US President Barack Obama headed into Riyadh on Friday evening on a brief visit to Saudi Arabia, a long-time ally with which ties are fraying amid rapid changes in the region through events that also touches the Indian sub-continent.
Things have soured quite dramatically between Washington and Riyadh, which have long enjoyed an oil-for-security equation from the time President Roosevelt sealed an alliance with Saudi's Founding King Abdul Aziz. But several developments in the region, topped with America's own discovery of a vast trove of energy at home through shale gas exploitation, had disrupted the cozy arrangement. Meanwhile, pressure is growing on the White House to call the Saudi kingdom to account for its human rights excesses and funding of Sunni extremism through the region.
Just ahead of his departure, Amnesty International challenged Obama to take a female Secret Service driver with him to Riyadh to show his displeasure over the medieval Saudi Kingdom's ban on women driving — the only country in the world with such an absurd rule. Some 70 US lawmakers also wrote to the US President urging him to raise critical human rights issue with the Saudis. Earlier this week, Washington feebly complained about the Saudis denying a visa to the Washington-based bureau chief of the Jerusalem Post who planned to cover the Obama visit.
But these will be trifles as Obama deals with what White House sees as larger issues. He will also likely hear a laundry list of complaints from Saudis - the perceived US betrayal of Saudi interests arising from Washington's recent overtures towards Iran, to letting Riyadh down in Syria. In both countries, Saudis are fighting for Sunni influence in the region again Shia-dominated regimes. In neighboring Bahrain, it is backing a minority Sunni regime against a majority Shia uprising.
In fact, the Sunni axis that Saudi Arabia has forged comes close to India's borders, since Pakistan is the hired gun Riyadh has chosen to act as an enforcer. According to reports in the Pakistani media, Saudi Arabia transferred a whopping $1.5 billion to Islamabad earlier this month, ostensibly to shore up Pakistan's economy.
While the Nawaz Sharief government confirmed the transfer as "no-strings-attached" grant from a "friendly" government, the scuttlebutt in strategic circles is that it is payoff for Pakistani foot-soldiers waging Saudi bankrolled jihad in Bahrain and Syria, among other places.
In fact, Washington's biggest fear is that the Saudis are also making sure they have access to the Pakistani nuclear arsenal just in case the US easing of pressure on Teheran results in Shiite Iran going nuclear. The Saudis have said as much, that they will be forced to go nuclear if Iran does. The Saudis are also ticked off with Washington over events in Egypt, where Riyadh is opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose deposed ruler Mohammed Morsi, was backed by Qatar, home to the satellite channel Al Jazeera, which is also seen as being inimical to the Saudi Kingdom.
President Obama enters this snakepit at a time the sentiment in the US is increasingly to withdraw from regions where Washington has no strategic interest. Indeed, the rapid decline in US dependence on middle-east oil, affords this.
But the flip side is Washington's withdrawal will enable the spread of both toxic Sunni fundamentalism and Shiite resurgence that will come with an invigorated Iran. Both developments will bring trouble to the India-Pakistan region.
On its part, the Obama administration has ignored every report pointing to Pakistani malfeasance - from the sheltering of Osama bin Laden by its military-intelligence, to its secret nuclear deal with the Saudis, to its export of mercenary foot-soldiers to Bahrain and Syria. With Secretary of State John Kerry seemingly well disposed to it, Islamabad is easing its way back into American favor.
As a first stem, the US is reported to be considering channeling some of the huge surplus of military equipment in Afghanistan, worth some $7 billion, to Pakistan, even as it exits from the region. None of this augurs well for a new government that will come into place in New Delhi in May, particularly given India's own bilateral problems with Washington over trade and administrative issues that has put the strategic dialogue on the backburner.
No comments:
Post a Comment