For close to a hundred years — the lifetime of modern Saudi Arabia or the third Saudi state as historians like to describe it — the kingdom has shied away from direct involvement in wars and conflicts. But it has supported or probably financed some conflicts over the years. However, the only war Saudis are prepared to get involved in directly is where Yemen is involved. In fact, Saudi Arabia has been involved militarily in Yemen three times over the last 100 years — in 1934, 1960 and 2015. Each of those instances has had its own specific reasons but all of them share one common thread — the fact that Saudi Arabia recognises that its own security is directly related to that of Yemen.
In 1934, King Abdul Aziz intervened in Yemeni to pacify tribes that were a threat to his country’s south-western region. In 1960, the Egyptian army came to support the Yemeni revolution, resulting in tribal conflicts which Saudi Arabia saw as a threat to its own security. The war that followed cost the lives of hundreds of Egyptian soldiers, ultimately ending after a settlement was reached on Egypt’s withdrawal.
However, that the conflict of 2015 involves an outside, non-Arab power, specifically Iran, whose intention is to enter and destabilise Saudi Arabia, makes it even more dangerous than the conflicts of the past. This has set alarm bells ringing in the kingdom and its Arab neighbours. Some analysts and commentators believe the ongoing conflict is just the Sunni-Shiite rivalry playing but they couldn’t be more wrong. Yemen is primarily divided into two principal Islamic groupings — the Sunnis and Shiites. The denominations are mainly between the Shafi’i order of Sunni Islam and the Zaidi order of Shiite Islam.
While the rest of the Shiites generally believe in the twelve imams, the Zaidis differ in that they believe in a smaller number of imams. The differences between the Sunnis and Zaidis in matters of belief are very limited and they go to the same same mosques.
However, some Zaidis of late have shifted for political reasons and some of these include Al Houthis, a northern extended family pushing to make the conflict look like a sectarian one.
Portraying this as a sectarian conflict plays well with those who don’t know the specifics of politics and religion in Yemen and political opportunists who would like to benefit from the conflict.
The main issue here is the involvement of a foreign power, Iran, which is seeking to extend its influence into the GCC’s backyard. Since the Iranian revolution, the idea of exporting the revolution has lingered in the Islamic republic and circumstances in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria have all helped achieve that aim — either partially of fully — albeit for different reasons.
Exporting the revolution only has one interpretation in the Arab mind and that is an Iran seeking to expand its hegemony over the region and using that hegemony as a bargaining chip with the western world. Iran has, however, overlooked one thing: that Saudi Arabia looks to Yemen as its own ally and that many tribes in the kingdom’s south-west are related to Yemeni tribes. Furthermore, around one million Yemenis work and live in or have been naturalised in Saudi Arabia. The longest border that Saudi Arabia has with any of its neighbours is with Yemen. It would be only natural that Saudi Arabia drops all of its traditional restraints and gathers its allies to go to war and prevent Iran from establishing a foothold in Yemen, which could be used as a stepping stone into other Gulf states.
Saudi Arabia also managed to secure international support for its military effort in Yemen after the Security Council passed a resolution almost unanimously.
However, this doesn’t stop there. Besides the military planes and guns, and what comes with them courtesy of diplomacy, Saudi Arabia is ushering in a new dispensation through the passing of the baton of power to the next generation.
The two Mohammads in Saudi Arabia — Mohammad Bin Nayef and Mohammad Bin Salman represent a new era at an administrative level — one which puts the kingdom on the threshold of the 21st century.
They join other young rulers in the Gulf region — a new generation that understands the language of modernity and the challenges of this new era. As such, they can work together to secure the stability of the whole region. What this region needs is both experience and youthfulness.
The days of huge generational gaps in the region’s leadership are coming to an end and this means something: the region can meet all challenges on all fronts head on and still live up to the expectations of the new generation in Gulf states. This current crop of Gulf leaders is tech-savvy and regularly communicates with younger generations. His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has been on Twitter communicating a vital reality of today’s modern-day world: that now is the time to embrace and roll-out the smart economy.
Azzam Al Dakhil, the new Minister of Education in Saudi Arabia, also recently took to Twitter to communicate with administration bodies and students.
This can only mean two things: first, we are on the cusp of a new era and second, today’s crop of leaders are not afraid to engage publicly with their citizens.
War and development go hand in hand in the Gulf region and will usher in positive change. What we are witnessing now is just the tip of the iceberg but positive changes are coming through.
Mohammad AlRumaihi is a professor of political sociology at Kuwait University. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@rumaihi42
