The myth of Iran-Saudi power struggle

(Link on Daily Trust site)

There is a popular but simplistic assumption especially among Nigerians interested in the Middle East politics that Iran and Saudi Arabia are locked in a protracted geopolitical power struggle. This is obvious from most of the analyses churned out by both the presumably well-informed observers and the barely informed media audience who, either due to language constraints or limited means, cannot access sufficient amount of relevant information and exhaustive analyses on the topic and the region’s geopolitics at large.

However, contrary to that assumption, the forty-year-old tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia are never linked to any geopolitical power struggle. After all, a geopolitical power struggle necessarily involves two or more regional countries with expansionist ambitions and locked in a struggle for regional supremacy at the expense of one another.

It’s important to note that the Saudi Kingdom was founded by King Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud in 1932, while the Iranian theocracy was created in 1979 following the Khomeini-led revolution, which means that the Kingdom had been there as a sovereign state for forty-seven years before the creation of the Iranian theocracy. And throughout that period, the only source of tensions in the region was the Zionists continuous occupation of Palestinian territories, which eventually culminated in the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Even the struggle between the Arab nationalists backed by Jamal Abdun-Nasir of Egypt and the Islamists backed by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia never involved any expansionist dimension in favour or against any particular country in the region.

However, when, in 1979, it began to appear that the then newly created Iranian theocracy was out to export its revolution to all Muslim countries in the region with a view to overthrowing their respective governments and replacing them with governments allegiant to Khomeini, its Supreme Leader then, regional tensions began to form and indeed kept raising as Iran continued to systematically propagate its revolutionary slogan of “Tasdeerus-thaura” i.e. export of revolution across the region.

Interestingly, and quoting from a previous article of mine, “Iran is arguably the only country that blatantly claims a self-accorded entitlement to bringing all Muslim countries under the sole control of its Supreme Theocrat i.e. the so-called Waliyyul-faqeeh who is currently Ali Khamenei. This is because, according to the ideology, the Waliyyul-faqeeh is the Mahdi’s Deputy who therefore is inherently entitled to rule over the whole Muslim world in anticipation of the emergence of Mahdi who they believe had gone into hiding almost one thousand two hundred years ago; and that he would emerge from his hiding place to rule over the whole world. By the way, this Mahdi character is actually fictitious, unlike the yet-to-be-born authentic Mahdi in standard Muslims narratives.” (Iran: A threatened theocracy, Daily Trust, Nov. 22, 2019.)

Anyway, since then Iran has been hell-bent on achieving this agenda using sectarian manipulation and emotive but empty revolutionary rhetoric to impress and turn many otherwise intelligent observers into its unsolicited apologists, and indeed turn many gullible folks into its puppets who are committed to bringing their respective countries under its control. It even created a whole military unit i.e. the so-called Quds Force for the purposes of creating, training, financing, arming and coordinating the operations of militias allegiant to Iran in all Muslim countries in the region and beyond.  Until his recent assassination by the US, General Qasem Soleimani was the unit’s commander for more than twenty years.

Iran’s first two major targets were Iraq and Saudi Arabia for obvious reasons. Because the former was at that time the strongest Arab country militarily, while the latter was/is the focal point of the Muslim world being the custodian of two of the three holy cities in Islam. While Iran sought to conquer Iraq militarily, which resulted in the eight-year-long war between them that ended in 1988, it has been trying to foment sectarian strife in Saudi Arabia to manipulate the Shiite minority in the Kingdom and cause the Kingdom’s collapse. It has also always sought to instigate uncontrollable chaos during Hajj to capitalize on it in pursuit of its agenda against the Kingdom.

However, in Lebanon, the post-2003 Iraq, Yemen and Syria, Iran’s puppet militias e.g. Hezbollah, Al-Hasdush’sha’aby and others, Houthi, Hezbollah and Abul-Fadl-Al-Abbas and others, respectively, which, having grown effectively stronger than their respective governments, have been holding their respective countries to ransom on behalf of Iran.

Iran also manipulates the power-hungry elite members of the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates like Hamas in Gaza, to sustain feud among the Palestinians under the disguise of supporting armed resistance against the Zionist occupation, which enables it to discreetly pursue its real agenda. It equally maintains other allegiant groups in many other countries promoting its agenda at the expense of their respective countries.

It’s also noteworthy that, throughout the almost five decades between the creation of the Saudi Kingdom in 1932 and the emergence of the Iranian theocracy in 1979, there was no such thing as Shiite-Sunni sectarianism in the Middle East whatsoever. However, soon afterwards, Iran embarked on systematic and sustained incitement of Shiite-Sunni sectarianism to infiltrate countries in the region thereby undermining social cohesion and instigating chaos across the Muslim world over the decades.

Therefore, the purported Iran-Saudi geopolitical power struggle is simply a myth, hence any analysis on its basis is fundamentally flawed. In reality, it’s simply a situation whereby Iran is hell-bent on bringing Saudi Arabia under the control of the Iranian Supreme Leader. After all, Saudi Arabia is only a target among many other Iran’s targets in its expansionist agenda; only that it’s the most important target. All Iran’s subversive activities in Lebanon, Iraq and, of course, Yemen and other places are designed to ultimately culminate in its control of Makkah, Medina and the Arabian Peninsula at large, which Saudi Arabia rightly resists.