Closing ranks with Sunnis in the Gulf and Pakistan, 53-year-old Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir visited Islamabad, requesting security assurances from its old oil client. After beheading popular Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr Jan. 2, Saudi Arabia encountered a Shiite backlash, especially the Iran, the Mideast’s biggest Shiite nation. Beheading al-Nimr was the ultimate slap-in-the-face to Shiites, butchering the 57-year-old Shiite cleric like a barnyard animal. Having beheaded 157 people in 2015, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman doesn’t fool around when it comes to threats against The Kingdom. Disposing al-Nimr prompted condemnations from Iran Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Hassa Rouhani. King Salman railed against Nov. 2 attacks in Tehran against the Saudi embassy, holding Tehran accountable, breaking off diplomatic relations Jan. 3.
Pulling strings with the Saudi’s Gulf Cooperation Council, Gulf states of Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates all either broke of diplomatic ties or put Iran on notice that they wouldn’t take Iranian meddling in the Persian Gulf. Meeting with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman today, Pakistani chief Gen. Raheel Sharif told Saudi officials that any attack on The Kingdom would be met with a military help from Islamabad. Closing ranks with Pakistan, al-Jubeir got what he wanted from Pakistan, sowing more dissension between Sunnis and Shiites. Since March 11, 2011, Saudi Arabia funded sectarian war against the Shiite regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, deceptively calling the conflict a “civil war.” Funding a proxy war in Syria, Saudi Arabia has caused the worst humanitarian crisis since WWII.
Accusing Iran of sponsoring terrorism, King Salman pretends that Riyadh has no role in the five-year-old Syrian conflict, killing 250,000, most of whom Sunnis, displacing 2 million more to neighboring countries and Europe. Since the Syrian insurgency began in 2011, the U.S. blindly backed the Saudi proxy war, pinning the blame on al-Assad defending his sovereignty. Unlike Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, al-Assad marshaled all his resources to fight the Saudi-funded insurgency. President Barack Obama only recently changed his “regime change” policy in Damascus, after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin Dec. 15, 2015 in Moscow. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry had rubber-stamped the Saudi proxy war until Putin insisted that toppling al-Assad would repeat the same mistakes in Iraq and Libya, flooding the region with more terrorism.
U.S. officials don’t like al-Assad anymore than they liked Iraq’s late dictator Saddam Hussein. Putin helped Washington to see, no matter how despicable al-Assad, his regime is preferred over al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] or any other radical Wahhabi Sunni terror group. U.S. officials gave Saudi Arabia the benefit of the doubt in determining what constitutes “moderate opposition.” When Saudi-funded opposition favorite Zahran Alloush was killed by a Russian air strike Dec. 25, al-Jubeir almost confessed Saudi’s direct involvement in Jaish al-Islam, the terror group based in Eastern Ghouta’s Damascus suburb. Saudi Arabia can’t have both ways: Claiming they’re for Mideast stability and, at the same time, funding a proxy war against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. U.S. officials only recently acknowledged that toppling al-Assad would add to Mideat chaos.
Seeking Pakistan’s security blanket against Iran, Saudi Arabia plays destructive sectarian politics of Sunni v. Shiite. Pakistan, a large buyer of cheap Saudi oil, has only one real interest in The Kingdom: The unimpeded free flow of Saudi oil. Battling a Wahhibi Sunni insurgency inside Pakistan against the Taliban, Pakistani’s Army Chief Sharif knows that Shiites, especially Iran, have nothing to do with their current battle against the Taliban. Getting Pakistan’s promise to defend Saudi Arabia against any incursion by Iran, Sharif knows the phony dichotomy. Iran doesn’t threaten Saudi Arabia, other than backing Yemen’s Houthi Shiite rebels or al-Assad’s Shiite regime. Pakistan—with its formidable nuclear arsenal developed by A.Q. Khan—faces an existential threat from the Taliban, the same group that harbored Osama bin Laden and fights to conquer Kabul.
Pakistan’s Sharif pays lip service to his oil masters in Saudi Arabia, knowing full well that Iran presents no real threat to any Sunni regime in the Middle East. With U.N. sanctions due to lift, Iran threatens The Kingdom’s oil revenues, starting to pump and send record volumes of oil through the Persian Gulf. Saudi’s dwindling Gross Domestic Product mirrors the world’s oil glut and crashing prices, worsened by Iran starting to come back in the picture. Hearing Sharif promise military support to Saudi Arabia doesn’t begin to address The Kingdom’s proxy war in Syria, killing untold Sunnis, far more than defending al-Assad’s Shiite regime. King Salman must be called out for funding a sectarian war against Shiites, when The Kingdom’s real threat comes from al-Qaeda, ISIS and other radical Sunni groups. Pakistan knows firsthand the Taliban’s commitment to slaughter innocent Sunnis.
