Controlling the southern border with Yemen was one of the most important facets of Saudi national security. The border provided a conduit of weapons, explosives, and al-Qaeda fighters between Saudi Arabia and large tribal, ungoverned areas in Yemen where almost anything and anyone could hide. Security on that border has reportedly improved, but now Iraq has the potential to serve as a rearguard for terrorists and insurgents hoping to infiltrate the country. In response, Saudi Arabia is proposing to go through with a plan to build a 500-mile long electric fence, walling itself off from Iraq.
Of considerable danger to Saudi Arabia are Iraqi insurgency ?veterans? setting their sites on targets in the kingdom, in the same way that fighters have been sent from Iraq to Jordan to carry out terrorist attacks. Estimates on the number of Saudi participants in the insurgency range from 500 to 3,000 people, and the Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry has expressed concern over the danger some of them could present if they manage to return home. Terrorists of other nationalities could also be sent from the insurgency into Saudi Arabia to carry out attacks or to set up infrastructure for a terrorist cell, as has happened in both Lebanon and Jordan.
As troubling for Saudi Arabia as the extremist Sunnis are, cross border dynamics effecting Saudi Shia Muslims also present danger. Saudi Arabia?s Shia population has been a target of discrimination and derision within Saudi Arabia, and both Iranian and Iraqi Shia militias, mullahs, or other organizations may try to take advantage of their anger to provoke acts of violence and rebellion. Although a widespread uprising is unlikely, Saudi Shia are concentrated in a part of the kingdom that has considerable amounts of oil and oil infrastructure which is vulnerable to sabotage. Further, it is probable that the Saudi government could retaliate against acts of violence on the part of any Shia group with collective retribution against the Shia community, exacerbating the rift and leading to more retaliatory violence.
But the greatest problem a broken northern neighbor could present for Saudi Arabia is more complicated and more pathetic than the infiltration of Shia or Sunni extremists. If the security and economic situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, Saudi Arabia and other neighboring countries could face an influx of Iraqi refugees fleeing violence and poverty. This has already begun to an extent in other countries. News reports on Syria have highlighted the flow of fighters into Iraq, but there has also been a human current in the other direction as Iraqis flee to Syria to escape violence and poverty. Jordan is also a destination for escaping Iraqis. As early as the summer of 2004, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis had already crossed the border into Jordan, because of the violence and because their houses had been destroyed or their neighborhoods lacked electricity, drinking water, and sanitation. Others have gone to Turkey, or even further a field.
In Saudi Arabia, it is unknown how many Iraqi refugees may have found their way into the country, but the number is likely not high. Authorities in Saudi Arabia, more so than Iraq?s other neighbors, have controlled the mobility of Iraqi refugees into and within the country. The greatest indication of that is the notorious Rafha refugee camp, where thousands of Iraqi refugees were forced to live for years in terrible conditions following the first Gulf War. However, if the security situation in Iraq dissolves into civil war, all surrounding countries could become destinations for desperate refugees. This may be what Saudi Arabia fears the most, and may be the primary motivation behind the fence plan. An electric fence on the border suggests more than just the fear of terrorist infiltration, because terrorists can circumvent the fence by entering Saudi Arabia through other countries, and because most terrorists, weapons, and explosives have come from Yemen. An extensive electric fence is a harsh method to address a refugee problem, but Saudi Arabia may feel that they are not under any obligation to aid refugees because they bear little responsibility for creating the problem in the first place.
Whether the motivation for the fence is terrorists, refugees, or disruptive Shia elements, critics are calling the plan too expensive to be justified. Although bids have not been made yet for the construction, it is expected that the fence would be highly costly. Symbolically, the money would be an investment in the idea that Iraq will fail, that its neighbor has been compelled to construct this wall to protect itself from the chaos next door. This is a far cry from the visions of a liberated Iraq representing ?a model? for the rest of the Middle East. While some have used elections and other democratic indicators to try to show that still may be the case, to those living in the region, the fence project may prove a more compelling argument to the contrary.
