that patronizing the Arabs
has not always pacified them or turned them into straightforward
clients.
An excerpt from,
"Syria Kurds rout jihadists across northeast: monitor" AFP, November 4:
Kurdish fighters have driven jihadists from 19 towns and villages across
northeastern Syria in recent days, a week after capturing a key Iraqi
border crossing, a monitoring group said Monday.
The latest clashes came a week after Kurdish fighters seized the
Yaarubiyeh crossing on the Iraq border, which had been a key transit
point for arms and jihadist fighters carrying out attacks in both
countries.
An excerpt from,
"Turkey seizes huge chemical haul at Syria border" AFP, November 4:
Turkish authorities have seized a large
quantity of chemicals from a convoy trying to illegally enter the
country from Syria, which “could be transformed into weapons”, the army
said on Sunday.
The convoy of three vehicles
refused to stop as it attempted to illegally cross the border on
Saturday near the southeastern town Turkish town of Reyhanli, the army
said in a statement.
This last report is a bit dubious. The Jihadist terrorists who used chemical weapons on Syrian civilians earlier in the year have been protected by the Turkish government. Turkey is looking out for its own best interests in this particular case, but, no one should assume that it is worried about chemical weapons getting in the hands of al-Qaeda since it has looked the other way in the past.
