Prince Turki al-Faisal, a senior Saudi royal, has said that the Gulf kingdom refused to get plunged into “an Israeli plan to ignite war between us and Iran”.
Prince Turki - who led Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service for over two decades - was writing in the Saudi-owned Arab News over the weekend.
He said that Riyadh, led by de-facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had worked hard to diplomatically resolve a war it had “initially worked hard to prevent”.
“When Iran and others tried to drag the Kingdom into the furnace of destruction, our leadership chose to endure the pains caused by a neighbor in order to protect the lives and property of its citizens,” Prince Turki wrote.
He added that had the kingdom wanted to respond to Tehran with strikes on its facilities and interests, it could have done so, but the outcome would have been further destruction of Saudi oil facilities and desalination plants.
“Had the Israeli plan to ignite war between us and Iran succeeded, the region would have been plunged into ruin and destruction,” he said.
“Thousands of our sons and daughters would have been lost in a battle in which we had no stake. Israel would have succeeded in imposing its will on the region and remained the only actor in our surroundings.”
Prince Turki, whose father King Faisal ruled the kingdom between 1964 and 1975, said that Saudi Arabia was working with Pakistan to prevent further escalation.
“As for the advocates of war, they continue in their arrogance and cawing, perhaps unaware that the rug has been pulled from under their feet,” he added.
After the US and Israel launched its war on Iran on 28 February, Iran retaliated by striking every single Gulf state that hosts US bases, including Saudi Arabia.
The kingdom has also been heavily impacted by Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz - through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil passes.
Attacks on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline knocked out 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) of the kingdom’s oil capacity, or roughly 10 percent of its current exports, the kingdom announced last month.
The pipeline connects the kingdom’s Gulf coast to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea - allowing it to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian attacks also hit refining facilities in Jubail, Ras Tanura, Yanbu, and Riyadh, directly impacting exports of refined products to global markets.
