GIVEN Saudi Arabia’s financial clout, few countries have dared to openly criticise its appalling human rights record. For decades, it has exported its virulent version of Wahabi Islam that has fuelled the jihadi ideology now rampaging across much of the Islamic world. In its destruction of ancient archaeological sites and religious shrines, its beheading of criminals, its vicious repression of dissent, and its treatment of women, it has provided a model for the self-styled Islamic State and other extremist groups to emulate.

Despite all these flagrant abuses, the West continues to curry favour with the Saudis while complaining of lesser human rights violations elsewhere. This mealy-mouthed hypocrisy has encouraged the mediaeval kingdom to refuse to change its ways, and carry on pampering its army of thousands of royal princelings while oppressing its people.

Against this backdrop, Sweden’s decision not to renew its arms agreement with Saudi Arabia came as a pleasant surprise. Citing concerns with the kingdom’s human rights violations, the Swedish foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, recently announced that her country would not sell weapons until Saudi Arabia’s treatment of its people improved significantly.

In response, Riyadh has withdrawn its ambassador, and has announced that it will no longer issue business visas to Swedes. The spat began when Ms Wallstrom tweeted her disgust over the punishment meted out to Raif Badawi for dissent. The Saudi blogger has been awarded 1,000 lashes; the first instalment of 50 lashes was met with disbelief and outrage around the world.

To retaliate, the Saudis prevented the Swedish foreign minister from making a speech on human rights before the Arab League in Cairo, and Ms Wallstrom responded by cancelling arms exports to Saudi Arabia. Obviously, this move has not gone down well with the Swedish business community. Currently, Sweden exports $1.3

billion worth of goods to the Saudis, while the kingdom’s global arms imports amounted to $9.8bn last year.

Apart from its vast oil reserves, arms purchases are the other lever Riyadh uses to keep Western nations onside. Although it is largely incapable of defending itself and relies on its American patron for securing its borders, its heavy import of weapon systems keeps Western factories humming, and contributes to employment and profits. Of course, these lucrative arms deals also provide opportunities for fat commissions to local fixers and princes.

Despite criticism from Swedish businessmen, the government is not alone: Germany, too, has cancelled the sale of Leopard 2 tanks to the Saudi army, also for human rights violations. According to one opinion poll, 78 per cent of Germans oppose the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, while 60pc oppose any trade at all. Clearly, this principled decision will have a cost as German exports to the kingdom amounted to 209 million euros last year.

Currently, the Germans are trying to persuade the government of King Salman to reduce the punishment to Raif Badwai, and there are indications that he will be offered asylum in Germany if the Saudis relent. But whatever the outcome of these negotiations, the House of Saud must be concerned over the increasing European focus on the barbaric laws and punishments in their country.

Even though French, British and American arms suppliers must be rubbing their hands in glee over the prospect of picking up orders cancelled by Germany and Sweden, it is their diplomatic support more than arms that Riyadh needs. This is especially true in its stand-off with its regional rival, Iran.

Simultaneously, the kingdom faces a very real threat from the IS. Even though it supplied the IS with a template for its brutal behaviour, its royal family remains a target for all extremist Sunni groups in the region. Ironically, the country is deeply unpopular with the very forces it has helped to create.

And as the tough and complex negotiations over the Iranian nuclear programme show, the United States is quite capable of charting its own course in the region without toeing the Saudi line. Should an agreement emerge, and crippling sanctions on Iran are lifted, Riyadh will face a self-confident Tehran that will assert itself more powerfully, especially in countries with Shia majorities. And we should remember that even though they are marginalised, Shias constitute over 15pc of the Saudi population.

Increasingly, Saudi Arabia is finding itself isolated. Although its custody of the holy sites gives it considerable clout among Muslim countries, even a client state like Pakistan is reluctant to take sides in the Saudi-Iranian rivalry. In their bid to turn the clock back to the seventh century, Saudi rulers have used archaic tribal customs and laws to govern a people growing restless with an unsustainable status quo.

And in a tricky balancing act, the Saudi establishment tries to use an extreme vision of Islam for legitimacy, while opposing parties that preach political Islam like the Muslim Brotherhood. As an example of how out of touch with reality the ruling class is, consider the recent conference on Islam and Countering Terrorism held in Makkah under the umbrella of the Muslim World League.

This august body of Islamic scholars and clerics, according to the New York Times, “urged Muslim governments to tackle poverty, overhaul school curriculums — and get back to religion.” The report went on to underline “the contradiction at the heart of the Saudi effort”:

“Amid worthwhile talk of outreach to youth and fighting corruption, there was almost no mention of the Saudi monarchy’s decades-long role in aggressively spreading its strictly conservative ideology — a creed that itself has provided inspiration to leaders of the Islamic State…”

So basically, the conference concluded with the message that the cure for Islamic extremism is — wait for it — more of the same Wahabi version of the faith that has already proved so corrosive. Well, good luck with that.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2015

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