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3 The Saudis strike back at
Iran By M K Bhadrakumar
If ever the need arose to differentiate
between brothers and friends, that was last week
when Saudi King Abdullah bin-Abd al-Aziz al-Saud
spoke of Iran as a "friend" of the Saudi state.
The king said this while receiving Iranian
Ambassador Hossein Sadeqi during the latter's
farewell call on the conclusion of an eventful
two-year tour, which witnessed, arguably, a steady
rise in
the warmth and coziness of
Saudi-Iranian relations.
The king praised
the trend in the relations between the two
countries in recent years, and stressed the
importance of bolstering Saudi-Iranian relations
"in all fields", adding that Saudi Arabia had
"confidence" in Iran. But what stood out was Saudi
Arabia's characterization of ties between the two
most important countries of the Muslim world as
being between "friends".
Nevertheless,
Iran's sense of unease about the shadows falling
on Saudi-Iranian ties and the potentially
deleterious trust deficit developing between them
over issues of regional stability and peace was
apparent in its decision last week to keep out
Saudi Arabia from the trilateral summit that
Tehran proposed, involving the heads of states of
Syria and Iraq. What has led to a chill in
Saudi-Iranian relations is the eruption of vicious
sectarian strife in Iraq, apart from the crisis
unfolding in Lebanon.
Saudi Arabia has
viewed with disquiet the rapid ascendancy of
Iranian influence in Iraq since the US invasion.
The reasons are several, but primarily the Shi'ite
claim of political empowerment in the region
haunts Riyadh, coupled with the prospect of Iran's
seemingly unstoppable march as the premier
regional power in the Persian Gulf region and the
Middle East. The disquiet has turned into dismay
as the incipient murmurs of a likely shift in the
United States' strategy in Iraq have lately become
audible, and given the likelihood of the shift
involving a constructive engagement of the regimes
in Tehran and Damascus by Washington.
Despite sustained Saudi (and Egyptian)
efforts to carve out a niche of influence in the
fragmented Iraqi political landscape, the desired
results haven't been forthcoming. The latest Saudi
attempt was the Mecca Document of October 20,
endorsed by 29 Iraqi Sunni and Shi'ite senior
clerics who assembled in the Muslim holy city of
Mecca. They vowed to God in front of the blessed
Kaaba "not to violate the sanctity of Muslim blood
and to incriminate those who shed [it]".
But not only has the Mecca Document not
arrested Shi'ite-Sunni hostilities within Iraq,
the sectarian divide has since dramatically
widened. Iran alleges that conspiracies pitting
the Sunnis against Shi'ites are afoot. The
powerful Speaker of the Iranian majlis
(parliament), Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, while
visiting the eastern province of
Sistan-Balochistan (bordering Pakistan's restive
Balochistan province), said on Saturday, "Today
the enemies wish to sow the seed of discord among
Shi'ites and Sunnis and make them insult each
other ... The enemies of Islam are attempting to
disrupt Muslim vigilance, lay their hand on the
wealth of Muslim lands and plunder their oil
reserves. To achieve this goal, they are
attempting to sow the seed of discord among
Muslims."
Indeed, Western media have also
reported that in recent months US and Israeli
intelligence have been working together in
equipping and training Kurdish, Azeri and Baloch
tribesmen to undertake covert operations in Iran's
northern and southeastern provinces. Tehran
already visualizes that in Lebanon, too, in the
latest confrontation, the battle lines will fast
assume a Sunni-Shi'ite dimension.
The
latent Saudi-Iranian rivalry is likely to play out
in Lebanon. Unlike with the Iraq problem, there is
a convergence of Saudi and US interests over
Lebanon. Saudi commentators have been counseling
Washington not to compartmentalize Iraq and
Lebanon as separate issues.
From the Saudi
perspective, any US-Iranian engagement in the
region should not be limited to a US "exit
strategy" in Iraq. The fear of a resurgent Iran is
palpable. The London-based Al-Hayat newspaper
recently compared Iranian President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad to Osama bin Laden as two renegades
equally bent on destabilizing the region.
That is why Saudi diplomacy worked in
tandem with the US to get a "global consensus"
over the setting up of an international tribunal
to look into the murder of former Lebanese premier
Rafik Hariri. Saudi commentators heaved a sigh of
relief when Moscow decided to delink from Syria's
(and Iran's) dogged opposition to the tribunal.
But what was extraordinary was that the Saudis
publicly commended the "significant and remarkable
cooperation" from China in making it clear to the
Russians that China was "on the side of the US,
France and Britain" in the United Nations Security
Council negotiations over the decision to set up
the tribunal.
A Saudi commentator boasted,
"By doing so, China left Russia with the sole
option of cooperating and not obstructing."
Indeed, the People's Daily recently took note of
Washington's realization of the need of a "new
direction" in its Middle East policy - "a new
