The New Cold War - Iran Vs Saudi Arabia

Throughout the second half of the 20th century the global political landscape was shaped by a cold war between two powers. Either through indirect or proxy wars or through direct military intervention the USA and the Soviet Union orchestrated an intricate, tactical game for decades as they waged a global conflict for ideological and international power.

As we enter the second decade of the 21st century this cold war power play is playing out again on a smaller but no less politically important scale between two regional power houses. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

A Conflict in Context:

Before we can look at how and where the conflict is being played out it is important to see how the rivalry evolved. At the risk of over simplifying a complex issue the fundamental principles of a religious, clergy led republic that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been founded on following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 are the polar opposite of the autocratic, absolute monarchy that is the bed rock of Saudi Arabian Kingdom. To the Saudi monarchy a neighbouring religious republic that over threw its own monarchy was always going to be viewed as a threat in case it insights a similar revolt in their own kingdom. The Islamic Republic also threatened the Kingdom as it boasted large oil reserves which has always given Iran an economical weapon in the form of the ability to flood the market, lowering the price of Brent Crude and reducing a key commodity that the vastly wealthy Saudi nation desperately need. This is something we will touch back on later.

Following 1979 Iran also threatened Saudi Arabia's claim as the dominant Islamic nation as the kingdom houses the two most religious site in the Islamic religion. However, Iran now had a claim that they had a whole nation built on Islamic teachings that under the leadership of the clergy had led its people to overthrow the Shar and established an Islamic republic that it is willing to export to other Islamic nations. To compound this, divide the Saudi Kingdom is a Sunni nation whilst Iran is predominantly a Shiite nation.

Whilst it is easy to draw a comparison with the religious divide between Catholics and Protestants that has shaped a lot of Western history this traditionally has been a more secondary issue in this conflict at the start of their regional power struggle. As these nations have grown and this regional rivalry has evolved into a more multi-faceted conflict this sectarian divide has been exacerbated.

Whilst this conflict has evolved, and the use of this phrase is important as neither nation has declared all-out war on one another (just like the USA never declared all-out war on the USSR), we have seen it play out in multiple proxy wars and shadowy political moves. Again, at the risk of simplifying this complex issue there is four theatres where this has played out that best demonstrate the cold war being waged by both sides. They also give us an insight into how this conflict may end.

Intervention in Iraq:

Bordering both nations Iraq was always going to play a role in this regional struggle for supremacy. The origin of this intervention started in 1980 with the invasion of Iran by the Sunni, Ba’athist dictatorship of Iraq. Whilst there had been many historic disputes between these two nations the main reasons for this invasion, as well the timing of the attack, can be attributed to two factors. The first was the contested ownership of the critical and oil rich Shatt Al-Arab water way whilst the second was Iraq’s fear that the newly formed Islamic Republic would inspire a Shia led popular uprising in Iraq and overthrow the Sunni Minority who ruled there.

What followed was one of the bloodiest and conflicts of the 20th century that lasted nearly eight years, left 500, 000 Iraqi and 600, 000 Iranian soldiers dead and over 100, 000 civilians. It was a war that saw the combination of historic trench warfare coupled with chemical weapons and modern military equipment however by the end of the conflict very little territory had been gained by either side.

It was also a war that dragged in many other nations who either financed one side or the other or in the case of Saudi Arabia, supplied funding and the latest military equipped to Iraq. To the Saudi Kingdom this was another autocratic, Sunni, nation who could turn back the tide of populist republican feeling.

Ultimately the relationship between Saudi Arabi and Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist Iraq deteriorated in 1991 following Iraq’s invasion of their other neighbour Kuwait. This led to the first Gulf War and laid the foundations for the ultimate demise of the Iraqi dictator’s regime twelve years later.

Fast forward to 2003 which saw the US led invasion of Iraq resulting in the complete military victory over the Hussein regime. However, following the coalitions victory and the overthrowing of the dictatorship that had held the warring sectarian factions of Iraq in check a power vacuum quickly opened up and post invasion Iraq quickly descended into civil war. As militias sprung up vying for control and jihadi fighters flooded in to strengthen the ranks of Sunni groups Iran, finally seeing an opportunity to exert influence over their neighbour and export their revolution, began providing funding, logistic and military assistance to the powerful Shia militias. The Saudi’s respond by supporting the Sunni and Jihadi fighters whilst also providing key strategic assistance to their major ally the USA who have taken an increased role in Iraq due to a lack of a coherent local government.

In recent years, following the devastating emergence and subsequent defat, of the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL) there has seen an increase of Iraqi nationalist sentiment opposing all foreign intervention in their government. With the Saudi’s historic close ties to both the US and Sunni Jihadists this change in sentiment has seen their power in the region wane whilst Iran’s support of Shia militias has seen then establish a certain element of control within the Shia majority. However following years of autocratic dictatorship, foreign intervention, invasion, occupation and civil war there is a real possibility that the next generation of Iraq politicians will want to distance themselves from Iran as well regardless of their sectarian beliefs.

The Syrian Civil War:

In 2011, as the Arab Spring reached the Syrian Arab Republic, a new front opened up in this conflict which played out against the back drop of a bloody civil war that dragged many international powers in.

For Iran there was a risk of losing a long-term political ally in the form of the Syrian, Alawite (an offshoot of Shite Islam) dictator Bashar Al-Assad. Maintaining influence and a key ally in Syria has been key as it allows a corridor of influence from Iran and the Persian Gulf all the way to the Mediterranean and opens up a key, over land logistic channel to Iran’s key paramilitary ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Nine years on from the demonstrations and opening shots of this humanitarian crisis and as government forces move on the last rebel stronghold of Idlib it is undeniable that the Syrian regime would not have been able to combat the myriad of rebel militias, armed groups and armies or defeat the religious Sunni fanatics of the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) without the economic and military support of Iran and their other prominent ally Russia in the form of equipment, advisors and, in the case of Iran, hundreds of Iranian and Hezbollah fighters.

On the other side for this conflict the Saudis, along with many Western Powers and Turkey where quick to provide support to various rebel factions. However due to the array of resistance organisations this support has varied from nation to nation. Whilst Western powers such as the United States of America, France and the United Kingdom have chosen to back moderate groups such as the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Kurdish Militias. However, this stopped short of supplying certain military hardware and in the case of the Kurdish Militias withdrawing almost all support following the USA’s decision to sever ties in order to avoid a military confrontation with Turkish forces who invaded Kurdish controlled territory in October 2019. This resulted in the Kurdish forces, faced with an unsupported war on two fronts, being pushed into the arms of the Syrian government effectively ending their resistance to the regime.

The Saudi’s however have thrown their support in the form of providing weapons, equipment and funding to more religiously aligned Sunni forces such as the Jaysh al-Islam and the Authenticity and Development Front. It should be noted that, despite some support for more radical Sunni organisations in Syria, Saudi Arabia along with their Syrian allies all fought against ISIS and played a role in their ultimate demise.

Saudi Arabia’s support for these organisations started as early as 2012 with the sale of Croatian made M79 OSA Anti-Tank Weapons which the Washington Post and New York Times where able to trace back to a Saudi Arms shipment purchased from Croatia. This was then shipped to Syrian Rebel forces through Turkey. Following Russia’s involvement in the conflict in 2015 the Saudi Kingdom increased support to these groups and all indicators suggest this support in the form of weapons shipments and logistic support has continued despite the main resistance forces being confined to just a few remaining pockets within the nation.

As the Syrian regime manoeuvres towards its end phase in the civil war and as Turkey takes on an increasingly overt, supportive stance of the rebel groups Saudi Arabia’s influence in a post war Syria looks to diminish. Iran on the other hand has now secured its corridor of influence to the Mediterranean and proved itself as an indispensable ally to the Syrian regime. It now has an uninterrupted land route directly to Lebanon and its Hezbollah allies, a large step in solidifying its regional position of power.

Qatar and the Importance of Allies:

For decades the Saudi Arabian Kingdom has had a significant advantage over the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the close relation that Saudi Arabia has with Western nations, especially the United States of America. In exchange for oil rights and trade agreements, the United States, along with European Nations, have supplied and trained the Saudi armed forces along with bolstering their economy. When combined with the Kingdoms dominate position among its neighbouring Arab Gulf States, its religious significance within the Sunni Islamic world and its key position at the head of OPEC the Saudi Arabian Kingdom has a significant geo-political advantage over Iran from which to build on.

By contrast Iran has experienced decades of sanctions predominantly at the request of the USA. This has significantly reduced Iran’s economic development whilst also isolating the nation. This in turn has led Iran to pursue a more covert and militant form of politics than its Saudi counterpart as can be seen in its involvement in Iraq and Syria as well as support for paramilitary organisations such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza but has gained local pollical allies through this tactic.

Iran has also found a political and trade ally in the form of Qatar. The small Arab kingdom, sandwiched between Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, has had a prickly relationship with its only land bordering nation. Saudi Arabia has accused Qatar of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, hosting the Palestinian paramilitary organisation Hamas, backing the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah and sowing seeds of sedition in Saudi Arabia which resulted in a blockade of Qatar in 2017. This has pushed the isolated kingdom to look for allies beyond the Gulf Cooperation Council or the GCC (This is the collection of Arab Gulf State including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE and Oman). Iran was a logical option as Iran and Qatar share the vast South Pars/ North Dome natural-gas condensate field, the largest Liquefied Natural Gas field in the Persian Gulf.

Iran’s regional influence can only increase as a result of its political relations with Qatar and military support of Syria especially as Saudi Arabia’s main ally, the USA, is increasingly trying to distance itself from regional affairs whilst at the same time carrying out targeted military actions such as the assassination of the Iranian Military commander Qasem Soleimani. This mixed response and the way the US swiftly withdrew support to their long-term allies, The Kurdish Militias, in Syria has set a worrying precedence for their allies in the region including Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom can no longer grantee the support of this Western power house meaning it is now becoming ever more reliant on committing its own troops and resources to secure its regional obligations. Whilst this is achievable by the Arab power house, who have a strong economic position with a vast amount of control over the global oil and gas market as well as a strong, technologically advance military force, this more overt, involved and hands on approach look as if it will become a far more prevalent approach to Saudi Arabia’s regional diplomacy in the future.

The Yemen Crisis:

Just as Vietnam for the USA or Afghanistan for the USSR saw the protagonists in the 20th century Cold War commit their forces and transition from a proxy power to a major combative force, so too has Yemen come to personify this 21st century cold war.

When the predominantly Zaidi Houthi Movement, who have had a long-standing history of conflict with the Yemenis government, seized the capital city of Sana’a in 2015 plunging the gulf state into civil war the Saudi Arabian Kingdom suddenly faced a real risk of a hostile Shia nation on its southern border whose military leader commander Ali Al-Shami openly threatened to invade and “not stop until they reached Riyadh”.

Saudi Arabia responded to this threat by leading a coalition of allied nations relying heavily on their regional allies the UAE, Jordan, Qatar, Sudan and Egypt. Initially this was limited to air strikes and a limited number of military advisors training the embattled Yemenis government forces. As the civil war has intensified Saudi forces have had to take an increasingly active role as the Houthi Movement continues to gain territory amid an increasingly costly humanitarian crisis. This commitment has increased recently as the UAE withdrew a large number of its forces in February 2020. This also highlighted a difference in objectives between the two leading coalition powers. Whilst the Saudi’s have stuck to their primary objective of driving out the Houthi forces and restoring the Yemenis Government in exile back in to power, the UAE has been accused by the government of Yemen of using their influence to seize terrain such as the Socotra Island in 2018. This has resulted in Saudi Arabia now having to commit 150,000 troops to Yemen according to the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Defence and Aviation.

This war on its southern boarder has also brought the fight directly to the Kingdom with missile and drone strikes becoming an increasingly common occurrence and even resulted in striking a devastating blow on the 14th September 2019 to the state-owned Saudi Aramco oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais.

Just as the technologically inferior Vietcong and Mujahedeen where able to wage a debilitating war of attrition on two of the world’s largest superpowers resulting in an eventual military victory so too are the Houthis hoping to ware down Saudi Arabia. In the cases of Vietnam and Afghanistan this was achievable thanks to support from their enemy’s enemy, as is the case in Yemen. It is no secret that Houthi forces have been able to make military gains and strike deep into the heart of Saudi Arabia thanks to support from Iran. Building on decades of experience gained through involvement in proxy conflicts Iran is well suited to exploit this situation and consolidate its influence in this region. However due to the strategic importance of Yemen and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, which is key to securing the economically vital Gulf of Aden, Saudi is unlikely to yield in the same way the US and USSR did as the threat to its very existence and power is too great should it loose. It would also mean that the Iranian sphere of influence would almost enterally encircle the Kingdom. All indicators are that this war is not going abate in the near future as both Saudi Arabia and Iran have too much invested in this conflict.

What the Future Holds

In recent years Iran has proven that, despite crippling international sanctions, they can cultivate a strong sphere of influence. Iran also has a key territorial advantage with its control of the Strait of Hormuz, the vital gateway to the Persian Gulf. If pushed Iran has the ability to seal off this access if pushed although the global repercussions of such an action would likely result in more international sanctions. Due to the existing sanctions that also affect both Iran and many of their key regional allies, a low oil price and recently the devastating effects of the COVID 19 Pandemic of which the after effects of are still yet to be seen, Iran is still a long way off a victory.

Despite Iran gaining influence in various proxy conflicts recently forcing the Saudi Arabian Kingdom to undertake an increasingly involved stance in international affairs, one cannot overlook the fact that they still have the dominate seat at the head of the oil and Sunni Islamic world. Whilst they have also been affected by a low oil price the Saudis have embraced this by increasing their oil production in an economic gamble to force other major oil producing nations to blink first and reduce their output. This is a move that, if it works will not only secure the Saudi oil and gas industry but will also re-establish the Kingdom as the dominant global oil producing nation.

To underestimate the Saudi Kingdom would be rash and foolish as this nation still boosts a considerable military force with powerful allies even if a changing global landscape means these nations can not be as relied on to provide the “boots on the ground” support that they once did.

This conflict is far from over especially as a rapidly changing geopolitical landscapes continues to open new fronts in this 21st century cold war providing new opportunities and challenges to these regional powerhouses.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in our articles are those of our analysts and not necessarily those of RoseMarie Ltd.