Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia to rebuff the various attempts at policy making by Obama when he struck a clearly discernible nuclear deal with Iran and attempted a wholehearted rapprochement between the ‘Sharia nation’ and the ‘Satan Nation’ as has been the nomenclature employed in the general tardy narrative between both the nations
President Donald Trump tweeted on landing in Saudi Arabia, where-in the Saudi state head was brought on an aircraft car to receive the US President. The tweet expressed, “I have reached Riyadh and I am looking forward to the afternoon and the evening that lies ahead.” The royal welcome accorded to Trump happens to be that of phalanx of red, white and blue contrails as the Air Force One, hovered over Riyadh and the terminology used by the Saudi leaders has been “Historic”. The multistory image of the President was another mainstay of the larger paraphernalia which accompanies Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia. The entire rubric of the crusade against ISIS and fundamentalist terror happens to be a prime time concern of the American dream and the intent to prepare the homeland and protect it with repeated fusillades against the global spread of the terror group internationale.
The entire visit and the ministrations of the American empire are pitted against the rising overarch of Islamic terror, which has already expressed its slithering expanse and impactful malfeasance in the nations premised in the European continent apart from the “territorial avatar” of ISIS in the hotly contested terrain of West Asia. Since a few years, the US has been attempting to forge a consensual coalition, as an adjunct to the global, “War on Terror”, which envisages the “Sunni NATO” nations such as Saudi Arabia which can go ahead with the annihilation of the Shia expanse in West Asia. Also, the US made attempts to normalise bilateral relations with Iran but with the advent Trump, that thought pattern in the policy reaches a change. Washington’s strivings are on to forge a bond with the NATO countries with twilight zone nations such as Turkey and the traditional allies such as Saudi Arabia. The efforts have always been on the anvil in order to cobble together an edifice and a coalition to counter the Shia group of nations. Thus, an international front to counter global jehadi terror can be what the “Global-Peace-Doctor” ordered for the day.
The controversial earnestness with which President has donned the mantle in the US is, part of the global strivings with the objective being the containment of global terror groups such as ISIS, Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, et al. The allegation which can be labelled at Washington is that the strike potential, which has been unleashed over West Asia, has not been replicated with the Korean antagonist who is a perennial nation State actor which is recalcitrant in its ways and posturing. The Committee on Foreign Relations too says, “Islam’s schism, simmering for fourteen centuries, doesn’t explain all the political, economic, and geostrategic factors involved in these conflicts, but it has become one prism through which to understand the underlying tensions. Two countries that compete for the leadership of Islam, Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, have used the sectarian divide to further their ambitions. How their rivalry is settled will likely shape the political balance between Sunnis and Shias and the future of the region, especially in Syria, Iraq, lebanon, Bahrain, and Yemen.” There is a proxy battle which has always been fought with the jehadi terror mongers attempting a novae façade of unity to wage a war of attrition against Islamic terror. Historically, too, the succession matter over who had to be anointed as the head of the religion was formed which divided Islam into twin sects of Shias and Sunnis. It was Ali Ibn Abi Talib, who formed the name around which the Shias collaborated and congealed as one part of the Islamic schism. The Sunnis remained as the followers of the group of Mohammad. It is this sectarian divide which has been the brimstone over which several West Asian conflicts have been spawned and the myriad nations from outside the religion and the region have been involved in the regional drama as it unfolded through the last few decades in the twilight zone of international polity. The treatment meted out to the non-Arab Muslims too became a schism in the region and the Arab and non-Arab regions on the whole.
An American web portal informs us that, “Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 gave Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini the opportunity to implement his vision for an Islamic government ruled by the “guardianship of the jurist” (velayat-e faqih), a controversial concept among Shia scholars that is opposed by Sunnis, who have historically differentiated between political leadership and religious scholarship. Thus, one of the all encompassing and all pervading divisions between Shias and Sunnis has been over the issue of the amalgamation of the “Political” and “Religious” which is what the entire regional fracas is all about to a certain extent. The NATO argument too informs us, “What is to be guarded against is the all pervading expanse and the rise of the state of Iran as a regional power.” The recent lifting of sanctions against the nation state of NATO has also been an achievement of sorts for President Rouhani, who is a reformist and has romped home as the victor in the Iranian elections with a thumping victory percentage of 57 per cent. Arab Spring too brought out Iran into prominence as the various nations were at least symbolically democratised, especially in the nations with a Shia majority. Tehran has mobilised the entire Shia communities across the West Asian firmament in order to assist the Government forces in Assad’s Syria. Thus, apart from the American concern of toppling the applecart of the ISIS, the Shia Iran’s regional influence too remains a cause to be militated against if stability and stolidity has to be reached in the West Asian region. This is the quintessential West Asian dilemma, which America faces in both the short and long term. President Trump has become the first American President to visit a West Asian nation as one of his initial visits abroad after entering the heady portals of White House. Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia to rebuff the various attempts at policy making by President Obama when he struck a clearly discernible nuclear deal with Iran and attempted a wholehearted rapprochement between the ‘Sharia nation’ and the “Satan Nation” as has been the nomenclature employed in the general tardy narrative between both the nations.
The New York Times reports, “The Saudis treated him like royalty, with red carpets, lavish meals and American flags flying everywhere. They repeatedly used the word ‘historic’ to describe his visit, gave him a medal, projected a multistory image of his face on the side of the palatial Ritz-Carlton hotel, where he was staying.” It’s the spectacle which forms the nascent characteristic of US Foreign policy which hinges on larger-than-life antics with US recently “missiling” Syria under the rubric of strict reservations being expressed by Russia. The Saudi foreign Minister was informed that the Trump Administration aims at downing extremism and the export of extremism by Tehran. In summation, the American standpoint in the Houthi conflict in Yemen and the proclamation of an arms deal worth $110 billion with Riyadh happen to be the other frameworks which bring together the twin traditional allies against an Islamic state which breathes its last in the bad lands of Iraq.
(The writer teaches International Relations at Indian Institute of Public Administration, Delhi)