If only would we read history, we would not only fathom the Qatar crisis well but also be able to predict it. No wonder that understanding the present and knowing the future requires the knowledge of history. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt ended diplomatic ties with Qatar. The four Arab states cite Qatar’s support for terrorism as their reason. Interestingly, the Muslim Brotherhood was in the list mentioned as a terror organisation supported by Qatar. What followed was Qatar denouncing the move and claiming that it was not doing what it was being accused of.
The story of the Muslim Brotherhood needs a little historic perspective here. The west, mainly the US and the UK after the Word War II, saw the expansion of communism as a threat not to individual liberties, free speech, free press or something similar. They saw it as a threat to their business interests, which is a code name for selfishly exploiting the resources of other nations.
To fight communism led by the Soviet Union, the West saw radical Islam as the only counter force. US president Eisenhower had called King Saud ‘the great gookety gook of the Muslim world’. The aim of the West was to remove the Nasserite nationalist agenda and replace it with pro-western radical Islam. Radical Islam was provided immense support, both overt and covert. The Muslim Brotherhood was one of the chief recipients of this support. A symbiotic relationship between the west led by the US and the UK and the House of Saud was unleashed.
Saudis supported forces loyal to a deposed imam in Yemen against the forces supported by Egypt’s Nasser resulting in a civil war that lead to over 200 thousand deaths in Yemen. Under Faisal, Saudi Arabia began to bankroll the Islamic centre of Geneva, which was established by Said Ramadan in 1961 and which acted as the international headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood and a meeting place for the Islamists across the world. King Faisal also supported the Brotherhood for various assassination attempts aimed at Nasser.
The Saudis started asserting their leadership role in the Middle East using Wahhabi Islam in the early 1960s
All these efforts were supported by the UK. In 1965, Whitehall defended the Sultan of Oman, which was probably the most repressive regime in the Post War Middle East. Wearing glasses and talking to anyone for more than fifteen minutes was forbidden.
The Saudis started asserting their leadership role in the Middle East using Wahhabi Islam in the early 1960s. The world witnessed an extreme and desperate expression of such an assertion during the Afghan war of the 1980s. While it is true that the Saudis and the Iranians are at loggerheads over the throne of the Middle East, there is however, more to the issue than meets the eye. The two were not enemies for as long as there was a dictatorship in Iran. Saudi Arabia is incompatible with democracy in the Middle East.
In 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood won the election in Egypt. Muhammad Morsi became the president. A year later, he was removed by General Sisi in a coup, which the US refuses to call so because of a law that forbids US aid to countries where military coup happens. The Saudis supported the coup and even provided Egypt a $ 12bn aid along with UAE and Kuwait. After the coup, King Abdullah praised the Egyptian army for saving Egypt “from a dark tunnel”. The House of Saud views democracy as a dark tunnel.
Before the end of the Cold War, it was the Nasserite Pan Arabism or nationalism that was viewed as a threat to the throne of the House of Saud. The west and the Saudis were afraid of nationalism sweeping across the Arab world. Today, democracy has replaced nationalism. Democracy is the new threat. In the wake of the Arab Spring, democracy was sweeping across the Arab world. The west and the Saudis again teamed up to neutralise the enemy. I must argue, this is a grimmer picture than when nationalism was the threat.
In both the cases, the symbiotic relationship works to achieve two objectives: for the Saudis, the continued hold over power and the ability to buy pretty women and vehicles made with gold. For the West, the Brotherhood was Washington’s and London’s shock troops. Their ‘nuisance value’ was important to the continued access and exploitation of oil. It’s the money stupid!
More importantly, in Qatar crisis the most conspicuous element is the hypocrisy that’s on full display. Saudi Arabia has a deep history of collusion with the Brotherhood as illustrated above. Limited space only allows me to dig a few stories from the Orwellian memory hole. The Saudi mindset is that of an emperor who lectures and punishes pirates for the same crime the emperor himself committed, well, on a larger scale.