Media Guide: Iran/Saudi Relations
/By AIC Senior Research Fellow Andrew Lumsden
Since the inauguration of President Ebrahim Raisi in August, how Tehran’s new conservative government will approach diplomacy with Western powers concerning the future of the 2015 nuclear deal has largely dominated discussions of Iranian foreign policy. On that front, talks, since Raisi took office, which have only recently restarted, remain marred by lingering uncertainties. The Raisi Administration, however, has been extremely active in diplomatic engagement with Iran’s regional neighbors, surprisingly even including its longtime adversary, Saudi Arabia.
Beginning in April of 2021, Tehan and Riyadh have so far engaged in four rounds of bilateral talks, with negotiations having been initiated under former President Hassan Rouhani, and continued under Raisi. Both sides have expressed positive attitudes towards the talks, with Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister calling them “cordial,” and saying that Riyadh is “serious” about engaging with Iran and bringing stability to the Middle East. Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, expressed similar sentiments in October, saying that talks are “moving in the right direction” and that the two sides have already come to some agreements.
Though recent developments may warrant some optimism about the future of Saudi-Iranian relations, it must be remembered that the breadth of disagreement between the two regional powers is great, spanning more than seven decades and featuring considerable religious, ideological and geopolitical divides. This Media Guide will explore the longstanding conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, current points of contention and recent diplomacy between the two sides.
Why Are Saudi Arabia and Iran Adversaries?
Relations between the modern states of Saudi Arabia and Iran date back to the 1920s. Then, as now, these ties have been defined by conflicting religious and political interests.
Though both are Muslim-majority countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia are dominated by opposing branches of Islam. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni-majority state where Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative school of Islamic thought, has held tremendous sway in government and society since the 18th century. Iran, conversely, has been a predominantly Shia nation since the rise of the Safavid Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries. In both countries, religious minorities including Sunnis in Iran and Shias in Saudi Arabia, have faced centuries of state sponsored discrimination and marginalization.
These religious differences led to tensions between the Saudi state (then the Sultanate of Nejd) and Iran (then the Imperial State of Persia) in 1925. Saudi troops destroyed the cemetery of al-Baqi in Medina, believed to house the tombs of venerated Shia religious figures. Al-Baqi was considered sacred by Shia Muslims, and its destruction caused outrage in Iran. In 1927, Iran’s imperial government banned its citizens from making the hajj (a pilgrimage to Mecca required of all Muslims), refused to recognize the nascent government of King Abdulazziz ibn Saud (which had recently unified much of the Arabian Peninsula), and called for custodianship of Islam’s two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, to be transferred from the Saudi state to an apolitical Islamic assembly.
These tensions however, defused by 1928, when Iran’s travel ban was lifted after efforts by the Saudis to demonstrate exceptional hospitality to Shia pilgrims, and domestic pressure from Iranian religious leaders. In 1929, Iran and the Saudi state signed a Treaty of Friendship, establishing formal diplomatic relations. Although disagreements remained between the two sides over social liberalization (Iranians supported, Saudis opposed), relations with Israel (Iran supported, Saudis opposed) and the political status of Bahrain (Saudis supported Bahraini independence, Iran claimed it as a province), throughout the 1960s and most of the 1970s, Saudi Arabia and Iran remained on generally amicable terms as pro-Western monarchies opposed to the spread of communism and Arab socialism in the Middle East.
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 would bring an end to cordial relations. Iran’s imperial government was replaced with a theocratic republican regime headed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini denounced the institution of hereditary monarchy as un-Islamic, and labeled Saudi Wahhabism a heresy. Iran also opposed Saudi Arabia’s continued support for the West and began providing material and financial support to revolutionary groups throughout the Middle East, while utilizing mass media to spread its ideology across the region. This sparked fears in Riyadh of similar uprisings potentially taking place in Saudi Arabia and in other Arab countries.
Relations deteriorated further during the 1980s amidst Riyadh’s support for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), clashes between Iranian pilgrims and Saudi security forces in Mecca in 1986 and’87, and the storming of Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Tehran in 1987. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were officially severed in 1988. Formal ties resumed in the 1990s, but were severed again in 2016 after the Saudi embassy in Tehran was stormed by demonstrators outraged over Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shia cleric.
What Are The Present-Day Points of Contention Between The Two Countries?
The geopolitical conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia looks similar today as it did in the 1980s. Iran opposes the Saudi government’s close ties with the United States, treatment of Shia Muslims and support for governments in the region hostile to its interests or oppressive towards Shias. Iran’s current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in 2019 summed up his views on Riyadh saying that “I do not know any country worse than the Saudi government…[it is] corrupt, despotic and also oppressive.” Khamenei called Saudi leaders “sycophantic” to the West and accused them of acting “cordially towards the enemies of Islam.” Like his predecessors going back to the 1920s, Khamenei has also been critical of Saudi Arabia’s role as overseer of Islam’s holiest cities Mecca and Medina, saying in 2018 that the religious sites “[do] not belong to the rulers of Saudi Arabia,” but to “all Muslims.”
For its part, Saudi Arabia has retained its longstanding concerns over the spread of Iran’s influence in the Middle East and its continued support for militant groups across the region. Riyadh accuses Tehran of “planting terrorist cells in a number of Arab countries,” “assisting in terrorist bombings” and of “violation of the sovereignty of other states.” Saudi Arabia’s monarch, King Salman said that while he welcomes talks with Iran, any relationship going forward must be based on “respect for sovereignty,” and “stopping all types of support for terrorist groups and sectarian militias.” Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de facto leader, Mohammad bin Salman, has expressed more hardline views. In 2018, he likened Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei to Adolf Hitler, saying that whereas Hitler primarily had designs on Europe, Iran “is trying to conquer the world.” Prince Mohammad added that Riyadh is in the process of “pushing back” on Iranian influence.
Although no direct armed conflict between the two sides has occurred, both states are jockeying for influence in ways that have exacerbated destabilization throughout the Middle East and beyond. In fact, leaders of both states have expressed a desire to see the other destabilized. When asked his opinion on possible nuclear facilities being built in Saudi Arabia, Ayatollah Khamenei said in 2019 that he is unmoved because “God willing,” any facilities and perhaps the government of Saudi Arabia “will fall into the hands of Muslim Mujahideen in the not too distant future.” Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, for his part, said that he hopes that if Iran’s influence in the Middle East is rolled back, “the problems will move inside Iran. We don’t know if the regime will collapse or not—it’s not the target, but if it collapses, great.”
How Is The Saudi-Iran Conflict Impacting The Wider Middle East?
The Saudi-Iran conflict has proved to be far more than a war of words. Analysts have dubbed it a “proxy war” or “cold war.” This proxy conflict has had profound consequences for much of the Middle East, with many of the ongoing armed conflicts in the region, though perhaps not caused by Tehran and Riyadh, having been further inflamed by their machinations.
Yemen
The ongoing civil war in Yemen is perhaps the grizzliest manifestation of the Saudi-Iranian cold war. The current chaos stems from the overthrow of Yemen’s longtime pro-Saudi, pro-Western dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh following nationwide protests in 2012. Saleh’s Vice President, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi succeeded him. However, this destabilization paved the way for the Houthis, a rebel group consisting primarily of members of Yemen’s Shia minority, to capture the capital, Sana’a, in 2014.
As AIC explained in its 2019 ‘Media Guide’ on the war in Yemen, it is highly unlikely that Iran controls the Houthis as Saudi Arabia and its allies have at times charged, but Tehran is known to back the group with sophisticated weaponry and tactics training, and has vowed political and economic support to its self-declared government.
In response, Saudi Arabia and a coalition of other Arab states, including Riyadh’s fellow Gulf monarchies Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, deployed military forces into Yemen to dislodge the Houthis. The conflict, unfortunately, has dragged on for years and so far has left more than 200,000 people dead and an estimated four million displaced. Although the conflict remains unresolved, it is clear that Tehran’s close ties with the Houthi rebels will enable it to exert a significant degree of political and economic influence over Yemen, a country not long ago firmly within the Saudi sphere of influence.
For more on the Yemeni Civil War, see AIC’s: Media Guide: Iran and the Yemeni Civil War
Syria
Compared to Yemen, the ongoing civil war in Syria has much less to do with either Saudi Arabia or Iran directly, yet their ‘proxy war’ has left its mark on this conflict as well. Despite being a predominantly Sunni country, Syria’s politics have been dominated by the Alawites, adherents to a branch of Shia Islam, since the rise to power of Hafez al-Assad in 1971. Assad was succeeded as Syria’s dictator by his son Bashar in 2000. The Assad government and Iran have had close ties since 1979, and the two countries hold similar political interests including antipathy towards Israel and to U.S. influence in the Middle East.
Iran views Syria as a critical strategic ally. Former Iranian Foreign Minister and adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei, Ali Akbar Velayati, in 2012 called Syria the “golden ring” in Iran’s “chain of resistance against Israel.” Tehran believes that its alliance with Syria and the Shia militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, allow it to form an effective counterweight to Israel. This “axis” as Saeed Jalili, former head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, terms it, was successful in undermining Israeli and Israeli-allied influence in Lebanon during the 1980s and early 2000s.
In contrast, Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Assadist Syria has been strained. Though cordial during Hafez al-Assad’s rule, Saudi-Syrian relations deteriorated in 2005 after the assasination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, a pro-Saudi leader. Riyadh blamed Syria and joined the West and other Arab powers in demanding that Damascus withdraw its forces from Lebanon, in which it had a military presence, and effectively controlled, since the 1970s.
When ‘Arab Spring’ protests and subsequent violence erupted in Syria in 2012, Tehran backed the Assad government with equipment, advice on dispersing protests and deployments of Revolutionary Guard forces, police and intelligence agents. Saudi Arabia, for its part, saw the Syrian Civil War as an opportunity to weaken Iran’s influence and helped to organize and supply arms and training to Sunni anti-Assad rebels. The Syrian Civil War continues to rage and has so far led to over 400,000 estimated deaths and the displacement of more than 11 million people. However, due in large part to support from Iran and Russia, and hyper-fragmentation of opposition groups, the Assad government appears poised to survive, and perhaps win, the conflict.
Lebanon
Though more stable today than Yemen and Syria, Lebanon has been a battleground between Riyadh and Tehran for decades. In contrast to many of the other flashpoints in the proxy conflict, Lebanon’s religious makeup is very diverse, with Muslims holding a roughly 68% majority alongside a sizable Christian minority. Lebanon’s Muslim community is also very closely divided, with an estimated 31.9% being Sunnis and 31.2% being Shia. These divisions have helped render the country a perfect breeding ground for sectarian violence.
A civil war in the 1970s led to the rise of Shia militias in Lebanon. In the early 1980s, Iran, looking to expand its regional influence, supplied arms, training and finances to a budding Shia group, which in 1985 dubbed itself Hezbollah (Party of God). Hezbollah declared war on Israel and the U.S., and formally pledged allegiance to Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah said in 2019 that Iran’s current Supreme Leader has been involved with Hezbollah since “the very early hours of the establishment and foundation of this group,” and reiterated his loyalty. Hezbollah is considered a proxy of Iran.
Saudi Arabia was instrumental in helping mediate an end to Lebanon’s civil war in 1989. While most sectarian militias disarmed, Hezbollah did not. In October 2021, Nasrallah claimed that Hezbollah commands 100,000 fighters. Analysts’ estimates however, are closer to 20,000 active militants. The group also has an arsenal of an estimated 130,000 rockets and missiles, primarily from Iran and Syria. Tehran also supplies Hezbollah with an estimated $700 million a year, and Israel alleges that Tehran also is providing technical assistance to Hezbollah, with the aim of helping the group produce rockets and other armaments domestically.
Hezbollah is also an influential political party. It currently holds 12 seats in Lebanon’s 128-member Parliament, and is part of the ruling coalition. Accordingly, at least two cabinet ministers have been nominated by Hezbollah. However, some analysts allege that the group’s influence over the executive branch is much greater. Lebanon's President, Michel Aoun, though a Christian, has been a political ally of Hezbollah since 2006 and the group backed his 2016 bid for the Presidency.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman, derides Aoun as, “Hezbollah’s enabler,” and argues that he, along with other Christian Lebanese politicians, use Christian concerns over Islamist extremism and the influence of the ultraconservative Saudi regime to justify allying with Hezbollah. They argue that doing so is the only effective bulwark against Sunni parties, which they charge with being linked to Saudi Arabia, and seeking to bring about a more conservative Islamic government in Beirut.
Saudi Arabia has indeed worked to expand its influence in Lebanon since the 1980s. It has invested heavily in Lebanon’s postwar economic reconstruction and development, and in 2002, topped the list of international donors committing aid to Lebanon, pledging $700 million. Between 2006 and 2008, Saudi Arabia, together with Kuwait gave Lebanon’s Central Bank $2.5 billion. In total, more than 75% of foreign investment Lebanon received between 2003 and 2015, came from the Gulf monarchies.
More recently, Saudi Arabia has taken a more heavy-handed approach to influencing Lebanese politics, attempting to force out Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri due to Hezbollah’s presence in his ruling coalition and cabinet in 2017. Though he resigned, allegedly under duress while in Riyadh, Hariri rescinded his resignation upon returning to Lebanon. In October 2021, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies expelled Lebanon’s ambassadors and banned Lebanese imports. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister in November 2021 conceded that Lebanon is under the “domination of Hezbollah, and through Hezbollah, Iran,” and claimed that Riyadh currently has no interest in resuming diplomatic ties with Beirut.
Iraq
As in Lebanon, Iraq today is more stable than at times in the recent past. With armed conflict on the decline, the Saudi-Iran proxy war has taken on an increasingly political, versus simply military, dimension.
Iraq is the only country to share a border with both Iran and Saudi Arabia, and unsurprisingly has become a geopolitical battleground between the two powers. What perhaps is surprising, is that despite fighting a bloody eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s which featured weapons of mass destruction and is estimated to have claimed the lives of over 1 million people, Iran today wields considerable political and economic influence in Iraq, while Saudi efforts in the country have only recently begun to get off the ground.
Between the rise of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party in Iraq in the 1960s and the fall of the Baathist regime in 2003, Iran was a haven for dissident Iraqi Shia political activists. Accordingly, Tehran has deep, longstanding ties to many of Iraq’s Shia political parties, and has been leveraging Iraq’s nascent multiparty democratic political system to expand its own influence in Baghdad.
As in Iran, Shias make up a majority of Iraq’s population, with estimates exceeding 60%, giving Shia parties an electoral advantage in a country polarized along sectarian lines. Tehran has worked to ensure that Iraqi governments are dominated by its Shia political allies. It has done this in part by persuading friendly Shia parties to coalesce around a joint list of candidates during elections and to form coalitions in Parliament to avoid splitting the Shia vote and diluting Shia political power. High-level Iranian officials including former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani have reportedly taken part in these negotiations. Tehran is also suspected of providing financial incentives to local officials and community leaders to align with its interests.
Iran has been able to ensure that its political partners have prominent positions in the Iraqi government, particularly in the trade, diplomatic and security sectors. It is important to note however that Iraq’s Shia leaders have not always acted according to Tehran’s interests. Though Iran’s hold over Iraqi politics is considerable, and arguably growing in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal in 2011 and the drawing down of the war with the Islamic State (ISIS), it is not and never has been absolute.
As hard as Tehran has worked to manipulate the levers of Iraqi democracy, it has worked equally as hard in favor of those who undermine it. The Quds Force, a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for operations outside of Iran, is known to have provided armament, financial, training and logistical support to Shia (and some Sunni) militia groups in Iraq. With these militant groups in its corner, Tehran has been able to weaken U.S. influence in Iraq through attacks on American forces, as well as eliminate or intimidate Iraqi political opponents and enhance its reputation among Iraq’s Shias by visibly combating anti-Shia groups such as ISIS when government forces initially failed to do so effectively.
Saudi Arabia on the other hand, severed diplomatic ties with Iraq in 1990, and relations between the two countries bettered little since the overthrow of the Baathist regime. Riyadh was wary of Iraq’s Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (2006-2014), and regarded him as too close to Iran. Al-Maliki’s ouster in 2014 however, changed the dynamic between Riyadh and Baghdad. In 2016, Saudi Arabia reopened its embassy in Baghdad after nearly 30 years. Riyadh has also ramped up engagement with key figures in the Iraqi government.
Former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi (2014-2018) and his Interior Minister Qasim al-Araji, both made multiple trips to Riyadh during their time in office. Some Iraqi politicians, including Shias, support engagement with Saudi Arabia both as a means of securing funds for reconstruction and development and to counter Iranian influence, which not all Shia officials in Baghdad support. While it is far too early to tell what impact Saudi Arabia’s renewed political engagement with Iraq will have, Saudi leaders are reportedly under no illusion that they will completely expunge Iranian influence from Iraq, with one senior official telling the International Crisis Group, that Riyadh hopes to change the balance of political influence in Iraq to 70% in its favor to 30% in Iran’s favor.
Sudan
Whereas Iraq may be an obvious battleground between Riyadh and Tehran, Sudan is not. Sudan is not in the Middle East, although it sits directly across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia. Despite its geographic position and its overwhelmingly Sunni demographics, Sudan was for decades, closely aligned with Iran. This unlikely friendship emerged during the late 1980s and early 1990s, at a time when Sudan, like Iran, was becoming increasingly isolated diplomatically. The U.S. suspended aid following a 1989 military coup which overthrew Sudan’s elected government and brought dictator Omar al-Bashir to power. Sudan’s relations with its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, deteriorated in 1991, when Khartoum opted to support Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the First Gulf War, in which most Arab states joined the coalition opposing Iraq.
Iran, on the other hand, heavily invested in Sudan. It provided Sudanese armed forces, then at war with various rebel groups, with a broad array of weaponry including small arms, ammunition, artillery and landmines. Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported in 1998 that according to Sudanese Army defectors, Iranian advisors were embedded with Sudanese forces beginning as early as 1990. HRW also reported that Iran assisted the Sudanese regime in matters of internal security, helping to reorganize Sudan’s police force and “purge potentially disloyal elements.” Some police units were also reportedly sent to Iran for training.
Sudan is also alleged to have served as a hub for Iranian weapons destined for other parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Documents leaked in 2014 reveal that Iran transferred rockets and other armaments to Sudan via civil aircraft for delivery to rebel fighters in Libya. Sudan is also accused, particularly by Israel, of ferrying Iranian arms to the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Sudan’s relationship with Iran would quite abruptly decline however, in the mid-2010s. In 2014, Khartoum shut down all Iranian cultural centers in the country and expelled the diplomats staffing them. This was allegedly in response to the Iranians attempting to promote Shia Islam in Sudan. Analysts however, suspect that economic downturn and widespread protests in 2013, prompted Khartoum to seek foreign investments, which Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies were much better placed than Iran to provide. In 2015, Sudan committed 15,000 troops to the conflict in Yemen as part of Saudi Arabia’s coalition. The following year, Khartoum joined Saudi Arabia in formally breaking diplomatic relations with Iran following the storming of the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
In 2019, Sudan’s once pro-Iran dictator, Omar al-Bashir was overthrown. In response, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates jointly committed to $3 billion of investment to Sudan. Reportedly, $750 million of this grant money has already been delivered. Sudanese officials reported in August 2021 that Saudi Arabia is open to investing up to $10 billion in the country. Sudan’s overwhelmingly Sunni population, Saudi financial largesse and the ouster of al-Bashir suggest that unlike in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, Riyadh appears to have the upper hand over Tehran in Sudan.
Israel
Though not itself a political battleground like many of its neighbors, the Saudi-Iran proxy conflict has had ramifications for Israel as well. Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has been refused diplomatic ties with most Arab states. However, in recent years there has been increasing willingness among Arab nations, particularly those aligned with Saudi Arabia, to establish formal relations with the Jewish state. In 2020, with U.S. mediation, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco agreed to normalize relations with Israel. In 2021, Sudan also moved to repeal 1950s-era legislation which bans diplomatic and economic ties with Israel. While no side has overtly fingered Iran as the cause for the recent realignment, analysts generally view the so-called ‘Abraham Accords’ as a bid by Israel and the Gulf monarchies to counter Iran.
Iran has responded with forceful rhetoric. Ayatollah Khamenei says Arab states which normalize relations with Israel have “sinned” and must “turn back from this path.” Foreign Minister Abdollahian has denounced them as “traitors to al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Palestine.” Abdollahian has also accused Saudi Arabia of “serving Israel.” Riyadh has not yet normalized relations with Israel, but Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister said in 2021 that doing so “would be extremely helpful economically, socially and from a security perspective.” Also, evidence exists of clandestine talks and political cooperation between Israel and the Saudis. Officially however, Saudi Arabia says that normalization can only occur after the establishment of a Palestinian state.
How far Riyadh intends to pursue closer ties with Israel and whether this will impact its potential detente with Iran remains to be seen.
Future Outlook
While clarifying that he considers previous rounds of Saudi-Iran talks to be “exploratory” rather than “substantive,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said in November that Riyadh intends to continue dialogue with Iran.
Beyond the possible re-opening of consulates, details on exactly what topics have been discussed over the course of recent talks or what agreements may have been made remain scarce. However, the opening of dialogue without preconditions between these two countries is a laudable and welcome development, and serves as a positive example to the region and the world.
Both Tehran and Riyadh should use this opportunity to engage in candid and comprehensive discussions on the points of contention between them and work in good faith to reach substantive and durable resolutions. Aside from the death and destruction already wrought, it must be remembered that the regional conflicts kindled or stoked by the Saudi-Iran conflict will not all remain confined to foreign fronts. The war in Yemen has already been spilling over into Saudi Arabia with Houthi drone strikes on the Kingdom intensifying. Iran’s support for regional militant groups has been a major cause of the diplomatic and economic isolation it has suffered over the past several decades, and in recent years has been a source of domestic popular outrage.
Both sides have acknowledged regional stability as a priority and should use the political, economic and cultural power they have in order to alleviate rather than aggravate sectarian divides, broker resolutions to armed conflicts over which they have influence and promote Sunni-Shia equality and peaceful coexistence domestically and throughout the Middle East.
