SPEAKING
FREELY Saudi Arabia's Syrian
jihad By Joshua Jacobs
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
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contributing.
If there was any
doubt as to Saudi intentions in Syria, that veil
was ripped away on Sunday at the Istanbul "Friends
of Syria" conference. The Saudis and their Gulf
allies spearheaded an effort to create a
formalized pay structure for the Free Syrian Army
(FSA) and privately ruminated on the possibility
of setting up official supply conduits to forces
fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This
decision went much further than what the West, or
even neighboring Turkey, seemed willing to
embrace. But while the United States and her
allies are wary of seeing Syria become
a sectarian
battleground, the power brokers in Riyadh are
enthusiastically hurtling towards it.
When
the Syrian uprising began last March, Saudi Arabia
was in a state of panic. The revolution in Egypt,
the uprising in Bahrain, and the bubbling civil
war in Yemen consumed attention and cultivated a
manic siege mentality. This fear and clarion call
for stability stymied any potential efforts at
exploiting the regional chaos. However as the
Saudi domestic and geopolitical situation began to
stabilize, they began to look hungrily at the
potential opportunity in Syria.
The shift
onto the offensive began in early August when King
Abdullah tested the waters by staking out a
position as the first Arab leader to castigate the
Assad regime. While the Saudis escalated their
rhetoric and began lobbying in Arab diplomatic
circles, they also began to unchain their clerical
soft power. A steady stream of firebrand clerics
and senior religious officials began to take to
the airwaves with official Saudi sanction to
excoriate the Assad regime and encourage pious
Muslims to strive against it. Clerics like Sheikh
Adnan al-Arour, a Syrian-born Salafist preacher
who has called for a jihad against the Assad
regime have been given prime time coverage. The
influence of these clerics and the increasing
connection between them and fighters in Syria is
evidenced by communiques from armed groups like
the 'Supporters of God Brigade' in Hama which
declared allegiance to al-Arour.
To
experienced Saudi watchers the escalating
religious rhetoric being encouraged in the Kingdom
may seem perplexing. For much of the past decade
the Saudi government has worked to muzzle and
regulate the ability of clerics to make calls for
jihad, reinforcing the doctrine that such an
action is only valid if endorsed by the King and
his senior religious authorities. This was done to
suppress the flow of recruits not only to al-Qaeda
but to insurgent groups in Iraq and Yemen. However
the Saudi decision is a sign that they are once
again willing to embrace one of the most potent
weapons in the Kingdom's arsenal, state directed
jihad.
It is one of the most tried and
true weapons the Kingdom possesses having utilized
it to fight Nasser in Yemen, the Serbs in Bosnia,
and of course the Soviets in Afghanistan to name
just a few. The Saudis have clearly made the
calculus that the potential fruits of toppling
Assad, and enthroning a Sunni aligned regime in
Damascus are well worth the political risk.
While the Istanbul conference marked what
could arguably be termed the beginning of an overt
state of conflict between Riyadh and Damascus, the
signs have been building for months that the
covert war has been in full swing. Reports that
Saudi agents have been working in Jordan and Iraq
to finance smuggling routes appear to have a
substantial amount of circumstantial evidence, and
is certainly a view endorsed by those taking part
in such activities on the ground. While
unsubstantiated and likely untrue accusations that
Saudi Arabia has played a role in the spate of
suicide attacks in Damascus belie a more likely
fear that the Kingdom is strengthening its ties
amongst Islamist groups in Syria.
The
danger of course is that while Saudi Arabia
embarks on its jihad to topple Assad, it will get
free reign in picking the winners and losers
amongst the opposition. This will have the effect
of distorting the movement by strengthening
ideologically allied Islamist groups at the
expense of moderates and secularists. Indeed there
is a worrying precedent in Afghanistan where the
Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency
altered the political landscape by controlling who
did or did not receive support. If the Western
powers, Turkey included, voluntarily stand aside
and let Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies
unilaterally control the process of arming the
opposition, then they might find themselves
appalled at the result.
The international
community as a whole should be cautious in the
manner that it approaches intervention in Syria.
Footing responsibility to Saudi Arabia and her
allies risks ideologically poisoning the
opposition movement as Sunni religious groups
receive disproportionate support and other groups
adapt their message to receive support. If the
United States and her Western allies are committed
to supporting the Syrian revolution, they cannot
afford to sit back and do it through
intermediaries.
Joshua Jacobs is
a Gulf Policy Analyst at the Institute for Gulf
Affairs.
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
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