So it would appear Prince Turki read my post about how U.S. -- and hey, why not, Israeli -- support for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations would be a masterstroke. He wrote a stern op-ed arguing that the U.S. can either support statehood or lose all the Mideast credibility that the Obama administration has tried to earn Washington since taking office. It actually comes down to an outright threat:
The United States must support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations this month or risk losing the little credibility it has in the Arab world. If it does not, American influence will decline further, Israeli security will be undermined and Iran will be empowered, increasing the chances of another war in the region.
Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has. With most of the Arab world in upheaval, the “special relationship” between Saudi Arabia and the United States would increasingly be seen as toxic by the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, who demand justice for the Palestinian people.
Saudi leaders would be forced by domestic and regional pressures to adopt a far more independent and assertive foreign policy. Like our recent military support for Bahrain’s monarchy, which America opposed, Saudi Arabia would pursue other policies at odds with those of the United States, including opposing the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq and refusing to open an embassy there despite American pressure to do so. The Saudi government might part ways with Washington in Afghanistan and Yemen as well.
I don't like it when client states threaten their patrons. Don't like it when Netanyahu does it; and I definitely don't like it when Turki does it. So fuck him.
The overall advice, however, isn't actually bad:
The Palestinian statehood initiative is a chance to replace Oslo with a new paradigm based on state-to-state negotiations — a win-win proposition that makes the conflict more manageable and lays the groundwork for a lasting solution.
The only losers in this scenario would be Syria and Iran, pariah states that have worked tirelessly — through their support of Hamas and Hezbollah — to undermine the peace process.
Just absolutely true. Conservatives have told us since the Oslo process began that it was doomed and cloaked their objections to Palestinian statehood in a lack of faith in the peace process. Well, maybe Oslo is dead, so now state-to-state negotiations are the way forward. If Hamas doesn't like it, let it object to statehood and stare marginalization in the face.
The U.S. spends extraordinary amounts of money and prestige in the Arab world trying to pull it in directions that it doesn't want to go. Then it has to spend even more of each mitigating the negative consequences of that effort. Opposing Palestinian statehood would take that trend to the Nth degree. On the other hand, since the region at this point expects the U.S. to oppose statehood*, reversing course would likely send a shockwave of optimism through the Mideast. And you wanna talk about undermining al-Qaida's narrative, well...
I suppose another objection is to say that we shouldn't listen to Turki because the Saudi monarchy is craven, brutal, self-interested and irrelevant given the Arab Spring. I'll spot you the first three adjectives. But does anyone actually think that the Arab Spring makes what Turki writes less true?
* Object to this formulation? Think it's unfair? Think how it sounds in Arabic. And good luck explaining the U.S. objection to ...not statehood itself but the process through which statehood would be achieved... at the United Nations and throughout the Mideast.
"I don't like it when client states threaten their patrons."
Actually, in the context, this doesn't describe accurately what's happening. al Faisal knows that what he's 'threatening' is an END to Saudi's client-state status. He isn't threatening the US from the standpoint of a US state, he's threatening to effectively END that relationship. Recognizing that both states got some benefits and paid some costs for the 'special relationship', he's making it as clear as he can that there is a point where the cost-benefit analysis tilts in the negative direction, and at that point Saudi would have to look to their position in the region and make some decisions that the US would prefer they not make.
And as long as Washington continues it's bizarre Iran freakout, crediting a small, surrounded regional power with severe economic problems with the power to threaten the US, Saudi will not have any trouble convincing the US to continue to sell it modern weapons. So the risk to Riyadh in moving away from the US on Palestine and other regional issues is pretty limited...
Posted by: mikey | 09/12/2011 at 08:01 AM
* chuckle* so unless the US abrogates two treaties it's a signatory to (the Road Map and The Oslo Accords) and delivers Da Jooos, the Saudis aren't going to be our friends any more! And this ultimatum gets delivered the day after 9/11, no less...some 'ally'.
What a choice, eh? A perennially loyal ally like Israel or our old 'friends' the House of Saud!
We dealt harshly with the wrong countries after 9/11.
As for this puffed up desert brigand, the last thing he or his pals back in the KSA want or for us not to be their friends and watch Iran or insurgents in their own country gobble them up.
And one more thing.Whose gonna enforce creating another terrorist squat in 'Palestine'? The UN? NATO? They can't even topple Qaddaffi so far, and he was a lot less powerful than Israel and had no nuclear weapons.
Posted by: Rob Miller | 09/12/2011 at 06:51 PM