Saudi Arabia becoming more and more reckless: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Ken Stone, with the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War, about a recent declaration by Saudi Arabia that it is ready to send ground troops to Syria, and the US move to welcome the Saudi announcement.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How do you feel about possible Saudi deployment to Syria and its possible ramifications of course?

Stone: I find the Saudi offer to be both laughable and frightening at the same time. Saudi Arabia does not have reliable ground troops. Their troops are only good for repressing the Shia population who are marching in peaceful demonstrations. It’s only good for going in Canadian armored vehicles to the aid of the king of Bahrain in 2011 to put down the pro-democracy protest there by unarmed civilians.

When the Saudis decided to wage an illegal aggression against Yemen, they had no troops of their own to put into this fight. So they had to go shopping around for troops. Egypt and Pakistan turned them down; and so, they shopped around Africa and ended up with some African mercenaries and some Blackwater mercenaries from the US; and even in spite of these, the brave fighters inside of Yemen have turned the fight back against Saudi Arabia and carried it into Saudi Arabia itself.

So, it’s kind of laughable, but at the same time, it’s frightening that they’re talking about sending... the Saudis are talking about sending ground troops to Syria, because now they’re coming up behind the mask of plausible deniability. Before, they were covertly arming, funding and recruiting for ISIS, these terrible head-choppers in Syria and Iraq. But now, they’re openly coming out in support of the Western aggression against the legitimate government of Syria.

And it seems to indicate that the Saudi government is becoming more and more reckless, that… None of their plans are working and so they’re doubling their bets. And it seems to be a kind of death wish on the part of the House of Saud. And I think this latest offer to send ground troops into without the permission of the Syrian government spells doom – D O O M – for the House of Saud.

And in my personal opinion that demise cannot come a moment too soon, but it is even doubly frightening in view of the fact that the Russians are saying that they see this move by Saudi Arabia as an act of war. And they also have indicated lately that they see troop movements on the Turkish side would indicate a possible ground invasion from Turkey as well.

From the point of view of the peace movement, this is a very dangerous situation to world peace. We are this close to World War III; and what we need to do, what the peace movement is doing in the West is calling for the end of arms sales, these huge arms sales, such as Canada’s 15-billion-dollar sales to Saudi Arabia. And we’re calling on governments in the West to retreat from their illegal attack on Syria and get back to the peace talks in Geneva.

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