Not Qatar, it’s Saudi Arabia that is getting isolated  

Soon after 9/11, the then American Secretary of State Colin Powell rang up Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and gave him the choice to be ‘’with us or against us’’, leaving Musharraf no option but to join the American war against terrorism. Pakistan was put up with the same choice when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met Saudi King Salman bin Saud early this week.

Sharif was on a trip to Saudi capital Riyadh trying to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the two Arab nations currently engaged in a diplomatic war which is casting its shadow over Sunni politics. King Salman was blunt in asking Sharif, ‘’Are you with us or against us?’’

Sharif must have been stumped. But he is reported to have maintained his cool and told the Saudi monarch that Pakistan would be neutral in this West Asian political episode which is becoming difficult to resolve. The reason is simple — the rigid Saudi stand, ‘with us or against us’.

Well, Saudis are the established leader of Sunni politics across the globe. They finance this politics with petro-dollars and because of their geographical location. The founder of Islamic faith, Prophet Mohammad was born in Saudi Arabia and the two most important pilgrimage centres, Mecca and Medina, are located there.

So, they have both financial muscle as well as the moral clout to direct the Sunni Muslim world politics. Pakistani nuclear programme, for instance is said to have been entirely financed by the Saudis. Almost every madarsa not only in Pakistan but in the entire Sunni world survives on Saudi dole.

Be it Hafiz Saeed of Pakistan or Abu Baqar Al Baghdadi of the ISIS, almost all Islamic terror networks, too, are directly or indirectly financial beneficiaries of Saudi private charities. Saudi connection with 9/11 is a well-established fact as majority of the American plane hijackers were Saudis while the private Saudi charities financed Osama bin Laden’s 9/11 project. It gives Saudis a finger in every Sunni pie and thus makes them a sort of unquestioned monarch of the Sunni world.

But the Saudi supremacy is under stress. It is being questioned from two quarters. First, Iran — the leader of the Shia politics since 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeni overthrew the Iranian monarch and established a Shia theocratic state—has emerged as a strong rival of the Islamic legacy which is not just disturbing Saudi Arabia but also rewriting West Asian strategic plot at the cost of Saudi influence in the region.

Iran has already emerged as a key player in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in the last decade and a half. It also influences political developments in Bahrain, Yemen and parts of Saudi Arabia where Shia population is highly concentrated. Besides, Iran is engaged in a war of words with America, which is largely perceived hostile to Islamic interests by the majority of the Muslims across the world. It makes Saudis uncomfortable with Iran with whom they are engaged in a bitter rivalry.

Saudi-Iranian rivalry is a much-known fact of West Asian politics now. But a silent and not so publicised competition to challenge Saudis’ lone supremacy over Sunni world is also on for some time now. Two Muslims rivals to Saudi dominance have emerged of late and they are Qatar and Turkey.

Qatar, a small Saudi neighbour which till mid 1990s survived almost as a Saudi protectorate, began to assert from 1995 when Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani took charge of the country in a coup deposing his own father. Hamad’s initial plan was to make Qatari presence felt in the region. So, he concentrated on soft power like Al Jazeera news channel and a high-profile Qatar Airline.

Al Jazeera with its independent coverage of American war on Iraq not just earned eyeballs but also generated sympathy for the Qatari ruling family within the Arab world. It irritated Saudis but served the Qatari purpose of being counted as a power in the Muslim world.

Once they felt they have arrived, Qataris felt rather bold to meddle in the traditional Sunni power centres of madarsas. Their ambition was fuelled by the huge gas money they acquired in recent years. According to New York Times, “Qatari economy expanded from $ 8.1 billion in 1995 to $210 billion in 2014”. Aping the Saudis, Qatar began to dole out big money to both Sunni madarsas and some terror outfits.

But what pushed the Saudis to take the extreme diplomatic step of cutting off ties with Qatar was the latter’s attempt to cultivate Iran, the known Saudi and American rival in the region. Qatar now maintains a regular back channel with Iran. It is reported to have paid some $ 20 million to Iranian backed extremist group based in Syria to get 20 Qatari national released.

Saudis were looking for an opportunity to fix Qatar. Once President Donald Trump visited Riyadh and accepted Saudi supremacy over the Sunni world, Saudis, obviously with American consent, decided to isolate Qatar in the region. They forced Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Maldives to fall in line with the Saudi move to cut off ties and imposed sanctions against Qatar.

But the Saudi move is not making much headway. Instead, it has given its rivals both in Shia and Sunni worlds, an opportunity to meddle in the Gulf region. Iran, for instance, is air lifting 100 tonnes of food and drinking water supplies to Qatar which so far were supplied by the Saudis. Besides, Turkey has decided to raise its number of troops inside Qatar from 100 to 3,000.

Some other Arab allies too have refused to toe the Saudi line. Kuwait and Oman are trying to mediate while Morocco has promised to send food supplies to Qatar. Now Pakistan, too, has decided to be neutral in the game.

Saudi policy of ‘with-us-or-against-us’ is not working. It is the other way-round now. Instead of Qatar, it is the turn of Saudi Arabian isolation in the region. Well, it is the last thing the Saudis must have expected because it will further embolden the Sunni leaders of countries like Turkey to push Saudis further for the Islamic world leadership — something the Saudi monarchy loves to hate.