By John Ubaldi
Contributor, In Homeland Security
With all the attention focused on ISIS and the civil war in Syria, the last thing the United States needed was an additional conflict, but that’s what transpired last week with Saudi Arabia executing Shiite Cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
The execution has stoked regional tensions with Saudi Arabia’s arch rival and protagonist Iran. The execution sparked outrage in Tehran and led to violent protests, culminating in the storming of the Saudi Arabian embassy, which in turn led Riyadh to break off diplomatic relations.
Saudi Arabia executed al-Nimr, who had been calling for a revolution in Saudi Arabia, and who had been speaking up for the marginalization of the Shi’a minority in the Sunni dominated country.
Riyadh concern, as NPR reported, that al-Nimr a firebrand political leader from Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, where the kingdom’s minority Shiite population forms a local majority, had been accused of fomenting violence. While his actual involvement in terrorism was debatable, his outspoken criticism of the Saudi royal family was not in doubt.
The conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia is decades in the making, with each country claiming the mantel of Islamic interpretations and leadership of the Islamic world. Both countries have different political agendas which are strengthened by the differences in their respective Islamic faiths.
Iran is a Shia Islamic Republic with its strong anti-western revolution and belief it holds regarding Islamic Jurist, and believes it has custodianship over all Muslim, no matter where they reside. Saudi Arabia is a conservative “Wahhabi” Sunni Islamic kingdom, with strong relationship to the United States, but in recent years Riyadh has seen that liaison fracture over the absence of U.S. leadership.
This latest flare up between the two regional powers has left the United States in an awkward position, as the U.S. needs Saudi Arabia’s support in defeating ISIS, and has now placed in jeopardy the ongoing negotiations in ending the civil war in Syria.
Washington’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has been strained over the financial backing many jihadist receive emanating from citizens in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Gulf region.
Whatever the reason for the mistrust or change in the relationship between Washington and Riyadh, the facts remain that many of the Sunni Arab nations, which we need in the fight to defeat ISIS feel betrayed, and sense that the United States is retrenching from the region.
The singular approach by Washington with regard to the Iranian nuclear agreement, coincide with comments by President Obama in 2014 stating, “They have a path to break through that isolation and they should seize it. Because if they do, there’s incredible talent and resources and sophistication … inside of Iran, and it would be a very successful regional power that was also abiding by international norms and international rules, and that would be good for everybody.”
The statement of Iran as a regional power sends shivers throughout the Arab world.
Since 2009, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab nations have watched the United States pull out precipitously from Iraq, allowing Iran to dominate and influence the Shiite government in Baghdad, therefore allowing the marginalization and attacking of the Sunni minority.
The United States longtime ally of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was allowed to fall, President Obama not following up on action over issuing his famous “redline” in Syria if chemical weapons were used. The confusing U.S. policy in Yemen, where the president stated, “This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”
Saudi Arabia witnessed all too well on its southern border the government of Yemen collapse under attack by Houthis insurgents supported by Iran.
Articles written by Ambassador Dennis Ross a Distinguished Fellow & Counselor at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy reported the Saudis, too, are now threatened by ISIS, and are trying to root out its followers within the kingdom. But as the conflicts in Syria and Yemen demonstrate — and as the breaking of relations with Iran now highlights — the Saudis see the Iranians and their Shiite militia proxies as their preeminent threat. They are far more ready to challenge them, particularly in the aftermath of America’s nuclear deal with Iran. The Saudis see the Obama administration as unwilling to challenge the Iranians and worry about how Iran will exploit the sanctions relief it will soon receive.
Just last month the United States was prepared to impose sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile test, only to have Washington backpedal.
Matthew Levitt the former director of The Washington Institute’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence wrote that Iran had threatened retaliation over the planned sanctions, which would have been the first imposed since the international deal on its nuclear program was announced in July. The measures were intended to show Washington’s willingness to hold Tehran accountable for illicit conduct. Iran tested a new ballistic missile in October. A United Nations panel concluded in December that the Emad rocket was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1929. Tough sanctions targeting elements of the Iranian defense industry involved in ballistic missile testing and production remain in place under the nuclear deal, as one U.S. Treasury official noted in a speech in September.
One also has to look at Iranian provocation by launching a ballistic missile near a U.S. aircraft carrier and in an international recognized maritime shipping lane, the region watch the mute response by the United States.
What do these provocations and assurances leave that the United States will hold Iran accountable for future violations?
The Sunni Arab’s view Iran undermining regimes across the Arab region, including Saudi Arabia, but Washington seems detached from reality, this leaves the Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States to chart their own destiny to the detriment to the United States.
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