Certain hard-line US elements fuel Saudi policies: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Don DeBar, an activist and radio host, about Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut relations with Iran.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Now it’s interesting to note that Saudi Arabia and its allies within the region have been going against the tide when it comes to relations with Iran, where we’re seeing the P5+1, the Western world as a whole, which was opposed to Iran for such a long time is trying to mend its relations, at the same time Saudi Arabia and its allies are taking a totally opposite approach. What do you make of that?

DeBar: The two are very closely related actually. The boldness – if you want to call it that –recklessness of the Saudis in the most recent period is really a rearguard action by elements inside the US government that don’t want to see the US normalize relations with Iran; they don’t want to see Iran back in the community of nations.

And so, although official policy trumped their position, this is a backdoor method of their being able to try to block, that’s the attempt. But, I think it’s being generous to say Saudi Arabia and its allies… for example Bahrain… Bahrain is not really an ally of Saudi Arabia, it’s occupied. The government of Bahrain perhaps is allied with Saudi Arabia but the masses of people in Bahrain are being occupied by the Saudis to protect the government against them. They would just assume… get rid of their government and Saudi Arabia.

And at some point, I think, the effect of what’s happened since Friday and also with Zakzaky and others, the Saudis’ boldness and the attacks on Yemen that have been going on for, I don’t know, nine months now… At some point, people in Bahrain, Yemen and elsewhere are going to recognize… and even perhaps inside the oil world known as the United Arab Emirates, the people are going to eventually figure out all they have to do is a general strike, just sit down and stop working until the leadership goes way. And I think that day is coming very soon. It could even happen inside Saudi Arabia.

Press TV: But, Mr. DeBar, looking at the chain of events even before the execution of Sheikh Nimr, there are many who say that if you connect the dots, there has been a concerted effort and even strategy to raise these tensions to where they’ve boiled down to today. What is the end goal over here? Does Saudi Arabia want a confrontation with Iran? Does it want to ignite sectarianism within the region? What is the goal?

DeBar: Well, I did point out that there is sort of an independent policy by Saudi Arabia allied with some elements in the US government, but there’s a larger geopolitical picture as well.

Saudi Arabia plays the role of a tear gas canister being fired into a building that makes everyone in the building flee, with the United States playing the role of the SWAT team that then shoots the people as they leave the building.

The Saudis fund, train, arm, support, even with like Qataris and others… help the person, these terrorist groups, to go into places, Libya, Syria, across Africa.

And then the United States’ hand in glove with that action comes in to do a military intervention to “put down those terrorists.” This is the role that AFRICOM has played for example; you see in Africa, as AFRICOM got rolled out 2009, 2010, 2011, you saw a huge upswing in terrorist activity in Africa. And the governments in Africa terrified of that, glad to take any military assistance and direction from the United States that they could get – and I think some of them were getting wise to that game – but that’s the role that it plays.

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