چرخش سیاست‌ خارجی عربستان در قبال عراق (2003-2020)؛ گذار از تقابل هویت‌محور به هم‌گرایی منفعت‌گرا

عربستان سعودی، همواره، به تحولات عراق با حساسیت بالایی می‌نگریسته و پتانسیل عظیمی از توانمندی خود در سیاست خارجی را صرف این کشور کرده است که طبیعتاً این موضوع، به‌ویژه پس از 2003 که نگرانی‌های ریاض در قبال معادلات بغداد را بیشتر نمود، در طراحی نقشۀ قدرت در غرب آسیا اثری شگرف داشته است. با وجود این اهمیت، نگاه و اقدامات خاندان سعودی در قبال عراق پساصدام و پساداعش بدون تحول نبوده است. مقالۀ حاضر به بررسی سیاست عربستان در عراق از سال 2003 تا میانۀ سال 2020 پرداخته است و با شناسایی یک نقطۀ چرخش مهم در سال 2016 طی این بازۀ زمانی، به این پرسش اصلی پاسخ می‌دهد: تحول سیاست خارجی عربستان در قبال عراق پساصدام چگونه بوده است؟ فرضیه‌ای که برای پاسخ به این سوال مطرح شده است، از این قرار است: نگاه غالب بر سیاست عربستان در قبال عراق در سال‌های 2003 تا 2016، منبعث از دغدغه‌های هویتی و رقابت‌های شیعی‌سنی و عربی‌غیرعربی، تقابلی بوده و از سال 2016 تا 2020 با توسعۀ مناسبات اقتصادی‌سیاسی با دولت عراق هم‌گرایی داشته است. برای آزمودن این فرضیه، با روش  توصیفی‌تحلیلی، ضمن بهره گیری از نظریات سازه‌انگاری و نوکارکردگرایی، تبیین شده است که از سال 2016 به‌بعد، عربستان با مشاهدۀ شکست سیاست‌های برآمده از رویکرد شیعه‌ستیز و مواجه‌شدن با نتیجه‌های عکس آن، از یک بازیگر متعصب سنّیِ ضدّ دولتِ غالباً شیعی عراق به یک بازیگر هم‌گرا و همکار با عراق برای جهت‌دهی به معادلات سیاسی این کشور تبدیل شده است.

Saudi Arabia’s turning towards Iraq (2003-2020); Transition from Identity Oriented confrontation to profit-oriented convergence

Saudi Arabia, After Saddam Hussain’s falling, has looked forward to Iraq securitypolitical, economic and cultural trends by high sensitivity and so, has intervened in many of them. As a result of this intervention, Iraq lost its security and entirely destabilized and of course Saudi Kingdom lost the opportunity to build close ties with new political system in Iraq. Having this in mind forced the Iraqi side, including the nation and most Shia political blocks to distance Saudi as far as possible. As a result of this situation, Saudi political system put “Support Extremist groups&, Isolation of Iraq and deepening sectarian gaps in Iraq’s society into its policies towards the country. By 2015, after years of seeking “destabilizing policies”, Saudis couldn’t get desired achievements and Iraq could backlash by creating PMF and Shia blocks preserved their position in political system.  To redress this weak position, Saudi kingdom changed its world view towards Iraq and established a new phase in its ties with PostSaddam Iraq, which till then have become PostISIS too. In this framework, Riyadh changed its policies towards Iraq and rather seeking destabilizing attempts, started détente with Baghdad by focusing on cooperation in the economic sphere. At this period Saudis put aside long and historic “identical oriented” “suppressing Shia policy” and changed it to “benefit oriented” “economic cooperation policy”. According to the latter view, Riyadh from 2016 reengaged diplomatically with Baghdad and the Saudi ambassador arrived to Baghdad for the first time since 1991. After this important step Saudi highranking political figures such as Adel Aljubair (then foreign Minister) came to Baghdad for the first time. Now 4 years after this rotation, all three Iraqi prime ministers (Abadi, AbdulMahdi; Kadimi) have been invited warmly to Riyadh, some 5 high commercial delegations have visited each other from both countries, Saudi has committed to support Iraq by more than 1 billion dollars in addition to gift a big stadium, Arar border entrance opened as the first border crossing point between the two, military cooperation has started, and the trend hasn’t been paused yet. This big change made the authors of the article use two theories (constructivism for the first phase and NewFunctionalism for the second one). In this article, we have utilized Descriptiveexplanative methodology for elaborating the turning point in RiyadhBaghdad relations in post Saddam. We evaluate Saudi policy towards the issue of Iraq from 2003 to the Mid 2020 and answer to this main question: “what changes have happened in Saudi Policy Towards Iraq in Post Saddam era”; To do so, we have explained that Riyadh, after 2016, by backfiring in its policies towards Iraq, which had rooted down in AntiShia attitude, changed its policy from a destabilizing one to a detente. In other words, Saudi Arabia after 2016, despite almost a decade of political and security conflict, has become an assistant actor for mostly Shia government in Baghdad and sought for a convergence. Through this article our assumption is “from 2003 to 2016, Saudis just considered new government in Iraq as a Shia actor which was based on identical attitudes, it was impossible to compromise with, but after that, with seeing no result from old attitudes, Riyadh chose to change the way and look at Iraq from functionalism point of view”. To verify mentioned assumption, we utilized descriptiveexplanative method and constructivism and new functionalism as the methodology.