The report in the British Telegraph (July 10) that Saudi Arabia is targeting Iran with ballistic missiles should not come as a surprise. Neither the Kingdom nor its patron, Washington, leaves matters related to the survivability and security of the ruling family to chance. Since February 14, 1945, when King Abdulaziz and President Franklin D. Roosevelt met on board the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake of the Suez Canal, the security of the Kingdom has topped Washington’s list of foreign policy priorities. In return, the Kingdom has played a strategic role in molding events in the Arab World to serve Washington’s interests.
Whether the administration in Washington is Democratic or Republican, solidifying relationships with Riyadh has been a strategic choice. This is not only because of the stabilizing role that the Kingdom assumes in the oil market, or its concentrated effort to steer the Arab camp toward establishing peace with Israel, but also because the Kingdom has been instrumental in faithfully serving Washington’s designs in various parts of the world, especially in South and Central Asia, and in aggressively obstructing Iran’s economic and political stability.
In a recent phone call (July 12), President Obama assured King Abdullah that Washington is committed to defeating the Assad regime in Syria and is carefully monitoring events in Egypt; the current two major concerns on the mind of the King. In the phone conversation, Obama sought to convey to the King that Saudi’s interests coincide with those of the U.S.’s regarding ongoing events in the Middle East.
For several decades, the Kingdom‘s policy toward the Arab World has alternated between concealed and overt schemes. Moreover, since the early 1960s, it has been successful either in crippling or eliminating its Arab foes; be they regimes or political organizations. The secret of its triumph stems from effective utilization of key success factors: unlimited support of Washington, using oil income to buy loyalty, strategic use of its media outlets to vilify foes, and increasing activation of networks of religious extremists to inflict serious damage on perceived enemies through suicide bombings and other violent activities.
Since the late 1950s and up to the mid 1970s, the Kingdom has faced two existential challenges: the rise of the progressive and Arab nationalistic ideologies. The first witnessed the rise of the patriotic Qasim regime in Iraq in 1958 and the second threat thrived after Abdul Nasser came to power in Egypt in 1952. Both challenges were perceived, by Washington and Riyadh, as a menace to the stability of the Kingdom and that of Israel.
The Kingdom was swift in its action to paralyze both challenges and initiated deliberate and well thought out steps to weaken and destroy them. In Iraq, the Kingdom backed several political, tribal, and religious groups to unseat Qasim from power. This effort successfully led to the bloody CIA backed coup in 1963, which tragically ended the patriotic regime. The Kingdom, however, faced major hurdles in its attempt to sideline Abdul Nasser. Ultimately, Nasser was weakened and his sudden death in 1970 was a testimony to the Kingdom’s tireless efforts to eliminate threats to its security.
Arab governments took note of the Kingdom’s generous utilization of its wealth to win loyalty and its resolve to use whatever means available to ensure submission. Many of them followed the Kingdom’s lead. This was demonstrated with the Kingdom’s peace initiative with Israel (the Abdullah Peace Plan), which was adopted by the Arab summit in Beirut in 2002. Arab governments and or political organizations that later defied the Kingdom lived to regret it.
However, the end of the 1980s witnessed the emergence of new challenges represented in the rise of Hamas and Hezbollah. In addition, the various Muslim Brotherhood groups, who for years had received financial support and protection from the Kingdom, started to assert their own political message, irrespective of the Kingdom’s stance. The Kingdom attempted to co-opt the rising challenges of these non-state actors, but to no avail.
In recent years, the Kingdom has faced three other threats. First, the emergence in Iraq of a non-hostile government to Iran has created an intolerable headache for the Saudi leadership. The second is the refusal of the Syrian government, under the leadership of Bashar Assad, to break relations with Iran and to heed the Kingdom’s design for the Lebanon and Palestinian issues. The third and immediate threat has been the sudden ascendency to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Tunisia. The Brotherhood has directly challenged the legitimacy and the religious claim of the Kingdom and has sought, with the help of Qatar and Turkey, to dominate the political scene in the Arab World, including the toppling of the ruling family in the Kingdom.
In Egypt, the Kingdom has utilized its aforementioned key success factors to unseat the Muslim Brotherhood. The Kingdom does not care which group will assume power in the immediate future, as long as its arch enemy, the Brotherhood, is not in power. The end goal is to destabilize Egypt and the entire region and divert the attention of its citizens from domestic issues and political openness.
In Syria, the Kingdom has been successful in severely weakening the Assad regime and transforming the country into a chaotic state that needs decades to regain its health. The widespread destruction of the economic, social and government institutions will make it impossible for any government to function in an orderly way. That is, the Kingdom plans to incapacitate the state in Syria and end its support to the resistance forces appear to be fruitful.
In Iraq, the Malki government and its predecessor have ignored the Kingdom’s demands to suspend relations with Iran. As a result, loyalists to the Kingdom have refused to cooperate with the government in good faith. Thus, violent activities and terrorism have intensified, and the country is polarized and is on the verge of disintegration. Though Iraq has not reached the same scale of destruction as Syria, the intensity of induced terrorism in Syria will certainly lead to the rapid fragmentation of Iraq.
Though, there are many who might think that the Kingdom’s triumph in Iraq, Syria, and other Arab countries is instrumental in ensuring the security of the regime for years to come, this might not be the case. The social media, satellite TVs, and connectivity among people in various parts of the Arab World, have increasingly sensitized the Arab masses to the destabilizing role the Kingdom plays. Indeed, a new political landscape has emerged in the region that the Kingdom seems to ignore.
More importantly, by facilitating the removal of the Brotherhood’s hold on power in Egypt, the Kingdom has created a new and highly threatening development: confronting head-on the international network of the Brotherhood and its major backers; Turkey, Qatar, and Tunisia. Both Turkey and Qatar have strategic alliances with Washington. While the latter may compromise on matters related to Qatar, it is not likely to forgo its relations with Turkey to please the Kingdom. This new front is destined to drain the Kingdom’s wealth and may have unknown but costly consequences.
The leadership in the Kingdom never tolerates any threat to its existence. Though the leadership may look the other way when some Arab actors attempt to defy its authority, it neither forgets nor forgives. Those who have sought to ignore the Kingdom’s dictates or confront its designs have learned their lesson. Nevertheless, circumstances in the Arab World change rapidly and the Kingdom may finally learn its lesson as well.
Abbas Syed Jasim is a professor at a University in the United States.
The Carlyle Group, owned by Saudi Princes and the Bushes is part of the story.