Middle East is one of the most complex and unstable region in the world. Middle East is the home of many religions including Islam, Christianity and Judaism and one of the main reason behind instability across the region for centuries. It is also one of the most important region in the world due to it’s huge oil reserves.
Due to it’s natural resources and important Geo strategic location the region is under the influence of world powers and to make the situation worse, Dictatorships, Monarchies, Militias and Terrorist organizations spread across the region. Thirteen out of Eighteen countries in the region are part of the Arab world and as a matter of fact ethnicity is another major factor behind the region’s instability.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are the two most powerful and dominant countries of the region and are responsible for much of this. They are up against each other and playing a pivotal role in almost every major conflict of the region. Irony is, both Iran and Saudi Arabia never declared war on each other.
Instead, they engaged in a proxy war spread across the region and many countries become victim of this proxy including Syria, Iraq, Yemen and many more. This proxy war had devastating effects on the peace of the region. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia see this proxy war a potentially tremendous opportunity as well as a major threat against each other.
This proxy war in its essence looked similar to Cold war back in the 20th century between US and USSR. Their chief purpose behind all this, is to become a dominant factor across the region and to be the leader of the region.
In the 19th century, the Arab peninsula was under the control of Ottoman Empire.
After the world war two the Empire collapsed and a major Tribel war starts between different tribes and Al-Sauds came out victorious because they were one of the most powerful tribe of the region. They came into the power and in 1932 Arab peninsula recognized as the Saudi Arabia.
Later in the same decade massive oil reserves were discoverd in Saudi Arabia in the year 1938 and as a result they made huge progress both economically and politically. Saudi’s build roads and infrastructure across the country and established good relations with the western block especially with the US.
As a result they emerged as the major power in the region. At the same time across the Persian Gulf, Iran also emerged as the major power of the region and also had massive oil reserves and even bigger Muslim population. Iran had been a monarchy ruled by an emperor almost without interruption from 1501 until the 1979. During this period they were under the influence of Russians and Britishers.
During the Shah of Iran’s regime, Iran was a Modernized liberal country and had good relations with the West. But there was a lot of corruption at that time and this frustrated the public as a result protests starts across the country. Shah couldn’t control it and it results in his regime’s downfall. This was the year 1979 when the Islamic Revolution came and changed the demography of the Iran. Ayat Ullah Khumani emerged as a major leader of Iran and the country become an Islamic Republic.
The year 1979 was the turning point in Saudi-Iran relations. Ayat Ullah Khumani draws parallels between Shah of Iran and Saudi monarchs. He termed it as unislamic and against the essence of laws set by Islam. He was hostile against west back governments especially against Saudi Arabia which was an important ally of US in the region.
Islamic Revolution of Iran not only bring changes with in Iran but also terrified Saudis and other countries in the region. Khumani’s popularity across the region and Iran’s intentions to expand it’s Shia ideology across the region were the major threat to Sunni majority countries like Saudi Arabia. They tried to overthrow governments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. In response Saudis set Golf Cooperation Council (GCC) a group of conservative gulf Monarchies to counter Iran’s influence across the region
. During Iran-Iraq war Saudi Arabia supported Iraq because Iraq in a way act as a buffer between the two rival states. In 2003, US invaded Iraq and overthrow Sadam Hussain’s Sunni based government. That was the time when things got worse and both Iran and Saudi Arabia opened up against each other and start proxy war against each other. The void space created in Iraq initiated a civil war across the country and both Saudi’s and Iran fully backed Sunni and Shia militias respectively. Similarly in Syria and Yemen, they backed their respective groups i.e either government or rebellions, for power gains.
This all started as a part of Arab Spring, a movement spread across the middle East region. The movement erupted in the middle east as pro democracy and pro monarch and the peace of the region turned into the violent protests and civil wars. In Syria, Iran’s support was behind the Shia based government of Bashar Al Asad while Saudis paid heavily in order to intensify the revolutionary movements across the country.
The peaceful protests against the government soon turns into a violent messy civil war in which millions of people killed and even more people were forced to leave their houses and eventually took hostages in other countries. While in yemen Saudi’s are supporting the government while it is believed that Iran is supporting the hauthi rebellions.
This conflict also started as peaceful protest against the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and in 2015 turned into a civil war. At present the western part of the country is under the control of hauthi rebellions including the capital Sana’a while the eastern part is under the control of Saudi backed government.
The humanitarian crisis in Yemen are worst in the recent history and again the local people are the victims of this bloody war. Hauthis often fires rockets towards main cities of Saudi Arabia could make the situation even worse. Another victim of the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is Lebanon, a small country situated in the heart of the region.
In Lebanon many religious sect are living Muslims are in majority with equal proportion of Shia and Sunni sects both are about 27% of the total country’s population while Christians are about 40%. The on going civil war in region hurt this small country a lot and put it into deep troubles.
Hezbollah a Shia militia group is the strongest in the country and hold the major power with the help of funding from Iran and to counter it Saudi Arabia also spent a lot of money on different Sunni groups in the country. These groups are also fighting against the Bashar Al Asad’s regime in Syria because they believe that Iran is supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Apart from these major conflicts the diplomatic relations between the two neighbors cutoff since 2016 when Saudi Arabia executed. 47 people on terrorism charges belongs to Shia sect and Alqaida. As a reaction Saudi’s embassy in Tehran was attacked by the locals.
Saudi Arabia made several requests to Iran for the protection of their people but had no response by the government. As a result Kingdom of Saudi Arabia cutoff it’s diplomatic ties with Iran. Since then there has been several attacks on Saudi oil fields on their Eastern coast.
Most recent attack was happened in 2019 when Saudi officials had shown the parts of missiles and drones used in the attack were believed to be Iranian. Saudi Arabia also choose an aggressive stance against Qatar who has recently developed good ties with Iran due it’s own interests.
At times the situation between these two hostile nations got worse and they come on the verge of war but the situation never really escalate much. Every now and then, aggressive statements came out from both countries and it looked like the situation is never going to be good at least not in the near future.
Still both these countries didn’t go for an all out war against each other. This shows that both of them do not want a war and they’ll prefer peace over it because the instability and civil wars not only effect the civilians but ruined economy of many countries. But the ideological differences and race of the supremacy to be the leader of the region put both the giants of Middle East into the situation where they can’t really step back.
No one wants to be in War but these civil wars create circumstances that no one had predicted. Middle East is suffering and no one knows how far these two countries will go but the proxy war going on between these two states greatly disturbed the peace of the whole region.
The civilians of the middle East are unfortunately the victims of this war. Millions of people being killed during civil wars and even larger proportion were displaced to other countries and forced to live a life of ultimate struggle in the refugee camps in neighbouring countries.
As a result the economy of the neighbouring countries also suffered alot. So in a way power games between the two countries directly or indirectly affect almost every country of the region and no one knows when will the tension between these two major powers of the region will reduce and things will start getting back to normal. Perhaps this is the fate of the middle east to remain messy but maybe one day this all gets to an end and rise of Middle East begins.
About Writer:
Zeshan Nisar is a student of International Relation. He looks closely at international affairs and political situation of world.. Social issues are his favorite subject.
Contact him : zeshan.kiani170@gmail.com
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