Washington’s Tantrum: Syria Returns to the Arab League … Kazerooni and Prince go freelance – May 27, 2023 – Transcript – Part One

Iranian-Chinese-Saudi foreign ministers in Peking sealing the reconciliation deal… Turning point in Middle East history

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman receives Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad

Video (edited): Washington’s Tantrum: The Arab League Turns To Syria

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Our generation has not only witnessed the worst forms of terroristic war in Syria, siege, hunger, sanctions, killing, asylum, displacement, fires, and earthquakes but will also witness a new world order.

Kevork Almassian (Syrian journalist)

A few years ago who would have thought that Saudi Arabia would lead the revolt against the United States and against U.S. hegemony in the region. 

I had a meeting this afternoon in my office with somebody who had come back from Saudi Arabia recently. He is a big contractor , construction engineer. I asked him whether he detected any fundamental change within the Saudi system since the rapproachment between Iran and Saudi Arabia began. He said the changes are “huge”. The old tension is no longer there; the idea that the enemy is Iran, which the United States was trying to create, is fading/ We constantly here people speaking in the tone of reconciliation – “we are neighbors; we are brothers; we have to work with each other.” Already the Saudis are investing heavily into Iranian oil, gas, tourism industries. So it is going to be  reconciliation. The essence of the Jeddah meeting was reconciliation and getting over all the conflict that existed in the past … and moving forward. 

Ibrahim Kazerooni

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Introduction …

Rob Prince: To understand the essence of this title – Syria returns to the Arab League – and its consequences, we need to begin by reviewing a few relevant themes that help tie it all together.These developments are reflected in the themes of three summits which recently took place almost simultaneously: the G-7 Hiroshima meeting, the First China-Central Asian Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Xian, China and the Jeddah Summit of the Arab League in Saudi Arabia. The Hiroshima G-7 meeting got mainstream media coverage here in the United States although  analysis of the other two hardly resonated.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization brings together China, Russia and most of the Central Asian countries. At the Jeddah Summit, Syria returned to the Arab League, or as we put it the Arab League returned to Syria!

Two of the summits – those at Jeddah and Shanghai – have already moved out and rejected – the unipolar world system while the Hiroshima – G-7 summit is a defense and still mired in the muck of that old global framework. Both meetings indicate that the world is moving away from a global system based on one solidarity focal point of global power toward a new vision and with new institutions. On the other hand the G-7 Summit in Hiroshima – this summit was little more of a dying world power – the USA – still trying to hold on to its fast shrinking global hegemony. There is no place for it in the contemporary world of global politics … the emperor has no clothes.

Another point … after China brought together Iran and Saudi Arabia to begin to reconcile some of of their differences, a whole series of peace initiatives, previously frustrated, opened up, among them:

• negotiations to resolve the war in Yemen; progress is being made there
• progress on resolving the Syria war; as a part of that progress, Syria was invited back into the Arab League from where it had been expelled twelve years ago.

Ibrahim how it is that the Shanghai and Jeddah Summits reflect the new, emerging multipolar world, its institutions and values?

The Arab World “returns to Syria

Ibrahim Kazerooni: First of all “good evening” to all our listeners. I glad that Rob was able to organize alternative media possibilities outside the KGNU framework that has lunged more and more to the right; they no longer consider our analysis worthy enough for their listeners.

Because of technical problems, I missed some of your introduction, Rob, but what I did hear clear states what is going on these days …

Three major summits took place within a tight timeframe: one was “the dying man’s last breath”; it was an effort to keep the unipolar world order alive and kicking, to keep it from drowning. Parallel to that, the other two are literally part of the global movement to establish an alternative mode of international relations. It is multipolar rather than unipolar. 

Rob will deal with the G-7 Summit but I’ll talk about the Shanghi Cooperation Organization and the Jeddah Summit.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in Goa was hosted by India this time. It included a number of Central Asian countries (People’s Republic of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan). The meeting focused on building infrastructure and trade ties on what in history was referred to as “the Silk Road”, the economic/trade route from China through Central Asia to Europe.

The Jeddah Summit of the Arab League was organized to “go back to Syria” in which literally, Arab leaders – most of whom had actively supported regime change in Syria – came together to shake Bechar Assad’s hand and to admit that, well, they had “made a mistake” (by trying to overthrow the Damascus government), and now we are returning to welcome you back into the Arab League.

Rob Prince: Syria’s re-admission to the Arab League is a milestone in the country’s continued recovery from a decade-long war that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, and widespread destruction. Ibrahim your phrased this last comment in an interesting manner. You said that the Arab League has gone back to Syria, rather than stating that Syria had gone back to the Arab League. Can you explain?

Ibrahim Kazerooni: This is a phrase I borrowed from Yediot Aharonot, the Israeli newspaper. One of their reporters said that it is not Bechar (Assad) going to the Arab World but the Arab World returning to Bechar. This reflects the realities in the Arab World. Bechar Assad – and Syria as a whole – never left the Arab World, to the contrary. In the speech that Assad gave in Jeddah he emphasized that Syria is at the very heart of the Arab World, it’s not going to leave the Arab World and will defend it – and to use his term – there was “some misunderstanding” between the brothers; I’m glad that this “misunderstanding” was clarified.

So it is the Arab World going back to Syria, it’s not Syria going back to the Arab World.

Both of these summits clearly indicate that the drowning man’s (U.S. hegemony) unipolar attempt to keep the old system alive is no longer working.

A few years ago who would have thought that Saudi Arabia would lead the revolt against the United States and against U.S. hegemony in the region. And this is what has made the United States panic. Once the Chinese brokered the deal between the Saudis and the Iranians, the Saudis realized that they had an opportunity – this is the time when all the tensions, all the conflicts in the Middle East have to be resolved. There is a consensus moving forward to insure that the interests of the Arab World are protected. Even Mohammed Ben Salman in his remarks at Jeddah made it clear that it’s about time that the Arabs and Bechar al Assad decide their future for themselves rather than somebody else (hmmm – I wonder whom?) making decisions on their future for them.

These two summits clearly indicate that a geo-political shift taking place and a regional transition into a more multipolar world in which the Arabs, Chinese, the Saudis, the Iranians – in chorus they are all declaring that the unipolar moment is over. They will not return to the old system. In other forums this formulation is echoed by the Indian prime minister, the Brazilian president; they (the BRICS countries) all echoing the same ideas.

The problem is that the United States and the G-7 don’t want to accept the emerging reality.

If we go back to the beginning of the 20th century when the British and the French tried to reorganize the Middle East; now they find it very difficult to accept that more and more, globally, they have been marginalized.

Do you want to talk about the G-7 Rob?

G-7 – “They Dying Man’s Last Breath” 

Rob Prince:  Yes, I do.

First to respond to your comments just now.

The two summits that you just described – in contrast to the G-7 – meeting in Hiroshima – what were they about? They were about increasing economic and commercial cooperation, they were about infrastructural development both throughout Eurasia along the old Silk Road. They weren’t about setting stratego-military alliances against the United States or Western Europe or whatever; they weren’t about planning for war but were about regional economic and social integration in fragmented, partitioned regions of the world. The Shanghai Summit and Jeddah Arab League meeting had a positive aspect to them, increasing regional cooperation, promoting peaceful relations, reducing tensions where they exist.

Secondly, you noted that the United States is panicking. Our listeners might not know to what you are referring.

First the Biden Administration panicked when Saudi Arabia and Iran reconciled, or at least started a process of reconciliation with each other with Chinese help. It reflects the fact that U.S. Middle East policy in the Middle East was not about regional reconciliation but rather keeping the tensions alive, the region divided. It is China that brings the two of them together. Almost immediately after Iranian-Saudi reconciliation take off, in its wake, all kinds of peace initiatives follow throughout the Middle East. We’re talking about the resolution of conflicts, improving economic integration, improving political relations.

Then there was the G-7 meeting that went off in quite a different direction.

Ibrahim Kazerooni: Rob, before you go on …

I had a meeting this afternoon in my office with somebody who had come back from Saudi Arabia recently. He is a big contractor , construction engineer. I asked him whether he detected any fundamental change within the Saudi system since the rapproachment between Iran and Saudi Arabia began. He said the changes are “huge”. The old tension is no longer there; the idea that the enemy is Iran, which the United States was trying to create, is fading/ We constantly here people speaking in the tone of reconciliation – “we are neighbors; we are brothers; we have to work with each other.” Already the Saudis are investing heavily into Iranian oil, gas, tourism industries. So it is going to be  reconciliation. The essence of the Jeddah meeting was reconciliation and getting over all the conflict that existed in the past … and moving forward.

Rob Prince: I want to spend a little time on this point Ibrahim because it’s so important.

You’re talking to your friend who’s talking about reconciliation. I have a dear old friend with whom I was in Peace Corps Tunisia. He asked me – actually wrote it on my blog – he asked about the Shi’ite-Sunni tensions as if they are insolvable. One of the things that is interesting is just how shallow those tensions actually are. We are only at the beginning of this reconciliation. More than likely it will be a bit of a bumpy road. But in the case of Saudi Arabia and Iran, the will is there. Look how quickly the situation has turned around.

So the first thing that the United States panicked about is peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The second thing they panicked about is is when “the Arab League returns to Syria” as you put it.  In Washington they are in a frenzy. Let’s remember the United States still has U.S. military personnel in Syria. The official figure is 900 U.S. soldiers. Ive heard numbers of from 900 to 2000 U.S. troops in eastern Syria.

Ibrahim Kazerooni: No Rob, independent media sources put the number of American military in eastern Syria at over 17000.

Rob Prince: Oh my gosh.

Many people here in the United States don’t know that Syria is an occupied country.

Ibrahim Kazerooni: U.S. troops keep shifting between Iran and Syria; they bring them in and take them back but there are already 17,000 already in eastern Syria.

Rob Prince: Whatever the number, we are talking about a major U.S. military occupation that includes the theft of Syrian oil and wheat; U.S. intentions are still to break this government politically; Washington’s is still a policy of  regime change: the United States might have lost the proxy war in Syria militarily, but the economic warfare and occupation continue

How is it that the United States has greeted the possibility of peace in Syria? Congress has extended sanctions against Syria, tightened the already existing sanctions against any country that tries to participate in Syrian reconstruction. So the United States has not given up on overthrowing the Syrian government even as the prospect of doing so dims with each passing day.

End Part One.

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Part Two of the Series

Global Capitalism: The Changing World Economy (May 2023

Assad in Jeddah

The Old Silk Road