King Salman’s futile coalition building

BEIRUT — It did not take very long for the new king of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, to indicate his priorities in confronting the unprecedented regional challenges his country faces. Reports on his discussions in recent weeks with the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states and Egypt, Jordan and Turkey suggest that he seeks to lead some sort of alliance among Sunni-majority Middle Eastern countries to counter the growing dual threats of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Iranian regional influence.

This move would require some serious fence mending among Egypt, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, particularly on the status and role of the Muslim Brotherhood in their countries. If these reports are correct about a Saudi-inspired regional Sunni bloc, the likelihood of its success appears quite low, for three main reasons.

First is the erratic history of previous attempts to forge regional political collaborations against Iran or any other single threat. The United States, Egypt and Saudi Arabia tried to forge a regional alliance against Iran in the 1980s, right after its Islamic revolution. The Americans even thought they could include Israel in this configuration. But the effort never got off the ground for many reasons, including the very imperial nature of such a venture and the fact that many Arab citizens were not particularly afraid of Iran.

In the same vein, Saudi-led efforts to confront Iran and its allies around the region in the past decade have largely failed. Proxies and allies that Saudi Arabia has funded, armed or politically backed have been foiled by Iranian-backed actors in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq. It is uncertain at this point whether the failure of Saudi efforts is due to the incompetence of the Saudi allies or the structural impossibility of propping up from abroad weak actors who go against the tide of local sentiments. But the failure itself is clear: Iran and its allies now dominate Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen and are playing a critical role in the Palestinian territories and other lands.

Second, the Saudis have set the impossible goal of stamping out or containing Islamist mass movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood that, since the 1930s, have best captured the fears and vulnerabilities of tens of millions of Arabs who live in autocratic states and have no other serious outlet for their grievances. This dynamic reflects several factors that persist and cannot be wished away. The Muslim Brotherhood has always been anchored in the predominant indigenous religious identity of Islam. It provides citizens with important socioeconomic services at the neighborhood and family levels, it empowers the voiceless at the national level, and it openly but nonviolently challenges the authorities and seeks a reformed, more humane political order. 

For these and other reasons, the Muslim Brotherhood and its ilk cannot easily be wiped away or beaten into submission as long as the underlying socioeconomic and political conditions that gave rise to them remain unchanged across the region. More violent groups such as Gamaa Islamiyya, ISIL, Al-Qaeda, Jabhat Al-Nusra (the Nusra Front) and dozens of others are much smaller than the Muslim Brotherhood and attract far fewer violence-prone followers. The Brotherhood and other Islamists provide a saner, more salutary alternative. They will continue to rear their head and attract adherents among ordinary citizens if there is no change in the drivers that created them, such as poverty, joblessness, corruption, massive socioeconomic disparities, police brutality and uncontested rule by family dynasties and security agencies. 

A Saudi-led GCC-Egyptian-Turkish alliance to confront Iran and ISIL would be born brittle and weak because the people and governments of such an alliance are badly split about the status of the Muslim Brotherhood. Turkey, Qatar and many people in Egypt and other Arab countries support it, while Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the Egyptian government have branded it a terrorist organization.

Third, Saudi Arabia’s goal of dominating the regional policies of other major powers in the Middle East runs up against a stark reality: A new balance of power has emerged among the current natural regional leaders — Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. In previous years, Iraq and perhaps even Syria would have been one of those regional powers involved in shaping a new regional security architecture, but they are both emasculated by their internal conflicts. Israel is another power that cannot be involved in any overt regional coordination until it achieves a peace agreement with its Arab neighbors. 

Also, Turkey and Egypt may not feel quite as threatened as Saudi Arabia by a strong Iran that has normal political ties and deep economic links with regional and global powers. A stable and self-confident Turkey, unlike a severely financially dependent Egypt, is unlikely to join a Saudi-led confrontation of Iran, instead favoring the more sophisticated historical legacy of negotiating mutually beneficial peaceful relations with deep commercial ties. 

The Saudis are rightly concerned that their self-assigned leadership of the Sunni Middle East is getting serious chinks and dents from Turkey, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, a potentially resurgent Egypt and even smaller entities such as Qatar and ISIL. Salman will need to find ways to respond to this, but corralling fellow Sunnis into a political battle with Iran is not likely to be a promising option.