The Kingdom and the Afghan Chaos

War on Terror

22 Feb 2010, NewAgeIslam.Com

The Kingdom and the Afghan Chaos

Saudi Arabia's diplomatic mission in Afghanistan is an essential step in its efforts to "whiten its face" and restore its reputation in the West, particularly the United States, which has not forgotten that the majority of the September 11,2001,hijackers were Saudi citizens, and that the government failed to manage the Taliban during the years leading up to those attacks. For the Saudis,a bid to rehabilitate the Taliban, despite the damage they have caused to the Kingdom's diplomatic standing in the West,serves a strategic purpose. The Kingdom has suffered from the rise of the Shi'a in neighboring Iraq and is keen to maintain Sunni supremacy in the Islamic lands further to the east.Yet they see that, under Karzai, Saudi influence has declined in Afghanistan since 2001,while that of the Iranians has strengthened. -- Mai Yamani URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamWarOnTerror_1.aspx?ArticleID=2490 ---- The Kingdom and the Afghan Chaos By Mai Yamani Feb 20, 2010 LONDON: In his quest to stabilise his country, Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, dressed in white robes, arrived last week in Mecca on what can only be called a diplomatic pilgrimage. Although Karzai undoubtedly spent time praying at Islam's holiest site, his mission was intended to prove more than his piety. So what diplomatic or financial gain was Karzai seeking? Why travel to Saudi Arabia at the very moment that US President Barack Obama's military surge has become operational? Can Saudi Arabia play a serious role in resolving his country's increasingly bloody conflict? One card the Saudis can play is their severe Islamic ideology, which the Taliban shares. Indeed, the Saudis, backed by Pakistani military intelligence, nurtured the madrasas that educated the Taliban before their march to power in the 1990s. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has been increasingly willing to use Mecca as a forum to attempt to resolve regional political disputes. In October 2006,for example, Mecca was used to host talks among Iraq's warring sectarian factions. In February 2007, the short-lived Palestinian government of national unity was created as the result of a summit there. In October 2008, the Kingdom held mediation talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government following Karzai's request to King Abdullah, whom Karzai describes as "the leader of the Muslim world". The Taliban could not spurn an invitation to negotiate in Mecca. Today, the Saudi regime uses Mecca's status among Muslims in a calculated way designed to reassert the Kingdom's paramount status as the Islamic world's "leading state". Through the strategic deployment of Mecca, it is hoped that the region's radicals - Iraqi Shi'a, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, and the Iranians - will undergo a kind of "healing" as they gain access to Islam's holiest sites. At the same time, potential Sunni Arab rivals like Hashemite Jordan and Egypt are reminded that Saudi Arabia remains the ideological heartland of Islam. But Saudi soft power extends beyond custodianship of Mecca and Medina, for Saudi diplomacy is also backed by the largest oil reserves in the world. This could help the Taliban accept negotiations - and perhaps even renounce violence - if Saudi money is deployed to assist Taliban fighters create new lives for themselves. Saudi Arabia's diplomatic mission in Afghanistan is an essential step in its efforts to "whiten its face" and restore its reputation in the West,particularly the United States,which has not forgotten that the majority of the September 11,2001,hijackers were Saudi citizens,and that the government failed to manage the Taliban during the years leading up to those attacks. For the Saudis,a bid to rehabilitate the Taliban,despite the damage they have caused to the Kingdom's diplomatic standing in the West,serves a strategic purpose.The Kingdom has suffered from the rise of the Shi'a in neighboring Iraq and is keen to maintain Sunni supremacy in the Islamic lands further to the east.Yet they see that,under Karzai,Saudi influence has declined in Afghanistan since 2001,while that of the Iranians has strengthened. So the question for the Saudis now is how to get the Taliban invited to the negotiating table. Their best hope is to be found in Pakistan, which views Afghanistan in much the same strategic way that Saudi Arabia does, but with India, instead of Iran, being the rival for influence. Given the Obama administration's belief that Pakistan is essential to any solution in Afghanistan, the Saudis have probably placed their bet correctly in choosing a diplomatic partner for determining the Afghan end game. With only 18 months left before Obama's promised draw-down of US forces, Western strategy is clearly aimed at splitting the "good" Taliban from "bad" al-Qaida. But, given Saudi Arabia's past record of supporting radicalism in Afghanistan, it is highly unlikely that the Kingdom can help secure this aim. The writer is a social anthropologist Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010 URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamWarOnTerror_1.aspx?ArticleID=2490

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Asadullah Syed