For Obama to challenge Saudi Arabia would require true political courage since Official Washington has long embraced the reactionary Saudi monarchy as "moderates" who have provided a steady supply of oil in exchange for U.S. protection. But the Saudis have abused their "untouchable" status by funding extremists either directly from government coffers or through various princes.
As the Washington Post reported on June 13, "citizens in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have quietly funneled vast sums of money to and joined the ranks of ISIS and other jihadist groups fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria over the past two years, analysts and U.S. officials have said."
In recent weeks, ISIS -- facing pressure from the Syrian army and jihadist rivals in al-Nusra -- marched back into Iraq, where the group was founded as a reaction to Bush's 2003 invasion, and routed several divisions of the Iraqi army. ISIS captured a number of major cities and moved to within some 30 miles of Baghdad before encountering stiffer resistance from the Shiite-dominated army and Shiite militias.
The ISIS offensive prompted Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, to publicly denounce Saudi and Qatari leaders and accuse them of supporting "genocide" by unleashing terror groups to kill Shiites and to destroy Shiite religious sites.
"They are attacking Iraq, through Syria and in a direct way, and they announced war on Iraq, as they announced it on Syria, and unfortunately it is on a sectarian and political basis," Maliki said. "These two countries are primarily responsible for the sectarian and terrorist and security crisis of Iraq."
Though the Obama administration and many U.S. journalists are aware of the accuracy of Maliki's claims, the reporting on it in the New York Times is instructive about the obstacles that Obama faces both within the U.S. news media and his own administration.
On Wednesday, at the end of a long article on the Iraq crisis, the Times mocked Maliki's complaint as an attempt to shift blame, an attitude echoed by the U.S. State Department:
"The Iraqi government issued a statement accusing Saudi Arabia of funding the Sunni extremists, as Mr. Maliki continued to offer explanations for the stunning success of the Sunni extremists that do not focus on his leadership. The statement drew almost immediate criticism from the United States, with Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, describing it as inaccurate and 'offensive.'"
So, rather than put pressure on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states about their terrorist funding, a spokesperson for the Obama administration pretended that this reality didn't exist. (I'm told the Iraqi government recently captured an ISIS militant who has given details about the sources of Saudi funding and that information has been passed on to the CIA.)
Israeli Obstruction
Yet, as touchy as it is for the U.S. government to face down the oil-rich Saudis, it is even harder to confront the other end of the anti-Iran axis, the Israeli government.
If Obama were to venture down the road toward realigning U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East, he might find that he has little choice but to finally demand that Israel resolve its longstanding conflict with the Palestinians.
Indeed, with Putin's cooperation, Obama could threaten to seek a United Nations protection force for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza if Israel doesn't agree to either accept a viable Palestinian state or transform Israel and Palestine into a single state in which all citizens have equal rights under a constitution.
Such pressure would infuriate Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel's powerful lobby in Washington -- not to mention the neocons -- but it would lance a long-festering boil and remove a principal recruiting tool for Islamic extremism. A unified Israeli/Palestinian state -- with equal rights for all -- could also open the way for Muslim states to extend full recognition to this new entity while protecting the rights of Jews, Muslims and Christians.
If Barack Obama could find the political courage to take on these daunting challenges in a realistic and imaginative way, he might finally earn that Nobel Peace Prize that he received at the start of his presidency.
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