Saudis Unprecedented Break with Washington over Egypt

By F. William Engdahl

Global Research, July 18, 2013

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/saudis-unprecedented-break-with-washington-over-egypt/5343092

One of the least commented aspects of ousting Egypts Morsi is the defiant act of the Saudi Royal House in backing the ouster of the Brotherhood and supporting the military restoration. The Saudi move is unprecedented in its open defiance of White House declared backing for the Muslim Brotherhood. The implications of the split are huge.
Twilight in the desert?

Since the time in 1945 on his return from the fateful Yalta Conference, that USPresident Roosevelt met Saudi King Ibn Saud and won exclusive rights for US Rockefeller-group oil companies to Saudi Arabias vast oil wealth, the relationship between Saudi and USforeign policy has been one of almost satrapy status for the Saudis.[1] Following the Kissinger-orchestrated 1973 oil shock in which OPEC raised its price by some 400%, Washington extracted a pledge from the Saudis that they would insure that OPEC sold its oil only in dollars, thereby ensuring the continued dominance of the US dollar as world reserve currency. In return, Washington agreed to sell US arms including training the Saudi Air Force.[2]

And in 2010 just as Washingtonlaunched its Arab Spring democracy offensive in Tunisia, Egyptand across the Islamic arc of crisis, the Obama Administration announced the largest arms deal in UShistory. The USagreed to sell the Saudis 84 F-15s new and upgrade another 70 as part of a 46 billion euros deal, the biggest arms deal in US history, as it prepared to isolate Iran. [3]

As we reported in an earlier article, before the Egyptian military coup, the Saudis had given secret assurance to Defense Minister and Chief of the Army, General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, that the Saudis along with other conservative Gulf oil states including Kuwait and UAE would guarantee financial support should the Obama Administration cut the euros 1 billion annual aid to Egypts military in retaliation for ousting their man, Morsi.[4]

On July 17, the newly-sworn-in Egyptian transitional government confirmed that it has received 6 billion euros in grants, loans and fuel fromSaudi Arabiaand the UAE.

Saudi Arabiaapproved euros 4 billion in aid to Egyptand the UAE has offered 2 billion euros in desperately needed support for the economy. The Saudi funds comprise a 1.5 billion euros central bank deposit, 1.5 billion euros in energy products, and 750 million euros in cash, Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf said. The UAE will make a 750 million euros grant to Egyptand a 1.5 billion euros loan in the form of an interest-free deposit with Egypt’s central bank. [5]

The news is a double slap-in-the-face to Washington who had insisted that Morsis government buckle under to harsh IMF conditionalities as precondition for financial help.

Qatar reacts dramatically

Conspicuously, one Gulf energy-rich state absent from the aid is Qatar whose Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani had poured more than 6 billion euros in Egypt since the revolution two-and-a-half years ago and perhaps another 7 billion euros to bankroll Islamists in Libya, Syria and Gaza, the Palestinian enclave run by Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qataris home to the US Central Commands Forward Headquarters and the CombinedAirOperationsCenter. And, most notably, until the Saudi and UAE-backed military coup against Brotherhood rule in Egypt on July 3, Qatar was home to leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood and one of its major financial backers in Syria, Egypt, Libya, and across the Islamic world. [6]

Within minutes of the Saudi and UAE backed Egyptcoup, the Emir of Qatar took note of the implications and announced his abdication in favor of his son, Tamim. Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, who had shaped Qatars pro-Muslim Brotherhood foreign policy, has been silenced, replaced by a military man who had been serving as deputy interior minister. The new Qatarleadership is now using words like reassessment, recalibration and corrections to discuss their foreign policy. In brief, they dare not risk total isolation within the Saudi-dominatedGulfArab states.[7]

The Saudi decision to take bold action to stop what it saw as a disastrous US Islamic strategy of backing Brotherhood revolutions across the Islamic world has dealt a blow to the mad US strategy of believing it can use the Brotherhood as a political force to control the Islamic world more tightly and use it to destabilize China, Russia and the Islamic parts of Central Asia.

The Saudi monarchy began to fear that the secretive Brotherhood would one day rise against their rule as well. They never forgave George W. Bush and Washington for toppling the Baath Party secular dictatorship of Saddam Hussein inIraqthat brought a majority Shiite to power there, nor theUSdecision to topple close Saudi ally Mubarak inEgypt. Americas dutiful vassal state in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, revolted on July 3 by backing and supporting the military coup in Egypt.

Aside from loudly protesting the Egyptian generals coup against their Brotherhood allies, Washingtonso far has been able to do little, an indication of the declining US global power. The Pentagon has sent two amphibious assault ships carrying 2,600 Marines to the southern Egyptian Red Sea coast. The huge USS Kearsarge with 1,800 Marines and the USS San Antonio with 800 Marines, moved up into the Red Sea and parked off Egypt, because we dont know whats going to happen, stated General James Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps.
Washington is suddenly in a major foreign policy disarray as the new Egyptian interim government is sworn in. To be continued...
Notes

[1] F. William Engdahl, Gods of Money,2009, edition.engdahl,Wiesbaden, pp. 190-193.

[2] F. William Engdahl, A Century of War, edition.engdahl, 2011, Wiesbaden, pp. 152-156.

[3] Ian Black, Barack Obama to authorise record $60bn Saudi arms sale, The Guardian, UK, 13 September 2010, accessed in http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/13/us-saudi-arabia-arms-deal.

[4] F. William Engdahl, Washington Islamist Strategy in Crisis as Morsi Toppled, Veterans Today, 4 July, 2013, accessed in http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/07/04/washington-islamist-strategy-in-crisis-as-morsi-toppled/.

[5] Reuters/AP, Egypt wins $ 8 billion Saudi and UAE aid names PM, 17 July, 2013, accessed in http://www.arabnews.com/news/457496