Bush's Prince Charming Flies To The Rescue

On January 11 the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, sat at the witness table in Hearing Room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building explaining why those who talked about engagement with Syria and Iran were all "wet". "That's not diplomacy - that's extortion," she said. On Tuesday Rice returned to the same witness table in the same hearing room. "I'm pleased to inform you that the Iraqis are launching a new diplomatic initiative, which we are going to fully support," she announced cheerfully. And guess who's coming to dinner? Iran and Syria. Heck, it's about time they all talked! Jaw Jaw is better tham War War!

Maybe it's because the long-term control of Iraq's energy assets are in the process of being awarded to foreign multinationals (due to pressure put on Iraq by the UK and USA) that will for the first time have a stake in the country since 1972. Is the Iraqi government (on the brinks of Civil war) in a position to negotiate good terms with foreign oil firms? - the answer is no. One thing is for certain if We didn't go to war in Iraq over WMD, it was more about control of Oil production levels - mission almost completed for Bush. One man who has been busy doing a work in the background is Bandar Bush. Is he involved in the talks with Iran and Syria? This is an interesting story...

Taken from The Sydney Morning Herald, February 24, 2007
By Jackson Diehl (Original article extracted from The Washington Post)

For 22 years Prince Bandar bin Sultan wheeled and dealed his way through Washington as Saudi Arabia's ambassador. By his account he had a hand in most of America's major initiatives in the Middle East over a generation. Early in George Bush's presidency, for example, he brokered US rapprochement with Libya and previewed plans for the invasion of Iraq two months before the war.

For a while after returning home in the middle of 2005, Bandar kept a low profile. Some speculated he was out of favour with the kingdom's ruler, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, despite his appointment as national security adviser. Now he's back: since the beginning of the year the prince has been wheeling and dealing his way around the Middle East.

In the past month Bandar has held three meetings with the Iranian national security chief, Ali Larijani. He has twice met Vladimir Putin, in Moscow and Riyadh; he has overseen talks between the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas leaders; and he has quietly visited Washington to brief Bush. He helped broker this month's Palestinian accord on a unity government as well as a Saudi-Iranian understanding to cool political conflict in Lebanon. And he has been talking to the most senior officials of the Iranian and US governments about whether there is a way out of the stand-off over Iran's nuclear weapons.

Can Bandar bail the US out of the multiple crises it has stumbled into in the Middle East? Maybe not, but Washington's old friend may be one of the best bets a desperate Bush Administration has going at the moment. The Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has manoeuvred herself into a corner by refusing to talk to Syria and Iran and boycotting the Hamas-led Palestinian Government. Consequently, there's little the US can do diplomatically to defuse the conflicts in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, not to mention Iraq. Rice tried calling on Egypt, abruptly dropping the Administration's previous urging that its autocratic Government "lead the way" in democratising the Middle East. But Egypt has been unable to deliver: it tried and failed to pry Syria away from its alliance with Iran, and it tried and failed to win concessions from Hamas.

That leaves Saudi Arabia and the hyperkinetic Bandar. In his last visit to Washington he offered a rosy report on his travels. Iran, he assured his American friends, had been taken aback by Bush's recent shows of strength in the region, by the failure of his Administration to collapse after midterm elections and by the unanimous passage of a United Nations resolution imposing sanctions on Tehran for failing to stop its nuclear program. The mullahs, he said, were worried about Shiite-Sunni conflict spreading from Iraq around the region and about an escalating conflict with the US; they were interested in tamping both down.

Bandar also told Washington that he is hoping to split Iran from Syria, reversing the manoeuvre Egypt tried. The means would be a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran over a Lebanese settlement that included authorisation of a UN tribunal to try those responsible for the murder of the former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

Bandar's spin and dazzle make it tempting to think he can pull off almost anything. It's also easy to forget that he works in the interests of Saudi Arabia, not the US. The results can be disappointing. Bush got a reminder of that when Bandar brokered the "Mecca agreement" between the Palestinian leaders Abbas and Khaled Meshal of Hamas. Bush Administration policy has been to strengthen Abbas at Hamas's expense; the accord undercut that approach and all but ruined Rice's plan to begin developing a "political horizon" at a meeting with Abbas and the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, this week.

That doesn't mean the old Bush family friend is not still welcome at the White House. The Palestinian deal was secondary for Bandar; if he can find a way to broker a deal that stops the Iranian nuclear program and kick-starts a dialogue between Tehran and Washington, it will be his greatest feat of all.