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Saudi Arabia struggled Sunday to assemble an Arab coalition that would give the U.S. and other Western countries vital political backing for airstrikes on the Syrian regime.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal indirectly acknowledged Sunday that the Arab world remained reliant on the U.S. as the region's policeman of last resort against transgressions by fellow Arab states, as well as the Arab world's top tier of protection against Iran.
"There is no capacity in the Arab world to respond to this kind of crisis," Prince Saud said, speaking of Syria. He bitterly faulted the deadlocked United Nations Security Council for failing to approve international military action, two years into a Syrian conflict that the U.N. says has killed more than 100,000 people.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the states pushing hardest for explicit Arab
League endorsement of a U.S.-led strike on Syria, the diplomat said.
In the end, the strongest Arab statement of support yet for a U.S. military strike on Mr. Assad's security forces came from Saudi Arabia, independently.
"We call upon the international community with all its powers to stop this aggression against the Syrian people," Prince Saud told reporters before Sunday night's meeting.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, while saying publicly that any military action should be under the U.N. Security Council, since the alleged August chemical attack increasingly have pushed the Obama administration behind the scenes for military intervention, Arab and U.S. officials have said.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are helping to arm and fund Syria's rebels, U.S. and Gulf officials say.
Turkey had been the sole Muslim country in the Middle East to publicly volunteer for a military coalition against Mr. Assad's regime. Arab states—bound in part by reluctance to attack a fellow Arab government—stayed quiet in public.
In conversations and in social media, however, Arabs on Sunday bluntly called U.S. officials "weak" and even "cowards."
"This is the dilemma for the region, between an impulsive president like George W. Bush or a no-action president, a paralyzed president," said Khalid Dekhayel, a political writer and columnist in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
Gulf states, fearing what was growing assertiveness by Shiite Muslim Iran after the U.S. toppled the Sunni Muslim government of Iraq, have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on arms purchases since the U.S. Iraq invasion changed the region's balance of power. The Gulf governments have continued to rely on the U.S. military, whose presence here safeguards allies Saudi Arabia and Israel as well as global oil supplies, for defense.
As a political writer in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Dekhayel said, he had long warned that it was a mistake for Saudi Arabia to rely too much on any foreign power for its protection. "And I think President Obama proved my point," he said.
Saudis Urge Action on Syria - WSJ.com
SA is counting on the US to strike Syria, why doesn't it do it by itself?
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal indirectly acknowledged Sunday that the Arab world remained reliant on the U.S. as the region's policeman of last resort against transgressions by fellow Arab states, as well as the Arab world's top tier of protection against Iran.
"There is no capacity in the Arab world to respond to this kind of crisis," Prince Saud said, speaking of Syria. He bitterly faulted the deadlocked United Nations Security Council for failing to approve international military action, two years into a Syrian conflict that the U.N. says has killed more than 100,000 people.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the states pushing hardest for explicit Arab
League endorsement of a U.S.-led strike on Syria, the diplomat said.
In the end, the strongest Arab statement of support yet for a U.S. military strike on Mr. Assad's security forces came from Saudi Arabia, independently.
"We call upon the international community with all its powers to stop this aggression against the Syrian people," Prince Saud told reporters before Sunday night's meeting.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, while saying publicly that any military action should be under the U.N. Security Council, since the alleged August chemical attack increasingly have pushed the Obama administration behind the scenes for military intervention, Arab and U.S. officials have said.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are helping to arm and fund Syria's rebels, U.S. and Gulf officials say.
Turkey had been the sole Muslim country in the Middle East to publicly volunteer for a military coalition against Mr. Assad's regime. Arab states—bound in part by reluctance to attack a fellow Arab government—stayed quiet in public.
In conversations and in social media, however, Arabs on Sunday bluntly called U.S. officials "weak" and even "cowards."
"This is the dilemma for the region, between an impulsive president like George W. Bush or a no-action president, a paralyzed president," said Khalid Dekhayel, a political writer and columnist in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
Gulf states, fearing what was growing assertiveness by Shiite Muslim Iran after the U.S. toppled the Sunni Muslim government of Iraq, have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on arms purchases since the U.S. Iraq invasion changed the region's balance of power. The Gulf governments have continued to rely on the U.S. military, whose presence here safeguards allies Saudi Arabia and Israel as well as global oil supplies, for defense.
As a political writer in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Dekhayel said, he had long warned that it was a mistake for Saudi Arabia to rely too much on any foreign power for its protection. "And I think President Obama proved my point," he said.
Saudis Urge Action on Syria - WSJ.com
SA is counting on the US to strike Syria, why doesn't it do it by itself?
