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Saudi Arabia's own Iraq nightmare
munaeem | 09 February, 2007 03:02
Saudi Arabia is watching with anxiety the developments in Iraq. She has growing reason to be alarmed about the rising influence of Iran's hard-line Shiite regime in war-torn Iraq.
Khomeini regularly ridiculed the Saudi regime, and other Iranian leaders called for its downfall. Its leaders were corrupt and profligate. Khomeini leveled the ultimate insult: Saudi Islam was "American Islam."
As sectarian violence continues to deepen there -- and with the balance of power across the Middle East possibly at stake -- there is a growing danger that the Saudi leadership will try to protect its interests by supporting Sunni radicals in their fight against Iranian-backed Shiites, even though these same fighters are also rabidly anti-American. That could have ominous consequences for the long-standing, though always complicated, alliance between Riyadh and Washington.
Publicly, Saudis talk of the Iranian threat, both because they see it as growing and because they know that they will find sympathetic ears in Washington, especially now that the Bush administration is blaming Tehran for the deepening chaos in Iraq.
From Riyadh's perspective, a stable and strong Iraq was a threat to the kingdom's security but at least had long balanced Tehran's influence -- a balance that ended after the United States toppled Saddam from power.
Compounding the Saudis' fears about the region is the threat of unrest at home. As sectarian war increasingly dominates Iraq, religious tensions inside the kingdom are growing. Saudi Sunnis, many of whom see the Shiites as apostates, hear horror stories of atrocities committed by Shiite militias in Iraq and are agitating for Saudi intervention to protect Iraqi Sunnis.
Saudi Arabia's long-suffering minority Shiite population, in turn, sees the carnage that Sunni suicide bombers are wreaking in Iraq against Shiites, and fears that hard-won reforms in its favor over the last 15 years may be reversed.
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