The Iran and Saudi Arabia Rivalry

1 The Iran – Saudi Arabia Power Struggle by Teddy Lishan Desta, PhD (2011) 2 There is a broader aspect to the struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In all aspects, what is essential is Iran's ambitions to a regional and global power hierarchy. Saudi Arabia's reactions, as shown below, are just one part of the story, which otherwise include efforts made by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Israel and the US. The 1979 Iranian Revolution re-opened the centuries-old bitter rivalry between the two houses of Islam, the Sunni and Shia. Since 1979, there have been two significant efforts made by the Sunnis to thwart the resurgent Shi'ism of Iran. The first effort was the one made by the secularnationalist Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein. Saddam's approach was to contain Iran through an aggressive approach meant to weaken and sap the revolutionary and religious zeal of the mullahs of Iran. Saddam launched a war against revolutionary Iran in 1980. For the next eight years, Saddam bogged down the Iranians in a war of attrition whose frontlines barely moved, thereby causing massive devastation to Iran's human and economic resources. The eight years-long bitter war literally 'sucked the air' out of the revolutionary zeal of the mullahs. Understanding the strategic implications of the Iran-Iraq War, the West and Saudi Arabia stood by the side of Iraq. Because the West and many Sunni Arab countries realized otherwise, Iran would have quickly become a more formidable enemy to contain or counter. The second significant Sunni response to contain the rising threat of revolutionary Shi'i Iran was the one spearheaded by Saudi Arabia. Saudi's response to the Iranian threat has been ideological or religious. The Saudi initiated and supported their Islamic revival, a form of a resurgent fundamentalist Sunnism. The Saudi's goal was to match if not the revolutionary zeal of the Iranians, but at least their fundamentalist zeal. The immediate goal of the Saudi sponsorship of Wahhabism (a fundamentalist form of Sunnism) was to stem the popularity of Iran among the restless Arab youth. The Saudi's planned in fighting fire by fire, kindling their version of Islamic fundamentalism and militancy. The Saudi's wanted to demonstrate to the Arab street that they, too, were committed to fighting Muslim's real and imagined enemies. The Saudi's sponsorship of Wahhabism, a very intolerant and puritanical form of Islam, resulted in many notable political, geo-political and security shifts around the Middle-east, the heartland of Sunni Islam. The rise of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, the ascendancy of Islamic influence in Pakistani politics, and the establishment of al-Qaeda were some of these major geopolitical changes in the Middle East and West Asia. 3 The spread of the influence of Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan and Pakistan was a development that few foresaw coming. The arrival of Soviet Russia troops in 1979 in Afghanistan in support of a communist regime there had unleashed a conservative backlash among the predominantly Sunni Afghans. America's strong desire to force the Soviet's leave Afghanistan created a closer alliance with the traditionalistic Sunni Saudi political and religious establishment and Washington DC. The USA did not mind as the Saudis radicalized the Afghan mujahedeen fighters, nor scold Saudi's financing of the flow of young Muslims around the world to join the Afghan mujahedeen. Instead, USA security agencies provided the necessary hardware for the fighters while the Saudis mainly supplied the cash and the ideology. However, the West barely recognized that it has become entangled in the bitter worldwide rivalry between Shia and Sunni Islam, a competition for dominance of the Islamic world that was re-ignited by the Iranian Islamic revolution. The USA has not fully recognized that the Saudis were reviving their fiery Wahhabism as an ideological response to resurgent Shi'ism. One area of rivalry between the two firebrand versions of fundamentalist Islam has been one of which will demonstrate utter defiance and fighting spirit against secular ideologies and the historical enemies of Muslims. One means by which success in this area was measured was which these two firebrand Islamic ideologies will inflict an enormous pain on whom they regarded as infidels (enemies of Allah) and the occupiers of Muslim lands. To cleanse Muslim nations of these enemy forces and to recover the honor of Muslims long in a state of humiliation now became the twin standards and the rallying cries of radical Islamists of both kinds. To prove the superiority of their brand of ideology — in the eyes of potential recruits and other Muslims nations — Saudi Arabia and Iran entered into undeclared competition. They took for a sign of success the level of destruction they can inflict on the enemies of Islam and the Arabs. The other sign of achievement was who will succeed to clear the Middle East from the presence of "infidel forces," particularly the USA and Israel. Hence the birth of the modern jihadist movement, both in its Shia and Sunni forms, is located in the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the subsequent ideological response of the Saudis through their dormant, but inherently firebrand, Wahhabi Islam. 4 The enemy list of Allah and Muslims generally included the communist East, the capitalist West, and Zionist Israel. These are the three primary entities which have been taken by jihadists of all stripes as the three major enemies of Islam. Hence followed many terrorist attacks on “crusaders and Jews” as the two sides of Islam tried to outdo each other in jihadist missions. By 1989, one of the three enemy giants, soviet communism has been defeated, by no small contribution from radical Muslim fighters who rallied to Afghanistan to fight alongside the mujahedeen. Now the remaining goal was how to banish the two major remaining giants, the USA and Israel, from the Muslim heartland. The rivalry intensified between Shia and Sunni radical groups to inflict the greater devastating force against the West and Israel. Indirectly, the competition between the Iranians and the Saudis, which oversaw such missions, was to win the hearts and minds of uncommitted Muslim nations and potential recruits to their side of the Muslim ideology. The assumption was that whichever side inflicts the most pain on the West and Israel, that side will win first place in the minds of the restive youth of the Islamic world, and hence rule the future. The ideological effort by the Saudis to contain Iran became a significant source of fundamentalist Sunni activity that encouraged the formation of several radical Islamic groups around the world. The competition among these groups and the need to prove the steadfast commitment and lethal power of the extreme version of Sunnis many of these groups turned to unleash terrorist attacks, fomenting political unrest, and igniting a civil war. In this regard, the 09/11 terrorist attack against the USA can be considered the direct result of the rivalry between radical Sunni and Shia fundamentalism and political Islam. The militancy shown by both sides was to outdo each other in inflicting pain on Western powers (particularly against the USA, UK, and Israel). The rivalry intended to attain a pride of place in the hearts of Muslims around the world. On 09/11, the USA became a victim of the renewed rivalry between the two houses of Islam. Particularly the USA became a victim of radical Sunnism in its ideological “cold war” to contain radical Shiism. Radical Sunnis (aka al-Qaeda) to prove their fighting capability and ideological prowess by carrying out such outrageous and audacious against the most significant secular power of the earth. Through the 09/11 attack, radical Sunnis were able to demonstrate to the Muslim world that they have the better capability in inflicting mortal damages to superpowers. First in Afghanistan they forced the superpower the Soviet Union to withdraw from that country 5 in defeat. Some ten years later, they struck a devastating blow against the remaining superpower. They attacked the capitalist superpower at its most vulnerable spot, aiming at bringing the USA down to its knees by destroying the nation’s trade and financial centers. The damages from the destruction of the World Trades Centers were colossal, winning al-Qaeda huge notoriety around the Muslim world. Radical Sunnis have now demonstrated their lethal capacity to shatter the boasted security of mighty superpowers. In the meantime, while radical Sunnis concentrated on the Soviet Union/ Russia and the USA and the West, Iran, on the other hand, chose Israel for its target. Iran focused on one project —in wiping out the state of Israel from the map. Iranian leaders always called Israel cancer residing in the heart of a Muslim Middle-East. For Iran, Israel was cancer that should be extirpated by every means. The USA Military Intervention and the Regional Balance of Power In the aftermath of 09/11, the USA opened two war fronts. In 2001, the US launched a war in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda, the perpetrator of 09/11, and to punish the Taliban regime, which was hosting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The second front was Iraq. The US went to war in Iraq in 2003, accusing Saddam Hussein developing weapons of mass destruction. However, the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have some serious unintended consequences. The wars radically shifted the balance of power in the rivalry between Shi'ism and Sunnism. This unintended consequence on the part of America was to remove from the two flanks of Iran its deadliest enemies. When America removed in 2003 the secular-nationalist Sunni regime in Iraq, it did not know that it was relieving the Mullah's of Iran from one of their primary nemesis. Moreover, when America routed the die-hard Wahhabi regime, the Taliban, in Afghanistan in 2001, it did not plan the removal of another major threat to Iran. As a result of America's military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran unexpectedly saw the departure of its two mortal enemies, which were flanking it on its eastern and western borders. Now Iran was as if given a free hand – ironically by America - to concentrate on its broader regional ambitions. Following the geopolitical changes post-2001, Iran's actions in the region entered a new phase. First, relieved of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban threats, Iran's leader now focused on what they all along considered one of Muslim's great enemies, the State of Israel. To win the respect 6 of the Muslim world, Iran's leaders have openly expressed their intention to dismantle the State of Israel. Their enmity to the State of Israel was two-fold. First championing the rights of Palestinians, a cause célèbre among a majority of Muslims worldwide, they believed will give them a full acceptance and pride of place among the Sunni Muslim populace which dominates the region. Thereby, they thought that they could easily become the leader of the Muslim world, quickly sidelining Saudi Arabia. The idea of weakening the State of Israel has to be through Iran's regional allies and proxies, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Syria. To this end, the military powers of these allies, Iran assiduously built. Second, the post-2003 Iraq War, Iran re-started its nuclear program, which was in the cold storage since the days of the Shah. Iranian leaders' have had two geopolitical goals. First, Iran to counterbalance the region's only nuclear power Israel. Second, to supplant Saudi Arabia as the head of the Islamic world and the defender of the Arab honor. Instead it was a decision born of President Bush's 2002 the State of the Union address. Bush in that speech made reference to Iran and its allies as part of the Axis of Evil that threatened world peace. Others put in the category of the Axis of Evil included Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Kim Jong-il's North Korea. The subsequent American invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not leave in the minds of Iran's leaders that the USA would not hesitate to take military action whom it considered as a source of real and imagined threat. The subsequent presence of the US army — a country which they have designated the Great Satan all along since the days of their Revolution — next door in Iraq was an added security worry to Iran's leaders. They could see how if America succeeded in Iraq that they can next attack them with a flimsy pretext. Therefore, to deter any ambition of this kind on the American's part, Teheran devised two significant strategies. Covertly it funded and supplied the resistance in Iraq. Iran knew that by making Iraq extremely unstable for Americans that it can their stay in the country short, thereby thwarting US long-term ambitions in the region. The second strategy to deter the US from any plan to attack Iran was to activate Iran's moribund nuclear program and develop atomic power capability as soon as possible. Nuclear arms capabilities Iranian leaders understood was a very effective deterrent against small and big enemies. 7 Three Responses to the Iranian Threat Because of its activities, Iran has attracted renewed attention from Israel, the USA, and Saudi Arabia. Each of these countries was forced to take Iran quite seriously as a major threat to their existence or strategic interest, or bot. As a result, they have been forced to re-think and recalibrate their security and strategic policies in order to limit Iran’s growing influence and power. The USA: The USA has its own worries about Iran. First, Iran was becoming a growing threat to the Middle East region, where the USA has deep strategic interests. Iran was a perceived threat by Israel and Gulf Arab countries with which the USA has deep strategic ties. The USA has also worried about Iran’s desire to expand its influence in South America, where for an example, Iran to grow closer ties with anti-American populist Venezuela. Israel: Israel already feels that it is fighting a proxy war with Iran. Israel recognizes Iran as the empowering ally of Hezbollah of Lebanon and Hamas of Gaza. Israel also fears that Iran’s nuclear ambition is to build an arsenal of nuclear bombs in order to take away Israel’s strategic advantage in this area. Today, Israel is as much worried as Saudi Arabia is about Iran’s nuclear program. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia recognize a nuclear-armed Iran will throw the regional balance of power out of order. Israel, along with Saudi Arabia, as the two USA’s closest allies in the region, wants the US to take tough actions against Iran. Saudi Arabia: The Saudi’s clearly understand that a nuclear bomb in the hands of its Shia enemies will only raise the competitive bid between Shiism and Sunnism. The Saudi’s understand of the proper response to this challenge is not to promote a fiercer brand of Islam as usual but to encourage military action against Iran by major powers such as the USA and Israel. Contending with Emergent Iran: the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia Responses All these three major powers – Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US have their own and communal objectives to limit and even thwart the rising ambitions of Teheran. 8 The Saudi Arabia’s Response Saudi Arabia’s approach to containing revolutionary Iran is of a different make. The Saudis instead chose and implemented an ideological/ religious strategy to hinder the spread of Iranian influence. In order to deter what they considered the fundamentalist rhetoric and revolutionary zeal of Shiism, Saudi’s promoted their own firebrand form of Sunni Islam called Wahhabism. Some of the notable outcomes of the Saudis effort in containing Iran included the sponsorship of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan and the backing of a growing Sunni fundamentalist influence in Pakistani politics. In doing these two things, the Saudi’s successfully implanted bastions of Sunni Islam on the eastern doorsteps of Iran. Moreover, to counter the spread of radical Shiism worldwide, the Saudis committed a large number of resources to the establishment of Sunni mosques and madrassas around the world. The primary struggle between Shiism and Sunnism was for the hearts and minds of the restive youth of the Islamic world. This competition was fought on two arenas - which side could exhibit the most magnificent fundamentalist views and which side could inflict the most considerable pain on the so-called infidels. As radical Shiism and jihadist Wahhabism fiercely competed worldwide for the mantle of assertive and defiant Islam, one result has been the flareup of instability and much bloodshed in many parts of the world. The two sides’ competition to outdo each other in inflicting pain on whom they considered the historical enemies of Islam was often reckless and bloody. The rise of al-Qaeda - with all its evil consequences - is one outcome of this type of ideological competition between firebrand Sunnism promoted by Saudi Arabia and the radical Shiism promoted by Iran. It was the rise and terrorist operations of al-Qaeda in the West, which later became the primary justification for drawing the USA and the rest of West to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq. These two wars, as we examine next, were not without their immense consequences in the shifting balance of power between Shiism and Sunnism. The US Response 9 When the USA military stepped into Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), its official intentions were to fight terrorists. However, soon followed some unintended consequences from these interventions, wherein the dynamics of the ongoing rivalry between Shiism and Sunnism in the region changed radically. Firstly, in just a space of two years, the US removed from power the two enemies of Iran – on the one hand, the secular-nationalist Iran-hating regime of Saddam Hussein, and on the other hand the radical Wahhabi regime of the Taliban in Afghanistan. For the Saudis, therefore, the coming of America in a war to the greater Middle East faced them with a double loss. The Taliban they supported got chased from power in Afghanistan, and their co-religionists and coethnics the Sunnis got deposed in Iraq. So the USA - the Saudis' longstanding ally in the region - unintentionally tilted the regional balance of power in favor of Iran. The Saudis then have to look around helplessly as Iran became less constrained to throw her weight around the region and the world seeking more political influence. Secondly, America's presence in Iraq re-ignited the fratricide between Sunnis and Shias that had died down since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. America's effort to democratize Iraq demoted the once-powerful minority group, the Sunnis, and enthroned the once oppressed majority group, the Shias. As Iraq straddles the major fault line in the Shia and Sunni divide in the Middle East, the sectarian violence between the two groups was bitter and brutal. Fundamentalist and nationalist elements from both sides pitted it out to the bitter end in power and the religious struggle for dominance. So Iraq for almost five years (2003 - 2008) was not only a theater of conflict where natives fought occupiers but the cosmic battlefield in a round two of a 'system-level' clash between Sunnism and Shiism. It was inventible that the two giants, Saudi Arabia and Iran, should wage a proxy war in Iraq during this time. As expected, each supported its own co-religionists in the strife. However, increasingly it became clear that the Shia's of Iraq were getting the upper hand, and this shift of power clearly has benefitted Iran in its geopolitical rivalry with Saudi Arabia. Third, one outcome of the West's military presence in the greater Middle-East has been to sap the rage and impetus of radical Islam. Since, at some point, the Afghan and Iraq wars were the cause 16 • Will America completely disengage from the Middle East? If it does, then it can create a power vacuum that China can easily fill. But America, in its grand strategy, may not allow that to happen. Therefore, without depending too much on the region’s energy source, America may choose to maintain its military presence in the region. That will dampen down the rivalry between Riyadh and Teheran to a great extent. • Will Iran and Saudi Arabia re-direct their oil exports to the growing economies of Asia to make up for lost revenue from the West? That is very likely to happen. That means given the undiminished wealth of these two countries, and their regional rivalry will simply continue unabated. • A fracture is developing within Iranian society since June 2009. There has been a very serious and dangerous cleavage in Iran following their highly contested presidential election of 2009. Once it becomes clear that the Mullahs are not presiding over a unified nation, Iran, for all intents and purposes, will be perceived as a very weak and fragile nation by its enemies. A country like Iran showing serious economic problems, having a bitterly divided society, and possessing a nuclear program which is apparently failing does no longer give the aura of rising power, but the image of a country with a regime that is on the brink of failure. And that is not a long-term prospect, but a short or midterm prospect. • When the theocracy in Iran fails and in its place a democratic secular state rises, the dynamics of Middle Eastern politics will change dramatically. Then, the historic rivalry between the two houses of Islam will subside. The tension and destruction in the region and around the world will recede. The Turkish Factor The mantle of Islam, besides Iran and Saudi Arabia, has another significant contenderTurkey. Without considering Turkey’s ambitions for a pride of place in the Muslim world - which is not less aspiring than Iran’s or Saudi Arabia’s - the analysis of the future of the Iran-Saudi power 17 struggle will not be complete. Because what radical Shiism and Wahhabism have been trying to achieve through confrontational means, Turkey’s moderate Islamists have been trying to realize through the force of diplomacy and commercialism. Turkey, as it was the core nation of the vast Ottoman Empire (1299 – 1923), has no less a credential for the claim of Islamic world leadership than Saudi Arabia or Iran. Even though Turkey has undergone radical secularization since the 1920s, in recent years, it has been rediscovering and re-asserting its Islamic roots. The moderate Islamic government, which has been in power in Turkey since 2002, has been ardent in giving back to Turkey its Islamic identity. More importantly, the new Turkish government has been pursuing a new form of foreign policy that some have called Neo-Ottomanism. Neo-Ottomanism aims at making Turkey the center of influence of the Islamic countries of the region. However, in their effort to revive the old glories of Islam and that of Turkey, Turkey’s moderate Islamic have chosen a path much different from that of the Saudis and Iranians. For example, the Neo-Ottomans are quite comfortable with western-style democracy and globalization; and their foreign policy is based on reconciliation, diplomacy, trade, and commercial relations. If Wahhabism and Shiism are confrontational, intolerant, and insular, Neo-Ottomanism is accommodating, open-minded, and modernist. If Wahhabism and Shiism set to be disruptive and destabilizing forces in the world, on the other hand, Neo-Ottomanism offers a brand of Islam no one minds to accommodate. For example, unlike Wahhabism and Shiism, Neo-Ottomanism is not at war with the West, or with other countries. Although it supports the Palestinian nationhood, Neo-Ottomanism is not hostile to Israel. Since it does not sponsor terrorist groups or supports rogue regimes, or flagrantly flaunts international laws, Neo-Ottomanism rests in peace with the international community. While militant Wahhabis and radical Shias are locked in a mortal struggle in their ambitions of ideological supremacy, Neo-Ottomans silently march forward in their charm offensive. NeoOttomans in their modus operandi resemble the BRIC nations, who are quietly rising in global 18 prominence through economic expansion, taking advantage of globalization. That is, NeoOttomans allow Turkey’s economy to diversify and expand, as they believe that any real ambition to greatness needs to be buttressed by a strong economy. In short, the new Neo-Ottomans attempt to give Islam a progressive, inclusive, and cosmopolitan face. However, the big question is which brand of Islam will win in the Muslim world – will it be the fire and brimstone ideologies of Wahhabism and Shiism or the milder form of Neo-Ottoman Islam? Notably, as the Middle East churns in popular uprising these days, this is a vital question to ask. Which brand of civilizational Islam will prove appealing to the majority of the Arab nations in transition cannot be left to fate alone when a human agency has a significant role to play. [Note: compiled out of my 2011 Linked postings on International Relations and Affairs group.]