The ongoing diplomatic confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia resembles a wrestling match between long-time rivals who cannot pin the other down for long enough to actually win. They are equally adept at taking jabs at each other in an effort to establish definitive political dominance in the Middle East; the jostling has now reached a critical point given the fragile regional landscape. Since the end of July the feud has grown in scope to have direct impact beyond the Middle East.
In the last week of July Saudi Arabia agreed to supply an additional 3 million barrels per day of oil to India following Iran's cessation of Indian oil exports, the result of a failure on the part of the Indians to pay Iran for oil shipped since late last year (due to international payment sanctions imposed on Tehran). India used the dispute to demonstrate to Iran that it has the ability to diversify its oil supplies as necessary, which is no doubt an underlying concern for Iran vis-à-vis the other countries to whom it sells its oil. Riyadh's action naturally resulted in an escalation of tensions between Tehran and Riyadh, yet, India clearly needed to fill the shortfall. How many oil producing countries have the ability to provide an additional 3 million barrels per day of oil on short notice -- especially given the shortfall from Libya? No other country but Saudi Arabia. Where did the Iranians expect the Indians to go to fill the gap?
Neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia is likely to confront the other militarily, but rather through the use of proxies, and by flexing their political and economic power. Saudi Arabia clearly has more financial power, and the ability to influence the region's countries as a result of its economic might. Iran, on the other hand, is forceful in its use of non-state actors throughout the region, and continues to have the ability to influence Shi'a populations throughout the Gulf, although the degree of its influence has in some respects become more limited than it once was as a result of the introduction of other state and non-state actors in the arena.
To be sure, the Sunni-Shi'a divide is an important component of the two countries' bilateral relationship. The Saudi regime is under ongoing pressure from clerics to support Sunnis in Iran. Similarly, Iran's support of the Shi'a minority in Saudi Arabia has become a growing source of concern for the Saudi government, particularly at this time. But the tussle between Iran and Saudi Arabia is also about how some grand geopolitical issues will ultimately be resolved. Can Saudi Arabia's de facto economic and political pre-eminence in the region continue, given the shifting landscape resulting from the Arab Spring? Can Iran achieve what it believes is its own manifest destiny, and reclaim is regional dominance? If it were able to do so, which countries would lose out, and which would gain? Will either country find itself swept up in its own political upheaval in the months and years to come? What impact will any of this have on U.S. influence in the region?
Saudi Arabia's influence has diminished over the past decade, the result of a combination of the rise of Turkey as a regional power, the relative decline of the power of OPEC, a rise in the economic power of non-OPEC oil producers, and the ability of China to gain a foothold in the region. The fissure that has grown between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. since the Obama Administration came to power is becoming serious. Both countries' have used the other as a natural extension of their own power in the region. The ability to do so in the future cannot be taken for granted, given waning U.S. influence, and the dislocation of the decades-old political paradigm that has been in place in Egypt and Syria. The implications are uncertain, at best.
The Iranian-Saudi wrestling match has yet to reach a crescendo, and may not for some time to come. It may take a dramatic event -- such as the use of Saudi air space by Israel to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities at some point in the future - to reach the boiling point. In the interim, each will continue to seize opportunities to take jabs at the other in the hope of spurring an Iranian or Saudi Spring in the coming months. In neither country does it appear even remotely likely that the current human rights winter will turn to spring any time soon, but only if this were to occur successfully in either country would dramatic political change stand the greatest chance of permanently altering the geopolitical landscape in the Gulf.
Daniel Wagner is CEO of Country Risk Solutions, a political risk consulting firm based in Connecticut (USA), and author of the forthcoming book Managing Country Risk, to be published by CRC Press in the first quarter of 2012. Azadeh Pourzand is a research analyst with CRS based in the Netherlands.
Follow Daniel Wagner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/countryriskmgmt
Amb. Marc Ginsberg: Syria: Better Late Than Never or Too Little Too Late
The Saudis torture and kill Bahrainis.
The Iranians protest the killing and torture of the Bahrainis and their places of worship.
Boy, they are really at it.
Iran would prefer good relations with all Middle East countries, except Israel.
This is not correct. All of Iran's export to India is 400K barrels per day. 3 million barrels is 30% of Saudi production. They don't have that kind of extra capacity. Saudi's want to export another 200K to 300K barrels of oil to India on the direction of US. Anyways the Indian payment to Iran is being made through Turkey and there was no supply disruption to India from Iran. India always bought more oil from Saudis than Iran, just because they produce a lot more. For India switching of all oil purchase from Iran is not in the cards. The name of the game in energy security is having buying relationships with as many producers as possible, and Indian as usual using this to get a better pricing from both sides.
There seems to be a rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, this is because Saudi Arabia, the largest "a family, an army owning a country" entity in the middle east, don't know where to turn. The end of these make belief entities (regimes) are near. The only thing the Saudi tyranny is doing, is trying to deflect their population from this reality, by blaming everything on Iran in cooperation with US and Israel.
"If the U.S. or Israel attack Iranian nuclear power facilities "huge amounts of radioactive material will be lofted into the air to contaminate the people of Iran and surrounding countries," an eminent international authority on nuclear weapons warns.
"This fallout will induce cancers, leukemia, and genetic disease in these populations for years to come, both a medical catastrophe and a war crime of immense proportions," Dr. Helen Caldicott writes in her new book, "Nuclear Power Is Not The Answer," published by The New Press.
Dr. Caldicott said the Pentagon has met with its Israeli counterparts "to discuss the participation of Israel in plans to attack Iran" even though President Bush said "this notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4354
First off, promiment Inams (including those elected to positions of power in the government, like the power to tell the 'Supreme Leader' he wasn't anymore) campaigned for Inam Mousavi, but the non-cleric Ahmadinejad won.
Second off, none of the credible polls ever had Ahmadinejad with less popular support than all the other candidates.
Third, when all the candidates had monitors at almost every single polling station (when a candidate tries to organise tens of thousands of people to go to tens of thousands of polling stations, not every one of those monitors is going to show up), watching the entire voting process, including the counting, and the marking of every voter's finger with indelible ink, and over 90% of them all say the process at their polling station was fair, and the vote count for their individual polling station in the official results were accurate, its hard to see how electoral fraud could have been pulled off (other than through the use of Santa Claus to slide down the chimneys at those polling stations and swap out the ballots while no-one was awake)
PS
I hope james is not one of those people who see it as their patriotic duty to ignore facts when it doesn't suit the political stance of his country.
Iran is anti-american(not the people but their foreign policy)
Saudi Arabia is anti-shia
Iran and Egypt are more similar to each other while Saudi Arabia is in a league of its own
China buys about 550,000 barrels of Iranian oil, per day.
Saudi Arabia and Iran should seek to have good relations with each other.
Divide and conquer ends with one or both sides conquered.
Those seeking to divide are the real enemy.
Given the fact that the majority of foreign fighters captured in Iraq were Saudis not Iranians, and that funding for the Taliban is heavily Saudi, an argument could be made that America has chosen the wrong side.
We prop up a radically extremist monarchy that works against Americas interests.
The neocons that created this policy should be investigated for aiding the enemy.
As for the wrestling match theme, it is based on an unsupported assumption that regional dominance is actually sought by both parties.
It is safe to say that appropriate regional influence is desired by both, but that is standard among all nations. Good relations and trade with neighbors being presented as dangerous and expansionary is not supported by the reality on the ground.
The notion of regional dominance seems to be Americas goal.
India allowing itself to be used in this game should be an embarrassment to all Indians.
Firstly the Indian-Iran oil disagreement has been resolved with India agreeing to pay the 5 Billion owed through a Turkish bank in Euro currency. I was mainly caused by the US sanctions making it difficult for India to transfer payments. China has had similar problems paying Iran for its gas and has decided on a barter system of repaying them in goods and in investments in Iranian infastructure.
Secondly the phrase "they are equally adept at taking jabs at each other". I would say Iran has been significantly more skillful at countering the Saudis. Just look at the main Saudi-Iran battleground (Iraq). Iran has come out clearly the winner with the Saudi funded Sunni resistance defeated twice (The American insurgency and then the civil war).
As the article correctly implies the Saudi's have one thing going for them and that is almost endless amounts of money. When Saudi's ally Egypt fell to the Revolution they attempted to buy off the Egyptian military council with 4 Billion. When the Shiites rose up in Bahrain they were forced to send in troops to attempt to put it down. Finally Saudi Arabia is forced to spend 24 Billion to by off its own youth with free apartments and more jobs to prevent a revolution in the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia despite all the money it has is acting purely reactively to developments not shaping them.
You would have to wonder what Saudi policy makers were thinking when they supported the US war and then panicked afterwards about a Shia takeover. With a 60% Shia majority what did they expect would happen in Iraq under a democratic system?
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/652.php
When it comes to Iran, the vast majority of Americans are Birthers, prefering to think that what matches their prejudices is true no matter what the facts are.
In fairness, if Iran is at war with humanity they are going about it in a fairly lazy fashion. You could even argue that America has a far more proactive approach to going to war with humanity than the Iranians do, what with there 1000 military bases around the globe and vast military and there new weapon that can strike anywhere on the globe in under an hour.
But then I did see that photo of Iran launching 3 rockets in a desert drill last year so yeah maybe they are gearing up for a "war with humanity" who knows?
As for their relative positions when it comes to trade dominance, while they could each make up for the other's crude oil shipments to any single customer, Iran has a lot more than oil that they export, and that gives them more leverage than the House of Saud has if it came down to that. As it is, Iran seems pretty content to play the long game, knowing a modern, democratic, open market industrialised country with a thriving scientific community (hint, the scientific output of Saudi Arabia could be added to the scientific output of Israel and it still wouldn't match Iran's outputs) is pretty much assured to come out ahead of a country where industry depends on foreign technicians and advancements, and businesses only succeed if they have a 'silent partner' amongst the royal family.
PS, the head of that body campaigned for Mousavi, which begs the question 'If the Iranian election was rigged, who did it and how did they manage to avoid the notice of the Mousavi supporters in positions of power?'
In Democracy, citizens take turn ruling and being ruled, regardless of whether they can demonstrate that they believe in "Velayate Fagheeh"
In a Democracy, a citizen is not put in jail because of what he has published in a blog
In a Democracy, citizens are not forced to confess against themselves in show trials
In a Democracy, there's a separation between public and private, between state and society. State cannot dictate the morals to its citizens
In a democracy, citizens are not stoned to death because of adultery
In a democracy, citizens cannot be held in custody without access to an attorney
In a democracy, a supreme leader does not employ Besiji mercenaries to suppress unrest
In a democracy, no cultural or Islamic code can replace the universal and natural rights of man.
I could go on forever. These are all necessary conditions
Look forward to your refuting my arguments (without using the ignoble method of saying how far US is far from meeting some other demands. Stick to Iran and demonstrate how it's Democratic)
The rest of your comments are pure rubbish and nothing less than propaganda.
Who would you have the US support. The Ayatollahs of Iran who hate us. The dictatorhip in Syria. Hezbollah. not a lot of worthy choices. And too important a region to ignore.