Did the Saudi Government Secretly Support ISIS?
On August 17, 2014, Clinton wrote to John Podesta, then Counselor to the President and later her campaign chair, outlining the intelligence on ISIS and laying out her policy position on how to deal with the challenge. Most of the stuff---on FSA, peshmerga, Turkey and so on---is clear from open sources but there was one particular bombshell. She claimed that the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia provided clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIS. Here's the full paragraph:
Armed with proper equipment, and working with U.S. advisors, the Peshmerga can attack the ISIL with a coordinated assault supported from the air. This effort will come as a surprise to the ISIL, whose leaders believe we will always stop with targeted bombing, and weaken them both in Iraq and inside of Syria. At the same time we should return to plans to provide the FSA, or some group of moderate forces, with equipment that will allow them to deal with a weakened ISIL, and stepped up operations against the Syrian regime. This entire effort should be done with a low profile, avoiding the massive traditional military operations that are at best temporary solutions. While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region. This effort will be enhanced by the stepped up commitment in the KRG. The Qataris and Saudis will be put in a position of balancing policy between their ongoing competition to dominate the Sunni world and the consequences of serious U.S. pressure. By the same token, the threat of similar, realistic U.S. operations will serve to assist moderate forces in Libya, Lebanon, and even Jordan, where insurgents are increasingly fascinated by the ISIL success in Iraq.
Now it is well understood that private donors in the gulf, including and especially rich Saudis and Qataris, have provided significant funding for ISIS. But Clinton said quite explicitly that the Saudi and Qatari governments were providing clandestine support. If the claim is true then this would be the greatest national security scandal in US history. For the United States government has gone out of its way to portray the Saudis as a valuable partner in the fight against ISIS.
The US has also gone out of its way to support the Saudis' aggressive foreign policy in the region. Despite knowing that the Saudi terror bombing of Yemen would strengthen AQAP, the administration has provided blanket operational support for the air war. In Bahrain, the administration quietly acquiesced to the Saudi intervention to quell the uprising of the island's majority Shia against the Al Khalifa. In Syria, the administration has repeatedly signaled its support for Saudi-backed salafist insurgents---often described as Western-backed---despite considerable concerns about their sectarian and ideological agenda.
President Obama and Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
The systematic appeasement of the Saudis is presumably meant to mollify Saudi anger about US policy vis-à-vis Mubarak and the nuclear deal with Iran. But if it is publicly established that the Saudis directly supported ISIS, that would completely undermine domestic support for the US-Saudi alliance. Put simply, Saudi Arabia would become a pariah. Instead of talking about strengthening the alliance, we would be talking about containment. So this is an issue of considerable importance.
ISIS poses an existential threat to Saudi Arabia since the self-styled caliphate rejects the Saudis as the legitimate protectors of the two holy mosques; a job which would naturally fall on the caliphate if one were in existence. The Kingdom has also been the target of ISIS and its predecessors. The Saudis could conceivably use ISIS as a bludgeon against Assad and the Iranian-dominated regime in Baghdad. But such a policy would come with grave risks.
Even supposing that the Saudis could stomach the risk and bankroll ISIS, the second part of the claim is even less credible. For if US intelligence was aware of Saudi clandestine support for ISIS, that information would be extremely difficult to suppress. It is hard to imagine that the administration would bank on keeping the lid on this explosive affair. Indeed, if it ever came out it would ruin the career of every single person involved in the conspiracy to cover up a matter of such grave national security interest.
A much more credible interpretation is that Clinton was being flippant. What she meant to say perhaps was that the indiscriminate support provided by the Saudis and the Qataris (as well as Turkey) for the insurgency against Assad was helping ISIS. Specifically, that the flow of weapons and funds from the gulf regimes to the insurgents was ending up with ISIS. There is considerable evidence to suggest that weapons and monies meant for other insurgent groups ended up in ISIS' hands through raids and defections. The addition of a single word, inadvertently, would rehabilitate her claim:
While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are [inadvertently] providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.
I believe this is the correct interpretation of the email. If I am wrong and Clinton's words can be taken literally, then we may be facing a true game-changer in the Middle East. But pending further revelations, it would be unwise to give it much credence.