Toby Craig Jones connects the dots regarding Saudi Arabia’s monarchy and its motivations for executing civil rights advocates.
Still, Sheikh Nimr’s execution was more important for what it communicated to the kingdom’s domestic allies and to potential future dissidents. The emergence of anti-Shiite sentiment over the past decade has not only been used to stamp out efforts by the Shiite minority to gain more political rights. In quashing calls for democracy originating from the Shiite community, Riyadh has also undermined broader demands for political reform by casting protesters as un-Islamic. Many Sunni reformers who cooperated with Shiites in the past have since stopped.
The Saudi authorities have good reason to be concerned about new calls for reform. About a week before Sheikh Nimr’s execution, the kingdom announced that it was facing an almost $100 billion deficit for its 2016 national budget. Declining oil revenues may soon force the kingdom to slash spending on social welfare programs, subsidized water, gasoline and jobs — the very social contract that informally binds ruler and ruled in Saudi Arabia. The killing of a prominent member of a loathed religious minority deflects attention from impending economic pressure.
Extrapolating in the context of the rising unrest in the Arab world isn’t hard. The Saudi kingdom was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud as an absolute monarchy, and his family runs the state to this day. This was prior to the discovery of oil, so world powers weren’t too concerned about the policies of Saud and his family, then. But up to the present, the world has been willing to turn a blind eye to Saudi Arabian medievalism so long as the oil kept flowing. Even today, Saudi allies look the other way and ignore the massive lack of freedom there. It is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive, for example.
Saudi Arabia has the fourth largest military spend in the world, so it is a powder keg.
Jones concludes:
The danger in Saudi Arabia’s ongoing sectarian and anti-Iranian incitement — of which Sheikh Nimr’s execution is just one part — is that it is uncontrollable. As is clear in Syria, Iraq and even further afield, sectarian hostility has taken on a life beyond what the kingdom’s architects are able to manage. This has already proved to be the case in Saudi Arabia, where terrorists aligned with the Islamic State have carried out several suicide bombings on Shiite mosques in the past year.
The real problem is not just that Saudis are willing to live with violent sectarianism. They are now beholden to it, too. That the kingdom’s leaders have embraced sectarianism so recklessly suggests that they have little other choice. This should be frightening, considering more is likely to be in store. But it should also be clarifying for those who believe that Saudi Arabia is a force for stability in the Middle East. It is not.
An open war with Iran – another iffy player and not our ally by any means – is a growing possibility.
from Stowe Boyd http://stoweboyd.com/post/136673285287
