Saudi 'frenzy of rage' feared as trigger for 'full-scale' war
Rise of Iran leaves closed Islamist nation rejecting advice from both U.S., Russia
Published: 10 hours ago
WASHINGTON – Sunni Saudi Arabia appears hell-bent on a “full-scale sectarian Sunni-Shia war” with Iran following the kingdom’s recent execution of a prominent Saudi Shia cleric, and there is little that outside powers such as the United States or Russia can do about it, according to a Middle East expert who spoke with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
Rida Harb, who heads the Center for Global Security and Geopolitical Studies, told G2Bulletin in an exclusive interview that the execution of Ayatollah Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, which prompted massive protests throughout Shia Iran, “not only puts Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses into the spotlight, but also its barbaric judicial system and obscurant Wahhabi doctrine.”
“Only Saudi Arabia executes a prominent opposition figure whose weapon is his word,” said Harb, who also is Shiite and has influence with prominent Shiites in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Syria. “Where in hell is demanding reforms, equality, increased religious freedom and justice for all a crime?”
The Saudis say Nimr was convicted of instigating terrorism inside the kingdom, even though he never advocated violence and only spoke out against the Saudi kingdom and sought equal rights for the Shiite minority in predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia.
Harb said Saudi Arabia’s “frenzy of rage” comes despite U.S. and even Russian calls for the House of Saud to tamp down its disregard for human rights and diffuse the sectarian conflict with Iran with whom it is on the brink of an all-out war.
But Harb said Saudi leaders are ignoring U.S. and Russian pleas to diffuse their standoff with Iran, and instead are taking marching orders from the prominent Saudi Wahhabi cleric, the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Abdul Rahman Ibn Abdul Aziz as-Sudais.
Harb said the cleric had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, to prompt chaos in a “full-scale sectarian Sunni-Shia war” which, he said, isn’t done without the approval of the House of Saud, the governing family of the Saudi kingdom, or consent of the Saudi Religious body, the “Senior Wahhabi Scholars Body.”
Get the rest of this report, and more, at Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
“When Russia sent its forces to Syria,” Harb said, “fifty-four Saudi clerics issued a fatwa of ‘Holy War’ (jihad) on the Christian Orthodox (country). Saudis tend to turn the geopolitical conflict in the region into cultural conflict as it is the only possible way to save their neck.”
Following the execution of the Shiite cleric Nimr, Harb quoted the Saudi imam of the Grand Mosque as saying “we will kill the Shia wherever they are, we will hunt them.”
To Harb, this was a call to kill the 10-15 percent of the Saudi population which is Shia.
“Calls to kill 10-15 percent of the Saudi population did not stir the Wahhabi Judiciary Body to take action against ‘instigation for mass murder,'” Harb said.
“Executing an opposition figure (such as Nimr) for disobeying the (House of Saud) gives Saudis two options (either) to ‘live like sheep or be slaughtered like sheep,'” he said.
The Sunni Wahhabi Islam sect is the state religion of Saudi kingdom and is regarded as an extreme interpretation of the Quran, which advocates a strict adherence to Shariah, or Islamic law.
Wahhabism variously has been described as ultraconservative, austere, fundamentalist. Often referred to as Salafi, Wahhabism is named after an 18th-century preacher, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab who entered into a pact with then local leader, Muhammad bin Saud, whose successors became the House of Saud.
Get the rest of this report, and more, at Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
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