The Middle East: It will only get worse

For almost the entire time of 20th century, Saudi Arabia and Iran are trapped in rivalry relationship and it worsening each day. Ethnically, Iran is Persian and Saudi Arabia is Arab descent. In the past, these two nations were separated by Persian Gulf. The origin of the Shiite start in 1501, where the emergence of Savafid dynasty brings the new denomination in Persia. They fight ottoman as Sunni caliphate in purpose to gain power and built their own territory. This finally becomes the turning point where the rivalry relation was established.

The Middle East region is once again a tinderbox as tensions are rising between Saudi Arabia and Iran to new heights. Although hostility between the two States has been simmering for decades, two new factors have served to cause their mutual enmity to heat up further. The first is the presidency of Donald J. Trump in the United States. The second is the rise of Mohammad bin Salman (MBS in the vernacular) as heir-apparent to the Saudi kingship. Both of these leaders are hostile to Iran, and highly friendly to each other. This heightened alliance has created a new dynamic relationship in the Middle East. MBS is young, ambitious and seeking a new and heightened role for Saudi Arabia in the Middle East and the world. Trump is anxious to flex American muscle wherever he is able. For both, Iran is a highly suitable target.

2016

Relations between Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran have long been strained, but the two countries broke off diplomatic ties after Saudi Arabia executed a Shiite cleric in the New Year. Ali Fathollah-Nejad and Sebastian Sons, associate fellows at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a Berlin-based think tank, answer five key questions on what this latest conflict between two of the key powers in the Middle East, means.

Przegląd Strategiczny, 2016

The dawn of 2016 has brought a new round of doomsday predictions that Saudi Ara bia's ruling Al Saud family cannot sustain its autocratic grip on power. The predictions build on a long-standing record of Western government officials, former intelligence offi cers, academics and pundits, concluding that Saudi Arabia's system of government, an absolute monarchy legitimized by ultra-conservative religious beliefs, is unsustainable. Former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative Robert Baer warned in a book in 2003 that "the country is run by an increasingly dysfunctional royal family that has been funding militant Islamic movements abroad in an attempt to protect itself from them at hom e... Today's Saudi Arabia can't last much longer-and the social and economic fallout of its demise could be calamitous" (Baer, 2003). Baer and other offi cials and pundits may have erred in their predicted timelines, but many argue that the underlying assumption remains valid, no more so than today as the kingdom seemingly heads into a perfect storm of economic problems, social challenges, and foreign policy crises (Dorsey, 2016a). Saudi Arabia may indeed be heading into a perfect storm, but the key drivers are likely to be far more existential. Those drivers, interlinked since the 1979 Iranian revo lution, are the Al Saud's increasingly problematic Faustian bargain between the Al Sauds and descendants of 18th century preacher Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahhab Commins (Commins, 2009), and Iran. In exchange for legitimizing the temporal rule of the Al Sauds, the Saudi Wahhabi clergy was allowed to impose the world's strictest, most restrictive and puritan interpretation of Islamic law and social mores and propa gate globally an expansionist, discriminatory and anti-pluralistic theological approach that only recently has been matched, if not surpassed, by governance in the Islamic State (IS), jihadist-controlled chunks of Syria and Iraq. Saudi government leaders have long sought to counter Iran by motivating Sunnis to fear and resist Iranian influence. Framing its rivalry with Iran in sectarian terms, Saudi Arabia has repeatedly accused Iran of fuelling sectarianism by backing Shia militias who have targeted Sunnis in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria (Saudi Arabia could, 2016). A Carnegie Endowment for International Peace study concluded however that anti-Shia rhetoric was much more common online than anti-Sunni rhetoric (Siegel, 2015). Saudi Arabia had legitimate concerns in the immediate wake of the Iranian revolu tion. The fall of the autocratic pro-US regime of the Shah made place for a regime that ABSTRACT Challenged economically, politically, socially, ideologically and geopolitically, Saudi A ra bia is confronting the perfect storm. How it w eathers the storm w ill depend on how it handles the two m ost existential threats it faces: the rivalry w ith Iran for hegem ony in the M iddle East and N orth A frica (a battle it ultim ately w ill lose), and the inevitable restructuring of the in creasingly problem atic m arriage betw een the House o f Saud and the Wahhabi clergy, propo nents o f a puritan interpretation o f Islam on w hom the ruling Al Saud family rely for their legitimacy.

The Saudi-Iranian geopolitical rivalry demonstrates an increasingly array of problems for the Middle East and South Asia. This geopolitical rivalry is further complicated by religious and ideological competition that is embedded within the domestic and regional landscape of the both the Middle East and South Asia. The rivalry has hindered peaceful developments within the regions as both rivals have attempted to out manoeuvre each other through proxy conflict. This can be exemplified by their interferences in Iraq, Lebanon and to a smaller extent in Pakistan. The implications of their rivalry has also exacerbated conflicts within Syria and Yemen by hindering any prospects of a conflict resolution, and further contributing to the widespread catastrophes. The religious dimensions of the rivalry have also prevented discriminated Shi’a populations in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan from gaining political and civil rights. Sunnis within Iran and Iraq also face a similar dilemma. Furthermore, Iran’s expansion has forced Saudi Arabia to seek common ground with Israel.

2017

The resignation of The Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad el Hariri, in Saudi Arabia in 2017 has caused turmoil on Twitter all over the Middle East. According to a search of Hariri’s name in Arabic on Keyhole halfway into the crisis, only 46.3% of tweets containing his name have originated from Lebanon – 7.41% have come from KSA, 5.56% from Qatar and Egypt and 3.7% from Yemen. Everyone was talking about Hariri – but such tweets have ranged from support to enmity, and have placed the resignation under the banner of a cold war pitting Saudi Arabia and Iran. Much has been written about the policymakers involved in this war, which has affected Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Qatar and Lebanon. Little has been written, however, on the people living in the Middle East and how they view the conflict, since there is an assumption that loyalties are formed along ethno-sectarian lines.

Despite his promises, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has so far not succeeded in bringing a rapprochement in relations with the strongest Arab state in the Persian Gulf – Saudi Arabia. It is the opposite. Both states are struggling fiercely for influence and power in the region, particularly at “the nexus of Shiite and Sunni worlds” (Henderson 2014), i.e. Iraq, currently immersed in a highly brutal civil war, but also and most recently, Yemen, where both states are involved in a “proxy war”. Although the scale of Iranian involvement in Iraq in unknown, it is believed that Iran trains and controls local armed groups, sends military advisors as well as provides military hardware. Saudi Arabia is trying to seize the bridgeheads and neutralize Iran’s influence. Such rivalry is no surprise as strategic aims are at stake. This is not only a struggle for a control over Iraq between Saudi Arabia and Iran but also a quest for hegemony over the Middle East.