Brian M Downing
The House of Saud has not sent ground troops into Syria. Its contribution to the air war against ISIL is minimal. Nonetheless, it has placed great amounts of money and prestige on the line, and the venture is nearing failure. Rebel troops have been driven from Aleppo and by spring may be driven from neighboring Idlib, leaving them with no major city to claim. The war in Yemen is faring only somewhat better but becoming a human rights embarrassment that is causing concern in the US and Britain.
The situation comes as the Saudi princes face domestic troubles: reformist pressure, ISIL attacks, Shia discontent, and a potentially contested secession from an aging clique to a younger one. Foreign policy successes will confer prestige that will ease these troubles. Failure will worsen them. Riyadh faces a dilemma: to increase support for rebel groups or work for a settlement, under Russian leadership, and make do with that.
Continue the war
The Saudis can continue supporting the rebels at present levels or higher ones. Supplying the rebels, however, will be more difficult now that the Turkish border is less porous than in previous years. Which rebel groups to support?
One of the rebel forces, the Free Syrian Army which was once a western-backed force, is now aligned with Turkey and amenable to Russian diplomacy, including a ceasefire with Syrian forces. Other groups such as Ahrar al Sham and the al Nusrah Front still field armies and control territory, but their fighting spirit is unclear. The Aleppo defeat and the absence of air defense weapons made many rebels doubt their foreign support and the point of continuing the fight.
Conversely, the brutality of the Syrian-Russian attack on civilians and fighters alike in Aleppo has increased already high sectarian passions. Over the years the plight of fellow Muslims has brought an influx of money and volunteers to Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, and Iraq. Syrian rebels may benefit.
Saudi Arabia can try to divert fighters away from fighting the Assad government and toward creating a Sunni statelet in areas along the Turkish border and especially in eastern Syria. The latter area is especially promising as it is likely beyond Damascus’s reach. It’s also contiguous to the Sunni region of Iraq which wants autonomy if not independence from the Shia government in Baghdad.
Saudi money may help convince thousands of ISIL fighters that a new caliphate is beyond their reach, but a Saudi protectorate straddling the lines Sykes and Picot once drew is possible. The protectorate will be supported by many regional powers and weary jihadis may find rewards in this world preferable to those in paradise.
Reduce support
The Saudis could decide that the war is unwinnable and a drain on their revenue. Oil revenue is down over the last two years and expected to remain well below the $100/bbl level for many years. Saudi money is already widely disbursed in the Islamic world, especially holding up Egypt and Pakistan and fighting the Houthis in Yemen.
Winding down the war, in the absence of substantive gains, will present problems. Saudi Arabia, and many other countries in the Islamic world, oppose democracy and seek to garner legitimacy through militarism. The Saudis once made great shows of its pilots in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. With the luster of military success fading fast, the Kingdom’s subjects may question the competence of their aging oligarchs and the middle-aged sons granted the privileges of government. The questions will be strong among secular reformers who want political power and also among pious traditionalists who see their fellow Muslims killed by the thousands then abandoned in Syria.
Rapprochement and partnership with Russia?
Saudi Arabia and Russia once had promising ties, including arms sales and opposition to democracy. Closer relations were stopped, or put on hold, when Russia intervened on the Shia side in Syria. Significantly, channels remained open.
The Saudis may gain a measure of success by cooperating with Russia and Turkey’s efforts. The latter powers are establishing a ceasefire between Syrian forces and the Free Syrian Army and mutual recognition of each other’s territory – a Shia rump state and FSA lands that will be Ankara’s proxies against ISIL and Syrian Kurds.
Saudi entreaties will seek Russian support for Sunni statelets aligned with Saudi Arabia. They too will oppose ISIL but more importantly from Riyadh’s perspective, form an opponent to Shia power in Syria and Iraq as well. Indeed, such a statelet could attract support from Sunni Iraqis and one day form a Sunni state on the other side of the now almost meaningless border.
Russia can help here by disabusing the Assad government of notions of reconquering the east and convincing it (and Iran) to accept the inevitableness of a partitioned country. Russia and Saudi Arabia may then be poised to establish a portentous relationship based on opposition to democracy, arms transactions, and control of oil prices.
Copyright 2017 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who has written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs.