Saudi Arabia as Defender of Islam

 

 BY K P PASWAN

Saudi Arabia has recently declared itself as the defender of Islam. Saudi Arabia being the custodian of the holy places, is already defending the Muslims pilgrims and enjoys extraordinary popularity among the Muslims all over the world. Any attack on Saudi Arabia may be regarded as attack on their faith .The time of this declaration is of paramount importance. Joe Biden being the president of the USA is under pressure to patch up diplomatic and political differences with another wealthy and rich Islamic state, Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who, is in command of the Shiite nation political system, has already declared Iran as the defender of Islam. Does this means Clash of Titan? Answer depends upon various factors,like response from other Islamic states.

The scions of Saudi Arabia’s moneyed class are unimpressed, they cling to the specter of a battle between Radicals and the reformists. The real worry is shift of wealth from old corrupt elite towards moderates, educated either in the West or USA. Among the reforms undertaken by the young Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, popularly known as MBS is trying to trim the influence of the ultra radicals.MBS focus on issues such as more rights to women, has helped to feed a dangerous anti MBS feeling. In contrast , rights given to women in Iran run contrary to  preachers of hate by the Wahhabi. The last attack by Al Qaeda in May 2003 claiming at the times and afterwards 280 lives and the recent attack on the US embassy in the capital of Saudi Arabia has largely subsided. The authorities in Saudi Arabia have destroyed many of the terrorist’s cell.

OIL BOOM UNDER ALI YAMANI. In the decade of 1970 when oil boom was at its zenith and the ministry of oil was headed by Ali Yamani, the brilliant oil minister, is starting to look threadbare, Ali Yamani had to resign, simply because he did not belong to royal blood. Despite of oil boom  we find down  at  heel suburbs poor Saudis live side by side with Asian and African workers. We don’t find such situation in Iran, wherein equitable distribution of wealth is more apparent and no royal blood is seen any where meddling in political affairs as there is no royal blood left in Iran. Saudis also share the virulent of anti US of other Arabs, a sentiments  fed by the chaos in Iraq. The Wahhabi and Salafism are adept at playing a long game .Even if driven out under grounded for a while they have an unsettling habit of bobbling up later. The Crown Prince’s allies/supporters a coalition of liberal princes and technocrats are  weak by comparison’s rivals  who tend to equate reforms with weakness.

Saudi’s unemployment an oddity in an oil rich country is posing a great danger. The Crown Prince faces danger from two sides, private sectors which employ cheap hard working foreigners than expensive leisure loving Saudis and secondly from conservatives, who  see him as a brash secularists, who has grown to big for his boots, He also faces the opposition of an alliance of powerful  and corrupt senior princes. In Iran such nefarious activities are nowhere seen.

Iran’s overseas terrorist activities seem to confine to certain part of the middle east, It exports terror and not the religious philosophy to punish allies, whether these allies are Muslims majority states little matters to the ruling elite. Iran and some of the former states of USSR are past partners, missile roguery seem bent upon testing the world’s anti nuclear rules to destruction.

Palestine, is divided and afflicted with sectarian conflict. The Hamas controls GAZA and is intolerant to Mahmud Abbas, the real successor of Arafat. The Hezbollah is being supported by Iran to oppose Mahmud Abbas, and endeavor for the formation of an independent Palestine state, but it has become a distant possibility because of rigidity and uncompromising attitude of Hamas, so in future a unified Palestine state is impossible to achieve. With passage of time the Sunni majority states are no longer sympathetic to the cause of Palestine. The stateless Palliation offer nothing unless these citizens give up rigidity. There are reasons to believe that Israel and Saudi Arabia have secret deal.  Jerusalem as new capital of the Jewish state recognized by US has no strategic importance to other countries opposed to Iran. Russians military bases in the Middle East are secure and is causing much concern in Saudi Arabia.Several Sunni states admire Iran’s assertive foreign policy, but they hate Iran's closeness to Russia, which is also building a nuclear power plant in Egypt. France is not lagging behind, with French economy sputtering, the Middle East offers a lucrative market.

TRADITIONAL RIVALRY.

Rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia are based on the form of religion. Religion has never been binding force between man and man. Defender of Islam also means defending  different sects of the same religion, whether they are Sunnis or Shiites. Saudi Arabia is Sunni majority kingdom and all its neighbors are Sunni majority states being ruled by autocrats and  all are oil rich.

  On the contrary Iran is a Shiite majority sovereign, self proclaimed theocratic state. The president of Iran is a democratically elected figure, but for all political activities he is accountable to a religious figure Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who controls the elite the Revolutionary Guards and may supports or reject any proposal of the president. In this world there are few Shiite states, but they are neither rich nor resourceful and are dependent upon Iran for economic support.

SELFISH FRIENDS. Saudi Arabia is a kingdom devoid of any strong political institution, barring municipal corporations for which women can participate in election. Both Iraq and Syria are having large number of Shiite population, but unlike Syria, Iraq was ruled for a long time by a devout Sunni Saddam Hussein, but the paranoid dictator Saddam did not discriminate against the majority Shiites. There are three Islamic states who don’t like the supremacy of Saudi Arabia in Islamic states, these three states are Turkey an industrialized state but without oil or natural resources, Pakistan a self proclaimed theocratic state with nuclear arsenal but heavily  indebted state and is a serious threat to India, third country to challenge Saudi Arabia is Malaysia a conglomerate of Zamindars (Local Muslims Emirs) who  are corrupt and for them religion means preserving their thrones.

ISIS. Is an organization determined to preserve the supremacy of Sunnis and this organization emerged after the execution of Saddam Hussein. One hate preacher Abu Bakr Baghdadi declared himself as the new CALIPHATE and created havoc in the Middle East. This organization received help from practically all the oil rich  kingdoms of the Middle East and when these Sheikdoms felt threatened, the ISIS was downed and the  Caliphate fell into the hands of Trump’s commandos.

 Saudi Arabia has practically lost the expensive and prolonged war in Yemen, which is being helped by Iran, and in a way Iran is directly hurling some of the dreaded missiles into Saudi Arabia. As a richest Islamic state  Saudi Arabia has utterly failed to help  poor Islamic countries of Africa, these countries are rich in natural resources, but are suffering due to bloody tribal conflict, each tribe wants to establish supremacy upon others and religion don’t matter to the warring factions. Simply helping these countries with a dose of Wahhabi and Salafi is not going to help the Saudi kingdom, on the contrary it will help the willy Ayatollah of Iran who has nothing to export in the name of fanatic philosophy but is in a position to export lonely Wolf to attack the Saudi, the Jewish state and USA.

 If Iran acquires Nuclear bomb than it will encourage Saudi Arabia to acquire  bomb with the help of Pakistan, who will go to any extent, if good price is paid. Iran has silently moved towards Russia and China and there by   disturbing power equations in the middle east and is giving a night marish sleep to several European nations and USA. Russia is no longer a super military power but strategically Middle East is importance to counter USA. China being an opportunist, will try its best to preserve its economic superiority. China is helping Iran and Syria to build up a strong firewall to check USA and the West. Saudi Arabia and its allies are also frustrated by the absence of American  leadership, situation is likely to worsen with Joe Biden' policy of no support to Saudi Arabia in Yemen.

 ALLIES OF SAUDIARABIA.

Saudi Arabia may find many modern Islamic states supporting reforms being undertaken by a few in the oil rich kingdom. Morocco being ruled by a king is an ancient kingdom. The present king appears to be a sophisticated ruler and not averse to reforms in social life even if it means antagonizing radicals. The King of Morocco received the Pope in person. Rabat is a city of Monaco where there is no or little presence of radicals. Unfortunately the Moroccans are involved in terrorist activities in France and Belgium. Algeria is another modern country where we find a presidential system of government, deadly opposed to radicals. The country is supposed to help Saudi Arabia  against Iran. TUNISIA is a very rich country which witnessed emergence of Arab spring that washed away secularism prevailed in some form under the Autocrat Ben Ali. Tunisia supplied largest number of terrorists including women to ISIS who were exploited by the ISIS. LIBYA is oil rich country but facing bloody civil war and the country is opposed to IRAN, one section of warring factions are supporting Turkey a potential rival of Saudi Arabia.

NIGERIA has a sizeable population of Muslims, they live side by side with the Christians, thereby giving a opportunity to Bokoharam,  who wants to impose Sharia upon the unwilling people. Chief source of income of the BOKO HARAM is kidnapping of school going boys and girls and releasing them after receiving huge ransom. Nigeria is one of the richest countries with plenty of oil and gas reserves . Nigerian president Mehmet Buhari is a tolerant Muslim politician opposed to BokoHaram and he is unlikely to support Saudi Arabia because of its huge Christian population.

FINAL WORDS  Neither Saudi Arabia nor IRAN are likely to be the real defender of religion. With deadly killing machines at their command, they will threaten each other but they will not fight. The Ayatollah of Iran and the king of Saudi Arabia know that fighting with nuclear arsenals mean annihilation of both.