Why stoking sectarian fires in the Middle East could be Saudi Arabia’s biggest mistake
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/why-stoking-sectarian-fires-in-the-middle-east-could-be-saudi-arabias
Saudi Arabia’s entanglement in the conflict in Yemen limits its ability to exert influence elsewhere. Even Saudi resources are under strain given the low price of oil with this year’s budget totalling $137bn (£93bn) and spending $224bn (£152bn). “Thanks to the over-confidence and under-competence of the Saudi royal family,” writes Aron Lund of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the online newsletter Syria Comment. “Syrian rebels may turn out to be among the biggest losers of the Yemeni war.”
Saudi rulers have faced serious challenges before, but they have never been faced with the degree of instability in states surrounding or close to the kingdom. There are wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, a guerrilla conflict in Sinai and street protests in Bahrain that could always become more serious. It should be much in Saudi Arabia’s interest to mitigate these crises but instead it stokes them but without any real plan on how to bring them to an end.