Tag: Middle East

It is strange that just as ISIS has largely been defeated in Racca, headquarters of their caliphate in Syria and routed from Mosul, the second largest city after Baghdad in Iraq the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran has gathered pace and is becoming dangerous to the point where Israeli Defence minister is openly calling on Saudi Arabia and the Arabs to join it in confrontation against Iran. Iran is the leading Shiite nation while Saudi Arabia is Sunni. Thank goodness Egypt has not come out to take sides yet, but when the chips are down, Egypt will not abandon fellow Sunnis in the confrontation with Iran. Outside the Middle East, there are of course Sunni Pakistan and Afghanistan which share borders with Iran. Any conflict based on this sectarian divide in Islam could engulf the entire Islamic world drawing in, Africa and Turkey the most powerful Sunni nation. There is hardly any part of the Islamic world where the division between the two sectarian tendencies do not exist.

The division between Shiite and Sunni Islam is rooted in history. The beginning goes back to the dispute about succession to Prophet Muhammad who died in AD 632. The dispute was between supporters of Husain bin Ali who was a cousin to Prophet Muhammad and after marriage to Fatima the prophet‘s daughter Ali became his son in law and was therefore considered by Shiites the first imam of Islam. It was claimed that Ali was the preferred Caliph and his successor by Prophet Muhammad. His Companions (Sahaba) finally prevailed on Ali to become Caliph in 656 and was assassinated five years later in 661. But this was after there had been three other Caliphs beginning with Abu Bakre (Abdullah) a trusted companion who was also father-in-law to the prophet through Aisha the prophet’s wife. He became the first Muslim caliph and ruled over the Rashidun caliphate from 632 to 634. His claim to the caliphate seat was disputed by some of Muhammad’s companions who believed that the prophet had designated Ali as his successor.  The first four caliphs known as “the Rightly guided ones “ were Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al- Khattab, Uthman  ibn Affan and Ali ibn Abi Talib. All the caliphs were regarded as amir al muminin while the Shiites consider only Ali as the only legitimate caliph and Amir al Muminin. This straight forward historical struggle for power had now snowballed into sectarian and doctrinal schism in Islam. The Arab Muslim armies conquered Persia, now Iran in 651 which led to the decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia. Persia had been an advanced civilization before the Arab conquest. But this conquest has always given the Arabs a sense of superiority which no Iranian would ever accept.

The most extensive Islamic caliphate was that of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey which covered parts of Arab lands in North Africa and the Middle East but not Persia/ Iran.  What is important to note is that apart from Egypt at a point in time, Iranians never conquered Arab land. But there is no doubt that Persian influence in the Middle East has been considerable in modern times in the face of absence of a pan Arab nation. It is now that Saudi Arabia is trying to rally Arabs against what it considers unacceptable Iranian power and influence.

The defeat of the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria)or ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) has extended Iranian influence to the borders of Saudi Arabia because the government of Iraq is largely a Shiite regime and there are Iranian military units fighting along with Iraqi troops. This fear made the Saudi regime not to have been too excited in the war against the ISIS caliphate in spite of the horrible crimes committed by ISIS against humanity.  On the South-western border of Saudi Arabia is Yemen where Iranian backed Houthis rebels are challenging the Sunni dominated legitimate government of Yemen. This is a country that has not been at peace for almost two decades. Yemen is quite close to Saudi Arabia. In fact Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaida was an ethnic Yemeni. The Bin Laden family as represented by Osama’s father made all their billions in Saudi Arabia and have become a formidable family in construction and civil engineering sector in Saudi Arabia. The existential threat the Houthis pose to Saudi Arabia was the firing of a missile to Riyadh the capital of Saudi Arabia in October this year. In spite of Saudi Arabia‘s constant aerial campaign against the Houthis, the rebels have continued to wax stronger because of Iranian military backing. In Lebanon, the Shiite party of Hezbollah (the party of God) has continued under Hassan Nasrallah to dominate the country to the point where the Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned suddenly for fear of being assassinated. He announced his resignation on a Saudi Arabian television station in Riyadh leading to the perception that Hariri was forced to do this and that he was in fact in Saudi Arabian detention.  Hariri has now gone back to Lebanon and the situation remains inchoate. The Sunni and Shiites in Lebanon are evenly balanced at 27% each making a total of 54% while the different Christians divided along sectarian groups constitute about 40%. Lebanon is a small complex country that exists at the sufferance of her neighbours. Saudi Arabia now feels the newly emboldened Hezbollah, fresh from military successes in Syria, has become the main power in Lebanon opening the doors to Iranian influence in Lebanon. The Sunni revolt  in Syria, hijacked by ISIS and Al Qaida has finally been put down  by a strange and complex uncoordinated military campaigns by Russia, the United States, the forces  of Bashar al Assad, Iran, Hezbollah and Syrian Kurds in the north of the country has confirmed the hold of  the Alawite/ Shi’a  sect of Bashar al Assad. This also has confirmed preponderant Iranian influence on another Arab country after Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and then Syria. Even small Qatar is not out of the Iranian influence which has led to the United Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia cutting off ties with Qatar.

One of the reasons for Iranian apparent success is because unlike Sunni Islam, the Shiites have a hierarchical order of priesthood from Ayatollah to grand and supreme Ayatollah making mobilization easier. This kind of organization is absent among the Sunni. It is also debatable whether the Shiites are as numerically smaller than the Sunnis in Arab countries. It seems that even where the Sunni are in power, there seems to be millions of Shiites without political voice which have been suppressed for long and is just waiting to break out whenever the opportunity presents itself. Also perhaps the sectarian cleavage merely hides deep seated political divisions in Islamic countries. What is important to state is that Iran through Shiite Iraq and Alawite Syria has a land route north of Arab lands all the way to the Mediterranean.

This is the situation which seems to make Saudi Arabia feel that Arabs cannot just kowtow to Iran. Analysts feel what is happening is that Iran just happens to back the winning parties in all these theatres of conflicts.  To be on the winning sides also means supporting the right causes. Iran is not a democratic country but practices some kind of guided democracy under a theocracy, whereas the Arab states are either monarchies or oligarchies of family and military rulers. There is not much choice between the two but power and money  for example in Saudi Arabia are concentrated in the hands of thousands of princes and others holding their positions as fronts or nominees of the ruling Al – Saud family. This kind of government is replicated in most of the Arab monarchies. Egypt did away with its monarchy in 1956 but it is run now by a military class headed by Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el- Sisi.

Perhaps in reaction to the feeling of weakness and paralysis, the Saudi monarchy has decided to pass on power to a 31-year old crown prince Muhammad Bin Salman Al Saud.

The young prince is moving at a frenetic pace of change in the kingdom. He has liberalized the lives of women. They will be allowed to drive, and take part in sports. Education is being made available to them. Some form of elections to elect local officials is being followed. The crown prince has decided to tackle corruption no matter whose ox is gored including several princes who are now cooling their heels in detention. He is also committed to reining in funding of Islamic extremism abroad. The most dramatic move is the decision to challenge Iran. He is building formidable Saudi armed forces through purchase of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from the United States and Great Britain and other western countries. It is curious that Turkey is not on board as can be seen in Turkish support for Qatar that has been put at arm’s length by the Saudis. The Saudis have the support of President Trump who recently made a highly publicized and triumphal visit to Saudi Arabia when the Saudis ordered almost a trillion dollars’ worth of weapons. If war were to break out in the Middle East, it will be terrible and may bring Russia and the United States into conflict either directly or through their proxies. The fear of some in the West is that the rapidity of events may undermine the Saudi dynasty itself.