To a certain extent Walter Russell Mead’s characterization of differences between Saudi and Arabia in his latest Wall Street Journal column:
The Saudis and Iranians have responded to these changes in different ways. For all its faults and sometimes brutal behavior, the new Saudi power configuration has steered the country toward a recalibration that Washington can live with. As the kingdom warms toward Israel, reforms its textbooks, and gradually lifts selected restrictions on women, the radical Wahhabism that long held the country together is no longer as influential as it once was. There is no intention to make Saudi Arabia either a democracy or a Western-style secular society, and the authorities are tightly policing the boundaries of permitted dissent even as those boundaries shift, but the new direction is significantly better than the old.
and
Tehran is on another path. Seizing the opportunities that chaos offers in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, Iran has moved effectively to expand its regional profile even as it accelerates its nuclear program. American Iran doves hope this was largely a defensive response to Mr. Trump’s maximum-pressure approach and that Tehran will become more tractable as Washington’s hostility diminishes; we shall see. The multiethnic character of the country and the intimate linkages between the religious hierarchy and the state make it hard for Iran to de-emphasize radical religion and hard-line resistance to the West as the regime’s basis for legitimacy—and the military success of Iranian proxies around the region makes it hard to abandon a policy that seems to bring gains. Hard-liners are likely to point to any new U.S. concessions as a sign that their policies are working.
reminds me an old wisecrack I once heard. In a movie hat pits the Mafia against vampires who do you root for? There’s literally no one to root for in contrasting Saudi Arabia with Iran. Neither are our friends and they cannot be our friends, in Iran’s case as long as the present regime or any mullahocracy that replaces it is in power and in Saudi Arabia’s case probably forever.
I wonder what his evidence for this is?
the radical Wahhabism that long held the country together is no longer as influential as it once was
I think the comment reveals a flawed understanding of the government of Saudi Arabia, its society, and Wahhabism. Rather than thinking of the Saudi government as an absolute monarchy or autocracy, think of it more as resembling medieval England. Yes, there’s a king but he’s just one of many lords who wield power. Sometimes he’s the most powerful, sometimes not. As long as rich Saudis are promoting Wahhabism all over the world, as is the case today, its influence is waxing not waning. Just because the king and crown prince don’t emphasize their religious fanaticism doesn’t mean it’s not there, driving Saudi society. I see the monarchy’s moves to allegedly “liberalize” Saudi society by, say, allowing women to drive not as a mark of waning Wahhabi influence but as a sign that MBS wants to consolidate the monarchy’s power and a testament to Wahhabism’s continued power.
The situation in Iran is almost the opposite. There are plenty of educated, largely secularist Iranians who chafe at the restrictions the present regime imposes on them but as long as the regime remains in place and is supported by the military, the mullahs, the old revolutionaries, and conservative Islamist radicals largely consisting of people in rural areas and the urban poor, the regime will stay in control. Being nuclear-armed will provide insurance against being removed by foreigners.
He concludes:
This is the principal danger to the Biden administration’s so-far successful attempts to travel its own course between the Trump and Obama policies. The question going forward is whether the administration can impose its vision on Iran while keeping European and Middle East allies onside.
only we have no “Middle East allies”. We have a client (Israel), we have a hostile (Iran), and belligerent non-combatants (the Gulf States). And we have dwindling material interests. It’s time for our Middle East policy to change in a direction which those who’ve built their entire careers on the status quo will fight to oppose.
By the way the answer to the question in the title is that you root for the popcorn concession. I can’t root for them, either. They don’t have American interests at heart.
