Salman Aldosary/Asharq Al Awsat/Saudi Arabia’s Message to France//Khamenei sacks Qassem Soleimani from command of the Syrian war

Saudi Arabia’s Message to France
Salman Aldosary/Asharq Al Awsat

Thursday, 25 Jun, 2015/It is no secret that most of Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic stances towards the Middle East have been in tune with those of France. This is not to mention that Paris may be currently politically closer to Riyadh than any other European capital. A French official was quoted by Asharq Al-Awsat on Tuesday as describing the relations between the two countries as “a honeymoon.” Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s visit to Paris, which ends on Thursday, sends a highly significant political message to French circles that Saudi Arabia did not, and will not, take Paris’s firm positions on the key issues of the region for granted.

In fact, those positions strengthen Riyadh and Paris’s historic political alliance and create a military, economic and industrial partnership that would reflect positively on both countries. Three main points summarize Saudi–French relations in their new form: first, Saudi Arabia’s new leadership is seeking to open new horizons in its relations with Europe and raise their level from “close” to “strategic.” Even if Saudi–European ties were “very good,” why should they not become “excellent” in the near future?

Second, the French positions, which are very close to those of Saudi Arabia, form a solid ground and firm basis for strengthening bilateral ties even further. Perhaps the latest such position was French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius’s initiative calling for a Palestinian state, which would share its capital Jerusalem with Israel, according to UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 336. Third, Saudi Arabia is heading towards economic integration with France, its historic ally. The Kingdom needs to strengthen economic ties with its allies, and France without doubt is at the forefront of the countries Saudi Arabia is keen to integrate with economically as well as politically.

On Wednesday, France 24 TV channel’s anchorwoman asked me about the price Saudi Arabia would pay for its rapprochement with France. My answer was that Saudi Arabia does not give “blank checks” to this or that country, nor does it deal in this old-fashioned and useless manner. Whenever Riyadh finds an economic partner that is capable of offering high-quality products which it needs, it definitely seeks to strike an alliance with them. Unless a deal is beneficial for both sides, it will fail sooner or later.

The French political circles understand and respect the Saudi policy of basing its strategies on long-term, permanent and stable relations rather than on temporary tactics. Perhaps the major deals the two sides signed on Wednesday confirm this policy given that they are not mere ink on paper, but rather viable deals that will bring benefit to both sides in equal measures.The regional and international climate is suitable for strengthening the strategic Saudi–French alliance that will in the future provide strategic clout leading to more powerful, joint stances towards the region’s main, long-suspended issues. Perhaps it is high time such alliances revived those regional issues.

Khamenei sacks Qassem Soleimani from command of the Syrian war
DEBKAfile Special Report June 24, 2015

Uproar in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has relieved Gen. Qassem Soleimani,the Al Qods Brigades chief and supreme commander of Iranian Middle East forces, of his Syria command after a series of war debacles. He was left in charge of Iran’s military and intelligence operations in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. This is revealed by debkafile’s exclusive Iranian and intelligence sources. Since Soleimani last visited Damascus on June 2, in the aftershock of the historic town of Palmyra’s fall to the Islamic State, the situation of President Bashar Assad and his army has gone from bad to worse. The Iranian general’s bravado in stating then that “In the next few days the world will be pleasantly surprised from what we (the IRGC) working with Syrian military commanders are preparing,” turned out to be empty rhetoric. The thousands of Iranian troops needed to rescue the Assad regime from more routs never materialized. Since then, the Syrian forces have been driven out of more places.

Hizballah is not only stymied in its attempts to dislodge Syrian rebel advances in the strategic Qalamoun Mountains, it has failed to prevent the war spilling over into Lebanon. There is strong evidence that the high Iranian command in charge of the Syrian and Lebanese arenas are stuck. These reverses have occurred, our military sources report, owing to Tehran’s failure to foresee five developments: 1. The launching of a combined effort by the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE – among the wealthiest nations in the world – in support of rebel groups fighting Bashar Assad. Their massive injections of military assistance, weapons and financial resources have thrown Iran’s limitation into bold relief. 2. The ineptitude of the Shiite militias mustered by Soleimani in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight Iran’s wars in Syria and Iraq. None of those imported troops met the combat standards required in those arenas and become liabilities rather than assets. 3.

Those shortcomings forced Tehran to admit that it had come up short of military manpower to deploy in four ongoing warfronts: Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. Soleimani took flak for the over-ambitious plans he authored which pulled Iran into military commitments that overtaxed its resources and did not take into account the messy political and military consequences which followed. Above all, he miscalculated the numbers of fighting strength needed on the ground for winning battles in those wars. 4. In the final reckoning, Iran funds has been drained of the strategic reserves that should have been set aside for the contingency of a potential ISIS encroachment of its territory.