Your trusted source

Zayd al-Isa, a London-based Middle East expert, has joined Press TV’s Top 5 to share his thoughts on the recent wave of terrorist attacks in Iraq.

- Zayd al-Isa I hate to say that it is another day, another death but we are looking at, in the thousands now, people being killed in Iraq and of course many analysts have concluded that one of the major contributors has been Saudi Arabia.

Tell us what gains does Saudi Arabia see in Iraq by creating this instability? If you agree that they are in a major way, contributing to this.

- Well, since 2003 and the toppling of the Saddam’s dictatorship, Saudi Arabia has been vehemently opposed, and fiercely against that democratic change in Iraq.

It perceives it as a major existential threat to its tyrannical dictatorship which is considered to be the bastion of dictatorship in the region and in the Arab world.

Saudi Arabia has sought, since day one, to destabilize, discredit, derail; the fledgling democracy in Iraq with the ultimate goal of dismantling the whole entire democratic process in Iraq.

Now there has been a dramatic surge in violence in Iraq and basically, mainly, targeting the overwhelming majority of the people in Iraq, that is the Shia, in order to start off and spark a civil war in Iraq and the reason for this dramatic surge has been all the torrent of funding, arming, logistical support and even going to the unprecedented move of paying salaries to all the Wahhabi, Salafi terrorists converging on Syria.

All that money and arming that went to Syria has financed, according to the New York Times, the most radical and the most extremist element in the Syrian insurgency and that is the Jibhat al-Nusrah and Abubakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq has confirmed that Jibhat al-Nusrah is nothing but merely an extension of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jawlani, is simply a foot soldier of al-Qaeda and he acknowledged that all those resources have been halved and shared between the two terrorist organizations.

That proves beyond the shadow of doubt that all this funding from Saudi Arabia has gone to revive and reinvigorate al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The other reason is that Saudi Arabia desperately needs to prove to its people that it is engaged in confronting and combating an existential threat coming from the Shia and namely from the Islamic Republic of Iran because its people have discovered that this regime... overarching goal of the Saudi regime is actually to hold at bay the demands of people for democratic change and also turn the tide against the people clamoring for political reform.

So it needs to demonstrate to them, particularly after its deceitful, patently deceitful, myth has been exposed by its people that it is the guardian and defender of Sunni Islam because the Sunni regime thrown its weight, thrown its support behind all the tyrannical [governments] and dictatorships in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and we have seen the people protesting in those countries, demanding an end to the Saudi Meddling and interference in their countries’ [affairs] and that is why we see the Saudis actively and vigorously engaged in trying to start off a sectarian war, not just in Iraq but also in Syria and in Lebanon in order to be seen by its people, engaged in fighting a threat by the Shias, so that it makes it extremely hard for those people who are daring to defy it in Saudi Arabia to stand up [to] the regime and we have seen the Saudis coming up with various accusations that they are dismantling rings and networks of spies in Saudi Arabia, in order to backup their story.

We have seen also, Saudi Arabia widening its strategy after spectacular failure in concentrating on Syria trying to topple the Syrian regime, to also, encompass and involve Iraq to destabilize Iraq, believing that Iraq is the backbone or is offering support to the Syrian regime and we have seen, also, the Saudis deeply worried because of the international community adopting a diplomatic approach in Syria and refusing, adamantly refusing to adopt the Saudi strive to wage war against Syria and also wage war against Iran.

The Saudis are infuriated by the negotiations, taking place now, to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue. They want the West, particularly the United States to use and adopt a military approach to deal with Iran.