Iran and Saudi Arabia struggle to achieve better relations

Iran and Saudi Arabia are competitors for influence in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia also represents Sunni influence in the area while Iran is a prime supporter of Shia groups. Lately, the rise of the Islamic State, both in Syria and especially in Iraq, has created common areas of interest that may lead to improved relations. The recent attack by the Islamic State on a Saudi border post showed the Saudis the degree to which the Islamic State was becoming a threat to the kingdom. The attack killed two border guards and also the commanding officer. The attackers included three Saudi nationals.

The Saudis have decided to reopen their embassy in Baghdad, establishing relations with a country that has close relations with Iran and has a Shia majority. The new Iraqi government is reaching out to Sunni powers such as the Saudis in the hope of getting support from them to help fight IS in return for more accommodation of Sunni interests within the Shia majority government. The Saudis have an interest in cooperating with Iran to meet the IS threat in Iraq. The Iran Daily noted that differences between Iran and the Saudis were not so substantial that they could not be resolved. The paper also claimed that the Islamic State "could jeopardize the system of government in Saudi Arabia." The drive to improve relations between the two countries is supported by prominent religious authorities as described in detail in this article in Al-Monitor :"Al-Monitor learned from a religious source close to Ali al-Sistani in Najaf that Sistani has a similar vision regarding the necessity of a rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, since both countries face the common threat of Salafist jihadism as represented by the Islamic State (IS). Iraqi President Fouad Massoum visited Najaf Nov. 11 to meet with Sistani before embarking on a formal visit to Saudi Arabia. Sistani praised the Iraqi government’s efforts to improve its regional relations and called for the strengthening of ties with all neighboring countries. The Saudi king praised Sistani’s great positions, and expressed his wishes for further unity and consistency among the different components in Iraq." Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani is one of the most influential clerical leaders in Iraq.

 Of course, there are many issues that divide Iran and the Saudis. Iran supports the Assad regime in Syria and also the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, while the Saudis oppose Assad and have aided rebel groups against him. In Yemen, Iran has supported the Shia Houthi rebels who have vastly increased their influence and area they control in the country, whereas the Saudis support Mansour Hadi the prime minister and the Sunni majority. However, the Saudis might decide to gain the support of Iran to pressure the Houthis to negotiate with the Sunni government an end to their continuing expansion. The unrest is leading to more Sunnis allying with Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula which is a threat both to the Saudis and the Yemen government.

Another main issue between the two countries is the price of oil. Iran wants the Saudis to cut production to stem the steep drop in the price of oil. The decline is hurting the Iranians. Iran claims that ultimately it could hurt the Saudis, as there will not be sufficient funds for the government programs that generate support for the monarchy. A visit to Saudi Arabia planned by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif was postponed due to the disagreement over oil policy. An article by Fariborz Saremi in CounterPunch claims that the three main policy foreign policy objectives of Iran are survival of the regime, national security, and regional influence. The article details the many obstacles to improving relations between Iran and the Saudis. However, some Gulf States such as Kuwait and Oman have had reasonably good relations with Iran for some time. The threat of the Islamic State may provide grounds to begin a process of cooperation between the two countries which can serve as a spring-board to improved relations.

Sectarian conflict and Kurdish demands stymie formation of new Iraqi government

After a long struggle, the Iraqi parliament was able to choose a new speaker, a Sunni, and a new president, a Kurd, and finally after much friction a new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, a Shia.

In a statement on Saturday, Salim al-Jabouri, speaker of the Iraqi parliament, denounced as "terrorists" the Shia armed group suspected of killing at least 73 people inside a Sunni mosque . After rejecting al-Abadi's nomination at first, the present prime minister Nouri al-Maliki finally gave in to pressure both internal and external to give up his bid for another term. He was promised a role of some sort in any new government. However, al-Abadi was left with the difficult task of forming a new government from groups that are at loggerheads with one another. 

Now a mass killing at a mosque in which at least 73 people were killed has derailed the process of forming a government entirely. In protest at the attack Sunni politicians suspended talks designed to form a new government. Salim al-Jabouri, the speaker and leading Sunni politician denounced the Shia group believed responsible for the attacks as terrorists. He said: "There are those who want to thwart the political process. They are targeting the Iraqi society and its social structures." Both Jabouri ajnd Deputy Prime MInister Saleh al-Mutlak are demanding that present prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Shia political allies hand over those responsible for the attack within two days and also compensate families of victims. 

The new prime minister al-Abadi who will take over from al-Maliki once he forms a government also spoke out against the attack:"I strongly condemn the killing of civilians and worshippers in Diyala province and I call on the citizens to reject these attempts by the enemies of Iraq to exploit the incident in order to stir up strife between the sons of the same homeland." Local sources say the attack by the Shia militia may have been in response to a roadside bomb attack that targeted a recruitment campaign of the same militia. 

An Al Jazeera correspondent remarked: "Everyone has been terrified that this could be the incident that could spark another civil war. What we have seen in the past here is that Shia militias and Sunni fighters come in where there is a security vacuum, and that is certainly what we are seeing in Iraq." This event is just one of a number of incidents that show the rising sectarian violence that will make formation of any new government difficult. Back in July Shia militia executed 15 Sunni Muslims and hung them on poles in a public square in the town of Baquba according to police. According to Human Rights Watch(HRW) during the month of July alone Iraqi security forces executed more that 255 prisoners during July in retaliation for atrocities committed by the Islamic State rebels. 

In many areas Sunnis cooperate with the IS. Events such as these will no doubt lead to more alliances with IS in Sunni areas. The Shia and western countries as well as Iran all see IS as simply a terrorist organization to be destroyed. However, many Sunni's will fight against IS only if the Iraq government changes its treatment of the Sunnis. Ahmed al-Dulaimi, the governor of Anbar province that is mostly controlled by IS said: “The only way to fight ISIS is to support the citizens who lost their dignity and their rights under the old government".  

 Not everyone agrees that the attack was carried out by Shia militia members. Some Shia leaders including the cleric and politician Moktad al_Sadr claimed that the attack was an attempt by IS to create an escalation in sectarian violence and said it had the "explicit touch of ISIS". If al-Sadr is correct, the attack worked as intended by IS.

 Even if the Sunni and Shia politicians are able to overcome their differences, the Kurds also may create difficulties that could block formation of a government. The Kurds have occupied new territory since the offensive by IS.They now control the city of Kirkuk and area and have no intention of giving control back to the central government. There are certain demands that the Kurds have that they demand be addressed before they even discuss what their role in a new government will be:

 The negotiators are making several demands of the new government, including implementing Article 140, sending the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) its share of Iraq’s oil revenue, arming the Peshmerga forces and settling disputes over oil in the Kurdistan Region, said Najib Balatayi, one of the Kurdish delegates in Baghdad.  

Another Kurdish negotiator, Zana Rustay said: “We showed that we aren’t in a hurry to form the new government; we are more in a hurry to have our conditions met".

Houla Massacre new report contradicts official version in the west

The official version as I understand it is that the massacre was the work of Assad forces and/or a militia loyal to Assad from nearby villages. However recent reports blame the massacre on rebels who have used it as a means of isolating Assad even more internationally and to seek more aid for their cause. As well it shows the UN peace plan is not working at all.

   The report is found in numerous places but is listed in this article as coming from the German Newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) a leading German Daily. This report claims that the massacre was carried out by anti-Assad militants. Although Houla is 90 per cent Sunni most of the victims were Shia or Alawi. Assad is from the Alawi minority.
     The army set up road blocks to keep Sunni rebels from attacking local Alawi majority villages. The rebels attacked the checkpoints and there was a battle in which both sides sustained losses. It was during this period that the massacre is said to have happened. I quote from this article::""Those killed were almost exclusively from families belonging to Houla’s Alawi and Shia minorities....Several dozen members of a family were slaughtered, which had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. Members of the Shomaliya, an Alawi family, were also killed, as was the family of a Sunni member of the Syrian parliament who is regarded as a collaborator. Immediately following the massacre, the perpetrators are supposed to have filmed their victims and then presented them as Sunni victims in videos posted on the Internet. """  The German report is confirmed by statements from the Monastery of St. James in Qara. armed rebels murdered entire Alawi families in the Houla region.

  Mother Agnes-Mariam de la Croix of the St. James monastery had warned back in April that rebel atrocities were actually being repackaged in western and Arab media as regime atrocities. Mother de la Croix provides a specific example. For further details see the full article.  While none of this can change the fact that Assad has actually committed heinous acts it does suggest that most western media ignore counter evidence in cases such as Houla or just write it off as Assad propaganda.

Sunni Shiite Tension Increases Across Arab World

From the Washington Post.

Often the tension is as much a quasi-class conflict as sectarian since in many Sunni dominated countries the Shia are often poor and oppressed. The author notes that countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan (all Sunni dominated) did nothing to help Hezbollah (Shiite) against Israel. However they do very little to help Hamas either and Hamas is Sunni. Perhaps US policy in Iraq is encouraging the split there and some may see this as a divide and conquer tactic. However, in Iraq it seems to be divide and create an uncontrollable mess!

Across Arab World, a Widening Rift
Sunni-Shiite Tension Called Region's 'Most Dangerous Problem'

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 12, 2007; A01



CAIRO -- Egypt is the Arab world's largest Sunni Muslim country, but as a writer once quipped, it has a Shiite heart and a Sunni mind. In its eclectic popular culture, Sunnis enjoy a sweet dish with raisins and nuts to mark Ashura, the most sacred Shiite Muslim holiday. Raucous festivals bring Cairenes into the street to celebrate the birthdays of Shiite saints, a practice disparaged by austere Sunnis. The city's Islamic quarter tangles like a vine around a shrine to Imam Hussein, Shiite Islam's most revered figure.

The syncretic blend makes the words of Mahmoud Ahmed, a book vendor sitting on the shrine's marble and granite promenade, even more striking.

"The Shiites are rising," he said, arching his eyebrows in an expression suggesting both revelation and fear.

The growing Sunni-Shiite divide is roiling an Arab world as unsettled as at any time in a generation. Fought in speeches, newspaper columns, rumors swirling through cafes and the Internet, and occasional bursts of strife, the conflict is predominantly shaped by politics: a disintegrating Iraq, an ascendant Iran, a sense of Arab powerlessness and a persistent suspicion of American intentions. But the division has begun to seep into the region's social fabric, too. The sectarian fault line has long existed and sometimes ruptured, but never, perhaps, has it been revealed in such a stark, disruptive fashion.

Newspapers are replete with assertions, some little more than incendiary rumors, of Shiite aggressiveness. The Jordanian newspaper Ad-Dustour, aligned with the government, wrote of a conspiracy last month to spread Shiism from India to Egypt. On the conspirators' agenda, it said: assassinating "prominent Sunni figures." The same day, an Algerian newspaper reported that parents were calling on the government to stop Shiite proselytizing in schools. An Egyptian columnist accused Iran of trying to convert Sunnis to Shiism in an attempt to revive the Persian Safavid dynasty, which came to power in the 16th century.

At Madbuli's, a storied bookstore in downtown Cairo, five new titles lined the display window: "The Shiites," "The Shiites in History," "Twelve Shiites," and so on. A newspaper on sale nearby featured a warning by its editor that the conflict could lead to a "sectarian holocaust."

"To us Egyptians," said writer and analyst Mohammed al-Sayid Said, the sectarian division is "entirely artificial. It resonates with nothing in our culture, nothing in our daily life. It's not part of our social experience, cultural experience or religious experience." But he added: "I think this can devastate the region."

The violence remains confined to Iraq and, on a far smaller scale, Lebanon, but to some, the four-year-long entropy of Iraq offers a metaphor for the forces emerging across the region: People there watched the rise of sectarian identity, railed against it, blamed the United States and others for inflaming it, then were often helpless to stop the descent into bloodshed.

"This tension is the most dangerous problem now in the region," said Ghassan Charbel, editor of the Arabic-language daily al-Hayat.

The schism between Sunnis and Shiites dates to the 7th century, Islam's earliest days, when a dispute broke out over who would succeed the prophet Muhammad. Shiites believe the descendants of Muhammad's daughter, Fatima, and son-in-law, Ali, were deprived of divinely ordained leadership in a narrative of martyrdom and injustice that still influences devout Shiite readings of the faith.

Over centuries, differences in ritual, jurisprudence and theology evolved, some of them slight. But the Shiite community -- as a majority in Iraq and Bahrain and a sizable minority in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait -- is shaped far more today by the underprivileged status it has often endured in an Arab world that is predominantly Sunni. For decades, the Saudi government banned Shiite rituals; a Sunni minority rules a restive Shiite majority in Bahrain; Lebanese Shiites, long poor and disenfranchised, often faced chauvinism that still lingers.

Episodes of sectarian conflict litter the region's history: Shiites revolted in medieval Baghdad, and rival gangs ransacked one another's tombs and shrines. The conflict between the Sunni Ottoman Empire and the Shiite Safavid Empire in Persia was often cast as a sectarian struggle. The 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran was portrayed in parts of the Arab world as a Shiite resurgence.

But rarely has the region witnessed so many events, in so brief a time, that have been so widely interpreted through a sectarian lens: the empowering of Iraq's Shiite-led government and the bloodletting that has devastated the country; the lack of support by America's Sunni Arab allies -- Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia -- for the Shiite movement Hezbollah in its fight with Israel last summer; and, most decisively, the perception among many Sunni Arabs that Saddam Hussein was lynched by Shiites bent on revenge. In the background is the growing assertiveness of Shiite Iran as the influence of other traditional regional powers such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia diminishes.

In Lebanon, where the Hezbollah-led opposition has mobilized in an effort to force the government's resignation, the sectarian divide colors even a contest over urban space. Some Sunnis are angered most by the fact that the Beirut sit-in -- in their eyes, an occupation -- by Shiites from the hardscrabble southern suburbs is taking place in the sleek downtown rebuilt by a former Sunni prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005.

"Politics is perception," said Jamil Mroue, a Lebanese publisher whose father was Shiite and mother Sunni.

Sentiments today remind him of the tribal-like fanaticism that marked another sectarian conflict, Lebanon's 15-year civil war -- which, among other divisions, loosely pitted Christians against Muslims before it ended in 1990.

"It certainly conjures up the feelings of the civil war, when Lebanon started disintegrating, except on a mega-scale," Mroue said. He called it "very scary, because I know that there is a possibility of being moved by this tide."

"At the end of it," he added, "people are going to look back and say, 'What the hell was this all about?' "

In overwhelmingly Sunni countries such as Egypt, where politics were long defined by Arab nationalism or political Islam, visceral notions of sectarian identity remain somewhat alien. It is not unusual to hear people say they realized only as adults that they were Sunnis. Before that, they identified themselves simply as Muslim. Even in Lebanon, despite its communal divisions, intermarriage is not uncommon, and there is a long tradition of Sunnis becoming Shiites so their daughters can receive a more equitable share of inheritance, as allowed under Shiite law.

Across the region, Hezbollah and its leader, Hasan Nasrallah, in particular, still win accolades for their performance in last summer's war in Lebanon.

"You have to give him credit for fighting the Israelis," Abdel-Hamid Ibrahim said of Nasrallah as he stood at a rickety curbside stand in Cairo, boiling water for tea. Overhead were pictures of two Egyptian icons, the singers Um Kalthoum and Abdel-Halim Hafez. "Closest to my heart," he said. Next to them was a portrait of Nasrallah. "A symbol of resistance, the man who defeated Israel," it read.

"Hasan Nasrallah, he's the man who stood in front of the Israelis himself," said Muhsin Mohammed, a customer.

"Who was standing with him?" Ibrahim asked, nodding his head. He pointed to the sky. "Our Lord."

Both scoffed at the sectarian tensions.

"There's a proverb that says, 'Divide and conquer,' " Mohammed said. "Sunnis and Shiites -- they're not both Muslims? What divides them? Who wants to divide them? In whose interest is it to divide them?" he asked.

"It's in the West's interest," he answered. "And at the head of it is America and Israel." He paused. "And Britain."

That sense of Western manipulation is often voiced by Shiite clerics and activists, who say the United States incites sectarianism as a way of blunting Iran's influence. In recent years, some of the most provocative comments have come from America's allies in the region: Egypt's president questioned Shiites' loyalty to their countries, Jordan's king warned of a coming Shiite crescent from Iran to Lebanon, and last month King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia denounced what he called Shiite proselytizing.

The charge drew a lengthy retort from Nasrallah. "Frankly speaking, the aim of saying such things is fomenting strife," he said in a speech. He dismissed charges of Iranian proselytizing or the emergence of a Shiite crescent.

"People in the region always complain about a Shiite crescent. You always hear, 'Shiite crescent, Shiite crescent.' That's just a crescent. What about the full Sunni moon?" said Nimr al-Nimr, a Shiite cleric in the eastern Saudi town of Awamiya, who spent five days in police detention for urging that a Shiite curriculum be taught in his predominantly Shiite region.

Shiites make up less than 15 percent of Saudi Arabia's population, many of them in the oil-rich Eastern Province. The austere Sunni religious establishment considers them heretics. One cleric, Abdul Rahman al-Barak, considered close to the royal family, has called Shiites "infidels, apostates and hypocrites."

"There are conflicts in Palestine between Sunni sects -- Hamas and Fatah -- in Somalia, in Darfur. None of that is sectarian," said Hassan al-Saffar, the most prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia. "There's a campaign against Shiites. Why is all this anti-Shiite sentiment being inflamed at a time the United States is trying to pressure Iran because of its nuclear ambitions?"

In Cairo recently, Hassan Kamel sipped sweet tea in a cafe beside the shrine to Imam Hussein, the prophet's grandson, who was killed in battle in 680 in what is now Iraq. The shrine is believed to hold his severed head. Across the street was al-Azhar, one of the foremost academic institutions of Sunni Islam, founded, ironically, by the Shiite Fatimid dynasty that ruled Egypt for 200 years until 1169. On the shrine's wall was a saying attributed to the prophet and often intoned during Shiite commemorations: "Hussein is from me, and I am from Hussein." Kamel pointed to the doors, topped with a Koranic inscription; Shiites and Sunnis like him worshiped at the shrine together, he said.

As cats scurried across the cafe's grimy floor, he wondered aloud about past conflicts that have splintered the Middle East.

"Egyptians, all their lives, without exception, have endured so many crises, catastrophes and problems," he said. He listed wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973. "But they have a gift. It's a gift from God. They have the ability to forget."

Then he talked about the rest of the region, and whether this bout of strife and tension would pass, too.

"They might forget, they might not," he said. "Right now, no one knows what's coming."

Correspondent Faiza Saleh Ambah in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report.