{"id":35799,"date":"2017-11-24T12:30:33","date_gmt":"2017-11-24T01:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=35799"},"modified":"2018-10-30T10:48:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T23:48:40","slug":"the-saudi-princes-dangerous-war-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-saudi-princes-dangerous-war-games\/","title":{"rendered":"The Saudi prince\u2019s dangerous war games"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

A series of stunning political developments, originating in Saudi Arabia, has been roiling an already volatile Middle East. Is a major new war in the offing?<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia\u2019s ambitious 32-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (widely known by his initials, MbS) is overseeing an historic (and destabilising) transformation of the Kingdom\u2019s economy. On 4 November, he ordered the arrest of many of the country\u2019s most powerful princes and officials. The move, framed as an anti-corruption drive, was a brazen bid to consolidate power.<\/p>\n

But MbS\u2019s ambitions extend far beyond his country\u2019s borders. On the same day, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation in a live television broadcast from Riyadh, accusing Iran of causing \u2018devastation and chaos\u2019 through its meddling in other countries.<\/p>\n

When, days later, Riyadh was targeted by a long-range missile launched from Yemen by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the Saudis lost no time in warning Iran of a possible war. Saudi leaders also denounced Hezbollah\u2014Lebanon\u2019s Iran-backed Shia militia\u2014for aiding the Houthis. Citing the inclusion of Hezbollah members in Lebanon\u2019s government, Saudi Arabia accused the country of declaring war on the Kingdom, and ordered its citizens to leave the country.<\/p>\n

MbS clearly hopes to establish Saudi Arabia as the Persian Gulf\u2019s sole hegemon, and the protector of Sunni Islam throughout the Middle East. But his efforts increasingly look like the work of an immature gambler.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has already suffered from the farcical failure of its blockade on Qatar, not to mention its two disastrous attempts to stem Iranian advances in Syria and Yemen. Add to that MbS\u2019s ham-fisted political purge, and the escalation in Lebanon may be viewed as a desperate gambit.<\/p>\n

Yet provoking Iran is probably not in Saudi Arabia\u2019s best interests. As MbS knows all too well, the Kingdom cannot match Iran\u2019s military might. And his likely back-up plan\u2014increasing security cooperation with Israel\u2014might not work as he would like.<\/p>\n

True, Israel\u2019s chief of staff, General Gadi Eisenkot, spoke in a rare interview with a Saudi newspaper about the \u2018many shared interests\u2019 between the two countries. Moreover, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has warned that Israel would not permit the consolidation of a Shia \u2018axis in Syria\u2019. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel will not allow Iran to gain military ground and naval footholds in Syria.<\/p>\n

But it is folly to think that Israel would engage in full-scale war north of its border for Saudi Arabia\u2019s sake. It would not even be the first time Israel frustrated Saudi Arabia\u2019s expectations of an intervention. In 2012, Netanyahu did not follow through on threats to attack Iran\u2019s nuclear installations.<\/p>\n

More recently, Israel refused to intervene in the Syrian civil war against Bashar al-Assad\u2019s Shia-affiliated Alawite regime. In fact, Israel has taken great pains to avoid being sucked into that conflict, even as it has scaled up aerial attacks on arms convoys headed for Hezbollah, which has been attempting to open a second front against Israel on the Golan.<\/p>\n

Yet it would be irresponsible to dismiss the idea of war altogether. After all, wars on Israel\u2019s northern front have not always been premeditated. And an increasingly self-confident Assad no longer seems resigned to Israel\u2019s insistence that its air force should have full freedom of action in Syria and Lebanon: his anti-aircraft batteries have started to respond to Israeli military flights over Syria. On 11 November, Israeli forces shot down a Syrian drone.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Israel has established a new red line in Syria: the protection of Syria\u2019s Druze community, with whom Israel\u2019s own highly loyal Druze citizens have strong bonds. On 3 November, after rebel forces killed nine people in a Druze village inside Syria, the Israeli military warned that it would intervene to prevent the occupation of the village.<\/p>\n

While Israel is not interested in waging all-out war, it does not see such a scenario as entirely implausible. In September, it conducted its largest military exercise in two decades, with its air, sea, and large ground forces spending two weeks simulating conflict on both the Syrian and Lebanese fronts. A massive evacuation of northern Israel\u2019s civilian population was also simulated. After two wars with Hezbollah that ended in a sort of tie, Israel has made it clear that, in any new conflict, the goal would be unequivocal victory.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah, drained by its costly effort to support Assad in Syria\u2019s civil war, is not particularly eager to engage in a showdown with Israel now. Iran, for its part, has avoided disrupting Lebanon\u2019s stability and always-precarious truce with Israel, in order to enable Hezbollah to focus on Syria.<\/p>\n

But Saudi Arabia would welcome a clash between Israel and Hezbollah, believing that it would inevitably lead to a confrontation between Israel and Iran. This is particularly true now: as the fighting in Syria subsides, the Saudi-led Sunni axis is eager to compensate for its losses there, and thus is pushing Lebanon as the next battlefield.<\/p>\n

As it stands, Lebanon remains split between Hezbollah\u2019s pro-Syria and Iran camp\u2014which includes President Michel Aoun\u2014and Hariri\u2019s \u2018March 14 Alliance\u2019 of Sunni, anti-Syrian groups, which Saudi Arabia hopes to push into the conflict it so desires. Of course, engaging in a war led by powers that view Lebanon merely as a piece of a broader strategic puzzle is not in the country\u2019s best interests.<\/p>\n

It is not in Hariri\u2019s best interests, either; after all, such a conflict would deny his family\u2019s construction companies the opportunity to win lavish contracts for rebuilding Syria.<\/p>\n

As MbS plays with fire, US President Donald Trump has offered him broad support, owing to his own animosity towards Iran and, perhaps, the hope that Saudi Arabia will support a US-led peace plan on Palestine. But a more benign enticement must urgently be found. After all, as the Syrian conflict has starkly demonstrated, wars usually defeat their own purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A series of stunning political developments, originating in Saudi Arabia, has been roiling an already volatile Middle East. Is a major new war in the offing? Saudi Arabia\u2019s ambitious 32-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":35801,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1034,247,218,2337,1078,274],"class_list":["post-35799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-hezbollah","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-mohammed-bin-salman","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-syria"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Saudi prince\u2019s dangerous war games | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-saudi-princes-dangerous-war-games\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Saudi prince\u2019s dangerous war games | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A series of stunning political developments, originating in Saudi Arabia, has been roiling an already volatile Middle East. 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