Saudi Arabia — Good…
Iran — Bad — Why?
For the last 100 years, the United States and the United Kingdom have, as far as foreign policy is concerned, been in general agreement. There have been notable, major exceptions, when opinions and actions have diverged; the Vietnam War and the 1956 Suez Crisis being a couple that spring to mind; but generally the US & the UK, ever since the US were chivvied into participation in the First World War, have been “Singing from the same Songbook,”.
But one thing that they’ve agreed on is, to me utterly incomprehensible.
Among Muslim nations, for both the United States and the United Kingdom, the number one ally, the “Go-to,” nation is Saudi Arabia.
Iran, on the other hand is their bête noir; Iran, and anything connected with Iran, is “bad,” and if it is possible to connect Iran with something else, that is already “bad,” that connection will be made.
By “they,” I don’t necessarily mean US Administrations, UK Prime Ministers or the US & UK Electorates; though People, Prime Ministers & Presidents have sometimes been led into this way of thinking.
The “they” I refer to, are the career diplomats & bureaucrats that occupy the desks in the United States Department of State and the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office; “Civil Servants” who, in democracies, advise & control their temporary political masters. Those temporary political masters come and go; but the Mandarins remain.
These “Mandarins;” these government-professionals; tend to have fixed views, and long memories; unaffected by the passing political opinions of those the electorate choose to put into Government. It is the Mandarins who usher Presidents, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers, in the “right” direction with regard to Foreign Policy.
So why does Saudi Arabia = Good, always embraced as a “Friend”?
And why does Iran = Bad, forever branded as part of the “Axis of Evil”?
I decided to make some comparisons.
While I was doing that, I was thinking about what United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt said on 6th January 1941, in his “State of the Union address.” He proposed that there were four fundamental freedoms that people “everywhere in the world” should enjoy; and they were: Freedom of speech, Freedom of worship, Freedom from want and Freedom from fear.
Bearing those “Freedoms” in mind, there are three factors that, can be objectively compared, “Governance,” “Attitude to Religion,” and the “Justice System.”
First, I looked at the two nations’ governance; their respective systems of government.
Although both Saudi Arabia and Iran are Islamic countries, ruled in accordance with Shari’a; it is Iran that has a form of Democracy intermingled within, and superimposed on, its Theocracy.
Iran also has a purpose-built, written constitution, passed by referendum. There are political parties and elections, using non-gender specific universal suffrage, at all levels of their parliamentary system; from municipal elections in the towns and villages, up to the Majlis and Presidential elections every four years. Women in Iran can and do stand for election; whereas Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that prohibits women from even driving!
Saudi Arabia, for a Constitution, has the pure and uncodified Quran; an unedited set of the ramblings of a Prophet, as remembered or imagined by his followers, written down on scraps of whatever was handy, and then compiled into a book; about 1,360 years ago; and not amended or revised since.
No political parties or national elections are permitted in the Kingdom; criticism of the King, who is Prime Minister, as well as Head of State, will get you flogged, or worse. All the government, at all levels is in his or his family’s control. There are over 4,000 Princes, so plenty to run the entire country.
There is less freedom in Saudi Arabia now, than was experienced by the North American colonists under England’s King George 3rd, and they went to war to change that.
There’s even less freedom now under the new King Salman, than the English had under King Charles 1st, and after the Civil War the English Parliament beheaded him!
In fact, if the Saudi Royal Family were to be removed from Saudi Arabia, the residue would bear a remarkable resemblance to Daesh!
As we know, Islam is very important to both nations Iran and Saudi Arabia; so next I compared how each of these two deals with religion in general.
In Iran there is, limited, religious freedom written into the Constitution, with especial regard to Jews and Christians. What are called “Religions of the Book” are free to worship in their own way in churches and synagogues.
But there is absolutely no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia. Sunni Islam is the state religion and other religions do not have any right to religious freedom or to practice their religion, so there are no churches, synagogues or temples.
Non-Muslim propagation is banned, and conversion from Islam to another religion is apostasy, punishable by beheading.
It was also announced in 2014, that bringing a bible into the Kingdom would also be a crime carrying the death penalty.
Atheists are defined as terrorists, so naturally death is the punishment for that, as well.
Having encountered the death penalty when researching religion, I then compared the two Legal Systems.
In Iran, just as they have constructed a governance system by superimposing Shari’a onto a form of democracy; resulting in what is probably as close to a democracy as can be achieved with a populace that genuinely believes “God’s laws” (Shari’a) take precedence over laws written by Man; They've created their own Judicial System by similarly superimposing a codified form of Shari’a onto their old Penal Code of European origin; resulting in a Penal Code that is severe, perhaps even harsh, by Western standards; but is clear, open, transparent and evenly applied. They do have public hangings, but in recent years they have become a rarer occurrence.
Perhaps at this point it’s worth remembering that most Western penal codes stem from the Bible; later amended and codified; so reliance on Shari’a as the Basis for a penal code isn't all that odd.
Iran’s volunteer force, the Basij, with their zealous but unauthorised “religious policing”, and their over-zealous and authorised “public order” practices, represent a serious “black mark” within the Iranian legal system.
In Saudi Arabia, with its “Quasi-Tudor” Royal Dictatorship, they have a judicial system that would not have been out of place in medieval Europe; based on unmodified ancient Shari’a; using punishments befitting of the Dark Ages, and no Penal Code whatsoever. This, and the lack of judicial precedent, has resulted in considerable uncertainty in the scope and content of the country’s laws. The Shari’a courts have general jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases. Normally Judges sit singly, but in cases where the potential sentence is death, amputation or stoning, there is a panel of three Judges.
Though they have a national police force called The Department of Public Safety, their arcane “civilisation” is policed in the main by the Mabahith and the Mutaween. The Mabahith, the “Oh-so-not-secret” Secret Police, would appear to recruit men with just enough intelligence to read their old Gestapo training manuals, but with insufficient intelligence when it comes to understanding them, or much else.
In 2000, “al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia” began a campaign of car-bombings and other attacks, aimed at Westerners, living & working in Saudi Arabia. The intellectually challenged Mabahith got it into their heads that this was an “Alcohol Traders” turf war. A group of expatriates were arrested and tortured. Forced to confess; following trials at which there were neither witnesses nor forensic evidence, several were sentenced to be beheaded. They were eventually released, but not pardoned, as a result of a prisoner exchange, in which Saudi Arabia got some of its al-Qaeda friends back from Guantanamo; in 2003.
The Mutaween on the other hand, aren't even that clever. They are an illiterate bunch of bullies; driven by zealous religious hatred, they’re too thick to recognise reality. In fact, on writing that, I realise how exactly like Daesh they are. One of the Mutaween’s specialist units, a special Anti-Witchcraft Unit to “…educate the public about the evils of sorcery, investigate alleged witches, neutralise their cursed paraphernalia, and disarm their spells:” was created, not in the 16th Century, but in 2009!
Their last beheading for Sorcery was in June 2012.
In 2005 William Sampson, one of those alleged “Alcohol Traders”, published a book about his experiences entitled “Confessions of an Innocent Man: Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison.” In it he recounted how within days of his arrest, he was tortured and raped by two Mabahith officers. At his trial, he was asked if he would like to make a statement. In part, his statement was, “I refuse to acknowledge this court … …deriving as it does its authority from a country and culture that is politically corrupt, socially regressive, morally bankrupt, and genetically degenerate.” I don’t think anyone could have put it better; Bill Sampson died in 2012, but if he was still alive, he’d get no argument from me.
So, having considered those differences between the two countries, why are the Mandarins, on either side of the Atlantic, so pro-Saudi Arabia, and so anti-Iran?
There are several other possible reasons to consider; for example there’s the serious sanguinity of the 1979 Islamic Revolution: It was actually a relatively non-violent revolution, but became violent in its aftermath. Some 2,800 protesters and revolutionaries were killed during the Revolution, and the number executed by revolutionary courts as the revolution was consolidated, was some 8,000 between June 1981 and June 1985; but that all happened over 30 years ago.
The Russian revolutions of 1917 were far, far bloodier; and the blood-letting continued for many years. In fact, it was still happening when, only 23 years later Russia was accepted as one of the “Allies” against Germany in World War Two.
Iran would make an excellent Western ally now if the West is serious about destroying Daesh.
Then there’s the Tehran Hostage crisis: Agreed, that was a serious faux pas; for which they have been sanctioned continuously. It was 36 years ago; and nobody died.
There’s Iran’s vehement anti-Israel stance: But, that cuts both ways; King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia once said: “There are two countries in the world that do not deserve to exist: Iran and Israel.”
There is Iran’s support for terrorist groups, mainly Hezbollah and the Houthis: But, between the mid-1970s and 2002 Saudi Arabia spent over $70 billion in “overseas development aid.” The vast majority of which was spent on propagating and extending the influence of Wahhabism; the sect of al-Qaeda and Daesh; at the expense of other forms of Islam. Osama bin Laden and fifteen out of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudis
Former US Secretary of State, and failed Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, a lady I have very little time for, is on record as saying: “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist groups… Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” It is known that a great deal of money has travelled, and continues to travel, from Saudi Arabia, via Turkey and into Daesh pockets. So which is the worse sponsor of terrorism, Iran or Saudi Arabia? Which would you rather, Hezbollah & the Houthis or al-Qaeda &Daesh?
And do any of these other matters really counter balance such an obvious “Liberty Gap” between the two countries?
And finally; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran from 2005 to 2013, is likewise, not a man I’ve ever had any time for; but he made a good point when he once said: “Some Western states invaded the region (Afghanistan and Iraq) in the wake of the September 11 attacks, whilst Al-Qaeda’s main hub was located in another country in the region, which enjoys huge oil revenues and good relations with the United States and Western countries. There are some countries in the Middle East region, that don’t hold even a single election, don’t even allow women to drive, but the US and European governments are supporting their undemocratic governments.”
