Zakir
Naik’s Travails Part Of Growing Saudi Isolation
Saeed Naqvi
Globally, the approval rating for Riyadh
is low. Why? Because the US has gradually distanced itself from Saudi actions
in the recent past. Interests, patronized by Saudi Arabia, were tolerated
worldwide because it was assumed that America kept a protective eye on all
Saudi assets. That is no longer the case.
Just the other day most US advisers
involved in the Yemen operation, were withdrawn from Riyadh – as clear a vote
of no confidence as any in the mindless Saudi war in the Arab world’s poorest
country.
Growing Saudi isolation has an ironical
twist. Even arch enemy, Iran has changed its policy on Saudi Arabia. That Iran
would change policy will be matter of surprise for many. It is assumed that
Iran would have had just one policy from the very beginning: a policy of
opposition to Riyadh. But it has never been so.
Iran’s policy towards Saudi Arabia has
been much more nuanced. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 introduced a bipolarity
in the Muslim world. A Riyadh-Tehran rivalry was built into the situation. But
Tehran never allowed one upmanship to degenerate into a conflict.
Its presumed leadership of the Muslim
Ummah under assault, Riyadh frequently lashed out. There were many verbal
skirmishes. But Iran’s “policy” towards Saudi Arabia remained unchanged.
This “policy” was based on a very clear
understanding of the Saudi establishment which consisted of two streams, one
led by the king and the other by the Wahabi clergy.
To former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani
must go the credit for having always insisted on one line – the government led
by a pragmatic king like Abdullah was much better for Iran and the rest of the
world than the fundamentalist Wahabi clergy. An internal balance of power
favourable to the king was the better of the evils.
Even when King Abdullah advised the
Americans to “cut the head of the snake” (Iran) Tehran persisted with the line
that it was better to cope with him rather than see the clergy come on top.
Inherent in this policy was a vision of
a possible rapprochement with Riyadh. The biggest votary of peace with Saudi
Arabia in the past four years has been Iran Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif.
His prestige was sky high after he
successfully negotiated the nuclear deal with the US. He was therefore able to
extract a go ahead from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President
Hassan Rouhani, to explore avenues for some understanding with Saudi leaders.
A realization has dawned in Tehran that,
unlike, the late King Abdullah, the present ruling clique in Riyadh is not in
control of the situation. First, King Salman bin Abdulaziz is ailing and not in
control of his faculties.
Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef probably
derives his hard line approach and proximity to the clergy from his late
father, Interior Minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, who was responsible for
rolling tanks and APCs along the 37 kms causeway linking the Kingdom and
Bahrain to quell the popular Shia uprising against the Sunni rulers in Manama.
Deputy Crown Prince, Mohammad bin
Salman, who is actually calling the shots in the Kingdom, possibly does not
have the links with the clergy that his cousin, the Crown Prince has. In the
midst of this ambiguity, the clergy is becoming powerful.
Internal turbulence is being managed by
external wars, as in Yemen, or persisting with the Syrian civil war with an aim
to oust President Bashar al Assad.
Iranians, and others, have now given up
on keeping reasonable relations with the government in Riyadh to keep down the
clergy. Gloves in Tehran are off because an assessment has been made that the
clergy is now in a decision making position. A shrill battle cry is on the
amplifiers directly against Wahabism.
Ayatollah Khamenei has seldom used such
invective. Recalling last year’s Haj stampede in which 2000 pilgrims including
472 Iranians were crushed to death, he exploded:
“The heartless and murderous Saudis
locked up the injured with the dead in containers – instead of providing
medical treatment or atleast quenching their thirst, they murdered them.”
It is possible to attribute Khamenei’s
outburst to the Saudi Grand Mufti’s statement against Shia’s: “they are not
Muslims.”
What confirms an altered Iranian policy
against Riyadh is foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s very measured op-ed piece in
the New York Times. He has finally thrown in the towel. Gloves are now truly
off. It is building upto a showdown at a critical juncture. The offensive
against the IS in Mosul is in the process of revealing many fault lines. The
enthusiasm of those poised for an attack on Iraq’s second biggest city, has to
be seen against those who would like their “assets” holed up in Mosul to be
protected. Many reputations are on the line.
In this whirlwind heaven knows how many
Zakir Naiks will be swept away.
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