US-Saudi relations – melting world order

[Guest guest]

US-Saudi relations – melting world order

"India’s Hindus must understand that neither the

US-led White Christian world nor the Saudi-led Muslim world will

ever accept Hindu India as friend. We are important only because we

constitute a determined one-sixth of the world’s total population

where the majority population is neither Christian nor Muslim. Our

determination to remain Hindus and keep this territory under Hindu

control frightens them."

 

The King of Saudi Arabia was the Chief Guest at this year’s

Republic Day celebrations. The Indian nation conferred upon the

Saudi monarch this significant honour, an honour that King Abdallah

bin Aziz accepted gracefully. By accepting the invitation, the King

of Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islam’s two holiest shrines, sent

the unmistakable signal that he wanted to re-define Indo-Saudi

relations; perhaps. There was no doubt that by agreeing to grace

India’s Republic Day celebrations the Saudi King was breaking new

ground in his country’s foreign policy not the least because this

was the first visit by a Saudi King to India since 1955. So, what

caused this dramatic change?

 

The Saudi King, as the custodian of Islam’s holiest shrines, is the

tallest and most authoritative leader in the Muslim world. His every

word, his every gesture is watched closely by governments, by

Muslims and Muslim-watchers alike. His state visit to India

therefore, as the Chief Guest of the Indian nation would have been

watched very keenly by every important government in the world. The

state visit by King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia was therefore one of

the few extremely significant landmarks in India’s foreign policy

with definite implications for international relations.

 

The Saudi King for the first time since his ascension to the throne

in August 2005, set foot outside the middle-east and undertook a

tour of China, India, Malaysia and Pakistan, in that order,

ostensibly to conclude bilateral trade agreements, primarily in the

oil and energy sector. But there is a lot more to the Saudi King’s

tour of Asia than just trade. The Saudi King’s visit to India, China

and Pakistan signifies a melting world order. New strategic

alliances were being crafted and a new world order was being

designed. Central to the new world order in the making are –

decisive but as yet imperceptible changes in US-Saudi relations,

US-Pakistan relations, Saudi-Pakistan-China-Iran relations,

Russia-Iran-China-India relations,

China-Pakistan-Bangladesh-Nepal-Bhutan relations, India’s moves for

greater integration and role in East and South-East Asian affairs

and trade and economic relations in the region. (While China is

seeking Observer status into SAARC, it is resisting the entry of

India into the East Asian Summit in a similar role)

 

The meltdown has been triggered and accelerated by the US-led

invasion and occupation of Iraq by White-Christian nations, the

utterly despicable treatment of Iraqi prisoners of war by the US and

its White allies in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo (which the Muslim

world perceives to be naked Christian aggression against the ummah),

consequent growing Islamic jihadi attacks around the world and the

growing resentment in the Muslim world against the West and the

continuing deaths of Iraqi civilians in a war that doesn’t seem to

end. The incumbent Saudi King and other Muslim nations of the

middle-east have to bear a considerable portion of direct blame for

the tragedy of Iraq which in reality is the tragedy of Islam and the

Muslims of the world.

 

Both Islam as a politico-religious ideology, and US state power

symbolizing Christianity and democracy, have been exposed as being

vulnerable to each others’ armies (national, terrorist, proxy and

mercenary) and also to be inherently violent in concept and in

practice. The Muslim world is waking up to the shameful truth that

Islam and Muslims have been reduced (with their willing consent and

participation) to becoming America’s agents to serve American

interests in Afghanistan, Jammu and Kashmir, Central Asia and in the

middle-east. The US has reduced Islam and its followers to becoming

the West’s minions.

 

This dilution/debasement of the Arab-Muslim identity started when

important ruling families of the Muslim nations in the region

married White women, and progressively worsened when Osama Bin Laden

and the Afghan Mujahideen allowed themselves to be used by the CIA

and Pakistan’s ISI (which had already been tamed, domesticated and

pacified by the CIA) to serve American interests in Afghanistan.

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan completed the debasement of Islam

when they invited the US and its White allies to wage war against

Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War and stood by and watched

Iraq die a slow and painful death during the 13 years of crippling

US forced UN sanctions against the people of Iraq. Saudi Arabia,

Kuwait and Jordan were guilty of seeking outside (read White

Christian) help to deal with an intra-Islam, intra-regional enemy

and they have to bear the greater share of the blame for the rise of

Jihadi Islam as a global terrorist force not the least because one

section of the Saudi royal family, the Sudeiri six, the six

half-brothers of King Abdallah and the full brothers of the late

King Fahd, has been directly responsible for setting up and funding

Islamic foundations which in turn have funded Jihadi terrorists not

only in the region but in other parts of the world, notably

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Indonesia and Thailand. The perception

that in the centuries-long cosmic war between Islam and Christianity

this particular battle has been won by Christianity has also

exacerbated the already inflamed jihadi elements within Islam who

hold Saudi Arabia’s ruling royal family to be the direct cause for

this humiliation.

 

Osama Bin Laden may be an anti-American Jihadi today but he was a

creature of American making and manipulation and like a chained and

abused animal that has managed to free itself, an enraged and maniac

Osama and his Jihadi loyalists have turned against their erstwhile

abusive master and anyone else coming in their way. Having been

bitten by an animal they thought they had domesticated and caged to

serve their interests, the Americans were forced to suffer the

reality of September 11; and post 9/11, the US and the White

Christian world have successfully demonized Islam as a terrorist

religion while White Christian America and its allies got to pretend

that they were the warriors against terrorism. Not unlike the way

the US had successfully demonized Communism while White Capitalist

America got away with the encomium of having destroyed a maniac

economic ideology and its ‘satanic’ state.

 

The Saudi King, if in the immediate, has to escape the wrath of

out-of-control jihadis and eventually put them back in their cages,

must not only reclaim for Islam its lost dignity and independence

but must be seen to distance himself personally, his nation and his

religion from the US to succeed in the mission. His visit to India,

China and Pakistan is an important step towards melting the existing

made-in-America world order. A similar idea is gaining ground in the

US too that it is America’s economic stakes in Saudi Arabia, arms

deals, oil deals and consultancies, worth tens of billons of

dollars, which are standing in the way of an all-out war against

Islam. American oil giants Unocal, Amerada Hess and Texaco are

partnering Saudi oil firms Delta Oil and Nimir Petroleum not only to

develop oil reserves in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan but are also part

of a group that will build a multi-billion dollar oil pipeline from

Azerbaijan to Turkey. The US also has joint stakes in the oil

refinery industry in America as half of Texaco’s refining and

marketing operations in the US is owned by Saudi Aramco; besides

these partnerships the US also has a 25 billion dollar project to

extract and sell Saudi Arabia’s natural gas.

 

But while the oil and natural gas industry may be central to

US-Saudi economic ties, it doesn’t end there. The US also has a

multi-billion dollar stake in the arms industry too. The US has till

now supplied the Saudis with F-15 fighter aircraft, M-1A2 Abrams

tanks, Apache attack helicopters, as well as the training that is

necessary to operate and maintain the US military hardware. Besides

this publicly disclosed defense and military cooperation, there is a

covert arms supply industry where a handful of politically connected

American arms manufacturers have buttressed the monarchy’s military

and internal security forces. According to the Congressional

Research service, a non-partisan adjunct to the Library of Congress,

in the last decade alone these ‘spook outfits’ have earned billions

of dollars supplying military hardware, training and managing all

branches of the Saudi armed forces. Given that America’s adventurism

in Iraq and its mission to Christianize/democratize the world has

plunged its economy into the doldrums, it may be easier for the

Saudi King to distance himself and his nation from the US than it

may be for the US to distance itself from Saudi Arabia.

 

The Saudi monarch’s visit to China is a major step in the process

of a calibrated weakening of US-Saudi economic and political ties.

Since 1995, China has emerged as the second largest oil market after

the US and is currently Saudi Arabia’s largest customer while

American import of Saudi oil has been falling since the invasion and

occupation of Iraq. In his State of the Union Address in January

2006, American President Bush called for a need to minimize

America’s dependence on oil from Saudi Arabia and the middle-east.

China and Saudi Arabia have also signed contracts not only for

China’s state oil company Sinopec to undertake oil exploration in

Saudi Arabia’s Empty Quarter but Saudi Arabia’s Aramco Overseas

Company has invested in the construction of a petrochemical complex

in China’s southeastern Fujian province. The Saudi monarch will also

be looking to China for future military supplies and cooperation.

 

China’s creeping influence and increasing presence in India’s

immediate neighborhood particularly in Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh

and Bhutan is cause for immense worry. Beijing is using its

military/missile/nuclear carrot in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal to

contain and encircle India. It is also beginning to make a foray

into Maldives and Sri Lanka. China’s objectives are clear. It wants

a uni-polar Asia with itself as the only regional power and a

multi-polar world with US, Russia China and Saudi Arabia as the four

poles in the emerging world order. The US on the other hand wants a

multi-polar Asia with India, China and Japan as an regional powers,

with Japan and India containing China and a uni-polar world with

itself as the lone super power.

 

The Saudi King has to reclaim Islam’s lost dignity and consolidate

the Islamic world into a unified force against the West. To do this

the Saudi King will have to do the following –

Bring about a reconciliation between the Shia and Sunni factions in

Iraq and deny the US an exit policy predicated upon the escalation

of sectarian Shia-Sunni conflict

 

To throw its considerable Sunni weight behind Shia Iran to effect a

larger Shia-Sunni reconciliation. In fact I am not at all sure that

it is not already happening which probably explains why Iran

continues to defy the US and the UNSC over its nuclear programme

 

Dry up all future funds for Jihad against India’s Hindus in order

to win India’s support and understanding for his mission to reclaim

Islam from the West and from the jihadi elements

 

Rein in Pakistan and its madarassas which had become factories for

bulk manufacture of jihadis and compel it to back off from fomenting

trouble in India through ISI operations through Nepal and Bangladesh

 

Regain control of the Jihadi elements within Islam, and put them

back in their cages.

 

The Saudi monarch is probably wakening to the truth that Islam has

not served the Hindus of India too well considering that India was

the only country which because its majority population is Hindu made

every refugee religion feel welcome on its soil. I can see no other

reason why he accepted to be India’s Guest of Honour. The US and

Saudi Arabia are falling apart and both nations are seeking to

re-shape international relations. Both of them are wooing India’s

Hindus for support in their mission even as China watches these

moves carefully. India’s Hindus must understand that neither the

US-led White Christian world nor the Saudi-led Muslim world will

ever accept Hindu India as friend. We are important only because we

constitute a determined one-sixth of the world’s total population

where the majority population is neither Christian nor Muslim. Our

determination to remain Hindus and keep this territory under Hindu

control frightens them.

 

China helped to make Pakistan a nuclear power with Saudi funding.

In turn, Pakistan deputed AQ Khan to enable Saudi Arabia, Iran and

Libya to have their own nuclear programme, which is quite possibly a

nuclear weapons programme. The China-Saudi-Pakistani link is

evident. Until very recently the US looked the other way as Pakistan

let loose its jihadis in J&K and in other parts of India. But Saudi

determination to weaken American economic and political hold in

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s continuing interference in Afghanistan,

its continuing support for the Taliban to re-group themselves,

Pakistan’s failure to close the jihadi breeding-ground madarassas

and Iran’s continuing defiance is probably forcing Bush to take a

new look at India’s Hindus, their own experience with Jiahd, and at

the root causes for separatism in J&K. Under these circumstances the

US would not want to be a party to creating a new Islamic state of

J&K and therefore its decision to back off from interfering in

India’s internal affairs. It is public knowledge that Bush pulled

Musharraf’s nose for not doing enough to crackdown on terrorists on

his soil and I am not at all sure that the Saudi monarch did not

pull Musharraf’s nose too for exporting Pakistani terrorists into

India. The West and the Muslim world are both in turmoil. Hindu

India has to just sit back and let events unfold to their advantage

as the new world order begins to emerge even as the old one is

visibly falling apart.

 

Radha Rajan, 13th March, 2006.

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