Shifting sands in the Arabian Peninsula

If ever since the ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in the summer of 2013, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have increasingly come to clash over their divergent and often antagonistic foreign policies in the Middle East, recent weeks have seen the unravelling of decades of political and regional alliances. At a time when the entire Arab world finds itself caught in the eye of a sectarian storm, the house of Al-Saud and Al-Thani have found each other on opposing side of the fence.

As allegiances and alliances continue to be, a new Arab order is slowly emerging, one which could see the alignment of Saudi Arabia and its GCC pawns with the new Egyptian military junta under the leadership of Gen. Abdel-attach Al –Sisi.

While Saudi Arabia quite openly and vocally advocated its support of Egypt new military cabal over that of the presidency of deposed President Morsi, very few analysts could have ever predicted the sheer velocity and ferocity of Riyadh’s rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood following decades of almost unconditional support.

To better grasp Al Saud’ sudden change of heart or rather their political manipulation plan, it is crucial to understand such a change of dynamics in the Middle East within the parameters of political globalization. Ever since the end of World War II, Zionists have worked to unify the world into one giant global network as to assert greater control. For well over six decades, world powers have done everything they can to mould countries to their image; bent on creating one world society, one global community which values, belief system and political doctrine would align perfectly with their rationale, without any room for opposition or dissent.

One look at the history books should suffice to witness with which rapacity, violence and systematic hatred world powers have fought against those regimes which dared oppose such plans. Iran represents a prefect modern-day example of a sovereign nation fighting against political globalization and international ostracization.

If Al Saud so keenly discarded the Muslim Brotherhood – among other groups - by labelling it a terror organization, this past Friday, it is essentially because the organization already fulfilled its purpose. Created in 1929 in Egypt by Hassan Al Banna a well-known British agent and freemason, as a mean to promote Islamic radicalism and pervert Sunni Islamic institutions, the Muslim Brotherhood acted a buffer against the rise of Arab nationalism in the 1960s. Determined to keep Arab nations divided to better weaken their governments and allow Zionist elements to lay siege on the Palestinian people, Riyadh covertly orchestrated the demise of the Arab people, while cloaking its leaders with almost absolute religious sanctity by claiming ownership of Islam’s holiest site – Mecca.

Lest we forget Al Saud Kings long ago self-proclaimed themselves to be the Custodians of the Two Holy Mosques?

Just as 2013 marked the end of the Muslim Brotherhood as a potent regional pan-Arab political force, 2014 would see its complete eradication from the map. But beyond a simple desire to see destroy a weapon which has now far outgrown its purpose, Saudi Arabia’ stance against the Brotherhood is also to be understood within the context of the Syrian war.

Three years into the war and several hundreds of millions of petrodollars later, Riyadh is no closer to destroying Syrian President Bashar Al Assad than it was in 2011. Despite the influx of mercenaries and Salafi radicals – Sunni ultra-orthodox –into the Levant, Riyadh’s Takfiris have failed to make any real advances against the Syrian regime; instead they witnessed the rise of an implacable reactionary movement in the form of an alliance between Hezbollah and Damascus.

Because President Al Assad so stoically withstood the onslaught of Riyadh’s Takfiri legions, Al Saud found themselves caught in the very net they worked to weave, the victims of their own Machiavellism. With thousands of hardened terror militants in Syria and the greater Middle East, Saudi Arabia runs now the risk to see the very army it helped created turn against its regime. Fractured alongside personal agenda and politico-religious ambitions, Sunni radicals have proven everything but united.

Only weeks ago ISIL and the Nusra Front, both affiliates of Al Qaeda, more or less declared war on each other over a leadership dispute. As time is adding to the unknown variables of Sunni radicalism, Saudi Arabia is keen to call it quit.

By publicly renouncing its Takfiris, Saudi Arabia in essence tacitly announced its alignment with Washington’s new strategy in regards to Syria and to an extent the Middle East by choosing to suspend its usage of terror as a weapon of mass destruction; at least for the time being. As per noted by Al Akhbar   -Lebanese newspaper – “the Saudi decision [to renege all terror militias in Syria] is an acknowledgment that removing the Syrian regime by force is no longer possible.”’

But why stand against Qatar?

A dissident element within the GCC alliance, Saudi Arabia understood Qatar’s insistence to its own foreign agenda as an existential threat to its hegemonic claims over the region.

Andrew Hammond, a policy fellow and gulf expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a pan-European think tank explained in a comment on the outlawing of the Muslim Brotherhood, “The Brotherhood represents an Islamic model, dealing with Islamic references — and they’re talking about elections …Their popular appeal, and their potential to inspire others, constitute a direct threat to the power structures in place across all of the GCC states, each of which are ruled by powerful families.”

Where Saudi Arabia set up the Brotherhood to fail in Egypt as to destroy its political traction and thus assert the return of dictatorial regimes in the Middle East, Qatar aimed to create an alternative network of alliances with Doha at its epicentre.

It is to oppose such mutiny within the ranks of its immediate regional allies that Al Saud chose to precipitate the fall of Sunni radicalism and thus lay siege on Qatar.

But Saudi Arabia’s new draconian policy in regards to the Brotherhood and Sunni radicals in general will likely backfire as born from fear and prompted in reaction to Qatar’s defiance rather than a careful analysis of the situation. For one, Saudi Arabia has forced GCC countries to reassess, re-think and re-strategize their positions within the Arabian Peninsula. Already Oman has refused to expulse Qatar’s Ambassador. As for Yemen and Kuwait, they sit ever uneasy over the political fence, waiting to see how regional dynamics will play out.