Saudi Arabia & Iran’s cold war

Let’s talk about how the cold war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is running hot.

These two really don’t like each other.

They’ve been going at it in one way or another for a long time now.

So why can’t Iran and Saudi Arabia get along?

What’s this modern-day cold war mean for the rest of us?

And what do other countries like the US and Russia have to do with it?

Saudi Arabia and Iran are undisputed heavyweights in the Middle East and when one of them lands a punch we all feel it.

Some say it’s a fight for regional dominance — political and economic.

Others say they’re challenging each other to be seen as the leader of the Muslim world

even though most Muslims don’t live in the Middle East.

They each represent a different sect: Sunni in Saudi Arabia, Shia in Iran.

Saudi Arabia is home to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites in Islam.

The Saudis also host the Hajj pilgrimage.

So that gives them power and standing.

The kingdom’s dominant form of Sunni Islam is Wahhabism, which is a strict and orthodox interpretation.

Its followers consider the Shia heretics.

Both the Saudis and the Iranians, though, are accused of exploiting those religious divisions.

One example is what happened a few years back.

About 10%–15% of the Saudi population is Shia. They often say they’re oppressed.

And in 2016 a well-known Shia leader and critic of the Saudi monarchy Nimr al-Nimr was executed.

His crimes included terrorism.

Iran condemned his killing and a crowd set the Saudi embassy on fire.

What they’re really competing for though is influence.

And the Iranians seem to have the upper hand when it comes to military alliances in the region.

In Lebanon there’s Hezbollah, a militia with a political wing funded by Iran.

Hamas in the Gaza Strip also gets Iranian support.

In Syria and Iraq there are forces backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

And there’s a reason why Iran’s taken that approach.

It just doesn’t have as big an army as the US and Saudi Arabia.

You might have heard the name Qassem Soleimani.

He was the Iranian general credited with developing Iran’s guerilla-style operations abroad.

The Americans assassinated him a year ago.

So let’s bring back that map. Where are the Saudis?

Well one place they’re in is Yemen, fighting Houthi rebels who as it turns out are also backed by Iran.

And the war in Yemen has really heated up the Saudi-Iran rivalry.

The Houthis attacked Saudi oil facilities.

And there’ve been explosions on oil tankers.

Iran’s been blamed but they deny being involved.

And what happens in those shipping lanes of the Gulf and Red Sea is felt by everyone because it affects the price of oil.

Iran has made some other powerful friends — like Russia and China.

They’re investing a lot in Iran in its ports and military and doing business at a time when Iran’s economy has been under sanctions.

The Saudis have plenty of friends, too — countries in the Gulf, Sudan, Egypt — even Israel to some extent.

Their trump card, though, is the US.

They both can’t stand Iran. But that wasn’t always the case.

Back in the ’50s Iran and the US bonded over a coup that got rid of Iran’s prime minister and strengthened the monarchy under the shah.

Some say that’s when Saudi Arabia began seeing Iran as a competitor.

But then the Islamic revolution happened.

The shah was replaced by a powerful Shia cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini.

And the balance of power in the region tilted away from the Americans.

Their relationship only got worse from there. Iranian students took 52 Americans hostage at the US embassy in Tehran.

And don’t forget Iraq invaded Iran with Saudi and American help.

But where the Iranians failed to hang on to their American friends the Saudis succeeded despite some serious strains.

Like how the Saudis didn’t back the US invasion of Iraq.

How 15 of the hijackers behind the 9/11 attacks were Saudi.

And how the Saudi crown prince was linked to the dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

So how did the alliance survive?

Well it might have something to do with the Saudis buying more weapons from the US than anyone else.

The United States is also Saudi Arabia’s second largest trading partner. And the Americans buy a lot of Saudi oil.

And then there’s Iran’s nuclear programme.

The Saudis are worried about Iran’s potential to build a bomb.

So the kingdom’s building its own nuclear research facilities and has been accused of buying atomic weapons from Pakistan — something they both deny.

And remember the Iran nuclear deal.

Well it was about countries like the US and Russia as well as the EU monitoring Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.

But Saudi Arabia felt it didn’t go far enough. The US under President Donald Trump felt the same.

He pulled out of the deal in 2018.

Now, though, Joe Biden is expected to try to patch things up with Iran and renegotiate.

The Saudis aren’t impressed. Neither are the Israelis.

And in November the man seen as the father of Iran’s nuclear programme was assassinated.

Iran blamed Israel, which neither confirmed nor denied it was involved.

So you’d think that with such an intense rivalry Saudi Arabia and Iran would have gone to war already.

But neither side seems to want that.

What’s kind of surprising is Saudi Arabia and Iran actually have stuff in common.

They’re big oil exporters, they say they’re champions of the Palestinian cause and they both want to modernise their economies.

Those are good starting points to work together. But right now they’re in deep.

We hope that was a useful primer to understanding what’s going on between Saudi Arabia and Iran.