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Can the Saudis Lead the Middle East into the Future?
Slowly but surely, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is trying to bring the Saudis into the 21st century. It is happening in fits and starts, and there are still many signs that the country has a long way to go, but I am cautiously optimistic.
Just last Tuesday, the Crown Prince talked about moderating Saudi Arabia’s practice of radical Sunni Islam at an economic forum in Riyadh:
We are returning to what we were before — a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world.
We will not spend the next 30 years of our lives dealing with destructive ideas. We will destroy them today. We will end extremism very soon.
Moderating Islam in Saudi Arabia will be a complicated and potentially dangerous task. The country and its rulers have long been associated with the Wahhabi (a radical) form of Islam, and the Wahhabists will not take this change lightly, nor will others within the government. There is also the question about whether the Crown Prince will try to stop the teaching of Wahhabism in the United States, through schools and mosques, as well as in other countries.
The second positive development is the alliances the Saudis are building not only with other Arab nations, but with Israel. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain have condemned Qatar for supporting or funding 59 people and 12 entities that are connected to terrorism. The reasons for this alliance are not entirely clear; certainly all these countries might be concerned about terrorism. In addition, Qatar has a relationship with Iran, a country feared and despised for its efforts to continue to expand its influence in the Middle East. Stopping Iran is of primary importance.
It also appears that the Saudis are taking steps to improve its relationship with Israel, although discreetly:
Prince Turki Al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief, has defended his frequent and public meetings with senior Israeli officials at an event in a New York synagogue yesterday, according to Al Jazeera.
Speaking alongside a former director of Mossad, Efraim Halevy, Al-Faisal thanked the Israel Policy Forum for hosting him and expressed hope that it would not be his last meeting of its kind.
‘We have to talk to those we disagree with, not necessarily with our agreement, especially if we have a point of view in which we try to convince others, such as the question of peace in Palestine, where there is a difference of opinion between the Arabs and the Israelis,’ he said.
The Saudi public is not on board, and Saudi officials are saying that there must be a resolution between Israel and the Palestinians before Saudi Arabia will normalize its relationship with Israel. Still, other efforts are being made:
…the Saudi delegation avoided condemning Israel at the United Nations last month, calling only for the implementation of a two-state solution as agreed upon by the international community. The lack of mention of Israel’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories, and the use of the word “conflict” instead of occupation, was considered as a move meant to soften Tel Aviv.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is also working to build an alliance between Saudi Arabia and Iraq, in order to disable Iran’s impact on the war-torn country and help Iraq rebuild:
His [Tillerson’s] participation in the meeting comes as U.S. officials step up encouragement of a new axis that unites Saudi Arabia and Iraq as a bulwark against Iran’s growing influence from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Amid the push for that alliance, the Iraqi government is struggling to rebuild recently liberated Islamic State strongholds and confronts a newly assertive Kurdish independence movement.
History, religion and lots of politics stand in Tillerson’s way, but both the Saudi king and the Iraqi prime minister appeared optimistic about the prospects.
In addition to moderating Islam and building alliances, the Saudis continue to make steps toward modernization. Recently the Crown Prince removed the restriction on women driving. He also has plans to develop an independent economic zone along Saudi Arabia’s northwest coastline:
The project, dubbed NEOM, will operate under regulations separate from those that govern the rest of Saudi Arabia. NEOM covers an uninterrupted coastline of nearly 470 kilometers (290 miles) in northwestern Saudi Arabia and will extend into territories in neighboring Jordan and Egypt, a statement released by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund said.
Still, according to Amnesty International, the kingdom has also “stepped up its repression of peaceful rights activists,” arresting more than 20 people without disclosing charges. Repression of other groups no doubt continues.
Yet the Crown Prince seems to be moving in the right direction, and might be a practical alternative to the dangers of an Iranian dominance in the area. Iran’s influence and its effect on peace in general and the existence of Israel in particular are my primary concerns.
Do you think supporting the Saudis to take a more significant leadership role in the Middle East is a step in the right direction? If so, in what ways might we support them? If not, what do you see as the drawbacks?
Published in Foreign Policy
It is a big deal if and only if it leads to further steps towards freedom but if it is only posturing designed to give cover to the fact that nothing substantial is or will change it doesn’t amount to beans. I may be all wrong but I think it is the latter in this case. Time will tell and I hope to be proven wrong on this.
Oh I totally think that ‘they’ intend for it to be all posture and no follow through (or it’s being sold that way to the more conservative parts of Saudi society), but once these ladies have tasted a little bit of freedom – and I also think it’ll result in a lot of business responses, along the lines of all female malls, and more all female work places, so it will gain its own momentum – they aren’t going to step back easily.
It doesn’t seem a big thing, but imagine if you didn’t have that freedom. Getting it feels huge. (And it hasn’t even happened yet, so….) Not to mention the practical advantages that flow from it to men. (Your wife can go shopping by herself – you don’t have to take her, and you don’t have to pay for a driver to take her and your son. She can work! She can earn money.)
Also – I think that this kind of stuff often has unintended (or intended?) consequences. In the long run how is that not going to change society profoundly?
I didn’t make clear that it’s Iran that needs the Ataturk cleansing. In other words we don’t want any of them dominant; shaky coalitions that keep them focused on each other should be our goal but we need normal relations with all of them (normal doesn’t mean allied or even friendly, it means there with professionals on the ground) We have to undo Obama’s policy, (not the nuclear agreement, we might continue to pretend it’s real as long as we don’t believe it and use it’s existence to leverage ever greater presence.) Obama basically told the anti regime Iranians that we’re not on their side. Really difficult to undo but not impossible. We may have a foreign policy team who can play a long term sophisticated game and we should do so. The less Congress has to do with it the better. They just want to posture for short term PR reasons. That was both Clinton’s and Obama’s foreign policy, posture. Maybe we cant do sophistication any more, too much 24 hour shrill superficial media and a left and half a population that feeds it and feeds off it. Still we have to try.
It’s especially tricky, Steve, when the religion originates in political form.
Zafar, We have always had strange alliances–Stalin and Saddam Hussein were two, where we have supposedly a larger need to work together than trying to maintain a moral stance. I’ve understood it–sort of–but in the end, we often learn that they were monsters and betrayed everyone. Political alliances are an ugly business.
You bring up a very interesting point. We benefit from evaluating these changes not just from our own values base, but the values and impact on the society affected. If the women are more empowered, the Crown Prince will have more backing from 50% of the society than he has had previously.
All good points and I do think you are mostly right I just don’t expect it to lead to substantial changes on the order of westernizing or actual freedoms or whatever you choose to call it. Not as long as the current regime has power because to give in on those things means they are out of power. Again, I hope to be proven wrong about this both for their sake and ours.
Maybe but I really doubt he would enjoy popularity for giving in on the driving unless that leads to ever greater freedom. And I don’t believe he can afford that as it would lead to the demise of his regime. So we will see how it plays out.
Most of this is theater except that the Saudis are seriously interested in keeping Iran at bay. And they need the US and Israel to help with that, so…
In other words, can one member of the current House of Saud undo 150 years of prior efforts by the House of Saud to lead the Middle East (and all Islam) into the past?
What’s especially interesting to me is that the current king had two potential choices of men to succeed him. I have to assume that he knew at least some of the intentions of the Crown Prince to defy their history. I realize once the king is dead that his choice won’t matter. And maybe, given their history, it ultimately won’t matter and the Crown Prince will be ousted by angry forces.
Well I think the real question is WOULD any member of the House of Saud do so? And if so, why? As far as I have seen there has never been a time in history when any ruler with such overweening power willingly conceded that power. Power is powerfully addictive and the more power a powerful person has the greater hold on that person power has.
George Washington and Cinnatus will be cited as counter examples but I would argue that their power was far from absolute and was even repulsive to them while they had it. What did they know that others have not?
I only know of Washington, and he was simply a remarkable man. At least in part, he really wanted to be at Mt. Vernon, and the desire to return home was always with him. As a young man he was ambitious, but somewhere along the line I think he proved to himself, in spite of his lack of a college education, that he was very intelligent and capable; he didn’t need more power to prove that to himself. I can’t help thinking of all the bullets he dodged on the battlefield, and wonder if his was a deeper spirituality than we even have learned.
We are not talking about giving up all power. In the case of SA, I say it’s about how the state can change its relationship with the state religion. And doing so without creating a religious backlash. The other stakeholders are the members of the royal family. If memory serves they number in the thousands. You don’t want to alienate them.
The other consideration is the public. Granted they don’t have direct influence, but I expect the royals take the pulse indirectly. It would be interesting to know the relative size of the following groups: people who are nominally religious who care more for societal evolution, people who are religious but would follow the lead of the King, people who are hard shell religious extremists who do want to march forward into the past.
A very thoughtful comment, Steve. The society, culture are not monolithic, and the Crown Prince does not appear to be stupid. Thanks for giving us another way to look at this situation!