Saudi Arabia´s military muscle

Yesterday Saudi Arabia launched the military exercise called Northern Thunder. Most of us, in the West, did not notice it. As we did not realise that military contingents from around twenty states are participating in this major deployment. Among them, there are several African States – Chad, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia are some of them – as well as Asian countries, including Pakistan and Malaysia. Many of these soldiers had to be brought to Saudi Arabia at a very high cost. It is not cheap to deploy troops. I am sure Saudi Arabia has contributed quite a bit to make the voyages possible.

Beyond the military training, I see a strong political message. And I think it is important to keep that in mind. 

Mediating between Saudi Arabia and Iran

If I were the UN Secretary-General, I would immediately dispatch a Personal Envoy to consult with the authorities in Riyadh and Teheran, as well as with the Arab League and the key states in the region. The point is to take the initiative, at a very high level, to reduce the growing tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The SG should do it. And select the Envoy from a pool of respected former Heads of State or Prime Ministers, preferably from Asia.

He has the power and the status to initiate such a move. And he has to be seen as being extremely preoccupied with the aggravating situation in the Middle East. More so, because the new critical developments have a deep negative impact on the very timid and tentative peace processes that are about to start regarding Syria and Yemen. 

Iraq and the great divide

The Iraqi crisis reminds us of how difficult it is to assist a country that is deeply divided along ethnic and cultural lines. The fracture line between Sunnis and Shias cuts the country in two. This is a very high risk divide. It needs to be managed with great balance. Leaders from both sides of the line have to be brought together all the time. Our role, as international community, is to encourage them to cooperate, to help them to build the platforms that bring their interests together, to underline the common ground and look into the future from there.

In many ways, the experience tells us that to intervene in countries that are at the frontier of great divides is not a very easy thing. The best solution is to stay out, as much as possible. If that is not advisable, then the international community must act in a very well informed way, with great prudence and a strong sense of the risks.

That´s true in Iraq as it is also true in Sudan, Mali or Chad, in the Balkans, or any other country that has national communities that are very different, both from a physical point of view and from a religious or cultural perspective. These are countries with a very high risk of falling into major internal conflicts. Outside interventions that are just naive and ill prepared can only accelerate the hatching of the crisis.