In the weeks since the terror attacks in Paris, a fair amount of digital ink has been spilled on the question of America’s Gulf allies, particularly Saudi Arabia, and the role those nations have played in fueling and/or combating (but mostly fueling) ISIS. This discussion hasn’t been limited to media thinkpieces, either; the Pentagon has reportedly been asking for more help from both European and Gulf allies to fight ISIS. While European nations have been very receptive to that kind of call since Paris, it’s been difficult if not impossible to get anywhere with the Gulf states, who are actually drawing down the already meager forces they had contributing to the anti-ISIS campaign in Syria.
Vox’s Jennifer Williams had one of the best summaries of this problem that I’ve seen. While she acknowledges that the kingdom has made strides in countering jihadi terrorism in some respects–restricting donations to radical jihadi organizations by wealthy Saudis, pushing counter-narratives in Saudi media, and devoting resources toward “rehabilitating” ex-jihadi fighters, Williams really drives home the point that the Saudis have been a net contributor to the ISIS cause. Her piece looks at three ways that Saudi Arabia intersects with the fight against ISIS: ideologically, militarily, and politically. Let’s look at each of these in turn.
Ideologically, Saudi Arabia spends a lot of money proselytizing the radical, uncompromising Wahhabi strain of Islam all around the world, particularly in majority Muslim countries or regions. Wahhabism teaches a rigid interpretation of Islamic law, with harsh punishments for disobedience, and makes it incumbent upon Wahhabis to enforce those interpretations and penalties upon their fellow Muslims. It supports the principle of takfir (deeming Muslims who deviate from the program to be infidels, and therefore eligible to be attacked and killed) and it’s intolerant of Shiʿites, women, gays, and any practices deemed “foreign.” Sounds like ISIS, right? More than you know, actually; ISIS has been pretty open about its Wahhabi roots, and at one point was even using Saudi government textbooks in the schools it runs in Iraq and Syria. The foundations of the Saudi state go back to an 18th century deal between the House of Saud and the leaders of the Wahhabi movement; the Wahhabis agreed to give the Saudis an ideological core and to support their rule (first in central Arabia, then later throughout modern Saudi Arabia), while the Saudis agreed to champion Wahhabism.
Nowadays, the Saudis are so intertwined with Wahhabism that to try to separate themselves from the ideology would be almost impossible (and might well cost the Saudis their hold on power in the process, particularly at a time when the country is struggling with low oil prices and high youth unemployment), and so they continue to champion the movement despite the damage it causes. And while it’s not fair to say that ISIS grew out of Wahhabism (don’t sue me, guys!), it is fair to say that Saudi proselytizing in places like Belgium (where the “mastermind” of the Paris attacks was from) and Mali (which was the scene of another terrorist attack only a few days after Paris) does a lot of the heavy lifting for ISIS’s recruitment program, by conditioning Muslims to many of the ideas they need to believe in order to find ISIS appealing. As Williams writes:
In a world in which Saudi Arabia had never spread Wahhabism, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may very well still have developed his toxic and hateful ideology. But he would not have been able to draw on the Wahhabi mosques and schools whose alumni are already taught to be sympathetic to many of his ideas.
Militarily, at some point the anti-ISIS coalition is going to have to reckon with the fact that Sunni Saudi Arabia’s competition with Shiʿi Iran for regional dominance–which is, admittedly, fueled by both countries, not just Saudi Arabia–has heavily worked to ISIS’s benefit. Riyadh pushes, for reasons having to do both with its Wahhabi ideology and a fear of Iran as a political and economic rival, a sectarian narrative that feeds tensions in places like Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and the conflicts that have resulted in those places have been huge boons for both ISIS and al-Qaeda.
The Saudis do these things despite the fact that they work to ISIS’s benefit, not because Riyadh is unaware of this fact, but because it simply doesn’t care. The Saudis may offer denunciations of terror attacks, but their actions make it clear that they place “countering Iran” far, far above “defeating jihadi terrorism” on their list of national security priorities. That’s not to say that the Saudis don’t recognize that ISIS (or al-Qaeda) is a problem, just that it’s not an especially big problem for them right now. Like Turkey, which sees the threat of Kurdish nationalism on its southeastern border as a much bigger, more immediate threat than the presence of ISIS along other parts of its border, the Saudis figure they can take care of ISIS after they’ve dealt with their bigger problem. This has remained true even as ISIS has been carrying out terror attacks inside both countries, mostly because those attacks have targeted populations that have no voice in, and get no sympathy from, their national governments–the Kurds, in Turkey, and Shiʿites, in Saudi Arabia. Neither country is intentionally, directly helping ISIS, at least as far as anyone can tell, but neither seems particularly engaged in any effort to defeat the group.
It’s not like Saudi Arabia’s role in destabilizing the region is going unnoticed. On Wednesday, Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND) released a memo slamming Saudi interventionism as “impulsive” and saying that it “risks overreach.” But talking about this kind of thing is still mostly verboten (to stick with the German), owing both to Saudi Arabia’s importance to the global economy (particularly its importance as a major buyer of military hardware) and to the hope, which increasingly looks naive, that the Saudis might at some point fully commit to the anti-ISIS fight if they are properly managed. Germany’s own foreign ministry yesterday took the incredible step of smacking down its own intelligence service, saying that “the BND statement reported by media is not the position of the federal government.”
Politically, the Saudis help create more radicalization throughout the region by working to crush nascent democratic movements both at home and abroad. Here’s Williams again:
The Saudi regime fears that popular democratic movements could spread to its own country. To prevent this, it’s fought those movements where they start, bankrolling Arab Spring counter-revolutions throughout the region. The Saudis supported the military coup in Egypt that overthrew the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood government. It intervened militarily to put down a nascent uprising in neighboring Bahrain. It’s helping to shore up the Jordanian monarchy, and it’s cracking down hard on dissent of any kind at home.
By propping up Arab dictators, closing all avenues of public dissent, and eliminating other legitimate avenues of political engagement, the Saudis have validated the longstanding argument of violent extremists like al-Qaeda and ISIS that violence is the only way to effect change in the Middle East. The Saudis are forcing a choice between corrupt, repressive dictators and violent extremism. Not because they love violent extremism, but because they fear that if Saudi citizens are offered a third choice — democracy — they’ll choose that and eject the monarchy.
As Williams writes, if people are only given a choice between political repression and violent extremism, some number of them are going to opt for extremism. Not a majority, maybe, but certainly enough to sustain an organization like ISIS or AQAP. The Saudis stifle democratic reforms at home for obvious reasons, but also abroad, lest people within Saudi Arabia get any funny ideas. This may be one reason why they’re so reluctant to allow democratic governance to take care of Bashar al-Assad in Syria–they’d rather not see Syria become democratic, so they need Assad to go in order to put a new strongman in power in his place.
It’s trite to use the phrase “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem,” but it also makes no sense to continue treating Saudi Arabia as though it were part of the solution, when it so clearly is not. Could it be? Sure, but that would mean abandoning its Wahhabi proselytizing, dropping the regionally-crippling proxy war with Iran, and ending its forceful opposition to democratic reforms throughout the Arab world. In short, it would mean the Saudis would have to stop being the Saudis, and that doesn’t seem very likely to happen. However, the US isn’t without some ability to influence Saudi behavior (although you only ever seem to hear about Saudi influence over American behavior). For starters, the Obama administration needs to stop providing logistical support to the Yemen intervention immediately, if not sooner, and has to lean on Riyadh to participate, in good faith, in reaching a consensus political resolution in Syria.
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