Saudis committing to beat the Shiites in Syria

A very interesting analysis by Michael Weiss in Now Lebanon:

Last Friday, King Abdullah cut short his summer vacation in Morocco and flew back to Riyadh not only to meet with his national security advisors but to coordinate a new strategy for winning the war in Syria, one that encompasses a unified regional bloc of Sunni-majority powers now ranged against Iran, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime. The Wahhabi kingdom has exhausted its patience with miscarried attempts to resolve the Syria crisis through diplomacy and it will not wait to see the coming battle in Aleppo play out before assuming control of the Syrian rebellion. State-backed regional efforts to bolster moderate Free Syrian Army elements will thus be joined with the fetid call to jihad emanating from clerical quarters in Cairo, Doha, Mecca, and beyond. The mullahs have only themselves to blame. “Nasrallah fucked up,” one well-connected Syrian source told me recently. “He awakened the Sunni giant. The Saudis took Hezbollah’s invasion of Qusayr personally.”

Although long in coming, and evidenced in the recent contretemps between Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, this grand realignment has been unmistakably solidified in the last week. A day after the Saudi king returned to Riyadh, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi severed all diplomatic ties with Damascus and called for a no-fly zone in Syria, leaving no mystery as to reason behind this decision. “Hezbollah must leave Syria – these are serious words,” the Islamist president said. “There is no space or place for Hezbollah in Syria.”

Then, on Monday, June 17, it was Jordanian King Abdullah’s turn to strike a minatory, albeit more nationalistic, note. Ostensibly addressing cadets at a graduation ceremony at Mutah Military Academy, the Hashemite monarch was in fact speaking to Barack Obama and Bashar al-Assad: “If the world does not mobilize or help us in the issue [of Syria] as it should, or if this matter forms a danger to our country, we are able at any moment to take measures that will protect our land and the interests of our people.”

...According to Elizabeth O’Bagy, the policy director at the Syrian Emergency Task Force and a senior research analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, the Saudis had a closed-door meeting with Gen. Salim Idris, the head of the Free Syrian Army’s Supreme Military Command, a few days ago, at which they offered to do “whatever it takes” to help Idris defeat Assad and his growing army of Shiite-Alawi sectarian militias. Though, this being a Saudi promise, “whatever it takes” can still be defined relatively: the discussion was limited to weapons, more resources and logistical support, O’Bagy said, though some of the hardware has already begun to materialize.

One unnamed Gulf source cited by Reuters has claimed that the Saudis have begun running shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADs) into Syria. Furthermore, at least 50 “Konkurs,” Russian-made, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, have also turned up in Aleppo in the last week, as confirmed by the Daily Telegraph’s Mideast correspondent Richard Spencer (Konkurs are especially useful in destroying T-72 tanks, the most recent Soviet-era model that the Syrian Army uses.)

More intriguing still is the Western power evidently facilitating this campaign – France. Israeli Army Radio reported this week that French intelligence officials are working with their Saudi counterparts to train up rebels on tactics and weaponry, in concert with the Turkish Defense Ministry (no doubt because Turkish supply-lines to Aleppo are now even more crucial.) 

There's lots more, and it is very good reading.