Introduction
The power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia emerged on a large scale after the Arab Spring. However, as noted by Hashemi & Postel (2018), this rivalry has its roots in the seventh century when the issue of selecting the next caliph appeared between Shiites and Sunnis. In this regard, the following essay provides a historical review of this power struggle between both states to increase their influence in the Middle East in the light of the article by Hashemi & Postel (2018).
Review
According to Hashemi & Postel (2018), the permanent desire of different states to have extended political control and achieve their strategic interests is one of the most proximate causes of global conflicts. Iran and Saudi Arabia are often considered as traditional rivals and have shared the same political agenda on several occasions. For instance, during the Cold War, both countries served the United States in its struggle against the Soviet Union and Communism that defined their same regional policy. Similarly, in the civil war of Yemen during the 1960s, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Jordan were strategic allies in support of the “royalist partisans of Mutawakkilite Kingdom” while Iraq, Egypt, and other Arab states allied with the Yemen Arab Republic (Hashemi & Postel, 2018).
However, as mentioned by Hashemi & Postel (2018), this equation changed significantly after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when Saudi Arabia perceived the threat of the rapid spread of political Islam within and beyond the Persian Gulf. In response, it heavily invested in diverse resources to undermine the appeal of the Islamic revolution by portraying this as a distinct Shiite phenomenon that does not align with the cores of Islam. As a result, the relationship between both states deteriorated in the 1980s. An interesting factor that helped Iran gain an immense reputation in the Islamic world was its Shiite theological basis which was perceived as an anti-imperialist movement against an oppressive Western-backed monarchy. This prospect of mass mobilization again became a great concern for Saudi Arabia (Hashemi & Postel, 2018).
This inimical relationship was further intensified when Saudi Arabia strongly supported Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war. However, as soon as the war ended in 1988, these relations gradually began to improve throughout the 1990s. But the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 proved to be a turning point for the decade-long peace between both countries that also gave rise to sectarian hostilities in the Middle East as well as in Asia. Consequently, the fears of the Shiite crescent and an ascendant Iran started to resonate among Sunnis to an extent that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia urged the US for a military strike on Iran in the words of “cut off the head of the snake” in 2008 (Hashemi & Postel, 2018).
However, the sectarian perspective was sidelined during the Arab uprisings in 2011 when Sunnis and Shiites of Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen marched together and met the same repressive fate. Since then, the sectarian ferocity is spreading throughout the region propelled by the Saudi Iranian rivalry. Saudi Arabia is committing atrocities on weekly basis in Yemen while Iran is the companion of President Bashar al-Assad in his crimes in Syria. Both countries thus have bombarded hospitals, markets, schools, and residential areas. Iran has fortified the Assad regime by arraying an extensive transnational flow of Shiite militants and engineering population division on a sectarian basis. Therefore, both Iran and Saudi Arabia are equally responsible for bringing destruction and instability to the region by strengthening sectarian violence. On one hand, the Saudi’s false claims of Iran intended to take over the Arab world often cloak its misfeasance, while on the other hand, Iran’s policies in Syria provide a basis for these exaggerations to become plausible among Sunnis.
Conclusion
The Saudi-Iranian rivalry has many shifts throughout history. It has fueled the fire of sectarian violence in the region for many decades. Therefore, according to Hashemi & Postel (2018), the only possible way to reverse the stability of the region is to settle the conflicts between both states with the sincere efforts of the international community.
References
Hashemi, N., & Postel, D. (2018, May 15). Opinion | Iran, Saudi Arabia and Modern Hatreds (Published 2018). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/opinion/iran-saudi-arabia-and-modern-hatreds.html
