Roger Cohen
Saudi Arabia is upset at the apparent thaw in US-Iran relations and Irans growing influence in the region.
To say Saudi Arabia is livid would be an understatement. Hence the Saudi decision to give up a seat on the Security Council that it had long coveted. It was not aimed at the United Nations. It was aimed above all at the United States.
The Saudis,of course,always talk a good line and are happiest when others read the United States do the heavy lifting for them. But they remain an important ally. The pursuit of US interests in the region is made more difficult with the Saudis fuming. The alienation of the kingdom smacks of carelessness from an Obama administration now intent on scaling back expectations in the Middle East even as it declares a nuclear deal with Iran and an Israeli-Palestinian peace to be President Obamas foreign policy priorities. Neither of these objectives will be able to circumvent Saudi Arabia.
On Syria,Saudi outrage is altogether understandable. The United States came out in support of the Free Syrian Army,promised military backing and failed to deliver. Western leaders recognised the opposition alliance as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people but now deal with Assad. American red lines proved malleable. But it is over Iran that the Saudis are most exercised and it is not the Iranian nuclear programme that has them so upset. Rather,it is the idea that the pre-revolutionary relationship between Iran and the United States could somehow be revived,extending Iranian influence in the region and relegating Saudi Arabia to being,as it once was,the lesser party of Americas twin pillar policy in the region. The Saudis have already watched with concern as the US invasion of Iraq served Iranian interests; they see Irans influence and military presence growing in Syria. What they fear above all is an Iranian irredentism aimed at stirring up of the Shiite populations in Bahrain,Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
It was not lost on Saudi Arabia that Rouhani wrote in The Washington Post in September that,We must join hands to constructively work towards national dialogue,whether in Syria or Bahrain, just a few days before Obama spoke at the United Nations of working to resolve sectarian tensions in Syria and Bahrain. Nothing can set Saudi alarm bells ringing quite like that: US and Iranian presidents speaking to each other on the telephone,having aired similar sentiments on Bahrain,where the Saudi-backed Sunni monarchy has engaged in fierce repression of an opposition led by members of the Shiite majority,which is pressing for broader rights and political inclusion.
It is hard to say whether Israel or Saudi Arabia is more anxious today over the possibility of an American-Iranian breakthrough. That possibility remains extremely remote. The right deal
one that prevents the Islamic Republic from going nuclear while drawing it back into the community of nations is in the US interest,but current Saudi fury is one measure of the difficulty and of a US Middle Eastern policy that is falling short.
