A Saudi-Iranian cold war takes shape

October 19, 2011

By Rami G. Khouri The Daily Star The Middle East continues to experience one of its most tumultuous moments of structural change in several generations, and countries are reconfiguring both their domestic power structures as well as their intra-regional relations. In this context, we can expect much of the diplomatic maneuvering in the region to revolve around the axes of two major ideological confrontations. The first is the Arab-Israeli conflict, the second the invigorated Saudi-Iranian confrontation. It remains unclear if the national interests of Saudi Arabia and Iran are genuinely threatened by the other side, or whether we are simply in a situation where mediocre leaderships are using the exaggerated threat of the other, coupled with their own sense of vulnerability, to turn a local feud into a major cause of region-wide tension and proxy warfare. I tend to believe the latter case is true. Saudi Arabia and Iran do not really pose existential or serious security threats to one another because of their policies or intentions. Rather, their rivalry has taken on regional proportions for other reasons that remain unclear.