Why the ISIS
invasion of Iraq is really a war between Shiites and Sunnis for control of the
Middle East.
King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia
Be careful what you
wish for" could have been, and perhaps should have been, Washington's
advice to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have been supporting Sunni
jihadists against Bashar al-Assad's regime in Damascus. The warning is even
more appropriate today as the bloodthirsty fighters of the Islamic State of
Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) sweep through northwest Iraq, prompting hundreds of
thousands of their Sunni coreligionists to flee and creating panic in Iraq's
Shiite heartland around Baghdad, whose population senses, correctly, that it
will be shown no mercy if the ISIS motorcades are not stopped.
Such a setback for
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been the dream of Saudi Arabia's King
Abdullah for years. He has regarded Maliki as little more than an Iranian
stooge, refusing to send an ambassador to Baghdad and instead encouraging his
fellow rulers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -- Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar,
the United Arab Emirates, and Oman -- to take a similar standoff-ish approach.
Although vulnerable to al Qaeda-types at home, these countries (particularly
Kuwait and Qatar) have often turned a blind eye to their citizens funding radical
groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the most active Islamist groups opposed to
Assad in Syria.
Currently on
vacation in Morocco, King Abdullah has so far been silent on these
developments. At 90-plus years old, he has shown no wish to join the Twitter generation,
but the developments on the ground could well prompt him to cut short his stay
and return home. He has no doubt realized that -- with his policy of delivering
a strategic setback to Iran by orchestrating the overthrow of Assad in Damascus
showing little sign of any imminent success -- events in Iraq offer a new
opportunity.
This perspective may
well confuse many observers. In recent weeks, there has been a flurry of reports of an emerging -- albeit reluctant --diplomatic rapprochement between the Saudi-led GCC and
Iran, bolstered by the apparently drunken visit to
Tehran by the emir of Kuwait, and visits by trade delegations and commerce ministers in one direction or the other. This is
despite evidence supporting the contrary view, including Saudi Arabia's first
public display of Chinese missiles capable of hitting Tehran and the UAE's
announcement of the introduction of military conscription for the country's youth.
The merit, if such a
word can be used, of the carnage in Iraq is that at least it offers clarity.
There are tribal overlays and rival national identities at play, but the
dominant tension is the religious difference between majority Sunni and
minority Shiite Islam. This region-wide phenomenon is taken to extremes by the
likes of ISIS, which also likely sees its action in Iraq as countering Maliki's
support for Assad.
ISIS is a ruthless killing
machine, taking Sunni contempt for Shiites to its logical, and bloody, extreme. The Saudi monarch may be more careful to
avoid direct religious insults than many other of his brethren, but contempt
for Shiites no doubt underpinned his WikilLeaked comment about "cutting off the head of the snake," meaning the clerical
regime in Tehran. (Prejudice is an equal-opportunity avocation in the Middle
East: Iraqi government officials have been known to ask Iraqis whether they are
Sunni or Shiite before deciding how to treat them.)
Despite the attempts
of many, especially in Washington, to write him off, King Abdullah remains
feisty, though helped occasionally by gasps of oxygen -- as when President
Barack Obama met him in March and photos emerged of breathing tubes inserted in
his nostrils. When Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi --
and, after his elder brother's recent stroke, the effective ruler of the UAE --
visited King Abdullah on June 4, the Saudi monarch was shown gesticulating with
both hands. The subject under discussion was not revealed, but since Zayed was
on his way to Cairo it was probably the election success of Egypt's new
president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, considered a stabilizing force by Riyadh and
Abu Dhabi. Of course, Sisi gets extra points for being anti-Muslim Brotherhood,
a group whose Islamist credentials are at odds with the inherited privileges of
Arab monarchies. For the moment, Abdullah, Zayed, and Sisi are the three main
leaders of the Arab world. Indeed, the future path of the Arab countries could
well depend on these men (and whomever succeeds King Abdullah).
For those confused
by the divisions in the Arab world and who find the metric of "the enemy
of my enemy is my friend" to be of limited utility, it is important to
note that the Sunni/Shiite divide coincides, at least approximately, with the
division between the Arab and Persian worlds. In geopolitical terms, Iraq is at
the nexus of these worlds -- majority Shiite but ethnically Arab. There is an
additional and often confusing dimension, although one that's historically
central to Saudi policy: A willingness to support radical Sunnis abroad while
containing their activities at home. Hence Riyadh's arms-length support for
Osama bin Laden when he was leading jihadists in Soviet-controlled Afghanistan,
and tolerance for jihadists in Chechnya, Bosnia, and Syria.
When the revolt
against Assad grew in 2011 -- and Riyadh's concern at Iran's nuclear program
mounted -- Saudi intelligence reopened its playbook and started supporting the
Sunni opposition, particularly its more radical elements, a strategy guided by
its intelligence chief, former ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin
Sultan. The operation's leadership changed in April, when Bandar resigned in
apparent frustration over dealing with the cautious approach of the Obama
administration, but Saudi support for jihadi fighters appears to be continuing.
(The ISIS operation in Iraq almost seems the sort of tactical surprise that
Bandar could have dreamt up, but there is no actual evidence.)
In the fast-moving
battle that is now consuming northern Iraq, there are many variables. For
Washington, the option of inaction has to be balanced by the fate of the
estimated 20,000 American civilians still left in the country (even though the
U.S. military is long-departed). Qatar, the region's opportunist, is likely
balancing its options of irritating its regional rival, Saudi Arabia, while
trying not to poke the Iranian bear. There are no overt Qatari fingerprints yet
visible and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, just celebrating his first full
year in power after his father's abdication in 2013, may be chastened by the
public scolding he received from the rest of the GCC after he was accused of
interference in the domestic affairs of his brother rulers. Additionally, Doha
may be cautious in risking Iran's ire by an adventure in Iraq. Having just
given five Taliban leaders refuge as part of the Bowe Bergdahl swap, Qatar has
effectively clearly stated where it lies in the Sunni-Shiite divide.
There is a
potentially important historical precedent to Saudi Arabia's current dilemma of
rooting for ISIS but not wanting its advances to threaten the kingdom. In the
1920s, the religious fanatic Ikhwan fighters who were helping Ibn Saud to
conquer Arabia were also threatening the British protectorates of Iraq and
Transjordan. Ibn Saud, the father of the current Saudi king, gave carte blanche
to the British to massacre the Ikhwan with machine-gun equipped biplanes,
personally leading his own forces to
finish the job, when the Ikhwan threatened him at the battle of Sabilla in
1929.
It's hard to imagine
such a neat ending to the chaos evolving in the Euphrates river valley. At this
stage, a direct confrontation between Saudi and Iranian forces seems very
unlikely, even though, as in Syria, the direct involvement of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps cannot be ruled out. What is clear that the Syrian
civil war looks like it will be joined by an Iraqi civil war. ISIS already has
a name for the territory, the al-Sham caliphate. Washington may need to find
its own name for the new area, as well as a policy.
- * This articles was
first published in Foreign Policy on 12/06/2014
- * Simon Henderson is the Baker fellow at The Washington
Institute and director of the Institute's Gulf and Energy Policy Program,
specializing in energy matters and the conservative Arab states of the Persian
Gulf.
