This is how the Saudis deal with bullies

Lilan Ahmad | Exclusive to iKurd.net

The fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as well as the United States’ current negotiations with Iran over its nuclear arms has revealed a lot about Saudi Arabia.

An oil rich country, whose personality resembles that of a spoiled wimpy child, has been going to great lengths to prepare for the worst from a U.S.-Iran deal.

Nuclear-wise:

Saudi Arabia has been busy embracing its new label as “the world’s largest arms importer,” and re-kindling friendships with nations near and far; except for Sweden, which has terminated its defense cooperation deal with Riyadh this month.

This past February, Saudi King Salman invited the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to Riyadh to organize their strategic partnership against Iran; discussing the development of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and most likely reminding PM Sharif of his indebtedness to the Saudi Kingdom. Pakistan is a key ally for Saudi Arabia because it is the only Muslim nuclear weapons state which has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world.

Saudi Arabia has been a huge financier of the development of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal since the 1970’s. In addition a year ago Saudi King Salman visited Islamabad when he was crown prince, and gave PM Sharif a $1.5 billion grant to maintain the Saudi-Pakistani strategic pact. It is now, with mounting tensions with an ambitious Iran on one side and a threatening ISIS on the other that Saudi has been running around reaffirming ties with key nations that can militarily support the kingdom against Iran when the time comes.

Whether Pakistan would ultimately fight Iran for the Saudi’s is rather unlikely since it shares a long border with the country, however because Pakistan owes so much to the Saudi Kingdom, they frankly don’t have much of a choice but to yield to the Saudis.

The Saudi’s saved PM Sharif from a military coup led by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999 and convinced the general to let Sharif take exile in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has always hand held Pakistan out of various economic crises by providing money and petrol at concessional rates, and has been a huge benefactor of Pakistan’s covert nuclear weapon programs.

Aside from Pakistan, just recently Saudi Arabia has reportedly signed a nuclear-cooperation deal with South Korea. Some say this is a retaliatory move by the Saudi’s against the United States for negotiating with the Iranians. Of course no one can blame the Saudi’s for doing so given that the regional security environment has worsened greatly and the U.S. has not been very convincing in their promise to “protect” its Arab allies.

Iran is steadily gaining domination and occupation of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon; they are cooperating closer everyday with the North Koreans and Venezuela; and they also overtly fund Islamic terrorism via groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

This is all stirring anxiety in the Saudi’s, and for that reason they are strengthening alliances with countries like Turkey and also strengthening the unity of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); pretty much tapping into anything they can get their hands on to confront Tehran in the long-term. In other words, the Saudi’s are trying to form a Sunni-bloc in the Middle East in response to Iran’s Shiite bloc; and the fact that Saudi Arabia is working to strengthen its nuclear arm in certain key-allied nations, brings up the fear of an ultimate nuclear arms war in the Middle East between Sunnis and Shiites.

Petrol-wise:

Already flexing their nuclear muscles, Saudi Arabia is also working on the petrol aspect of their foreign and domestic policy framework. Right now oil prices are low, and the only OPEC nation that can afford to maintain these oil prices without creating a deficit within their own national budget is Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh can survive in the current situation for a few years however nations like current OPEC President Nigeria, Venezuela, and Iran are suffering and counting on an emergency OPEC meeting before the general meeting in June. Saudi Arabia refuses to lower oil production because its motive is to maintain the low oil prices so as to pressure U.S. shale producers and nations that have been expanding oil production.

In the last three decades, OPEC’s share of the world’s oil market has gone from 50 to 30 percent which means it holds less clout over price fluctuations. If OPEC members cut oil production and allow shale oil production to increase, the OPECs share will most likely drop lower than 20 percent and thus OPEC will become entirely powerless in controlling the oil prices.

Saudi Arabia’s hand in all of this is to ensure control over the petrol market and future oil prices. Whether Saudi Arabia’s strategy works in their favor is unknown, but one thing for sure is that Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer in OPEC, does not intend to cut production or increase oil prices anytime soon.

This is just another huge way for Saudi Arabia to ensure control regionally and internationally, gain leverage over key countries, as well as “hurt” its biggest threat: Iran.

Lilan Ahmad, a Kurdish writer based in Iraqi Kurdistan. She is an occasional contributing writer for iKurd.net.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.