Page 1 of 2 Saudis, US grapple with Iran challenge
By M K Bhadrakumar
A timeless and abstract passion, which could gain instantaneous contemporaneity
and which has proven to be unfailingly useful for statecraft, was invoked in
Middle Eastern politics once again this week. It is the ultimate weapon in
Saudi Arabia's arsenal of regional diplomacy. It is seductive in its appeal,
yet almost embarrassingly direct.
That was how, most certainly, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal
would have thought when on Tuesday he warned Tehran that its support to what he
termed Hezbollah's "coup" in Lebanon would affect Iran's relations with Arab
and Islamic countries. The Saudi prince went on to exhort all Middle East
countries to respect Lebanon's independence and to refrain from
stoking "sectarian tensions" in that country.
It is extremely rare for Saudi diplomacy to blatantly use the weapon of
sectarianism against Shi'ite Iran and to draw a line of divide between the
Persians and the surrounding Sunni Muslim Arab world. More so as Saudi clerics
are usually put to use in playing the "Shi'ite card" against Iran.
But this time around, if the intention of the vastly experienced, cosmopolitan
Saudi prince was to unnerve Tehran, he failed. Tehran coolly ignored the Saudi
foreign minister's warning. To make things doubly clear, Iranian President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad said dismissively the Saudi prince spoke in "anger".
Anger, we know, doesn't go well with good Muslims. Ahmadinejad then proceeded
to make a startling revelation that Faisal was not following the "orders" of
Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud.
Indeed, King Abdullah seemed to quickly dissociate himself from his foreign
minister's dire warning to Iran. On Wednesday, the Saudi ambassador in Tehran,
Osama bin Ahmad al-Sonosi, called on the chairman of Iran's Expediency Council,
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, to hand over a letter from the Saudi monarch
containing an invitation to the Iranian cleric leader to visit Riyadh to attend
the International Islamic Dialogue Conference. The Saudi ambassador reportedly
said, "King Abdullah believes you [Rafsanjani] have a great stature in the
Islamic world ... and he has assigned me the duty of inviting you to the
conference."
Rafsanjani expressed his appreciation for the "special invitation" and bemoaned
that "disagreements" in the Islamic world involving both politicians and
clerics have alas created an "undesirable situation". He added the conflicts in
certain Islamic countries, especially Iraq and Lebanon, had widened the "chasms
between Muslims". He expressed the hope the Islamic Dialogue Conference could
"moderate the atmosphere and facilitate cooperation between Islamic states". In
turn, the Saudi envoy underscored that "through the conference, we [Riyadh] are
seeking to promote unity in the Islamic world".
Conceivably, the Saudi foreign minister had reason to feel frustrated. The
entire Saudi political stratagem in Lebanon has backfired. The Saudi backing
for the Foud al-Siniora government's moves to drag Hezbollah into a civil war
stands badly exposed. A most awkward detail known to the "Arab street" is that
Saudi intelligence and diplomacy was acting hand-in-glove with the United
States in the dubious business of emasculating Hezbollah. The ultimate US-Saudi
intention was to curtail Hezbollah's dominating stature on Lebanon's political
and security landscape.
The crisis in Lebanon was proceeded by a barrage of propaganda in the
Saudi-supported media aimed at discrediting Hezbollah in Arab opinion and to
demolish its profile as Lebanon's resistance movement before disarming it.
In fact, Saudi propaganda went into overdrive. To quote the al-Hayat newspaper
published from London, "Hamas takes Gaza hostage. Hezbollah takes Beirut
hostage. Muqtada al-Sadr threatens Iraq. Al-Qaeda threatens the whole world.
Extremist militias and movements suppress peoples and overthrow governments ...
the only difference between what the Taliban did in Afghanistan in the 1990s
and what Hezbollah did in Lebanon is the time and place."
As it turns out, Hezbollah made the Siniora government and its Saudi backers
look very foolish. As Israeli military intelligence chief Major General Amos
Yadlin put it, Hezbollah proved last week that it is the strongest force in
Lebanon - "stronger than the Lebanese army" - and could have seized power if it
had wanted to. "Hezbollah did not intend to take control ... If it had wanted
to, it could have done it," Yadlin told Ha'aretz newspaper.
Equally, the US and the Saudis, in their acute embarrassment, have tried to
characterize the dispute as religious. But it was the Siniora government's
decisions concerning Hezbollah's communication system and the sacking of the
chief of Beirut airport which triggered the confrontation. These decisions were
interconnected and had manifestly security-oriented overtones.
At any rate, Siniora's government was supposed to confine itself to running the
day-to-day affairs until a Lebanese president is elected, but instead it made a
strategic decision of countering Hezbollah's expanding influence. (This
followed secret visits by the secretary general of the Saudi National Security
Council and former intelligence chief and ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar
bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, to Beirut.) In retrospect, Hezbollah would
seem to have staged a "counter-coup" rather than a "coup".
The Saudis have realized there aren't many takers in the Arab world for their
anti-Iran, anti-Hezbollah ploys at present. Qatar, Yemen and Algeria have
visibly dissociated from the Saudis. Syria continues to firmly align with Iran.
Oman, which currently heads the Gulf Cooperation Council, is most disinterested
in Saudi Arabia's anti-Iranian stratagems. The deputy to Oman's Sultan, Fahd
bin Mahmoud al-Said, paid a successful visit to Iran on April 20. A visit by
Oman's Sultan Qaboos to Iran is in the cards. Sensing its growing isolation,
Riyadh mounted the latest Arab League mediation in Lebanon on Wednesday. The
Arab League meeting itself was scarcely attended.
Tehran, however, tactful as ever, has promptly responded to the "softening" of
the Saudi stance. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said
on Wednesday that if the Arab League delegation led by Qatari Prime Minister
(and Foreign Minister) Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, could reach a
comprehensive solution, Iran would support it. Iran stands to gain by being
seen as cooperating with a regional peace initiative.
Iran's active diplomacy in the past year has proved highly effective when the
crunch came, in thwarting repeated US-Saudi attempts to invoke the specter of a
"Shi'ite crescent" in the region spearheaded by Tehran.
The Lebanon crisis may prove to be a turning point insofar as despite last
week's fighting in Lebanon, the broad perception regarding Hezbollah in Arab
opinion - that it is the fountainhead of resistance rather than a Shi'ite
militia locked in fratricidal strife - remains largely intact. This broad
perception cuts across sectarian divides in the Arab world.
The supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Mohammed Mahdi Akef,
said the Lebanese resistance is the only group that determines what is good for
the country while facing the "Zionist-US plot that is penetrating deep into
Lebanon". Akef stressed that in the Muslim mind, Hezbollah's image stands
unshaken. Similar statements of solidarity have been made by other Sunni
Islamic organizations in the Middle East, including in Jordan, despite the
Jordanian regime's close alliance with Riyadh.
Such solidarity of regional Muslim opinion favoring Hezbollah
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