A profound realignment in the Middle East
The Middle East kaleidoscope has been shaken up so vigorously that it is still very difficult to make sense of the emerging patterns. Nevertheless, this week we attempt to bring some order to the chaos.
As we have discussed in depth on a number of occasions in recent weeks, the most important development is the evolution of US policy. As the US’s performance over Egypt shows, it really doesn’t know what it wants when it comes to the domestic direction of Arab politics; it has no clear plan for what the post-Arab Spring Middle East should look like (which is not necessarily a bad thing, as Arab solutions are likely to be more durable than imposed solutions). However, the US most definitely knows what it does not want, and that is further war. This led it to grasp the Russian-proffered lifeline for avoiding war in Syria after the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons; and it is behind the push for a negotiated settlement with Iran over its nuclear programme.
The United States bought into the Russian plan for Syria because it offered a non-interventionist way forward, and it has bought into what one might call the Shimon Peres optimism over Iran. At a conference organized by the Jerusalem Post last week, the Israeli president said: “Young angry Iranians voted Iranian President Hassan Rowhani into office not because he is a revolutionary, but because they believe that Rowhani is a moderate who will bring Iran into the modern world.” The Obama administration wants this to be true, and it has grasped the opportunity offered by the election of Rowhani to avoid war as enthusiastically as it grasped the Russian alibi for avoiding military conflict in Syria.
The principal consequence of this, as we have emphasized strongly over recent months and is now fully understood, is to leave Saudi Arabia looking isolated and vulnerable. The key point for Saudi Arabia is that it is threatened as much if not more by a rehabilitated Iran as by a pariah Iran, even one that is developing nuclear weapons. With 79m people, Iran has nearly four times the population of Saudi Arabia (26.5m, including 5.6m non-nationals), and Ayatollah Khamenei has expressed a desire to expand Iran’s population to as much as 150m.
Iran poses a threat through its support for the Arab world’s minority Shia, which enables it to exercise a powerful influence in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon and to exercise a destabilizing influence in Bahrain and potentially in eastern Saudi Arabia as well. This influence would persist, and perhaps strengthen, even if Iran were to moderate its domestic and foreign policies.
Indeed, the Saudi royals will well remember the very different threat that secular Iran under the Shah posed. In the late 1960s the Shah reportedly wrote to King Faisal urging him to modernize Saudi Arabia, saying: “Please, my brother, modernize. Open up your country. Make the schools mixed women and men. Let women wear miniskirts. Have discos. Be modern. Otherwise I cannot guarantee you will stay on your throne.” Of course, in the end, it was the Shah of Iran who lost his throne, not the Saudi king, but the threat to Saudi Arabia of a modernizing post-revolutionary Iran would not be dissimilar.
There is, of course, every possibility (indeed, probability) that the present attempt at reconciliation between the US and Iran will end in failure, possibly even to the extent of involving US military action. But, according to well-placed sources we have consulted, the damage between the United States and Saudi Arabia has already been done and cannot be undone. It is clear to Riyadh that the US (like all great powers) has competing interests to balance, and protecting the status quo in Saudi Arabia is no longer (to Washington) sacrosanct.
And it is not just that Washington has other strategic priorities (such as avoiding further military engagement in order to facilitate the pivot to Asia), it is also that there has long been a latent streak of anti-Saudi feeling on both the right and the left of the US policymaking elite and this is once again gaining traction, partly as a result of the Arab Spring enthusing the left and partly because of declining US dependency on imported Mideast oil enthusing the right.
The opposition of the American left, particularly the human-rights lobby, to Saudi Arabian conservatism is well known. Less well known is the streak of anti-Saudi feeling on the right of American politics. But as Saudi Arabia continues to lose ground in Washington over the Syrian and Iranian questions, it is certain that some will be recalling the incident in 2002 when – from the neo-conservative perspective – a Rand Corporation analyst called Laurent Murawiec made a presentation to a Pentagon advisory board in which he described Saudi Arabia as the “kernel of evil”.
Murawiec, it may be remembered, told the Pentagon that Saudi Arabia was “the chief vector of the Arab crisis and its outwardly-directed aggression” and that “the Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader”. He concluded: “Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies.” It was an incendiary line of argument so soon after 9/11.
Although Murawiec was clearly a maverick outlier, and once the contents of this briefing were made public he was dropped by Rand, it remains the case that there are influential voices on the right who subscribe to this analysis, or at least a modified version of it.
This combination of changing US priorities (including the pivot to Asia, declining oil dependency, war weariness) with a latent streak of strong anti-Saudi sentiment on both the left and right of American politics will ensure that however US negotiations with Iran pan out, relations between Washington and Riyadh are unlikely ever to be quite the same again.
So what are Riyadh’s options when faced with declining US support and an increasing challenge from Iran?
The first, and most important task is to shore up the new/old Egyptian regime and to establish a solid moderate conservative alliance encompassing Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Egypt, and Jordan. This alliance would be opposed in varying degrees to the Muslim Brotherhood, secular liberalism, and Iranian-backed Shia advancement.
Naturally the new regime in Cairo is an enthusiastic supporter of this Saudi vision. Since President Mursi was deposed in early July, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE have pledged more than $12bn to Egypt in loans, grants, and petroleum product shipments. In return, during a visit to the UAE on 27 October, Egypt’s interim Prime Minister Hazim al-Beblawi described Gulf security as being indivisible from Egypt’s own security.
But things aren’t quite that simple for Saudi Arabia. Egypt is the Arab world’s most-populous state (with a population of 80.7m) with long ambitions to Arab leadership, but it lacks the means to support such ambitions. For Egypt, a vulnerable, but still rich Saudi Arabia could be viewed as an unlimited source of funding for its ambitions.
Which brings us on to Israel. Saudi Arabia is a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause for two reasons: first for reasons of Arab/Muslim solidarity and, secondly, because of the need to keep the Palestinians focused westwards towards the West Bank and Jerusalem and not eastwards towards Jordan and the vulnerable Hashemite monarchy. But Israel also performs two important strategic functions for Saudi Arabia. It provides the ultimate (nuclear) deterrent against Iranian aggression; and, less well-acknowledged, it provides an important physical barrier between people-rich, resource-poor Egypt and people-poor, resource-rich Saudi Arabia. It is a barrier that Saudi Arabia values even if it is not acknowleged.
Israel is also an ally of Saudi Arabia when it comes to the Muslim Brotherhood. The greatest long-term threat to Israel would have been if the Arab Spring had led, as at one stage it looked as if it might, to a Muslim Brotherhood ascendancy across North Africa, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, and thus to the revival of state-backed threats to Israel’s existence. Saudi Arabia is as opposed to this prospect as is Israel.
So, along with building its alliance with Egypt and providing vocal public support for the Palestinians, Riyadh will continue to nurture good behind-the-scenes relations with Israel, not out of love but out of a complete alignment of interests on Iran and a partial alignment of interests on Egypt.
None of this sounds too problematic for the US, but another important element in the developing Saudi strategy for coping with a Middle East in which it can no longer rely without question on the United States, and in which Iran is gradually rehabilitated, will be to reinforce its alliance with Pakistan and, through it, to redouble its efforts to maximize its influence (and to minimize Iran’s) in Afghanistan, which essentially means bolstering the Taleban. This, of course, is exactly the type of activity that Murawiec and his neo-conservative sponsors were warning about in the aftermath of 9/11. Under intense US pressure it has been modified over time. But now, with the US moving towards a rapprochement with Iran, the imperative for Saudi Arabia to put pressure on Iran’s eastern flank is rising once again. It is an inevitable consequence of the new US policy on Iran, and as Nato prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014 it is likely to be the area of greatest friction between Saudi Arabia and the US.
Finally, there is the question of Turkey, with which Saudi Arabia has been at odds over Turkey’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood. Ankara will continue to support the Muslim Brotherhood, but having seen the MB lose out in Egypt and (most probably) in Syria as well, Ankara is now showing signs of seeking a rapprochement with Iranian-allied Baghdad, and this is something that Tehran is encouraging as Saudi Arabia moves to build its alliance with Egypt. The fact that the thaw between the US and Iran is helping to facilitate this move by Ankara, just adds to Riyadh’s bewilderment, and fury, at the evolution of US policy. JdeC.