In the debate on Syria at the UN General Assembly last week, Bashar al-Jaafari, the Syrian representative, hit back at Arab Gulf states which have lined up against the Assad regime, accusing them of dishonest motives. To quote the Syrian government news agency's report of his speech ...

"Al-Jaafari added that some of the countries that adopted the draft, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, cannot be considered as examples of democracy and respecting human rights, as these countries are governed by oligarchic, tyrannical regimes that don't hesitate to suppress their people and murder protesters, adding that the state of human rights and basic liberties in them is considered among the worst in the world according to documented reports by human rights organisations and opposition sources abroad."

Bearing in mind that Jaafari was himself speaking on behalf of an oligarchical, tyrannical regime – and one that has committed atrocities on a far greater scale that the regimes that he named – he did nevertheless make a valid point. 

The Arab Gulf states' hostility towards Assad is not based on a principled stance against dictatorship, and this creates an opening that the Assad regime can – and probably will – exploit. 

Last year, just as the Syrian uprising was getting under way, Saudi Arabia sent its troops into Bahrain to protect the monarchy there against the rebellious Shia who form a majority of the population. Saudi Arabia also played a key role in stifling the Yemeni revolution.

As far as Syria is concerned, the Saudi regime clearly hopes that Assad's fall will weaken the regional influence of his ally, Iran – since it views Shia Iran as both a military and a religious threat. Part of this relates to fears about the kingdom's own marginalised and disaffected Shia minority. 

In the words of Leila Nachawati, a Spanish-Syrian professor and activist:

"Riyadh supports the Free Syrian Army by portraying it as part of a religious struggle between the Sunni faith and the allegedly anti-religious Assad regime. 

"At the same time, the Saudi regime is fearful of the Syrian revolution being framed as a liberation movement – a sentiment that could spread to Saudi Arabia, where the legitimacy of the ruling monarchy is increasingly being questioned. 

"The most profitable scenario, therefore seems to be a military struggle in which neither the regime nor the Free Syrian Army succeed – a struggle that would wear Syrians out and weaken the country as a whole."

This, of course, plays directly into the hands of the Assad regime which persistently denies the authenticity of the Syrian uprising and instead seeks to blame everything on meddling by foreign powers.

At the same time, the Assad regime can also point to an uprising (of sorts) in Saudi Arabia which the kingdom similarly blames on a foreign power – in this case Iran. Shia disturbances in the kingdom's eastern province have been rumbling on for months, though on a much smaller scale than what is happening in Syria. Even so, there is a possibility they will escalate, and last week two more people were killed. 

Reuters reports:

A Saudi soldier was shot dead patrolling an area populated by minority Shi'ite Muslims late on Friday, the Interior Ministry said, and one of the gunmen was killed in the ensuing shoot-out.

The deaths bring to 11 the number of people killed in the Qatif area since November in protests by members of Saudi Arabia's Shi'ite minority over what they see as entrenched discrimination.

"A security patrol was exposed to heavy fire from four armed rioters on motorbikes when pausing at a street intersection in Qatif," state news agency SPA reported, quoting Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour Turki.

Turki said the gunmen had been arrested after an exchange of fire in which one of them was killed, and said another man suffering a bullet injury had been arrested at the hospital.

In an article for the Washington Post today, David Ignatius reports that Saudi Arabia has installed "what looks like a war cabinet" aimed in part at dealing with "growing internal dissent from its Shiite minority". Ignatius writes:

"The Saudis haven’t been able to stop the insurgency in al-Qatif; indeed, it appears to be worsening. The protesters may hope to provoke the Saudis into a bloody crackdown, which would leave scores dead and encourage much wider demonstrations and international outcry. 

"So far, the Saudis have avoided such an escalation through relatively restrained tactics. Saudi reformers argue that the best way to quell Shiite protests is to give them the full economic and political rights of citizenship."

This leads to an intriguing question. If the disturbances in Saudi Arabia did eventually turn into a full-blown insurrection, would other countries support the rebels as they have done in Syria?

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 6 August 2012