Jewish Bubba: China's Belt and Road Initiative Snares Saudi Arabia and Iran

Nadene Goldfoot

Saudi Arabia, China and Iran

After years of hostility, Iran, a Shi'a state and Saudi Arabia, a Sunni state, have agreed to reestablish relations. This tentative peace was brokered by China after it was announced that officials from the three countries had met in Beijing for several days prior to negotiating the deal. This announcement from the three countries marks a new beginning of diplomatic relations between the two Middle Eastern powers and the reopening of embassies in Tehran, Iran and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia within the next two months. China's involvement in the deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia comes as a surprise and concern to some as U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia and China have been strained in recent years.

President Raisi of Iran, the judge linked to the mass execution of political prisoners...

The agreement seems to have been moved forward during President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Beijing last month. For months, Saudi Arabia has put pressure on Iran through its reported support for Iran International, a foreign-based Persian-language broadcaster critical of the regime that is received in Iran. Since President Raisi took office in August 2021, he announced it was a priority to reduce tensions with regional neighbors.

One of their problems are the Houthis. Fighting between Houthis and Yemen's government; First and foremost, the Houthis are Zaydi Shiites, or Zaydiyyah. Shiite Muslims are the minority community in the Islamic world and Zaydis are a minority of Shiites, or to the right of Shiites, a minority Muslim belief, significantly different in doctrine and beliefs from the Shiites who dominate in Iran, Iraq, and elsewhere (often called Twelvers for their belief in twelve Imams).

Houthi Rebels in Yemen (Shia against Sunnis)

Saudi Arabia and Iran have had a wide variety of differences throughout the region, often fought through proxies. The Houthi insurgency in Yemen, also known as the Houthi rebellion, the Sa'dah War, or the Sa'dah conflict, was a military rebellion pitting Zaidi Shia Houthis (though the movement also includes Sunnis) against the Yemeni military that began in Northern Yemen and has since escalated into a full-scale civil war.

They span from Lebanon to Syria to Iraq to Yemen. Iran has supplied weapons to Houthi forces in Yemen that have threatened Saudi populations both on the border and in interior areas. Saudi Arabia has been increasingly interested in finding a way to end the conflict in Yemen, and this agreement is likely to move that forward.

China hasn't been idle in making friends with other countries. They have been building roads and such for them, putting these countries in China's pocket, so to speak. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, or B&R), known within China as the One Belt One Road (Chinese: 一带一路) or OBOR for short, is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in more than 150 countries and international organizations. It is considered a centerpiece of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping's foreign policy. The BRI forms a central component of Xi's "Major Country Diplomacy" (Chinese: 大国外交) strategy, which calls for China to assume a greater leadership role for global affairs in accordance with its rising power and status. It has been compared to the American Marshall Plan. As of January 2023, 151 countries were listed as having signed up to the BRI.

For all this time, Iran and Saudi Arabia have vied to be leader of the Muslim world. Which one acquiesced to the other? What did China promise to do for them?

China's leader Xi Jinping visited Astana, Kazakhstan, and Southeast Asia in September and October 2013, and proposed jointly building a new economic area, the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) (Chinese: 丝绸之路经济带). The "belt" includes countries on the original Silk Road through Central Asia, West Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The initiative would create a cohesive economic area by building both hard infrastructure such as rail and road links and soft infrastructure such as trade agreements and a common commercial legal structure with a court system to police the agreements. It would increase cultural exchanges and expand trade. Besides a zone largely analogous to the historical Silk Road, an expansion includes South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Many of the countries in this belt are also members of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Three belts are proposed. The North belt would go through Central Asia and Russia to Europe. The Central belt passes through Central Asia and West Asia to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. The South belt runs from China through Southeast Asia and South Asia and on to the Indian Ocean through Pakistan. The strategy will integrate China with Central Asia through Kazakhstan's Nurly Zhol infrastructure program.

Pool via REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque; REUTERS/Andrej Isakovi

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (L) and US President Joe Biden (R).

China brokering peace between two opposing Muslims is

something no one else has been able to do.

Israel has been hoping that Saudi Arabia would join the

Abraham Accords.

This is a surprise to Biden, you would think.

JERUSALEM — News of the rapprochement between long-time regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran sent shock waves through the Middle East and dealt a symbolic blow to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the threat posed by Tehran a public diplomacy priority and personal crusade. The breakthrough — a culmination of more than a year of negotiations in Baghdad and more recent talks in China — also became ensnared in Israel’s internal politics, reflecting the country’s divisions at a moment of national turmoil. The agreement, which gives Iran and Saudi Arabia two months to reopen their respective embassies and re-establish ties after seven years of rupture, more broadly represents one of the most striking shifts in Middle Eastern diplomacy over recent years. In countries like Yemen and Syria, long caught between the Sunni kingdom and the Shiite powerhouse, the announcement stirred cautious optimism.

The Times has reported that Saudi Arabia has tested the ability to stand down their air defenses to allow an Israeli strike on Iran to pass through their airspace. Both nations have denied this.

In spite of not having official diplomatic relations, they cooperate with each other by intelligence exchange, especially about Iran. In a meeting at the Washington office of the Council on Foreign Relations, Anwar Eshki, a retired major general in the Saudi armed forces and Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, discussed "their common interests in opposing Iran". So now they have made peace with each other.

Comparing Iran and Saudi Arabia

Iran, a country #6 in size with 76,923, 300 population of 98%

Shi'as and an Islamic state, military 545,000 men. A minority

Muslim religion.

Saudi Arabia, a country #14 in size, with 27,601,038 population

of 100% Sunnis and also an Islamic state, military 199,500 men,

majority Muslim religion.

Resource:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/11/1162886810/truce-between-iran-and-saudi-arabia-brokered-by-china-raises-some-concern-for-u-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

https://www.csis.org/analysis/why-did-china-help-saudi-arabia-and-iran-resume-diplomatic-ties

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_insurgency_in_Yemen#:~:text=The%20Houthi%20insurgency%20in%20Yemen,a%20full%2Dscale%20civil%20war.