Iran promptly mocked the Saudi statement, saying the troops would be immediately wiped out if they joined the war. “If they do, they will inflict a coup de grace on themselves”, Major General Ali Jafari said.
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“We know that air strikes can not be enough and that a ground operation is needed”.
“We welcome the announcement by Saudi Arabia that seeks ways to enhance its participation in the coalition” against the EI group, said Friday Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesman of the Command of USA forces in the Middle East (Centcom).
Saudi Arabia has been part of the coalition since late 2014.
“A peace settlement in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen could lead to a swift rebound in oil output, allowing them to increase fiscal space, improve current account balances and boost economic growth in the medium term with positive spillovers to the neighboring countries”, said Lili Mottaghi, World Bank economist for the region and the author of the report.
The fear of the “rebels” and their Western patrons is that the Russian-backed advances of Syrian government forces will make it impossible to achieve by means of negotiations what they are unable to procure on the battlefield: the toppling of Assad and the imposition of a more pliant United States puppet regime.
Tom Wilson, a research fellow for think tank the Henry Jackson Society, said: “The proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is now in a rapid state of escalation”.
“But if the Saudis do put troops on the ground in Syria then this would represent the opening of a major new front in what is increasingly a full scale regional conflict”.
Saudi Arabia is already part of the US-led coalition and has, according to General Asiri, already carried out more than 190 aerial missions. Most likely, Turkish troops will enter Syria under the cover of the alliance for the struggle against the Islamic State.
He said the Saudi government had indicated a willingness to do more in the fight against Islamic State, which controls vast swaths of Syria and Iraq. She declared herself “a bit skeptical” about potential Turkish army involvement in Syria, “but we might see them having some kind of interest in containing Kurdish influence”.
Earnest said it was not clear whether the Saudi offer would include a significant contingent of ground troops or the deployment of special operations forces.
Iran and Saudi Arabia, led by regimes representing opposing Islamic sects, already are bitter rivals.
Sheikh Fawaz also announced the GCC had chose to base a new unified GCC naval operations centre in Bahrain.
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The UK’s global development select committee, supported by the Labour party leadership, this week called on the government to suspend all arms sales to Saudi Arabia and set up an independent worldwide inquiry into the allegations made by the United Nations panel.
