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Find Avi Melamed’s article “Saudi Post-quake aid to Syria comes with strings attached”, Originally published in Israel National News | INN-7 | March, 03 2023.
A former intelligence official and Middle East analyst on Saudi ulterior motives in helping Syria. What good could come out of that effort?
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
The February post-earthquake Saudi Arabian humanitarian aid to Syria is part of a larger agenda by the Gulf nation to get the Assad regime to distance itself from Iran’s orbit in exchange for more funds and renormalizing ties to the international community.
Syria’s Civil War began 12 years ago and has run up an extreme price tag costing billions –if not trillions– of dollars in damage, more than a half million people killed and injured, a refugee crisis felt across the world and a tremendous loss to President Assad and his government on the diplomatic scale.
In September of 2011, Syria saw its membership in the Arab League frozen, and in early 2012, most Gulf states recalled their ambassadors. Since then, Syria’s essentially remained diplomatically isolated, though over time there was a weakening of Arab opposition towards Assad and countries like Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Oman and Tunisia have warmed to Assad’s regime. Despite some countries moving towards pardoning Assad, Saudi Arabia, a key player in the Arab world has refused thus far to warm its relationship with Syria.
The Saudis wield an incredible amount of power when it comes to the Assad and Syrian question,” said Melamed. “The Saudi monarchy’s prominence within Arab world diplomacy, the financial power it wields through its investments across the Middle East and Africa, and its ability to potentially fund parts of the Syrian effort to rebuild, make it an essential partner for Assad as he works to pull himself out of the 12-year and counting conflict.
But Saudi support comes at a significant cost, specifically Syria’s needing to extract itself from Iran’s sphere of influence, and the removal of all Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. (IRGC) troops, and the fighters of their associated militias from Syrian sovereign territory.
The recent Saudi humanitarian aid to Syria signals that Saudi forgiveness is possible, and if they are to take place, any additional Saudi gestures towards Syria will indicate an interesting and significant development and we should be able to detect how that could play out within the next few weeks.
Avi Melamedis a Middle East Analyst, CEO of Inside the Middle East and Author of several books including most recently “Inside The Middle East | Entering A New Era.” A former Israeli intelligence official and the former senior Arab affairs advisor to Jerusalem mayors Teddy Kollek and Ehud Olmert, he is fluent in the languages and cultures of the Middle East, and an expert on current regional affairs and their impact on the geopolitics of the Middle East. His organization, Inside the Middle East, is an independent 501c3 that provides an apolitical non-partisan education about the contemporary Middle East, painting a multidimensional picture of the realities in the region and an unparalleled foundation for navigating its future events. Mr. Melamed has appeared in USA Today, Fox News, Yahoo!, The Financial Times, i24, The Jerusalem Post, Christian Broadcasting Network and more.
Find Avi Melamed’s article “Saudi Post-quake aid to Syria comes with strings attached”, Originally published in Israel National News | INN-7 | March, 03 2023.
A former intelligence official and Middle East analyst on Saudi ulterior motives in helping Syria. What good could come out of that effort?
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