Saudi Arabia's foreign policy speaks the language of double standards, exploitation, and outright backstabbing. Today, Yemen is the scene where the Persian Gulf Arab regime's strategy of concurrently supporting and fighting the same group, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, is in harmony with their interests.
Having waged an all-out political war against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Riyadh is now turning its back to its previous policy toward the organization, which was added to Saudi's so-called list of terrorist groups on March 7 2014, by supporting the Islah Party in Yemen, a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate.
When the Egyptian military, led by now-President then-Army Chief Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, toppled former Islamist President Mohammad Morsi in July 2013, the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) was split into two camps.
While Qatar stood alone in its sympathy for Egypt's Islamists, the Saudi regime and the United Arab Emirates were united in their hostility toward the Muslim Brotherhood which had swept Egypt's first presidential elections and installed the first democratically elected president in the country of 82 million. Since then, both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have given the new political leadership in Cairo full-fledged support and have backed the military-led crackdown against Islamists.
There is no question that Riyadh has done everything in its power to remove the Muslim Brotherhood from the Pharaoh's throne, as it perceives the transnational Islamist society as an existential threat to the monarchy rule. That was in Egypt, whereas when the Yemen crisis entered the equation, the end result shifted drastically.
While the Brotherhood is not exactly Saudi's best friend, Riyadh decided to drop its antipathy toward the banned organization, for a little while at the very least, and cooperate with the Islah party, Muslim Brotherhood affiliate in Yemen.
Why has the Saudi regime taken the decision to put its feud with the Muslim Brotherhood behind it?
If Saudi Arabia feels threatened by the Muslim Brotherhood which contributed to the politicization of Islam, in its extremist form in the 1950's then the Ansarullah movement in Yemen, which has openly integrated the kingdom in the US-Israel-Saudi axis, is irrefutably a thorn in its side. In the logic of the Saudis, what better way to remove this thorn than removing from the inside?
Riyadh has launched a deadly aerial campaign against Yemen knowing its futility in undermining Ansarullah fighters' defense line. So, the Saudis figured that the Islah party's antagonism to the Ansarullah movement- which led a popular uprising against fugitive President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi followed by a takeover of the capital Sana'a and other areas in the war-stricken country- would serve them well. Using the radical Islamist group as an internal weapon against its adversary was a well thought-out plan.
At the same time, the Saudi regime's funding and support for al-Qaeda in its confrontations against Ansarullah pits the Muslim Brotherhood and AQAP on the same side of the battlefield. This means that not only are the Saudis using the Muslim Brotherhood to fight Ansarullah, but they are also plotting to turn this fight against it once the battle is over. When the international community sees the militants from al-Qaeda and the Brotherhood are fighting side by side against Ansarullah, they will be associated with each other and thus become the two sides of the same coin. The Saudis will then toss this piece aside as it has done with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Once again, the Muslim Brotherhood will be a pawn in the Saudi political game of hegemony.
However, as much as the Saudi regime would like to believe that it is killing two birds with one stone by using the Muslim Brotherhood to target Ansarullah, the reality remains that its actions will boomerang when the battle is lost and won.
