Carte blanche for Saudi

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have found themselves at odds of late with US State Department diplomats and Defense Department leadership, taking provocative actions by blockading Qatar; summoning Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Riyadh earlier this month, where he abruptly resigned; and blockading since Nov. 6 major Yemeni ports from desperately needed humanitarian aid shipments in retaliation for a Nov. 4 Houthi missile strike targeting Riyadh's international airport.

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Saudi and Emirati officials have suggested to US diplomatic interlocutors that they feel they have at least tacit approval from the White House for their hard-line actions, in particular from President Donald Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, who Trump has tasked with leading his Middle East peace efforts.

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But growing US bureaucratic dismay at perceived Saudi/Emirati overreach, as well as Kushner’s mounting legal exposure in the Russia investigations, has many veteran US diplomats, policymakers and lobbyists urging regional players to be cautious about basing their foreign policy on any perceived green light, real or not, from the Kushner faction at the White House.

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When the Saudis and Emiratis were about to launch the blockade of Qatar in June, then-US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones got a call in the middle of the night from UAE Ambassador Otaiba to inform him of the impending action. Jones’ reaction was “extremely harsh. ‘What are you guys doing? This is crazy,’” a former US ambassador to the region told Al-Monitor. “And … Yusuf [Otaiba]'s response was, ‘Have you spoken to the White House?’”

  Al-Monitor

I'm sure. The Saudis know who's in the oval office. And it's not veteran diplomats, policymakers or lobbyists.

[US Ambassador to Yemen Gerald] Feierstein, now with the Middle East Institute, told Al-Monitor. “But I think that over the course of time, State and Defense have won that fight. And my sense is if [Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson and [Secretary of Defense James] Mattis are together and pushing hard, they can win those arguments. … Clearly, when the two of them are together, they can successfully push back on the White House.”

And yet, we don't even have an ambassador to Saudi Arabia now.

"If something happens to Jared — he gets distracted or is no longer on the scene — what happens to [their] critical relationship with the White House?"

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Some veteran US policymakers doubt that Kushner is giving Prince Mohammed the green light for all his actions.

“My guess is it is vague,” Bruce Riedel, a long-time CIA and White House official and Saudi specialist, told Al-Monitor. “Jared doesn’t know details.”

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Former US Ambassador Feierstein wondered if the recent Saudi recall of Hariri to Riyadh was part of the Kushner peace chessboard.

“Is this a peace process play?” Feierstein wondered. “Is this somehow a US/Israel/Saudi Arabia kind of strategy that is playing out, aimed at isolating Hezbollah and basically destabilizing the Hezbollah-dominated government in Beirut in exchange for some Israeli concession on the peace process with the Palestinians? … What exactly is the full deal out there?”

Whatever it is, if it's coming from Jared Kushner, it's about funneling money into the Trump organization. Trump didn't appoint Kushner to handle Middle East deals because of his (nonexistent) diplomatic or foreign policy expertise.

“The problem is that the Saudis think Trump and Kushner are the only ones whose views matter,” Konyndyk told Al-Monitor. “And they're probably right.”

“I doubt [Kushner would] give an explicit green light on [the Yemen] blockade,” Konyndyk added. “But the Saudis were champing at the bit to crack down on the place, and the only thing holding them back was the United States saying no repeatedly. In that situation, you don't have to say ‘yes.’ Just have to stop saying ‘no.’"

And keep selling them the weapons to destroy Yemen.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.