Trump’s Ally: Saudi Arabia’s drive for Aristocratic Hegemony in the Middle East. By Juan Cole
Saudi Arabia is making
a drive to become a regional hegemon. It has long used its oil wealth to
achieve a great deal of influence among neighbors, of course. But it is now
flexing military muscles. From a Saudi point of view, they have suffered
decades of dangerous reversals, and they are determined to push back foes and
ensure not just their security but their control.
The dangers the Saudis
see include the revolutionary, Shiite Islam of Khomeinist Iran. It is not only
a hated rival branch of Islam but Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who came to
power in 1979, said “there are no kings in Islam.” It is republican with
a small ‘r.’ The Saudis hate it just as the Austro-Hungarian emperors hated the
French Revolution. Inasmuch as Hizbullah in Lebanon adopted Khomeinism and is
close to Tehran, it is also seen as a threat by the Saudis.
The anti-Wahhabi,
Zaydi Shiite Houthi movement in Yemen has made the error of imitating Hizbullah
and speaking of overthrowing the House of Saud in Riyadh, and Saudi Arabia has
gone to war against the Houthis in Yemen. The Syrian government of Bashar
al-Assad, dominated by Alawite Shiites who are secular socialists, is seen as
an enemy mostly because it is allied with Iran (the Saudis used to support the
al-Assads back in the 1970s and 1980s). The Saudis have supported radical fundamentalist
guerrillas in Syria such as Jaysh al-Islam.
It so happens that
along several dimensions, the groups the Saudis see as threats are the same as
those tagged as dangerous by the right wing Likud Israeli government, creating
a Saudi-Israeli tacit alliance. Hence the influence in the campaign against
Qatar of American Israel lobbies. Riyadh feels that the
Bush administration deprived them of an ally in the form of the Sunni Saddam
Hussein, and replaced him with a pro-Iranian, Shiite dominated Iraq that they
fear.
On the Sunni Side, the
Saudis are anxious about the populist Sunni movement, the Muslim Brotherhood... read more:
https://www.juancole.com/2017/06/arabias-aristocratic-hegemony.html