The greatest peril comes not from a lack of analysis but from a lack of imagination.”
– Sir William Patey, British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (2007-10)

Is Saudi Arabia a kingdom in peril? This was the key question under discussion at a packed event held at the Frontline Club on Monday 27 April. Following the accession of King Salman and the ongoing conflict in Yemen, a panel, chaired by journalist Owen Bennett-Jones, discussed the potential destabilisation of the regime and the possibility for change within the country.

Robert Lacey, an author who has covered Saudi Arabia for almost 40 years, said that although talk of its imminent demise and the collapse of the House of Saud had been repeatedly anticipated, these predictions failed to take into account “the Saudis very sophisticated system” that operates extremely effectively within the country.

Carool Kersten, senior lecturer in the study of Islam and the Muslim world at King’s College London, agreed that while in the past the Saudi states have been threatened, the dynasty has always demonstrated an “elasticity” which has “enabled it to bounce back.”

For former ambassador to Saudi Arabia Sir William Patey (2007-10), it boiled down to a question of external perception versus a very different internal reality.

“From Whitehall it was almost a dialectical argument, that [Saudi Arabia] would collapse under its own internal contradictions. But Saudi Arabia is different [from regimes and systems like the Soviet Union]; namely that it is run by the Al Saud who have survival in their DNA. It’s a very cautious, a very slow moving system operating by consensus. But the times when they move quickly are when they are in peril.”

From dealing with the threat of Nasserism in the 1960s to the assassination of King Faisal and the siege of the Grand Mosque in the 1980s, which saw the regime develop a more Islamist approach, the Al Sauds have “a history of doing just enough, just in time,” said Kersten.

On whether there was the potential for regime change in the kingdom, Patey described his experience of the Iranian revolution. From a diplomatic view, the failure to anticipate the overthrow of the Shah “was not a failure of analysis but rather a failure of imagination. We failed to imagine what the Middle East would be like without him.”

In relation to the current context, Patey offered a note of caution: “just because we don’t like the look of the Middle East (and especially the Gulf) without the Al Saud, let us not close off our imagination to the possibility.”

Safa Al Ahmad, a Saudi freelance journalist, said that it is not a question of collapse but a question of peril. Saudi Arabia is entering a new phase of existence and will need to deal with the changing geopolitical and regional realities.

“Saudi Arabia at the moment is too big to fail,” said Kersten. “This is even the view of the population who have too much to lose to really rise up. I think the Al Saud are masters, and have been for 250 years, of playing to this fear and doing the right thing just in time.”

This is represented not only in the often contradictory suppression of opposition and internal dissent – be it of the Shia minority, liberals or online activists (Saudi Arabia has the highest number of Twitter users per capita in the world) – but also through the co-opting of Saudi citizens by the government who play on the turmoil of the Arab spring, which has seen Saudis less willing to take a risk with regime change.

For Kersten, the difference with many of the surrounding countries is that Saudi Arabia is not ruled by a single dictator but by “a dynasty with 3000 potential pretenders to the throne.”

“The country’s not called Saudi Arabia for nothing. It’s a Saudi State, there is no Saudi nation – rather five countries with regional and ethnic differences internally. The Al Saud have capitalised on that to present themselves as the only people who could hold it together.”

On the question of where and how change could originate, the panel were divided. Kersten suggested that it could come from the economic elite who have the means and influence but cannot develop under the Al Saud as they would in other countries, while Al Ahmad reasserted that “the worst case scenario is to have that change come from the outside.”

Citing post-Gaddafi Libya, Al Ahmad said that within Saudi Arabia “everybody wants reform but not to the extent of removing the royal family… the idea of the House of Saud not being there is the scariest option of all.”

For Patey there is no single thing that would bring Saudi Arabia down, but rather a combination of factors.

“There would have to be a perfect storm. A threat from political Islam, a regional crisis, and economic crisis, crucially a division within the Al Saud… all of those things could potentially produce Saudi Arabia in peril, but any one of them on their own is not enough.”

“This started before Maliki and will go on long after Maliki.”
– Hayder al-Khoei

From left: Zuhair al-Naher, Dominic Asquith, Hayder al-Khoei, Ian Black and Zaid Al-Ali (via Skype).

Opening the panel discussion on recent developments in Iraq held at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 24 June, Ian Black, Middle East editor for The Guardian, asked why the international community and the government in Baghdad had been taken by surprise by the current crisis.

In introducing the panel, Black stressed the need to look at “Iraq itself, the nature of what is going on, the role and significance of ISIS (and whether it should indeed be called that), the sectarian element of the crisis, the legacy of the invasion of 2003, Iran, the US and our [the UK’s] own role in the current situation.”

Hayder al-Khoei, associate fellow at the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, began by analysing the potential for the crisis to quickly descend “within the next few weeks or even days” into an open Sunni–Shia conflict.

Citing widespread support from local civilians as well as other Sunni militias, al-Khoei stressed that for the most powerful of these insurgent groups their advance had “absolutely nothing to do with winning more rights for the Sunni Arab community . . . or even defending the Sunni Arabs in Iraq despite that being their narrative”.

“It’s much bigger than that. . . . It’s about overthrowing the Iraq government regardless of whether Maliki is prime minister.”

Arguing that while some have chosen to read the rise of ISIS as a direct result of the Iraq invasion, al-Khoei spoke of “a real sense [from talking to people throughout the country] that the jihadist groups and insurgents in Iraq have refused to acknowledge the post-2003 political order” where Shias hold the balance of power.

While acknowledging that Maliki had made mistakes, Zuhair al-Naher, spokesman for the Iraqi prime minster, corroborated this by suggesting that many Sunni politicians “cannot yet understand, or come to terms with the reality that they are a minority”.

While all on the panel agreed that secularism does have a role to play within Iraq, there was also a consensus that this is not yet, at least, a sectarian war. Al-Naher rejected the assertion, propagated in the media and through ISIS, that the Sunnis have been “repressed, downtrodden and marginalised”, citing the positions of power occupied by Sunnis in the military and government and claiming that this was a deliberate attempt by ISIS to define the parameters of the conflict. Most notably al-Khoei cited the objectives of the insurgent groups differing between the ultimate goal of an Islamic Caliphate, as envisioned by ISIS, and the return to a form of pre-2003 secular dictatorship of the Baathists.

https://twitter.com/nicolaannettek/status/481794885448904704
Zaid Al-Ali, a former legal advisor to the UN in Iraq, disagreed that the solution to Sunni unrest was increased “inclusivity in government” – but rather the need to tackle the problems of random arrest and torture faced by ordinary citizens.

Dominic Asquith, British ambassador to Iraq 2006–07, suggested that while insurgents such as ISIS – operating outside centralised urban control command centres – have been ever-present since 2003, the origins of Sunni extremism lay in the lack of any “unifying vision for Iraq”.

“Iraq’s leaders have never combined for something . . . but they have at times taken a united stand against something . . . and it looks as though there is a real risk we will go back to rebuilding a house of cards again.”

Asquith went on to name a potential three-part solution to the current problem. First was to contain ISIS, second was to install a new leadership in Baghdad – one that rejected sectarianism and perhaps embraced de-centralisation – and third was to change the narrative (including the relationship between Iran and the US towards Iraq) of aggressor and victim.

Touching on points by both Asquith and al-Naher, al-Ali agreed that while the responsibility for the crisis was not solely Maliki’s, his eight-year leadership of Iraq meant that there was a need for “a new leader to try their hand”.

Returning to an emerging sectarianism, al-Koehi said:

“Sometimes we over analyse and over read Shia–Sunni conflicts and whether there are regionally backed coup attempts or bribes or a variety of other conspiracy theories. But I genuinely believe sometimes the simplest explanation is the best and, as Zaid [al-Ali] mentioned, this is incompetence.”

To this, Asquith added:

“If you amass the various incompetent decisions taken early on after 2003, we are seeing the effect of those now in terms of creating a confessional system. There was confessionalism instituted right at the outset, there was in retrospect an utterly disastrous de-Baathification process which helped create that distrust between communities and there was a reliance on exiles who didn’t really understand [Iraq]”.

Agreeing that the ultimate aim of ISIS was to provoke an all-out sectarian conflict, the panel concluded by discussing the means by which this might be achieved.

Referencing the ‘hearts and minds campaign’ that ISIS have embarked on and which has emerged from various media outlets, al-Khoei qualified the group’s apparent attempt to moderate themselves as “not coming anywhere near being moderate – it just means they are slightly less extreme”.

For Zaid al-Ali, “it may be that ISIS have been trying to put on a more humanitarian face but they cannot succeed because they are pathologically wired to destroy, kill and terrorise”.

Catch up with the full event here:

Iraq is on the brink following the takeover of Mosul and other cities by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Leaders from across the region and internationally are now faced with the challenge of how to halt the advancement of ISIS and steer the region away from sectarian conflict.

With a panel of experts we will take a view of events on the ground and the measures being taken by Iraq, its neighbours and the international community. Asking how ISIS has been able advance so quickly and what can be done to prevent further escalation of sectarian polarisation. We will also be looking at the new alliances that might be formed in this new front on the fight against extremism.

Chaired by Ian Black, The Guardian‘s Middle East editor.

The panel:

Hayder al-Khoei, associate fellow at the Middle East and North Africa programme, Chatham House.

Zuhair al-Naher, a spokesman for Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party.

Dominic Asquith, has 30 years of Middle East experience earned in the British Diplomatic Service. He was deputy special representative and then deputy head of mission in Iraq in 2004, director of the Iraq Directorate at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2004–06 and Ambassador to Iraq 2006–7.

Zaid Al-Ali (via Skype), is a senior adviser on constitutional building for International IDEA and author of The Struggle for Iraq’s Future: How Corruption, Incompetence and Sectarianism Have Undermined Democracy. He was a legal adviser to the United Nations in Iraq from 2005 to 2010.

CBS News’ Elizabeth Palmer led an expert discussion at the Frontline Club on 11 September regarding the latest crush of violence in Iraq.

The panel painted a portrait of a country desperately in need of peace, independence, rule of law, reconciliation with its traumatic past, and unity amidst hardening divisions along ethnic, class, and religious lines.  Yet none of these needs are being met.

Professor Charles Tripp lamented Iraqis’ inability to trust their government, with a:

"Parliament that sat for 20 minutes in the whole of the year 2010 after being elected … a judiciary which seems to be completely in the pocket of the executive power, and of course a police that you have to be very wary of calling."

Tripp expressed sadness at a "hatred of the state" that he perceived fueling many Sunni and Shi’a attacks.

"The blowing up of people who are looking for employment … of a large number of people standing outside army recruiting or police recruiting. These are people who are just like [their killers] in some senses, these are, you know, sad people who are looking, desperate for employment."

Kamran Karadaghi, distinguished Kurdish Iraqi journalist, downplayed recent attacks as anything out of the ordinary.  

"This was something that was meant to happen," he said.  "There is always from time to time a wave of violence in Iraq …  Iraqi people are very violent.  Killing, getting rid of others, is something which sometimes is like a normal thing."

Different factions who make up the government, The Independents‘ Patrick Cockburn added:

"Sunnis, Shi’a, Kurds … none of these people like each other … [but] they all have quite a lot to lose if the present system collapses.  So despite the very high levels of violence … in a way it has a sort of grisly stability." 

Karadaghi agreed.

"Being an oil economy … everybody in Iraq wants to be a part of it.  So this is why, despite … all the animosities … nobody actually left the government.  They are all still in the government. This kind of arrangement will continue."

On one topic, however, the panel found optimism, Kurdish independence.  

Karadaghi, as well as Tom Hardie-Forsyth, a senior adviser to the Prime Minister’s office, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Northern Iraq, both touted the transparency and success of recent Kurdish oil contracts, a more stable and prosperous way of life in the region, and a stronger sense of unity and purpose among Kurds.  

"They are the largest disenfranchised nation in the world.  They deserve [independence]," Hardie-Forsyth said.

But are they ready for it?  

Karadaghi smiled:  "Not yet, but like Andy Murray said, getting closer."

As the violence in Syria spreads to the capital Damascus and the latest reports confirm the deaths of top government ministers, it is certain that the revolution there is entering a new phase. Many analysts believe that it is not now a question of “if” the Syrian regime collapses from within, but “when".

A conversation with Samar Yazbek, a Syrian journalist and writer, therefore couldn’t have been more timely. She is an opposition activists and human rights defenders, she is also a member of the minority Alawite community, which is probably the only thing in common she has with the President Bashar Al Assad. When describing the ruling family, Yazbek certainly did not mince her words.

Bashar Al Assad and his family have always seen Syrian citizens as slaves. He was never chosen by the people to be the president. He is ready to destroy Syria, he will completely divide it up, turn it into ruins before letting go of power,” she said.

The regime in Syria is a family that has been building alliances for 40 years. Bashar Al Assad is a front for this mafia alliance of families who are basically criminals.”

Yazbek also gives a nuanced analysis how, throughout the decades, the Assad and a cluster of several other families – both Alawite and some Sunni – have turned Syria into, what she calls, “an explosive society.”

The Syrian secret service have the upper hand in the Syrian society, that’s how it’s been carefully created for 40 years. The Assads eliminated all the fellow officers who had helped them in the 1970s coup. Those were the origins of, what I call, explosive society.

They worked on undermining of the social context of the Alawite sect. Little by little they made the Alawite sect synonymous with the totalitarian regime, they made sure its survival depended on the regime.

They also enhanced the divisions between various tribes, giving them control over different sectors within the secret service, which has always been recruited mainly from the coastal, Alawite regions, but not exclusively. The Assad regime built strong alliances with the wealthy merchant class from the Sunni community.

He also undermined the rule of the national army, despite the propaganda you hear. The secret service controls them too.”

Yazbek says that this clever social engineering brought a lot of resentment from large parts of the Syrian society, which had started to simmer long before the first protesters, emboldened by the events in Tunisia and Egypt, took to streets demanding change. However, in the early months of the revolution, the overthrowing of the ruling family was not yet on the agenda:

"In the first four months of the revolution the people demanded change – reform – but not the overthrow of the regime. They did not want the division along the sectarian lines, they did not want the country to be run by Alawites or Sunnis alone.

The regime at the time accused all of the protestors of being armed gangs. But I was there, all protests were peaceful. I remember once I was standing next to someone who was shot by a government sniper from a nearby building. I can tell you now – if these people had been armed, I never would have supported this revolution. The armed forces were the security forces of Bashar Al Assad.”

More recently there have been accusation by the generally supportive Western media that the Syrian opposition are conducting massacres of their own people to push for a Libya-style intervention, which Yazbek categorically denies.