(the crown capital international relation update) | Saudi Arabia, regardless of its deep discomfort about the West’s hesitant rapprochement with Iran, seems to have some viable selection for practicing a more independent and straightforward foreign policy.
Disappointed with the United States from constructing tactical relations with other world powers to thrusting a tougher line in opposition to Iranian allies in the Arab world and, in an instance that the world powers be unsuccessful to foil Tehran’s nuclear objectives, even looking for its own atomic bomb so senior Saudis have expected at a range of possibilities.
However substitute powers are tough even to think for a nation that has been holding back to U.S. ally for decades. Russia is on the conflicting side against Riyadh concerning the Syrian war and China’s military clout is still modest as compared with the United States’.
Robert Jordan, U.S. ambassador to Riyadh from 2001-03, said there would be limits to any Saudi alliances with other powers.
• “There is no country in the world more capable of providing the protection of their oil fields, and their economy, than the U.S., and the Saudis are aware of that. We’re not going to see them jump out of that orbit,” he said.
A few Saudi analysts also say that the kingdom is well aware of what major foreign policy shifts would involve – mainly any pursuit of nuclear weapons while Jordan was a senior diplomat in the administration of President George W. Bush. As a result, at the end, casting Saudi Arabia as the international villain, instead of its regional arch-rival Iran, and Riyadh has no desire for such of isolation that has required Tehran to the negotiating table.
• “Saudi Arabia doesn’t need to become a second Iran,” said a Saudi analyst close to official thinking. “It would be a total reversal of our traditional behavior, of being a reliable member of the international community that promotes strategic stability and stabilizes oil markets.”
Diplomatic sources and analysts in the Gulf say the kingdom, while unsettled, will not risk a breach in relations with its main non-Arab ally and will explore, however warily, a purely diplomatic response to the Iranian opening. Top Saudis are yet angry with Washington. Senior U.S. officials apprehended secret two-sided talks with Iranian counterparts for months to get ready for previous month’s interim nuclear agreement among six world powers and Tehran, raising Gulf Arab rulers’ worries that Washington is eager to go betray them and to do a deal with Iran.
Diplomatic sources in the Gulf said, Saudi leaders were taken unawares by the content of the deal that was struck in the early hours of November 24, despite an earlier promise by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to keep them informed of developments.
In Washington, a senior State Department official said Kerry had been in close contact with his counterparts throughout the two rounds of negotiations in Geneva, and had talked to Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on November 25.
• “The agreement was reached in the middle of the night and Secretary Kerry spoke with the Saudi Foreign Minister soon afterward,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Under the agreement is Tehran relief from sanctions that are strangling its economy, in return for more oversight of its nuclear program. Riyadh, along with its Western allies, fears this is aimed at producing weapons, a charge Tehran denies.
• Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif suggested on Sunday the deal should not be seen as a threat. “This agreement cannot be at the expense of any country in the region,” he told reporters in Kuwait. “We look at Saudi Arabia as an important and influential regional country and we are working to strengthen cooperation with it for the benefit of the region.”
Diplomatic sources in the Gulf say Riyadh is nervous that the deal will ease pressure on Tehran, allowing it more room to damage Saudi interests elsewhere in the Middle East.
Including in Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen, the conservative Sunni Muslim kingdom is at odds with Iran’s revolutionary Shi’ite leaders in struggles across the Arab world. Above everything, Riyadh thinks about Iran’s open support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in fighting a rebellion backed by Gulf States as a foreign occupation of Arab lands.
BOLD DECLARATIONS
Riyadh showed tepid support for the nuclear deal, implied alongside warnings that it was a “first step” and that a more comprehensive solution necessary “good will”. Nevertheless a few well-known Saudis cited bold declarations that Riyadh will develop a tough new foreign policy, protecting its interests in keeping with its status as the richest Arab state and birthplace of Islam. Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf, the Saudi ambassador to London, told The Times newspaper that “all options are available” to Riyadh, including seeking its own atomic weapon, if Iran managed to build the bomb.
However diplomatic sources in the Gulf and analysts close to Saudi thinking say the main problem in turning such rhetoric into action is the lack on an obvious replacement for the U.S. security umbrella in the Gulf, or for the American military’s role in advising, arming and assisting the Saudi armed forces.
• “There’ll be more contact with the Russians and Chinese than in the past. They’ve gone elsewhere for weapons before and we’ll see some more of that, but the overall environment will be America-centric,” said Jordan.
A Western adviser to Gulf countries on geopolitical issues said senior Saudis have looked at ways of reducing the kingdom’s long-term reliance on the United States. France is one alternative, albeit one that stays firmly in the Western camp in spite of precedent differences with NATO allies.
Riyadh has worked closely with Paris in recent months on both Syrian and Iranian issues, and has awarded it big naval contracts. That said, the Saudi armed forces and economy are so closely tied to the United States that any serious attempt to disengage over the longer term would be prohibitively costly and difficult, diplomatic sources in the Gulf say. Washington stays closer to Riyadh on each Middle Eastern concern any other world power currently except France, which has taken a hard line on Iran.
The issue in Syria over which there is the greatest disagreement between Riyadh and Washington, the kingdom is now arming and training some rebel groups which the United States, cautious about arming jihadists, views with caution. Diplomatic sources in the Gulf say these efforts will continue and may expand, but logistical challenges will hinder any rapid attempt to increase training much beyond the thousand or so rebels now working in Jordan with Saudi special forces.
Riyadh’s own suspicions of an Islamist backlash stop it from arming more militant groups with ties to al Qaeda. This is reinforced by a bombing campaign inside the country in the last decade. The sources say Saudi Arabia still relies on a lot of support from Western allies for command and control expertise, and would find it very difficult to build its own coalition of Arab allies to join forces in a military campaign.
They note that the kingdom and its five closest regional friends, the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, have been unable to agree on a shared missile defense shield after years of discussions.
