Holy War: Iran vs. Saudi Arabia (Pt. 1)

How Saudi Arabia and Iran are competing for dominance over the Middle East and the Islamic world.

Hot History

Oct 22, 2023

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Iran

Nearly forty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini incited a Shia revolution that topped the US-backed monarchy. Ever since, Iran’s relations with the outside world have been strained. Under the despotic rule of Iran’s censorious regime, many Iranians are afraid to speak their minds. Many have been jailed for opposing the government. The revolution took place in 1979. When the Shah left Iran on vacation, Khomeini returned from exile to usurp power. In his first speech to the public, the Ayatollah announced his uncompromising opposition to British and American influence. In this regard, he claimed the mantle of popular support. The imam reordered Iran’s society according to the dictates of Islam. He argued that Islam was opposed to monarchy. His anti-monarchist message was a direct challenge to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf kingdoms. The Iranians believed it would end decades of autocratic rule and repression.

Khomeini’s Revolution

In the decades before Khomeini’s revolution, Iran had been a major supplier for Western oil. The British enjoyed a monopoly over Iran’s profits. In 1951, Mohammad Mossadegh was nominated by Iran’s parliament to lead the country’s first-ever democratically elected government. After Mossadegh nationalized the British-run oil industry, and chased the Shah out of Tehran, the CIA and British spies engineered a coup in 1953. Mossadegh was deposed and jailed, before dying in captivity 14 years later. The Shah was reinstalled. To maintain his grip on power, he constructed a frightening police state, with Western support. The US sold him weapons. The CIA trained the Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, which brutally suppressed dissent. By 1978, the country convulsed with anti-Shah protests. Then came Khomeini’s revolution in 1979. Khomeini’s rise to power directly threatened the other US-backed monarchies of the Middle East. Iranians stormed the US embassy, and seized hostages. The revolution of Khomeini was primarily fueled by anti-Americanism, and did not start out as a religiously sectarian conflict. His vision was to eliminate US presence in the Middle East, and end all Western influence there. The revolution is alive and well in Iran, where it is celebrated annually every February 11.

Hostage crisis

The American hostage crisis solidified Khomeini’s rule. Fears abounded that the US would try to reinstall the Shah. A small group of student activists responded by seizing the US embassy in Tehran. They threatened to murder the 49 hostages if the US invaded Iran. President Carter had reluctantly permitted the Shah to receive cancer treatment in a US hospital. The Shah was guilty of killing thousands of people. The perceived friendliness between the US and the Shah left a bad taste in the mouth of many Iranians. Khomeini cleverly maneuvered the crisis, using it to solidify his rule and the political institutions of the Islamic Republic.

Secularism in the Middle East

The post-colonial regimes of the Middle East had largely embraced nationalism, capitalism, or communism. In other words, they were secular regimes that embraced Western political theories. Ethnic and national unity took precedence over religious dogma and sectarianism. This often took the form of pan-Arabism, an ideology that stressed the ethnic and cultural unity of Arabs across the region. Another popular version was socialism which, in Arab terms, often referred to the modernization of the country, coupled with some welfarist economic policies. But Khomeini’s Iran sought to carve out a different path, by creating a self-declared Islamic state. His vision was thoroughly theocratic, but it was very fringe compared to the other Arab states of the time. A few miles south of Tehran is the holy city of Qom, Iran’s center for Shia theology. The Ayatollah injected religion into Arab politics in a highly unusual but extremely influential way. He determined that Iran would be governed by Islamic law, as interpreted by Shia jurists and religious scholars.

Clericalism

The Supreme Leader of Iran claims legitimacy based on direct revelation from God. The imams are regarded by Islamic theology as having mystical insight that ordinary people allegedly lack. Iran’s clericalist regime is heavily influenced by the Shia version of Islam. Shia is only about 12% of the world’s Muslims. They split from the majority Sunni sect about 1,400 years ago, after the Prophet’s death. When the Prophet died in 632, there was a struggle for succession. The Sunnis believe that Muhammad’s legitimate successor was Abu Bakr. The Shia instead regard Ali as the true heir of the Prophet. According to Shia theology, Ali and his successors were infallible representatives of God. The Sunnis never accepted this doctrine of infallibility. Based on Shia theology, Khomeini established the principle that he called the “guardianship of the jurist.” It was a form of theocratic absolutism that even many Shia scholars found too extreme. Despite the theological sectarianism between Shia and Sunni, Khomeini presented himself as a revolutionary on behalf of all Muslims. But that was not how other Muslims saw it. All of Iran’s neighbors saw it as a usurpation by a power-hungry Shia clergy. Nominally, Iran’s regime promoted the interests of Islam at large. In practice, it was unmistakably Shia, rather than Sunni. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, and Jordan were all horrified by Iran’s revolution, and took immediate measures to prevent its spread.

Saudi Arabia

Across the Gulf, Saudi Arabia was among the most alarmed by Khomeini’s revolution. It was a direct challenge to the royal House of Saud for leadership over the entire Islamic world. Until 1979, the Saudi Kingdom maintained cordial relations with that of Iran. Both monarchies were heavy oil producers that received Western backing. But when Khomeini proclaimed himself as a new leader of the Islamic world, it undermined the Saudi royal family’s pretensions to that claim. Saudi Arabia rules as a theocratic absolutism. The royal family controls everything, from the country’s oil to its news. Occasionally, high-ranking Saudi officials meet together for an audience with the king. The Saudi regime is divided between the pro-Western royal family, and the hardline theocratic Wahhabist clerics. The modern Saudi state began in 1932, when King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud signed a pact with fundamentalist Wahhabi clerics. This was done as a compromise in order to unify the disparate tribes of Arabia. The Wahhabis follow the theology of a 18th-century cleric named Mohammad bin Abd, who demanded a return to a harsher faith. This was an extremely puritanical form of religious fundamentalism. The Wahabbis supported literal interpretations of their holy texts, and are very intolerant of those who disagree with their dogmas. The highest religious authority is the Grand Mufti, which preaches his dogmatic invectives against heresy from his base in Riyadh. The Mufti is a direct descendant of Abd al Wahhab. The Sunnis believe in having a direct personal relationship with God, without the mediation of priests. This contrasts with Shia Islam, which embraces clericalism, hierarchy, shrines, saints, and icons. Wahhabists take a hardline against the Shia, whom they regard as heretics.

Siege of Mecca

Throughout the 1970s, the Saudi Kingdom struggled between two competing goals. On the one hand, the Crown wanted to modernize the country. On the other hand, it needed to drag along the Wahhabi clerics. The Saudi state’s guardianship of the two holy mosques of Mecca and Medina has always been its source of political legitimacy. But in November of 1979, the Grand Mosque came under siege by terrorists. 15,000 pilgrims were praying at dawn, when the 30 giant doors were sealed off by hundreds of terrorists. Gunfire and grenades were unleashed. Thousands of pilgrims found themselves as hostages. This was just days after the Iranian hostage crisis. So the West assumed that Iranian-backed Shiites were the culprits. Khomeini fired back, and blamed the US. It was revealed that the terrorist siege was the brainchild of a fringe group of Wahhabi extremists. It did not take long before Khomeini’s Iran got involved. Thousands of Shiites began to revolt against the Saudi Crown, as it had long feared. Most of these protests were concentrated in the oil-rich eastern provinces of the Saudi Kingdom. The Shiites had long been a political and economic minority in the Sunni Saudi Kingdom. Emboldened by Khomeini’s revolution, they began to demand more rights. This was done with encourage from Khomeini’s propaganda radio stations. The Saudi Crown responded with a crackdown on the angry Shiites. After two weeks of standoff, the Saudi Army seized back Mecca, with help from French forces and permission from the Wahhabi clerics. The siege was motivated by religious zealots under the command of Juhayman al Otaibi, who were outraged by the Saudi government’s modernization reforms.

Modernization

Throughout the 1970s, the Saudi regime had loosened the religious rules. Women received prominent roles in the media, and were not forced to wear religious head coverings. Western brands, pop culture, and luxury goods flowed freely into Saudi Arabia. Western money brought Western attitudes. The economic prosperity of the 1970s challenged many aspects of traditional religion in Saudi Arabia. Pressured by Wahhabi clerics, the Saudi government begrudgingly intensified its religious rules. For pragmatic reasons, the regime became more conservative in an effort to court religious support. The Crown tried to emphasize its religiously-based legitimacy. Women were banned from being announcers on TV. Western companies were discouraged from employing women. Movie theaters and music shops were shut down. The enforcement of religious rituals and social norms became stricter. Women had to veil up their beautiful bodies. Against the rise of Khomeini’s Iran, the Saudi Kingdom responded with its own form of religious zealotry. Religious sectarianism reached a fever pitch like never before. In an effort to combat Iranian influence, the Saudis began to funnel their petrodollars into the promotion of Wahhabist theology around the world.

Soviet jihad

As tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran grew, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The Saudi Crown used this as an opportunity to gain regional influence, and assert its credibility to Muslims internationally. The Saudis presented the conflict as a jihad against the atheistic Soviets. The best partner in this goal was Pakistan, which was a self-declared Islamic republic. It was the perfect place for the Saudis to promote Wahhabism. The King Faisal Mosque in Islamabad is the largest mosque in Pakistan, and one of the largest in the world. It is named after the Saudi monarch who funded it. Since the 1960s, the Saudis have spent over $100 billion into funding mosques and religious schools all over the world. Sixty years ago, there were 244 madrassas in Pakistan. Today, there are 24,000. Pakistan has become increasingly sectarian in its religious affairs as a result of Saudi influence. In the 1980s, Pakistan was run by a military dictator named Zia ul Haq. He sought to Islamize every aspect of society. Women’s rights were stripped away. British colonial institutions were dismantled and replaced with sharia law. Public floggings were introduced. The general’s Islamic theocracy received backing from Saudi Arabia and the United States. President Carter pledged to defend Pakistan and Saudi Arabia against Soviet expansion into the Persian Gulf. It became known as the Carter Doctrine. The United States propped up Pakistan as a buffer against Soviet communism. President Carter authorized a joint US-Saudi operation to fund the Afghan mujaheeden. The funding was funneled through Pakistan’s ISI, which aligned itself with the most extremist religious factions. The Reagan administration continued and expanded US support for the Afghan fighters. One of them was named Osama bin Laden. By 1989, after a decade of armed struggle, the mujaheeden had successfully repelled the Soviets. Many of those same jihadists would later turn against the West, forming al-Qaeda and ISIS. They were encouraged by Wahhabist teachings. This does not mean that the Saudi government aligned with those extremists, because many of those same people later waged violence against the Saudis as well.

Hezbollah

While supporting jihad in Afghanistan, Iran took sides in yet another regional war, this time in Lebanon. For hundreds of years, Lebanon had a large Shia minority. They were poor and disenfranchised, compared to Lebanon’s Christian and Sunni populations. In June of 1982, Israel invaded southern Lebanon in order to stamp out the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was firing shells into the Jewish state. Within weeks, the Israelis were nearing Beirut. Many people died. The Arab states were furious. Khomeini seized the opportunity by pouring thousands of Islamic Guard troops into Lebanon. The most aggressive of the Iranian-backed militias, a group called Hezbollah, successfully captured Beirut. When an Israeli convoy killed some Shiites, an Islamic terrorist attack was mounted on Israeli allies a week later. A suicide bomber, driving a truck loaded with TNT, blew up an American barrack full of Marines, who were stationed as peace keepers. A few miles away, a French barrack was similarly attack. The Era of Terrorism had begun. The acts were widely attributed to Hezbollah, acting under Iranian orders. The US pulled out, and Israel later staged a full withdrawal. Never before had the Israelis backed out of an occupied Palestinian territory. It was a turning point. It seemed to show that Hezbollah, through their acts of terrorism, were able to achieve what other Arabs had not been. Hezbollah celebrates their victory with an annual Liberation and Resistance Day. Hezbollah is a major player in the Middle East. The terrorist organization derives both its funding and ideology from the Iranian Supreme Leader. It has about 20,000 fully trained fighters, exceeding the power of Lebanon’s national army. Through this proxy, Iran is able to project its power and influence across the broader region.

Saddam’s war

Iran’s foreign policy was deeply shaped by its eight-year long war with neighboring Iraq. In the wake of Khomeini’s revolution, Saddam Hussein sensed an opportunity to annex territory and topple the regime before it grew worse. The situation looked bleak for Iran’s new regime. Without any allies or money, they focused on building their ground troops. The Ayatollah assured his men that they were equipped with divine power. Many recruits were young impressionable boys, sometimes as young as 12. They were sent with keys around the necks, representing the keys to heaven. The poorly trained Iranian boys were summoned in human wave attacks, in order to prepare the way for Iran’s regular forces. Through the use of its human wave attacks, Iran was somehow able to compete against Saddam’s superior forces. Over the course of the war, hundreds of thousands of Iranians were deployed. By the spring of 1982, the Iranians managed to push back Saddam. Khomeini decided to go on the offensive, pledging to topple Saddam’s regime. The Iranians vowed to seize the holy city of Karbala, in Iraq. Karbala was where, in the 7th century, Imam Husayn fought and died against a massive Sunni army. Shia Muslims are known to mourn the Imam’s death on the Day of Ashura, sometimes going so far as to self-flagellate. Traditionally, Husayn’s story was about the necessity of accepting one’s fate and living under unjust circumstances. But Khomeini reinterpreted the story, presenting it as a rallying cry for violent activism. As Khomeini’s Iran gained ground against Iraq, the surrounding Sunni states of the Gulf grew alarmed. Saudi Arabia was among Saddam’s supporters, along with France, West Germany, Russia, Jordan, China, and many others. Hussein went so far as to deploy chemical weapons, which brutally murdered the Iranians. But Iran was so isolated, that there was no international outcry. After eight years of bloody struggle, over a million people died. It was the deadliest conflict since WWII. Both Iran and Iraq were left in economic ruins. The survival of Iran tore a hole in Saddam’s illusion of invincibility. Many Shiites began to rise up against his Ba’athist regime. President George H.W. Bush criticized Saddam for his ruthless brutality. The Shiites assumed that the US would aid their revolt against Saddam, but they were wrong. Saddam came after them with extreme violence. Hundreds of thousands were massacred. For the first time, religious sectarianism began a major part of Iraq politics under Saddam’s regime. Being Shiite was synonymous with a treasonous affinity for Iran.

Invading Iraq

When terrorists attached the Twin Towers on 9/11, it completely recalibrated America’s approach to the Middle East. President George W. Bush vowed to expand his War on Terror beyond al-Qaeda, and explicitly implicated Saddam. Saudi Arabia was outraged. The Saudis cautioned the US against invading Iraq. They refused to permit Americans to use their country as a base of operations. Vice President Dick Cheney visited Riyadh, but Crown Prince Abdullah warned against the war. The Saudis repeatedly warned the Bush administration that a post-Saddam Iraq would degenerate into chaos, allowing the Iranians to pour in. That is exactly what happened. The US did not heed this warning, because tensions were so high with the Saudis after 9/11. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis. The US invaded Iraq, and deposed Saddam’s regime. It took just three weeks to capture Baghdad. But the Bush administration had dramatically underestimated what would happen next.

Sunni-Shia conflict

Post-Saddam Iraq became a battleground for a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. With Saddam gone, the Shiites of Iraq asserted themselves with a vengeance. Worse still, the Bush administration completely dismantled Saddam’s Sunni-dominated government. Tens of thousands of Saddam’s former officials were prohibited from holding public office. Moderate Shiite leaders warned the US against this policy of de-Ba’athification. Soon enough, violence erupted between the Sunnis and Shiites of Iraq. A car bomb struck a Jordanian embassy, and another on a UN embassy. This was done by Sunni extremists trained in Afghanistan, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarwaqi exploited the situation by inflaming a sectarian holy war. Ten days later, a bomb exploded outside the Shiite shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, just after Friday prayers. More than a hundred people were killed. Disaffected Sunnis joined Zarqawi’s cause. Al-Qaeda bombed the Great Mosque of Samarra in 2006. Sunnis struck back, bombing mosques and killing imams. Bodies were dragged through the streets. The police lost control. Backed by Iran, Shiites operated death squads within Iraq. Sunnis were gruesomely murdered by having their heads drilled. When Saddam was executed by hanging, many Sunnis took to the streets in rage. This was not just in Iraq. Protesters in India, Sri Lanka, and the West Bank carried the green Saudi flag and condemned Iran and the Shiites. Rather than a liberation, Saddam’s overthrow was regarded as an American and Iranian conspiracy against the Sunnis of Iraq.