Armed followers of ISIS carried out barbaric attacks on two high-profile sites in Iran.
On Wednesday 7 June the assailants hit the Parliament building and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. This was the first time the group had carried out a significant operation in Iran but had been threatening such type of action for some time.
The death toll in the attacks rose to 17, with 52 others wounded, and what was noticeable was the slow and then callous response of the Trump administration. Whereas Iran and its people had held candlelight vigils on 9/11, the US President chose this moment to suggest that Iran deserved the attack as it supports terrorism. This comment exposes the lack of honesty and seriousness by which US geopolitical strategy is geared to deal with the global challenge of radical violence and state collapse. Tragedies are only tragedies when they happen to you or your friends and given who our friends are it is not surprising that such a reaction came forth.
It is also worth noticing how swift the message of condolence from Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia were compared to the US, UK and it’s regional partners. In this, we had soaked up and digested the sectarian logic of not only the attack by ISIS on Iran but also the indifference of the attack by the Gulf monarchies.
Undoubtedly no single nation in the Gulf is considered to do more to spread sectarianism than Saudi Arabia, the chief regional ally of the UK, US, Canada and other western allies. Our ally’s royal family sees itself as the true, sole inheritor and guardian of Islamic orthodoxy. Its interpretation of Islam is not merely conservative, this, in fact, would be insulting to conservative Muslims who abhor the excess and abuses of the house, they are also ideologically sectarian in nature. The royal family gains legitimacy in its collective logic by condemning all other traditional or contemporary schools of Islamic thought. All other religious groups within the Ummah are heresy.
I will not go into the details of theological difference, first because I am not qualified to do so and secondly resulting from this lack of qualification may arise a habit of even the most friendly of orientalist – that of the pronouncer. All those observing and commenting on the Gulf from the outside are orientalists by default and can only correct this by reading and paying homage to those Arab and Persian writers whose scholarship is not only superior but much needed. It is on this I base my writings.
As reported by German and Swedish media outlets the Saudi state and wealthy private citizens put millions every year into a form of evangelism (known in Arabic as da’wa). Often this becomes confused with the basic expression of faith and charity that many Muslim communities engage in – that is totally unconnected to this Saudi da’wa. We must not confuse the building of community centres and mosques in the UK or Europe with these uniquely funded projects sourced by Saudi money and tolerated by European Governments in return for capital investment.
Apart from the establishment of schools, mosques the world over and financial support to print and broadcast media that promote its monopolising interpretation of Islam; Shiite Muslims are singled out for especially harsh language and violent threat. Shiite communities inside Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Oman and elsewhere around it constitute the largest and most organised group of “heretics” and are subject to constant discrimination and violence.
The rise of Islamist factions, the Muslim Brotherhood, a confident Shiite Iran, and then a Shiite-dominated Iraq already presented a major threat to a Saudi and Wahhabi dominance over the region. Even before the Arab Awakening the Saudi intelligence services and media outlets enforced and promoted sectarian policies in Bahrain and Syria, where fears Iranian encroachment lingered, and within its own borders, where Shias have been protesting since 2011.
Yet these actions backed by our blank cheque to the Saudis has exacerbated death and engendered more sectarianism in a vicious spiral. In Iraq, you hear many commentators, not particularly rabid in their Shiite identity, blame Saudi Arabia for sowing disunity between communities. This may be a harsh accusatory exaggeration in Iraq’s case. But not by far.
In truth, it is Syria which has seen the most horrendous consequences of Saudi sectarianism backed by military force and cash of the West. When Hezbollah publicly declared support for Bashar al Assad, Saudi media and Salafist groups, to use a technical term – lost their shit. In April, Saudi-backed news agencies followed by UK counterparts recently reported the bombing of a convoy of mostly Shia residents in Syria killing 126, among them 28 children. In fact the only two outlets in the UK which mentioned that the victims were Shia were the Independent and the BBC which briefly added the fact in a paragraph right at the bottom of its report. This has been matched by the marshalling of Iraq, Lebanese, Afghani and Pakistani Shia militia who Iranian security forces have trained and sent to Syria, all be it in smaller numbers than Saudi, Turkish and Qatari proxies.
In Bahrain, youngsters, women and children are gunned down for peacefully protesting against a tyrannical government on a weekly basis. In effect, the Saudi kingdom has intervened to protect the Sunni minority thus accelerating another sectarian conflict. So we find ourselves backing a brutal sectarian conflict which degrades the lives and honour of Muslims regardless of who they are and to the benefit of a minute clique in Riyadh.
Why do we need to talk about the creation of a death spiral of sectarianism and who is propagating it? It is vital because the death we are so numbed to – if we cared about it ever – is reaching out to us in our cosy cafes and closes. In a globalised world we are no longer able to indulge in the appetites of empire or divide and rule without its pangs of discomfort and we are arrogant and savage to think we can. Those of us who are concerned with the real origins of fundamentalism and terror from all its sources have endured the slander of being considered traitors of coldhearted to tragedy.
This has to stop or we will find ourselves the victims of our allies and our own complacency. The enemy is not Islam, it’s not Arabs, it’s not Persians nor the Saudi people. The enemy are those who have gained profit from the network of deals which stretch from the board rooms of military hardware firms to the palaces of royal families in the Gulf to the fanatical nazis in our midst who seek to distract and destroy.
The kingdom has done all of this to counter Iran and its potential influence but also to defend against models of Islamic politics that contradict its own. We may see an increase in reckless behaviour, not only because Mattis and Trump have in their recently Gulf trip given King Salman a green light, but because the a more moderate and reforming Iran will be harder to stereotype to outsiders.
Deprived of its bogeyman, the Kingdom may be forced to go rogue, acting with the US and UK’s connivance as well as outside their agreed parameters.
This begs another question. Does Iran, with the largest Shia population in the world, pursue itself a radical and bullying sectarian agenda? According to Western based Iranian writers such as Mohammad Shabani – despite the Islamist and Shiite character of the Islamic Republic and its institutions, Iranian foreign policy has to be understood through the constraints placed on it by the fact that neither Persians nor Shias are the majority.
Iran’s politics can not be driven by the pragmatic and strategic interest of a “Shia-only” policy simply because it cannot afford to provoke a sectarian conflict. Like Russian and China, its partnerships are openly non-ideological although it does have a kindred partnership with organisations such as Hezbollah. It pairs with countries that share its hostility to what it perceives as a Western-backed regional order under pinning Saudi Arabia and what it sees as existential security threats.
Yes, it has mobilised support for Assad and in Lebanon along sect lines but not a viciously or as much devastating consequence as Saudi clerical influence on ISIS, AQ and other groups.
But the region is diverse and dynamic. It is – despite the efforts of certain players – far less sectarian that what it being imposed upon it. Individualism is claimed by the West as one of its natural principles descended from those impeccable heroes of ancient slave-owning Athens but those outside Europe feel its truth and nuances as well. We have no business taking sides in a conflict geared up by undemocratic forces seeking to justify their existence.
Do we need guilt? No. Guilt is the language of inaction, of the impotent and ignorant. When you know of your past and current follies you change them and in doing so rediscover your own self-professed principles. That is what the UK and US must do.
You can follow Robert J Somynne on twitter at @RobertJSomynne and at his blog robertsomynne.blogspot.co.uk