The Saudi Bull in The Arab China Shop

However, instead of maneuvering wisely to backtrack to steer in harmony with the US, the kingdom stubbornly decided to "go it alone."

In an op-ed published by The New York Times on last December 19, Saudi Ambassador to the UK, Prince Nawaf bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, said his country "will go it alone" against Syria and Iran, because it "will not stand idly by" while the US compromises Saudi Arabia's security and "risk[s] the region's stability."

However, "in spite of its great wealth, the kingdom is not able to confront significant threats in its strategic environment on its own, " former Iran Coordinator in Israel's National Security Council, Yoel Guzansky, wrote in Haaretz on last December 25, adding that as regards the Saudi "deterrence of and protection from Iran, " no other major power is currently interested in or capable of filling the role played by the United States."

As of late this summer, Saudi Arabia had given $400 million in arms and other equipment to Syrian Salafi Jihadists, the Wall Street Journal online reported on last December 29.

True, Saudi warmongering over Syria and Iran could abort the Geneva II conference on Syria, scheduled to convene on this January 22 in Montreux , Switzerland to wrap up a political settlement, but in the end of the day the Saudi kingdom is more likely to end up the only loser in the face of a regional and worldwide consensus on political settlement as the only possible exit out of the Syrian conflict.

Logic dictates that Iran should be in and Saudi Arabia out, but the Geneva II guest list includes warmongering Saudi Arabia, but excludes Iran, which has been calling from the start for a political solution. Such an arrangement warns of including the only "spoiler-in-chief," in the words of the Assistant Professor of International Studies at Arcadia University, Pennsylvania, Samer N. Abboud, writing in the Qatari www.aljazeera.com on this January 5.

The US and Russian top diplomats, John Kerry and Sergey   Lavrov were scheduled during a meeting ahead of Geneva II to decide on Iran's participation, according to Martin Nesirky, spokesperson for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

There is no way the kingdom could succeed in Syria where a US-led Qatari, Turkish, French and British alliance failed. Saudi former intelligence chief, former ambassador to the US and an influential member of the royal family, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, admitted their failure when he told CNBC on this January 7 that the United States failed in its dealing with the Syrian conflict.

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