The alliance between the United States
and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia helped spread the ideology of
fundamentalist Sunni Islam all over the globe. The majority of its
victims are not citizens of Western countries, but citizens of countries
that U.S. elites consider a threat to their economic and geopolitical
interests. Many victims of Sunni extremism (often called Wahhabism or
Salafism[1]) are in fact Muslims (often with a secular leftist or
nationalist political background), moderate Sunni or members of Shiʿite
Islamic faith.
This article addresses the history of
Wahhabi fundamentalism and the examples of Afghanistan in the 80s, as
well as the current situation in Syria. Both cases illustrate America’s
responsibility for the destruction of secular, socially progressive
societies in the Islamic world and elsewhere.
The Origins of Wahhabism
Wahhabi ideology serves U.S. interests
for several reasons. Its followers’ archaic perception of society makes
them reject any kind of progressive social change. Therefore they are
well equipped to push back socialist, secular or nationalist movements,
whose independence-oriented policies are a threat to America’s
geopolitical agenda. Although Wahhabism certainly is not representative
of the majority of Sunni Muslims, Wahhabi Muslims are Sunni extremists,
which causes them to maintain an extremely hostile stance towards Shi’te
Islam.
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which
brought down the secular-nationalist regime of Saddam Hussein (a Sunni),
the influence of Shi’ite-dominated Iran increased and caused a certain
power shift in favor of Shiʿite Islam in the region. Due to this
strengthened Shiʿite representation, American activities in the Middle
East in recent years have been almost exclusively directed against
Shiʿite interests. The emancipation of deprived Shiʿite masses in Iraq,
Bahrain, Yemen or Lebanon are contrary to aspirations from the side of
the U.S., whose main allies in the region (next to Israel) consist of
repressive Sunni regimes and terror groups.
In the case of Syria, President Bashar
Al-Assad (an ally of Iran) and the secular Syrian society particularly
evoke the hatred of extremists. The fact that Al-Assad belongs to the
Alawite minority (a mystical religious group and a branch of Shiʿite
Islam) makes him unacceptable to Wahhabi purists.
Portraying Syria ruled solely by its
Alawi minority (as some mainstream journalists tend to do) would
nevertheless be wrong. As Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya pointed out, among the
Syrian top officials killed by a terrorist attack on July 18, 2012,
Sunnis and Christians could be found among the Alawites.[2]
It is therefore worth examining the
background of these enemies of secularism, multi-faith society and
progress. Wahhabism is a puritanical branch of Sunni Islam that was
founded in the middle of the 18th Century by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd
al-Wahhab, a theologian who propagated holy war and the “purification”
of Islam. One of his inspirations was Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328), an
early Islamic fundamentalist scholar who opposed any kind of
intellectual debate that differentiated between the word of god and its
interpretation.
Al-Wahhab and his ideas might have been
forgotten by history if he hadn’t made a pact with Muhammad ibn Saud,
emir of Al-Diriyah and ruler of the first Saudi state in 1744.
According to Robert Dreyfuss, the Saudi-Wahhabi alliance:
“…began a campaign
of killing and plunder all across Arabia, first in central Arabia, then
in Asir in Southern Arabia and parts of Yemen, and finally in Rhiadh and
the Hijaz. In 1802 they raided the Shiite holy city of Karbala in what
is now Iraq, killing most of the city’s population, destroying the dome
over the grave of a founder of Shiism, and looting property, weapons,
clothing, carpets, gold, silver and precious copies of the Quran.”[3]
In order to keep the faith “pure”,
influences from Greek philosophy, Christianity and Judaism had to be
exterminated. Intellectuals, artists, scientists and progressive rulers
were declared enemies with no right to live.
It goes without saying that the idea of
representing the pure teaching of Islam was fanatically pursued; in
fact, Wahhabi warriors were fighting in order to spread the most archaic
lifestyle that could be found within Arab culture.
In the second half of the 19th century,
British imperialism discovered the house of Al Saud as a potentially
useful ally in its attempt to gain influence in the Middle-East.
Riadh had been invaded by the Ottoman
sultan in 1818. The Al Saud returned to power in 1823, but its area of
control was mainly restricted to the Saudi heartland of the Nejd region,
known as the second Saudi State. In 1899 the British helped the Al Saud
establish a base in its protectorate of Kuwait, in order to reconquer
Riadh, at that time ruled by the pro-Ottoman Al Rashid dynasty.
Originally Great Britain’s motivation to
gain influence in the Middle-East was caused by their view of Arabia
and the Gulf as being “one link in a chain that ran from Suez to India,
the two anchors of the empire.”[4] Vast oil reserves would be discovered
in the 1930s.
Great Britain became the first country
to recognize the new Saudi Arabia as an independent state, establishing
its current borders in 1932. A “Treaty of Friendship and Good
Understanding” between the British Crown and the Saudi monarch was
signed already in 1927. The 1924 integration of the holy sites of Mecca
and Medina into the kingdom through military conquest inevitably
contributed to firmly entrenching Al Saud’s authority in the Muslim
world.
U.S. interest in Saudi Arabia started to
grow as well around the same time, and a treaty with the California
Arabian Standard Oil Company was agreed upon in 1932. It was the first
such agreement created in cooperation with a western oil company.
In the following years and decades, the
increasing revenues in oil business enabled the Saudi financing of
religious institutions worldwide, propagating extremist interpretations
of Islam. The flow of petro-dollars was of great importance to Saudi
elites, who adapted a luxurious lifestyle and at the same time
maintained an alliance with the Wahhabi base.[5] They also maintained
ties to U.S. state officials, who welcomed Saudi oil as well as radical
Islam, as long as it was directed against those standing in the way of
America’s geopolitical agenda.
“Foreign aid” financed by the Kingdom
was tremendous, according to U.S. “anti-terror” expert Alex Alexiev
(though he doesn’t acknowledge the U.S. involvement in spreading Wahhabi
terror):
“Between 1975 and
1987, the Saudis admit to having spent $48 billion or $4 billion per
year on ‘overseas development aid’, a figure which by the end of 2002
grew to over $70 billion (281 billion Saudi rials).These sums are
reported to be Saudi state aid and almost certainly do not include
private donations which are also distributed by state-controlled
charities. Such staggering amounts contrast starkly with the $5 million
in terrorist accounts the Saudis claim to have frozen since 9/11.”[6]
A report from September 2009, made by
the United States Government Accountability Office, points out the
historical relevance of U.S.-Saudi relations:
“Relations between
the United States and Saudi Arabia have a long historical context. Since
the establishment of the modern Saudi state in 1932, and throughout the
Cold War, the governments of the United States and Saudi Arabia
developed a relationship based on shared interests, including energy
production and combating communism. For instance, both Saudi Arabia and
the United States became major supporters of the Afghan Mujahideen’s
struggle against the Soviet invasion in 1979.”[7]
Saudi-backed archaic ideology served as
an incentive to thousands of confused young men to receive military
training in Pakistan in the 1980s, from where they were sent to
Afghanistan in order to kill Russians.
America’s ‘Holy War’ against the USSR in Afghanistan
In a famous interview from 1998, former
National Security Advisor to President Carter and geopolitical
strategist, Zbigniew Brzezinski, openly admitted that the hidden agenda
of U.S. involvement in the war between Soviet troops and Afghan
Mujahideen (1979-1988) was about “giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.”
He also admitted that American covert support of Islamist fighters in
Afghanistan had already started six months prior to the beginning of
Soviet intervention in order to create a trap that would eventually lead
to the collapse of the USSR. Nothing about this is worth regretting,
according to Mr. Brzezinski, not even the U.S. alliance with radical
Islam:
“What is most
important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of
the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central
Europe and the end of the Cold War?”[8]
In addition, the former Pakistani regime
under General Zia Ul Haq, whose political program consisted of a plan
of “Islamisation” of the country, was the main American ally when it
came to training Islamist fighters. This happened under close
cooperation between the CIA and the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI
(Inter-Services Intelligence). The ideological indoctrination of the
people supposed to fight against the Soviets was being delivered by
Pakistani madrassas, schools of radical (Wahhabi) Islam, financed by
Saudi Arabia.[9]
While U.S. officials justified their
support for the Mujahideen by presenting them as some kind of supposed
freedom fighters, their Islamist allies showed less restraint in
revealing their plans for Afghanistan. One example was the ISI Director
General at the time, Akhtar Abdur Rahman Shaheed, who expressed his
opinion quite undiplomatically: “Kabul must burn! Kabul must burn!”[10]
While Brzezinski achieved his goal, the
fate of Afghanistan is well known: decades of civil war, brutality,
analphabetism, the worst possible violation of women’s rights, extreme
poverty and sectarian violence. Not to mention pollution by depleted
uranium causing a sharp increase in cancer rates thanks to the U.S.
bombing campaign from October 2001.
United States and Saudi Arabia against Secular Syria
Many other scenarios involving
CIA/Saudi-sponsored terrorism took place in the years following the
collapse of the Soviet Union (e.g. in Chechnya, Bosnia, Libya etc.).
Currently, Syria’s secular, multi-ethnic
and multi-faith society is being targeted by these very same forces, as
well as reactionary regimes belonging to the Cooperation Council for
the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) and Turkey. As with the war in
Afghanistan in the 80s, U.S. involvement in the Syrian crisis is
intended to isolate Iran and, once again, target Russia. In conjunction,
Wahhabi extremists are carrying out the same work as their forefathers
in the 18th Century, namely fighting all tolerant forms of Islam.
Might this have been the reason why
insurgents killed the youngest son of Syria’s highest Islamic authority,
Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun? Indeed, the position of the Grand
Mufti is not aligned with Wahhabi extremism, as was clearly shown in
last year’s interview with Der Spiegel:
“I see myself as the
grand mufti of all 23 million Syrians, not just Muslims, but also
Christians and even atheists. I am a man of dialogue. Who knows, maybe
an agnostic will convince me with better arguments one day, and I’ll
become a non-believer. And if I’m enthusiastic about the opposition’s
political platform, I also might change sides.”[11]
In addition, several events that took place on the day this particular interview are worth noticing:
“During the late
afternoon, the grand mufti has other appointments: condolence visits
with a Christian and a Muslim family. In the evening, he will have to
comfort his wife once again, who is completely distraught over the death
of Saria. He was the youngest of the couple’s five sons, and the only
one still living at home. Saria’s fellow students are holding a vigil at
his stone sarcophagus, even now, four weeks after the murder. The young
man’s last resting place can be found in the courtyard of a modest
mosque. Sheikh Hassoun visits this sad place every day.”[12]
This certainly does not correspond with
the Western media’s picture of fanatical Islamists, who consider the
death of their sons a sign of honour and martyrdom, as long as they have
died under circumstances that caused the death of “infidels” as well.
Such behaviour is encouraged by Saudi Arabia, as can be seen on a
shocking video available on YouTube. The shocking footage features a
father in Jeddah, selling his son to be sent to Syria as a suicide
bomber. Even if one questions the authenticity of the video, the ongoing
suicide bombings in Syria are undoubtedly real:
Conclusion
To be sure, the religion of Islam poses
just as much or little a threat to the world as the religions of Judaism
or Christianity. Nevertheless, certain radical pockets exist who use
and abuse religion to justify their disgust for dissent and whose
totalitarian practices can only be classified as fascist. Their attempts
to destroy reason, progress and humanist ideals make them ideal tools
for the most aggressive imperialist factions within the U.S.
establishment to push for regime change and implement their exploitative
impoverishing agendas.
Notes
1“Wahhabi”
is a term usually used in a critical context by Muslims. Salafi means
“ancestor” and is most often a term used by Sunni fundamentalists to
describe themselves.
3 Dreyfuss, Robert: “Devil’s Game: How the United States helped unleash fundamentalist Islam”, New York 2005, S. 37.
4 Ibid.
5 See: Anhalt, Utz: Wüstenkrieg – Jemen, Somalia, Sudan in der Geostrategie der USA, S. 32.
9 http://www.fpif.org/blog/wikileaks_saudi-financed_madrassas_more_widespread_in_pakistan_than_thought.
10
See: “Silent soldier: the man behind the Afghan jehad General Akhtar
Abdur Rahman Shaheed”, by Mohammad Yousaf, Karachi, 1991.
12 Ibid.
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Benjamin Schett, Global Research, 2012
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