Middle East Focus: With Martian Invasion Delayed, Saudi and UAE Leaders Hesitate to Arm Libyans……

Arabia Deserta

With Martian Invasion Delayed, Saudi and UAE Leaders Hesitate to Arm Libyans……

Winter Summer

“Desperate to avoid US military involvement in Libya in the event of a prolonged struggle between the Gaddafi regime and its opponents, the Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it can supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi. The Saudi Kingdom, already facing a "day of rage" from its 10 per cent Shia Muslim community on Friday, with a ban on all demonstrations, has so far failed to respond to Washington's highly classified request, although King Abdullah personally loathes the Libyan leader, who tried to assassinate him just over a year ago. Washington's request is in line with other US military co-operation with the Saudis. The royal family in Jeddah, which was deeply involved in the Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, gave immediate support to American efforts to arm guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan in 1980 and later – to America's chagrin – also funded and armed the Taliban. But the Saudis remain the only US Arab ally strategically placed and capable of furnishing weapons to the guerrillas of Libya. ……..”

Maybe, finally, all those expensive weapons the Saudis have been buying, all those high ~~bribes~~ commissions the potentates have been receiving, will pay off. Maybe: they are apparently reluctant.
On the other hand the United Arab Emirates probably has more weapons than even Saudi Arabia, being the largest importer of arms since 2005 (SIPRI). And it has hardly any people who can use all these weapons. The Abu Dhabi potentates surely have most of these weapons rusting in some desert warehouses while they await the feared invasion from Mars. They can as easily supply the Libyan rebels.

That would be quite a scene: two of the most reactionary and allegedly corrupt regimes in the Middle East, nay on the planet, supplying weapons to rebels fighting against a fellow corrupt Arab leader. That is why they don’t want to do it: they loathe the idea of arming any rebels, they loathe the term “rebel” as un-Islamic, at least un-oligarchic, and quite possibly un-corrupt. Besides, they don’t want to set a precedent whereby some foreign power (Afghanistan? Iran? Venezuela?) would arm other Arab rebels in the future. Besides, they are still heart-broken over the demise of Hosni Mubarak: now they have no official excuse to hang around the beaches of Sharm El-Shaikh.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com