SC elections and things that don't make sense

After years of studying the UN, I’ve now gotten to the point where most of the time I more or less know what’s going on at the UN and why. So naturally I have just one question for the Saudi Foreign Ministry: What the fuck?

I apologize for the vulgarity, but it is proportional to my inability rationalize Saudi Arabia’s actions. Now, I suspect most people reading this don’t have the faintest idea what I’m on about so let me explain. Every year the UN General Assembly elects five states to serve as non-permanent members of the Security Council for the next two years. In odd numbered years, one of these five states must be from Eastern Europe, one from Latin America or the Caribbean, one from Asia, and two from Africa. Additionally, one of the three seats allocated to Africa and Asia must be held by an Arab state alternating between Africa and Asia.

In light of these rules, I’ve always found Saudi SC membership policy somewhat perplexing. The Arab Swing Seat has essentially meant that since the current rules were introduced in 1965, Saudi Arabia was in a position to say, “We want a seat on the Council” every four years and could reasonably expect to get elected every time. Yet, they never chose to do so. Although a founding member of the UN, and significant regional power, Saudi Arabia has served a sum total of zero years on the Security Council.

While I don’t know the actual reason for this decision, it’s not too difficult to come up with a plausible one. Given Saudi Arabia’s incredibly complicated relationship with the United States, Council membership could easily have put the Saudi government in an awkward position of either going against it’s policy on Israel in voting for an essentially pro Israel resolution, or jeopardize it’s relationship with the US by voting against. (For non-permanent members, an abstention is essentially a symbolic no vote.)

However, all that changed two years ago when Saudi Arabia declared its candidacy for the 2013 Security Council election. While, as is the case with much of Saudi foreign policy, the reasoning for this decision remains unclear, I strongly suspect the beginnings of the Arab Spring were strong factor. The events that followed were fairly predictable. With only a limited number of eligible states, most of which have friendly relations with Saudi Arabia and no real chance of beating them in the election, to say nothing of the stability of some of their governments, no other state chose to run against the Saudis, and on 17 October the General Assembly elected Saudi Arabia by overwhelming majority.

Twenty-four hours late, the present confusion started. In a press release on its website, the Saudi Foreign Ministry put out a statement stating that they would be declining their election the Security Council, citing “double standards” and the Council’s inability to meaningfully address the Syrian Civil War. Things got even more complicated at that day’s UN press briefing when UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky said that while he had seen the statement, the UN had received no official communication declining the election, meaning that as far as the Secretariat was concerned Saudi Arabia would be a member of the Security Council staring 1 January 2014.

While it took them about three weeks to get their act together, Saudi Arabia has since officially communicated its intention to decline its election to the UN, making way for new elections, but the underlying question remains: What the fuck? The question of why Saudis actually declined their election is far more perplexing than their past membership policy. The official reasons they cited simply don’t add up. Every independent analyst, from Louis Charbonneau, to Mark Leon Goldberg, to the Washington Post, to myself (though admittedly I’m nowhere near the level of expertise of the other three) agree that in taking a seat on the Council the Saudis are would have an excellent opportunity to address the very issues the cited as their reasons for refusing the seat.

It’s been my experience that no matter how different they are from myself, assuming that any actor in international relations is crazy is a fundamental mistake. This leads me conclude that there are other reasons. I just don’t know what they are.