AFTER DISMEMBERING ARAB IRAQ: ON THE ANGST OF THE SAUDI RULING ELITE AND ITS NURSING OF SUNNI NATIONALISM

Rough first draft

(This is a follow-up to the last post , “National Security Alert: Talk to All. Now!” )

That the wretched would drink from my cup
They don’t ask
From what vine comes my running wine.

Mahmoud Darwish, "Marthiyya."

RULING ELITE ANGST

There’s a difference in the depth of angst among the ruling elite of the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC.) The small ones, all but Saudi Arabia, haven’t had to give much thought to the new reality in the Gulf. That reality had followed the dismemberment by the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism (the harmful idiots and Israel, mostly) of Arab Iraq, the regional balancer of Iranian power. These smaller members of the GCC had always been protectorates. Their foreign policy had been run mostly by Westerners — the Brits first, now the countries of the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism: the harmful idiots, Britain, and Israel. (According to Israeli press reports, per the Arab press, Israeli security companies, chock full of “former” Israeli generals and officers, are being given security contracts in some of the smaller GCC countries.) Psychologically the ruling elite of these smaller principalities are used to this state of dependency. I’d dare say: they have no angst whatsoever.

In contrast, Saudi Arabia, though lacking a competent army, had always had an image of itself as a large and influential country. It had needed protection from the West, but that protection had nearly always been one step removed and somewhat invisible. For a long time Arab Iraq, a fellow Arab brother, had been recruited to provide the more visible protection, though the United States had never been that far behind. In those days the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia could tell its public a patriotic story where the ruling elite could credibly deny that Israel’s sponsor, the United States, was in fact responsible for the Kingdom’s security.

No longer.

SAUDI ARABIA COMES UNDER THE DIRECT TUTELAGE OF THE AXIS OF CONQUEST AND NEW COLONIALISM.

Arab Iraq is gone and the truth is out: the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism, mostly via the harmful idiots, is the Kingdom’s security shield and the balancer of Iranian power. The ruling elite of the Kingdom has caught on, but not the public. The ruling elite has tried for a couple of years now to acclimate the Saudi public to the new reality – that the Muslim Arab Sunni public needs to join the “Christian” (U.S.) and “Jewish” (The U.S. and Israel) worlds for protection against the “Shia” (Iran.) Hence in part the inter-faith conference in Spain months ago, sponsored by the Kingdom. The Kingdom, as a result of the loss of Arab protection (Iraq), (and earlier the protection of pre-1973 Arab Egypt), has come more directly than ever before under the tutelage of the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism – under the tutelage mostly of a nation where Jews and Christians are allied and define themselves in relation to, and opposition to, Arabs and Muslims, and Muslims respectively. (In other words, they don’t define themselves solely by their religious tenets; the tenets, I submit, pale in importance vis-a-vis definition against Arabness and Islam. These are sectarian tribes. It used to be Jews v. Arabs; then Jews v. Muslims; then Jews v. Shias v. Sunnis v. Christians. This phenomenon which originated and still thrives in the Middle East and has established itself in the United States and influences (and is influenced by ) aspects of U.S. foreign policy. I’m forever amazed, for instance, about the extent of anti-Muslim animus that I hear when I talk to a born-again zealot. This anti-Muslim animus comes out even when the conversation wouldn’t have much to do with Islam. Could the anti-Jewish animus be that far behind? Has the anti-Muslim animus replaced – with conscious effort on the part of Israel and its right wing diaspora activists – the anti-Jewish?)

A TECTONIC SHIFT!

The Kingdom therefore better acclimate itself (or at least act as if) to needing these – “Christians” and “Jews.” Hence the recruitment by the Saudi ruling elite of the religious personalities in the Gulf (e.g., Sheikh Qaradhawi, Sheikh Awdeh) to integrate the masses into the new reality – to be open both to Jews and Christians. (This thing smells of a harmful idiots’ sophomoric scheme.) To be so directly under the rule of the harmful idiots (under the boot, so to speak) is nothing short of a tectonic shift for the Saudi ruling elite. At a a minimum it impacts its definition of national self. This shift is made only slightly more bearable by the huge inflow of oil money. Still, the level of angst among this ruling elite should be high. (Note: I’m being specific: ruling elite NOT elite.)


IMPACT

The ruling elite of Saudi Arabia no longer can adopt patriotic positions which once packed (for them and still do for Iran) so much legitimacy at home and in the Arab and Islamic Worlds. Because the Saudi ruling elite lives under the boot of the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism, which has an Israeli wing built into it, directly and via Israel’s diaspora, the ruling elite can no longer talk with freedom about the Arab Palestinians; or to condemn the Israeli devastation of the Arab Lebanese civilian population; or to scream at Israel’s occupation of the Arab Joulan or Israel’s settlements. Israel via the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism, of which it is an integral part, now lords over the Saudi government. (I’m serious.) Hush.

The taming of the Saudi ruling elite didn’t happen only because that elite has come under the direct tutelage of the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism. There’s a less immediate background. The Saudi ruling elite has witnessed the power of Israel’s diaspora in the United States; it has tasted it. It saw that this mostly right-wing diaspora wants nothing less than to “civilize” the Arabs, the rich Saudis in particular. That diaspora had always seen Saudi Arabia as the country to tame, to domesticate, to force it to accept Israel’s centrality in the sea of Arab hinterland. The right wing diaspora was so intent on subduing Saudi Arabia that it lost sight of the fact that Saudi money to patriotic Arab groups easily can be replaced by Iranian money – or, secretly, Russian or Chinese. (I’m – logically – speculating.) The Saudi ruling elite has seen that this predominately right-wing diaspora can do it in. It can tame this elite; it can “domesticate” it. It can subdue it. That this right wing Jewish diaspora has now disappeared off the radar screen is only a tactical retreat meant mostly to dodge any blame by the wider American public for the Iraq imbroglio. But, in essence, the right wing Jewish diaspora had achieved its goal in subduing the Saudi ruling elite.


IMPACT: NO CREDIBLE NATIONALISM – DODGING THE AMERICAN-ISRAELI-IRANIAN HANGMAN.

The new reality therefore is as much about the symbiotic alliance of the Israelis and the harmful idiots (the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism) having quashed any possibility for credible nationalism by the Saudi ruling elite as about anything else. A new self-image needed to evolve, one that didn’t offend the new protectors of Saudi Arabia, the members of the Axis of Conquest and Nouveau Colonialism. That identity had to be devoid of Arabness. Lest it offends the Israelis. And it couldn’t be Islamic, lest it offends both the Israelis and the harmful idiots – the “Jews” and the “Christians.” Lest the Israelis unleash their right wing establishment and that establishment’s ululating liberals in the United States against them yet again, work to unseat the royal family and dismember the Kingdom. As they had dismembered Arab Iraq, unseated its rulers and hung them, and once had threatened to do the same to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi ruling elite at some level of consciousness likely dreads with absolute gloom the Axis for that Axis’s ability to do the same to them as it did to Iraqi leaders: have them hung.

Not to mention that the threat of an eventual Israeli-Iranian alliance looms large. This prospect adds yet more gloom to the psyche of the Saudi ruling elite, lest the hangman appear from three directions: east (Iran), north (Shia Iraq and Israel) and West (the United Sates and Israel’s diaspora.) When an aide to Ahmadinejad said a few weeks ago something to the effect that Iran can build a bridge with the Israeli people (or is close to–I don’t remember the exact words), he was reminding the Saudis of what could happen if Saudi intelligence continued to use its new-found wealth to wage mini-wars against the Iran, its allies, and its proxies, and a propaganda war against Iran. (The propaganda war is being waged by al-Arabiyyah and other media outlets owned/controlled by the Saudi ruling elite.) The Iranian aide’s statement wasn’t a slip; it wasn’t a mistake.

Iran sits across the Gulf. Iran is proving incapable of forming and cementing any real Arab Shia-Sunni alliance in Iraq. It doesn’t even care about forming a like alliance. (Hence the main difference with its ally, Syria.) Iran therefore is stuck in its Shia realm. Unless it’s able to motivate the Saudi Shias in the Eastern Province, it’s going nowhere. And there’s so much Saudi government money (soon to be nearly a trillion dollars in accumulated oil money surplus) to buy up the Saudi Shias many times over and offset Iran’s schemes. So, until it’s able (or willing) to form an Islamic (Arab) Sunni-Shia alliance in Iraq, Iran has contained itself.

(There are limits to how far Iran can milk the Palestine Cause. Unless it’s willing and able to ignite continued mini-wars, and the Israelis respond to these, Iran may in the end be left with the Palestinians, no more. A new intifadha is past due, anyway, and may help them out. Mahmoud Abbas has been used up as a cargo-getter. He got cargo, alright, but he couldn’t get the Israelis and their settlements out. The Palestinians expected his failure as a liberator but needed the cargo he alone (as an asset of the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism) could get. But they got the cargo already, or enough of it to last them throughout a new intifadha. A new intifadha therefore should be in the offing. It would be Godsend for Iran and should extend the duration of Iran’s reluctance to open up to the Sunnis of Iraq. My advice to the people of the West Bank: start piling up on essentials and water.)

Stuck under the boot of the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism, and facing off with Shia Iran, Saudi Arabia could’ve chosen to revive Arab nationalism. But that would’ve offended the Israeli wing of the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism which now rules the roost in Saudi decision-making. Hence the resort to Sunni nationalism – inoffensive to the Israeli wing of the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism, even similar to Jewish nationalism, but perceived as beneficial (superficially) in damming Islamic Iran. Superficially because Iran already has dammed its own self. Iran is stuck in its Shia realm in Iraq. Sunni nationalism, however, may have the slight benefit to Saudi Arabia of delaying Iran’s ability to build a credible Iraqi Sunni-Shia alliance. This alliance would help Iran once and for all in forcing any reluctant Arab ruling elite to accept it. In addition, perhaps at a subconscious (maybe even conscious) level, Sunni nationalism likely is a defensive measure for the Saudi ruling elite. It’s in that Sunni nationalism that the elite would hope to find a safe haven from the American-Jewish-Shia hangman. Better a violent Sunni-Shia civil war in Saudi Arabia, if need be, than the gallows of the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism!


SUNNI NATIONALISM AS A TOOL

Contrary to how things appear at the surface, Sunni nationalism, it seems, is only nominally anti-Iranian and anti-Shia. Viewing the fact that Iran has significantly dammed itself in Iraq (and outside, since Iraq, not only Palestine, defines Iran’s ability to reach the Arab and Sunni public outside of Iraq), Sunni nationalism is really the Saudi ruling elite’s response to the new reality of direct tutelage by the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism. Likely it provides that elite with a tool to regain some of the freedom it had lost as a result of the invasion and dismemberment of Arab Iraq. Sunni nationalism reinforces the ranks of the Saudi ruling elite, which ranks could’ve gone every which way as a result of defeat. (The defeat that the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism had dealt the Saudi ruling elite when it dismembered Arab Iraq.) The dismemberment of Arab Iraq ended the phase where Saudi Arabia had enjoyed protection by an Arab sister country. More importantly, the loss of that protection robbed that ruling elite of the pretense that it was independent of the harmful idiots and their Israeli ally – the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism. As a result of coming directly under the tutelage of the Axis, of which Israel and its American diaspora are an integral part, the Saudi ruling elite could no longer seek legitimacy for its government in the Palestine Cause and the condemnation of Israeli colonialism and aggression. For now: Bye, bye Arab Palestine as a source of legitimacy for the Saudi ruling elite.

In other words, Sunni nationalism likely (in good part) is a transitional phase, a knee jerk reaction meant to rally the political troops and keep the stream of legitimacy going for the Saudi system of government while the ruling elite seeks a new and more credible (and durable) source for legitimacy. (Other than the legitimacy obtained of oil money surpluses, of course, and the protection of the Holy Sites. Both of these sources are fungible and shallow as they would be available to any other system of government, anyway.)


REPERCUSSIONS

The question: Does part of the legitimacy the new Sunni nationalism is seeking involve the nursing of a new version of al-Qaeda (by Saudi intelligence), one that’s tactically not anti-American or anti-Israeli, yet available to the ruling elite as a tool across the Arab and Islamic Worlds? It’s clear to me that one such version of al-Qaeda is being funded in Lebanon (and Syria) and that yet another, I suspect, is being funded in Iraq. And can that ruling elite assure that the money flow to the New al-Qaedas doesn’t end up in the wrong place? Or is the ruling elite aware of this and doesn’t give a damn? To be specific: When Saudi intelligence funds Sunni nationalists in Tripoli, or Sunni proxies in Iraq, isn’t it a likely possibility that some of the money will be re-routed to individuals and groups which agenda reaches outside of Tripoli and Syria or goes beyond Iraqi tribal chiefs and the obvious proxy Iraqi Sunni politicians? In Iraq, could it be that Saudi money is filtering through to al-Qaeda in Iraq to conduct operations against the Shias? Against the Shia state’s Sunni recruits? Just as the new Saudi Sunni nationalism feels the need to have an army (a competent one as would a version of al-Qaeda) to give it reach, doesn’t Iraqi Arab Sunni nationalism, which is likely funded by Saudi intelligence, need the same? Which money is fungible and flows through to conduct (eventually) operations against targets outside of Iraq? Ditto for Saudi intelligence money flowing out of Lebanon and Syria? Does U.S. intelligence know that? Does it approve? Is it in cahoots with Saudi intelligence on the re-creation of al-Qaedas?