Brian M Downing
Mohammad bin Salman, heir apparent to the Saudi throne, is using his petrodollars to isolate and perhaps destroy Iran. He’s already won the support of the US defense industry and Washington. They are backing his war in Yemen and ignoring his murder of Khashoggi in Turkey.
This week the prince is visiting Pakistan and India, then heading for China. He’s undoubtedly brought his checkbook. He doesn’t leave home without it. Indeed, no sooner had his plane landed in Islamabad than he announced a lucrative investment plan for the fellow-Sunni power. A similar deal awaits India. The prince wants them to help destroy Iran.
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have had a long partnership. Their Sunni schools intersect considerably in detesting the West, Shiism, and Israel. Saudi money supports the Pakistani military and played a formidable role in its nuclear weapons program. Pakistani troops have been stationed inside the kingdom for decades and Pakistani veterans are found in many Saudi security forces, including those used to crush the Arab Spring in Bahrain in 2011. They are on standby for repression throughout the Gulf.
Past is prologue as the famed inscription tells us and the prince wants Pakistan to weaken Iran. Pakistan has supported Baloch separatists who strike inside Iran’s restive Baloch region. Support had been dropped but a recent attack on the IRGC near Zahedan probably signals renewed backing. Indeed, it may have been the Pakistani generals’ peculiar sign of bona fides to the prince just before he landed. The same might be said of an attack inside Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Saudi Arabia would also like Afghanistan to become a base of operations against Iran, or at least a source of concern that requires increased spending and troop deployments. Pakistan is the main supporter of the Taliban who have long detested the Shia Hazarras of central Afghanistan. They even seized an Iranian consulate in 1998 and massacred several diplomats as retaliation for Tehran’s support of northern Tajik and Uzbek peoples.
However, in recent years Iran has been gaining influence with the Taliban. Tehran has no fondness for Sunni extremists but see the Taliban as inevitable winners in the south and an enemy of its enemy – the US. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan want the influence to end and will maneuver in any negotiations to weaken Iran’s influence with the Taliban in the south and the Tajiks and Uzbeks in the north.
Longer term, the prince wants to strengthen ties with the Pakistani generals and align several Sunni militaries, including those of Pakistan and Egypt, into a beholden military league. Both countries declined to help out in Yemen but greater Saudi aid may wear down their reluctance in coming years. Both countries face bleak economic outlooks and increasingly insistent publics.
Investment in Pakistan is related to the industrialization effort underway inside the kingdom. The prince hopes to establish a co-prosperity sphere, centered in Riyadh and integrating the economies of the Sunni world – and perhaps those of a vanquished Shia world.
Saudi Arabia and India enjoy good trade relations and the prince will solidify them this week with another investment check. He will ask that India reduce its imports of Iranian oil which have not declined as sharply as he hoped since the US announced another round of sanctions. India petitioned Washington for waivers, and got them. The prince will offer oil from his fields or from those of Sunni allies in the Gulf. Discounts from world benchmarks will be mentioned. He will not undersold.
India has some influence in Afghanistan’s north which dates back to the 80s war, though it is not substantial. Nonetheless, the prince will ask India for help against Iran there too.
Mohammad bin Salman visits the subcontinent at a time of ominous tensions. Last week a Pakistan-backed group attacked Indian troops in Kashmir, killing some 40 soldiers. Indian forces are hunting down Kashmiri guerrilla cells and skirmishes are ongoing. Cross-border reprisals are possible.
From Riyadh’s perspective, deepening tensions and rounds of retaliation threaten his Iran policy. Pakistan will concentrate to its east, India on Pakistan’s west. By presenting himself as a mediator, Mohammad bin Salman may improve his image on the world stage, or at least weaken some of the outrage directed his way since the Khashoggi murder. This may be his most difficult goal.
© 2019 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s 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. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.