Béchir Ben Yahmed, at age 89, is probably the most experienced journalist in the world today. He is warning that he has inside information that an alliance of Saudi Arabia and Benjamin Netanyahu, urged on privately by the Trump administration, is deliberately moving toward starting a much wider “New War in the Mideast.”
Ben Yahmed is not some obscure conspiracy theorist holding forth in a coffee house in Cairo or Beirut. He is the Tunisian-born founder of the distinguished French-language weekly Jeune Afrique (Young Africa), which he has headed since 1960 and where he still writes his influential, measured weekly column, “What I Believe.” So when he reports that he has learned that the 32-year-old de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and his pliable father, King Salman, are actively plotting to launch a far-reaching war with Israeli backing, attention must be paid.
Ben Yahmed recognizes that Saudi Arabia has already been at war in Yemen for 2 years. He says the kingdom’s next target is the Hezbollah political/military movement, in Lebanon. He writes that the Saudis plan “at the right moment, to unleash, with the help of Israel and the United States, a war aimed at defeating, disarming and putting Hezbollah completely out of action.”
But the real ultimate target is Iran, Hezbollah’s ally and patron. Ben Yahmed continues, “King Salman and his son, Netanyahu and Trump, four men of the extreme right who hold supreme power in three wealthy nations, are armed to the teeth and have the same enemy: Iran.” He argues that a wider war may be imminent partly because the Saudi crown prince and his father know they must act quickly, while Trump and Netanyahu are still in power. He cites, as evidence for this conspiracy, Trump’s tweet the very day that the Saudi twosome staged a de facto coup and arrested their domestic enemies: “I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing. . . .”
So in the months to come, the Korean peninsula may not actually be the most dangerous place in the world. Take a 32-year-old Saudi prince, intoxicated by having more real power than possibly anyone else in the Kingdom’s history, add the opportunistic Benjamin Netanyahu, who is anxious to act decisively to ward off the growing political threat from the Israeli far right, mix in the volatile, ignorant Donald Trump — and you have the makings of a regional cataclysm.
Béchir Ben Yahmed’s sober warning contrasts with another pathetic instance of journalistic malpractice by Thomas Friedman, whose recent gushing praise of the crown prince is already notorious. Friedman spent 4 hours with Mohammed bin Salman, whom he affectionately humanizes by calling him “M.B.S.,” and completely fell for the prince’s pose as a “reformer.” Friedman did not mention the rising threat of a wider Mideast war, (and he was also silent about the kingdom’s air attacks in Yemen, in a conflict in which more than 5000 people have already died, and a cholera epidemic has killed another 2000 Yemenis).
Friedman’s failure to report the real news is characteristic. We are still living with the consequences of the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which Friedman — the most influential foreign affairs columnist in America — enthusiastically (and viciously) endorsed. Once again, the call goes out to “Fire Thomas Friedman.” Until he is replaced, Americans have to read a French-language magazine to find reporting that should be in their own newspapers, in English.
Thank you for this excellent article, James. I will be looking for more from Yahmed. And thank you for pointing out the consistently awful Thomas Friedman. He is likely the best representative to show how conservative politics and attitudes on the issue of Palestine are now being called “liberal,” or at best “moderate.” [He beats out H. Clinton by a hair…] What makes Friedman particularly frustrating – aside from his clever-clever, self-amused, glib, and often simply confused style of writing – is the fact that he’s so widespread in the media spectrum that you know he’s effecting the minds of a large portion of the population with his transparently Israel-first ideas.
As you know, James, we’re far from alone in this view of Friedman’s rhetoric and writing. Glenn Greenwald wrote this of Friedman’s writing:
“He literally negates his own principal claim… in the very same column in which he advances it… But incoherence is the least notable aspect of this column.
This is to say nothing of the warped imagery Friedman often uses of the invading U.S. as a ‘midwife’ — as though Muslim countries are our little babies who need and pray for our parental imperial guidance out of their primitive wombs.
If I had to pick just a single fact that most powerfully reflects the nature of America’s political and media class in order to explain the cause of the nation’s imperial decline, it would be that, in those classes, Tom Friedman is the country’s most influential and most decorated ‘foreign policy expert.’”
And this from Rolling Stone’s political writer/reporter Matt Taibbi:
“…This is Friedman’s life: He flies around the world, eats pricey lunches with other rich people and draws conclusions about the future of humanity by looking out his hotel window and counting the Applebee’s signs…
[Re: Friedman’s method of creating an argument or making a point]: It’s crazy, a game of Scrabble where the words don’t have to connect on the board, or a mathematician coming up with the equation A B -3X = Swedish girls like chocolate.”
Planning a wider Mid-East war? Wh-wh-what ever happened to Trump’s non-interventionist foreign policy? He was gonna get us out of those Democratic wars.
Well, Flynn pled guilty to only one minor charge (working for Obama) and so the Russia-Trump investigation will be over, so Trump won’t be tempted to produce distractions. Pax Trumpia here we come!
I don’t see a war on Hezbollah in the immediate future, it would have to be a huge false flag or pure aggression on Israel’s part, in such a case the Russians with their s400’s just to the north in Syria would have a big say on the outcome, maybe even Syria would be involved. It must be noted that Hezbollah have over 100,000 missiles and other surprises which Nasralla said can reach all areas in Israel, including Dimona and the Israeli gas fields, such destruction of vital infrastructure in Israel and the massive loss of life is not something Israel will contemplate especially when Lebanon is destroyed but Iran is still standing. As for the Saudis they may have billions of dollars of military equipment but their army is a joke, I doubt they can wipe their own behinds, who will fly their aircraft? The Israelis know and respect Hezbollah they know it will be no walk in the park, Israels problem is that every day that goes by, Iran and Hezbollah grow stronger, what a conundrum.
This Ben Yahmed article is astute.
James
Béchir Ben Yahmed’s article is fine, but when published on November 16 it was already a bit outdated.
On November 16 even Time published this: The Saudi Crown Prince’s Plot to Reshape the Middle East Backfires
On November 17 Alastair Crooke illuminated the background a bit brighter: Trump’s Saudi Scheme Unravels.
My comment: destroying Hezbollah and/or Iran with a new big war is a wet dream of Bibi and MbS. MbS wants to use Israel to do the fighting, Bibi wants the Saudis to do the fighting, and both of them want to use the US military as their proxy, but the US military doesn’t want to be used as a proxy of Bibi and MbS. Bibi and MbS want war, but both are afraid of fighting it themselves. And that’s why the Bibi-MbS plan to destroy Hezbollah and Iran stayed now after years of brutal war in Syria, Iraq and Lebenon what it it was from the beginning: a wet dream.