Saudi Arabia's anti-Iran front: A bad idea for Turkey

A day before meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdo?an in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia?s new King Salman met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in a move that none of the parties want to correlate with a U.S.-supported move by the Saudis to form an anti-Iranian, Sunni front in the region.

The idea is not a bright one, firstly because it may possibly further antagonize the already tense political balances in the Middle East.

It seems that Iran?s spreading influence across the region - after Syria and Lebanon around five years ago, now into Iraq and most recently Yemen - has come to a point where it is almost encircling Saudi Arabia with a considerable Shiite population with few rights, worries the House of Saud. It also seems that the U.S. backs, if not initiates, the Saudis in trying to form an anti-Iran - or in another words anti-Shite - front, which would also make Israel happy. (There may be another motivation in this for the U.S., looking for leverage against Iran in the current nuclear talks.)

However, trying to bring together Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt and perhaps Qatar, Kuwait and others, just because they have mostly Sunni Muslim populations, against Shiite-dominated states, could lead to new cracks in the countries, rather than unity. It is also true that right in the middle of the fragile region are radical Islamist armed groups, such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Secondly, bringing Ankara and Cairo together in practical terms doesn?t seem very likely, at least for the time being. President Erdo?an told reporters on board his plane returning to Turkey that King Salman wanted reconciliation between Turkey and Egypt. ?He desires that, but without insisting. We have no problems...