Hezbollah supreme leader Hassan Nasrallah for the first time has accused Saudi Arabia of hunting down his terrorist organization. He blamed the kingdom for an attack two weeks ago on the Iranian embassy in Beirut, where 23 people were killed. An Al Qaeda-linked group previously has taken responsibility for the suicide bombings.

Nasrallah also blamed Saudi Arabia for similar attacks on Iraq.

His accusations on Tuesday were followed on Wednesday with his blaming Israel for the assassination of one of Hezbollah’s most senior terrorists, who was gunned down in Beirut, as reported here.

Here at the Muqata think tank, we’ve been analyzing the changes happening around us, and envisioning what a new Middle East could look like, or turn into, if given the chance—based on the real state of affairs in our region. Obviously, we’re looking to develop the best possible realistic scenario for Israel as can be, based on current parameters.

America’s betrayal of long time allies, and its shifting of alliances to the worst of the worst of the Islamic fundamentalist governments, has encouraged a sea change for the entire region.

After U.S. failure to turn Egypt into a fundamentalist Islamic state, it’s now turning to firmly prop up the Islamic Republic of Iran. The end result is that any hope for a popular uprising that would throw out the Ayatollahs is now lost.

A revitalized, aggressive, fundamentalist, and obviously nuclear Iran constitutes a clear and present danger to all the countries in the region, not just Israel.

The recent U.S. betrayal of its long time allies has taught Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Gulf States the lesson of an exaggerated reliance on the world’s biggest super power.

America’s Middle East policy has always relied on the three legged stool of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran. When America lost Iran, it tried to replace it with Iraq, then with Egypt, but each attempt resulted in unexpected consequences.

For the U.S., the Iran deal represents a much sought after return to an old and familiar Mid-East policy, never mind the fact that this time Iran and Turkey are very much Islamic, and have developed an imperialistic appetite that threaten their neighbors, most emphatically the Foggy Bottom stool’s third leg, Saudi Arabia, which isn’t buying any of it.

It’s no accident that there has been noise about the Saudis preparing to assist Israel in a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Gulf States, too, save for Bahrain, are in Israel’s corner, having had thriving business relations with Israel (and shhh, even Settlers) for years. They all view Iran as a radical menace and Israel as its stabilizing antidote.

At the Muqata think tank, we’ve come up with what could be a very realistic realignment, and a plan for a truly new Middle East (Tom Friedman, eat your heart out).

Saudi Arabia has money. Lots of money. Lots of oil too. And of course, lots of desert.

But they don’t have innovation, they don’t have technology, and they no longer enjoy that sense of security they used to have.

Israel has innovation. Israel has technology. Israel knows how to make deserts bloom. Israel has security. But Israel, while becoming energy independent, doesn’t have oil or money (on the Saudi scale), or the production capability to stand alone.

Actually, both states could use better production capabilities.

Both also have had the same reliance on the U.S. to supply them with military platforms.

It’s also no secret that Israel’s military technology and know-how is superior to that of the U.S., but the latter is making sure that the former not be allowed to compete with industries in the American military industrial complex.

And don’t get us started on Israel being forced to take the less than wonderful but shockingly expensive F-35.

Ask yourself, what would happen if Saudi Arabia were to change its buying habits?

Let’s say they decided to buy an Israeli designed advanced fighter jet. Let’s say Saudi Arabia invested in Israeli green tech, to make their deserts bloom.

Let’s say that Saudi Arabia made a new alliance with Israel, based on mutual defense and mutual interests.

It would require of the hyper conservative Saudis to do something brand new, something they wouldn’t have dreamed of doing only a five years ago, when their ambassador to the U.S. was considered an adjunct member of the Bush cabinet. But those days are gone, and the Saudis, perhaps more so than Israel, are fearing for their lives.

One could think of worse reasons than the will to live for cooperation between historic enemies.

If such a pact—which could be denied ad nauseam by both sides—were to happen, we would definitely see Egypt and Jordan joining in. Secretly (at first).

The new Middle East would include Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf states, vs. Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Gaza.

The Saudi kingdom has kept a suspicious silence over President Barack Obama and his Western allies’ deal with Iran, but one of its wealthiest billionaires princes, who owns lots of shares in Twitter, Apple and News Corp., has minced no words to express no confidence in Obama.

He also happens to be a nephew of King Abdullah.

“There’s no confidence in the Obama administration doing the right thing with Iran,” Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, told Bloomberg News.

Then he blurted out a whopper by saying. “We’re really concerned.” The “we” is “Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Middle East countries,” he said.

It is no secret that Riyadh and Jerusalem are privately in cahoots again Iran, but when the king’s billionaire nephew publicly states Israel is an ally against the White House, somebody at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue should start cleaning out his ears.

His comments came hours before the deal with Iran was announced, but he presumably figured Obama would surrender and let Iran win the bargaining session.

“Obama is in so much of a rush to have a deal with Iran,” he said. “He wants anything. He’s so wounded. It’s very scary. Look, the 2014 elections are going to begin. Within two months they’re going to start campaigning. Thirty-nine members of his own party in the House have already moved away from him on Obamacare. That’s scary for him.”

Open criticism of Obama playing politics on the life-or-death issue of a nuclear Iran is pretty harsh stuff and might have made it a bit easier for the Kingdom to refrain from saying what it really thinks – that Obama does not understand anything about the Middle East or simply could not care less.

Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan a few weeks ago said that if President Obama continues to accommodate Iran, it might make a “major shift” away from Washington. And “away” from the White House means closer to the Zionist entity. It is amazing what some people will do to survive.

Prince Awaleed’s openly lumping the Kingdom with Israel and “other Middle East countries” cannot be shooed away as a one man’s opinion. Bloomberg noted that his “public statements are often interpreted as a barometer for the thoughts of Saudi’s rulers.”

Obama may be buying off Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States by offering them more security guarantees, but after Obama ditched Saudi Arabia and backed off its threat to attack Syrian President Bassar al-Assad for using chemical weapons, who trusts Washington any longer?

It is assumed Israel has nuclear warheads, and Saudi Arabia already has not kept it a secret that it would try to get its hands on nuclear weapons via Pakistan if Iran goes nuclear, so what guarantees does Washington have to offer?

The agreement with Iran by the Western powers, headed by Obama, puts the president in the saddle for the time being.  Except for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, no one – not even Saudi Arabia – is going to second-guess Obama and not give the deal a chance.

Obama has neutralized Israel and silenced Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and, according to Israel’s Channel 10 television, he will use the deal to promote its agenda to solve all of the problems in the Middle East.

The television station reported that Obama will now figure it can pressure Iran, and even Russia, to help solve the Syrian civil war.  With that under his belt, it is only a short hop skip and a jump to crown the Palestinian Authority as the non-nuclear weapon to destroy Israel by squeezing it into its old “Auschwitz borders” until the next step of flooding it with Palestinian Authority “immigrants.”

Given President Obama’s track record on Obamacare, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and about every other country outside of Antarctica, it is a fair assumption that things will fall apart quickly. If it indeed is Obama’s plan to march to world peace with Iran at its side, the man forgets, or doesn’t even know, that he really does not understand the Middle East or simply could not care less.

The ink was hardly dry on the deal when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani already interpreted it differently.

Tehran said the agreement leaves it with the right to enrich uranium, even if its low grade, while Kerry denied that the deal recognized Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium.

Perhaps a “bad deal” was better than no deal because once the bad deal is exposed for what it is, the Western powers can go back to square one and start over with common sense.

Of course, that assumes it is not too late.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry denied reports that he is ready to impose a U.S. peace plan on Israelis and Palestinians.

“Let me categorically dispel any notion that there is anything other than the track that is formally engaged in between Israel and the Palestinians,” Kerry said when asked by reporters Monday about the purported plan in Riyadh, where he met with his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Saud al Faisal.

A number of reports over the last week, including one from Zehava Gal-On, the leader of the left-wing Israeli Meretz Party who said she had learned of the plan from U.S. and Palestinian officials, said that the secretary of state was frustrated with the gap between the Israeli and Palestinian teams and was ready to introduce a U.S. plan in January that would be based in the 1967 lines.

“The only plan we have at this point in time is to pursue that discussion and the discussion track that we’ve always talked about, which is the leaders track, which is the discussions between President Obama, myself, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and President Abbas,” Kerry said. “So it’s just incorrect. There is no other plan at this point in time.”

Kerry continued from Saudi Arabia to Israel and the Palestinian areas, where he was to meet this week with leaders, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Palestinians and Israelis renewed talks this summer after intensive lobbying by Kerry.

Saudi traffic police had a field day in Riyadh on Saturday, fining at least 16 women who broke the tradition that prohibits women from taking the wheel.

The threat of $80 fines doused plans for a massive feminist turnout following a campaign of “women’s driving is a choice” that had gained support with more than 16,000 signatures.

The women who defied the ban posted videos on social media of their brazen act, and after being caught, they had to sign a pledge “to respect the Kingdom’s laws.” Police kept the women by their vehicles until a male guardian appeared to take the wheel, but some women were taken to the police station.

Given the traditional Muslim veil that women in Saudi Arabia usually wear in public, women drivers indeed could be a public danger. Who wants to ride with someone whose face is completely covered except for two slits for the eyes?

For the time being, it is the Saudi kingdom that has limited vision because it may only be a matter of time before it caves in and accepts the ugly Western influence of a female carrying out the masculine task of driving a car.

“Despite the strong opposition, the women believe that time is on their side,” The New York Times reported. “They point to the huge numbers of Saudis who study and travel abroad and return with new perspectives on their culture. They also suggest that the kingdom’s youthful population and the tremendous rise of social media will over time make the country more open to change.”

Saudi Arabia has the privilege of being the only country in the world where women are barred from driving, but the prohibition is a custom of the kingdom and not written in law.

The issue is not to be treated frivolously or with sarcasm. Saudi cleric Sheikh Saleh bin Saad al-Lohaidan  in late September gave a very good reason why women should not drive.

“If a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity, that could have negative physiological impacts as functional and physiological medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upwards,” he told the Senior Council of Scholars, one of the top religious bodies in the country.

“That is why we find those who regularly drive have children with clinical problems of varying degrees,” he said.

Iran’s government-controlled Fars News Agency reported on Sunday that Syrian forces seized “Israeli-made missiles, machine guns, rifles and communication devices” in clashes with rebels in the Daraa region.

Saudi Arabia has been known to be a major supplier of weapons to opposition forces, so if the report has any validity, it raises the fanciful scenario that the oil-rich kingdom is buying weapons from Israel and then shipping them to Al Qaeda terrorists who are using Zionist guns.

Ever since the seventies, the world has become accustomed to the split in the Middle East, between those countries that support the West – Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco and Israel, and we might add Turkey to this list as well, and those countries that were members of the opposing, Soviet, coalition: Syria, Libya, Iraq and South Yemen. Lebanon was then between the democratic hammer and the Syrian anvil.

Despite the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the eighties, there were no big shifts in political orientation, and the countries that were faithful to the Western bloc led by the United States remained faithful to it until recently, mainly because a new hostile bloc was formed, led by Iran and supported by Russia and China. The stronger the Iranian threat became, the more the pro-Western countries depended on America for support.

Lately, however, the pro-Western coalition has begun to crumble, and two key countries – Saudi Arabia and Egypt – are searching for a new political crutch, ever since it became clear to them that the American crutch is nothing but “a broken reed” (Isaiah, 36:6). A few more countries can be added to this list, mainly Turkey and the Gulf Emirates.

Saudi Arabia

In an unprecedented move, the Saudi kingdom has refused to become a member of the most powerful body in the world, the Security Council of the UN, a body authorized to deal with the world’s security problems and, with the power of the authority vested in it, can even declare war as a world body on a country that violates its resolutions. The question that immediately arises is: why did Saudi Arabia refuse to become a member of the body that is perhaps the only one capable of dealing with Iran’s military nuclear project? Why did Saudi Arabia reject the opportunity to influence events in Syria from within the Security Council? Why doesn’t Saudi Arabia take advantage of the most important stage in international policy in order to take action against Israel?

The superficial reason is that which the Saudi foreign office published, expressing an ethical position: the kingdom will not agree to enter the Security Council until the Council undergoes reforms that will enable it to fulfill its role, which is to maintain world peace. The obsolete apparatus, the wasteful practices, and double standards used by the Security Council all prevent it from fulfilling its role. There are many examples of this: the Palestinian problem has not been solved despite it having been created 65 years ago, and despite the fact that the wars stemming from it have threatened the peace of the entire region and the world several times. The Council allows the Syrian dictator continue slaughtering his citizens for almost three years without imposing effective sanctions, and the Council has failed to achieve the goal of turning the Middle East into an area free of weapons of mass destruction because it has not managed to create an effective method of oversight for military nuclear projects.

Despite the fact that the Saudis do not speak specifically about Iran in their official announcement, it is clear that their reference is not to Israel, from whom they fear no danger, but to Iran, whose nuclear plans do keep them awake at night. However, it is specifically the Iranian nuclear issue which should have pushed Saudi Arabia to become a member the Council; membership could have granted them an active role in making decisions against Iran, so why not join?

In part, the reasons relate to the way that the Saudis see the international alignment of countries recently but is also connected to the customary culture of honor in the Middle East, without which it would be impossible to understand the behavior of the Saudis, proud sons of the desert.

First of all, a person of honor does not join a club where he is considered a class ‘B’ member. In the Security Council there are class ‘A’ members – the five permanent members (the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China) who have nuclear weapons and veto power, and there are class ‘B’ members – the ten countries with temporary membership, who are not allowed to attain nuclear weapons and do not have veto power. Saudi Arabia would in no way agree to be a class ‘B’ member of any organization, and would prefer not to join because honor is more important to it than anything else.