Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri, who announced his surprise resignation in Riyadh, has recently announced his intention to return to Beirut.
In fact it was the Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, who still needs an excuse to provoke Israel into attacking Iranian, Hezbollah’s and Shia militia’s positions in Syria, that was behind this trick with the resignation of Hariri. And that’s just square one of the plan to fulfill the unparalleled ambitions of the not as sane as one would want heir of the Saudi throne. And nobody really doubts his ability to take all power in Saudi Arabia at this point. The transition of power in favor of his son Mohammed, while retaining the title of the “keeper of two sacred places” (Mecca and Medina). The delay is caused by the need to negotiate this transition with two influential clans: the Al-Rashid clan that controls the Republican Guard and intelligence agencies, and the clan of Al-Jiluwi that has been ruling the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, the main oil producing region of the kingdom that is populated by Shiites.
However, to make his dreams come to fruition Mohammed also needed huge financial resources to sponsor his military adventures that are going to be launched under the banner of combating the “Shia expansion.” And boy did he get those by arresting about 200 members of his fellow royal family members and high-ranking officials under the pretext of fighting corruption. Among them one could find Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, whose estimated fortune exceeded 18 billion dollars. He would suggest then that the detainees, who were kept hostages in the luxury Ritz hotel would surrender 2/3 of their fortune to Mohammed in order to escape the punishment. Due to this, Muhammad received a whopping sum of 800 billion dollars. And through this secured a successful IPO of the state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco for a sum of 2 trillion dollars.
And who would have thought that the inadequate Mohammed that is still in his 30s would be capable of this? The answer is simple: Jared Kushner was behind this scam, none other than the son-in-law of Donald Trump and his senior adviser at the same time, but he was assisted by his best friend – Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Now Mohammed bin Salman has the means to modernize Saudi Arabia, which is going to be without abolishing the poisonous Wahhabi ideology, but there’s still more than enough to launch a confrontation with Iran in a bid to push it out of Iraq. Since, according to the calculations of the Saudi-American “strategists”, Syria, should the Russian Federation withdraw its military from there is going to be in the hands of Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States in virtually no time.
All these seemingly unrelated events are obviously an integral part of the undeclared war that Saudi Arabia is waging against Iran. And it is Mohammed bin Salman and his supporters that are the main driving force of the ongoing conflict in Yemen, the destabilizing blockade of Qatar and the intensification of tension with Iran. The answer is clear and simple – a wider conflict, even if it’s not going to be waged by regular forces but proxy military detachments in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the Persian Gulf will secure the goals that Trump announced during election campaign – the destruction of Iran that will transform Israel and Saudi Arabia into regional leaders.
And another very important point. Such a war will result in an abrupt increase in oil prices, which is beneficial for Saudi Arabia and the United States, however it’s going to affect China’s and Europe’s economic development rates.
It would seem that this would be beneficial for Russia that could get additional financial resources, but the image is deceiving. As it’s been shown President Reagan and King Faisal in mid-1980s, and abrupt drop in oil prices can lead to disastrous consequences for Russia’s economy that has already been suffering from western sanctions. And given that Moscow is now involved in the wars in Syria and the Donbass, just as the Soviet Union was involved in the war in Afghanistan and is locked in an arms race with the US to counter the missile defense aggression, this, according to hopes in Washington, could mean the collapse of the sitting Russian government, which the United States is craving for.
As early as November 11, Lebanese President Michel Aoun stated that he was ready to wait for al-Hariri’s return for no more than a week, and then “hand over the matter to the international community”. Thus, hinting that Hariri was detained by the Saudis who are manipulating him to provoke Israel’s war against the Hezbollah. He has also pointed out that Lebanon expects the international community to ensure the return of the prime minister to his homeland, as the current situation humiliates Lebanon and the Lebanese people. And then all the Western media started arguing whether the French President Macron would able to persuade the Riaydh into letting Hariri go home. It is unclear how the ex-Prime Minister is going to be received in Beirut after the tricks he tried to play on the Lebanese people.
It would be nice if Israel, that Saudi Arabia tries to talk into invading southern regions of Lebanon, keeps in mind the humiliating defeat it suffered in an attempt to destroy the Hezbollah, whose fighters were manged to knock off more that 60 Israeli armored vehicles, while downing a number of Israeli military helicopters, Apache helicopters proved to be no match to skilled MANPADS squads. The Israeli offensive in the Beqaa Valley was wiped out completely. Several Israeli corvettes were fired upon, with a number of them being rendered useless. In total, a total of 119 Israeli soldiers were killed. It’s curious that after the extensive fighting in Syria that the Hezbollah has had, it troops gained a lot of experience and they are much better armed than in 2006. So it seems that Israel has too tall of a task.
Just in case, Hezbollah increased its combat readiness to the maximum level in the light of possible provocations, including those coming from Israel. However, the leaders of the group are convinced that Israel will not risk a war with Lebanon. Hezbollah’s leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has announced in a televised speech that Saudi Arabia demanded Israel to attack Lebanon, promising billions of dollars in compensation. He has also stressed that this was not an assumption, but an intelligence report he received.
But Saudi Arabia is in a hurry. At its request, a meeting of the Arab League was convened to discuss Iran’s actions against the Kingdom. It looks like, under the flag of the League, Riyadh wants to build an anti-Iranian coalition of Arab Sunni states. In addition, the failed attempt to assassinate Prince Mohammed can be displayed as a case of Iranian meddling.
Clearly, this development of events is not beneficial for Russia, Iran, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Arabs in general, Turkey, and Israel. Why fight for Saudi interests and ambitions of Donald Trump? And then, there’s a chance that a regional war can develop into a global conflict. Especially since ISIS militants along with thousands of different terrorists around the world are alive and eager to fight.
But do they understand this in the West, especially in Washington? Is it not clear to them that Trump has gone too far and America will distance itself from both the possible regional conflict, let alone the global one? Those steps can bring war to America’s home ground, but Western think tanks couldn’t care less about this.
Peter Lvov, Ph.D in political science, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
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