MIDDLE EAST
Ancient indifferences are reshaping the Middle East and forging unlikely new alliances
GEOPOLITICAL statements come no more obscure than one given earlier this week by an Israeli news site.
A member of the Saudi Arabian royal family had reportedly told the broadcaster Kan that, in his view, Iran had started the Gaza war by instructing its proxy group Hamas to attack Israel on October 7.
Tehran’s attention, according to this nameless royal, was to thwart the imminent normalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Saudis.
This is so important because it symbolises the extraordinary transformation under way in the politics of the Middle East. For a Saudi royal to express such a view – that a Muslim country instigated the conflict for the purpose of spreading discord – would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. But that’s not the only way in which the winds of change are resettling alliances in this volatile region.
Five days ago, the ayatollahs of Iran inflicted their first direct attack on Israel since they came to power in 1979.
For some 45 years, the Islamic Republic has plotted the destruction of what its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calls “the evil Zionist regime”. But it has left the actual attacks to its proxies, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
This fresh assault did almost no damage, thanks to the defensive coalition that shot down almost all of the weapons directed at Israel.
The US and UK played a role in this. But they were joined by two other countries for whom defending the Jewish state would have been fanciful until recently: Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
For most of the time Israel has existed, Saudi, as one of the leading Muslim nations and home to the holy city of Mecca, has been its implacable foe. But now it is on the verge not just of tolerating Israel but becoming an ally.
Similarly, back in 1967, Jordan actually invaded Israel – a disastrous move which lost it the territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Yet now Jordan, too, has stood alongside Israel to protect it from Iranian bombs. This newfound cooperative spirit continues apace: it has emerged that both the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates had passed helpful intelligence to America to use in Israel’s defence, with Jordan further agreeing to let the US and “other countries’ warplanes” use its airspace, as well as sending up its own jets. The rise of Iran – and its chilling proximity to a nuclear weapon – has driven old foes closer.
Iran now dominates a vast region from its borders with Iraq, through Syria and Lebanon, to the Mediterranean. Through its Yemeni proxies, the Houthis, and its own navy, it is causing chaos and major disruption in the key Red Sea trade route.
And it has turned the Palestinian cause into a strategic vehicle for its own ambitions through two other proxies, Hamas (Gaza) and Hezbollah (Lebanon). This chaotic and meddlesome statecraft has appalled other Muslim countries.
The story of the Middle East used to be “Israel versus everyone else”. However, that is no longer true. To understand how all this has come about, you need to go back to the very roots of Islam – and the schism within it. In 610AD, Mohammed unveiled a new faith. By the time he died in 632AD, he and Islam were all-powerful in Arabia, and within a century it had subjugated an empire stretching from Central Asia to Spain.
But as history teaches us, Islam was split over who should succeed the Prophet. One faction argued the leadership should be passed through his bloodline. They became known as Shias, from shi’atu Ali, Arabic for “partisans of Ali”, who was Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law.
The others, the Sunnis (followers of the sunna, or “way” in Arabic) said leadership should be determined on merit.
Ali was elected as “caliph” (spiritual leader) in 656AD but within five years was assassinated, enshrining an enduring split.
Fast forward to 2024, and about 85 per cent of the world’s 1.6billion Muslims are Sunni, while 15 per cent are Shia.
Two countries now vie for the leadership of Islam, Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran. Since the mullahs seized power in Tehran 45 years ago, the divisions and mutual hatreds have only grown.
As a minority within Islam, the Shiites have historically been treated as subordinate in Sunni-dominated countries. But there has been a significant growth of the Shiite population in Gulf nations. This has increased anxiety among Sunni rulers over the growing power of Shia Iran.
In Gulf states such as the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and especially Saudi Arabia, the Shia threat – in other words the threat from Iran – is seen as existential.
Egypt, too, which has had a peace treaty with Israel since 1979, is also an arch enemy of the mullahs. In Israel’s 2006 Lebanon war with Hezbollah, Sunni countries were, behind the scenes, willing Israel to triumph, just as it is said now that Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia want Israel to destroy Hamas in Gaza.
The rapprochement of some Sunni countries was embodied in the 2020 Abraham Accords which normalised relations between the UAE, Bahrain, and Israel, and later Morocco and Sudan.
There is logic, then, to the deepening alliances between Sunni states and Israel. The Arab nations understand that while Israel has no ambitions to dominate its neighbours, Iran seeks to control all of the Middle East.
What’s indisputable is that if you don’t understand this split and history, you can’t understand the Middle East at all.