Ed Husain

Britain should not turn its back on MBS and the Saudis

For more than a decade, I have been a public critic of Saudi Arabia. I should, therefore, be applauding recent global efforts to cast the Kingdom into pariah status and punish the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). But I fear that such calculations are flawed, short sighted and will weaken the West. Instead, Britain should be the voice of sanity and take a longer view. Such a move would be warmly welcomed by our Arab allies.

Across the Middle East, there are daily skirmishes and battles, but there is a much larger war underway for the future of Islam and the type of region that will emerge in three or four decades. A regional war of ideas is being fought now and the winners will shape the lives and attitudes of 1.8 billion Muslims around the world. The stakes could not be higher.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, amidst the rise of al-Qaeda, it was clear who had the upper hand in the Middle East: extremists of all hues. The Saudis were funding the spread of Wahhabism; and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was thriving. Yet today, for the first time since the 1960s, neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor Wahhabism can rely on Saudi financial support. Both are on the defensive, struggling for long-term survival, and have been forced to change. But there are other, more entrenched enemies. Iran champions the forces of theocracy, imposing a hard-line religious interpretation through use of government force. Isis might have lost territory yet Iran is a much more sophisticated operator. The revolutionary ideology of wilayat al-faqih – the occupation of government by clerics until the return of the long-awaited Mehdi, a mythical end-of-days figure, who will wage war with the West – might sound like gobbledegook, but it is deeply held religious creed to Tehran. Unlike anytime since the 1979 Iranian revolution, when wilayat al-faqih was imposed on Iranians, today the clerics have command over multiple Arab capitals: Beirut, Damascus, Sana’a, Baghdad.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in