Al-Waleed bin Talal: Saudi and “Israeli” Interests in Parallel
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Influential Saudi royal Prince al-Waleed bin Talal uncovered his fears from Saudi Arabia's American ally, assuring KSA's displeasure with the US policy and harmony with "Israel" particularly towards the Middle East.
"The US has to have a foreign policy. Well-defined, well-structured. You don't have it right now, unfortunately. It's just complete chaos. Confusion. No policy," he noted.
Members of the Saudi royal family have voiced their displeasure with the Obama administration's approach to the Middle East whether through private channels or recently in public, but the staunchest of these voices was al-Waleed's.
"America is shooting itself in the foot," he told the Wall Street Journal.
As for President Obama, his second term is "going downhill completely," he described, adding on several occasions the disclaimer that "this is the impression I have in Saudi Arabia."
Labelling relations as "strained", he said relations "are perhaps the worst breach since the 1980s fight over the proposed sale of US Awacs planes to the kingdom."
He also added there is a frequent Saudi complaint these days is that this White House doesn't listen to them or reveal its true intentions.
"Frankly speaking," al-Waleed pointed out, "during the first Obama term his communication was almost nil."
"Obama is very cold because he is very, very immersed in domestic policy," he told the source.
Al-Waleed said the Saudis are trying to put maximum pressure now on the United States not to succumb to what he described as the president of Iran's soft talk.
The Saudi ‘prince' endorses "Israeli" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's line to describe Sheikh Rouhani: "a wolf in sheep's clothing."
He notes this startling alliance of Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, custodian of Islam's holiest sites, and the Zionist state. "For the first time, Saudi Arabian interests and "Israel" are almost parallel," he noted enthusiastically adding "It's incredible."
Commenting on the Iran's nuclear file, he suggested "Riyadh underwrote Pakistan's atomic-bomb program and keeps the country's economy afloat with its largess. The arrangement with Pakistan is too strong to dismiss an almost overnight nuclearization of the Arab peninsula with their help."
The Saudi royals also blamed Washington for abandoning an old American friend in Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, who was deposed in February 2011.
For the record, al-Waleed thinks the Mubarak presidency was unsalvageable.
From the start of the Syrian conflict, Saudi and Qatari support flowed to the anti-Assad rebels.
Al-Waleed said Riyadh has upped its weapons supplies and training for the rebels but can't do as much as a superpower.
As the West stood aside, extremist factions in the rebel coalition strengthened and turned on each other. Some are linked to al Qaeda, "really savages," said al-Waleed.
He assured that Gulf money and weapons also went to the rebels.
Source: Wall Street Journal, edited by website team
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