King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and his son are pursuing the most virulent anti-Iran and anti-Shiite policy in modern Saudi history. This approach has deep roots in Wahhabi history. Mixed with Iran’s expansive regional meddling, the combination is dangerous and explosive. Washington needs to exercise great care and not inflame the situation.
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of the kingdom’s unique form of Islam, spent time in Basra in the middle of the 18th century. His exposure to Iraq’s most Shiite city was formative to his ideas, according to Michael Crawford, the premier Western biographer of Wahhab. He became an extreme critic of Shiism, branding them polytheists and infidels. Saudi armies sacked Shiite cities in Iraq, destroyed Shiite shrines in Mecca and invaded Yemen to try to defeat its Zaydi Shiite tribes.
Modern Saudi monarchs have had antagonistic relationships with Iran, both with the shah and the ayatollahs, but they have avoided direct confrontation and always kept communication channels open. King Faysal (who ruled from 1964-1975) detested the shah as an egomaniac, but worked with him to create the Organization of the Islamic Conference (now known as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation). King Fahd (who ruled from 1982-2005) backed Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War, but he used the Saudi power of the purse to force Saddam to accept a cease-fire to end the war. King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud (who ruled from 2005-2015) appointed a Saudi Shiite as ambassador to Tehran and kept open dialogue even as he sent troops across the King Fahd causeway to smash Shiite majority dissent in Bahrain seven years ago. The troops are still there.
King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have followed a much more confrontational approach. Their signature foreign policy initiative is the 3-year-old war in Yemen, which they portray as a necessary war to prevent the Iranians from taking over Yemen with the Zaydi Houthi rebels. The war has been marked by humanitarian disasters, like the bombing of a wedding party by the Saudi coalition April 22 and the mass starvation of the Yemeni people by the Saudi blockade. It is a sectarian conflict overplayed by a regional struggle for power by the Saudis and Iranians. The war costs the kingdom a fortune and the ayatollahs a pittance, but it’s very popular with the Wahhabi establishment.
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