Abdul Mohammed, a regional political analyst, says Saudi Arabia is becoming a source of destabilization to Ethiopia and to the region, by funding extremism and provoking confrontation with Iran and pursuing an unwinnable war in Yemen. ”It has dragged Egypt and Sudan into cooperation with its reckless policies, for tactical alliances and for money,” he writes in a commentary, final part of a three-part series on national security the author contributed to weekly Addis Fortune. The article is reprinted here from Addis Fortune on Feb 22, 2016 [Vol 16 ,No 825]
Since 2002, the global war on terror has mutated into a polarized confrontation. Thirteen years ago, we were largely spectators when President George W. Bush declared a global war on terror. The reason for that was that we had effectively contained the threat posed by Al Qaida in the 1990s: they were militarily and politically defeated.
But in the last seven years or so, violent extremism has made a comeback. At first it came back insidiously, in familiar forms, such as Al Shabaab in Somalia, which is a threat, but one that we are accustomed to handling.
Much more serious is the set of threats that emerge from the vortices of instability in the Middle East. The Arabian Peninsula possesses a very dangerous combination of militant extremism, militarism and very large amounts of political money. The implications for Ethiopia’s security strategy are grave indeed.
The 2002 Foreign Affairs National Security Policy Strategy is an official governmental document; of course there are things that it could say only indirectly or in a muted manner. One of them was that Ethiopia needed to find a way of neutralizing or overcoming the historic tendency of Egypt to undermine Ethiopia.
Although Ethiopia and Egypt have many core interests in common, there is such a long history of mutual suspicion, that Egypts foreign policy reflex in the Horn is to support any forces opposed to a strong and independent Ethiopia. This has much to do with Egypts obsession with maintaining the share of Nile Water awarded to it under the 1959 agreement – a treaty to which Ethiopia is not a signatory.
If the Gulf countries, notably Saudi Arabia, were to start aggressively sponsoring militant Islamism in the Horn, Ethiopia would be directly imperiled.
The sheer amount of money that Saudi Arabia can dispense – no questions asked – to further its political and ideological agendas – and to export its domestic contradictions to the neighbouring countries – make it potentially the most severely destabilizing force in the wider region.
A third fear was that the partition of Sudan would lead to an embittered northern Sudan, drawn into the Arab axis for both political-cultural and financial reasons. And, an ungovernable South Sudan that would become a morass of destabilization into which neighbouring countries, including Ethiopia, poured their energies, to no effect.
All three of these scenarios have come to pass. Not only have they all occurred, but they are linked. There is a strategic alliance between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which has swept up Sudan, and is about to sweep up Eritrea too, and possibly Somalia as well.
This is happening in the context of the revival of the status of the Red Sea as one of the world’s strategic choke points. More than 10pc of the world’s maritime trade passes through it; and China is opening a naval base. Russia is likely to do so. With the civil war in Yemen, the Gulf countries are pouring funds into anyone who can provide them with troops or bases.
Under President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, Egypt has replaced its reactive inertia with an activist foreign policy. Under King Salman, Saudi policy has become not only activist but reckless. Sudans President Omar al Bashir is a known quantity who maneouvres for survival.
These developments are of immediate benefit to Eritrea. Over the last decade, Ethiopia has effectively contained the real and perceived threat posed by Eritrea, and minimized its voice in regional and international forums. Ethiopia’s policy on Eritrea succeeded in its immediate goals, but it did not resolve the crisis between the two sisterly countries. The civil war in Yemen and the sudden rediscovery of geo-strategic interest in the Red Sea provide Eritrea with an option that need to be reflected upon.
It is important that Eritrea should be peeled away from it being sucked into the wider Middle East quagmire, especially the Yemeni crisis. The best mechanism for Ethiopia to accomplish this goal is by using multilateral forums such as the African Union (AU), and placing Eritrea within a broader strategic framework. If there is any part of the world that cries out for an overlapping multilateral approach, it is the Red Sea, with Eritrea at its centre.
In Somalia, while we deploy our troops to stabilize the situation, the political outcome of this year’s election is likely to be determined by political funds from the Arab world. Those funds mean that the entire Somali political class is leaning, for tactical reasons, towards Salafiism.
This holds out several intriguing prospects.
Thus, there is a possibility that the country will be radicalised through democratic political processes – which may resolve the armed conflict but end up by legitimizing a fundamentalist political order.
We should not be distracted by the war against Al Shabaab and mistake the goal of that war with the wider political objective of stabilizing Somalia. Ethiopia needs to reflect carefully on its strategic interests and goals in Somalia, in the context of deepening Middle East countries’ engagement in the country.
The single biggest issue is Saudi Arabia itself. Today, Saudi Arabia is a source of destabilization. It is funding, primarily privately, extremism across the region, and in doing so it is sponsoring the most puritanical and intolerant interpretations of Islam, which can do great damage to the social fabric of countries like Ethiopia. It is funding extremist groups, to keep them away from Saudi Arabia itself. It is provoking confrontation with Iran and pursuing an unwinnable war in Yemen. It has dragged Egypt and Sudan into cooperation with its reckless policies, for tactical alliances and for money.
And most serious of all, the likelihood of grave turmoil within Saudi Arabia is growing by the day. Arguably, Saudi Arabia can become a failed state. The kingdom with its centralized patronage authority can degenerate into an era of the princes. In this scenario, many different princely and religious authorities – each one possessed with a political budget of a medium-sized state, and possibly with the armaments to match – fight out their differences, at home and in the region.
This whirlwind would overshadow the obvious comparison, Libya, and it would be on our doorstep.
While attending to the regional implications of the crisis in the Arab world, we must also attend to the domestic implications of the spread of extremism. This form of religious interpretation is anathema to the traditions of tolerance that exist in Ethiopia and the neighbouring countries. These date back to the time of the Prophet Mohammed himself, and cannot in any way be regarded as less authentic than the exclusivist creed practiced by the followers of extremism.
The protection of our religious tradition, which is tolerant and embedded in social mores that are comfortable with overlapping and multiple identities, is extremely important. We cannot afford to let it grow roots in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia’s foreign policy and security strategy White Paper of 2002 was formidable and innovative. It insisted that Ethiopia should get its own house in order, as the basis for establishing a robust security strategy and building political and economic relations with neighbouring countries and the wider international community. It linked Ethiopia’s national goals of democracy, development and the governance of diversity in an organic way with the demands of regional economic integration and development, and with positioning Ethiopia as a force for stability, with links to all.
The specific elements of Ethiopia’s national security policies, as developed in the wake of the 2002 strategy, were well-suited to that era. As circumstances have changed, new opportunities have been realised, and new threats have arisen. The same analytical tools need to be applied to the changed situation. That we can do.
Time-honoured principles of astute analysis of the global context, linking Ethiopias external policies with its internal ones, promoting multilateralism, avoiding dependence on external actors, and constant open review of the goals and methods of pursuing security, will stand us in good stead.
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When Saudi Unravels Ethiopia Cannot Be a Bystander
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