For a vast majority of us, death is the only unchanging and certain reality in life. We spend our lives in constant company of the spectre of death and when it comes to claim us, the great and the poor embrace it alike, accepting it as the end of the life cycle. However, in some cases, death only marks the beginning of something new and huge, in complete contrast to its original conception.
This much is certainly true for political killings and assassinations, where even though the victims lay quiet, the masses become anything but. One such instance of political killings driving large-scale shifts in collective behaviour is the hanging of the Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr at the hands of the Saudi executioner a few days ago. The hanging comes as no surprise since within the last year alone close to 50 individuals have been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have flown under the humanitarian gaze of western nations for quite a while now. Whereas various humanitarian organisations have pleaded their case to the Saudis and others alike for stopping the practice of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, such pleas have fallen on deaf ears. So, the hanging of the Shia cleric along with other prisoners last week was nothing out of the mundane.
But the timing that the Saudis have chosen for sentencing Al-Nimr is far from coincidental. The driving force behind the cleric’s killing, as many have pointed out, was perhaps not the cleric’s rebellious stance towards the Wahhabi empire but rather the strategic calculations that the Saudis must have undertaken to counter the growing Iranian presence. There are several factors that could have caused the new Saudi government to take action in this particular way. The new regime under King Salman has not had an easy start to begin with and the internal decision-making structure had to drastically adjust in order to ensure continuity of the old order.
But there is only so much that can be achieved through ‘window-dressing’ and the Saudis are now finding out that the subsidised way of life they provide for their citizens is on a collision course with larger domestic and international pressures. Dropping oil prices are a major factor in this regard, since it not only reduces Saudi clout in the international arena but it also impinges on the government’s ability to provide amenities and favours to its citizens, in the absence of which the populace stands to become unruly and unmanageable.
Additionally, Saudi Arabia has for long stoked the fires of sectarianism within its own borders as well as in other states, but its incursions into Yemen last year — based on largely self-perceived notions of threats — have done precious little to provide ground for regime consolidation. Instead, the war is largely considered a fool’s errand and, with each passing day, more and more embarrassment is piled on to the Saudis for doing so.
But whereas the Shia threat may only be perceptual in part, the threat of militant groups such as Islamic State (IS) is much more real for the Saudis. The forces responsible for the creation of militant jihad — of which the Saudis remain ardent supporters and prime patrons — have turned against their creators, and Saudi Arabia is now left to reap what it had previously sown. Just last year, a bomb blast in a Shia place of worship claimed many innocent lives and, with time, the terror threat will only grow in magnitude. Within such a situation, the Saudis are growing desperate and, in their desperation, they are bent on putting all their eggs in one basket, and risking it all in the hope that hostility towards the Iranians might provide domestic and international legitimacy.
Stuck in this religio-regional quagmire are American policymakers, who must be banging their heads against every wall they can find. For decades, the Saudis and the Americans have enjoyed an extremely close relationship, where economic dependency and hedonistic demands have eclipsed broader concerns for transparency, accountability, fairness and respect for human rights. Even at the time when the war on terror was at is peak, the US never stopped to question the Saudi antics that were being employed at the time to fund factories of terrorism.
In recent times though, the US under President Obama has made a conscious choice to engage with the Iranians, culminating in the landmark nuclear deal that will gradually see Iran being welcomed back in the comity of nations provided it sticks to the agreed upon standards for nuclear development. Such integration would also mean not just an increase in Iran’s political stature but also result in economic gains for the successors of the Persian Empire.
This possibility is anathema to the Saudis and they have now taken it upon themselves to counter Iranian influence through hook or by crook. Years of covert action to fan sectarian flames are now being openly touted and, in fact, such is the air of hostility among Saudi Arabia and Iran that a long-run military conflict is not entirely out of question at this point. In the wake of the Al-Nimr hanging, the two countries have already cut off diplomatic contact and ratcheted up efforts to gain support among other states. This has put allies — as well as neutral states such as Turkey — in quite a bind.
One such attempt from the Saudis is the establishment of the self-proclaimed anti-terrorism coalition by the Saudis composed of some 30 nations, of which of course Pakistan is a prominent member. And herein lies another test of Pak-Saudi relations; religious sentiments aside, the two states have always been strategic partners but the relationship stands to be soured if Pakistan elects to not support the Saudis or show any kind of hesitancy.
The temptation to mindlessly jump in is ever-present but the good thing is that Pakistan, war-weary from its own counter-terrorism drive, has shown restraint in recent times towards Saudi calls for support. However, if protracted hostility keeps on pervading the Saudi-Iran situation, Pakistan will be forced to take sides in an unending battle where all choices are sub-optimal and the risk of collateral damage is high. In such an atmosphere, it would be wise for Pakistani policymakers to tread carefully in the face of difficulties, and stand their ground to give more importance to the domestic matters at hand.
The author is a freelance columnist with degrees in political science and international relations