How Saudi tried to bully Jordan and failed

At a serious peep, Saudi Arabia’s transient detention of billionaire Jordanian businessman Sabih al-Masri last Tuesday appears to be like to be one among essentially the most bizarre recent tendencies in the Arab world relating to prosperous individuals. However if we analyse the sizzling behaviour of Saudi Arabia’s management, we are succesful of without danger look that Masri’s detention became as soon as now not a gorgeous or irregular action.

This episode became as soon as per the latest Saudi pattern of harsh arm-twisting, battle-mongering, and intimidation that operate to bludgeon smaller Arab states to pursue the insurance policies it favours.

Sadly for Riyadh, most of its actions grasp didn’t fabricate their dreams, and in on the area of all conditions they grasp got backfired. These consist of the Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE)-led calamitous battle in Yemen, the failed siege of Qatar, the unravelling of Saudi-backed rebels in Syria, and the embarrassing forced detention and « resignation » of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

These actions straight triggered smaller Arab states to defy the Saudis and their allies, and moreover created novel openings for non-Arab powers to gain strategic hyperlinks across the Arab region (especially Iran, Turkey, Russia, some European worldwide locations, and in all likelihood China, soon).

The Saudis grasp mentioned nothing of substance about Masri’s case, as took space with the Hariri detention, so any analysis of the billionaire businessman’s ordeal is miniature to reasoned speculation. All by procedure of the kingdom, such speculation saw Masri’s detention within the context of continued anti-corruption initiatives by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and the commercial hyperlinks between Masri and detained Saudi billionaire Prince Al Waleed bin Talal.

Outdoors the kingdom, analysts largely saw a heavy-handed power play to force Palestine and Jordan to exercise Saudi orders.

A brutal message to Jordan and Palestine

The Saudi detention of Masri became as soon as a indecent but brutal political message to Jordan’s King Abdullah and Palestine’s President Mahmoud Abbas on easy strategies to behave on the Jerusalem area and regional alignments.

Riyadh wished to signal to the Jordanian and Palestinian leaderships that it could well most likely well presumably hasty cripple their economies and trigger existential crises whereby banks would suffer terminal runs, the governments would fail to pay their staff, and the economies would sputter to a quit. The first signs of this appeared in recent days with the fall in the price of Arab Bank shares, that are a in reality well-known savings and funding car for heart-class Palestinians and Jordanians.

Masri became as soon as the appropriate instrument to ship this apocalyptic message. He is a in reality well-known resolve for both Jordan’s and Palestine’s economies as a number one investor, and as chairman of the Arab Bank that dominates both the Jordanian and Palestinian banking sectors. The monetary institution has even bailed out these liquidity-wired governments several times in the past.

For that reason the transient Saudi action against appropriate one man sparked instantaneous and new concerns about the financial wellbeing of both these economies. Voters moreover feared that Riyadh could well presumably apply up by barring Jordanian and Palestinian expatriate workers and exports to Saudi Arabia, which could presumably demolish both economies and plunge 15 million Jordanians and Palestinians into deep disaster.

The presumed tripartite Saudi message became as soon as this: Amman and Ramallah could well presumably also nonetheless kick again out their criticisms of Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital; now not join the Group of Islamic Cooperation emergency summit that convened in Turkey last week; and, improve Saudi Arabia’s desire to promote an expected Israel-Palestine « peace blueprint » that is being developed by the White Dwelling.

Palestinians and Jordanians broadly oppose the blueprint that they largely look as reflecting Israeli priorities, in space of a balanced potential anchored in existing United Countries resolutions.

Defying Saudi threats and intimidation

Jordan and Palestine – worship Qatar, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon earlier than them – straight rejected Riyadh’s wishes, defied its threats and intimidation, and pursued insurance policies that extra closely aligned with the sentiments and interests of their very grasp of us. King Abdullah and President Abbas attended the summit in Turkey, strongly denounced the US switch on Jerusalem, and for real measure moreover placed themselves subsequent to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the ceremonial summit photograph.

Jordan had defied bigger powers and survived several times earlier than, when the dumb King Hussein stood his ground earlier than Arab and foreign powers that ostracised him for his positions on the 2001 battle against Iraq, as an illustration.

The continuing pattern of heroic but unsuccessful Saudi insurance policies, usually with Emirati backing, suggests several classes to gain in thoughts.

First, small Arab states can defy the threats and stand as much as the militancy of gargantuan regional powers by standing agency on the appropriate worthwhile provide of security and successfully-being they grasp got – the cohesion, interests, and sentiments of their very grasp electorate.

Second, a without discover evolving regional and global strategic list enables threatened small states to momentarily climate short-term storms by speedy reconfiguring their change, transport, and strategic relationships with states near and much (as Qatar has done).

Third, Arab foreign insurance policies anchored in the interests of Israel and the United States – or any foreign power, for that subject – will repeatedly be rebuffed by Arab populations that increasingly extra reject the fickle nature of foreign improve. 

The views expressed in this article are the creator’s grasp and cease now not necessarily mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.