Something extraordinary happened above Israel over the weekend. It wasn’t that Israel repelled a massive Iranian rocket and drone barrage, although that was sufficiently miraculous. Nor was it that amazing that Saudi Arabia helped defend Israel against Iranian incursions because it’s been rumored for decades that Saudi Arabia occasionally lends a hand in those matters. What was truly extraordinary was that Saudi Arabia openly admitted to helping Israel fight back against Iran’s attack. It shows the truth of the ancient proverb that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Many people are pointing to President Trump’s Abraham Accords as the genesis for this changed Saudi policy, but I credit Barack Obama.
No, that was not a typo. To toot my own horn, back in 2009, I wrote about Obama’s perfidy toward Israel by forcing her to admit a closely kept secret, namely that she was a nuclear power. If this was a clumsy attempt to get Israel to give up her nuclear weapons, it failed because Israel knew that Iran would never give up its nuclear dreams.
But more than that, I explained then that, much as the surrounding Arab nations complained about Israel, they knew that Israel posed no threat to them. The real threat, always, has been Iran. For that reason, I predicted that Obama’s (and, now, Biden’s) efforts to increase Iran’s power in the region would inevitably push Saudi Arabia and other Sunni nations into allying with Israel:
I also think that, under the rubric of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” allegiances are going to start shifting in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, etc., may hate Israel, but they fear a nuclear Iran even more than they hate Israel. My long-held suspicion since Obama’s election (which instantly meant Israel lost her only friend) is that Saudi Arabia, somehow or other, is going to give Israel cover for an attack against Iran.
It’s possible that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman risks the disapproval of the radical Wahhabi clerics in his kingdom, the ones who have been driving Saudi Arabia’s policies since 1979, but I doubt it. Let me explain.
In 1979, Islamic hardliners besieged Mecca. Following the siege, the Wahhabi clerics informed the Saudi royal family that, if the House of Saud would give the clerics total power over Saudi Arabia’s approach to Islam, the clerics would ensure that the Sauds would not suffer the same fate as the Shah of Iran.
That’s why it’s been Saudi Arabia, acting at the behest of the Wahhabi clerics, that has been founding radical Islamic madrassas around the world. These madrassas, in turn, have seeded much of the Islamic radicalism we’ve seen over the past 50 years.
However, what’s important to keep in mind is that the Wahhabi approach to Islam is Sunni in origin, and its focus is Mecca, which is located in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the Iranian approach to Islam is Shia, and its focus is on the return of the 12th or “hidden” imam. He will return as part of the apocalypse.
While the Shia Muslims share with evangelical Christians a belief in the coming apocalypse, they have a slightly different view of their responsibilities. Christians prepare for its coming by trying to live righteous lives and by stockpiling supplies in case they’re not picked up during the Rapture.
Shia Muslims, however, believe that they can kickstart this apocalypse through their actions. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad often referred to his belief that Iran had a role in getting the apocalypse going by slaughtering their enemies and starting a major conflagration.
The House of Saud does not want a major conflagration, and it knows that it’s one of the targets of an Iranian slaughter. That’s because the ferocity with which Shia and Sunni Muslims hate each other is almost equal to their joint hatred for the Jews.
It’s very likely that the Wahhabi clerics understand this point—something that the tea leaves predicted in 2017 when Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti denounced Hamas, an Iranian puppet, and forbade war against the Jews. (I’m sure that Trump’s and, interestingly, his Jewish son-in-law’s good relationship with bin Salman helped a great deal.) It’s my guess, therefore, that the reason the Saudis openly announced their support for Israel is that Prince bin Salman got approval from the clerics to do so.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Image: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Donald Trump. Public domain.
