Gains for Saudi Arabia and Qatar in Syria

The world is full of mysteries, and every move a person takes cannot be revealed to others. In the case of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, however, it is clearly known in the public arena that they have been heavily funding and arming Syria's opposition since the commencement of the civil conflict. The opposition in Syria is a Salafi extremist party with ideals akin to Wahhabism in the Gulf States. With Sharia as the law, the opposition embraces the extreme side of intolerance in political Islam.  Since the start of the protests against the Assad regime in March 2011, the response of the international community to the crisis facing Syria has been characterized by disunity. Having this kind of collective vacuum has just led to the role of regional actors, specifically Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who have been very active with the support of every other member of GCC countries. After failing to diffuse the crisis by leading with Assad directly, both countries have resorted to supporting the Syrian opposition too much, while requiring that Assad steps down. This is not a surprise to many as Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been having several wishes and reasons to have Assad gone (Rogin, 2014).

Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are Monarchies

The call by ISIS to overthrow all the governments in the region and have them in their state have been seen as a threat, especially by monarchies. It is no doubt that Qatar and Saudi Arabia would be the most countries under the watch of ISIS (Ulrichsen, 2012). History puts it down that most gulf countries made big steps and efforts in defeating Saddam Hussein in the second gulf war. The main reason was because he occupied Kuwait, another monarchy in the region. This meant that the next monarchies under his target would be Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Generally, it is the top priority for the gulf monarch rulers such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar to ensure that there is no threat to their crowns (Dickinson, 2014). They would eliminate the threats as much as possible. This was the reason why the participated in the 2nd gulf war and proceeded to ban the Muslim Brotherhood group. The group aims at establishing a democratic-Islamic government in the Middle East and that is one reason that they fight ISIS.

Big Blow to Iran

Qatar and Saudi Arabia sees Iran as one of their biggest competitor regionally. In the event that the Alawite regime falls, it will be a big blow to Iran. Syria is the main ally of Iran and by losing the main ally in the Arab Middle East, the two countries (Qatar and Saudi Arabia) will have ensured that Iran is reduced to its natural size. This effectively will end up in shifting the regional balance of power.

Internal Benefits

Through supporting the opposition, both the countries benefit internally. The benefit is that they will stop carrying the tag and internal criticism of regimes that are known to be reactionary and unwilling to embrace the Arab Spring. In fact, both countries fear that having any continued internal violence and instability in Syria can lead to very adverse regional consequences. For instance, having a continuous influx of refugees from Syria can lead to trouble of the Kingdom’s main regional friend, Jordan (Ulrichsen, 2012).

Availability of Resources

Qatar and Saudi Arabia have so many resources and have been willing and able to play the leading regional role against Assad. They have the enough financial muscle to support the war against the current regime in Syria. Additionally, the other traditional leaders in the region such as Egypt have demised. Therefore, by the two countries participating on the front for this war, they bolster their position in the region.

Aspect of Shite Enemy

The two countries have been sending weapons to Syrian opposition on an ad hoc basis using the Sunni tribal allies that are in Iraq and Lebanon. In fact, it has been known that instead of countries such Saudi Arabia advocating for more of humanitarian aid, they instead push for arming the Syrian rebels. For the two countries, supporting the Syrian opposition is a way through which the stability and peace are allowed in the country and that they are free to choose their leaders. Lately, the Saudi clerics have been advocating openly calling for jihad in Syria and mocking those who are still waiting for any form of help from the Western countries. The other Sunni Gulf States such as Qatar is contributing weapons. The leadership in Qatari have been advocating for the supply of weapons to the Syrian opposition in the view that the opposition is protecting themselves. However, apart from these two countries, the position of the other regional actors has been unclear. However, whether or not there is a supply of weapons to the Free Syrian Army-the armed opposition made up of defectors and local militia are all Sunni states that are looking forward to seeing the Assad regime crumble given that it is an ally and proxy of their sworn Shiite enemy, Iran. Iran has played a critical role in destabilizing the region through terrorism and nuclear threats.

Deprivation of Russia’s Toehold

One of the reasons why Saudis are supporting the Syrian opposition is to deprive the Russians the toehold that they have in Middle Eastern. This will be a plus for them. Russia and Saudi Arabia are known to be long-time enemies. In the 1970s, the Saudis used their enormous oil wealth to inflict pain on the Soviets in every other instance that they could. The Saudis also fought the communist governments and the political movements using more financial resources that were channeled to military aids in countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, North Yemen and Sudan. The funding by the Saudi was largely significant in supporting the various anti-Soviet operations and alliances in Angola, Chad, Eritrea, and Somalia. However, the Saudis were not just countering communism but rather, they saw it quite important to fuel a generation of zealous Islamist fighters who later ended up causing major problems in other areas. The Islamists were very helpful to the Saudis after the Afghanistan invasion by the Soviet in 1979. Deriving their inspiration from the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam and armed with Saudi funds and weapons, the Arab mujahideen fought in Afghanistan in numbers of approximately 250,000.

After fighting for a decade, the Soviets lost so much that they ended up withdrawing the Red Army and the government that they had put in place fell just after that. Interestingly, much changed later. The Saudis do not need to fight communism anymore. The new Russians are known to have no ideology and are mainly pushed by certain political interests. The strategy of Russia has changed. It mainly targets to make money and gain more influence through the sale of arms, military hardware, and technology to Iran and Syria. Offering arms to a rogue regime may appear as something so reckless, it remains to be Russia’s last opportunity to affirm influence in a region where since the end of Cold War, every other country has preferred the United States for arms.

For a long time, Tartus has been the basis for the Russian-Syrian naval cooperation. In the last decade, the Russians have tried so much to improve and invest in the main Mediterranean toehold. In recent times, the Russian and Iranian government has been supporting the Assad regime. Arms have been sent to Assad through the Tartus port. A large number of weapons have been sent to Assad through the port and this has been used as a means of continually attacking the anti-regime protesters.

Conclusion

From the discussions, it is evident that Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been leading the Anti-Assad efforts. This has resulted in a number of problems for the Syrian government. First, Syria has been expelled from the Arab League. Also, the diplomatic staff of the GCC countries has been withdrawn from Damascus (Hokayem, 2014). When in meetings such as that of “Friends of Syria” there has been an open indication of supporting the opposition in Syria. For instance, Qatar has been advocating for peacekeeping led by Arab league while Saudi Arabia has been advocating for arming the opposition. In fact, Saudis have protested by showing inaction in solidarity with the withdrawal of the international community while Qatar has approved the funding of USD 100 million to help in the acquisition of weapons for the Syrian opposition. The zeal that the Saudis and Qatar have shown in supporting the opposition in Syria is only an indicator that they have some specific interests in Syria.

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References

Dickinson, E. (2014). The case against Qatar. Foreign Policy, 30.

Hokayem, E. (2014). Iran, the Gulf States and the Syrian Civil War. Adelphi Papers, 54(447-448), 39-70.

Rogin, J. (2014). America's allies are funding ISIS. The Daily Beast, 14.

Ulrichsen, K. C. (2012). Small states with a big role: Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in the wake of the Arab Spring.