Juan Cole: Top 5 Ways Saudi Arabia Really Could Fight Terrorism, & Not by a Vague Coalition

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34122-top-5-ways-saudi-arabia-really-could-fight-terrorism-a-not-by-a-vague-coalition

The problem is that, somewhat like the United States, Saudi Arabia’s recent history of aggressive foreign intervention is causing terrorism inadvertently. So here are some steps they could take instead of, or at least beyond coalition-building:

1. Stop recklessly and indiscriminately bombing Yemen. The Saudi campaign has allowed al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the organization behind the underwear bomber of 2009, to expand its territory in the south. That scares me more than the Houthis do. Half the country is fooinsecure, large numbers are being displaced, and hundreds of thousands of armed homeless people (Yemenis, like Americans, all have guns) are terrorism waiting to happen. The Saudi goal of defeating the Houthi guerrilla insurgency mainly from the air is misguided and will only cause more instability.

2. Make their clients, the Syrian guerrilla groups in the Army of Conquest, including the Free Men of Syria, break with al-Qaeda in Syria (the Nusra Front) with which they are formally allied. Saudi Arabia can’t fight terrorism if it is backing a coalition allied with al-Qaeda.

3. Speaking of Syria, stop insisting that it become Saudi Arabia’s mini-me and help all Syrians come to a political settlement of the civil war. Saudi Arabia keeps issuing ultimatums about what must happen. Syria is 14% Alawite Shiite, 5% Christian, 3% Druze, 1% Twelver Shiite, 10% leftist Kurds, and probably 40% leftist or secular Sunnis. The small, armed, Salafi minority can’t impose itself on the country as Riyadh seems to want. Riyadh’s hard line is prolonging the civil war and that is causing regional terrorism and giving groups like Daesh an opportunity.