10 reasons not to follow Israel as Arabia holds its breath

Alameen Templeton

Three important meetings are likely to decide Arabia’s immediate fate as it teeters on the brink of regional conflagration, with Israel bracing itself for an attack on Iran and Gulf states nervously eyeing their oil facilities right in the middle of the expected battlefield.

The first two meetings happened Wednesday – a telephonic one between the White House and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and another in Riyadh between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The third is due Thursday when the Israeli war cabinet is expected to give the final go-ahead for an attack on Iran.

Axios reports President Joe Biden and his sidekick and now presidential candidate Kamala Harris were unable to dissuade Netanyahu from pressing ahead with his attack plans. Biden’s failure throughout the repeated atrocities of the Gaza genocide to hold Netanyahu to account have emboldened his martial ambitions, lending him a now-unstoppable momentum, and the duo could only line up meekly behind him, mumbling the White House mantra: “Israel has the right to defend itself.”

The Riyadh meeting featured Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan and crown prince Muhammed bin Salman. It underlined their new-found rapprochement in a “neutrality alliance” that will see Gulf states banning Israel from using their airspace for attack or defence.

10 reasons not to follow Israel

Analysts say the US has far more to lose if Israel presses ahead with an attack:

1. It will ensure Israel, or Netanyahu, remains in control of events. As long as he is free to take action on the ground, Washington’s longer-term plans for Arabia are just whistles in the wind.
2. The US will find it impossible to reassert its dominance in the region as long as it remains prisoner to Netanyahu’s whims.
3. “Normalization” will be dead in the water. The Gaza genocide has sickened the “Arab street” of any idea of sidling up to Israel; the coming attacks have alienated the “Arab elite” because their massive oil wealth is now exposed, and they are fearful it will be wiped out in the conflagration due to Israel’s excesses.
4. US military prestige is no longer respected. The “mutual defence agreements” the Gulf states have signed with Nato members now mean nothing; they were supposed to protect the Arab states from Israeli (or other) attacks, but the agreements have now been exposed as worthless. Israel’s scornful dismissals of Biden’s many “red lines” throughout the Gaza genocide have also emphasised just how weak US influence is.
5. Diplomatic alliances carefully knitted together since World War I and cemented in place after World War II are now unravelling. The decision by the Gulf states to enter into a neutrality agreement with Iran shows the Arabs find aligning with Teheran to be the wiser option.
6. The US has too many “soft” targets dotted about the Arabian peninsula, in the form of embassies, diplomatic staff, oil installations, oil workers and contractors, tankers and other businesses. They could be targeted if Iran turns to “asymmetrical warfare”. US “hard” targets in the form of its many bases will probably also not escape attention.
7. Oil prices should shoot through the roof (For South Africans: which means it might be a good time to buy Sasol shares), dragging inflation with it right in the middle of a US election.
8. Oil sales support for the US dollar could fall away. The Saudi agreement in the mid-Seventies to sell their oil only in dollars forced other Gulf states to follow suit, thereby transforming commodity markets into a “dollar-only” business. The agreement made the dollar the world’s default trading currency, forcing reserve banks to keep savings in dollars and making the greenback the world’s most-powerful currency. That could all fall apart if the US is dislodged from its pedestal as Arabian kingmaker.
9. China and Russia could find themselves with far more influence in Arabia, something they have been aiming at for decades.
10. America’s “lone superpower” status in the world is now in jeopardy.

Hope is a grave

Arab kings, princes, sultans, sheikhs and mullahs had probably been hoping secretly the White House would at last put its foot down while the ground was still firm beneath its feet, but Wednesday’s telephone call to Tel Aviv has probably laid that to bed, or the grave.

They were searching for some sign the US wouldn’t allow Israel to endanger the trillions of dollars worth of oil facilities concentrated in the Arabian Gulf. No signs emerged. Instead of challenging Netanyahu, Biden and Harris merely supported his demands and called on Israel of avoid civilian casualties.

After a year of unrestrained genocide, the rest of the world knows how worthless Israeli assurances about civilian casualties are. So, it’s clear to the Arabian states and the rest of the world the US will continue following Netanyahu’s lead all the way to World War III.

That has drawn the final battle line, and the Arabian Gulf now has no choice but to made decisions accordingly. It seems, with the “neutrality alliance” with Iran, the Gulf has decided Teheran is a more reliable option.

But the “neutrality alliance” runs against the grain of a Western plan that has been in the making ever since the victorious WWI powers divided up the Muslim world behind border lines at the Conference of Cairo in 1925 – to keep Sunnis and Shias at each other’s throats. The old Arabian adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” seems to be at work.

Bridging the divide

It was all chummy in Riyadh yesterday as Araghchi posted on X: “Together, Iran and Saudi Arabia can help bring security and stability to the region.”

Al-Mayadeen reports Araghchi “underlined that bringing stability to the region would require ‘an enhance level of political will’ from involved parties. Araghchi also expressed his satisfaction with his visit to Riyadh, saying “I am pleased to take the first steps on a long journey” with Saudi officials.

“Araghchi said that the ‘Israeli regime is dragging the whole region into catastrophe’, as the occupation has reportedly threatened strikes targeting vital Iranian sectors, including the country’s nuclear program and its energy sector.

“Insight, wisdom, courage and cooperation are what the region needs to overcome this challenging time,” he said.

Ceasefire could still end it all

“I hope that these consultations can lead to better conditions for Palestine and Lebanon and establish peace in the region,” he added.

He emphasised that a Gaza ceasefire could still pull everything back from the brink – the Hamas rockets, the Israeli hostages, the Hezbollah missile rain that has denuded northern Israeli settlements of settlers, the Yemeni attacks, the Iraqi peshmerga support would all end if Israel ended the genocide.

But that remains a bridge too far for the White House. It is too feeble to prise Netanyahu’s hand from the Arabian steering wheel, doomed to follow in his bloody wake, to be washed away like so much flotsam on the tide.