President Obama did not speak much about the Middle East in his recent speech directed at his people because he has not achieved much to be proud of except the nuclear deal with Iran. He is marketing the deal as global peace project while it in fact it is a war project in our region.

Among the few things he said was a serious sentence we need to think about and that we could even build our policies upon. We must know whether it was personal opinion or a policy being adopted by the US. When Obama elaborated the serious transformation taking place in this region he described that as “rooted in conflicts that date back millennia”.

What make this serious is that Obama is not a university professor but a president of superpower who is responsible for many of the crises in the Middle East. It is a sentence that misrepresents the reality of the ongoing conflicts by summing it up as a sectarian concept which actually only exists in the minds of Shia and Sunni extremists.

The fact is that the conflict is about freedom about Arab peoples looking for better world than the former or the existing world of dictatorship.

Immediately after he finished his speech many Western commentators and specialists in Middle East affairs criticised the statement he made. They emphasised that the conflict does not date back for millennia but it is contemporary and has recently started.

Regardless of who started the conflict whether it is Iran with its sectarian polices and expansionist desires or the Arab revolutions which erupted five years ago seeking a better world the analysis made by Obama was absolutely wrong.

In his previous speeches and interviews Obama described the current conflict as “sectarian” and the questions that often arise is: ‘Is this the reason for his reluctancy to interfere and hence to leave the region to heat to boiling point and then destroy itself? Is this is the argument that made him ignore the bombing and other violations of human rights that have taken place on daily basis in Syria which have reached their peak in the besieging of civilians until they were dying of starvation not only in Madaya but in 24 Syrian towns and villages and the same thing in Ta’ez in Yemen? Obama also did not comply with his commitments when Bashar Al Asaad used chemical weapons against his people violating human rights and international laws.

Such a statement was not expected from a man like Obama who is an intellectual and knows very well the history of the region. Sectarianism cannot excuse him of his commitments unless he wants to find another justification for his reluctance.

It is clear that the crisis in the Middle East will not end with his term and what we are seeing today are the beginnings. History will tell us that because of his hesitations all this loss and destruction took place. He did not interfere to stop bloodshed like the former president Bill Clinton who interfered in Bosnia. Not only that but he hindered interventions and he let the situation deteriorate and get more complicated through the direct involvement of Iran Hezbollah and Russia in the conflict.

Obama kept repeating the line that “Bashar Al Assad has lost legitimacy” but did not act against him. If Saudi Arabia had not decided to intervene in Yemen the situation there would have become like Syria. Perhaps this opinion became like a fact to Mr. Obama and he wants to tell us that “this is your sectarian conflict dating back 1000 years and so you should solve it by yourselves”.

If this is the situation then there is a need for diplomatic and intellectual moves to disprove and dismantle its basis before it becomes a policy for the US.

Once it become a policy then it will be similar to allowing the spread of Iranian sectarian policies from the Middle Ages and the Saudis having to resist expansionism conspiracy and assassination practices. Iran only support parties that are in allegiance with its sectarian policies regardless of whether the parties are tyrants like Bashar Al Assad or Ali Saleh of Yemen or a sectarian armed groups like Hezbollah or Ansar Allah in Lebanon and Yemen respectively.

Yes Saudi Arabia is the power leading the region against Iran but it is not doing this for sectarian purposes and Obama will not find any Saudi official saying that his country is leading Sunnis in the region or agreeing with the claim saying that what is happening is proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. It is an erroneous concept and Riyadh must refuse temptations by some enthusiasts to get it to agree to lead the Sunnis. If this happens it will be the first step towards dragging Saudi Arabia into a sectarian mud bath that is what Iran wants. We are above a single sect as we are one Ummah.

The Kingdom believes in states’ sovereignties rejects interfering in other’s affairs does not export revolutions or support any party- let alone armed militias. It is a baseless claim that says: Saudi Arabia supports Sunni extremists simply because they are involved in sectarian wars like Iran. Saudis believe this is against the future and Sunni extremists are considered criminals in Saudi Arabia and are arrested upon their arrival and brought to court.

This is the case in Saudi Arabia but in Iran the Shia extremists are received as heroes when they come back home. When Sunni extremists die nobody cares about them but for Shias they are martyrs celebrated in the media and commemorated in mosques. It is not a millennia long conflict but it is a conflict that started when the Western states ignored the arming and training of Hezbollah so long as the weapons were not used against Israel.

The US did not object or condemn the weapon shipments from Tehran to Damascus throughout the last five years. They were aware of their arrival and contents but it is not a problem for them as long as the arms are not directed towards Israel and are only used against Syrians in Homs Madaya and other places.

It is a conflict that started when the world ignored popular mobilisation forces in Iraq which used force against civilians in Ramadi and Diyala and various other places in Iraq with the support of US warplanes considering all Sunnis in Iraq as members of ISIS. It is a conflict that began when the US hesitated about information provided by Saudi saying that Iran sent weapons to Yemen and Nigeria.

As someone who begins every day with an intelligence briefing I know this is a dangerous time. However that is not because of the diminished strength of America or some looming superpower. In today’s world we are threatened less by evil empires and more by failing states. The Middle East is going through a transformation that will play out for a generation.

At least from our side it is not a conflict that dates back for millennia. In the Middle East as in the rest of the Islamic Ummah extending from Indonesia to Morocco people are looking forward to better future by moving steadily towards democracy and modernity and are refusing to mortgage their future into the hands of the Iranian Guardianship of the Islamic Juristsor the ‘Caliphate’ of Da’esh.

Jamal Khashoggi is a Saudi Arabian journalist columnist author and the General Manager and Editor-in-Chief of

Al Arab News Channel.

All thoughts and views expressed in these columns are those of the writers not of the newspaper.

All correspondence regarding Views and Opinion pages should bemailed to the Editor-in-Chief.