Le Monde: Reality strikes the imagination .. Ben Salman in front of a dead end

The French newspaper Le Monde believes that the raid on two major Saudi facilities, which Riyadh blamed on Tehran, was a humiliation and an affront to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nationalist brigade.

In a report by veteran reporter Benjamin Bart, the paper said Saudi Arabia is now embarrassed, and hopes today that the propaganda film it published in 2017 describing its overwhelming response to Tehran, was not filmed at all.

Bart says the video he has seen so far has seen more than 1.5 million people mimic a video game that Saudi Arabia is occupying Iran and destroying its military bases, before Revolutionary Guards commanders can confront invading forces or fire any bullet, all with cheers from the Iranian people and welcoming King Salman's soldiers.

Bart said that the Saudi press at the time described the scenario of this propaganda video as "realistic", starting with a speech by Mohammed bin Salman, saying: "We will not wait for the arrival of war in Saudi Arabia, we will ensure that the battle is taking place inside Iran itself."

Terrible humiliation

Under the title "Terrible Humiliation," Bart said that the tone of this film was characterized by recklessness, chauvinism and impulsivity, which revealed a hardening of Saudi diplomacy against Iran, and its aggressive stiffness, a turn embodied by the young crown prince, the architect of the war in Yemen, who believes that confronting Iran is necessary because of Intervention in Arab affairs, according to the author.

But less than two years after the publication of the film, the reality is striking, but contrary to what the writers of the screenplay had coveted, the Saudi air defense system could not respond to an attack on the Kingdom's largest refinery, Abqaiq and the nearby Khuwairis oil field. On Saturday, September 14, it was a terrible insult to the crown prince, the patron of Saudi nationalism, the writer said.

"This is a severe blow to the credibility of Saudi Arabia in the face of Westerners," Bart was quoted as saying by a well-known foreign businessman in Riyadh.

The operation, which the US State Department has accused Iran of being behind and halving Saudi oil production, is a real pretext for war.

However, Bart says Saudi Arabia does not really want to go to war with its big enemy, and, apart from the video's promises, bin Salman seems to have gone into hiding for the time being and refraining from pointing fingers at Tehran, even if no one is in Riyadh. Suspected of being involved.

Sizing bin Salman
"What happened on Saturday was a big shock and an insult to Saudi Arabia," Bart told a Saudi journalist. "No one imagined that Iran would dare to strike. Bin Salman is in an unenviable position. He finds himself alone today against Iran."

Neither the United States wants to go to war with Iran, nor Riyadh's other ally, Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi media are simply counting the phone calls Saudi Arabia has received since the day of the attack, but in fact no country is ready to engage in a confrontation with Iran. Jasmine Farouk, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment.

Analysts do not expect the US military response to go beyond an electronic attack or deploy more anti-missile systems. In fact, according to one expert in Saudi affairs, "Bin Salman is in a strategic dilemma, because he does not have the necessary resources for his political ambitions," according to Barth's report.

In the end, Bart questioned whether King Salman would take this opportunity to reframe his crown prince and curtail his role, noting that what King Salman would say in this regard will give an idea of ​​the extent of weakness suffered by Mohammed bin Salman.