Turtle Bay was stunned Friday when Saudi Arabia, of all countries, slapped international diplomats in the face — and, without quite saying so explicitly, rebuked America’s Mideast policies.
Yes, one of the world’s most backward, hypocritical and secretive regimes just publicly shamed both the United Nations and President Obama.
Riyadh did so by saying — just a day after winning a UN Security Council seat that it had been campaigning for since 1998 — Hey, thanks, but no, thanks.
On Thursday, Abdallah Yahya al-Mouallimi, the Saudis’ UN ambassador, beamed as he said, “We look forward to working with the rest of the international community to help our Syrian brothers” gain their freedom as well as to deliver a Palestinian state and other noble goals.
But the next day, his bosses back in Riyadh announced that Mouallimi wouldn’t be warming the council seat after all. Why? The Saudi government vented at that, um, “international community” over its inaction and “double standards.”
The Saudi missive mostly targeted the council’s failure to address the region’s worst mess: “Allowing the ruling regime in Syria to kill its people and burn them with chemical weapons in front of the entire world, and without any deterrent or punishment, is clear proof and evidence of the UN Security Council’s inability to perform its duties and shoulder its responsibilities.”
Over the weekend, the Arab group at the United Nations (minus Syria) pleaded with the Saudis to reconsider. So did Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who stressed that Riyadh hasn’t yet officially notified the UN of its about-face. Others also lobbied the Saudis quietly to reverse their reversal.
But the Saudis held firm. Wary of a rising Iran-led “Shiite Crescent” in their region, they’ve long been angry at the West’s inability to alter the Syrian war. The battle there pits Iran, Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiites who (along with Russia) back President Bashar al-Assad, against Syrian Sunnis supported by Saudi and Qatari money and increasingly bolstered by al Qaeda fighters.
Oh, the world’s democracies pay lip service to the anti-Assad cause, but even Western diplomats are increasingly critical of how tepidly Washington and our allies have moved to back moderate rebels.
France’s UN ambassador, Gerard Araud, expressed some sympathy Friday for the Saudi “frustrations.”
For over two years, the Saudis quietly pleaded with Washington to send arms to the Syrian opposition and create a no-fly zone. They grew hopeful in August after Assad’s chemical attack blatantly crossed Obama’s “red line” and finally forced him to threaten a military strike.
But Obama turned out to have had no plan for enforcing that red line, and his administration’s flailing efforts toward action rapidly dissolved into a confusing mess. On the eve of losing a vote of support for action in Congress, he wound up buying into the Russian plan for maybe someday disposing of Syrian’s chemical arms — and left Assad more secure than before that chemical strike.
Riyadh was so angry that in September, as the Security Council passed a US-backed resolution on Syria’s chemical weapons, it cancelled Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal’s speech to the General Assembly. The Saudis became only nation not to address the annual UN gabfest.
And Riyadh’s anger only grew last week, as Washington embraced another round (or three) of Iran diplomacy, allowing Tehran that much more time to build its bomb.
Hence Friday’s gesture — a finger in the face not only of the United Nations, but of a president who’s shown himself unwilling to act in any meaningful way without UN approval — which the veto-wielding Russians and Chinese will ensure he doesn’t get.
But why should we care about moralizing sermons from a pouting bunch of entitled desert monarchs who bar women from driving and evidently can’t even agree on much among themselves?
Hypocrites, too: While Riyadh pontificates about the Security Council’s Syria inaction, it enjoys the same indifference to its own war in Bahrain, where atrocities (on a much smaller scale) are committed daily.
And with the United States having just passed the Saudis last week to become the world’s No. 1 oil exporter, we plainly won’t need to depend as much on alliances with the likes of Riyadh.
But for the time being, we still need allies in the region — and for interests that go beyond just our energy needs.
More, the House of Saud does have some moral standing: It’s been a US ally for more than a century. And it’s calling us on being fickle — on abandoning friends (like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak) and even our own moral “red lines.”
No, the Saudis haven’t been a perfect ally; not even close. But nobody in that region is. If we don’t watch out, the only Middle Easterners who’ll still talk to us soon will be those sleek Iranian diplomats and Assad’s chemical-stained generals.