Survival is the key word to understand the Saudi
dynasty’s latest external and internal policies. These are designed to pre-empt
change but paradoxically they are creating more enemies in a changing world order
marked by turbulent regional geopolitics and growing internal demands for
change.
The seventy-year old strategic oil for security
US-Saudi alliance seemed about to crack on its 69th anniversary ahead of the
summit meeting of US President Barak Obama and king Abdullah bin Abdul
Aziz in March.
With the US
Former US
The Saudis could not trust the US’ “regime change”
strategy in the region, which depends on the
Muslim Brotherhood International (MBI) as an instrument of change, sponsored by
a regional rival like Turkey
and a co-member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), like
Qatar, which has been for long contesting the Saudi leadership of the GCC, the
Saudi leading role in Arab politics and the Saudi political representation of
Sunni Muslims.
This
trilateral alliance of Qatar ,
Turkey and the MBI would
develop into a real threat to Saudi’s survival if it was allowed to deliver
change in Syria , Iraq , Egypt ,
Yemen , Lebanon , Tunisia ,
Libya Saudi Arabia
The US pillar of Saudi security now seems to be in
doubt as the United States stands unable to meet Saudi expectations on almost
all the most critical issues in the Middle East, from the Arab-Israeli conflict
to the Saudi-Iran conflict and the ongoing bloody conflict in Syria, let alone
the conflict with the MBI, especially in Egypt.
Within this context, using the MBI as an instrument
for “regime change” in the region has created a Saudi MBI phobia. Change is
overdue in the kingdom, but, after decades of intensive Islamic education,
change could only come camouflaged in Islamist form.
“It might seem ironic for a Wahhabi theocracy to
oppose so forcefully a party that mixes religion with politics. But it is
precisely because the monarchy bases its legitimacy on Islam that it fears
Brotherhood rivalry,” journalist Roula Khalaf wrote in the Financial Times in
March.
Obama doesn’t seem capable of mending the bilateral
fences. His refusal to fight Saudi regional wars reminds them that he is the
same man who as a state senator back in 2002 stated that:
“Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in
the Middle East - the Saudis and the Egyptians - stop oppressing their own
people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and
mismanaging their economies.”
However, as demonstrated by Obama’s visit to the
kingdom on March 28, the bilateral differences will remain tactical, while the
strategic alliance will hold until the kingdom finds a credible alternative to
its American security guarantor, although this seems an unrealistic development
in the foreseen future.
Regional Shifts
Regionally, the kingdom is not faring better. The
US-promoted and Saudi–advocated anti-Iran “front” of regional “moderates,” with
Israel
The Saudi call for converting the GCC “council”
into a “union” is now dead.
Saudi invitation to Jordan
and Morocco to join the GCC
was unwelcome by other GCC members and by Morocco
In Bahrain
The latest Kuwait-hosted Arab summit meeting did
not see eye to eye with Saudi on Syria
Forming a Lebanese government without Hezbullah and
its pro-Syria coalition has failed.
Meanwhile, the kingdom continues to deal with Iran
In the background, the Israeli threat could never
be overlooked.
Self-confidence Challenged
Using petrodollars
as soft power to gain influence abroad and
secure loyalty internally, the kingdom seems self-confident enough, or
overconfident, to feel secured on its own.
Speaking at the College
of William and Mary in Williamsburg , Virginia ,
on March 11, Prince Turki
al–Faisal, chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research & Islamic Studies in Riyadh and former Saudi Ambassador to the US
“Saudi Arabia represents over 20% of the combined
GDP of the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region (and
over a quarter of the Arab World’s GDP) making it … an effective partner and
member of the G20.
“The Saudi stock market represents over 50% of the
entire stock market capitalization of the MENA region.
“The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), the
Kingdom’s central bank, is the world’s third largest holder of net foreign
assets … Last but not least, Saudi Aramco, the Kingdom’s national oil company,
is the world’s largest producer and exporter of petroleum and has by far the
world’s largest sustained production capacity infrastructure.”
However, veteran journalist Karen Elliot
House, has presented a starkly ominous picture.
“Sixty percent of Saudis are 20 or younger, most of
whom have no hope of a job,” House wrote in her 2012 book. “Seventy percent
of Saudis cannot afford to own a home. Forty percent live below the poverty
line. The royals, 25,000 princes and princesses, own most of the valuable land
and benefit from a system that gives each a stipend and some a fortune. Foreign
workers make the Kingdom work; the 19 million Saudi citizens share the Kingdom
with 8.5 million guest workers.”
According to House, regional differences are “a
daily fact of Saudi life.” Hejazis in the West and Shiites in the East
resent the strict Wahhabi lifestyle. Gender discrimination is a growing
problem. Sixty percent of Saudi college graduates are women but they account
for only twelve percent of the work force.
Moreover, according to Anthony H. Cordesman,
published by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) on
April 21, 2011, “There are serious gaps between ‘haves’ and ‘have nots,’
regional differences in wealth and privilege, and tensions between Saudi
Shi’ites and Saudi Sunnis.”
The kingdom has been squandering billions
upon billions of petrodollars in a lost battle to finance a regional
counterrevolution. Some $20bn dollars were pledged to bailout Bahrain Ukraine
To contain the repercussions of the Arab uprisings
internally, the Kingdom has already spent even more on buying the loyalty of
its own people; for the same purpose twenty Royal Orders, which were
economically dominated, were issued in March 2011.
In February 2011, King Abdullah pledged more than $35
billion for housing, salary increases for state employees, studying abroad and
social security. The next month the king announced another financial package
worth more than $70 billion for more housing units, religious establishment and
salary increase for military and security forces.
Bailing the population out of protests economically
seemed not enough to secure internal stability as the kingdom, instead of
relaxing the internal situation, has recently tightened the screws with the
issuing of the Penal Law for Crimes of Terrorism and Its Financing on last
January 31, the Royal Decree No. 44, which criminalizes “participating in hostilities
outside the kingdom,” three days later and on March 7 the Interior Ministry’s
“initial” list of groups the government considers terrorist organizations, both
inside and around the country and both Sunni and Shiite.
“These recent laws and regulations turn almost any
critical expression or independent association into crimes of terrorism,” said
Joe Stork, the deputy director of the Human Rights Watch for the Middle
East and North Africa region. “These
regulations dash any hope that King Abdullah intends to open a space for
peaceful dissent or independent groups,” Stork added.
Internally and externally, the kingdom
overconfidently seems intent on creating more enemies, neutralizing none,
alienating world and regional powers, mainstream Sunni, Shiite, liberal, pan-Arab
and leftist forces, wrecking regional havoc, all in what looks like an
unbalanced reaction to threats, real and perceived, to the survival of the
ruling dynasty. However, the kingdom seems like shooting its survival in the
legs.
* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based
in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories (nassernicola@ymail.com). An edited
version of this article was first published by Middle East Eye on April 15,
2014.
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