Zalmay Khalizad is an old hand of the State Department, who was dealing with the Saudis in 1980s. He is also a former ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations.
In this article, which Mr. Zalmay Khalilzad was trying to paint a different picture of the new cadres of Saudi Leaders, especially Crown Prince Nayef, who is the second man in charge after King Salman and the blood-thirsty deputy Crown Mohammad Bin Salman - a man with a very peaceful-looking face, but with a legacy of blood and terror on his hands, who is definitely a key figure in Saudi Arabia in international relation activities.
Mr. Zalmay Khalilzad quotes, that one of the top Saudi officials admitted to him the fact that they "misled the US" all these years. They have been behind all sources of terroristic ideologies across the Middle East and explains their reasons. It is said that the Saudis have been behind this activity since the 1960s, since they were threatened by the socialists political ideology of the former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
We must remember that during President Nasser's tenure he was really trying to unify the Arab World. There was an entity called the United Arab Republic which consisted of Egypt and Syria. Yemen also wanted to join this confederation.
Since the 1960s Saudi Arabia have been supporting all source of terroristic fundamentalists, Wahhabis and Salafis movements all around the world and especially in the Middle East.
This is a real attempt of whitewashing. He is saying that we should support Saudis, because now they are coming out of the closet and they are more or less admitting their support of terrorism since the 1960s. He is saying that they had to do that. And in 1980s, since we had the Iranian Revolution, the Saudis actually incorporated those same old tactics to combat the Iranian Shias and the Revolution. They were afraid it was going to take over the entire Middle East. So, that's how they justified their savagery of supporting these people, this monster that we now call ISIS, which is really nothing but a repackaging of the Al-Qaeda.
Basically, the Ambassador is trying to convince his audience in this article that we should be behind the new leadership in Saudi Arabia. That their aim is essentially to modernize Saudi Arabia, to modernize their archaic religious doctrine known as Wahhabism, which is second state pillar after the Crown family. The fact is that the Saudi crown family gets it's legitimacy from Wahhabism, which is a very dark medieval theory, and arrogant interpretation of Islam, which Saudis are trying to export literally all over the world.
I think that we should not be surprised by all those attempts of whitewashing. The ambassador is a neocon criminal. The ambassador really tries to convince his readers, who are probably policy makers in Washington and elsewhere that the US should get behind Saudi Arabia. The Washington ironically thinks that if they stand behind Saudis, that somehow is going to be very threatful for the Iranians.
The Saudis interpreted the P5+1 agreement between Iran and those six superpowers as a direct threat to their hegemony. This agreement is better known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) not just in a nuclear area, but in all areas between the US and those five nations - France, the US, the UK, Russia and China plus Germany. The Saudis were very much threaten by this rising power of the Iranians. They also feel threat from Iraq and Syria - that is why they are hell bent on the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad and they feel this fear of Shia Muslims. They interpreted this Shia presence as a confederation between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
The ambassador is forgetting that two thousand year-old Iranian civilization have always played a very crucial role in managing political, social and economic affairs of the Middle East. Saudis' fear of the rise of Iran shows their absolute lack of understanding of history and the role that Iran sees for itself in the modern Middle East.
Another thing the ambassador is talking about is the fact that a giant Saudi oil company "Aramco" went public. We're supposed to look at this as a major strategic event, because that company used to be exclusively owned and managed by the Saudi's crown family and raised as much as two trillion dollars. But in fact we shouldn't look at this as a point of strength, certainly since the price of oil has been so low. And this was Saudi's fault - in order to economically affect Russia and Iran. It was like shooting themselves in the foot. They affected the oil revenue mechanism, as well as the rise of green technologies and officially made the US a viable oil producer. That is a real reason why they decided to go public with "Aramco". This is a sign of desperation.
All the assurances of the ambassador Khalizad are false like a propaganda piece, creating the image of confidence of Saudi's leaders, which are totally incompetent.
The last thing I want to mention is that the was trying to use neolingual programming to place Iran in a same line with ISIL. They tried to put Iran and ISIL in the same sentence as essential threats.
I think that the world should wake up to the fact that, hopefully, we are living in the last days of this horrible Wahhabis barbaric mafia-like so-called Saudi Riyal family.
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