Incoming Saudi leader Prince Mohammad bin Salman has vowed to launch a ‘full-scale war’ with Iran once he becomes King.
Prince Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both agree that Iran is the biggest threat to the Middle East, and the Saudi leader intends to do something about it.
Debka.com reports: The London Daily Mail, quoting “a source close to the Saudi royal family” reported that King Salman, 91, intends to give up the throne next week and name his son, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, 32 as his successor. The king will reportedly confine himself to ceremonial duties like “the queen of England,” retaining only the title of “Custodian of the Holy Shrines.”
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
Near two weeks ago, Prince Muhammad ordered 500 notables, including princes, former ministers and business leaders detained on charges of corruption. The British newspaper carried the first photos of the distinguished detainees sleeping on mattresses on the floor of the five-star Carlton Ritz Riyadh.
After he is crowned king, the prince will focus on Iran, according the Daily Mail. His plan is “to start the fire in Lebanon, in the hope of Israeli military backing.” He is convinced he has to hit Iran and Hizballah – contrary to the advice of the royal family – and will enlist the help of the Israeli military to crush Hizballah, for which he has promised Israel billions of dollars if they agree.”
The source stressed: MBS can’t confront Hizballah in Lebanon without Israel. The Daily Mail did not reveal how Israel sees this proposition – only that the prince has a Plan B: to fight Hizballah in Syria. Neither did its source explain how this would come about amid a crumbling Syrian insurgency.
DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources note that rumors of King Salman’s imminent abdication and handover to his son Muhammad have been around for some time and are credible, given the monarch’s failing health. Many of the hundreds of high-profile figures he placed under detention on Nov. 4 are opposed to his accession.
That the Crown Prince will focus on Iran is also credible – except that more than a year ago, he declared that Saudi Arabia was at war with the Islamic Republic in Yemen and it is not going very well. The Saudis and their allies, the UAE, are stuck in a standoff with the Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels. Iran moreover threatens their ports and capital cities with missile strikes. However, when the Houthis fired a ballistic missile supplied by Iran at Riyadh international Airport on Nov. 4, Prince Muhammad called it an act of war.
He is turning to Israel and its armed forces, not just as the only reliable military and intelligence force capable of handling the opening shots of the war on Iran, but out of their shared perception of Iran as the biggest threat to the Middle East. He moreover no longer expects active and determined participation in fighting Iran from the US under President Donald Trump. On this last point, Saudi Arabia and Israel are divided.
In an interview with the London-based, Saudi-owned news site Elaph – his first with a Saudi publication – that was published on the same day as the Daily Mail story, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen Gady Eisenkot laid out what he thinks are Iran’s ambitions in the Middle East: “The Iranian plan is to control the Middle East by means of two Shiite crescents. The first from Iran through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon, and the second from Bahrain through to Yemen until the Red Sea,” he said, adding: “This is what must be prevented in the region.”
“With [US] President Donald Trump, there is an opportunity for a new international coalition in the region,” he said, citing the US, Arab nations including Saudi Arabia and Israel “for stopping the Iranian threat.” “We are ready to exchange experiences with moderate Arab countries and exchange intelligence to confront Iran,” he added. While the Israeli general stressed the importance of the Trump administration’s role in this effort, the Daily Mail’s Saudi source did not mention the United States at all.
So while the prince who may be crowned Saudi king next week and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agree that Iran is the biggest threat to the region and beyond, they are at odds on how to cut it down and who should lead the effort. Prince Muhammad’s thinking on this resembles the Israel’s approach to the Iranian threat five years ago, that if the IDF decided to go it alone, the Americans will jump in later. But today, Eisenkott reflected a different approach. He stressed in the interview that Israel “isn’t interested in a war now with the Iranian-backed Lebanese terror group Hizballah, despite Iranian attempts to bring about an escalation.”
Riyadh may take this as Israel’s reply to prince Muhammad’s plan: Several billion dollars will not persuade Israel to send the IDF to fight a war except in its direct national interest, even though Israel and Saudi leaders and military chiefs are in complete accord on the Iranian peril.
Sean Adl-Tabatabai
The Zionists got him by the balls
If our American oil production is so effective, then what’s our national interest in getting involved between Sunni’s and Shiite’s? The Saudi’s and the Khazars can take care of themselves.
Another criminally insane Game of Thrones egoist doing the Zionist terrorist networks mass murderous bidding’s.
From al-Jazeera – Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon: What’s next? – UpFront https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj7lVFVFgxU&t=305s
It’s been called Saudi Arabia’s Game of Thrones. Under the leadership of
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has
arrested dozens of top officials in what the Crown Prince is calling a
crackdown on corruption. His government has allegedly held both the
president of Yemen, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and Lebanese Prime Minister
Saad Hariri. So, what’s behind Mohammed bin Salman’s latest power plays
in the region and the domestic shakeup?
Rami Khouri, a political columnist and author, believes the crown
prince’s actions are dangerous.
“The real problem in Saudi Arabia right now that I see … is that
Mohammed bin Salman now is bringing in the third wave of Arab autocratic
authoritarian rule,” says Khouri, who is also a senior fellow at the
American University of Beirut. “What he’s doing is almost unprecedented,
and it’s very dangerous, and it’s, I think, for the region, it’s going
to be a problem.”
Shireen Hunter, a Research Professor at Georgetown University in
Washington, DC, says Saudi Arabia has been problematic in the region.
“The Saudis are the greatest sponsor of terrorism, and they have been.
Saudi ideology has destroyed the Muslim world,” says Hunter who is also
the author of Iran’s Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era.
Fahad Nazer, a consultant with the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in
Washington, DC says the Kingdom’s strategy has been very consistent, and
he places blame on Iran for instability in the region.
“I think that it [Saudi Arabia] has adhered very closely to the laws,
norms, and conventions of international relations,” says Nazer, who is
also an International Fellow at the National Council on US-Arab
Relations. “I think that Saudi Arabia feels that it is more than about
time that the international community starts paying much closer
attention and starts to hold Iran, specifically, as the main state
sponsor of terrorism in the region, and in the world.”
In this week’s Arena, Rami Khouri, Shireen Hunter and Fahad Nazer debate
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s strategy, the proxy war in
Lebanon, and Iran’s role in the latest Middle East crises.