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Saudi-Russian meeting tries to control Syria's future

By: 
Ahmed Elbassiouny

August 24, 2013

Violence is escalating in Syria with recent allegations of chemical weapons attack on civilians in towns outside Damascus. The entire world wonders why the Syrian situation is getting worse, everyday.
 
In addition to the brutality of the Syrian regime, the inter-imperial rivalry intervening in Syria is worsening the sitution--with Russia arming the Assad regime, and the US and its puppets in the region arming sectarian sections of the opposition to undermine the revolution. This, more than the internal conflict, is pushing Syria towards civil war. Recently Saudi Arabia, backed by the US, has tried to bribe Russia into abandoning Assad's regime.
 
The Saudi deal
At the beginning of August, the Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar Bin Sultan had a four-hour meeting with the Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Reuters and different sources  confirmed that the meeting was about the Russian stance towards the Syrian situation. The Russian president was asked to abandon supporting the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. In return, Saudi Arabia will sign a deal of approximately $15 billion in Russian arms and weapons. On top of that, the Kingdom will ensure that Russia remains the top gas supplier to Europe by eliminating the Gulf competition.
 
Counter-revolution
While the corporate media claim the Russia is reconsidering its support for Assad based on chemical weapons, the real reason is a deal on arms and oil. While removing one source of imperial intervention (Russian arms to Assad) would be good for the people of Syria, it won't help if its driven and replaced by another source of imperial intervention (Saudi Arabia and Western imperialism). While Assad’s regime has committed grave human rights violations and war crimes with the aid of Russian arms, the Saudi regime has also used US and Western arms to attack pro-democracy protestors in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
 
The Saudi government has played a counter-revolutionary role representing indirect Western intervention. Saudi Arabia and it’s allies, who are pushing for the ousting of Assad’s regime, would support a replacement that is compliant to Western states and corporations. Since Saudi Arabia comes on top of the list of American allies, it takes the lead on trying to bribe Russia out of the equation.
 
While the world’s imperialist forces are competing to control Syria, it is important to be in solidarity with Syrians: supporting the right to self-determination and saying no to imperialist intervention. 

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