Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia (KSA), including the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), are the result of a variety of nuanced conflicts of interest and foreign influence. The three pillars to understanding the ongoing rift between Iran and the rest of the countries in the Persian Gulf are: religion and ethnicity, geopolitics, and colonial history. 

A history of the cultural and ideological Iran-Saudi Arabia divide 

Underpinning the cultural and ideological divides between Iran and the KSA lies the division between the Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam. As seen in Map 1 Iran and Saudi Arabia have a significant difference in the distributions of Sunni Muslims, with Saudi Arabia having a far larger distribution of Sunni Muslims. Indeed, most of the Arab states with the exception of Bahrain, Iraq, and Kuwait are Sunni-majority. This difference in religious observation has significant implications considering the history of the MENA region and the wider Islamic world. 

The vast majority of the Islamic Caliphates which conquered the Middle East, much of Western Asia, North Africa, and the fringes of Southern Europe traditionally endorsed Sunni Islam. This was until the rise of the Safavid Dynasty, which established Shiite Islam as its official religion. An overview provided by the Council on Foreign Relations explains that the Shiite Safavids had a series of conflicts with the Sunni Ottomans between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The rise of the Safavid Dynasty also brought about significant increases in the observance of Shiite Islam amongst religious minorities within Safavid territories, namely Zoroastrians, as a sign of “protest against the ethnic Arab empires”.

Herein lies the second cultural difference between Iran and Saudi Arabia – ethnicity. Iranians are mainly ethnic Persians whereas, as the name suggests, the ethnic build-up of the KSA and the Arabian Peninsula is composed primarily of ethnic Arabs. Geographically, the Arabs and Persians are isolated physically by the Persian Gulf and by a large swathe of Kurdish-majority territory in Mesopotamia. These two differences mean that Iranians and Saudi Arabians, and most Arabian Gulf states, enjoy different cultures and religions that historically have not always aligned. Whilst this is not in and of itself a guarantee of conflict, the natural resources hidden under the depths of the Persian Gulf can be considered to be a catalyst for these tensions to boil over into more formal geopolitical conflicts.

The Persian Gulf is a region with a great deal of geopolitical advantages which have been highly sought after throughout history. Even before The Age of Exploration, the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East acted as a land bridge connecting Europe to the Far East via the Silk Road. The significance of the geopolitical positioning of the Persian Gulf became even more pronounced when the Portuguese Empire established trading ports on the Iranian island of Hormuz. Since then, European colonial presence increased substantially – namely the British and Ottoman empires which established colonies in Western Arabia along the Hijaz Mountains and in Southern Yemen, respectively. In recent history, the Persian Gulf’s geopolitical benefits have become less related to the region’s geographical positioning and more related to its commodities exports – hydrocarbons – as the region is host to nearly half of the world’s crude oil reserves. The exploits of the oil industry are something which both the Arab and Persian shores of the Gulf have vied over, even before the declaration of an Islamic Republic in Iran and the ongoing rift between Iran and the KSA. 

An article published in International Affairs in 1957 explains that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – the last Shah (king) of Imperial Iran – held territorial claims over the island of Bahrain because of the historical Persian occupation of the Shiite-majority island. The Shah’s intervention and quest for influence on the other side of the Gulf went beyond territorial claims, but actually extended to military intervention in Oman in 1971 to help the Sultanate crush communist rebellions in Dhofar. Before the eventual rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the rivalry between the Arab and Persian shores of the Gulf was well and truly on – both politically and economically. The Shah’s interventions on the Arab Peninsula demonstrated that Imperial Iran was willing to put boots on the ground to gain influence over the KSA and its allies and comparable oil revenue, which meant that Saudi Arabia was very much under pressure from Iran on the military and economic fronts. 

Revolution and transformation

When revolution hit Iran in 1979, the tides began to turn. The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) was nationalised and its assets seized by the new government in Tehran, and foreign companies were effectively embargoed from the Iranian hydrocarbon industry under the new constitution. Since then, the Iranian hydrocarbon industry’s contribution to the economy has found resistance at around 30 per cent of GDP. Iran’s self-isolation from the global hydrocarbon industry in the 1970s opened the doors for Saudi Arabia to pick up the slack and become a major exporter of crude oil. Before diversifying exports and developing its service sector, oil exports consistently made up half of the KSA’s GDP between the turn of the century and 2014. As if the economic repercussions of the revolution had not damaged Iran’s economy enough, the new-found Islamic Republic of Iran faced a literal baptism of fire – war with Iraq. The Iran-Iraq War was, at the time, the bloodiest conflict the world had seen since the end of the Second World War and pushed the economies of the belligerent countries to breaking point. There are many theories regarding the origins of the Iran-Iraq War; some maintain Saddam Hussein initiated the war to prevent a Shiite uprising in Iraq, like the one that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, whereas some accounts suppose Hussein wanted to gain control of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan, which has a significant ethnic Arab population with a history of discrimination from the Iranian state. 

By the end of the 1980s, the stalemate between Iran and Iraq and the rising cost of military activity brought an end to the war, and the Islamic Republic of Iran retained its control over Khuzestan and affirmed its sovereignty. However, the Iran-Iraq War was effectively a reminder that the Islamic Republic of Iran could not fully trust its Arab neighbours, and with a weakened oil industry, it needed to be able to defend itself. Without allies in the region, Iran sought support from the Soviet Union and maintained military spending around the two per cent mark following the war with Iraq, in line with global trends. Currently, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran is the third-strongest military power in the MENA region behind Egypt and Turkey, but just ahead of Israel and the KSA. Fundamentally, the Islamic Revolution in Iran ultimately soured relations across the Persian Gulf. What was once an economic and political rivalry became an explicitly religious and ideological rivalry. 

Pre-1979, Iran enjoyed a relative advantage over Saudi Arabia in the political and economic realms, but following the revolution and war with Iraq, this advantage was all but eroded. Saudi Arabia and its GCC allies became leaders in the regional and global hydrocarbon industry and they deepened ties with the West and in so doing attracted business and plenty of dollars into the Arabian Peninsula. Further, the Islamic Republic’s closeness with the Soviet Union and the eventual Russian Federation has strained Iran-KSA relations, given the latter’s positive relations with the West. This antagonism has resulted in various aerial and naval interceptions between Iran and Saudi Arabia’s regional allies, including the United States, highlighting the military nature of tensions. 

The future of Iran-Saudi Arabia relations: a potential revival?

At the present moment, relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia are virtually non-existent. In 2016 Saudi Arabia evacuated its consular staff from Tehran and expelled Iranian diplomats following the raid and incineration of the Saudi Arabian embassy in  Iran. This raid was conducted in response to the execution of Nimr Al-Nimr – a Saudi Shiite preacher – on convictions of terrorism alongside other perpetrators convicted of the same crimes by Riyadh. Saudi Arabia was joined by Bahrain in severing diplomatic ties with Iran. The island nation of Bahrain and Iran have particularly sour relations, given Iran’s claims on the island and Tehran’s backing of various anti-Sunni militias operating inside of Bahrain, namely the Saraya Al-Mukhtar Brigades and Hezbollah Bahrain. Notwithstanding, the remainder of the GCC Member States still have diplomatic ties with Iran; Kuwait and Oman especially enjoy relatively friendly relations with Tehran. Recently, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – which did not sever relations with Tehran in 2016 – has admitted to furthering diplomatic relations with Tehran to settle differences peacefully. 

Whether Saudi Arabia and Bahrain will follow the example of the wider GCC community and restore diplomatic relations with Iran is difficult to say.  For one, the divide between Bahrain and Iran is directly linked to Bahrain’s sovereignty and self-determination within its territories. Therefore, it will take a significant change in regional politics for those ties to resume. Moreover, the violation of Saudi Arabia’s jurisdiction within its own embassy is in and of itself a violation of articles 21, 22(1)(2)(3), 24, and 27(2) pursuant to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Although the attack on the Saudi embassy was not conducted by Iranian officials and the numerous arrests carried out in the aftermath; the links between the youth wing of the IRGC and the opposition to the execution of Al-Nimr suggest that a revival of ties may be out of reach in the near future.

Notwithstanding the recent happenings in Iran-KSA relations, there are some clues that suggest relations may improve in the medium-term and long-term. The first clue is that unlike a similar raid on the U.S. embassy in Tehran, which sparked the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979, arrests were made following the raid on the Saudi Arabian embassy. Whilst these arrests may appear as formalities, it shows that Tehran understands the gravity of the Saudi threat. Additionally, the recent improvement of diplomatic relations between other GCC countries and Iran indicates  that relations across the Persian Gulf have the potential to improve. Indeed, if the precedent of the Abraham Accords  (the normalisation of ties between Israel and various Arab countries, including Bahrain and the UAE) is to be considered then the potential for a revival of Iran-KSA relations is not totally out of question. 

This possibility is made even  more possible as Saudi Arabia tries to demonstrate its political value to long-time ally – the United States. The incumbent president of the U.S., Joe Biden, has been outspoken about his opposition to the Al-Saud family whilst campaigning ahead of the 2020 elections. All the while, Saudi Arabia has doubled crude oil imports from Russia despite U.S.-backed Western sanctions placed on Moscow following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These tensions between the United States and Saudi Arabia amid a period of volatility following the Russian invasion demonstrate Riyadh’s willingness to subvert Western interests when undermined by Washington D.C. Therefore, if U.S.-Saudi interests begin to differ long-term, the possibility of restoring relations between the two heavyweights of the Persian Gulf is largely in line with recent diplomatic trends within the region. As a matter of fact, since the start of the year, Tehran-Riyadh talks have been going ahead in Baghdad. Emirati, Kurdish, Iranian, and Turkish news outlets report that both parties are willing to continue talks and even make them public - so far the Saudi press has not divulged much, however. Whether these talks are a genuine step towards bridge-building or a leverage tool for both Iran and Saudi Arabia to wield over their respective global partners remains to be seen.

In summary, the divide between Iran and Saudi Arabia (including its GCC allies) has a long-standing history and its origins lie in numerous ethnic, religious and ideological differences. The geopolitical situation and resource-rich geography of the Persian Gulf grant regional powers access to wealth via trade and security through partnerships with global superpowers. Political and economic tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have persisted for much of the last century. These tensions began to heat up significantly since the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which revived ancient hostilities between the two countries. Whether the contemporary economic and political conflicts between Iran and the KSA will remedy themselves, and if diplomatic ties will resume, is seemingly unlikely. This is despite recent fluctuations in the balance of power between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and their global partners following the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Whether the recent efforts at rapprochement and reconciliation between the two regional powers is set to hold beyond the short-term remains to be seen.