Israel Matzav: Saudis wanted Arab force to invade Lebanon

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Saudis wanted Arab force to invade Lebanon

During the Hezbullah siege of Beirut in 2008, 'our friends the Saudis' proposed creating a pan-Arab force to invade Lebanon and destroy Hezbullah with US and NATO air and sea power backing them up.

The Saudi plan was never enacted but reflects the anxiety of Saudi Arabia – as well as the US – about growing Iranian influence in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The proposal was made by the veteran Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, to the US special adviser to Iraq, David Satterfield. The US responded by expressing scepticism about the military feasibility of the plan.

It would have marked a return of US forces to Lebanon almost three decades after they fled in the wake of the 1983 suicide attack on US marine barracks in Beirut that killed 299 American and French military personnel.

Faisal, in a US cable marked secret, emphasised the need for what he referred to as a "security response" to the military challenge to the Lebanon government from Hezbollah, the Shia militia backed by Iran and, to a lesser extent, Syria.

The cable says: "Specifically, Saud argued for an 'Arab force' to create and maintain order in and around Beirut.

"The US and Nato would need to provide transport and logistical support, as well as 'naval and air cover'. Saud said that a Hezbollah victory in Beirut would mean the end of the Siniora government and the 'Iranian takeover' of Lebanon."

The discussion came just days after Hezbollah and other pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian groups in Lebanon laid siege to Beirut, threatening the pro-western government of Fouad Siniora, after 17 months of street demonstrations.

Siniora survived, though only after making enormous concessions to Hezbollah. He was replaced by another pro-western leader, Saad Hariri, but Hezbollah remains a force in Lebanon, lionised by many Arabs after defeating Israel in the 2006 war along the Lebanese border.

According to the cable Saud argued that a Hezbollah victory against the Siniora government "combined with Iranian actions in Iraq and on the Palestinian front would be a disaster for the US and the entire region". Saud argued that the present situation in Beirut was "entirely military" and the solution must be military as well. The situation called for an "Arab force drawn from Arab 'periphery' states to deploy to Beirut under the 'cover of the UN'."

Saud said Siniora strongly backed the idea but the only Arab countries aware of it were Egypt and Jordan, along with the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa.

No contacts had been made with Syria on any Beirut developments, Saud said, adding: "What would be the use?"

And J.E. Dyer has to feel vindicated by the news.

The question is what they plan to do with all these aircraft. During the Saddam Hussein years, the threat of land attack against Saudi Arabia was obvious. Today, it’s not. The Saudis are buying for a major armed conflict on land, but nothing indicates that Iran presents a threat of that kind. Iran isn’t prepared militarily to invade the Arabian Peninsula, either by land or sea, nor is it making the effort to be. Iran is building up its navy, missile forces, and nuclear options; its regional “power projection” effort on land is accomplished through sponsoring terrorism. But the counterinsurgency warfare model (e.g., the U.S.’s in Iraq) is inapplicable in this case: population numbers and terrain inhibit the rise on the Arabian Peninsula of insurgencies with the profile of Hezbollah or the Taliban. The number of modern systems the Saudis propose to purchase outstrips such a requirement considerably.

They can’t be contemplating the invasion of Iran, even as a counter to an Iranian attack. Numbers and terrain are decisively arrayed against that as well. Riyadh is buying an unusually large number of weapons with which to project power and fight a land campaign at a greater range than ever before – but the weapons are a mismatch for the likely dimensions of a confrontation with Iran.

Perhaps the Saudis see a potential need to fight Iran on Iraqi or Kuwaiti territory in the future. It would certainly have to be a distant future, given the substantial U.S. military presence in those countries. This expeditionary concept would also be highly uncharacteristic in Saudi strategic thinking.

But Riyadh may be arming as a regional rival to Iran – not for the defense of its own territory but as the leader of an Arab coalition, formed to gain ascendancy over Iran as the power broker in the Levant. Western analysts tend to miss the fact that Iran’s moves against Israel constitute a plan to effectively occupy territory that the Arab nations consider theirs to fight for. The concerns on both sides are more than ethnic and historical: they involve competing eschatological ideas.

Hmmm.

Labels: Fouad Siniora, Hezbullah, Lebanon, Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi arms package, Wikileaks