Saudi Arabia: An Islamist Turn?

Amid the recent rift between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has played out most dramatically in Yemen with the Saudi sidelining of the Emirati-backed Southern Transitional Council that aspired to recreate an independent South Yemen, some commentators- especially those sympathetic to the UAE- have suggested that Saudi Arabia is somehow undergoing an ‘Islamist’ turn. Pushback against this notion has come from some Saudi commentators and some non-Saudi scholars like Bernard Haykel and Michael Ratney (the latter a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia).

Whatever one’s personal sympathies in the dispute between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the reality sides with the arguments of the skeptics here. It is not reasonable to speak of an ‘Islamist turn,’ which conflicts with what is happening on the domestic scene within the country and is an unconvincing explanation for the kingdom’s foreign policy.