The Saudis Are NOT Bluffing

Here’s my definition of front page news.

One of the most influential members of the inner circle of Saudi Arabia writes an impassioned op-ed for the New York Times and warns of incredibly dire consequences to the United States if we fail to support Palestine’s bid for statehood at the United Nations this month.

We’re talking here of Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi Ambassador to the United States, the former Director of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services, and the Chairman of the King Faisal Center. Writing an op-ed piece for the New York Times is for him the equivalent of opening a U.S.-Saudi dialogue with the Saudi leadership in public – a last ditch wake-up call if you will.

Here’s part of his warning:

“The United States must support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations this month or risk losing the little credibility it has in the Arab world.

If it does not, American influence will decline further, Israeli security will be undermined and Iran will be empowered, increasing the chances of another war in the region.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has. With most of the Arab world in upheaval, the “special relationship” between Saudi Arabia and the United States would increasingly be seen as toxic by the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, who demand justice for the Palestinian people.

Saudi leaders would be forced by domestic and regional pressures to adopt a far more independent and assertive foreign policy. Like our recent military support for Bahrain’s monarchy, which America opposed, Saudi Arabia would pursue other policies at odds with those of the United States, including opposing the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq and refusing to open an embassy there despite American pressure to do so. The Saudi government might part ways with Washington in Afghanistan and Yemen as well.”

Wow! I think I know front page news when I hear and see and read it, and yet..nothing. I have been combing the various mainstream U.S. newspaper and news and television sites looking for further reporting on this warning: reaction from President Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s State Department, various U.S. elected officials, anyone in elected public life. Total silence.

For a tangential response, one would have to go to the indefatigable Prof. Alan Dershowitz, who writes in the Wall Street Journal about the proposed U.N. vote, the Palestinians, and Israel:

“As Egypt and Turkey increase tensions with Israel, the Palestinian Authority seeks to isolate the Jewish state even further by demanding that the United Nations accord Palestine recognition as a "state" without a negotiated peace with Israel. President Mahmoud Abbas described his playbook for seeking U.N. recognition while bypassing the step of negotiating a two-state solution: "We are going to complain that as Palestinians we have been under occupation for 63 years."

And Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens sums up the crisis from the Israeli perspective:

“Will it some day dawn on Israel's so-called friends that 18 years of abortive efforts to come to terms with the Palestinians—the spurned statehood offers in 2000 and 2008, the withdrawal of the settlers from Gaza in 2005, the experience of what a "liberated" Gaza soon became—has soured Israelis on the idea of a Palestinian state? Or that the long-term demographic threat is worth risking in the face of the immediate threats of a near-nuclear Iran, a newly hostile Egypt, and a still-irredentist Palestinian leadership? Or that a professed commitment to Israeli democracy means, among other things, some regard to the conclusions Israelis have drawn about the prospects of peace by way of their electoral choices?

No democracy in the world today lies under a darker shadow of existential dread than Israel. And the events of the past month ought to demonstrate that Israel's dread is not of shadows only. Israel's efforts to allay the enmity of its enemies or mollify the scorn of its critics have failed. But is it too much to ask its friends for support—this time, for once, without cavil or reservation?”

And what about U.S. efforts to bring the Israelis and the Palestinians somehow together?  A while back, our special envoy to the Middle East – our point man to try to get the Israeli-Palestinian peace process going, George Mitchell, flat out quit. He has not been replaced. Nor is a replacement likely.

Which brings me back to the silence that greeted Turki al-Faisal’s column. If you’re looking for who can really put pressure on the situation (because only the United States, with its Security Council veto, can stop the Palestinian demand for recognition by the United Nations as a state), it’s Saudi Arabia. They have the ultimate sword of Damocles over the throat of the United States: our unquenchable demand for foreign (read Saudi) oil.

An end to the Saudi relationship could involve an oil boycott that could bring the American economy, weak as it is, to its knees, and beyond. And it would diplomatically isolate the United States in the Middle East in a way that has never happened before – and make the 1973 Arab oil embargo look like the proverbial walk in the park.

I want to know what our President thinks about this. And our foreign policy establishment. And our Congress. Maybe they’re all afraid to say what they think in public.

But know this: the Saudis are NOT bluffing.

So watch the outcome of U.N. debate on Palestine. Our very way of life may be tied up in the outcome.