Arab and Persian chieftains have been playing war and peace around the Persian Gulf since the great army of the Muslim Rashidun caliphate dethroned a divided and decentralised House of Sasan in the 7th century and rubbished the last Persian empire to the dustbin of history forever.
Ethnic tensions, sectarian blood feuds and proxy wars for regional dominance kept them at each other’s throats for the next millennium-and-a-half. As such they have come to know very well that the proof of the pudding, when war must make way for peace, lies in the eating.
That is why they’re eager for pieces to be seen moving quickly over the great Arabian chessboard after China midwifed the latest, historic thaw between the great rivals. In less than a month, Iranian and Saudi foreign ministers have held detailed meetings (in Beijing), Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) has signalled an end to the war in Yemen and sent Saudi and Omani officials to talk peace with Houthis in Sanaa and Iran’s ambassador has returned to the UAE after seven years. But a far more telling development, far away from the headlines, indicates that this might be the deepest reset yet since the 1979 Iranian revolution divided countries from Arabia to the Levant into pro- and anti- Shi’a/Sunni blocs.
Reports by credible news outlets indicate that Riyadh is planning to invite Syrian President Bashar al Assad to the Arab League summit in May.
Syria was, of course, thrown out of the 22-member League, despite its credentials as a founding member, in 2011 when American weapons and Saudi petrodollars helped al Qaeda hijack the Arab Spring and plunge the country into civil war; threatening the survival of Arabia’s last Ba’athist dynastic dictatorship.
The Shi’a dominated Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis was not only the principal rival of the Sunni GCC group, but also formed the only credible resistance against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands; hence the convergence of interests among GCC/US/EU/Turkey/Egypt/Israel establishments and the commencement of the zero-sum game designed to make Syria implode and partition.
Fast forward roughly a decade and the Syrian foreign minister recently visited Cairo for the first time in more than ten years, Damascus and Riyadh have agreed to reopen embassies and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan is (reportedly) expected to travel to Syria himself to extend the Arab League summit invitation to President Bashar al Assad.
Such a profound shift in Middle East politics is only possible when it comes directly from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; home to one-fourth of the world’s known oil reserves, making it Opec’s swing producer and the so-called central bank of black gold, allowing it to punch above its weight and play policeman in the entire region –quintessential Riyal Politik.
News trickles down in small pieces in the controlled media of the Middle East. Yet Arab journalists with palace sources confirm openly in private phone calls that this change comes directly from MbS, whose modern demeanour (by traditional Saudi standards) and novel political ideas have outraged the Wahabi clergy that dominates the kingdom and has given the al-Saud family the right to rule for the last three centuries.
The word is that he wants to wipe the slate clean and give the region a fresh start, all the way to the farthest stretches of the Levant. We’ve already seen that he has no qualms about ending the security alliance with the US – initiated on a warship in the Suez in 1945 between US President Roosevelt and Saudi King Abdulaziz – and enter what seems for all intents and purposes to be a new alliance with China and Russia. But that’s a story for another time.
Pakistan also tried to mediate in the Saudi-Iran conflict, only to be snubbed, when Imran Khan was prime minister because, it is now becoming clear, the Chinese and Russians had already engaged them in deep, behind-the-scenes negotiations.
Islamabad must now be holding its breath as it waits for events to unfold so it can figure out where it stands in the new Saudi strategy. It will need to know two things very clearly.
One, whether Riyadh will continue to be Pakistan’s true lender of last resort and dole out cheap oil and cheaper loans whenever the Fort of Islam is in a fix? And two, will Saudi’s hyper-orthodox and hyper-active clergy finally cut its umbilical cord with seminaries littered across Pakistan, especially when a TTP (Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan) that grew fangs on its largesse is looking to renew its insurgency?
It’s too soon to tell, but it doesn’t seem there’s further room for either sort of adventure as a Saudi reset ushers in a new Arab order.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023