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.After all, the Libyan airstrikes worked out so well.
Although the Saudis and others in the region have been supplying weapons to the rebels since the fighting in Syria began more than two years ago and have cooperated with a slow-starting CIA operation to train and arm the opposition, officials said they have largely given up on the United States as the leader and coordinator of their efforts.
What did they expect from President I-Voted-Present?
Unhappiness over Syria is only one element of what officials said are varying degrees of disenchantment in the region with much of the administration's Middle East
Secretary of State John F. Kerry arrives in Saudi Arabia on Sunday on a hastily arranged visit -- to include his first-ever meeting with King Abdullah on Monday -- that is designed to smooth increasingly frayed U.S. relations with the kingdom.
Sending a pea-shooter to a gunfight.
Kerry will also stop in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Israel, all of which have expressed concerned at what they see as a weakened U.S. posture in the region. The 11-day trip also includes visits to the West Bank, Poland, Algeria and Morocco.
Poland? Does Big Jahwn think that's in the Middle East? Or maybe he's looking to pick up a little sausage?
Officials in several countries that had pledged to support a U.S. strike on Syrian targets after confirmation that President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons described their stunned reaction to Obama's abrupt decision in late August to cancel the operation just days before its planned launch so he could
"We agreed to everything that we were asked as part of what was going to take place," said a senior Saudi official reached by telephone in the kingdom. Instead of the 10-to-12-hour warning before launch that the Americans had promised, the official said that Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan "did not know about the cancellation. We found out about it from CNN."
Didn't Eddie Snowden tell you?
Although the current policy differences are unlikely to be resolved soon, if at all, the Saudis derive part of their standing as a regional leader from their close ties to Washington. Kerry's visit, in large part, is designed to publicly stroke that aspect of the Saudi image.Sunni Saudi Arabia has no interest in reaching out to Shiite Iran, which it sees as its primary rival for influence in the region. The Saudis are convinced that the United States is so eager to make a deal with Iran that it has already signed on to an arrangement that its allies in the region -- including Israel -- are sure to disapprove of.
Maybe Champ is looking to add peace with Iran to his legacy.
"Absolutely," the senior Saudi official said.
The Saudis, who see Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood as a threat, believe the administration is hypocritical in its concern that the military rulers who overthrew Morsi are using too heavy a hand in cracking down on Morsi's Brotherhood organization. The United States, said one gulf official, expressed little concern over similar abuses under Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whom the United States supported before he was overthrown in early 2011.
Yeah, but that was a Bush doctrine, not the new Hopey-Changey Doctrine. You guys gotta get with the program!
With new U.S. arms shipments to Egypt suspended, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait have given the new Egyptian government $12 billion
While the United States and its gulf allies share the same objectives in the region -- a stable Egypt, a non-nuclear Iran and a peaceful Syria without Assad -- one official said those allies have concluded that none of those objectives will be reached with Obama's current policy.
That's because there is no policy except the reduction of American power and prestige.