In a heated exchange at the United Nations on April 21, Riyadh’s representative, Abdallah al-Mouallimi, made a thinly veiled reference to the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen before saying that Saudi Arabia will spare no effort to also help the Syrian people. This provoked a sharp response from Syria’s ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, who accused the Saudis of “cultivating a culture of sectarian bloodshed in the region,” and promised that any hand that touches Syria would be “cut off.”
The diplomatic spat comes as speculation intensifies about a Saudi-led push to weaken or destroy President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Damascus. Since late 2014—once the immediate shock of the Islamic State’s summer offensive in Iraq and eastern Syria had subsided—the Syrian conflict has been in a strange state of suspense. The diplomatic atmosphere is swirling with conferences and plans of uncertain value, while actors on all sides seem to be waiting for a decisive shift on the ground.
In mid- to late 2014, Assad seemed to be ascendant; he had cemented his hold on central Syria and was moving to encircle Aleppo in the north. But these offensives stalled and rebel attacks chipped away at the army, as Assad struggled with a failing economy, diminishing foreign support, the rise of militias, and a dangerous dearthof reliable fighters. Flow turned to ebb, and in early 2015 the fortunes on the battlefield seem to have been reversed once again, with rebels on the offensive in the Idlib-Hama region in the west and in southern Syria.