In a region already afflicted by multiple armed
conflicts, a new source of tension erupted in the first week of the year that
could upset global nuclear stability. On January 2, Saudi Arabia announced it
had executed
Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a top Shia cleric who had spent more than a decade in
Iran, along with 46 other people convicted of terrorism. That evening,
protesters attacked and trashed the Saudi embassy in Tehran. By January 3, Riyadh had announced it was cutting
diplomatic ties with Tehran, giving Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave the
Kingdom and recalling its own ambassador. Other Sunni-majority states began to sever ties with Tehran as
Iranian officials denounced both the storming of the embassy and the execution.
With swaths of Syria and Iraq still under the control of the Islamic
extremist group ISIS, Syria torn between the regime of President Bashar
al-Assad, ISIS, and other rebel and terrorist groups, and Yemen in the midst
of a conflict that has killed some 6,000 people since March, this formal
break in Saudi-Iran relations could exacerbate many tensions.
It also comes in the midst of an event that many hope
will have a long-term stabilizing effect on the region and the world: The
Iranian nuclear deal. Last summer, Tehran and six world powers concluded an
agreement to limit Iranian nuclear development in exchange for sanctions
relief. In the fall, Iran began taking steps to meet the terms, and
implementation of the deal is expected to occur in February. But it’s
possible that this new rift could put more obstacles in the way. And it may be
that that’s what Saudi Arabia hoped would happen all along. In fact, the
Iranian nuclear deal, which Saudi Arabia vehemently objected to, may be a
contributing factor in the existing crisis.
Saudi fear of a rising Iran. To understand why
Saudi Arabia might want to see the Iranian nuclear deal derailed, it helps to
understand the history of the two countries’ relationship with the United
States. The Saudi-Iran rivalry is often oversimplified as a clash between the
Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, but in reality, while that sectarian divide
plays a role, the two countries’ rivalry has much deeper roots, extending to
ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic, and political issues. Before the 1979
Islamic Revolution, Iran had one of the top militaries in the world and the
backing of the United States. Riyadh couldn’t match Tehran’s influence in the
region. Iran had so much clout, in fact, that it served as a moderator among
Arab states when they had disagreements, even though it is not Arab itself.
Neighbors also sought Iran’s military power—for example, Oman’s Sultan Qaboos
asked Tehran to help it crush a rebellion in his country. Arab states both
wanted Iran’s help and feared that it would meddle in their internal affairs, a
concern that was weakened when Tehran recognized Bahrain’s independence in
1970. During those years, Saudi Arabia and Iran didn’t like each other but they
tolerated one another.
With the fall of the Shah,
Tehran and Washington cut diplomatic relations and Iraq invaded Iran, leading
to a catastrophic eight-year war. Saudi-Iran relations began to sour.
The Saudi establishment worried that the new Islamic Republic would try to
export its revolutionary ideology, based on Shia Islam, to the Kingdom. Iran
did little to assuage those fears, with various regime officials, including the
founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomeini, making statements about the
need to export the revolution and its values beyond the nation’s borders. By
the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, though, Iran was becoming more isolated
while Saudi Arabia prospered. Over the subsequent two decades, Saudi Arabia
became an increasingly visible US ally and well-established player in the world
oil market, as Iran’s political and economic isolation deepened because of its
support for terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East, the belligerent
rhetoric of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and its nuclear program.
Motivated at least in part by its desire to end its
economic isolation, by 2013, Iran was sitting across the table from six world
powers, including the United States, negotiating a deal that would limit its
nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Saudi Arabia was among the
vocal
critics of the deal. For Riyadh, ongoing conflict
between Tehran and the rest of the world over nuclear issues had the benefit of
keeping Iran isolated. Isolation, Saudi Arabia believed, would ensure
that Iran remained weak and not in a position to pursue a serious agenda in the
region. Iran’s political and economic isolation also gave the Kingdom a
military advantage. As Iran’s conventional military equipment aged and became obsolete,
Saudi Arabia stockpiled weapons, buying new aircraft and missiles from abroad.
As a nuclear deal with Iran began to look
increasingly likely, the Saudi establishment looked for ways to derail the
process to make sure Tehran didn’t find its way into Washington’s good graces. If it did, the
Saudi establishment worried, the two former allies might renew their ties,
leaving Riyadh out of the picture.
After the nuclear deal was concluded in July, Tehran
and Washington did indeed maintain the channel created between US Secretary of
State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. But the
rapprochement feared by the Saudis didn’t materialize, with hardliners in
Tehran and Washington actively trying to undermine the deal. In December, Iran’s
security establishment tested missiles—not technically a violation of the nuclear
deal, but a provocative act—as Washington lawmakers worked on a bill that would exclude foreign nationals
(including dual citizens) who had visited Iran in the past five years from visa
waiver arrangements.
Nevertheless, a certain level of panic has
characterized some of Riyadh’s decision-making since it became clear that the
nuclear talks would be fruitful. In May, the Saudi establishment tried to deter
the world powers—in particular Washington—from striking a deal by threatening to acquire for itself whatever level of
enrichment capability Iran was allowed to retain. The Iran deal also
contributed to Riyadh’s calculations in Yemen, where it militarily supports
southern Sunni forces loyal to President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Saudi Arabia
got away with some of its policies there because Washington desperately needed
everyone on board to strike the deal that would become the flagship legacy of
the Obama administration’s foreign policy.
With al-Nimr’s execution, though, Saudi authorities
may have aimed higher than they could shoot. What looked like a decision to provoke Iran seems
to have backfired and escalated out of Riyadh’s full control. In the United
States, response to the events has been surprisingly critical of the Saudi
leadership, with the State Department expressing
concerns about the execution and calling on the country to “respect and
protect human rights.” (European opinion, less surprisingly, also condemned Saudi Arabia.) Both The New York Times and The Washington Post ran editorials critical of
Saudi Arabia’s decision to execute al-Nimr.
How will new tensions affect the nuclear
deal? For the Iranian nuclear deal to be fully implemented, and thus
bring the promised economic and political benefits, Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani must be able to convince hardliners not to derail the process.
Fortunately, the small but vocal minority of
opponents to the deal aren’t in a position to undertake nuclear-specific
actions that would breach the terms. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran is
in charge of implementing the nuclear measures, and it has been moving quickly:
Iran has
started dismantling centrifuges at
both the Natanz and Fordow facilities, including more than 100 second-generation
IR-2M centrifuges and a number of first-generation IR-1 centrifuges. It has
also shipped some of its low-enriched
uranium to Russia to get its stockpile down to 300 kilograms (kg)
from roughly 10,000 kg.
The Iranian government wants to move quickly because
the nuclear deal is the key to solving a number of problems, including economic
troubles. But Iran has also officially entered election season, with the first
televised debates airing this week in the contest to choose new members of
parliament and the powerful Assembly of Experts. The new diplomatic crisis is
feeding in to the domestic push and pull between moderates and reformists on
one hand, and hardliners on the other. In order for the moderates who hold
power to perform well, they must demonstrate that the Iranian people have
gained, not lost, with the nuclear deal. But hardliners will continue to try to
sabotage the implementation process by exercising pressure on the government
and taking non-nuclear-related measures. As well as more missile tests, these
could include shipping military equipment to some of Iran’s proxy groups and
other entities in the region.
Regional reverberations. Regional security is very much at
stake. In the months leading to the nuclear deal, Iranian officials highlighted
the importance of concluding an agreement in order to move
on to other pressing issues, among them tackling terrorism, dealing with
regional security, and challenging the rise of Sunni extremism. With ISIS
making progress in Iraq, the civil war continuing in Syria, and Riyadh bombing
Yemen, these remain urgent problems. To help try to
solve them, the pro-engagement team surrounding Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif
went to great lengths to sell the idea of dialogue with Saudi Arabia to Iranian
conservatives. But with the recent break in diplomatic relations, no
such dialogue is likely to occur.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are, of course, both intimately
involved in conflicts throughout the region; they are on opposing sides in
Syria and Yemen. With outcomes to these challenges at stake, this most
recent episode could have grave consequences for the region unless Riyadh and
Tehran manage to de-escalate quickly. Much of the former’s Iran policy has been
driven by fear that with the nuclear deal, Tehran is expanding its influence in
the region and renewing its ties with the United States. But instead of hurting
Iran, the events of the past week seem to have made it look better in
comparison to what many have described as a reckless regime in Riyadh.
It doesn’t look as though
Saudi Arabia can torpedo the deal or undermine Tehran’s influence in the region
with its current policies. Iran’s bigger concern should be containing its own
hardliners, who could further damage Saudi-Iran relations and derail the
success of a historic nuclear agreement.
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