Saudi Arabia’s decision last week to refuse the non-permanent seat at the UNSC has generated lots of opinions around the world, but many of them are just ‘alarming’. The world community’s inability to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Syria is the sole region for the Kingdom’s surprising move
The unprecedented decision of Saudi Arabia to decline the non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has caught the attention of the opinion makers. The Kingdom’s abruptness in turning down the coveted seat of the world’s most powerful body hours after the jubilation at the Saudi mission at the UN has baffled many. Opinion makers are constructing queer theories to define the flip-flop by Saudi Arabia at the UNSC. Some say it is the outcome of the frustration of the kingdom as the West is going easy on Assad, others say that out of the apprehension of Shia Crescent becoming full moon the Kingdom wants to keep its foreign policy closed-door and work behind the scenes.
Conspiracy theories sell like hot cakes till buyers have an option. But for a person like me, who has a decade-long experience of working as a diplomat at the Indian mission in Jeddah and Riyadh, I can say that this founding member of the UN does not take decisions in haste. Saudis are slow but steady in formulating their foreign policy. Well-studied steps are taken by the monarchy. Although, the leadership by its intrinsic nature doesn’t flaunt its opinion publicly, the kind of foreign policy Saudi Arabia follow is known inside and outside the country. It is seldom that the leadership makes a public statement. Therefore, the understanding that the Saudi decision about the UNSC seat was a sudden outburst is not appropriate. It seems to be a well calculated move, albeit their mission at the UN could not be informed in time.
No insane foreign policy
There is continuity in the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia primarily because Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has been at the helm since 1975. He has vast experience working closely with King Khalid, King Fahd and King Abdullah. He has to his credit the face-lifting of Saudi Arabia’s international image after it got a beating due to 9/11.
As far as the UN is concerned, Saudi Arabia has been one of the largest donor and it has a long history of espousing different development programmes of the UN.
There is no doubt that the monarchy is unhappy with the international community for their reluctance to go ahead and deal with the Syrian crisis. But it is misconception that Saudi Arabia wanted a military solution. This can’t be true for a simple reason that Syria has been the third largest country to get financial aid from Saudi Arabia.
Palestine, which has received the largest aid worth billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia for six decades, is considered by Saudis as one of their major responsibility. Therefore, like the wellbeing of the Palestinians, the kingdom wants the same peace and prosperity among the Muslim brethren of Syria.
Self-defined responsibility
It is because of its espousal of the Arab nationalism and also because of Mecca and Medina, the cynosures of the eyes of the Muslims all over the world, that Saudi Arabia feels so involved with the Muslim world. Moreover, they have got the resources too.
Their disenchantment with Syria is new. During and after the 1973 war, Assad’s father and the then ruler, Hafez al-Assad, received huge financial aids worth hundreds of millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia. In fact, the present king and his predecessors enjoyed their palaces in Syria, near Damascus in Zabadani and Baloudan. These were their summer resorts. There was such a warm relationship between the two countries.
But the soviet-era style functioning of the Assad regime, ruling with an iron hand, has left Saudis disappointed.
The real trouble started after the Arab Spring started. The allegation that civil war in Syria is driven by Salafists or al-Qaeda is misleading. No doubt there are some radical groups there but they are just handful. Also, Saudis will never send their nationals to wage war against Assad. There is a ban on Saudi nationals to go to Syria. In fact, it was the Assad regime that sheltered al-Qaeda and its other radical affiliates. When US forces were fighting in Iraq, these al-Qaeda fighters were infiltrating inside Iraq through Syrian borders. Today when there are no American forces in Iraq, the same al-Qaeda cadre have trained their guns on the Assad regime. Nevertheless, they comprise not more than five per cent of the total rebels.
Saudi Arabia wants the world powers to work for the resolution to end the humanitarian crisis in Syria on priority basis, and in the event of Assad refusing to accept the accord, they should use the offices of the UNSC through a resolution to end the crisis.
No threat from Syria, Iran
But Syrian regime’s reluctance to begin an unconditional dialogue has aggravated the problem. More than 1,50,000 Syrians, majority of them innocent civilians, have so far been killed and around 5 million people have made vagabond either within Syria or outside their country in Jordon, lebnon and Turkey. But Assad is adamant on no talk about leadership change.
The second misconception is apprehension of losing the elusive leadership of the Arab and Gulf countries. The kingdom has no threat from anybody, even when its neighbours, particularly Iran is vying for Islamic leadership. The kingdom is not in any such race. But yes, they consider, because of the existence of two holiest places for Muslims, that it is their responsibility to work for the betterment, safety and security of the Muslim world.
Also, Saudi Arabia is not pushing for a military solution. As far as I have seen and know, the Saudi leadership doesn’t propagate military solution to a crisis. Even when they had some border problems with Yemen they didn’t go for it.
The false impression that needs to be removed is the alleged apprehension of Shia Crescent. Yes, Assad is an Alawite, a Shia sect, but in Syria Alawites are only 8-10 per cent of the population. Even if this crescent does exist, this will not become full moon in any case, as the West will not support Hezbollah.
Making UNSC responsible
Coming back to the UNSC, indeed they were working to bag the non-permanent seat. But by the time they bagged the seat, the circumstances had changed. They must have realised the cost of becoming a non-veto-wielding member of the UNSC. Suppose they bring a resolution and it is vetoed by Russia or China, the membership to the world’s high table would have meant a futile exercise. They can do what they have to do even while sitting outside the UNSC. Saudi Arabia still has its own weight and influence on the UK and other European countries.
The decline to accept the UNSC seat is not disrespect to the UN. It seems the decision had direct involvement of the King. Saudis are feeling disappointed because while they have been supporting and funding Syria for regional balances, their investment has produced no fruits.
With the Russia-US deal on Syria, Assad has got in his platter a walkout. By just handing over chemical weapons, Assad has evaded the ‘just’ and ‘required’ punishment for the massacre of innocent civilians by using conventional weapons purchased with the Saudi and other Gulf countries’ money which was originally meant for the welfare of Syrian citizens.
(As told Swarn Kumar Anand)
Prof Zikrur Rahman is a former diplomat who has served in the Indian mission in Saudi Arabia for almost ten years. He was the Indian Consul in Jeddah and First Secretary in Riyadh. He was also director of Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi. At present, he is Director, India Arab Culture Centre and Centre for West Asian Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.