Saudi Arabia’s royal family is not happy and wants the world to know it. The royal family has been more tight-lipped and diplomatic over the years. It would often hide its anger behind smiles in photos and vapid rhetoric about Arab brotherhood, even when it conspired against various Arab regimes.

Nowadays, the Saudi royal family is angry at the U.S. for allowing the Saudi and Tunisian dictators to fall, and for allowing Mohamed Morsi to be elected and for not bombing Syria. It is angry at Iran, its chief enemy, for reasons that have become well-known. It is angry at Oman for maintaining relations with Iran and for adhering to a sect that is disapproved by Wahhabi standards. It is angry (quietly) at the UAE over a number of issues including the UAE’s rejection of Saudi Arabia as the headquarters of the Gulf Central Bank. It is angry at Kuwait for not being subservient enough to Saudi interests. It is angry at Lebanon for not finishing off Hizbullah, and it is angry at Muslims around the world for not converting en masse to the Wahhabi version of Islam. 

Yet, Saudi Arabia seems to be on the same wavelength with two countries only, France and Israel.

The recent Saudi foreign policy declaration came out of anger. The Saudi monarchy was partly driven out of a decision to resume the all-out war against the Qatari regime. The reconciliation between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which started in 2008, did not win the approval of the entire elite of Saudi royal brothers. Only Prince Nayif was pushing for the reconciliation out of fear of the role that Al Jazeera has been playing in broadcasting the views of the Saudi opposition. 

Nayif calculated that Al Jazeera may be a source of internal instability in the kingdom, and wanted to neutralize it. Nayif’s brothers, especially Sultan and Salman who used their media to agitate vigorously against the Qatari royal family and Al Jazeera) vehemently opposed it but the King sided with Nayif and the matter was settled. Of course the Qatari and Saudi royal families, distrusted each other but acted nice in public. Yet, the reconciliation advanced once the Saudi government intervened militarily in Bahrain, and both Qatar and Saudi Arabia collaborated on forming the Arab counter-revolution. 

But the early part of the Arab counter-revolution, especially after the uprising in Libya, was largely led by the Qatari government while Saudi Arabia merely stood on the sidelines. Even on Syria, as the Qatari critics are now pointing out, Saudi Arabia waited six months before taking a stance, albeit mildly. Qatar was quick to form, manage, and control Syrian exile opposition bodies.

The election of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al-Nahdah in Tunisia put Qatar in the forefront of the so-called “Arab spring.” Qatar emerged as the financial and political sponsor of a movement of the Muslim Brotherhood, including Hamas, that seemed to be marching throughout the region. Saudi Arabia, which had a history of supporting and financing the Muslim Brotherhood, favored more militant Salafist and jihadi alternatives to the Brotherhood. 

Furthermore, the Muslim Brotherhood was pampered in Riyadh as long as they opposed a regime they detested, like that of Nasser, but to oppose allies of the Saudi regime in the Arab world became unacceptable. Saudi Arabia also did not enjoy the privileged position that Qatar was enjoying shortly after the outbreak of the Arab uprisings.

There is no unified leadership in Saudi Arabia these days. Khalid Tuwayjiri is still running the country on behalf of the king, along with the king’s sons, Mutaab and Abdul Aziz. The shoving and pushing toward the throne by the various princes continue unabated and the future of succession remains a mystery. 

But the King was not pleased with the progress of the war, not a “revolution”(as if the Saudi royal family would ever support a revolution anywhere in the world) in Syria. 

The Saudi regime, with the full support of the American administration, pushed Qatar aside and took the war in Syria into its hands. It pushed away the Qatari-controlled councils, shops, and personalities and appointed its clients and lackeys in key positions in the exiled Syrian opposition. 

Qatar did not fight back and seemed uncertain of what course to take. Qatar was taken back by the swift turnaround in the fortunes of the Muslim Brotherhood and responded rather defensively. It surrendered control of the opposition in exile and the armed opposition in Syria to Saudi Arabia without much public objection.

But there is more to the Saudi-Qatari rift than what we know about. What was the text of the Saudi-Qatari written agreement (mediated by the Kuwaiti emir) that was signed in Riyadh last year and which the Saudi government accuses the Qatari government of reneging on? 

The Qatari government would only say that it stuck to the contents of the agreement and that its disagreements with Saudi Arabia were over issues outside of the Gulf region, which leads one to think that the agreement covered Gulf affairs and the need to adhere to non-interference in internal affairs of countries, which in the Saudi lexicon can only mean that adherence to Saudi policies is required. The rift between Saudi Arabia and Qatar is now out in the open and will likely intensify.

It is quite possible that the reason for the Saudi open war on Qatar is the dramatic decline of Al Jazeera. When Al Jazeera was first launched, the Qatari government was able to claim for several years that it was not agenda-driven. And the network covered the entire Arab world outside of Qatar rather critically. 

But Al Jazeera cannot make that claim anymore. Al Jazeera is not scary to Saudi Arabia anymore and it can’t regain what it has lost in credibility (as dubious as it may have been) or effectiveness. Qatar’s zealousness in the era of Arab uprising caused it to lose the most strategic asset in its arsenal.

The Saudi-Qatari rift is good for the Arab world. Those two regimes never collaborated except on the most sinister and repressive plots for the Arab world, and they were behind the sectarian warfare that is inflaming the Middle East region. The GCC lost its cloak of unity and the open conflict between its constituent state will cause another Middle East headache for the U.S. 

-As’ad AbuKhalil is a professor of political science at California State University. This article was published first by the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar