Saudi Arabia’s Erroneous Foreign Policy

Saudi Arabia’s severing of ties with Qatar has laid bare the schisms in the Arab world. The crisis in this diplomatic relationship has huge implications for the region as Saudis, along with some other Gulf states, are heading toward a collision and it vividly exposes Saudi Arabia’s aspirations in the Middle East. So far, all diplomatic efforts to diffuse the crisis have failed. The following write-up will analyze KSA’s interference in other states’ affairs and will present an analysis on the 13 demands made by Saudi Arabia and its allies to Qatar. 

The roots of problems in Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy can be traced back to February 14, 1945, when Saudi King Abd al-Aziz allowed US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to build a US airfield in Dhahran (an oil town in eastern Saudi Arabia on an inlet from the Persian Gulf), in return for military and business support. But Saudis made the real blunder after 1973-74 oil shock, when they accepted Henry Kissinger’s advice on petrodollar. According to that deal, KSA was to price oil in US dollars and also influence other OPEC members to do the same. In return, US would protect Saudi Arabia and its allies against any foreign invasions and domestic rebellions.

There is no denying the fact that the Americans pursue their own interests when it comes to supporting Saudi Arabia – or for that matter any other country – because Washington intends to dominate oil resources and market. Saudi Arabia’s bonhomie with the United States is one of the many causes behind its thorny relationship with Iran. KSA-Iran relationship considerably deteriorated after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Iran accuses the KSA of being an American agent in the region.

Whatever turn the situation takes, a country should try not to break diplomatic relations with any other state, especially those in its neighbourhood. Nonetheless, it happened in the case of Iran. After KSA executed Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, numerous protests were held in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, Lebanon and Turkey; even Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad were ransacked by angry mobs. In the aftermath of this incident, KSA severed its diplomatic relations with Iran. It must be understood that wars often occur after a series of escalatory events, rather than a singular decision, and embassies working in other countries play the most important role in handling such situations. Prospects of war between Saudi Arabia and Iran can be the beginning of a major catastrophe in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is worried about Iran becoming a hegemon in the region, and it has developed a foreign policy to stop that from happening at any cost.

Conflicts in the Middle East, whether in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq or Syria, share a common factor: the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. During the early days of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rule, relations remained comparatively serene. But the 2011 Arab Spring changed altogether the region’s scenario.

A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia, in March 2015, started targeting the Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen. Since then the war, which was apparently launched to re-install the exiled president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, has killed more than 10,000 civilians and displaced more than three million. The KSA, in the past too, launched military operation against the Houthis in 2009-10, though it withdrew after three months when casualties started to surge.

Toppling Syria’s Bashar al-Assad is another longstanding Saudi ambition, as Saudi foreign minister said, on November 14, 2015: “We will support the political process that will result in (Assad) leaving, or we will continue to support the Syrian opposition in order to remove him by force.” Thanks to WikiLeaks which revealed that the Saudis wilfully financed IS to help topple Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Iraqis too blame the Saudis for chaos in their country spread by incessant IS attacks. In 2014, the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused both Saudi Arabia and Qatar of openly funding the Sunni Muslim insurgents in Syria and Iraq region. He said, “I accuse them (Saudi Arabia and Qatar) of inciting and encouraging the terrorist movements. I accuse them of supporting them politically and in the media, of supporting them with money and by buying weapons for them.”

Now, the most recent show of haughtiness on the part of Saudi Arabia has come in the form of severance of ties with Qatar. To Qatar authorities, the embargo is a punishment for following an independent foreign policy, against the wishes of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia and its allies have also issued a 13-point ‘charter of demands’ wherein every demand shows how flawed is the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia.

First demand is that Qatar must curb diplomatic ties with Iran and close its diplomatic missions there. In international relations, no country can force another country to close its diplomatic missions anywhere in the world. Second demand is that Qatar should sever all ties to “terrorist organizations”. In reply to this demand Qatar’s foreign minister said, “We cannot sever links with so-called Islamic state, al-Qaeda and Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, because no such links exist.”

Third demand is that Qatar should shut down Al Jazeera, and its affiliate broadcasting stations. The fourth point in the list calls to shut down news outlets funded by Qatar. These two demands are tantamount to curbing the right to freedom of speech, and right to information and it is against basic human rights.

Fifth demand is to terminate the Turkish military’s presence in Qatar. This demand seems to be aimed at weakening Qatar’s defence – if KSA attacks Qatar, there would be no foreign force to defend the latter. Sixth demand is somewhat similar to the second one, with different wordings. Seventh demand is that Qatar must hand over “terrorist figures” and wanted individuals from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain to their countries of origin. Saudi Arabia and UAE have extradition treaties with Qatar, so instead of imposing embargo, KSA should have dealt properly through legal means rather than coercion.

Eighth demand is that Qatar has to end interference in sovereign countries’ internal affairs. Ninth demand is that Qatar has to stop all contacts with the political oppositions in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain. No country can stop another one to remain in contact with her political opposition, unless the political opposition has been declared a terrorist organization. Tenth demand is that Qatar must pay reparations and compensation for the loss of life and other financial losses caused by Qatar’s policies in recent years. But, while making this demand they forgot that thousands of people have died due to flawed Saudi policies, and Qatar’s economy is suffering more due to Saudi embargo. Eleventh demand is that Qatar needs to consent to monthly audits for the first year after agreeing to the demands, then once per quarter during the second year. For the following 10 years, Qatar would be monitored annually for compliance. This demand is so weird and too reasonable to accept it. Qatar is a sovereign country, not a periphery of Saudi Arabia, nor it’s a company registered by the Saudis that Doha provide regular audit reports to Riyadh.

Twelfth demand is that Qatar must align itself with the other Gulf and Arab countries militarily, politically, socially and economically, as well as on economic matters. In other words, Doha has to lose its complete identity and do whatever the Saudis order. Last demand is: “Agree to all the demands within 10 days of it being submitted to Qatar, or the list becomes invalid.”

The bottom line is that Saudi Arabia is a sacred land for Muslims, and everyone respects the royal family for being the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”. Saudis should make policies to unite all Muslims around the world, not to escalate chaos that would divide them.