ORSAM REVIEW OF
ORSAM REVIEW OF REGIONAL AFFAIRS
No.38, JANUARY 2016
REGIONAL AFFAIRS
No.38, JANUARY 2016
Iran-Saudi Arabia
Tension Between
Conflict of National
Interests and Sectarian
Polarization
Pınar Arıkan
Pınar Arıkan graduated from
METU International Relations
in 2003 and started to work as
a research assistant at the same
department in 2004. She received
her master’s degree in 2006 with her
thesis titled “Uneasy Coexistence:
Islamism vs. Republicanism Debate
in the Islamic Republic of Iran”,
and her PhD degree in 2015 with
her dissertation titled “Discursive
Continuity of Political Nationalism
as a Form of Opposition Politics
in Modern Iran”. She was as a
visiting researcher at the University
of Tehran, the Faculty of Law and
Political Science in 2010-2011, at
the Columbia University in New
York in 2012-2013. Her research
interests include the state-society
relations in Iran, Iranian domestic
politics, political system and groups,
Iranian foreign policy and the
international relations of the Middle
East.
The chain of events that has started with the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on 2 January 2016 by
Saudi Arabia led Iran to cut its diplomatic relations
with Saudi Arabia and made a tremendous impact on
world public opinion as ‘Iran-Saudi Arabia tension’.
Together with the involvement of Bahrain, Sudan,
Djibouti, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar in
the Saudi protest against Iran, the ‘Iran-Saudi Arabia
tension’ has been interpreted by many others as the
escalation of the Sunni-Shi’ite conflict in the Middle
East. The questions about the sources of the tension,
whether it were the conflict of national interests or
the sectarian polarization, and the possibility that the
sectarian polarization, which had appeared within the
context of civil wars and conflicts in the region, might
be deepened by the current tension were the mostly
discussed ones. In this policy brief, it is asserted that
Iran and Saudi Arabia are in a state of geopolitical
and ideological rivalry, but this rivalry cannot be interpreted as the polarization of sectarian differences.
Iran-Saudi Arabia Tension Between Conflict of
National Interests and Sectarian Polarization
T
he chain of events
that has started with
the execution of
Shi’ite scholar Sheikh Nimr
al-Nimr’s death sentence by
Saudi Arabia on 2 January
2016 together with 46 people
and continued with setting
the Saudi Arabia’s Consulate
in Mashhad and Embassy in
Tehran on fire by the demonstrators in protest of the execution that led Saudi Arabia
to cut its diplomatic relations
with Iran created a tremendous impact on world public
opinion as ‘Iran-Saudi Arabia
tension.’ The reasons of this
tension between the two regional powers, Iran and Saudi
Arabia, who are considerably
different from each other regarding the regional politics of
the Middle East both in terms
their existence and interests,
have been the most mentioned
and discussed issue of the past
few days. The most frequently
asked question to understand
the reasons beneath the tension between the two states was
whether it was rooted in conflict of interests or in polarizations of sectarian differences.
In this vein, another question
asked rather anxiously for the
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future was whether the tension
between Saudi Arabia and Iran
after the execution of al-Nimr
would deepen the regional
sectarian polarization, which
had appeared within the context of civil wars and conflicts
in the region. This short essay
tries to answer these questions
following a brief discussion of
the course of relations between
Iran and Saudi Arabia until today.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are
certainly two rival states of the
Middle East region. Beyond
current conjuncture, there are
two definitive factors in the rivalry between Iran and Saudi
Arabia. These are geopolitical and ideological factors.
Geopolitical rivalry between
Iran and Saudi Arabia has been
an issue since Great Britain’s
proclamation of withdrawal
decision from Persian Gulf in
1968. After 1971 when the
British army had withdrawn
from the Gulf region, Iran
assumed role of ‘Gulf ’s police’ and both Iran and Saudi
Arabia became the two pillars
of the US twin pillar policy
as guarantors of the US interests in the region. However,
when the Arab states placed
ORSAM REVIEW OF REGIONAL AFFAIRS
No.38, JANUARY 2016
an embargo on oil sales to
the USA and other countries
that supported Israel in 1973
Arab-Israeli War, Iran under
the leadership of Muhammad
Reza Shah did not give support
to this use of oil as a weapon
in world politics for the first
time. On the one hand, Iran
was in controversy with Saudi
Arabia because it continued
oil sales to USA and Israel, on
the other hand, it was having
disputes over sharing the Shatt
al-Arab waterway with Iraq
that was the other big power
of the Persian Gulf. In this
period, Iran and Saudi Arabia
engaged in rivalry to become
the indispensible partner of
the USA in Gulf security. The
Islamic Revolution of Iran in
1979 added the ideological
dimension to the geopolitical
rivalry between Iran and Saudi
Arabia.
Geopolitical Factors in IranSaudi Arabia Rivalry after
1979
The geopolitical rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia
on the hegemony of the
Persian Gulf during the period
of Pahlavi monarchy continued after the 1979 revolution.
However, the geopolitical rivalry that had been balanced
with the ‘twin pillars’ policy of
the USA before 1979 lost this
balance as a result of the revisionist ideology of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, which declared the imperialisms of
both USA and Soviet Russia as
enemies. The regional threat
caused by Islamic Revolution’s
revisionist attitude also targeted the secular and nationalist Middle East monarchies.
Arab autocratic monarchies
that began to perceive threat
from revolutionary Iranian
administration
supported
Iraq in its eight-year war with
Iran, which started with the
attack by Iraq under Saddam
Hussein’s rule to Iran in revolutionary turmoil in 1980. In
1981, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,
Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and
United Arab Emirates established Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) as a regional
political and security alliance
against Iranian threat. Gulf
states perceived a great threat
from a possible Iranian hegemony over the Gulf region
both due to the Gulf ’s oil reserves and being the transfer
route for their domestic oil to
Beyond current
conjuncture,
there are two
definitive
factors in the
rivalry between
Iran and Saudi
Arabia. These
are geopolitical
and ideological
factors.
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Iran-Saudi Arabia Tension Between Conflict of
National Interests and Sectarian Polarization
international markets. In the
tanker wars that had started
when Iraq bombed Iran’s oil
export terminal and oil tankers in Hark Island in 1984 and
continued with Iran’s bombing Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti
tankers, these two states got
drawn directly into the war.
With the end of Iran-Iraq war
in 1988, stability based on the
balance of power between the
three great powers of the Gulf,
Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia,
was restored.
Following the restoration
of balance of power in the Gulf
region, the tension between
Iran and Saudi Arabia gave
its place to rapprochement in
1989. Hashemi Rafsanjani,
who was elected as president
of Iran, stepped back from the
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policy of export of revolution
and set the reconstruction of
the war-ruined Iranian infrastructure and economy as the
primary goal. To realize this
goal, Rafsanjani asserted that
Iran should stop making enemies. During the presidency of
Rafsanjani, Iranian state shifted from ‘aggressive revolutionary’ foreign policy to a moderate stance that can be named ‘pragmatic coexistence.’
In 1997, when President
Muhammad Khatami formed
the first reformist government of Iran, Iranian foreign
policy left its revolutionary
rhetoric to a great extent, and
Iran endorsed a reconciliatory
approach that aimed at establishing good relations with
regional states and the world
ORSAM REVIEW OF REGIONAL AFFAIRS
No.38, JANUARY 2016
powers. In this period, when
realist perspective based on
national interest became the
principle in Iranian foreign
policy decision-making instead of ideology, rapprochement between Iran-Saudi
Arabia relations was also set
in motion. The Saudi Crown
Prince Abdullah visited Iran in
December 1997 when Tehran
hosted the Islamic Conference
Summit for the first time, and
Iranian President Khatami
paid an official visit to Saudi
Arabia in 1999. These two visits had been the first official
visits of the two states to each
other since 1979. The moderate relations between the two
states were clinched by signing
a security agreement on terrorism and drug trafficking in
2001.
The US invasion of Iraq
in 2003 and the collapse of
Saddam Hussein government
thwarted the moderation in
Iran-Saudi Arabia relations.
The collapse of Saddam government, which had been
a source of threat for Iran,
changed the balance of power
in the Gulf in favor of Iran.
Although Saudi Arabia was
disturbed by the increasing
Iranian influence in Iraq after the restoration of order,
the moderation in bilateral
relations did not come to a
halt, and Iranian President
Ahmadinejad and Saudi King
Abdullah met as the representatives of ‘fellow nations’ in
Saudi Arabia in 2007.
The end of moderation
and friendship messages between Iran and Saudi Arabia
and the course of events until
current tension was brought
about with the Arab uprisings that had started in Tunis
in December 2010, and subsequently affected many Arab
states, mainly Egypt, Libya,
and Syria. The first visible incident of the crisis between
Iran and Saudi Arabia was
the protests in Bahrain where
the Shi’ite majority revolted
against the rule of the Sunni
kingdom in February 2011.
To suppress the protests, Saudi
Arabia sent 1,000 troops to
Bahrain within the ‘Peninsula
Shield Forces’ that had been
formed by the GCC’s decision
on 14 March, and Saudi officials accused Iran of provoking
the protests. The Iran-Saudi
crisis deepened when the US
officials revealed an assassi-
The collapse
of Saddam
government,
which had been
a source of threat
for Iran, changed
the balance of
power in the
Gulf in favor of
Iran. Although
Saudi Arabia was
disturbed by
the increasing
Iranian influence
in Iraq after
the restoration
of order, the
moderation in
bilateral relations
did not come to a
halt.
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Iran-Saudi Arabia Tension Between Conflict of
National Interests and Sectarian Polarization
nation attempt against Saudi
Arabia’s ambassador to the US,
Adel al-Jubeir, on October 11,
2011. The Saudi Arabian administration did not considered the revolts in the eastern
part of its territory populated
by the Shi’ites within the context of Arab revolts on the basis of rights but perceived as an
Iranian incitement. The arrest
of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was
also happened during these
protests. Syrian uprisings that
had started in March 2011
turned into a sectarian civil
war by December 2012, and
the conflict in Yemen that
had started in March 2015
confirmed once again that
Iran and Saudi Arabia were
in different sides. Thereafter,
a proxy war between Iran and
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Saudi Arabia has openly begun to be mentioned.
In the last crisis, setting the
Saudi diplomatic legations in
Mashhad and Tehran on fire
and the harsh response by the
Iranian religious leader against
Saudi Arabia were interpreted as ‘sectarian conflict’ because of the Shi’ite identity of
Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Saudi
Arabia demanded Iranian diplomatic mission to leave the
country and cut its diplomatic relations with Iran. Then,
Bahrain, Sudan, and Djibouti
also cut their diplomatic relations with Iran, United Arab
Emirates downgraded its relations to the level of chargé d’affaires, and Kuwait and Qatar
withdrew their ambassadors
from Iran. It is evident that
ORSAM REVIEW OF REGIONAL AFFAIRS
No.38, JANUARY 2016
the alliance formed against
Iran after the execution crisis
is not all that different from
the alliance that was formed as
a security cooperation against
the Iranian threat after 1979
and that constituted the foundations of GCC. While Sudan
and Djibouti, who regarded their strategic interests lie
in siding with Saudi Arabia,
were involved in this alliance,
Oman did not want to choose
between Iran and Saudi Arabia
and opted for remaining outside. After all, considering the
loci of two current deep crises,
Syria and Yemen, the actors
involve in them are multifarious. These crises, which are
being fed by the insecurity
environment created by ISIS
that appeared in Iraq and expanded gradually, are issues of
civil war that are more complex than to be downgraded
to a war between two sectarian poles led by Iran and Saudi
Arabia, and that the involvement of international actors
are highly influential. That
the groups involved in these
civil wars belong to different
sects did not indicate IranSaudi Arabia tension occurred
solely by sectarian incentives.
Although Iran and Saudi
Arabia represent two different
identities in the Islamic world
regarding their official sects,
the driving force of the tension between the two countries after the Arab uprisings is
the geopolitical interests of the
two states, as also indicated by
the blocs formed after the execution crisis.
Ideological Factors in IranSaudi Arabia Rivalry After
1979
The basis of the ideological rivalry between Iran and
Saudi Arabia is that both
countries present their type of
Islamic governments as an exemplary model for the Islamic
world. This understanding is
shaped within the confines
of nation-state system of the
modern age. To attribute the
current ideological rivalry to
the debate whether the caliphateship after the Prophet
Mohammad was the right of
Ali or not through a retrospective reading of today is an
approach that disregards the
modern historical, political
and social realities. As a matter of fact, neither Iran was regarded to be the representative
Although Iran
and Saudi
Arabia represent
two different
identities in the
Islamic world
regarding their
official sects, the
driving force
of the tension
between the
two countries
after the Arab
uprisings is the
geopolitical
interests of the
two states, as
also indicated
by the blocs
formed after the
execution crisis.
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Iran-Saudi Arabia Tension Between Conflict of
National Interests and Sectarian Polarization
of all the Shiites of the world
nor Saudi Arabia was regarded to be the representative of
all the Sunnis. However, the
nation-state dress that the
two states cut out for themselves takes understanding of
the sect as a reference point;
hence, constitute a basis for
definition of their national interests on the sectarian
grounds. The elements of the
rivalry between Iranian and
Saudi Arabian state ideologies
will be mentioned below.
The Islamic Republic,
which was established in 1979
by terminating the Pahlavi
monarchy that had been the
closest ally of the US government in the region, aimed at
presenting a free and independent Islamic government as an
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exemplary model for all the
Islamic countries. Although
Islamic Republic of Iran is a
theocratic republic whose official sect is Ithna ‘Ashariyya, it
has developed a holistic rather than sectarian approach to
religion. Accordingly, there is
one Islamic world and Iran
has been a part of it. The constitution of the Iran portrays
the aim of the revolutionary
government to form a model of Islamic democracy that
will be an example for the
Islamic world. The Islamic societies, which will take Islamic
Republic of Iran as a model,
will terminate the un-Islamic
governments in their countries. This ideal, which was referred as ‘export of revolution,’
was one of the aims of the
ORSAM REVIEW OF REGIONAL AFFAIRS
No.38, JANUARY 2016
Islamic Republic in the first
ten years after the revolution.
According to this ideal, the
un-Islamic governments were
the autocratic monarchies.
The ideology of the Islamic
Republic, which came into
existence by terminating the
Pahlavi monarchy, portrays
monarchies as governments
that disregard both religious
authority and popular sovereignty. Thus, the secular nationalist monarchies of the
Middle East have been the
most threatened governments
by the Islamic Republic’s discourse of the ‘export of revolution.’ This is also visible in
the regional alliances against
Iran after the revolution.
Gradually, Iranian foreign policy shifted from the ground of
revolutionary rhetoric to rational decision-making, and ‘export of revolution’ has ceased
to be an actual threat for the
regional states. However, the
distrust on the part of regional
states towards Iran remained.
Especially when the politically empowered Shi’ites in
Iraq engaged in cooperation
with Iran, the Gulf monarchies and mainly Saudi Arabia
were disturbed. The balances
in the Middle East that has
been shaken by the Arab uprisings and especially the crisis
in Syria and Yemen gradually
led the disturbed relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia
to turn into a separation and
polarization.
Saudi Arabia is a religious
state whose official religion
is Islam and who accepted Qur’an and Sunna of the
Prophet as its constitution,
and a hereditary monarchy.
Just like Islamic Republic
of Iran, Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia claims according to its
Fundamental Law to portray a
‘supreme model of politics’ and
aims to be an example for other Islamic countries. Although
there has been a widespread
view that Saudi Arabia represents Sunni Islam, the Saudi
royal family has strong connections with Wahhabism, which
was formed by Muhammad
ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the
18th century. Wahhabism is a
religious doctrine related to
Salafism, which is based on
the principle that Islam should
be exercised in the same way
that the first three generations
had exercised. Thus, Wahhabi
belief to which Saudi Arabia
The power bloc
formed after
the execution
of Sheikh Nimr
al-Nimr by the
states that cut
their diplomatic
relations with
Iran is almost
the same as the
power bloc that
formed by the
Arab states for
Gulf security
alliance after
1979 against the
Iranian discourse
of export of
revolution.
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Iran-Saudi Arabia Tension Between Conflict of
National Interests and Sectarian Polarization
adheres cannot be regarded exactly as Sunni Islam. Although
laws and regulations of Saudi
state are based on Wahhabi
principles, unlike the actual
involvement of Shiite clergy in
Iranian government, Wahhabi
clergy does not participate directly in the state administration. However, the Council of
Senior Ulama involves in politics as the supreme religious
body of the kingdom with the
responsibility to advice the
king and to approve state policies. In 2009, King Abdullah
enabled the non-Wahhabi
scholars to become members
of the council for the first
time, and in 2010 the authority to give a fatwa was restricted
to this council and a few other
scholars outside the council.
After 1979 revolution, Iran
challenged the model presented by Saudi Arabia to the
Islamic world. Revolutionary
ideology, which directly targeted the monarchies that
engage in cooperation with
USA, constituted a threat to
the legitimacy of the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia. In fact, Saudi
kings, who were carrying the
title of ‘His Majesty’ until
1986, began to use the title
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of ‘Protector of the Two Holy
Cities’ in order to strengthen
their religious legitimacy vis-àvis Iran. The ideological rivalry between the two states since
the revolution has been evident in the incidents during
the haj. In 1981, as a result
of the chaos happened when
Iranian pilgrims were shouting revolutionary political
slogans and the Saudi police
intervened, Iran accused Saudi
Arabia with discrimination. In
1987, when a great number of
Iranian pilgrims died in the
clashes with the Saudi police,
Saudi Embassy in Tehran was
attacked. Saudi Arabia cut its
diplomatic relations with Iran
after the incident and it did
not accept Iranian pilgrims
to the country until 1991. In
the stampede of 2015, where
a great number of Iranian pilgrims lost their lives, Iranian
officials held the Saudi authorities responsible for the losses
and this incident strained the
tension occurred between the
two states since the Arab uprisings.
Conclusion
The term ‘Shi’i Crescent,’
which has been accepted as
ORSAM REVIEW OF REGIONAL AFFAIRS
No.38, JANUARY 2016
the dominant paradigm since
it was first uttered by the
Jordanian King Abdullah,
divides the Middle East into
Shi’ite and Sunni groups under
two different identity frameworks. This understanding assumes that societies adhering
to Shi’ite and Sunni sects are
located in two different political sides due to their sectarian identities, and the societies
in different political sides are
pursuing the same interests in
themselves. This assumption
lies underneath the current
discourse of polarization in
the Middle East that regards
Iran and Saudi Arabia as two
states in conflict due to their
different sectarian identities.
The homogenous Shi’ite and
Sunni identities that is defined
by this approach, which makes
sectarian factor the definitive
factor of the foreign policy
making, does not reflect the
reality. In reality, the traditions
of belief, languages, and ethnic
identities of the societies that
are assumed to be under the
sectarian identity definitions
are not homogenous. On the
other hand, this approach
re-interprets the history by reducing the certain alliances of
the Middle East’s nation states
established through rational
decisions to sectarianism, and
it defines a static point of divergence rooted in history for
the Islamic states. The history
of conflict and alliance relations between the nations of
the modern Middle East disproves this reductionist and
static approach.
The relations and identities
of the two states in modern
era demonstrate the reality of
geopolitical and ideological rivalry between Iran and Saudi
Arabia. However, to attribute
the basis of this rivalry to
Sunni and Shi’ite identities is a
flawed approach. The current
phenomenon named as sectarian polarization is another
indicator of geopolitical and
ideological rivalry between
Iran and Saudi Arabia. In fact,
the power bloc formed after
the execution of Sheikh Nimr
al-Nimr by the states that cut
their diplomatic relations with
Iran is almost the same as the
power bloc that formed by the
Arab states for Gulf security
alliance after 1979 against the
Iranian discourse of export of
revolution. The Arab monarchies that perceived threat in
Another point
that has become
evident in the
last crisis is Saudi
Arabia’s concerns
regarding the end
of Iran’s alienation
and isolation in
the international
system after the
nuclear deal.
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Iran-Saudi Arabia Tension Between Conflict of
National Interests and Sectarian Polarization
the past from the hostile attitude of Iran towards monarchies struggle for the preservation of their authorities today
against actual or potential influence of Iran on the Shi’ite
minorities in their countries.
Arab kingdoms, which accuse Iran with interference in
their internal affairs, criticize
Iran on the basis of the most
fundamental principle of the
nation-state order, that is,
non-interference in internal
affairs of sovereign states and
respect for territorial integrity. The Arab uprisings, which
brought into view the public
space where Shi’ite minorities
in the Arab states express the
discrimination for the exercise
of their political and human
rights by the state authorities,
paved the way for this attitude
against Iran. Although extensive Iranian presence in any
state apart from Syria has been
an unverified claim, the ongoing chaos in the region creates
a favorable environment for
the two states with different
geopolitical and ideological interests, Iran and Saudi
Arabia, to accuse each other.
As a matter of fact, Iran also
accuses Saudi Arabia with giv-
12
ing support to Salafi and takfiri groups since the beginning
of Arab uprisings.
Another point that has become evident in the last crisis is Saudi Arabia’s concerns
regarding the end of Iran’s
alienation and isolation in the
international system after the
nuclear deal. This will clearly
bring the result of Iran’s acceptance to international platforms as one of the actors sitting around the table, and will
increase Iranian strategic power. Saudi Arabia, together with
its allies, wants to alienate Iran
in the region. The incidents
after the execution of Sheikh
Nimr al-Nimr created an opportunity for Saudi Arabia in
this regard.
In conclusion, Iran-Saudi
Arabia tension does not stem
from the different sectarian
basis of their governments,
but from different geopolitical and ideological interests
of the two states. In the presence of the threat posed by
ISIS terrorist organization in
the region, which constitutes
a security threat not only for
Iran and Saudi Arabia but also
for other regional states and
ORSAM REVIEW OF REGIONAL AFFAIRS
No.38, JANUARY 2016
challenges both Iran and Saudi
Arabia with its newly created
so-called Islamic state ideology
and system, it is not a realistic
possibility that the tension between the two states will turn
into a regional sectarian polarization. Yet, it also seems unlikely that the two states will
cast aside their differences in
fighting against this common
threat. Iran and Saudi Arabia,
together with their regional alliances, will continue their efforts to fight against this threat
through their own methods,
and to restore regional peace
in line with their own interests.
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