{"id":51260,"date":"2013-07-18T13:49:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T12:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/saudis-unprecedented-break-with-washington-over-egypt\/51260\/"},"modified":"2013-07-18T13:49:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T12:49:40","slug":"saudis-unprecedented-break-with-washington-over-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/saudis-unprecedented-break-with-washington-over-egypt\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudis\u2019 Unprecedented Break with Washington over Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the least commented aspects of ousting Egypt\u2019s 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.<\/em><\/p>\n

Twilight in the desert?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 Arabia\u2019s vast oil wealth, the relationship between Saudi and USforeign policy has been one of almost satrapy status for the Saudis.[1]<\/a> Following the Kissinger-orchestrated 1973 \u201coil shock\u201d 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]<\/a><\/p>\n

And in 2010 just as Washingtonlaunched its Arab Spring \u201cdemocracy\u201d 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 \u00e2\u201a\u00ac46 billion deal, the biggest arms deal in US history, as it prepared to isolate Iran. [3]<\/a><\/p>\n

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 \u00e2\u201a\u00ac1 billion annual aid to Egypt\u2019s military in retaliation for ousting their man, Morsi.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

On July 17, the newly-sworn-in Egyptian transitional government confirmed that it has received \u00e2\u201a\u00ac6 billion in grants, loans and fuel fromSaudi Arabiaand the UAE.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabiaapproved \u00e2\u201a\u00ac4 billion in aid to Egyptand the UAE has offered \u00e2\u201a\u00ac2 billion in desperately needed support for the economy. The Saudi funds comprise a \u00e2\u201a\u00ac1.5 billion central bank deposit, \u00e2\u201a\u00ac1.5 billion in energy products, and \u00e2\u201a\u00ac750 million in cash, Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf said. The UAE will make a \u00e2\u201a\u00ac750 million grant to Egyptand a \u00e2\u201a\u00ac1.5 billion loan in the form of an interest-free deposit with Egypt\u2019s central bank. [5]<\/a><\/p>\n

The news is a double slap-in-the-face to Washington who had insisted that Morsi\u2019s government buckle under to harsh IMF conditionalities as precondition for financial help.<\/p>\n

Qatar<\/strong> reacts dramatically<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conspicuously, one Gulf energy-rich state absent from the aid is Qatar whose Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani had poured more than \u00e2\u201a\u00ac6 billion in Egypt since the revolution two-and-a-half years ago and perhaps another \u00e2\u201a\u00ac7 billion 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 Command\u2019s 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]<\/a><\/p>\n

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 Qatar\u2019s 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 \u201creassessment\u201d, \u201crecalibration\u201d and \u201ccorrections\u201d to discuss their foreign policy. In brief, they dare not risk total isolation within the Saudi-dominatedGulfArab states.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 Shi\u2019ite to power there, nor theUSdecision to topple close Saudi ally Mubarak inEgypt. America\u2019s dutiful \u201cvassal state\u201d in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, revolted on July 3 by backing and supporting the military coup in Egypt.<\/p>\n

Aside from loudly protesting the Egyptian generals\u2019 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<\/em> with 1,800 Marines and the USS San Antonio<\/em> with 800 Marines, \u201cmoved up into the Red Sea and parked off Egypt, because we don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d stated General James Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps.<\/p>\n

Washington is suddenly in a major foreign policy disarray as the new Egyptian interim government is sworn in. To be continued\u2026<\/p>\n

Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> F. William Engdahl, <\/span>Gods of Money<\/em>,2009, edition.engdahl,Wiesbaden, pp. 190-193. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n

[2]<\/a> F. William Engdahl, A Century of War, edition.engdahl, 2011, <\/em>Wiesbaden<\/em>,<\/em> pp. 152-156.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Republished with permission from: Global Research<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the least commented aspects of ousting Egypt\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-51260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}