End of the Saudi Blockade of Qatar: Will Syria Benefit from the “Renewed Gulf Unity”?
With an end to the Qatar blockade and a possible rapprochement with Turkey, Saudi Arabia may soon move towards reconciliation with Syria.
The Persian Gulf states’ opposition to Iran’s role in the region, while limiting Turkey’s influence, may bring Saudi Arabia and the Gulf back to Damascus.
The Gulf monarchies did not support the Muslim Brotherhood ideology of the terrorists in Syria, such as the Free Syrian Army and other Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists. However, the oil-rich Gulf states did the bidding of their main western ally, the US administration of Barak Obama, who was the architect of the US-NATO attack on Syria beginning in 2011 for ‘regime change’. Given the fact, which President Trump publically stated, the kings and princes of the Persian Gulf are only in power at the behest and allowance of the US, the Arabs were not afforded the luxury of refusing the US when asked to fund the US-backed terrorists.
Some critics had claimed Obama was himself a follower of the Muslim Brotherhood, as evidenced by the many members he had closely associated with in the US; however, others have assessed that while he may have been sympathetic to the group, in reality, he was only using the Radical Islamic ideology to instigate an insurrection in Syria for ‘regime change’.
Iran and their Persian Gulf neighbors share not only geography but also an aversion to Radical Islam. However, one is seen as the enemy of the US, and the others are close allies who host some of the largest US military bases on earth.
Russia
Dr. Saad Al-Jabri revealed that the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was encouraging Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene in Syria two months before the Russian armed forces entered the battlefield in October 2015, which effectively ended any chance of a military victory for the armed Syrian opposition, although the Kingdom had previously supported them.
At the same time, Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani, later assassinated by Trump, was also asking the Russians to enter Syria militarily to fight the terrorists who were fighting to create an Islamic State in Damascus, in another example of commonalities between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
READ more: End of the Saudi Blockade of Qatar: Will Syria Benefit from the “Renewed Gulf Unity”?