RUSSIA VS SAUDI ARABIA - WILL OBAMA REFUSE TO ACT OR IS HE FROZEN BY FEAR?

Submitted by: Donald Hank

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russia-saudi-arabia-are-headed-showdown-16362?page=2

Russia and Saudi Arabia Are Headed for a Showdown

Moscow and Riyadh have incompatible goals, from energy to extremism.

Nikolay Pakhomov

May 26, 2016

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The Saudi bet is bold; however, it is crucial not to forget that the jury will be out on this policy for some time. King Salman and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are free to make any decision they want, but it is hard not to consider some fundamentals of Saudi Vision 2030 to be risky. 

Questions abound: will the kingdom have enough money, even after the partialprivatization of Aramco, to pay all its bills, which will increase dramatically with transition costs? Will fourteen years, until 2030, be sufficient to prepare the workforce for a new economy, supposedly free of oil addiction, and change the mindset of the Saudi population, including numerous members of the royal family? Will Saudi social, cultural and religious frameworks allow for these reforms? Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed likes to compare himself to Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. But none of them achieve their success in Saudi Arabia, where women are still not allowed to drive, not to mention other, significantly more complicated issues.

The role of Islam in Saudi Arabia is also important to understand the second dimension of Russian-Saudi differences. If OPEC’s troubles push the essential differences between Russian and Saudi energy policy into the background, the Syrian crisis provides the same kind of distraction in analyzing the gap between the antiterrorism approaches of Moscow and Riyadh. To state that Russia is protecting “its guy in Syria,” Bashar al-Assad, while Saudi Arabia is supporting the opposition’s struggle for freedom, would be a misleading simplification.

To start with the obvious: it is necessary to emphasize that among many groups fighting against the Assad regime, the Islamist ones are the most powerful, with Islamic State being the most notorious. However, while ISIS became the world’s enemy after initial successes in Iraq and Syria, due to its global claims and international deadly reach, other Islamist formations in Syria can compete with ISIS in terms of religious zeal and brutality. The question arises whether these groups will stop fighting if they win in Syria. Or is it just a matter of “competition” among terrorists—ISIS being the most feared now, while other competitors also dream of “outperforming” ISIS in Syria and elsewhere?

The next thing to consider while analyzing differences between Moscow and Riyadh’s antiterrorism approaches is the fact that Saudi support to jihadist groups in Syria has been an open secret for some time. Now it even seems as though Saudi Arabia and Turkey, according to some estimates, are trying to consolidate jihadist units in Syria in a united command structure under the name of Jaish al-Fatah (the Army of Conquest). Coincidentally, Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has also called for this kind of consolidation.

Last but not least, another factor to consider in analyzing Russian and Saudi differences in fighting against terrorist groups is that the Wahhabi branch of Islam is dominant in Saudi Arabia, and that Wahhabi preachers have cooperated with terrorist groups in Russia—in the North Caucasus, and especially in Dagestan. These facts help to understand both why Moscow is concerned with what is going on in Syria, and why it feels uneasy about Saudi support for various radical groups.

Similarly to tackling global energy problems, Russia offers a wide international approach to dealing with jihadists in Syria and elsewhere. For example, it isurging the United States to launch joint strikes in Syria against Jabhat al-Nusra. So far Washington has refused to cooperate, despite the fact that Jabhat al-Nusra has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States since 2012, and American forces have been conducting their own strikes against the group. Saudi Arabia, supposedly an American partner and ally, designated Nusra as a terror group in 2014; however, Nusra, often called “Al Qaeda in Syria,” is a part of Jaish al-Fatah. Saudi relations with jihadist forces cause alarm for many international observers and contribute to growing Russian suspicion toward Saudi policies. It is clear that the two countries differ on what constitutes radical, dangerous Islamism.

With concerns growing in the world over both global energy security and radical Islam, the distinct approaches of Russia and Saudi Arabia on these issues will have a resonance that transcends bilateral relations. Although the two countries are still careful in avoiding outright confrontation and hostile rhetoric, their incompatible goals in energy markets and Middle Eastern politics are already obvious. The future will show how this competition influences international relations.

Nikolay Pakhomov is a political analyst and consultant in New York City. He is a Russian International Affairs Council expert. You can follow him on Twitter @nik_pakhomov.

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