Saudi leadership in the Arab world depends on forging a non-US based regional alliance, writes Ayman El-Amir* The Middle East is caught in the vortex of historic change where all countries of the region, as well as some external powers involved, are both important players as well as potential victims of the process. In the absence of a driving force of leadership, each country is fending for itself while attempting to secure some measure of common fate with others. Some face more serious challenges and others depend more on external intervention than on national consensus for their survival. Old problems seem as intractable as ever; challenges of the present and the immediate future are complex and the options tricky. Each country has its own set of priorities, but none faces more intricate challenges than Saudi Arabia. The 75-year-old kingdom has been renowned for its historic reticence, avid devotion to maintaining a low profile and aversion to venturing into uncharted territory. It is too early to tell whether present festering problems in the region have forced the hand of the kingdom's foreign policymakers, or if a changed quality of leadership has crafted a more pro-active role for it. Whatever the reason, the fact is that Saudi Arabia finds itself more openly involved in all regional problems, from the destructive war in Iraq, to the rising influence of Iran, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and strategic Saudi-US relations, among others. Iraq, for one, represents the most complex challenge. It has been illegally invaded and divided by Saudi Arabia's closest ally, and the US war and American strategic mismanagement have given rise to a significant Iranian role, mainly in support of the Shia majority in southern Iraq, which is uncomfortably located close to the oil-rich eastern region of Saudi Arabia. Additionally, the spectre of the outbreak of an all-out civil war in Iraq after US withdrawal is tipped to assume the proportions of Shia-Sunni conflict. Saudi Arabia may be legitimately worried about the possibility of a Shia- dominated government that could possibly undermine minority Iraqi Sunnis. But confrontation and potential conflict is not the answer. This would almost certainly lead to more than Iranian-Saudi shadowboxing. Nothing could achieve Israeli objectives of draining Iranian military strength and Saudi lush oil revenues more than such a pseudo-religious war. Israel could then scuttle a peaceful settlement, pounce on Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and deal a military blow to Syria -- all supported by a myopic administration in Washington. Iraq could also become a serious domestic security problem for Saudi Arabia itself when radical Saudi jihadists, now involved in the resistance against the US occupation, come back home to a situation of social, economic, political and theological contradictions. They would find a sympathetic constituency of disenchanted young Saudis who are eager to replay the Bin Laden saga on the kingdom's territory. It is all the more reason that the Saudi leadership should close ranks with Iran and other powers of the region and not play into the hands of the instigators of Shia-Sunni conflict. This, in turn, could put considerable strain on Saudi-US relations, with incalculable consequences. The choices are not easy, although the kingdom seems to share the same US concerns about the rising star of Iran. Saudi Arabia has by far a greater stake in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict than many other Arab countries. The status of East Jerusalem is the central issue, not just as a matter of a piece of territory occupied by Israel, but because of its religious significance to the Muslim nation worldwide, for which the kingdom traditionally assumes leadership responsibility. Saudi leadership credibility, especially in majority non-Arab Muslim nations, would be seriously undermined if Muslim rights to East Jerusalem, the third holiest place in Islam, were compromised in a final settlement. The kingdom has, therefore, tried to play a leading role in addressing the Palestinian problem whether through the rehashed Arab summit peace initiative or in trying to reconcile Fatah and Hamas in Mecca last April, with a reportedly $1 billion aid incentive to a unity government. That government failed to materialise. Saudi-US relations have been etched in stone for more than six decades since King Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud boarded the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake of the Suez Canal in 1945 to strike a deal with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was a simple deal calling for a steady flow of cheap oil in return for guarantees for the security and continuity of the Saudi ruling dynasty. The fluctuation of times and international relations may have caused some adjustments in the relationship but the fundamentals remain the same. The 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, the shock of 11 September and the 2003 US invasion of Iraq tested the relationship but left it intact. A new partnership in the fight against terrorism has been added to the list of shared interests. The only problem is that the US-Israeli relationship and associated interests remain superior to that of the entire Arab world, Saudi Arabia included. This, and the fact that Western oil interests are now securely guarded against external, regional or even national threats by an unprecedented string of US military bases, naval armada, troop build-ups and command and control centres in the Middle East/Gulf region, is another irritant to Saudi-Arab-US relations. When US Vice-President Dick Cheney visited Saudi Arabia, the Gulf and other US-defined "moderate" Arab states he was seeking to mobilise them into a loosely knit alliance to confront Iran, Syria and Hizbullah. It was still the time-honoured US way of dividing the Arab world into pro-US allies and anti- US rogues. He got an ambivalent answer. The days may be long gone when leaders like Gamal Abdel-Nasser used to chase colonial powers and their military schemes out of the region, but the embers of Arab nationalism, that has now assumed a religious mantle, have not been completely extinguished. Young militant jihadists who fought the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan will probably spawn a new generation, trained and tested in Iraq, that will regard US military presence in the Arab world, particularly in Saudi Arabia, as an act of desecration similar to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. These conflicting perceptions will eventually fall into the chaotic category of terrorism and counter-terrorism and encourage more attacks by Al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia now sees itself well qualified to lead the fragmented Arab nation that Nasser once led. It certainly has the money to lure many an ally and purchase arms that the US would ensure will not pose a threat to Israel. Self-defence is legitimate, but against whom? The measure of Arab leadership, carried over from pre-Islamic tribal Arab tradition, is to fight a war that poets can eulogise for generations, regardless of the outcome. That is what Saddam Hussein did by attacking Iran and invading Kuwait, attempting to prove his leadership of the Arab world at the time when Egypt was an outcast because of its peace treaty with Israel. It is also what Nasser disingenuously did in 1967. Saudi Arabia has to look for another mantle of leadership. The problem the kingdom faces is that it has not so far managed to develop adequate political expression of its oil wealth and the influence it is assumed to carry. It is held back by the lack of balance between its Wahabi-cum-Muwahhideen (the "unifiers") version of Islam that is rigid enough to accommodate almost every strain of the faith, and the demands of modernity. Many analysts wonder what shared values could bind the US and Saudi Arabia together if it were not for oil interests. From the US perspective, not a single Arab country enjoys any measure of democratic tradition, pluralism, free elections and respect for human rights that would constitute a basis for shared values and win the same support, let alone the admiration, that Israel enjoys. The absence of shared universal values is a key problem in Arab-Western relations. The Saudi kingdom, headed by a dynamic and bold figure like King Abdullah, could still play a leadership role if it can build a Gulf Arab-Iranian alliance that could prevail over sectarian warring parties in Iraq, unify the country and persuade the US to leave. But leadership, by definition, also involves taking risks. And the major challenge for the aspiring kingdom, apart from the demand for comprehensive domestic reform, is to build a regional alliance for peace and prosperity that is not American-based. * The writer is a former correspondent for Al-Ahram in Washington, DC. He also served as director of UN Radio and Television in New York.
