May 13, 2014 | Quote
Saudi Arabia Recalibrates
Significant changes in Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy over the past six months have been precipitated by the Gulf giant’s troubled relations with two very different countries: the United States and Qatar. Riyadh’s attempts to resolve a geopolitical crisis with its superpower ally, and an ideological one with its regional competitor, have already yielded a series of interesting developments in Mideast geopolitics, the most dramatic being in the changed nature of the Syrian rebellion.
The first change was brought on by the perception that the United States is interested in more than just halting Iran’s quest for a nuclear bomb through diplomacy. The Obama Administration’s torpid response to the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria, combined with its comparatively energetic pursuit of a deal with the mullahs at almost any cost, has convinced Riyadh that Washington may in fact be implementing a quiet, unacknowledged policy of détente, if not outright rapprochement, with the Islamic Republic. As Abdullah al-Askar, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Shoura Council, Saudi Arabia’s advisory parliament, told Reuters last October: “I am afraid in case there is something hidden. If America and Iran reach an understanding it may be at the cost of the Arab world and the Gulf States, particularly Saudi Arabia.” He spoke in what he insisted was a personal capacity, but was clearly channeling widespread anxiety in King Abdullah’s court.
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Furthermore, as analyst Tony Badran has pointed out, should the rebels be seen as little more than mirror-images of U.S. JSOCs, created to stamp out terrorist networks and not advance the goal of regime change, then the Syria crisis will be resolved almost exactly along the lines laid out by Damascus. That way lies one of two options: either reconciliation between the Saudi monarchy and the House of Assad or, what is more likely, the collapse of this U.S.-deferential Saudi policy altogether and another big rift between Riyadh and Washington.