July 7, 2013

Saudis Gain Amid Islamist Setbacks

Morsi's Ouster and Syrian Rebel Vote Strengthen Kingdom's Hand
By ELLEN

KNICKMEYER

RIYADHSaudi Arabia has gained the upper hand in a series of new power struggles in the region, strengthening the kingdom against the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist political movements emboldened since the Arab Spring revolutions. Just as swiftly as popular uprisings have brought to power the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic political blocs in several Middle East and North African countries since 2011, "what happened in Egypt...could be the beginning of the end of political Islam in the region," Khalid al-Dakhail, an assistant professor of political sociology at King Saud University in Riyadh, predicted Sunday. Late last week in Egypt, street protests and military ultimatums forced out the year-old government of President Mohammed Morsi, a former Muslim Brotherhood official elected after Egypt's 2011 revolution. Meanwhile, this weekend, Syria's opposition elected as its leader a rebel, Ahmad Jarba, backed by Saudi Arabia and belonging to the powerful Shammari tribe that stretches across Syria and Iraq into Saudi Arabia. The Syrian rebels rejected a rival candidate pushed by Qatar, a wealthy Gulf state that has supported extremist Islamic groups. Saudi Arabia sees those groups as a future threat to Saudi and regional security. The week's 2-0 political victories by Saudi Arabia also empower Saudi ally Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian authority president, and his Fatah party over Hamas, the Islamist party elected to power in Gaza.

Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud, in a 2011

However, the week's events also had an influential Saudi cleric warning of danger if Islamic movements start to despair of bringing about political change peacefully. "The Arab revolutions weakened the project of violence. And the overthrow of Egyptian reform has pumped new energy into it," Salman alOdah, a Saudi cleric who has openly pressed the Saudi government for better social conditions, said in a tweet Saturday to his more than 3 million followers, via his verified Twitter account. But Mr. Dakhail, the Saudi academic, said in response to claims Saudi Arabia is seeking to reverse the region's revolutions, "How can you roll back the clock in Tunisia, in Egypt? Hosni Mubarak is gone, and he's not coming back." Gulf monarchies "realize they cannot do that."

Arab governments historically have sought to neutralize the Brotherhood and other political Islamic movements, fearing the blocs could grow in popularity so as to challenge Arab rulers for power. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates initially had sought to work with Egypt's new Islamist leaders. Now-ousted President Morsi had made Saudi Arabia his first foreign stop as president. He offended the Emirates, however, by ignoring that kingdom's standing invitation to visit, said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, professor of political science at Emirates University. Both Gulf countries saw the former Brotherhood official as bungling Egypt's foreign and domestic affairs. When Egypt's protests last week ended the highest rise of any modern Islamist political movement, Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud, near 90, rushed to become the first to congratulate Egypt's military. In an effusive telegram to Egyptian defense chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al Sisi, the Saudi king reached out figuratively, "firmly shaking the hand" that had saved Egypt "from a tunnel whose extent and outcome only God knows," according to the Saudi state press agency. With the Egyptian economy hugging the bottom since its revolution, the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia and perhaps Kuwait may now deliver not just aid but a "five-year, Marshall kind of plan for Egypt," said Mr. Abdulla, the Emirati political scientist.