The Muslim world’s
historic – and deeply tragic – chasm between Sunni and Shia Islam is having
worldwide repercussions. Syria’s civil war, America’s craven alliance with the
Sunni Gulf autocracies, and Sunni (as well as Israeli) suspicions of Shia Iran
are affecting even the work of the United Nations. Saudi Arabia’s petulant refusal last week to
take its place among non-voting members of the Security Council, an
unprecedented step by any UN member, was intended to express the dictatorial
monarchy’s displeasure with Washington’s refusal to bomb Syria after the use of
chemical weapons in Damascus – but it also represented Saudi fears that Barack
Obama might respond to Iranian overtures for better relations with the West.
Hatred of the Shia/Alawite Syrian regime, an
unquenchable suspicion of Shia Iran’s nuclear plans and a general fear of Shia
expansion is turning the unelected Sunni Arab monarchies into proxy allies of
the Israeli state they have often sworn to destroy. Furthermore, America’s
latest contribution to Middle East “peace” could be the sale of $10.8bn worth
of missiles and arms to Sunni Saudi Arabia and the equally Sunni United Arab
Emirates, including GBU-39 bombs – the weapons cutely called “bunker-busters” –
which they could use against Shia Iran. Israel, of course, possesses the very
same armaments.
On Monday Kerry said that he valued the
autocracy’s leadership in the region, shared Riyadh’s desire to de-nuclearise
Iran and to bring an end to the Syrian war. But Kerry’s insistence that
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime must abandon power means that a
Sunni government would take over Syria; and his wish to disarm Shia Iran –
however notional its nuclear threat may be – would ensure that Sunni military
power would dominate the Middle East from the Afghan border to the
Mediterranean.
The minority Sunni monarchy in Bahrain –
supported by the Saudis and of course by the compliant governments of the US,
Britain, et al – is likewise accusing Shia Iran of colluding with the island’s
majority Shias. Oddly, Prince Bandar, in his comments, claimed that Barack
Obama had failed to support Saudi policy in Bahrain – which involved sending
its own troops into the island to help repress Shia demonstrators in 2011 –
when in fact America’s silence over the regime’s paramilitary violence was the
nearest Washington could go in offering its backing to the Sunni minority and
his Royal Highness the King of Bahrain.
All in all, then, a mighty Western love affair
with Sunni Islam – a love that very definitely cannot speak its name in an Arab
Gulf world in which “democracy”, “moderation”, “partnership” and outright
dictatorship are interchangeable – which neither Washington nor London nor
Paris (nor indeed Moscow or Beijing) will acknowledge. But, needless to say,
there are a few irritating – and incongruous – ripples in this mutual passion.
The Saudis, for example, blame Obama for
allowing Egypt’s decadent Hosni Mubarak to be overthrown. They blame the
Americans for supporting the elected Muslim Brother Mohamed Morsi as president
– elections not being terribly popular in the Gulf – and the Saudis are now
throwing cash at Egypt’s new military regime. Assad in Damascus also offered
his congratulations to the Egyptian military. Was the Egyptian army not, after
all – like Assad himself – trying to prevent religious extremists from taking
power? Fair enough – providing we
remember that the Saudis are really supporting the Egyptian Salafists who
cynically gave their loyalty to the Egyptian military, and that Saudi-financed
Salafists are among the fiercest opponents of Assad.
Thankfully for Kerry
and his European mates, the absence of any institutional memory in the State
Department, Foreign Office or Quai d’Orsay means that no one need remember that
15 of the 19 mass-killers of 9/11 were also Salafists and – let us above all,
please God, forget this – were all Sunni citizens of Saudi Arabia.
© 2013 The Independent [Abridged]
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/24-2
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