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HOW DID SAUDI ARABIA PUSH IRAQ INTO THE ARMS OF IRAN?
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HOW DID SAUDI ARABIA PUSH IRAQ INTO THE ARMS OF IRAN?
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[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]49 minutes ago12News Agency / Follow up
Despite the United States' continuous attempt to separate Baghdad from Tehran, in an attempt to steer Iraq more towards the Arab countries, it failed, according to Catherine Harvey, author of "A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq."
She says the US effort has failed in part because of Saudi Arabia's counterproductive policies.
It says Riyadh rejected Iraqi efforts for rapprochement, which prompted the country to move closer to Iran.
Nearly 20 years after the invasion of Iraq, and more than 10 years after the original American withdrawal, the standard narrative of the Iraq War is now well established. President George W. Bush ordered the invasion, anticipating finding weapons of mass destruction and aspiring to establish democracy in the Middle East. Sunni and Shiite rebellions erupted immediately, facilitated by Syria and Iran.
Iraqi Shiites came to power and gravitated away from the Arab world and toward Tehran. Nouri al-Maliki, considered a sectarian ally of Iran, became prime minister and cemented Iraq's position in an Iranian regional hub. After the US withdrawal in 2011, Iraqi Sunnis rose up against Maliki, providing an opportunity for the Islamic State to eventually control a third of the country.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia barely appears in most accounts of the Iraq war. The few commentators who have mentioned this explain in passing that the late King Abdullah despised Maliki and thus refused to intervene.
The lack of a Saudi presence in Iraq—the Saudis only began engaging after Abdullah's death in 2015—contributed to the widespread impression that the Saudis had little influence and were not a big factor in Iraq in those years.
First, it is important to note that Maliki was not pro-Iranian. He was not an example of virtue—as a prime minister he was authoritarian and often held highly sectarian positions—but he was an Iraqi nationalist. The irony is that Zalmay Khalilzad, then the US ambassador to Baghdad, quietly supported Maliki's first attempt at the premiership because, among the successful candidates, Khalilzad considered Maliki to be more palatable than Iraq's Arab neighbors. Like most Shiite Islamists who assumed positions of power in post-2003 Iraq, Maliki fought Saddam Hussein's regime from within Iran during the 1980s. But his time there made him bitter toward the Islamic Republic, which had manipulated, suppressed and even killed members of the Dawa party. Many members of the Dawa Party considered themselves an Iraqi group in exile, not an Iranian tool. At the end of that decade, Maliki left Iran for Syria, where he remained until the 2003 invasion.
As a condition of his support, Khalilzad al-Maliki agreed that as prime minister he would engage with the Arab world, especially Saudi Arabia, and al-Maliki traveled to the kingdom on his first trip abroad as prime minister in July 2006.
But it seems likely that Maliki would have prioritized engagement with Saudi Arabia even if he had not promised Khalilzad. As a US official who dealt with Maliki explained to me at the time, “Maliki was not pro-Iran. He understood the need to balance Iran. And he understood that Saudi Arabia was the headline one” to do so. Al-Maliki himself told me that he chose Saudi Arabia as his first trip abroad because he believed the symbolism of a Shiite Iraqi prime minister's visit to the center of the Sunni Arab world would help calm the rising sectarian tide in Iraq. Sami al-Askari is close to al-Maliki.
On that trip, Maliki was warmly received by the Saudi leadership and he met King Abdullah, but then Abdullah refused to meet him again. He described Abdullah al-Maliki as a liar who made promises he did not fulfill, and was convinced that he was an Iranian agent.
All of my sources told me that Abdullah believed Maliki lied, but none of them - including Americans, Saudis and Iraqis who interacted with the Saudi king and his top advisers - were able to tell me what Abdullah believed Maliki lied about. Abdullah's claim was very vague, and I've never found evidence to prove it. What I found is that many of the affected Iraqis had access to the Saudi leadership, and at least some of them appeared to have passed on misinformation to the Saudis, claiming that al-Maliki was carrying out Iranian orders. Perhaps this disinformation was the source of Abdullah's claim.
The truth is, as a Saudi royal insider told me, Abdullah "couldn't understand" what was happening in Iraq in those years. For decades, the Saudi leadership was convinced that Iran had expansionist plans in the Arab world and viewed Shiite Arab communities as potential pawns for Iran - a standard Shiite stereotype among Sunnis.
Given these beliefs, the Saudis concluded virtually as soon as Saddam Hussein's regime fell that the United States handed Iraq over to Iran on a silver platter. Abdullah was deeply upset with American efforts in Iraq - efforts that naturally allowed the Shiite majority to rise to power - long before Maliki became prime minister.
These beliefs blinded Abdullah from the steps Maliki was taking in his first government to pursue a path independent of Iran. In 2008, Maliki conducted an operation, which targeted Iranian-backed proxies and won him praise from Iraqi Sunnis and US officials. In 2009, he refused to join an electoral coalition backed by Iran to form his national list for the 2010 parliamentary elections.
To be clear, Maliki was not anti-Iranian. Iran necessarily has significant influence in any Shiite-led Iraq, and Maliki wanted a positive relationship with Tehran. In his first government, he did not speak out against Iran. But he was also willing to resist Iranian pressure, as he did before the 2010 elections, to ensure that his country did not succumb to Tehran.
Meanwhile, from 2006 until early 2009, Maliki tried to open the door to Saudi Arabia, albeit with little hope of success. While the Saudis refused to participate, many of Iraq's other Arab neighbors began to do so. By 2008, senior officials from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, and Lebanon were traveling to Baghdad. But with the Saudis in a deep stalemate, there was only so far these other Arab countries ready to go.
The United States cannot change the Saudis' calculations - the Bush and Obama administrations tried and failed to get Abdullah to engage.
The problem was that Abdullah's rejection of Maliki ended with a self-fulfilling prophecy. Abdullah refused to deal with him or to have anything to do with his government because he believed that Maliki was an untrustworthy Iranian agent—but it was Abdullah's refusal to accept him that ultimately drove Maliki toward Iran.
Many Iraqis viewed Abdullah's intense hostility to the new Iraqi regime, exemplified by his rejection of Maliki, as a Saudi intention to reverse Shiite hegemony. Iraqi Shiites, worried about losing their new political power, began to feel deeply threatened by the Saudis. Saudi Arabia reportedly began funding Maliki's political opponents as early as 2007. In particular, Abdullah Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite and former Baathist who was prime minister of Iraq in 2004 and 2005, supported a return to the old Iraqi regime. . Abdullah's support for Allawi in the 2010 elections prompted al-Maliki, in contrast to his previous behavior, to seek Iranian assistance in the aftermath of those elections to retain the premiership. Then the Syrian civil war strengthened the alliance between Maliki and Iran. Maliki was convinced that the Saudis were working not only to overthrow Bashar al-Assad's regime in Damascus, but also his government in Baghdad.
It seems that Maliki's concern is justified. Whatever the Saudis were actually doing in Iraq in those years, a Saudi royal insider confided to me that "Abdullah was willing to do whatever it took to get rid of Maliki."
Commentators on Middle East affairs often point out that Iran considers itself responsible for four Arab capitals - Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus and Sana'a. At least in the case of Baghdad, there was no foregone conclusion that Shiite-led Iraq would fall into Iran's orbit. For years, Maliki tried to achieve independence from Iran. He changed course not because of his rapprochement with the Islamic Republic, but because of the profound alienation he felt toward Saudi Arabia.
This pattern was repeated in Yemen and Lebanon. The war that the Saudis began against the Houthis in 2015 turned that group's limited ties to Iran into a true alliance. Recent Saudi moves against Lebanon, such as imposing an export ban and expelling its ambassador, do little to bolster the ability of Lebanon's political factions to stand up to Hezbollah but deepen the country's already significant economic misery. In all of these cases, Saudi Arabia's approach was self-defeating. The Saudis pushed these countries away as the Iranians pulled them at the same time. The Saudis never miss an opportunity to describe the Iranians as expansionists, but they themselves were responsible for fueling much of Iran's expansion. This was their prophecy in action.
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Despite the United States' continuous attempt to separate Baghdad from Tehran, in an attempt to steer Iraq more towards the Arab countries, it failed, according to Catherine Harvey, author of "A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq."
She says the US effort has failed in part because of Saudi Arabia's counterproductive policies.
It says Riyadh rejected Iraqi efforts for rapprochement, which prompted the country to move closer to Iran.
Nearly 20 years after the invasion of Iraq, and more than 10 years after the original American withdrawal, the standard narrative of the Iraq War is now well established. President George W. Bush ordered the invasion, anticipating finding weapons of mass destruction and aspiring to establish democracy in the Middle East. Sunni and Shiite rebellions erupted immediately, facilitated by Syria and Iran.
Iraqi Shiites came to power and gravitated away from the Arab world and toward Tehran. Nouri al-Maliki, considered a sectarian ally of Iran, became prime minister and cemented Iraq's position in an Iranian regional hub. After the US withdrawal in 2011, Iraqi Sunnis rose up against Maliki, providing an opportunity for the Islamic State to eventually control a third of the country.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia barely appears in most accounts of the Iraq war. The few commentators who have mentioned this explain in passing that the late King Abdullah despised Maliki and thus refused to intervene.
The lack of a Saudi presence in Iraq—the Saudis only began engaging after Abdullah's death in 2015—contributed to the widespread impression that the Saudis had little influence and were not a big factor in Iraq in those years.
First, it is important to note that Maliki was not pro-Iranian. He was not an example of virtue—as a prime minister he was authoritarian and often held highly sectarian positions—but he was an Iraqi nationalist. The irony is that Zalmay Khalilzad, then the US ambassador to Baghdad, quietly supported Maliki's first attempt at the premiership because, among the successful candidates, Khalilzad considered Maliki to be more palatable than Iraq's Arab neighbors. Like most Shiite Islamists who assumed positions of power in post-2003 Iraq, Maliki fought Saddam Hussein's regime from within Iran during the 1980s. But his time there made him bitter toward the Islamic Republic, which had manipulated, suppressed and even killed members of the Dawa party. Many members of the Dawa Party considered themselves an Iraqi group in exile, not an Iranian tool. At the end of that decade, Maliki left Iran for Syria, where he remained until the 2003 invasion.
As a condition of his support, Khalilzad al-Maliki agreed that as prime minister he would engage with the Arab world, especially Saudi Arabia, and al-Maliki traveled to the kingdom on his first trip abroad as prime minister in July 2006.
But it seems likely that Maliki would have prioritized engagement with Saudi Arabia even if he had not promised Khalilzad. As a US official who dealt with Maliki explained to me at the time, “Maliki was not pro-Iran. He understood the need to balance Iran. And he understood that Saudi Arabia was the headline one” to do so. Al-Maliki himself told me that he chose Saudi Arabia as his first trip abroad because he believed the symbolism of a Shiite Iraqi prime minister's visit to the center of the Sunni Arab world would help calm the rising sectarian tide in Iraq. Sami al-Askari is close to al-Maliki.
On that trip, Maliki was warmly received by the Saudi leadership and he met King Abdullah, but then Abdullah refused to meet him again. He described Abdullah al-Maliki as a liar who made promises he did not fulfill, and was convinced that he was an Iranian agent.
All of my sources told me that Abdullah believed Maliki lied, but none of them - including Americans, Saudis and Iraqis who interacted with the Saudi king and his top advisers - were able to tell me what Abdullah believed Maliki lied about. Abdullah's claim was very vague, and I've never found evidence to prove it. What I found is that many of the affected Iraqis had access to the Saudi leadership, and at least some of them appeared to have passed on misinformation to the Saudis, claiming that al-Maliki was carrying out Iranian orders. Perhaps this disinformation was the source of Abdullah's claim.
The truth is, as a Saudi royal insider told me, Abdullah "couldn't understand" what was happening in Iraq in those years. For decades, the Saudi leadership was convinced that Iran had expansionist plans in the Arab world and viewed Shiite Arab communities as potential pawns for Iran - a standard Shiite stereotype among Sunnis.
Given these beliefs, the Saudis concluded virtually as soon as Saddam Hussein's regime fell that the United States handed Iraq over to Iran on a silver platter. Abdullah was deeply upset with American efforts in Iraq - efforts that naturally allowed the Shiite majority to rise to power - long before Maliki became prime minister.
These beliefs blinded Abdullah from the steps Maliki was taking in his first government to pursue a path independent of Iran. In 2008, Maliki conducted an operation, which targeted Iranian-backed proxies and won him praise from Iraqi Sunnis and US officials. In 2009, he refused to join an electoral coalition backed by Iran to form his national list for the 2010 parliamentary elections.
To be clear, Maliki was not anti-Iranian. Iran necessarily has significant influence in any Shiite-led Iraq, and Maliki wanted a positive relationship with Tehran. In his first government, he did not speak out against Iran. But he was also willing to resist Iranian pressure, as he did before the 2010 elections, to ensure that his country did not succumb to Tehran.
Meanwhile, from 2006 until early 2009, Maliki tried to open the door to Saudi Arabia, albeit with little hope of success. While the Saudis refused to participate, many of Iraq's other Arab neighbors began to do so. By 2008, senior officials from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, and Lebanon were traveling to Baghdad. But with the Saudis in a deep stalemate, there was only so far these other Arab countries ready to go.
The United States cannot change the Saudis' calculations - the Bush and Obama administrations tried and failed to get Abdullah to engage.
The problem was that Abdullah's rejection of Maliki ended with a self-fulfilling prophecy. Abdullah refused to deal with him or to have anything to do with his government because he believed that Maliki was an untrustworthy Iranian agent—but it was Abdullah's refusal to accept him that ultimately drove Maliki toward Iran.
Many Iraqis viewed Abdullah's intense hostility to the new Iraqi regime, exemplified by his rejection of Maliki, as a Saudi intention to reverse Shiite hegemony. Iraqi Shiites, worried about losing their new political power, began to feel deeply threatened by the Saudis. Saudi Arabia reportedly began funding Maliki's political opponents as early as 2007. In particular, Abdullah Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite and former Baathist who was prime minister of Iraq in 2004 and 2005, supported a return to the old Iraqi regime. . Abdullah's support for Allawi in the 2010 elections prompted al-Maliki, in contrast to his previous behavior, to seek Iranian assistance in the aftermath of those elections to retain the premiership. Then the Syrian civil war strengthened the alliance between Maliki and Iran. Maliki was convinced that the Saudis were working not only to overthrow Bashar al-Assad's regime in Damascus, but also his government in Baghdad.
It seems that Maliki's concern is justified. Whatever the Saudis were actually doing in Iraq in those years, a Saudi royal insider confided to me that "Abdullah was willing to do whatever it took to get rid of Maliki."
Commentators on Middle East affairs often point out that Iran considers itself responsible for four Arab capitals - Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus and Sana'a. At least in the case of Baghdad, there was no foregone conclusion that Shiite-led Iraq would fall into Iran's orbit. For years, Maliki tried to achieve independence from Iran. He changed course not because of his rapprochement with the Islamic Republic, but because of the profound alienation he felt toward Saudi Arabia.
This pattern was repeated in Yemen and Lebanon. The war that the Saudis began against the Houthis in 2015 turned that group's limited ties to Iran into a true alliance. Recent Saudi moves against Lebanon, such as imposing an export ban and expelling its ambassador, do little to bolster the ability of Lebanon's political factions to stand up to Hezbollah but deepen the country's already significant economic misery. In all of these cases, Saudi Arabia's approach was self-defeating. The Saudis pushed these countries away as the Iranians pulled them at the same time. The Saudis never miss an opportunity to describe the Iranians as expansionists, but they themselves were responsible for fueling much of Iran's expansion. This was their prophecy in action.
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