Jamal Khashoggi
By Jamal Khashoggi
You are either with us, or against us!’ It is good phrase, and fits the current situation of this region. Any Saudi could use it in this current situation of facing existential conflict.
The problem with this slogan is that George W Bush used it following the attacks of 9/11 and it became attributed to him, but he was not the first to use it. He delivered his historical speech at the Congress to mobilise his people to retaliate against Bin Laden or political Islam or even the faith of Islam.Bush was addressing the entire world when he said “You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists”.
It was difficult for the world to accept these narrow options, and accordingly US relation with France became strained. Their view was correct because Bush had committed many atrocities. He was responsible for many disasters including the economic crisis in US and the entire world, the invasion of Iraq and the consequent proliferation of terrorist movements in the Middle East including ISIS/ Daesh.
However, Bush’s mistakes do not remove the merits of the slogan at this time of fateful confrontations as is currently happening in this region.
There is now a major confrontation between Iranian sectarian project and the free nations. It is not a conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia or Sunni and Shia. It is a conflict between freedom of choice and submission to the power of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (GIJ). Of course there is no consensus on this opinion as many of Saudi’s alliances are not convinced with this view, they are with Saudi against Iran but not against projects which they don’t see.
This is not a border conflict or conflict over an oil or gas field, or even a power struggle. What is the meaning of Saudi’s influence in Yemen or Iran’s in Syria? In politics there is no “influence” worthy of death but Iranians are ready to kill and be killed in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and if allowed they would have done the same in Yemen.
They are doing this because they have “expansionist plans” and it is time to convince our alliance that this is the case. What happened in the Saudi Embassy was not a simple assault that can be amended, but it was an incident that ended a bad relationship, and revealed Saudi’s latent anger about Iran’s aggressive policy.
Riyadh’s move to establish an Islamic military alliance aims to work against Iran’s “expansionism plan” and this needs the support of the entire Muslim World. Saudis did not say: ‘You are either with us, or against us’, but they need to know who supports them and who does not, because major fateful battles have no grey area. Saudis want to make it clear that “the game is over” and this is what the Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir did in his press conferences and statements.
I would like to quote Al Jubeir and the former minister- the late Saud Al Faisal, saying “Saudi Arabia will not allow Iran to have a foothold in any of the Arab countries, especially in neighbouring countries, whether it is in the form of a loyal political party or government, armed militia or established military base, but it will accept normal friendly relations to support development projects as any civilised governments would”.
I am confident that all Arab countries are convinced about this issue, and they need to support Saudi’s stance, because it is fighting on behalf of them. Countries like Turkey, Egypt and Jordan are affected like Saudis by the Syrian crisis, and so they need Saudi’s help.
Our surrounding friends may say there is no need for sectarian war, but it is too late, because we have been pushed into that by Iran. Iran does not use sectarian discourses but fights and takes political actions with a sectarian aim. Look at the map and with whom Iran is fighting in Syria. It is against the people, and the same thing in Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon.
Iran does not support those who do not belong to its sect, or those fighting for freedom or democracy, but only sectarian purposes, for which it can commit genocide in Zabadani, or keep under siege more than 40,000 people in Madaya, Syria.
It is in Iran’s true interests to have good relations with its neighbours with “zero problems”, and to avoid narrow nationalistic thoughts. Today’s conflict is not between Sunni and Shia but it is between Sunni fundamentalists and Shia fundamentalists.Saudi suffers from these two types of fundamentalisms and the execution of 47 terrorists on January 2 was part of this.
We are experiencing a situation similar to Europe in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland and Europeans decided to resist in order to remain free. At that time not all Europeans supported Britain or France but there were not many choices left for them, except whether to be with fascism or freedom.
The Muslim world today is facing a similar situation- either to submit to the Guardianship of Islamic Jurists or defend freedom.
Jamal Khashoggi is a Saudi Arabian journalist, columnist, and author, and the General Manager and Editor-in-Chief of Al Arab News Channel.
