Saudis fret about US-Iran 'thaw'

http://www.theguardian.com/world/on-the-middle-east/2013/oct/16/iran-saudi-nuclear-egypt

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Big changes make governments nervous, so it is striking to observe the jitters emanating from Saudi Arabia at the incipient thaw in relations between the US and Iran. Riyadh had long been rumbling with discontent over Washington's responses to the Arab spring but their differences burst into the open with last month's US-Russian deal to destroy Syria's chemical weapons — putting Bashar al-Assad out of range of punitive air strikes. Now the prospect of agreement on the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme is said to be giving the Saudi royals bad dreams. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been strategic rivals since before the 1979 revolution - the shah was known as the "policeman of the Gulf" - as well as the respective leaders of the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. Iran's position was inadvertently strengthened by the US-led invasion of Iraq and the installation of a Shia government in Baghdad. Tehran backs Assad and Hizbullah in Lebanon while Riyadh openly advocates regime change in Damascus. Syria's conflict is indeed, in some ways, a proxy war.

The Saudis also fear Iran's nuclear ambitions - King Abdullah famously urged the US to "cut off the head of the snake" - and have repeatedly signalled that they will acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does. They blame Tehran - though without much evidence - for encouraging Shia opposition to the Sunni monarchy in neighbouring Bahrain. Shias in the kingdom's eastern provinces face state repression and Saudi clerics have used inflammatory sectarian language over Syria, especially Assad's Alawite community. Saudi diplomacy is unusually opaque, so the signs of anxiety are subtle but unmistakable. Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, cancelled his speech to the UN general assembly out of pique at the Syria CW agreement. In private conversations senior Saudis are scathing about President Obama's preference for inspections and disarmament over military action. Obama's high-profile phone call with Hassan Rouhani, Iran's new president, is another big factor in this diplo-sulk. Like the Israelis, the Saudis do not believe, or do not want to believe, that Rouhani is a genuine moderate or can overcome hardline elements at home. Their fear is that in a much-touted "grand bargain" between Washington and Tehran, the Gulf states will be the losers.

US support for moderate Islamists is another source of resentment. The Saudis were furious at Obama's (belated) abandonment of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and subsequent embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi. The Saudis, with their Emirati and Kuwaiti allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council - who all loathe and fear the Ikhwan - quickly rewarded the Egyptian military to the tune of $12bn for overthrowing Morsi in July. The Americans, by contrast, dithered and then partially suspended their aid - ignoring lobbying from Riyadh.

Cooler Saudi voices say official nervousness about tensions with Washington is exaggerated. "Whenever American-Iranian political reconciliation looms on the horizon we panic," noted Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent columnist - recommending "psychotherapy sessions and courses in real political science so we can recover our self-confidence and see that we are stronger than we think." Yet alarm is palpable elsewhere in the Gulf. "GCC leaders must wake up to the looming danger," warned the influential Emirati businessman Khalaf al-Habtoor. "The countdown has started; the US/Iranian plan is about to be implemented. A serious plan of action is urgently required. GCC states are strong enough to stand alone both economically and militarily and should not permit foreign powers to make decisions for them."

Nevertheless, a dramatic rupture still seems unlikely, if only because, despite recent overtures to China on defence sales, the Saudis have no substitute for their strategic relationship with the US.

The biggest differences between Washington and its Gulf allies, argues the Carnegie Endowment's Frederic Wehrey, are not over regional issues but domestic repression - the conservative monarchies' answer to the expectations for reform that have grown with the Arab spring. It is clearly also premature to predict a breakthrough in US relations with Iran, so for the moment at least, says Saudi-watcher Gregory Gause, talk of a crisis is overblown:

There is no doubt that Washington and Riyadh disagree on quite a bit these days, from how to handle Syria to the generals' regime in Cairo to the promise and perils of the Rouhani presidency in Iran, on top of the hardy perennial of Palestine. But these disagreements, while serious, do not rise to the level of a bilateral crisis. There have been even wider disagreements in the past, and the common interests pushing the two countries together remain as salient as they have been over the past six decades.

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