(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - We have interviewed Ahmad Moussalli, political science professor at the American University of Beirut, about the proposal by Saudi Arabia to merge itself with the country of Bahrain at a time when extreme pressure for democracy for the Bahraini people is affecting Bahrain in particular. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Q: Why do you think the heads of states [of (P)GCC] in the last conference failed to achieve this union?
Moussalli: Well, I think it was initially a Saudi attempt to, in a way, have Bahrain as part of Saudi Arabia, but I think that the states, even those that are very much close to Saudi Arabia, would not like to be cannibalized by Saudi Arabia and probably they prefer the (P)GCC as the forum for interaction.
And in that meeting Oman and the United Arab Emirates did not attend at the required level, which was an expression of not really liking to be part of the attempt to unite along a European-style zone. And I think there are external threats that would prevent the merging of these countries at this point in time.
Q: What about Qatar... you mentioned the United Arab Emirates and Oman; what about Qatar; do you think that they are with this?
Moussalli: Well, I don’t think anyone at heart is with this step although some would say we will move along, we’ll make the study and see whether we are ready to or not, in fact if you join these countries together you are complicating the problems of the area and not resolving the standing issues in the area.
What is needed is more an open policy. You know the aim of Saudi Arabia is to close up to the outside world to prevent any change in the [Persian] Gulf region because any change that happens whether it’s in Bahrain or Qatar or Oman or anywhere else, it will reflect greatly on Saudi Arabia.
So what we are seeing here and what happened in Bahrain actually is a preemptive strike or attempt to prevent any possibility of opening up or change or democratization or protesting against Saudi Arabia mainly and other regimes as well that are allied with Saudi Arabia.
So let me put it this way... it is not going to work and I don’t think it’s feasible at this time. Even small states have their own egos if we give them an identity and I don’t think they are at this point in time, going to give it up.
Kuwaitis have, for instance, more democratic institutions and they elect their parliament and so on and so forth, I don’t think the Kuwaitis are ready to be included in a larger union that has no elections and so, what we see happening in the region is a process of more democratization, representation of the people and so forth.
Q: Do you think there is any ground to try to have, for example, a common currency or whatever? And they seem to be trying to make some kind of a federation or confederation without Iran - putting Iran aside. How plausible is that?
Moussalli: [There is] a point I would like to add to what Dr. Fuad Ibrahim said.... Definitely Bahrain does not have at this point in time the richness that other [Persian] Gulf countries have; it is already bankrupt, kind of - it takes oil from Saudi Arabia; its population, the majority of its population is against it; and it doesn't have the real power to defend itself against its population and that could be a way for the Bahraini royalty to protect itself and to survive under the kingship of Saudi Arabia.
Q: So the security agreement is important and significant for the Bahraini...
Moussalli: ... for the Bahraini royal family, their entourage and a few others. But the majority of the Bahraini people are not for it and I don't think it's going to work and it cannot be forced on the people.
Plus, the other countries - most of them - I don't think they want to be under the hegemony of Saudi Arabia. They are already under the influence of Saudi Arabia; I don't think they want to be directly under them.
Q: Isn't it based on something tribal or sectarian when it comes to Saudi Arabia's specific union with Bahrain?
Moussalli: Definitely. This is very obvious that the intervention in Bahrain was to prevent any protest. Of course, Bahrain is a majority of Shiite and it was feared that it could spread, and it has spread in one way or another and it will spread in the future into Saudi Arabia’s Shiite regions, but you know, they are hiding behind Shiite and Sunni-ism because the real problem is how these states, regimes, are going to democratize under the pressures that are going on throughout all of the Middle East.
All of the terms that are being done now are to quarantine the [Persian] Gulf from possible change and this is by saying, well, look... Iran and the Shiites is the enemy and this is spreading out into Iraq into Syria into Lebanon and different places. It is now, one of the most dangerous issues, is this positing of the Sunni-Shiite divide and using it to shield certain countries from any change toward democratization.
Q: Do you think they're trying specifically to isolate Iran - especially of course it seems by showing Iran as the main enemy of the Persian Gulf? - This is what's happening. Why do you think this is significant for the Persian Gulf - What do they fear from Iran exactly?
Moussalli: All of these regimes do not want to change and therefore a lot of, if you want to put it, the revolutionary zeal in the area has come from initially Iran. Plus, you have not only, if I may say so, only a Shiite perspective, also there is a Sunni perspective meeting on the same level.
Today, the main enemy of Wahhabism actually is not Shiite-ism; it is the Muslim Brotherhood. They are competing for the future ideological understanding of current Sunni thought and dominance.... I mean, in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood is opposed to the Salafis and the Salafis are opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood. They may agree on certain points, buts they both are completely different.
This is why today we find a lot of dislike of the Saudi kingdom of the Muslim Brotherhood with the exception is Lebanon where the whole of the north are supportive; but other than that, I think what we are seeing is that they are exploiting the problem; it is actually an external problem with Iran and Iran is exporting its problem to the [Persian] Gulf areas and beyond that area.
And this is dangerous given the fact that Israel is also saying that Iran is the enemy. So what you see is a meeting of interests of two major allies of the US that Iran is the enemy and therefore they are trying to get a consensus that Iran is the enemy. What is happening in Syria is connected to this; it is not an isolated issue.
Q: You were talking about the issue of Syria and also you mentioned that the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel are mentioning the fact that Iran is the main enemy. Do you think that the US and Saudi Arabia don't see eye to eye when it comes to the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muslims like al-Qaeda, for instance, and these Salafis groups that are in the region and some people believe, especially in Syria, that they are main players in all the commotion and all the violence?
Moussalli: Yes definitely. The Saudi Arabian rulers were very upset with the US on two issues: One of them was that the US did not help to support Mubarak. In a way, they said to the army ‘OK, you can remove him if you want to remove him’. They gave the green light to remove Mubarak and if you remember, the Saudi king was very unhappy and after that he immediately entered into Bahrain showing that if the US is not going to protect us - that is their logic - we are going to go out and do things our own way and for a while relations with the US were very tense because of what happened to Mubarak.
Secondly, Saudi Arabia and Israel wanted the US to be involved in a massive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities and the US has been saying - and maybe this is the first time they have acted positive about it that no, the Iranians have not yet developed any kind of nuclear weapon or they are not working on developing their nuclear capabilities into a military capability.
There are ongoing negotiations now between the US and Iran over the issue of their nuclear enrichment and all of this and this makes Israel and Saudi Arabia very unhappy. Now, the alternative is instead of weakening Iran, they want to hit Syria and to cut off the link between Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and the, you know, the resistance front. And this is what is happening.
How are you going to fight this resistance front? By sectarianism - you know, by creating differentiations between the different groups that make up the resistance because the resistance is neither Shiite nor Sunni completely. Hamas [people] are representatives and the majority of the people there with Hezbollah and Hamas are fighting Israel. And I think there is an agreement among the Muslims and the Arabs about the legitimacy of resistance and even more than just resistance going after Israel.
And I think it is not a coincidence, now unfortunately, that Saudi objectives and Israeli objectives seem to be meeting in order to, unfortunately, weaken the resistance whether it is resisting Israel or change or reform in general other than the Brotherhood in Syria. I think the Brotherhood may have outlined it is to resist Israel....
Q: It seems to be a main symbol of change now especially in the other countries like Libya and so on....
Moussalli: And what they are doing also - this I think is most dangerous from a Wahhabi perspective - is that they are Islamizing democracy; they are giving it a legitimate legal justification for in Saudi Arabia to give absolute obedience to the ruler... into law, you know.
Q: Yes of course. Will this backfire on Saudi Arabia, especially since we might see US president Obama in office after the next elections, that's a possibility - do you think he will exert more efforts and pressure against Saudi Arabia in order for it to change and for reform?
Moussalli: Definitely. Look, the whole world is changing. Probably now the last basin of conservatism is the [Persian] Gulf and Israel and these two issues have to be resolved. I'm not saying they are equal - definitely not, I mean Israel is the enemy; Saudi Arabia is made up of our brothers and sisters and so on...but at this point, the [Persian] Gulf region and the states cannot maintain this total grip over power as if there is no representation.
There is no representation whatsoever and Saudi Arabia today, other countries too, but mostly in Saudi Arabia there is no kind of representation except the tribal representation and interaction, which is not sufficient for modern kind of living - the limitations on women and men on political activities, the freedom of the press, the freedom of this and that; and the kind of Islamic role that's being applied i.e. the narrow understanding of Islamic perspective is also affecting it.
Don't forget that Saudi Arabia in the last two decades has sent thousands and thousands of people to study in the west, PhDs and MAs and all sorts of sciences. So you have business people and so forth on the one hand and you have the clergy, if I may say so, on the other hand - these are very conservative, they do not want to see any change because they are losing part of their power
But as the others now are opposing, they are trying to balance the two players, it doesn't seem it is working and nothing has been achieved.
Q: Do you think the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council has a common strategy at all and what positive track can you refer to?
Moussalli: I think at this point in time there is no real strategy. They all fall under the umbrella of the US and it protects the regime. Other than that, they are not really influential other than in the ideological and some minor political sphere and extending certain money to this opposition group or that opposition group like we see with what is happening in Syria, in Lebanon and so forth.
So, in a way, I don’t see them empowering any institution, they could have done that with the (P)GCC before.
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