NOVANEWS
Saudi Wahhabi ambassador to Britain warns in The New York Times that it cannot remain silent in the face of such a ‘dangerous gamble.’
Haaretz
The West’s policies pose a risk to security and stability in the Middle East, the Saudi ambassador in Britain said on Wednesday, and constitute “a dangerous gamble, about which [Saudi Arabia] cannot remain silent.”
In a New York Times opinion piece, Mohammed Bin Nawaf Bin Bbdulaziz Al Saud criticized the West’s inaction against Syria and Iran, claiming it has “allowed one regime to survive and the other to continue its program for uranium enrichment, with all the consequent dangers of weaponization.”
Saudi Arabia and other U.S.-allied Gulf Arab states cautiously welcomed the nuclear accord reached with Iran last month, but some officials have demanded assurances that the deal would contribute to their security. These nations are wary of Iranian influence in the Middle East, fearing the Shi’ite Muslim-led country is seeking regional dominance and stirring sectarian tensions.
Regarding Bashar Assad’s regime, Al Saud wrote that “while international efforts have been taken to remove the weapons of mass destruction used by [Assad’s] murderous regime… the West must see that the regime itself remains the greatest weapon of mass destruction of all.” And on Iran, the ambassador cautions against a regime that is not only involved in Syria’s civil war, but “has financed and trained militias in Iraq, Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon and militants in Yemen and Bahrain.”
Saudi Arabia has “global responsibilities,” the diplomat added, “and we will act to fulfill these responsibilities, with or without the support of our Western partners. Nothing is ruled out in our pursuit of sustainable peace and stability in the Arab World as King Abdullah — then Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince — showed with his leadership of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Saudi Arabia “stands shoulder to shoulder” with its allies, the ambassador concluded, “but this year, for all their talk of ‘red lines,’ when it counted, our partners have seemed all too ready to concede our safety and risk our region’s stability.”
