Mr Obama, We are Not ‘Free Riders’
Prince Turki Al-Faisal/Asharq Alawsat/March 14/16
No, Mr. Obama. We are not “free riders.” We shared with you our intelligence that prevented deadly terrorist attacks on America.
We initiated the meetings that led to the coalition that is fighting ISIS , and we train and fund the Syrian freedom fighters, who fight the biggest terrorist, Bashar Assad and the other terrorists, Al-Nusrah and ISIS. We offered boots on the ground to make that coalition more effective in eliminating the terrorists.
We initiated the support — military, political and humanitarian — that is helping the Yemeni people reclaim their country from the murderous militia, the Houthis, who, with the support of the Iranian leadership, tried to occupy Yemen; without calling for American forces. We established a coalition of more than thirty Muslim countries to fight all shades of terrorism in the world.
We are the biggest contributors to the humanitarian relief efforts to help refugees from Syria, Yemen and Iraq. We combat extremist ideology that attempts to hijack our religion, on all levels. We are the sole funders of the United Nations Counter-terrorism Center, which pools intelligence, political, economic, and human resources, worldwide. We buy US treasury bonds, with small interest returns, that help your country’s economy.
We send thousands of our students to your universities, at enormous expense, to acquire knowledge and knowhow. We host over 30,000 American citizens and pay them top dollar in our businesses and industry for their skills. Your secretaries of state and defense have often publicly praised the level of cooperation between our two countries.
Your treasury department officials have publicly praised Saudi Arabia’s measures to curtail any financing that might reach terrorists. Our King Salman met with you, last September, and accepted your assurances that the nuclear deal you struck with the Iranian leadership will prevent their acquiring nuclear weapons for the duration of the deal. You noted “the Kingdom’s leadership role in the Arab and Islamic world.”
The two of you affirmed the “need, in particular, to counter Iran’s destabilizing activities.” Now, you throw us a curve ball. You accuse us of fomenting sectarian strife in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. You add insult to injury by telling us to share our world with Iran, a country that you describe as a supporter of terrorism and which you promised our king to counter its “destabilizing activities.”
Could it be that you are petulant about the Kingdom’s efforts to support the Egyptian people when they rose against the Muslim Brothers’ government and you supported it? Or is it the late King Abdullah’s (God rest his soul) bang on the table when he last met you and told you “No more red lines, Mr. President.”
Or is it because you have pivoted to Iran so much that you equate the Kingdom’s 80 years of constant friendship with America to an Iranian leadership that continues to describe America as the biggest enemy, that continues to arm, fund and support sectarian militias in the Arab and Muslim world, that continues to harbor and host Al-Qaeda leaders, that continues to prevent the election of a Lebanese president through Hezbollah, which is identified by your government as a terrorist organization, that continues to kill the Syrian Arab people in league with Bashar Assad?
No, Mr. Obama. We are not the “free riders” that to whom you refer. We lead from the front and we accept our mistakes and rectify them. We will continue to hold the American people as our ally and don’t forget that when the chips were down, and George Herbert Walker Bush sent American soldiers to repel with our troops Saddam’s aggression against Kuwait, soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder with soldiers. Mr. Obama, that is who we are.
****HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal is the co-founder of the King Faisal Foundation and Chairman of the Board of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. He acted as Adviser to the Saudi Royal Court during 1972–1977, then heading the Kingdom’s intelligence service from 1977&38211;2002, after which he became Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom until 2005, and Ambassador to the United States until 2007. He studied at Princeton, Cambridge, and Georgetown universities.
Obama’s Bubble
Tariq Alhomayed/Asharq Alawsat/March 14/16
The Atlantic magazine published a long story about the US President Barack Obama and his view of foreign policy under the title “The Obama Doctrine”. As a result, Arab newspapers said that Obama is attacking Saudi Arabia and hates Arabs.
It is wrong to portray Obama’s view as a stance against Arabs or Saudi Arabia as this is not true. We should not move emotionally in this direction, as Obama’s view is not about a specific party and shows that he lives in a bubble where he prefers to read fiction rather than books on politics or history. He probably also reads reports presented to him and thus demonstrates that the president is able to ignore and override institutions in America!
What the magazine published is not against a particular individual because Obama criticised everyone except Iran and Russia, of course. He criticised the Europeans, the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and described the British Prime Minister David Cameron as “absent minded”.
He criticized Netanyahu, the Turkish President and Gulf states and is of the opinion that they seek to use America’s “muscles” to serve their interests and demand a free ride! The article also stated that Obama told a foreign guest that he had heard a member of congress criticising him and told the foreign guest that he should have confronted the member over those criticisms. Obama also interrupted the Israeli Prime Minister whilst he was explaining the circumstances of the region by asking him whether he believes that the first African-American president and the son of a mother who provided for him financially does not know the region!
All of this indicates that we are dealing with a man who lives in a bubble, is full of arrogance and idealism. He dreamt of seeing Wael Ghoneim as the president of Egypt and according to The Atlantic, thinks that ISIS does not constitute an internal threat to America but that climate change does! It is also said that he called for the departure of Bashar Al-Assad because he believed that Al-Assad would leave at the same speed as the former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak!
The article also shows that Obama criticised the former and current Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry respectively. It also indicates that he was irritated by his ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power as well as the US National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and that he was worried that the reports submitted to him were misleading and would lead to foreign interventions that he did not want to undertake. What is worse is that his close team describes the street on which the most important research centre in Washington is located as the Arab occupied area. After this, can it be said that Obama, who has attacked Arab societies and their values just as he attacked Europeans, hates Arabs or only Saudi Arabia?
Of course not, by attacking everyone including members of his administration and his western allies, the article published by “The New Atlantic” shows that the president lives in a bubble, is a dreamer and is frustrated. He rushed into attacking everyone before he left and here is his administration trying to limit the damage caused by his undiplomatic views.
