A REDRAWING OF THE MAP: AS SAUDIS TAKE UP TALKS WITH ISRAEL ON POSSBILE IRAN STRIKE, RUSSIA AND THE US LEAD TALKS ON NUCLEAR AGREEMENT

 

If someone had just awoken from deep sleep after a couple of decades, the current geopolitical shifts might just cause a bit of headscratching. 

News this week that Saudi Arabia was in talks with Israel to ferret out a possible Iran strike has raised a few eyebrows.  In many ways, the Saudis seem to want to go their own way on the Iranian question.  And that's after they very vocally expressed their disapproval of the US attempts at signing a nuclear policy agreement.  

Egypt, for their part is opening doors to an old ally, Russia, who is now ready to step in after the US has withdrawn significant funds.  

And Russia will be seated next to the US in trying to ferret out a nuclear policy deal that Iran will abide. 

If that's not a redrawing of the map, not much else is. 

The Russian Prime Minister has all but declared the deal done, saying that the probability of reaching a deal in the Iranian nuclear talks is very high.  The talks will take place 3 days from now in Geneva.  

This is the second time this year that the US is agreeing in some form to a compromise over a diplomatic stalemate, the first one being the removal of chemical weapons from Syria, with its enemy Russia.   And to boot, it comes on the heels of the embarassement of the Snowden affair.

This deal, if it does become reality, and Iran does stick to it, which is something many question, since Iran's straightforwardness has been denied before by its less than earnest behavior, would signify a departure from both Israel's and Saudi Arabia's current stance and in some ways from the US's own precedent one. 

Just this week, several news outlets published a report of the collaboration between the Mossad and the Saudi government to hash out a plan for a potential strike on Iran. 

Although Iran has always been considered an enemy of Saudi Arabia, recent developments in the Middle East have caused an even greater fracture among the Saudis and Iran.  That the Israeli secret service would even be talking to the Saudis is unprecedented. 

The enteinte between the Saudis and the Mossad comes on the heels of what is seen as a hasty attempt at sealing some sort of deal with Iran.  In the Saudi's mind, this haste will produce a deal that is shortsighted and inadequate to reign in Iran's wily ways. 

At stake is both the Iranian's commitment to their sovereign decision of having nuclear power, and by consequence, the notion that Iran intends to obtain nuclear bellic capabilities to guarantee itself a position of power in the region.  And it is the latter that both Israel and the Saudi see as unacceptable.  There is absolutely no doubt in either's mind that the Iranians will not limit themselves to the use of nuclear power for domestic energy use.

It is telling, how sectarian divisions are threatening what once was a balance that seemed stable if not lasting.  By removing Iraq from the equation, Iran has been able to skillfully and prepotently fill the void.  It intends, with the help of China and Russia, to become a pivot in Asia Minor for whatever the picture of the Muslim world might be in the next half century.  

The Iranian ambition, therefore, is what is causing this unprecedented overture by the Saudis to their once sworn enemies.  To think that just this month the Saudis have chastised the US for not doing enough to resolve the Palestinian question and to stop the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, and then to turn around and open talks with the Israeli, is truly something that speaks of developments that could literally shake the world order as we know it. 


Op-Ed

Partial Sources: Jerusalem Post/The Guardian :  11.17.13