Just over a month after President Donald Trump issued his Executive Order instructing the State Department to begin designating certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Saudi Arabia has made its decision. While Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman might suppress the Muslim Brotherhood at home, he empowers it in neighboring Yemen.
For Saudi authorities, this fulfills two goals. First, it allows Riyadh to appease the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters, enabling it to export their ideology and terror abroad even as Saudi Arabia represses them at home. Second, the Saudi crown prince prioritizes his own jealousies and proxy war against the United Arab Emirates above the international quest for stability and security in Yemen.
For decades prior to the Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, Saudi Arabia was the chief engine and financier for Islamist extremism globally.
The Saudi decision to bomb Southern Forces in Mukalla suggests Mohammed bin Salman is backsliding to a pre-September 11, 2001, Saudi posture. For decades prior to the Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, Saudi Arabia was the chief engine and financier for Islamist extremism globally. It continued to support Islamist causes even after September 11, cracking down only when Islamist terrorists began attacking the Kingdom itself. That Saudi Arabia suffered blowback was no surprise. Every country that supports Islamist extremist groups beyond its borders ultimately faces their violence at home. This was a lesson that Pakistan, Syria, and Turkey all learned; Saudi Arabia will be no exception if it resumes its support for Yemen’s violent Muslim Brotherhood offshoot.
Islah operatives not only smuggle weaponry to the Houthis but also aid Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The Saudi crown prince may wish to check the influence of Abu Dhabi, but doing so in a way that empowers terrorists is unwise. Islah greased the smuggling route across the Hadramawt to the Houthi forces fighting to seize the Yemeni oil fields near Marib. Saudi authorities must decide what is more important: a force allied with the United Arab Emirates consolidating control, or a Houthi resurgence.
Saudi Arabia played the United States for fools in the run-up to September 11, 2001.
Saudi-Houthi relations are complicated. Following the Houthi capture of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, the Saudis initially moved to counter the Houthis but after Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and Donald Trump in his second term, abandoned the Saudis in their fight against the Houthis, Riyadh decided that the United States no longer had Saudi Arabia’s back and instead decided to appease the group. That might work in the short term, but in the long term it would be disastrous because the Houthis are as much an ideological enemy as a tribal group.
Trump prefers a hands-off approach in the region, and he looks at Saudi Arabia largely through its investment potential. Still, with the Saudis once again promoting the Muslim Brotherhood and undermining the fight against terror in Yemen, he and the State Department should reject their double game, stop weapons shipments, and sanction any Saudi official or private citizen whose actions empower or support Islah.
Saudi Arabia played the United States for fools in the run-up to September 11, 2001. Saudi Arabia’s actions this week in South Yemen make clear that not only Americans have reverted to the pre-September 11-era in their mindset, but Saudi Arabia, too, has forgotten the lessons of that period and now sets the stage for their potential repeat.
