Tensions are building between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The consequences could be disastrous.
By Ishaan Tharoor, Newsday
When President Donald Trump entered the White House, he was emphatic about the state of the world around him: “I inherited a mess at home and abroad,” he declared in February, adding that the Middle East in particular was “a disaster.”
In trying to reckon with that “disaster,” Trump seems to have set his stall in Riyadh, tacitly encouraging the kingdom’s ambitious crown prince to shake up Saudi foreign policy and embark on a dramatic series of confrontations across the region. Two articles published over the weekend show how battle lines in the Middle East may be hardening as a result.
Reporting from Lebanon, my Washington Post colleagues examined how the region’s political turmoil has actually boosted Hezbollah. The powerful Iran-backed Shiite organization was part of a coalition government led by a Christian president, Michael Aoun, and a Sunni prime minister, Saad Hariri — at least until Hariri resigned during a visit to the Saudi capital this month, a move many observers think was forced by Riyadh.
“The Saudis hoped that Hariri’s resignation would create an electroshock . . . that the Cabinet would be immediately dissolved, and Hezbollah and its allies would have to step down from ministries and other important positions of power,” Raphaël Lefèvre, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center, said to my colleagues. “Of course, this never happened.”
Instead, after finally returning to Beirut last week, Hariri “suspended” his resignation and held meetings with his coalition partners. That doesn’t mean everything is back to normal: On Monday, he reiterated his threat to quit if Hezbollah doesn’t agree to a new power-sharing agreement in the country, although the details of such a new deal remain murky. But the political maneuvering has hardly strengthened Saudi Arabia’s hand in its rivalry with Iran.
Indeed, the opposite may be the case. Hezbollah is gaining credibility as an anchor of stability in Lebanon, a state racked by divisions and a history of strife. Thousands of its members have fought in the increasingly sectarian war in neighboring Syria, but at home Hezbollah is trying hard to reach across Lebanon’s confessional divides.
Hezbollah is firmly embedded in communities across the country, providing vital social services such as schools and hospitals. “The group has billed itself as a defender of all of Lebanon’s communities, and seeks to cultivate Sunni allies inside and outside the government,” wrote my colleagues Louisa Loveluck and Erin Cunningham.
For that reason, Hezbollah struck a calm and conciliatory tone after Hariri’s resignation. Other players in the Middle East, including Egyptian President and Saudi ally Abdel Fatah el-Sissi urged caution. “The region cannot support more turmoil,” he said.
