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IRAN VERSUS SAUDI

ARABIA

The rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia has played out in proxy wars across the
region.

Oh me! for why is all around us here

As if some lesser god had made the world
Oh my, what a poor state the Muslim
world is in! An Arab Spring has become a Muslim Winter. Instead of building alliances against
common enemies and trying to lessen regional
instability, two great nations are at loggerheads
using age-old sectarian clichs in a display of
macho political posturing that dees credulity
and demands de-escalation.
The provocative execution of a Saudi
Shia leader, Shaykh al-Nimr, earlier this year
was just the latest in a series of unfortunate
By Sayyed Nadeem A. Kazmi

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occurrences that have followed the execution of

deposed Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein in
2006, and, perhaps more directly relevant, the
post-Saddam Shia-dominated government of
Nouri al-Malikis violent suppression of largely
peaceful, though arguably sectarian, Sunni
protests in al-Anbar in 2013. Indeed, the coming to power of the previously repressed Shia
majority in Iraq could be said to be pivotal in
the politics of what has become propagandised
as a Sunni vs Shia conict. Al-Qaida and its afliate, ISIS, certainly saw this as a neat and simple way to shade their own regional ambitions.

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Their successes in Sunni areas of Iraq are almost exclusively due to the debathication of
Iraq, which led to ex-Bathist ocers creating an
oshoot of al-Qaida, and reactions to al-Malikis
sectarian triumphalism.
Both Saudi Arabia and Iran are nations that are
similarly in transition but are not transitional
democracies, since they may never import Jeffersonian or Westminster-style principles. They
have both been aected by, the Arab Spring
of 2010/11, albeit in very dierent ways. Both
have Ulema (Islamic scholars, clerics) represented in their parliamentary systems, actively
inuencing government policies. Both have undergone huge and signicant population shifts
that provide natural evolutionary challenges to
the governance systems of each state. Both remain closed societies, to somewhat varying degrees, that are accused of human rights abuses,
including the severe repression of religious minorities. The magic carpet ride that Saudi Arabias royalty, in particular, has enjoyed for so
long is being pulled from under its feet as the
population becomes increasingly agitated over
abuses of power by the thousands of princes
running little efdoms, inherent corruption,
moral hypocrisy and greed, all factors which are
compounded at a time of austerity and economic uncertainty.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have also been

aected by the wider economic
downturn of recent decades. However, what they may have most in
common is the belief that their
respective political systems oer the
sole solution to Islams future. Thus
the one factor each can depend on to
cover their political backsides is
sectarianism, a strategy they deploy
among Muslim communities abroad
via ultrafast broadband. In
cyberspace nobody and everybody
can hear you scream as you engage
uncritical minds in dubious polemical
conjectures that, although
condemned by the Quran, both
nations uphold as the ultimate
arbiter of their actions, to be
downloaded as truths.
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Saudi Arabias form of politicised Islam,

in particular, has been slowly encroaching on
the Sunni middle ground via online platforms
throughout the world for many years. This has
led to less tolerant and more insular Muslim
communities, more dogmatism, less openness,
less integration with wider society and more extreme interpretations of what it means to be
Muslim. ISIS, a product of polemic encroachment, indoctrinates its members, forms a
closed, totalitarian society, and has a self-appointed cult leader. And like all cults, its members are taught subordination and groupthink
not individuality. If the Saudis are to successfully
convince the Sunni heartlands that they, not
ISIS, represent true religion, they must focus
on their wayward o-shoots as the greatest enemies of Islam. The de-escalation imperative
would also mean that Saudi Arabia consciously
distinguishes between Iran and Shia Islam,
recognising that the Shia inhabitants of her
Eastern Province are part of the heritage of the
Hejaz which the al-Saud family inherits and has
a duty to protect.
At the supercial level, an ideological
battle for the soul of Islam (the simplistic symbol for that being the Sunni-Shia dichotomy)
can be discerned, while at another level the
complex internal struggle for the soul of Sunni
Islam is manifested and made apparent in the
Sunni vs Saudi vs Jihadist matrix. Incredibly,
Saudi Arabia could become the strongest
bastion for Sunnis against ISISs brand of Islamic
fascism. ISISs raison detre is winning the battle
for Sunni hearts and minds at a time of global
uncertainty while Saudi Arabia seeks to restore
an increasingly defunct notion of historical and
religious destiny by focusing on Iran as an
identied symbol of an exaggerated Shia threat
to the region.
This is not to belittle Irans role in sectarianism, albeit often as a reaction to more blatant Saudi posturing. Irans handling of its own
internal Sunni problem is subtler yet equally
worrying. Its responses to Baluch separatists
along the border with Pakistan have been
tainted with sectarianism and this has been
compounded with arrests of Sunni scholars
such as Shaykh Mohammad Baraee, for
preaching, performing religious rituals, and
holding religious meetings. Amid such
allegations, Iran cannot expect to easily nd
sympathy in a Sunni-dominated region. It may
have internal short-term needs but, in the
longer run, Iran needs its Sunni-majority neigh-

bours if its leaders calls for regional stability are

to be accepted as more than mere rhetoric.
Fears about Iranian interests and even
interference among Arab Shia communities are
not entirely unwarranted, given Irans alleged
support of groups such as Saudi Arabias Hezbollah al-Hejaz, factions inside Bahrain, the Houthi
rebels in Yemen, Afghanistan and parts of
Africa. However, Iran has not only successfully
come in from the cold it also seems to be rmly
shutting the refrigerator door behind it. It is
only Irans position on Syria that leaves the door
slightly ajar. Iran may need to reassess the level
and nature of its support for the Syrian regime
at this time of heightened tension. The root of
the relationship is less religious and much more
political, going back to Syria supporting Iran
during its war with Iraq in the 1980s. Saudi Arabia, of course, supported Iraq at that time, a position they probably regretted when Saddam
Hussein invaded Kuwait. However, Saudi Arabias involvement in Yemen as well as Syria is
deeply questionable since it appears to be encouraging the radicalisation, and thus further
marginalisation, of reactionary Sunnis in the region.
The US too, stunned and frozen for so
long by the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979 and
the relative success and endurance of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, has nally managed to
extricate itself from seeing Iran only through
that frosted historical glass. The new US-Iran
thaw is a result of personalities as much as a
change in political attitudes. President Rouhani
is a genuine reformer, just as President
Obamas vow to unclench his countrys st genuinely reached-out to the Muslim world. US
Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian
counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, are also
both amenable to changing the course of what
has been a starkly grim relationship. I personally worked with the latter when I represented
HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan on the
United Nations Eminent Persons Group that
helped inspire the ground-breaking UN Dialogue of Civilizations process. Zarif impressed
me even then as a man of immense foresight,
indeed that process was consolidated by Irans
president at the time, Muhammad Khatami. For
me, the initiative illustrated the Muslim worlds
capacity to oer humanity an enduring legacy
for future generations. These personal dynamics have induced changes among strategic allies
and partners too. Europe is looking at Iran in a
fundamentally dierent way, seeing opportuni-

ties where once there were obstacles. Turkey

and Pakistan, Irans other big neighbours, have
essential economic, ethnic, social and cultural
links with Iran that go beyond what they have
with Saudi Arabia. Indeed, their relationship
with Iran could be said to be far less supercial
given the antiquity of their links.
The US State Department expressed
concern that the execution of al-Nimr risks exacerbating sectarian tensions at a time when
they urgently need to be reduced, calling for
leaders throughout the region to redouble efforts aimed at de-escalating regional tensions.
For the US, engagement with the wider Muslim
world continues to be based largely on the concept of public diplomacy. For American-Muslims, and indeed Muslim communities around
the world, President Obama's speech in Cairo in
2009 was hailed as the cornerstone of a new
beginning in America's relationship with the
Muslim world. Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton, speaking in Marrakesh, soon after similarly
rearmed the US commitment to broad engagement with Muslim communities, focusing
on partnerships to promote civil society, entrepreneurship and economic development, educational opportunity, scientic and technological
collaboration, womens empowerment and interfaith cooperation.

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The US remains entangled in its

geo-strategic Gordian Knot with
Saudi Arabia which transcends
US-Muslim relations however. But
President Obama's administration
appears to have a clear impulse,
according to State Department
ocials, towards engagement and
dialogue which goes beyond
traditional diplomacy and explains
the Iran rapprochement in the
twilight of his presidency. This is a
signicant shift from the
administration of George W Bush.
Whether this will succeed is yet to be
seen. The US-Saudi relationship is
one of America's most important,
enduring and complex bilateral
connections in the Middle East but is
that marriage of convenience now
threatened by new relationships?

meddling". Yet he had, according to a statement issued by his family, renounced sectarianism. Had Saudis thought about this, they
might have co-opted him in their battle against
ISIS and utilised his obvious popularity to their
advantage, particularly in their diplomacy with
Iran, to engender greater regional stability. But
that would have required acknowledging not
only that Shiism is part of Saudi Arabias Islamic
heritage, but also a signicant policy shift towards the Arab Spring.
De-escalation is an urgent need now because
allowing a politically sectarian conagration in
the Middle East will not only harm Iran and
Saudi Arabia. It will spread through the
Caucasus into Europe and through South Asia
to involve China and Russia and thus could
potentially consume world peace.
Most readers of this magazine will know
about the Sunni-Shia schism and nearly all will
have an opinion on it, which is why I have
avoided dwelling on entrenched theological
notions. I believe these to be contextually
irrelevant because the current sectarianism is
fundamentally about politics.
Unless we Muslims are prepared to
come out of our sectarian corners, Islam will
continue to stagnate as a world religion and as
a civilization its great gifts will be forgotten.
But that these eyes of men are dense
and dim,
And have not power to see it as it is

In reality confrontations continue to escalate although de-escalation should be the priority. We need common diplomacy in the
region and champions for that in the form of
non-state actors who can reverse the trend towards sectarianism. Such de-escalation needs
to be initiated through a process of engagement
involving all levels of society throughout the
Muslim world. The US and Europe, which have
long concentrated on reform and democratic
transformation in Iran, need to extend that to
Saudi Arabia during parallel re-engagements
with both countries. In doing so, extremism
throughout the region can be dealt a disabling
blow and a movement towards peace, stability
and cooperation might begin. This will have an
impact on Sunni-Shia relations outside the immediate arena in question, including communities in South Asia.

Saudi Arabia could have declared ISIS

apostates but it is far easier and
more convenient, at present, to
continue exporting a puritanical
brand of Sunni Islam which has done
little more than awaken utopian
dreams of rebirth in a mythical past
that end frustratingly in a caliphal
dystopia. That is the Frankensteins
monster that Saudi Arabia has
helped to create because of its own
lack of foresight. Saudi Arabia needs
to start reversing this policy, which
means reconnecting with the Sunni
middle ground throughout the region
rather than being seen as merely
obsessed with Iran because it is Shia
or because it is perceived as a
Persian hegemonic menace to Arabs.
Saudi Arabias Shia populations are
Hejazi Arabs and not migrants living in the
environs of Saudi Arabia. Their call for change
is as Arabs, not Shias, rst and foremost, inspired by the Arab Spring and uniquely Arab
notions of a modus vivendi that will operate
until there is change in their favour. They are,
potentially, an asset to the Saudi State. However, Riyadhs response to them is not as a
Saudi community but as an alien fth column.
When al-Nimr was on trial in October 2014, the
charges against him included one of "foreign

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The author, a former adviser to HRH Prince

Hassan of Jordan, is a human rights
advocate, documentarian, and consultant to
various international organisations.