Word: riyadh
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...time when the U.S. is striving to enlist the support of Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-led moderate states to help counter Iranian influence in the Middle East, few foreign diplomats are as important a player as Riyadh's man in Washington. Which is why Prince Turki Al Faisal's sudden, unexplained resignation earlier this week, which came after just 15 months in his post, has left Washington so puzzled and concerned about possible palace intrigue in the House of Saud...
...favorite evildoers-Hizballah; Iran and Syria (which support Hizballah); and al-Sadr, whose Shi'ite organization has been responsible for much of the recent violence against Sunnis in Iraq. The slap-Sadr scenario had some powerful covert supporters, especially among Sunni governments. The Saudis had summoned Dick Cheney to Riyadh on Nov. 25 in order to convey, among other things, their distress with the rise of "Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias ... butchering Iraqi Sunnis," as Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi security expert, put it in a Washington Post Op-Ed piece last week. Obaid threatened "massive Saudi intervention" in Iraq...
Those countries can't afford to be seen as openly supporting groups responsible for killing Americans. But if the Americans depart, the dynamic changes. Nawaf Obaid, a security adviser to the government of Saudi Arabia, warned last week that if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq, Riyadh will intervene to protect the Sunnis from the Shi'ites. In an Op-Ed in the Washington Post, he said the Saudis would probably supply the Sunni insurgency with money, arms and logistical support. Quiet intervention is always an option: Iraq's porous borders are ideal for smuggling cash, weapons and jihadis...
...Saudis, in particular, are alarmed at Iran's spreading influence in Lebanon. "There has been a serious increase in [Iranian and Syrian] activity in the rearming of HIzballah," says Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi security advisor who is managing director of the Riyadh-based Saudi National Security Assessment Project, a consulting group that advises the Saudi government. Obaid contends that "a huge stream of trucks" has been crossing the border from Syria into Lebanon, ferrying thinly disguised shipments of arms...
...Saudi government, a leading power in the Sunni Muslim world that presumably would like to see the U.S. take a more active stance in Lebanon against its regional rivals. Obaid says that when Vice President Cheney visits King Abdallah bin Abd Al Aziz Al Saud Saturday in Riyadh, the Saudi king is expected to tell Cheney that "the Saudi leadership will not and cannot allow Iran, through Syria and Hizballah, to bring down the Lebanese government and overtake the levers of power in Beirut." Obaid says the Saudi king is also expected to discuss with Cheney the kingdom's worries...