Britain’s flamboyant and controversial foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, landed himself into trouble recently by blaming Saudi Arabia and Iran for the continuing mayhem in the Middle East through their proxy wars in the region. For this, he earned the rebuke of his Prime Minister, Theresa May, who pointedly disowned her foreign minister’s remarks by saying that this was not the British government’s position. But, for once, Johnson was broadly correct about his diagnosis of the malady that has overtaken the region.
But the truth, as they say, is a casualty of war, which is equally true of what is happening in the Middle East. The row over Johnson’s outspoken remarks after footage was published by his comments to the Mediterranean Dialogue in Rome where he lumped Saudi Arabia, a key British ally, and Iran by raising concerns about “puppeteering” in the region by these two countries fighting “proxy wars.” Johnson said, “There are politicians who are twisting and abusing religion and different strains of the same religion to further their own political objectives.” Further elaborating, he added, “That’s why you’ve got the Saudis, Iran, everybody, moving in and puppeteering and playing proxy wars.”
The problem, though, is that like regional heavyweights, Saudi Arabia and Iran, outside players like Britain, the United States and others are playing their own proxy games to maintain and perpetuate their own strategic, economic and political interests. For instance, Saudi Arabia is a lucrative market for British arms exports and Johnson’s comments threaten an important segment of British economic interests, apart from putting the entire relationship with Saudi Arabia and Gulf kingdoms in jeopardy. It is not surprising, therefore, that Ms May’s spokesman said that, “The foreign secretary will have the opportunity [during his Saudi visit] to set out the government’s position,” which apparently would mean contradicting, if not apologising, for his remarks.
Johnson is right that regional powers like Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, Iran are playing proxy wars. Indeed, by promoting Wahhabi orthodoxy through funnelling money and setting up madrasas all over the world, Saudi Arabia has become the fountainhead of fundamentalist Islam, which is the main source of different brands of jihadi/terrorist networks. And outside powers, like the US, Britain and their western allies, for their own strategic, economic, political and power imperatives, have indulged Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries by turning a blind eye to their political games and indeed encouraging them with intelligence sharing and weapons supplies to continue on their course. If it were any country other than Saudi Arabia, with 15 of its citizens involved in 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US would have chased it to the end of the world. But Saudi Arabia still continues to be the United States’ major strategic partner in the Middle East.
In this sense, the United States and its allies must bear a large share of the blame for the way the Middle East has turned into a quagmire for all concerned, with innocent civilians at the receiving end of mass casualties and large-scale displacement. In his book, ‘The Terror Years: From al-Qaeda to the Islamic State’, Lawrence Wright, pulls no punches when he writes, “America’s involvement in the Middle East since 9/11 has been a long series of failures. Our own actions have been responsible for much of the unfolding catastrophe. The 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US and coalition partners stands as one of the greatest blunders in American history.”
And that is where things started to go wrong and nothing seemed to work. The subsequent hopeful scenario of the Arab Spring that might have created a new and constructive outlet failed miserably, only highlighting and reinforcing the lack or absence of any new path. It was back to the future with the return of a new version of Hosni Mubarak dictatorship, this time with Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the new Egyptian dictator heartily supported financially and politically by the Saudi monarchy. At another level, the Arab Spring-inspired rebellion in Syria led to unparalleled brutality by the Bashar al-Assad regime, the rebels, and jihadists of all sorts. And this is where it becomes murkier with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf regimes arming and financing rebels/jihadists of their choice with the US chipping in with their own “vetted” rebel groups, though at times it was not clear who was who as their ideological and political boundaries were often blurred.
Faced with such multiplicity of forces, the Bashar al-Assad regime seemed like losing control, with some major population centres like Aleppo, Idlib and so on, falling to the rebels. It was at this point that Iran and Hezbollah mounted concerted rescue operations to save the Assad regime, later joined by Russia in September 2015. And now, the Assad regime is on top over vast swathes of devastated landscape, with nearly half of its population displaced and close to half-million dead.
And in the midst of it all was the emergence of the monstrous IS that is regarded by the US and its allies as, probably, the biggest threat and needing a concerted effort to roll it back and hopefully destroy it. And that is where most energy is concentrated with a coalition of forces, supported by US aerial operations, to evict it from Mosul. But despite large Iraqi forces, Iran-sponsored militias, and Kurdish Peshmerga, backed by heavy US aerial bombardment, it is proving to be a slow process. Hence, the Middle Eastern cauldron continues its destructive course, with not much hope for the foreseeable future.
Now returning to Lawrence Wright’s book referred to earlier, which has been reviewed by Ahmed Rashid as well, he points out how the book omits an important aspect of the jihadist/terrorist issue in South Asia where, in some ways, it all started from. To quote Rashid, “Today al-Qaeda in South Asia is largely made up of Pakistani extremists who protect Zawahiri [Osama bin Laden’s successor] as he hides out on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. During the past two years the Pakistani army has driven out many terrorist groups who have targeted local populations, but it has not attempted to suppress the Punjabi groups fighting India or the Afghan leadership of the Taliban.”
Rashid adds, “Pakistan’s lame explanation for continuing to tolerate such terrorist groups is that they defend Pakistan against Indian aggression and excessive Indian influence in Afghanistan.” Rashid would have liked Wright to discuss this “kind of evasive policy” to create a clearer picture. In other words, terrorism is a multifaceted problem, with no clear solution in the foreseeable future.
The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at [email protected]