How to Make Sense of the Saudi Purge
By Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
13 November 2017
Something very strange is going on in Saudi Politics.
The heir apparent of the monarchy, Muhammad bin Salman, has
jailed his own cousins and others influential people in the kingdom in what the
regime describes as an anti-corruption crackdown. In a kingdom where personal
fortune and national wealth means the same thing, this war on corruption is
hard to understand, especially in the context where there are hardly any rules
governing the conduct of members of royal family.
But this is not the only war which Muhammad bin Salman has
opened up. Even since he has assumed position of importance, he is conducting a
brutal campaign of state terror in Yemen, where thousands of women and children
have died or are starving to death. He recently orchestrated the resignation of
the Saudi vassal, Saad Hariri, as the prime minister of Lebanon, a move in
which the Saudi hand became apparent as the announcement was made on a Saudi
allied television and in Saudi Arabia. In between all this, he tried to reduce
Qatar as his appendage much like Bahrain but then Qatar resisted and clearly
the Saudi blockade against the tiny country has evaporated with the deluge of
support which Qatar received.
Even in the case of
the war in Syria, the prince has not been successful in dislodging Asad from
power, partly because of the support that the Asad regime received from Russia
and Iran. All in all therefore, all of the prince’s strategic overtures have
ended up in failures. If the motive of all this was to break the Shia influence,
then it has roundly failed. Iran is now perhaps even more powerful than it was before
and it will take the Saudis many more years to silence its arch-rival.
Events in Lebanon all point to the fact that the stage is
being set up for countering Iran and forcing it to go to war. In its pursuit of
blind hatred towards the Shias, the Saudis are even considering an alliance
with the state of Israel to bomb parts of Lebanon which have Hizbullah influence.
If true, then this will surely force Iran to retaliate in ways which can be
other than diplomatic. In the meantime, during the proxy war between Saudis and
the Iranians, common Muslims have been suffering from Yemen to Syria and Qatar
to Bahrain.
This was coming for a while. The Saudi establishment wanted
powerful allies to put their war architecture in place. That exercise has been
going on for some time. The visit of Jared Kushner followed by Donald Trump to
Saudi capital must be read as part of the design to put together that
architecture. After having sold war machines worth billions of dollars, the
American establishment was all praise for the Saudis, calling them a beacon of
stability in the Middle East. After all, who cares for war crimes in Yemen and
Syria, who talks about the illegal invasion of Bahrain by Saudi forces when
billions of dollars are involved? Who cares when the same Trump called out the
Saudis as sponsors of terrorism when he was running for the presidency? All is
forgotten over a good business deal. In fact, Trump’s attempt to dismantle the
Iran nuclear deal which was put together by
various countries should also be understood as his part of the bargain
where he is supposed to project Iran as the great Satan.
In return, the Americans wanted some progressive looking
statements from the new prince. And he did make them: talking about giving
women the right to drive, for instance. A media blitzkrieg followed that
announcement. As if, all of a sudden, the word had discovered a new messiah in
him, someone who would change Saudi Arabia from a medieval horror to a new
enlightened despotism. But the other observations made by the prince in the
same press conference of business leaders exposed his motive. He argued and
perhaps rightly so that Saudi Arabia needs to move ahead because 30% of its
population was young. But his analysis as to why the country is struck in the
morass gave away his pretensions that he was serious about effecting a real
change in Saudi society and polity. Sounding out all the right notes about a
new generation which expects the society to change but then quickly getting
round and saying all the problems which beset the country are because of the
Iranian influence is too much.
The Iranians did have their revolution which threw out the
monarchy and while there can be hundred things wrong with it, Iranian
government was and continues to remain an expression of popular will unlike
Saudi Arabia which still boasts of being a divinely ordained monarchy. It is an
old saying that if we want to change something, then first we need to look
inwards. It is highly hypocritical of Saudi Arabia not to look inwards and
blame its ills on Shiite Iran.
As commentators have pointed out, the prince should have
started with the chief ideologue of the Saudi monarchy: Mohammad Ibn-e-Abdul
Wahhab. It is Wahhabism and the theology of Abdul Wahhab's ideological mentor
Ibn Taimiyya which is responsible for much which is wrong with the Saudi
society today. Their teachings being patronised by the House of Saud has led to
the repression of women and the minority Shia population within Saudi Arabia.
Moreover, it is the same ideology which has produced so many terrorists not
just within the Saudi society but all over the world. Jihadism is after all an
offshoot of the Wahhabi ideology.
Not content with being so backward and medieval in terms of their religious outlook, the Saudis exported this nefarious ideology to other parts of the world, often making it a part of their diplomatic outreach to much of the Muslim world. At times, even aids to poor Muslim countries were dependent on their acceptance of this pernicious worldview.
This ideology which considers that those opposed to or having different interpretation should be put to the sword is the state ideology of Saudi Arabia. Any criticism of the past or the present has to factor in this pervasive ideology within Saudi Arabia and its export abroad. In not doing so, the prince was trying to fool the world. And it will be the Saudis and other Muslims who will pray the price of this foolishness.
Arshad Alam is a columnist with www.NewAgeIslam.com
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