Riyadh: A number of prominent Saudi political analysts have described the move by King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz to recall the Kingdom's ambassador to Syria and his demand to President Bashar Al Assad to stop the bloodshed in the country as the strongest position ever taken by an Arab leader since deterioration of the situation in Syria.
Speaking to Gulf News, they said that King Abdullah's call to the Syrian leadership to take a wise approach in handling the situation is a sincere expression of his keenness to maintain security and stability of the region in general and Syria in particular. They have urged all the Arab and Muslim states to take a similar approach against Syrian regime's use of brutal force against its own people.
Dr. Najib Al Zamil, member of the Shoura Council, said that King Abdullah rang an alarm bell. "Syria's regime must realise that there are two options. First is halting bloodshed and second is confronting the anarchy.
"King Abdullah urged those at the helm of affairs in Syria to stop killing people. What the king has said shows the strong feelings of the Saudi people against what is going on in Syria," he said, while noting that Al Assad did not understand the meaning of what had been said to him in a quiet manner earlier.
According to Dr. Najib, Saudi Arabia's position that came through the words of King Abdullah on Syrian crisis represents an important preemptive Arab initiative that has the potential to prevent a possible international intervention in that country.
"The king's call serves as a "veto" against an international intervention and leaves the issue to be solved either by the Arab leadership or the Syrian leaders themselves through introducing quick political reforms and immediately stop killing innocent civilians," he said, while hoping that the position of Saudi Arabia would soon be crystallized as the common GCC and Arab position toward the Syrian crisis.
Commenting on King Abdullah's statement, Dr. Sultan Al Thaqfi, professor of political sciences, said: "Some people may say that the position of Saudi Arabia came late. But the truth is on the contrary. Saudi Arabia did not hasten to take a position vis-à-vis the wave of "Arab Spring," that now is encompassing Syria," he said.
Dr. Sultan sees no point in having spontaneous responses in the midst of boiling situations rather than presenting concrete solutions. "We have to see the call of King Abdullah in this respect. The king looks at the crisis in the right perspective with a minute analysis of the political situation and offering solutions to it," he said.
Dr. Sultan said that King Abdullah's call to Bashar Al Assad has made reverberations and drew tremendous support in the GCC and the Arab region.
"The Syrian expatriate community in the Kingdom has welcomed it and sees it as the Kingdom's total rejection of the crimes being perpetrated against Syrian civilians by the regime, with an active involvement of the Revolutionary Guards and agents of Iran in the region.
Meanwhile, Dr. Faisal Al Aani, professor of political sciences at King Saud University, described the call of King Abdullah as a natural and essential response to save the people of Syria.
"It emanated from the realisation that what is happening in Syria would drag the region into anarchy and that the Syrian regime would be the first victim of it. All states in the region, including Saudi Arabia, would be impacted by it. Hence, the Saudi intervention was essential and highly pressing," he said, while hoping that the king's call, which is wise and impartial, is an obvious example of this realisation.
While describing King Abdullah's call as wise and judicious, Dr. Faisal noted that it serves the interests of the Arab and Syrian people, especially when the king stressed that the Syrian leadership has to choose between one of the two options — either wisdom or anarchy.
