Is it a Saudi war or an Israeli war with Saudi facade?

Written by Nasser Kandil,

The Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman tried to play dominos through imposing accelerated facts on his coupist movement which he accompanied with a war speech against Iran and Hezbollah through the first phrases in the resignation statement recited by the Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri.

The next steps have been represented by two statements; one by the Minister Thamer Al-Sabhan the Saudi High Commissioner for Lebanon in which he threatens with a war against Lebanon and calls the Lebanese people to choose between peace and war. The second step was the Saudi announcement of considering the Yemeni missiles on Saudi Arabia as a declaration of Iranian war, so this gives Saudi Arabia the right to react since it is in a state of war with Iran.

Apparently it seems that the behavior of Bin Salman as if the comprehensive internal coup was a prelude for a regional war, since this is the current sequence in front of us, first to coup then to escalate, but in the depth it seems that the Saudi escalating behavior is a forward-escape to overcome the repercussions of the coup and in order to create different interests and concerns to the Saudis and the international and the regional forces which observed the steps of the coup preparing themselves to behave accordingly and the starting of the pressures to influence the internal choices of Bin Salman as revealed by the US and the British newspapers.

Bin Salman feels that he is besieged internally and externally, after he had overthrown the three traditional rule pillars of the regime of his grandfather Abdul Aziz, it is the class of the religious men; the followers of Wahhabism, the class of merchants and businessmen, those whom his grandfather has so- called the Yemenis, they were the urban in Badia Al Hijaz, it is the family which Abdul Aziz recommended it to be coherent and to inherit the throne according to accurate equation starts with the sons till the departure of their last and then to start with the grandsons and so, where the father does not inherit his son, but the attempt of bequeathing Bin Salman was a blow up  of all the rules of the Saudi govern, after the representatives of the three components of the rule religious men, traders, or princes have become in prison. While externally all the media follow-ups indicate to the threat from the risks of the fall of the Saudi regime and the consequences of that on the western interests in the light of the failure of the war of Yemen, the political decline, and the inability and the bankruptcy of millions. Thus, Bin Salman found himself that he has to create new facts that are bigger than the coup in order to protect the results of the coup, but this will impose threat to the threat and escalation to escalation towards the deceive choice to go to war or to retreat from it.

Bin Salman bets on turning the expected pressures on him as to retreat from some of coup’s steps into pressures to prevent the war, so he escalates through the threat of war and he may proceed with the escalating practical steps achieving a group of goals, first, to black out the facts of the coup and to bear the consequences of the reactions, since what will happen is more important. Second, to create tense internal situation under the title of the confrontation with Iran that justifies the deal with Israel and the condoning of the internal steps, as well as it provokes the Saudi tribalism by the language of challenge, but this escalation will lead thirdly to an embracement to the Americans, and the committed Westerns to get  involved with Saudi Arabia in any confrontation with Iran  in order to bring the region to a major war that puts the speech of the American President about the confrontation of Iran in front of the difficult moment, so the fighting beside America becomes an acceptable choice, as well as the going to a settlement. Thus the fourth outcome becomes the acceptance of the endeavors of mediation and calm to avoid getting involved in the war. Maybe it leads to open dialogues and to hold negations that form the framework of formulating a comprehensive settlement with Iran that can be promoted in Saudi Arabia, and it would be the best possibility to end the war of Yemen and to involve in the settlements about Syria, Lebanon, and others.

Always the problem in the war is that it occurs in many cases out of an accident that one of the two teams wanted in order to go to war, so it led to challenges and repercussions of going to war and be out of control, so how if the integration of the Israeli interests in the Saudi movement was a sufficient reason to expect the Israeli getting involved in the war, that puts it on the negotiating table in partnership with Saudi Arabia along with all the files of the region without paying the cost of war?

It is a Saudi-Israeli partnership where the Saudi throne and money will be in favor of Bin Salman, while the ruin of Saudi Arabia will be instead of Israel in the beginnings of war and the results of the settlements. Israel bets on getting the most important of its outcomes.

Will Israel ensure that the response to hasty Saudi strikes will be restricted with Saudi Arabia?

Perhaps, this concern is delaying the first spark.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,