REVOLUTIONARY TURMOIL AND THE POTENTIAL FOR REVOLUTION:

COMPARING IRAN AND SAUDI ARABIA

by

Kristian P. Alexander

A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Political Science

The University of Utah

December 2011

Copyright © Kristian P. Alexander 2011

All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School

STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL

The dissertation of ___Kristian Alexander______has been approved by the following supervisory committee members:

Ibrahim Karawan ______, Chair ___8/27/2011__ Date Approved

Howard Lehman ______, Member ___8/27/2011__ Date Approved

Steven Lobell ______, Member ___8/27/2011__ Date Approved

Adam Luedtke ______, Member ___8/27/2011__ Date Approved

Bernard Weiss ______, Member ___8/27/2011__ Date Approved

and by ______James J. Gosling ______, Chair of the Department of ______Political Science______

and by Charles A. Wight, Dean of The Graduate School.

ABSTRACT

Many analysts and scholars have repeatedly argued that the Saudi regime is vulnerable to the possibility of revolution and that it will ultimately experience the same fate as the Shah’s regime in 1979. It has become commonplace to compare contemporary Saudi Arabia with Iran in 1979. In this view, the ruling royal family of

Saudi Arabia, like the Pahlavis, is doomed to overthrow at the hands of radical

Muslims, thereby creating another anti-Western, fundamentalist Islamic nation. In fact, almost all of these parallels gloss over a wealth of critical differences. Many of these comparisons are superficial and lack a rigorous, detail-oriented academic analysis. Undoubtedly, Iran and Saudi Arabia share some common features and have faced similar social and economic challenges. But unlike Iran, Saudi Arabia has not experienced a revolution. Why is that the case? What lessons may key decision- makers in the Saudi regime have learned from the Iranian case, which has enabled them to avoid revolutionary turmoil? What makes the Iranian Revolution so unique so as to make its replication rare or highly improbable amongst other oil-rich rentier states of the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia?

The key argument of my dissertation is that the crucial causes of the Iranian

Revolution are absent in Saudi Arabia. Permissive causes, namely the social, economic and political grievances, are quite similar in both cases. But grievances alone do not necessarily lead to revolution. The active elements that were instrumental in the Iranian case, such as a multiclass coalition, ulama-bazaari

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(clerical-business) alliance, charismatic leadership, and the inconsistent and social- economically destructive policies of the rulers are absent in the Saudi case.

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Dedicated to family and friends.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...... iii ! LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS...... ix

ONE: INTRODUCTION...... 1

Background of the Problem ...... 2 Statement of the Problem ...... 3 Research Questions ...... 6 Objectives of the Study ...... 6 Importance of the Study ...... 7

TWO: DESCRIPTION OF METHODOLOGY...... 10

Theoretical Framework ...... 10 Basis for Comparison and Contrast of Events...... 10 Comparison and Contrast of Obstacles to Overcome ...... 14 Reasons for Authoritarianism and Resistance to Change ...... 20

THREE: THE MAIN THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO CHANGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST...... 21

Revolution Approaches...... 22 Social Movement Approaches ...... 30 Types of Social Movements ...... 31 Emergence and Demise of Social Movements...... 32 Resource Mobilization Approaches ...... 37 Political Process Approaches ...... 39 Culture-Based Approaches...... 41 Regime Stability Approaches...... 45 Coup-Proofing in Regime Stability...... 50 The Promotion of Professionalism in the Regular Military ...... 55 The Importance of Money...... 56 Authoritarianism in the Middle East and the Reasons for its Persistence...... 56 Cultural Preconditions...... 59 The Effect of Rentier Structures...... 62 Elections and Political Parties ...... 64 The Significance of Institutions ...... 65 Military and Security Agencies...... 66 The Governing Elites...... 67 International Influences...... 69 Section Summary ...... 71

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Summary of Islamic Revolutions and the Iranian Islamic Revolution ...... 71 Summary of Revolutions and Revolutionary Theories ...... 74 Summary of Social Movement Theories...... 75 Summary of Regime Stability Theories ...... 78

FOUR: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF IRAN-SAUDI RELATIONS...... 80

Hegemony and Rivalry in Saudi-Iran Relations ...... 83

FIVE: THE CASE OF THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION...... 88

Importance of the 1979 Iranian Revolution ...... 88 Political Impact on the Persian Gulf...... 90 The Iranian Revolution and Oil Markets...... 91 Causes of the Iranian Revolution ...... 91 Permissive Causes ...... 92 Active Causes ...... 95 Exporting the Revolution ...... 97 Saudi Arabia’s Reaction to the 1979 Iranian Revolution...... 104 The Shi’a Crescent: The Role of Ideology...... 112

SIX: POLITICAL STABILITY AND INSTABILITY IN SAUDI ARABIA...... 117

Issues That Have Plagued Saudi Authorities ...... 120 Economic Problems...... 120 Legitimacy Problems...... 123 Population Growth ...... 126 Dissatisfaction and Opposition Groups...... 127 Challenges to the Al Saud Regime...... 131 Attack on Holy Mosque in Mecca in 1979...... 131 Shi’a Riots and Opposition...... 134 Middle Class Protest...... 137 Al Qaeda Attacks...... 137 Regime Strategies for Survival ...... 141 Diversification Strategies ...... 141 Economic Strategies ...... 142 Legitimacy Policies ...... 143 Employment Strategies...... 147 Counter-Terrorism Strategies ...... 147 Dialogue and Campaigns...... 150

SEVEN: EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCES IN OUTCOME...... 153

Religious and Political Legitimacy ...... 153 Opposition Movements ...... 163 Modernization Strategies ...... 183 Role of Ulama and Religious Justifications ...... 193 Strategies in Countering Dissent...... 197

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Shaping Public Discourse ...... 201 Islamicization and Education ...... 202 Consensus as a Tradition for Decision-Making ...... 203 Rentierism and Patrimonialism ...... 204 Use of Coercion...... 205

EIGHT: CONCLUSION...... 208

REFERENCES ...... 231

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Center for the Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR)

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

ONE: INTRODUCTION

History has been occupied by the rise and fall of civilizations that have only come into existence as a result of the dynamics of politics and politicians. At intermittent times in history, there occurs an inherent change in the political system of a particular civilization, nation, or state. This is regarded as a political revolution.

According to the tenets of the Trotskyist theory, a political revolution is identified by an upturn in fortunes in which a government is reinstated, or the form of government changed, but in which property relations are widely or largely left untouched

(Goldstone, 1994). The revolutions that occurred in France in 1830 and 1848 are usually perceived as political revolutions. Political revolutions are separated from social revolutions in which old property relations are turned around.

Aristotle explained two forms of political revolution via:

1. Total transformation from one constitution to a different one

2. Adjustment of a standing constitution (Foran, 1993a)

Revolutions have taken place since the development of human civilizations and they differ largely on the basis of methods, time span, and motivating ideology. Their results encompass main transformations in the areas of culture, economy, and socio- political institutions. Scholarly arguments concerning the factors or various elements that make up or define a revolution focus on numerous issues. Initial studies related to revolutions basically assessed events in European history from a psychological standpoint, but more recent analysis adds global events and encompasses notions and contributions from numerous social sciences. Various clusters of scholarly 2

! propositions on revolutions have developed counterpart theories and added much to the conventional comprehension of this dynamic phenomenon (Kroeber, 1996).

Based on the aforementioned, it can be observed that only a handful of revolutions have actually intrigued scholars. One is the Iranian revolution (also known as the

Islamic revolution) that has transformed the political terrain of the Middle East and international relations. In political circles, Saudi Arabia is seen as being akin to Iran on the basis of its history, socio-political system and class structure. Many analysts and scholars have repeatedly argued that the Saudi regime is vulnerable to the possibility of revolution and that the House of Saud will ultimately experience the same fate as the Shah’s regime in 1979 (Graham, 1991; Jerichow, 1998; Katz, 2001).

Background of the Problem

It has become commonplace to compare contemporary Saudi Arabia with Iran in 1979 (Munson, 1988; Obaid, 2002). In this view, the ruling royal family of Saudi

Arabia, like the Pahlavis, is doomed to being overthrown at the hands of radical

Muslims, thereby leading to the rise of a new anti-Western oriented and fundamentalist Islamic nation. In fact, almost all of these parallels overlie an array of critical differences. Many of these comparisons are superficial and lack a rigorous, detail-oriented academic analysis. Undoubtedly, Iran and Saudi Arabia share some common features and have faced similar social and economic challenges. But unlike

Iran, Saudi Arabia has not experienced a revolution. Why is that the case? What lessons may key decision-makers in the Saudi regime have learned from the Iranian case, which has enabled them to avoid revolutionary turmoil? What makes the Iranian revolution so unique as to make its replication rare or highly improbable amongst other oil-rich rentier states of the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia? 3

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It is also asserted that while there are several similarities between the two countries, they do differ in various ways that have so far kept Saudi Arabia from experiencing a similar scenario. The most striking differences between the two cases are:

1. Saudi Arabia’s rulers have a substantial foundation of political legitimacy,

both religious and tribal;

2. Saudi Arabia lacks a tradition of political discourse, and the most important

segments of society have been awarded with politically insignificant but

economically rewarding positions rendering the formation of a multiclass

coalition unlikely;

3. The Saudi state has employed a variety of strategies to manage dissent

(maintaining strong security forces to suppress dissent, co-opting regime

opponents, making nominal efforts to include the citizenry in decision-making

and jailing or exiling potential critics, thus stripping them of the ability to

mobilize people); and

4. There is no charismatic leader in sight who has sufficient religious credentials

or popularity to unite the different Islamic and other oppositional currents.

Statement of the Problem

Many analysts, scholars and journalists have been fascinated with the idea of how susceptible Saudi Arabia is to revolution (Katz, 2001; Wilson & Graham, 1994).

Some argue that the Saudi regime will ultimately experience the same fate that the

Shah in Iran endured in 1979 (Baer, 2003; Graham, 1991; Jerichow, 1998). As recently as 2004, Bremmer was warning the policy establishment that

recent events have quickened the concern that the Saudi regime might collapse from within. It is worth recalling that scarcely anybody in intelligence or in 4

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academia foresaw the scale of the Iranian crisis of 1978-79, and the latent strength of the ayatollahs. Might not Saudi Arabia create the subsequent Islamic revolution? (p. 24)

Along similar lines Jeffrey Donovan (Wednesday June 9th, 2004), in a report on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), asked whether Islamic militants could bring down the royal family. In his words, “with militant attacks in Saudi

Arabia intensifying, experts are comparing the situation there to the situation in Iran before the advent of the Islamic Revolution in 1979” (p. 22).

Other area specialists (Ajami, 1989; Gause, 1991) have been more cautious in their assessment about the potential for revolution, warning that these types of doomsday scenarios are overblown and that it is long term stability that actually characterizes the kingdom. Recent developments point to various incidences of political violence against the ruling family. In 2004, a series of car bomb attacks in the capital city, Riyadh, targeted security installations causing major infrastructural damage, with ensuing clashes between security forces and suspected militants. These attacks led to 221 fatalities over a 2-year period. Various analysts have highlighted the potential for an “Iraq effect” in which the sectarian violence between Sunnis and

Shiites in Iraq might spread to Saudi Arabia (Solomon, 2006). That seems mostly unlikely, given the disparity of numbers—Shiites compose only about 8% of the kingdom’s population. And despite occasional flares of violence, the Saudi monarchy seems to be in full control of power.

The Iranian revolution has been labeled as a major point of reference and ultimate watershed event in the Middle East (Lesch, 2001). The regional instability created by the 1979 Iranian revolution led directly to the taking of the American hostages in Tehran later that year. The Iranian revolution also spawned the environment for the Iraqi invasion of Iraq in 1980, a war that lasted 8 years and took 5

! an estimated 1 million lives from both sides. The revolution can also be indirectly linked to the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and subsequently the resulting Gulf War I in 1991 (Lesch, 2001, pp. 10-15). Some scholars have further argued that the Iranian revolution also served as the trigger for the 1980 military coup in Turkey, which in turn led to the brutal suppression of dissent by those primarily ethnic (Kurdish), but also Islamic and leftist. And more importantly, the Islamic Revolution, it has been argued, encouraged the 1979 Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, which led to the defeat of the USSR, a defeat which, combined with latent dissatisfactions of a increasingly economically and politically frustrated Soviet population, ultimately led to the demise of the Soviet Union itself, and thus the end of the Cold War. The continued instability in a Taliban ruled Afghanistan, which acted as a host to Bin

Laden and Al Qaeda, also led to the tragic 9-11 incident, which were it not for the

Iranian revolution some 22 years prior, given the sequence of events, may not have taken place.

Saudi Arabia has been of equal strategic importance as Iran had been to the

West and more specifically to the United States. Today, even though the United States and Saudi relations have been tenuous at times, they both share mutual interests for regional stability, trade in crude oil, arms shipments, containment of radical Islamist threat, and massive capital investments by the two in each other’s economy

(Champion, 2003b).

Undoubtedly, Iran and Saudi Arabia share some common features and have faced similar social and economic challenges. But unlike Iran, Saudi Arabia has not experienced a revolution. Why is that the case? What tactics, if any, has the Saudi state employed to prevent a revolution? What are the structural and historical differences between the two states? What makes the Iranian revolution so unique as to 6

! make its replication rare or highly improbable amongst other rentier states of the

Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia?

This study will show that the crucial causes of the Iranian revolution are absent in Saudi Arabia. Permissive causes, namely the social, economic and political grievances, are quite similar in both cases. But grievances alone do not necessarily lead to a revolution–Islamic or otherwise. I will argue hereby that the active elements that were instrumental in the Iranian case, such as multiclass coalition, ulama-bazaari

(clerical-business) alliance, charismatic leadership and the rulers’ inconsistent policies, are lacking in the Saudi case.

Research Questions

1. What factors were responsible for the Iranian revolution?

2. What are the socio-political similarities between Iran and Saudi Arabia?

3. What are the reasons why Saudi Arabia has not experienced a political

revolution unlike Iran?

4. What social science theories can provide full or partial explanations to this

problem at hand?

Objectives of the Study

Based on the provisions of the research questions, this study shall be for the purpose of the following objectives:

1. To ascertain why Saudi Arabia, unlike Iran, has not experienced a political

revolution.

2. To assess the presence of a threat or possibility of a political revolution in

Saudi Arabia similar to the case of the Iranian revolution. 7

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Importance of the Study

Iran and Saudi Arabia have been chosen as case studies due to their representative and strategic importance. Both states share a number of similarities.

Contemporary Saudi Arabia and prerevolutionary Iran display similar structural characteristics and societal pressures challenging their respective states:

1. Both are monarchies (dynastic/autocratic);

2. Both are rentier states prone to global oil-price fluctuations;

3. Both have been closely aligned with the U.S. (twin-pillar-policy);

4. Both had/have invested heavily in Western military equipment, and

5. Both have faced internal Islamic and other social and political opposition.

Despite these similarities, Iran is the only country in the Middle East to have experienced a major revolution shaped by Islamic revolutionary discourse. Why has the Saudi regime, regardless of its many social and economic problems, managed to avoid a revolution? Was a revolution avoided due to the absence of the active causes/elements that played the decisive role in the Iranian case?

A closer examination reveals that there are a number of differences between the two cases as well. By focusing on Iran and Saudi Arabia, this study shall try to identify similarities and differences in the strategies that states utilize towards revolutionary circumstances and account for the variation. An in-depth examination of the Iranian revolution and Saudi Arabia can fill the gap in the literature, which is often based on one case study analysis of revolutions. By drawing comparisons between Iran and Saudi Arabia, this study shall try to locate the issue of regime stability and regime survival within a broader social context by examining that interaction. Such an approach enables the United States to understand the conditions 8

! that can threaten regime stability as well as conditions under which its power can be contained.

Although it is impossible to establish two cases that are exactly similar in nature, certain lessons can be derived from a comparative case study, especially in regard to devising a strategy of deterrence against an impending revolution—Islamic or otherwise. This dissertation also speaks to the use of analogies. Much attention has been paid to the types of comparisons policymakers draw between past and current events. Khong (1992) argues that policymakers are “impressed by superficial similarities, and they seldom probe (comparisons) more deeply or widely” (p. 35).

Once an analogy has been used, it becomes implacable and can lead to what Khong refers to as the “phenomenon of perseverance,” whereby, despite increasingly obvious shortcomings, the person who proffers an analogy will continue to support its applicability. Within the category of international relations policymakers, U.S. officials and diplomats seem particularly predisposed to analogizing (e.g., Munich analogy, Cuban analogy, Vietnam analogy). Analogies, though usually flawed, are an inherent part of the international relations system and many are compelled to use history and experience as a guide. Is this particular analogy under review succinct or flawed? What lessons can be acquired from history? (Hemmer, 2000). In regard to the literature on foreign policy, learning that focuses on state-learning from so called formative events assumes that beliefs in international relations are derived from interpretations of past events. Learning is driven by formative events such as a revolution in geographic proximity (Levy, 1994).

For the sake of avoiding the pitfalls of a single case study (N = 1, many variables) or that of a comparative study (N = 2, many variables) an attempt has to be made to eliminate the variables that are not instrumental in explaining revolutionary 9

! situations, either by condensing two into one or by eliminating the ones that are of lesser explanatory power.

The most striking differences between the two cases of this study are:

1. Saudi Arabia’s leadership has created substantial foundation of political

legitimacy based on religious and tribal factors.

2. Saudi Arabia lacks a tradition of political discourse and the most important

segments of society have been awarded with politically insignificant, but

economically rewarding positions (ulama, tribal leaders) rendering the

formation of a multiclass coalition impossible. As more people become

educated and have wider visions of the world and more sophisticated

aspirations they are expected to be more disenchanted with the situation;

3. The Saudi state has employed a variety of strategies to manage dissent

(maintaining strong security forces to suppress dissent, co-opting regime

opponents, making nominal efforts to include the citizenry in decision-making

though very feeble and ineffectual and jailing or exiling potential critics thus

stripping them of the ability to mobilize people); and

4. There is no charismatic Islamic or other leader in sight who has the religious

and cultural credentials, who is popular among the populace, and who can

unite the different oppositional currents.

TWO: DESCRIPTION OF METHODOLOGY

Theoretical Framework

This section discusses the justification for comparing and contrasting two countries as different as Iran and Saudi Arabia, first by examining the basis for comparison and contrast of specific events related to revolution, and second by examining the context for the occurrence of revolution for these countries, including religion, ethnicity, and the political climate.

Basis for Comparison and Contrast of Events

Irrespective of the fact that possible objections to comparing two countries as different as Iran and Saudi Arabia, there are four considerable thresholds for comparing both nations:

1. Iran went through the only holistic and all-out Islamic revolution;

2. Revolution is determined by social unrest, the roots of which are susceptible to

comparison;

3. Both nations are/were regional power brokers and significant to U.S. security

policy; and

4. A chief challenge to the current regime is/was the problem of legitimacy.

Only in Iran. There have been numerous movements referred to as revolutionary in the Islamic world in the 20th century, but it is only in the Iranian context that it was a revolution in the classic sense of the word, which is a mass movement with widespread participation that culminated in a main shift in economic as well as political influence and authority, and that fostered a process of popular 11

! social change. Whereas contemporary Iran may be uninspiring to contemporary

Muslim revolutionaries, features of the ideology employed by Ayatollah Khomeini in

1978-1979 still linger in the current Muslim world, irrespective of sectarian disparities. Furthermore, the Iranian context provides the only case in which a charismatic individual successfully solicited for and mobilized every layer of society.

Osama Bin Laden has posited his intention of toppling the Al Saud, employing many of the same arguments that were used by Ayatollah Khomeini. Sick (1985) stated that even though the Iranian incidence cannot be utilized in predicting what might occur in other nations, it may serve some important clues.

Secular revolutions external to the Middle East can serve important insight into the socio-political revolutionary forces in Saudi Kingdom today, but apart from numerous instances of coups d’état, there is no other revolution that encompassed the particularly Muslim symbols and slogans apart from the case of Iran. Lewis (1988) states that

In 1400 years of Islamic history there have been numerous opposition movements inside Islam. Virtually all of them and surely all those of any importance were religiously articulated. Resistance to the existing order, disapproval of a previously regime, found expression on religious bases just as the existing regime carved out its authority and its legitimacy on religious bases. The Saudi kingdom is today, as was the Iranian Shah in 1978, faced with an opponent whose determination to topple the regime is based on Islam. (p. 7)

Revolutionary underpinnings. The intent of this dissertation, once more, is to assess the susceptibility of Saudi Arabia to revolution. As mentioned earlier, even revolutions external to the Middle East still have some effect on the current Saudi context owing to the fact that revolution, whatever its ideological or religious orientation, is still and will always be a socio-political movement. Iran is not an 12

! exception, and it is as reasonable to carry out a comparison of one revolution, whether

Islamic or not, since many variables are somewhat similar at the surface.

Regional powers. It would be unjust to carry out a comparison of Iran in the

1970s with, maybe Pakistan, on the basis of U.S. interests. President Nixon created an interest niche for Iran on the basis of U.S. security policy in the Middle Eastern subregion (Sick & Potter, 1998, pp. 18, 20). Iran was economically imperative to the

U.S., as a buffer for regional stability, as a partner of counterinsurgency especially in

Oman, as a dependable source of oil supply to the U.S. and Europe in general, and as

Israel’s basic source of oil. Iran also shared a border stretching for about 1,600 miles with the Soviet Union and had authority over the Straits of Hormuz, placing Iran in an extremely priceless geographical position and as a tactical ally (Bill, 1988, pp. 16,

17).

Saudi Arabia is at least as significant to the United States’ interests nowadays as was Iran in the 1970s. This is visible on economic bases, especially in regard to the stability of the oil market of the world. The Saudis have offered necessary security aid, providing bases in the course of the Gulf War of 1990-1991 and all throughout the duration of Operation Desert Storm.

Saudi Arabia is also turning into a more vibrant tactical counterterrorism ally

(irrespective of the fact that this cooperation has actually coincided with the occurrence of terrorism on Saudi Arabian soil after 2003). Maybe the most significant point to be made in regard to the contextual comparability is that the United States has offered an international safety net for the Saudi government for many years. A parallel commitment of the United States to the Shah was eventually a factor in his end as Khomeini successfully portrayed the Shah not just as a puppet, but as the 13

! puppet of the Shytane bozorg or Great Satan (i.e., the United States). Munson (1988) provides the argument that,

The atmosphere of invincibility that had covered the shah, coupled with a large part of the hostility aimed at him, was largely as a result of the conviction that he was the United State’s man and that the Washington would never stomach his demise. Once that conviction was upturned, so were the foundations of the regime of the shah. (p. 127)

Munson (1988) adds to this by stating that if “Iranians had not seen their Shah to be a puppet of the West and indeed the United States, much of their hostility toward the king would not have occurred, and an apparent dilution of U.S. hold could not have developed into his toppling” (p. 128). If the Saudi regime is similarly perceived among Saudis as “America’s men,” then U.S. criticism of the Al Saud has the tendency to weaken the regime’s strength.

Legitimacy. Iran’s Shah made only meagre efforts to portray himself under a mantle of Islamic faithfulness, and went through a crisis of legitimacy when the various modernization programs he initiated started to erode the societal foundation of his nation. Ayatollah Khomeini successfully undermined him of his legitimacy by convincing Iranians that the Shah had misplaced his Muslim or Islamic identity and was fouling Iran by non-Muslim attitudes. The Saudi royal family is similarly starting to hear a rising amount of rhetoric from Islamist antagonists about the Islamic credentials of the family. Some princes are popular for their individual moral corruption, and the regime as a whole is susceptible for criticism for allowing and holding economic-political relationships with the West that infringe upon a narrow interpretation of Islam. A political code which is applicable to both Saudi Arabia and

Iran is that, “Power looks for legitimacy, and acquires it more efficiently, among

Muslims, from Islam instead of from patriotic, national or even dynastic rights, still less from the Western idea of popular of national sovereignty” (Lewis, 1988, p. 4). 14

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The previous factors of legitimacy, the strategic relationship and importance of both countries with the U.S, and Iran’s sole experience of Islamic revolution unite to offer some justification for a comparison of Iranian and Saudi opposition structures.

Comparison and Contrast of Obstacles to Overcome

Irrespective of the fact that there is a justifiable base for comparison, no two nations can be said to be homogenous in orientation. The primary question is if the context holding the occurrence of the Iranian Islamic Revolution makes that particular revolution incomparable to the current Saudi context. What, then, are the potential issues and challenges to be tackled in plausibly applying the Iranian situation to the

Saudi Arabian? There are three visible challenges, which must be countered in beginning a credible comparison:

1. Religious disparity and variation in that most Saudis are Sunni and most

Iranians are Shi’a;

2. Ethnic dissimilarity (i.e., over half of Iranians are Persian, with only a few

percent being ethnic Arabs, while nearly all Saudis are Arab).

3. Time difference: The international terrain has been altered considerably since

1979.

An elucidation of these three should expose not only how both contexts vary, but also what to consider in making a comparison in which events that occurred in Iran may not be immediately applicable to Saudi Arabia.

Religious variation and disparities: Shi’a and Sunni. Saudis and Iranians basically abide by different sectarian Islamic beliefs: Iranians are mostly Shi’a

Muslims—though there are considerable non-Shi’as and some non-Muslims in Iran as well, with as much as 10% to 15% of the population being Sunni and 0.5% of the 15

! population being non-Muslims (which includes 250,000 Baha’i, 30,000 Jews,

Christians, and Zoroastrians). In contrast, in Saudi Arabia, there are no known non-

Muslim citizens of the Kingdom, while Saudis are all Muslims but largely Sunni, with around 8% of the citizen population being Shi’a. Saudi Arabia also hosts just below 6 million noncitizens, many of whom are second and third generation Saudi born. Most of such residents are also Sunni Muslims of South Asian ethnicities. Saudi Arabia is regarded as the cradle of Islam, and the Saudi royal family is perceived to be the legitimate custodian of Islam’s most holy places in Mecca and Medina, respectively.

“The legal constitution of Saudi Arabia stays as the Quran, although for all reason the basic system of government, pronounced by the king in the year 1992 is the practical equivalent of a conventional or contemporary constitution. A long time prior to the development of the Iranian revolution, the Saudis have held the notion that they have the true model “Islamic state” (Gause, 1991, p. 21).

Irrespective of the fact that Shi’a abide to the same five pillars of Islam in a similar vein as do the Sunnis, encompassing the hajj to Mecca, the Shi’a religious hierocracy of Iran lays claim to Islamic legitimacy and historical significance. As far back as the 1905 Constitutional Revolution, the masses of Iran maintained the stance that “the leader tantamount to ‘the King of Islam’ and of the Shi’a nation” (Arjomand,

1988, p. 79). Both notions concerning Islam’s custody are actually incompatible, but

Gause (1991) posits that, “Islam is a debated concept in the political terrain, as the ideological contest between the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and revolutionary Iran demonstrates” (p. 12). The problem meanwhile is whether any sectarian disparities prevent a significant comparison of the Saudi and Iranian political scenarios. Aptly put, did the Iranian Islamic Revolution happen or take place only as a result of Shi’as 16

! being one way or another more susceptible to revolution than Sunnis? Three significant variations do exist which concern this topic.

In the first instance, as elucidated upon by Said Amir Arjomand (1988), “The most important aspect of differentiating Sunni from Shi’a Islam ever since the culmination of the 18th century is the division of religious and political power, and the equivalent independence of the religious framework from the state” (p. 75).

Arjomand states that this is imperative as a result of modernization and the extension of the authority of the state that was, inevitably, set to involve curtailing of hierocratic authority. In the Saudi kingdom the Sunni religious establishment is not independent of the government, and so does not contend with the existing monarchy for political power or control parallel to the Iranian hierocracy. Nonetheless, “migration from the rural areas into urban nodes has been historically related to rising religious orthodoxy and a more thorough devotion to the puritanical core tradition of Islam” (Arjomand,

1988, p. 91), and also according to Gellner (1981).

Munson (1988, p. 131) points out the second and third exclusively Shi’a determinants upon which Khomeini was capable of capitalizing or exploiting.

Following suit are the writings of Ali Shari’ati (1933-1977), the most important theorist of Iran’s Islamic movement’s left wing in the 1970s placing some considerable emphasis on the revolutionary nature of Shi’a Islam. On a third note,

Khomeini derived more power than any Sunni religious ruler could expect owing to the fact that “most Shi’as hold the apparent belief that existing Ayatollahs are the holy representatives of the messianic concealed imam” (p. 132). Arjomand (1988) gives credence to this position in elucidating upon the ideology that Khomeini carved out and spread “particular aspects of Shi’a Islam which were highly effective for the mobilization of the people. Islamic government had to be related in various aspects 17

! with strong images. These images were derived from the Shi’a theology of suffering”

(p. 99) although these aspects of Shi’ism allowed for the occurrence of the revolution, it would however be incorrect to hold the belief that these determinants alone were causal—the Iranian instance, after all, took place in a composite socio-political environment. Furthermore, the fact that Osama bin Laden, who is a Sunni, has garnered some considerable support and sympathy from Muslims around the globe with an ideology deeply entailing imagery of “the prophet Mohammed as being revolutionary” provides the suggestion that either the phenomenon is not exclusively

Shi’a, or that he is drafting in facets of the ideology of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Are Shi’as consequently intrinsically more oriented than Sunnis to revolution or radicalism? While both Iran and Saudi Arabia have promoted Islamic movements overseas, “those promoted by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia are invariably Sunni coupled with being nonrevolutionary” (Munson, 1988, p. 6), the movements supported by Iran are not only largely (but not totally) Shi’a but radical instead of being reformist. But even though it is obvious that Ayatollah Khomeini headed a revolutionary drive, which was productively determined to topple the existing structure of government so as to introduce a new order (a revolution), there were both radicals and reformers in the Shi’a movement. The issue at this juncture is that

Islamic movements, similar to a lot of political movements, include segments and subgroups with varying ideologies along a line that is positioned between revolution and reform. The mainstream opponent to the Saudi Arabian form of government looks to have in mind not a revolution but reforms heading towards a greater political involvement and civil freedoms inside the borders of Islamic law. Gause (1991), addressing Saudi Arabian petitions for reform in the early 1990s, states that 18

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no one of these petitions opposed or contested the basis of the political framework. All of them showed support for the existing ruling families, even when demanding for checks to their powers. Not one of them sought for the sort of radical transformation that Arab nationalist groups demanded for in past year. (p. 14)

Saudi nationals are now observing a level of reform with municipal elections, but Osama bin Laden and his popular Al Qaeda seem to be at the same time fostering a more revolutionary program with the approval of numerous Saudi sympathizers.

Religious themes obviously have an impact on the nature and orientation of the

Islamic movements, which are elucidated upon more closely in the literature review of this paper. However, the Sunni-Shi’a religious disparities between Iranians and

Saudis need not forestall a comparison of both scenarios. The distinctions merely provide more texture to comparing Khomeini’s Iran with contemporary Saudi Arabia, instead of reducing its apparent validity.

Ethnic and social disparities: Persians and Arabs. If religion is not a sufficient reason to invalidate the comparison, then it is worthwhile to consider ethnicity. The indispensable question here pertains to whether there was a causative determinant of the Iranian revolution that can be related to the history of the majority

(Persian people, culture, language), which would invalidate a comparison with an

Arab social/political setting. It may be easy to jump to the conclusion that, since

Arabs and Persians have been fighting each other for hundreds of years, and since

Persians and Arabs employ the contemptuous phrases “mouse-eaters” and “lizard- eaters” to depict each other, respectively (Halliday, 1982), the cultures of both peoples and socio-political contexts constitute an impedance or impossibility to a viable comparison. Halliday (1982), states that actually,

Religion, language, migration, pilgrimage, trade have bound the regions of both peoples for all of history. For a larger portion of the time they have coexisted in harmony, not war. In what currently stands as the Arab domains, 19

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there have persistently been communities with Iranian qualities. On the Iranian perspective, vocabulary, script and religion are all of Arab origin if one delves into the complicated and often difficult terrain of racial characteristics, the circumstances are obvious: physical characteristics, the faces, body language in Basra and Baghdad vary minutely if at all from those in Isfahan and Tehran. The ‘we’ and ‘they’ are not provided by history but are the function of particular, usually conscious, political interventions. (p. 188)

Obviously then, there are variations between Arabs and Persians, but also a large amount of common bases. It would then be inappropriate to propose that since the

Iranian Islamic Revolution was carried out by primarily Persians, it has no practical application to an Arab scenario.

Different periods: That was then, this is now. The Iranian Islamic

Revolution culminated in the year 1979. The U.S. and the Soviet Union were fighting for power all over the world. The power of oil had recently been highlighted in the energy predicament of the later 1970s. Iran was a major actor vying for regional power and influence and the then U.S. President Nixon had placed the U.S. ‘Cold

War’ security policy parallel to the Middle East in the hands of Muhammad Reza

Shah Pahlavi of Iran. Times have surely changed and altered the overriding global competition today. No longer are American and Soviet superpowers caught in a bipolar power struggle but instead many security analyst terms the current state of affairs as the phase of alleged global war on terrorism. Once more, the basic question that emerges is whether any of this impedes attaining a valid comparison of revolutionary Iran with the current nation state of Saudi Arabia. Subsequent parts of this dissertation will seek to shed more light on the differences and similarities between both contexts, but for now it should be allowable to suggest that while there are certain areas of difficulty when comparing both nations, there is no apparently logical reason to dismiss a comparison concerning the conditions responsible for the

Iranian Islamic Revolution can be applicable to the current situation in Saudi Arabia 20

! just on the basis that times have changed. This is also equally true of the obvious religious and ethnic disparities between the Saudi Kingdom and Iran, particularly considering the fact that the aim of this paper is on the structure of the parallel opposition.

Reasons for Authoritarianism and Resistance to Change

There has always been a question of the explanation for the democratic scarcity and persistence of authoritarianism in the Middle East. A review of the collective layers of theoretical contributions aimed at explaining democratic and nondemocratic outcomes avails this study of a huge economy of apparatuses for appreciating the Middle East context. Some theoretical contributions will be reviewed on the basis that they more convincingly try to explain the reasons for the failure of democracy in the Middle East. Some theoretical efforts in the course of identifying the social structural foundations of alternative regime courses provide some credible explanations as to the unique orientation of Middle East authoritarian regimes. It is also important to consider the various institutionalist approaches that seek to explain the reinforcement and resilience of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East while analyses of political and economic nature reveal the mechanisms behind the adaptability of these authoritarian regimes to shifts or other events in their environment. This review is also important to this study on the basis of the fact there is a need to review the approaches that seek to explain why the agency to trigger democratic transitions is deficient in the Middle East with a particular interest in

Saudi Arabia.

THREE: THE MAIN THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO

CHANGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The Iranian revolution has stimulated a plethora of books and articles. The array of theoretical explanations includes historical accounts, socio-political analyses, and economic studies. Only a few authors have used a multidimensional or comparative approach in trying to explain the causes of the Iranian revolution

(Keddie, 1981; Kurzman, 2004). The Iranian revolution has been portrayed as the last greatest revolution of the 20th century and has been deemed the exemplary model of emulation in the Islamic world. In order to be able to juxtapose the Iranian revolution to a potential revolution in Saudi Arabia one has to dissect the Revolution’s underlying causes.

This study engages a diverse body of literature on revolutions, social movements and the phenomenon of authoritarianism in the Middle East. This section provides a survey of the most relevant and applicable approaches in the academic literature to this project. While many approaches are promising in their ability to explain part of the phenomena, it will be shown that they are in and of themselves ill equipped to fully explain either the Iranian or a potential Saudi revolution. At the onset of this section the specific concept of revolution will be clarified and defined as used for this project. This will then be followed by an assessment of theoretical contributions concerning social movements as a catalyst of revolutions. 22

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Revolution Approaches

A political revolution is identified by an upturn in fortunes in which a government is reinstated, or the form of government changed, but in which property relations are widely or largely left untouched (Goldstone, 1994). Political revolutions are separated from social revolutions in which old property relations are turned around. Revolutions have taken place since the development of human civilizations and they differ largely on the basis of methods, time span, and motivating ideology.

Their results encompass main transformations in the areas of culture, economy, and socio-political institutions. Scholarly arguments concerning the factors or various elements that make up or define a revolution focus on numerous issues. Initial studies related to revolutions basically assessed events in European history from a psychological standpoint, but more recent analyses add global events and encompass notions and contributions from numerous social sciences, added to sociology and political science. Numerous clusters of scholarly propositions on revolutions have developed numerous counterpart theories and added much to the conventional comprehension of this dynamic phenomenon (Kroeber, 1996),

According to Foran (1993a, p. 55), the word revolution is usually used to imply a shift in socio-political institutions. Goodwin and Skocpol (1989) provide two avenues for defining what is referred to as a revolution. Based on this proposition, there is a broad approach which defines a revolution as any of the observable situations in which a state or a political regime is toppled and as such changed by a popular movement in an asymmetrical, extra-constitutional or violent means. There is a also the narrow approach which provides a definition that a revolution not only encompasses mass mobilization and regime replacement or transformation, but also rapid and elemental socioeconomic and/or cultural transformation, in the course of or 23

! immediately after the agitation or clamour for political power. DeFronzo (2006) defines a revolution as any attempt aimed at transforming the political institutions and the justifications for state power, followed by any form of mass mobilization and noninstitutionalized endeavours that reduce the influence of incumbent authorities.

According to Goldstone (1994, p. 42) there are four so called generations of academic research aimed at understanding revolutions. The first generation of researchers and theorists employed a descriptive approach with a focus on the dynamics and significance of social psychology concerning the development of revolutions. One of these theories was Le Bon’s (1985, p. 23) crowd psychology theory. Crowd psychology posits that ordinary individuals can basically acquire direct power by collective action. This is as a result of the historical fact that large masses have been able to cause dramatic and spontaneous social upheavals in a way that is exclusive of laid down due process. These large groups of individuals have also triggered controversy. There have been some other subtheories that seek to tackle the problem that arises from the fact that the collective psychology of the crowd varies widely from the unique psychology of the single individuals within the group.

A second generation of revolutionary theorists placed some considerable emphasis on developing detailed theories aimed at explaining why and when revolutions emerge, rooted in more advanced and complex social behavioural theories. These can be further subdivided into three broad approaches that are the psychological, sociological and political approaches, respectively (Foran, 1993b, p.

2). The theoretical propositions of T. R. Gurr, I. K. Feierbrand, J. A. Geschwender, and D. C. Schwartz among many were from this generation of theorists (Foran 2005).

The second generation theories of revolution employed cognitive psychology measures and the frustration-aggression theory and also identified the collective mind 24

! state of the masses as the cause of revolution, and while there are various disparities in their approaches concerning the actual causal catalyst for the outbreak of a revolution such as modernization as was the case in the Islamic Revolution in Iran, they concurred that the basic cause for a revolution was the popular frustration and dissatisfaction with a socio-political situation (1993b, p. 4). This generation or school of thought concerning revolutions may seem relevant to the identification of the causal factors behind an Islamic revolution on the basis of the fact that Asef Bayat

(2008, p. 901) posits that there is always a psychological aspect to mass mobilization in an Islamic revolution. This is evident in how the psychological orientation and disillusions of the collective masses were harnessed by Ayatollah Khomeini in the

Iranian revolution.

Tilly (1973, 1978) speaks of collective violence and posits a political structure as the main causal factor that leads to the emergence of mass mobilization and revolutions. He states that the factors responsible are politically inclined. The structure of power, alternative perceptions of justice, the organization of the tools of coercion, the process of war, establishment of coalitions and the perception of the legitimacy of the regime. These concerns constitute the main guide to the development of a revolution.

Furthermore Tilly (1978) posited, in his “contention” approach to revolutions, that the capacity of those agitating or struggling for power to mobilize resources such as popular sympathy or arms into a revolutionary coalition with the strength to lead to situation preceding a revolution with two groups stating a claim to state power and in the end, “a revolution” (p. 216). On the basis of the fundamental provisions of this model, it is imperative to question the capacity of any internal coalitions in Saudi

Arabia to garner revolutionary resources of popular support (as in the Iranian 25

! revolution), and the necessary weapons required for a violent struggle. However all these must come after there is an existence of political dissatisfaction and a state of injustice among the Saudi population. The failure of the model resides in its inability to examine the exact root causes of the outbreak of a revolution once commenced

(Foran, 1993b, p. 3).

The second group of social theorists, such as Neil Smelser, B. Jessop and

Mark Hagopian, employed the structural-functionalist theory that perceived or viewed society as a stable complex system in equilibrium between different resources, demands and other inherent subsystems (cultural, political, etc.). Similar to the psychological school, they varied in their perceptions of the factors responsible for disequilibrium, but concurred that only a state of a relentless disequilibrium leads to a revolution (Foran, 1993b, p. 5). This approach is important to this study as the researcher would seek to identify any traces of disequilibrium inherent in the Saudi

Arabian society that would have the tendency to lead to a revolution.

On a final note, the third group, to which theorists like Charles Tilly, S. P.

Huntington, and Arthur L. Stinchcombe belong, came up with the pluralist theory and interest group conflict theory. These respective theories perceive events as products of a power tussle between opposite interest groups (1993b, p. 6). This approach posits that a revolution occurs when a collection of groups fails to agree within a conventional decision making process established for a particular polity and at the same time have sufficient resources to employ force in pursuing their objectives. The theorists of the second generation perceived the emergence of revolutions as a process involving two steps. The first step implies that some transformation leads to the present situation varying from the past while the second step entails that the new situation produces an opportunity for the occurrence of a revolution. In such a 26

! situation, a past event would not be enough to lead to the occurrence of a revolution.

Nevertheless if the government is aware of the threat, it can still impede a revolution, via reforms or repression.

It is important to note here that some valid criticisms have been labelled against the theories of the second generation on the basis of their limited geographical scope, obscurity in empirical validation, coupled with the fact that even though they may explain the orientation of some certain revolutions, they fail to explain why revolutions failed to happen in other societies in very similar situations. This seems to be a very important criticism to the second generation theories on the basis of the objectives of this study. If the second generation theories are incapable of explaining why a revolution failed to happen in a state with similar socio-political structures and conditions then it will be irrelevant in examining the possibility of an Islamic revolution occurring in Saudi Arabia as it did in Iran. It would then be seen as a failure and then underline the importance of this study in developing a method of effectively providing an answer to this.

It was as a result of the criticisms levelled against the second generation theories that the third generation theories developed. Skocpol and others expanded on the former Marxist class conflict approach, with some considerable emphasis on rural agrarian-state struggles, state conflicts with ruling elites and the effect of interstate military and economic competition on domestic political transformation (as cited in

Foran, 1993b, p. 6). Skocpol (1979, p. 8) explained that a revolution is a rapid, fundamental change of the state and class structures of a society associated with and partly carried through by class-based revolts from under. She attributed revolutions to a juxtaposition of various conflicts involving state, ruling elites and the society’s lower classes. 27

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The late 1980s witnessed a wide criticism of the propositions and results of theories from the third generation. The relevance and validity of the former theories suffered from the new revolutionary events that were difficult to explain by employing these theories. The Iranian Islamic revolution and Nicaraguan revolution of 1979, as well as some other revolutions in other parts of the world witnessed the processes by which multiclass coalitions overthrew apparently powerful regimes followed by mass demonstrations and labour strikes in nonviolent forms of revolutions (Foran, 1993b, p. 7). On the basis of these new developments in the actual unfolding of revolutions, the definition of revolutions as predominantly European styled violent state versus citizens and class struggles conflicts became irrelevant and insufficient. As such the scholarly assessment of revolutions transformed in three ways. The first approach saw some theorists applying former or upgraded structuralist theories of revolutions to political occurrences surpassing the previously assessed, predominantly European conflicts. The second approach saw theorists calling for more emphasis on conscious agency as reflected in ideology and culture in structuring revolutionary mobilization and goals. Lastly, theorists of revolutions and social movements discovered that those phenomena hold some significant similarities, and a fresh fourth generation of scholarly efforts on debatable politics has emerged that seeks to integrate insights from the analysis of social movements and revolutions, respectively, in order to explain these two phenomena (Foran, 1993b, p. 8).

Skocpol (1979) in her model provides an argument for the centrality of examining relationships in a revolutionary process such as interclass struggles, state versus class and interstate struggles with the emphasis that revolutions are the result of “objectively oriented” crises that are not initiated or controlled by any sole group or class. She states that revolutions are not created, they come (1979, p. 17). Her 28

! contributions provide the proposition that the state must be considered as an imperative “independent structure” with its own interests in societal resources and order that may propel it to act at cross-purposes with dominant classes, that the methods of agreement and difference can be applied efficiently to comparative- historical macro analyses of causal regularities. John Mill’s method of agreement and difference sates that:

If two or more instances in which the phenomenon occurs have only one circumstance in common, while two or more instances in which it fails to occur have nothing in common apart from the absence of that circumstance: the only circumstance in which both sets of instances differ, is the effect, or cause, or a necessary part of the cause, of the phenomenon. (Goodman, 2003, p. 155)

On the basis of this provision, it is obvious that this approach seems favourable to the comparative-historical methodology employed by this study in assessing the possibility of an Islamic revolution occurring in Saudi Arabia in the same way it did in Iran. This means that identifying the causal factors that led to the outbreak of the Islamic revolution in Iran would be tantamount to ascertaining if these factors exist in Saudi Arabia and hence an outbreak of an Islamic revolution since both states have similar structures. Nevertheless Skocpol (1979) stated that this model cannot be applied to states that vary in structure.

Irrespective of the fact that revolutions involve events from the range of the comparatively violence-free revolutions that toppled communist governments to the violent forms of Islamic revolution in Iran and Afghanistan, these are exclusive of coups, revolts, civil wars, and rebellions that do not try to change institutions or the justification for power, coupled with peaceful shifts to democracy via institutional activities such as plebiscites or general elections (DeFronzo, 2006, p. 25). There are numerous varying classifications of revolutions among scholarly efforts. For instance 29

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Alexis de Tocqueville (cited in DeFronzo, 2006, p. 30) posited a difference between political revolutions, spontaneous and violent revolutions with the aim of establishing a new political structure or political orientation and also changes the society at large.

This is also added to gradual but sweeping changes in the larger society via a process involving many generations. This kind if transformation usually occurs from religious orientation and it is arguable that the Iranian Islamic revolution and other revolutions in the Middle East fall under this canopy. Tilly (1995), a contemporary theorist and contributor to the study of revolutions classified revolutions between a coup d’état, a top-down arrest of authority, a revolt, a civil war, and what he referred to as a “great revolution” (p. 41) that alters socioeconomic orientations along with political institutions, such as the Islamic Revolution that took place in Iran.

On the objective of this paper to arguably try to ascertain the tendency of an outbreak of a revolution in Saudi Arabia, it is important to assess theoretical contributions concerning the types of states that are susceptible to revolutions. Robert

Dix (1984) who is a contemporary (third generation) theorist on this issue posited that a “relatively open” regime or a regime under the leadership of the military operating in its institutional capacity and in conjunction with other vital elites can prevent a revolution while an isolative, corrupt, antinational, and oppressive or authoritarian regime has a higher tendency of being toppled via a revolution (pp. 437-442). This points to the fact that the authoritarian regime in Saudi Arabia and other monarchical regimes in the Middle East have the tendency of being overthrown via an Islamic revolution similar to the Iranian and Afghanistan Islamic revolutions and hence underscore the importance and significance of this study. Goodwin and Skocpol

(1989) and Wickham-Crowley (1994) support this proposition. 30

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Goodwin and Skocpol (1989, p. 489) stated that isolative authoritarian regimes such as the Shah’s regime in Iran and the Saudi Monarchy provide a common enemy for numerous classes owing to the fact that are repressed while the middle and lower echelons of the societal stratification are excluded from any access or involvement in state power or the political system. In trying to ascribe a suitable name for such regimes, Eisenstadt (1978) provides neo-patrimonial to connote the patronage system behind the structure of such a regime as the Shah’s in Iran prior to the Iranian revolution. Shugart (1989) provides the term sultanistic to denote regimes that are narrower in comparison to the dominant class and possessing unprofessional armies.

Farideh Farhi (1990) describes the Iranian and most Middle East monarchies as personalist authoritarian. There is also another contribution that examines the claim of the state to legitimation and posited that the Shah’s regime in Iran collapsed not because his military crumbled but because the structure of authority collapsed (Katz,

2001).

Social Movement Approaches

Social movements are defined as a kind of collective action. They are big or massive informal gatherings of people or organizations placing attention on particular socio-political issues, aptly put, actualizing, antagonising, opposing or reversing a social transformation (Chesters & Welsh, 2006, p. 12). Contemporary Western social movements developed as a result of education, and raised the motion of labour as a result of the urbanization and industrialization of the societies of the 19th century. It is usually posited that the right to expression, education and comparative economic autonomy widespread in the contemporary Western culture is the reason for the unparalleled amount and extent of numerous modern social movements (Mauss, 1975, 31

! p. 15). Nevertheless others (Tarrow, 1994; Tilly, 1978, 2004) state that a large number of the main social movements of the last century developed to resist Western colonialism. Political science and its inherent body of researchers and commentators have come up with a wide array of theories and empirical research relating to social movements. For instance, some research in political science assesses the purpose of social movements concerning policy setting and effect on politics.

Types of Social Movements

Tilly (2004) provides a unique definition of large social movements as a progression or sequence of controversial actions, displays and campaigns by which common individuals made collective claims on others. This perspective posits that social movements are a main courier for the participation of ordinary people in public politics (p. 3). Tilly further posits that there are three important facets to a social movement:

1. Campaigns: This refers to a sustained, coordinated public endeavour with

collective claims of specific authorities;

2. Repertoire: This here refers to the use of combinations derived from some of

the forms of political action such as formation of special-purpose

organizations and unions, public gatherings, formal processions, rallies, vigils,

demonstrations, petitions, pronouncements or declarations in the mass media.

3. WUNC displays: This refers to the coordinated public representation by

participants of merit, unity, population, and commitments on their own part

and/or their constituencies.

On the other hand, Tarrow (1994, p. 7) provides another more in depth definition of social movements as group challenges (to ruling elites, regimes or other 32

! factions) by individuals or organizations with similar purposes and commonality in continued interactions with leaders, oppositions and authorities. Tarrow particularly differentiates social movements from political parties and advocacy associations.

Emergence and Demise of Social Movements

Taking a look at the origins of social movements, it is also inevitable to take a look at the factors responsible for the emergence and fostering of social movements.

The development of urbanization led to the development and construction of massive cities and fostered social relations between huge populations. It was in urban areas, where a collection of populations with parallel objectives or aspirations could congregate and organize, that those initial or primordial social movements first emerged (Staggenborg, 2008, p. 19). In a similar vein, Tilly (2004, p. 21) states that industrialization which led to the collection of large throngs of workers in a single location led to the fact that a large number of the first social movements tackled issues significant to that social class. Numerous other social movements were established and developed at colleges and other institutions of higher learning, where mass education united a lot of people. The advent of communication technologies led to the ease in the formation and activities of social movements from printed handbills being passed around in 18th century cafes to newspapers and ultimately the internet, all those apparatuses were now significant factors in the development of social movements (Staggenborg, 2008, p. 21). More importantly, the extension of democracy and political liberties such as the liberty to speech made the formation and operation of social movements much easier. Social movements have existed and persisted in a tightly linked orientation with democratic political systems. On some occasions, social movements have been part of the process of democratizing 33

! countries, but frequently, they have prospered after the process of democratization. In the course of two centuries, social movements have become part of a renowned global expression of resistance (Tilly, 2004).

Social movements do not exist perpetually (Mauss, 1975, p. 43). As with most things, social movements have a life cycle in which they are formed, they develop, they attain successes or failures and ultimately, they collapse and go into oblivion.

They have a higher likelihood of evolving in the period and location which is suitable to the social movements, as such their obvious simultaneous existence with the 19th century propagation of ideas such as individual rights, liberties of speech and expression, and civil dissent. Social movements exist in both liberal and authoritarian societies but in varying orientations and kinds (Crossley, 2002). However, there must be a polarizing distinction between groups. Looking at the initial social movements, they were aimed at wealth and poverty gaps. With the modern or contemporary social movements, they have a higher tendency of highlighting differences in ethics and norms (Eckstein, 2001, p. 102). Furthermore, the emergence of a social movement requires what Smelser (1962, p. 42) refers to as an initiating event. This is a specific, uniquely oriented occurrence that will trigger a chain reaction of events in the particular society culminating in the formation of a social movement. For instance, the

Iranian revolution emerged from discontent and disillusionment associated with the rapid Westernization of the Iranian state under the Shah that was viewed as being anti-Islamic (Kazemi, 1995). Staggenborg (2008) and Mauss (1975) both use a volcanic model to describe such an event stating that a social movement is usually the result of the realization of a large portion of the masses that there are others nursing or possessing similar values and aspirations for a certain social transformation or paradigm shift. As such, one of the major difficulties in the face of the growing social 34

! movement is propagating extensively the knowledge of its very existence. Secondly there is the trouble of defeating the free rider impedance, which is wooing members and followers, rather than of taking the mentality that others should do the “dirty jobs while I reap the benefits” (Staggenborg, 2008, p. 125).

Charismatic leader. It is imperative to note that numerous social movements are formed around a charismatic leader (Wiktorowicz, 2002). This is a person with charismatic authority who demands a popular following. Such a leader is seen in

Ayatollah Khomeni in the Iranian revolution of 1979. Following the creation of the social movement, there are two possible stages of recruitment. The primary stage is with gathering the people with a deep interest in the primary objective and ideology of the social movement. The second stage usually follows if the particular movement was considerably successful and is trendy. Individuals who join in this second stage have the tendency of being the first to decamp or opt out when the movement experiences any failures or threats. Ultimately, the social crisis can be motivated by external entities, like repression from government or other rival movements.

Nevertheless, numerous movements had come out of periods of failure or crisis, being restored by some hardcore adherents even after many years (Tilly, 2004, p. 262).

Relative deprivation theory. Over the years some important work has focused on explaining the orientation and dynamics of social movements and as such scholars of sociology have come up with several theories concerning social movements (Kendall, 2005, p. 131). One of the most significant theories of social movements is the theory of relative deprivation. According to the theory of relative deprivation, revolutions occur when people feel deprived in some fundamental way.

What people consider a deprivation is relative. In other words, relative deprivation is an individual’s or group’s perception that they are disadvantaged compared to those 35

! they use as their reference group. In fact, revolutions are likely to happen when a period of decline follows a period of increasing prosperity, since such circumstances lead people to expect a better life, but these rising expectations end up being unfulfilled for some groups (Moshiri, 1991, pp. 20-23; Taylor, 1984, pp. 84-92). This approach has a number of flaws that have to be accounted for. The most frequently cited problem of RD theory is that it suffers from an individual/collective gap, meaning that it fails to explain how individual feelings of deprivation are transformed into collective action. Additionally, how can a cognitive state of mind be accurately measured and where does one situate the threshold for collective action? The theory attempts to explain violence against government and society but fails to deal with the role of government violence that may be more important in some situations. One gets the idea that violence enforced by state authorities is “normal,” but the behaviour of dissidents is illegitimate or abnormal and thus in need of explanation. RD theorists have also been accused of the ex-post-facto fallacy, which means that they start from a revolution that actually occurred and work back to its supposed causes, failing to predict from given conditions whether a revolution will occur (Brush, 1996, pp. 525-

540). On this particular basis it is arguable that this approach seems irrelevant to the comparative-historical methodology of this study concerning the tendency of an

Islamic revolution in Saudi Arabia similar to what transpired in the parallel structured state of Iran in the late 1970s.

The prevailing socioeconomic and psychological approaches to rebellion and revolution rely on a mechanistic understanding of political violence. Gurr (1970), who has influenced early theorizing on social movements, sought to link feelings of deprivation that resulted from unfulfilled expectations with incidents of political 36

! violence and rebellion. However these approaches do not satisfactorily explain how grievances and deprivations are transformed into collective struggles.

There are two important challenges concerning this approach. In the first instance, owing to the fact that most individuals have a sense of deprivation at one level or another virtually on a perpetual basis, the approach has problems with explaining the reason why the groups that create social movements do when others are also deprived. Secondly, the causal factor leading to this approach is circular implying that usually, the sole evidence for deprivation is the social movement

(Jenkins & Perrow, 1977, p. 249).

Structural strain theory. The structural strain theory provides a proposition of six factors that foster the development of a social movement (Smelser, 1962, p.

174):

1. Structural conduciveness which relates to the situation in which individuals

come to hold the belief that their society has problems.

2. Structural strain that relates to individuals experiencing deprivation.

3. Growth and extension of a solution. This implies that problems of individuals

are highlighted and spread.

4. Precipitating factors. This derives from the fact that dissatisfaction usually

needs a catalyst usually in the form of a particular event, to transform it into a

social movement.

5. Absence of social control. This implies that the body that is to be transformed

must be at least considerably oriented towards the transformation; if the social

movement is rapidly and powerfully suppressed, it may never emerge.

6. Mobilization implying that this is the particular organizing and functional

aspect of the movement; individuals do what is required. 37

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This approach is also reliant on a circular way of thinking as it introduces, at least in part, the theory of deprivation theory depends on it, and social/structural tension for the causative inducement of the activism of social movement.

Nevertheless, social movement activism is usually the only expression that there was tension or deprivation in the case of deprivation theory (Jenkins & Perrow, 1977, p.

251).

Resource Mobilization Approaches

To be able to initiate a social movement, individuals need to mobilize resources (Resource Mobilization), recruit committed activists, and establish organizational structures that can withstand repression. Many aggrieved groups cannot meet these requirements due to heavy state repression, lack of allies, lack of material and symbolic resources to motivate activists, and lack of experience in the underground (Zald & McCarthy, 1987, pp. 10-14).

The point of departure for many of the more recent social movement theories is the notion that grievances are ubiquitous. What demands an explanation are the special circumstances, political opportunities, nature of state repression, availability of allies, expanded capabilities that enable groups to transform grievances into militant action.

Furthermore, resource mobilization theory carries an organizational bias in its implication that only formally organized bodies can act effectively and gives little attention to individual motivation and social interaction (Buechler, 1993, pp. 218-

230). It should be able to mention the network and ideological mobilization, which the organization of the Iranian clergy made possible. 38

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The theory of resource mobilization places some considerable emphasis on the significance of resources to the development and success of social movement.

Resources here encompass funds, media, information, labour, support, legitimacy, and internal and external backing from ruling elites. The theory according to Tilly (2004, p. 270) posits that social movements prosper and grow when people with grudges and discontent are capable of mobilizing enough resources to act or react. The attention placed on resources provides an explanation concerning why some discontented/deprived people are capable of organizing while others are incapable.

The theory has the following assumptions (Chesters & Welsh, 2006, p. 185):

1. The bases for protest in contemporary, politically pluralistic societies will

always exist owing to the fact that there is perpetual dissatisfaction; this

therefore undermines the significance of these factors as it renders them

ubiquitous.

2. Players are rational; they compare and contrast the attendant implications and

benefits accruable from participation in a social movement.

3. Members are conscripted via networks; commitment is sustained by forming

or establishing a collective identity and going on to sustain interpersonal

relationships.

4. The organization of the movement is based on the aggregation of resources.

5. Social movement organizations need resources and persistence or sustenance

of leadership.

6. Entrepreneurs of social movement and protest organizations make up the

catalysts that change collective dissatisfaction into social movements; social

movement organizations are therefore the spine of social movements.

7. The nature of the resources informs the operations of the movement. 39

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8. Movements grow in contingent opportunity frameworks that have an impact

on their endeavour to mobilize; as the response of each individual movement

to the opportunity frameworks relies on the organization of the movement and

its inherent resources, there is no obviously distinct structure of movement

development neither are there precise movement techniques or methods.

This theory is criticized by some who posit (Smelser, 1962, p. 214) that there is too much emphasis on resources, particularly on financial resources. Some movements are efficient even in the absence of sufficient funds and are more reliant on the members of the movement for time and labour. This is visible in the Iranian revolution of 1979 that was more dependent on popular sympathy and followership of the masses of Iran than with any organized militant action that required the organization of arms (Kazemi, 1995).

Political Process Approaches

Political process theory is in many other ways akin to resource mobilization, but places some considerable emphasis on a different aspect of social stratification that is imperative to the development of social movement implying political opportunities (Tilly, 1978). Political process theory posits that there are three imperative facets for movement formation: insurgent consciousness, political opportunities and organizational power (Tilly, 2004, p. 281). Insurgent consciousness regards the perceptions of deprivation and grudges. The notion is that particular individuals in the society have the feeling they are being maltreated or that, in one way or the other, the system is unfair. Insurgent consciousness is the combined perception of inequality that members or potential members of the movement hold and is the primary motivation for movement organization. And organizational power 40

! is parallel to resource-mobilization theory, positing that social movements must have strong leadership and adequate resources in order to organize them (Ness, 2004, p.

263).

Political opportunity connotes to the susceptibility of the existing political system to challenges (Snow, Soule, & Kriesi, 2004, p. 146). This susceptibility can result from any or a combination of the following:

1. Development of political pluralism

2. Drop in efficiency of repression

3. Disunity in the ruling elite implying an inherent fragmentation among the

leading elites

4. An expansion of access to institutional contribution in the political process

(e.g., the case of the Iranian state prior to the outbreak of the Iranian

revolution)

5. Backing and sympathy from organized opposition by elites (p. 148)

One of the major merits of the political process theory is that it tackles the subject of timing or appearance of social movements. Some factions may possess the insurgent consciousness and resources necessary for mass mobilization, but owing to the fact that political opportunities are limited, they will be unsuccessful (Tarrow,

1994, p. 226). The theory, then, posits that all three of these facets are imperative.

One derivative concerning the political process theory is the political mediation approach, which highlights the intersection of the political context facing movement players with the strategic decisions taken by movements. Another merit of this approach has the ability to look at the results of social movements not only on the basis of success or failure but also on the basis of consequences and on the basis of collective benefits (Tarrow, 1994, p. 228). 41

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To the extent that institutional channels for conflict resolution are perceived to be blocked, these perceptions are the product of their political, not economic or psychological environment. It is the lack of meaningful access to state institutions that is important. The political environment structures the opportunities and constraints facing movements. The political process approach argues for the primacy of process over structure in collective action. Rather than being the outcome of fixed circumstances, the political process approach treats social and political struggles as dynamic of interaction, adaptation and intended and unintended consequences that are likely to shape the strategies of the movement over time (Hafez, 2003, pp. 11-13).

However, there are certain weaknesses that have been attributed to this approach. For one, it underestimates the role of ideology and ignores the role of culture in collective action. Culture is very important to the process of identity formation and group solidarity.

Culture-Based Approaches

More recent variants of theory (Bantjes, 2007; Chaves, 1997) examine social movements via their cultures implying collectively held ideologies, beliefs, values and other perceptions of the world. These encompass investigations into the combined identities and combined action frames of movements and movement organizations.

Culture theory develops on both the resource-mobilization and political process theories but takes them further in two ways. In the first instance, it places some emphasis on the significance of movement culture. Secondly, it seeks to tackle the free-rider problem (Chaves, 1997, p. 188)

Both political process and the resource-mobilization theories include a perception of unfairness in their assessments. Culture theory puts this perception of 42

! injustice in the vanguard of movement formation by positing that social movements must develop an injustice frame to effective and successful mobilization. An injustice frame is a compilation of notions and symbols that reveal or demonstrate both how important the problem is coupled with what the movement can do to improve the situation. It provides consistency to a collection of symbols, ideas, and perceptions, connecting them via an underlying organizing concept that identifies what is necessary—the imperative consequences and values. The frame is not immediately obvious or directly visible, but its existence is revealed by its distinguishing expressions and context. Each frame provides the merit to particular modes of speaking and thinking, while expels others from the picture (Ryan & Gamson, 2006, p. 14). Ryan and Gamson highlighted features concerning injustice frames as such:

1. Facts acquire their significance and implication from being embedded in

frames, which make them relevant or irrelevant.

2. Individuals hold multiple frames in their mentality.

3. Effective reframing entails the capacity to enter into the world perception of

our antagonists.

4. All frames hold implicit or explicit demands for moral ideals (p. 18).

In placing considerable emphasis on the injustice frame, culture theory also tackles the free-rider paradox. The free-rider difficulty concerns the notion that individuals will see the motivation to take part in a social movement that will lead to an exploitation of their personal resources like funds, if they can still be in receipt of the gains without taking part in the movement. Aptly put, if an individual knows that a certain movement is seeking to improve working conditions in his place of employment, he faces the choice of either joining or not joining the movement. If he holds the belief that the movement will be successful without him, he can stay away 43

! from participating in the movement, conserve his personal resources, and still benefit from the results. This is known as free-riding (Ryan & Gamson, 2006). Eckstein

(2001) states that an important problem facing the social movement theory is in explaining why individuals join movements if they hold the belief that the movement can succeed irrespective of their contribution. The argument provided by the culture theory states that, in combination with social networks as a significant contact apparatus, the injustice frame will motivate people to contribute or participate in the movement.

The processes of framing encompass three distinct components:

1. Prognostic frame: This refers to situation or process in which the movement

organization frames what is the appealing resolution to the problem.

2. Motivational frame: This relates to the process in which the movement

organization frames a mobilization call by providing the suggestion and

encouragement that people act in order to provide a solution the problem

3. Diagnostic frame: This is the process in which the movement organization

proceeds in framing the identification of the problem or what is being

critiqued (Eckstein, 2001).

In the course of reviewing the theoretical contributions of scholars concerning social movements and the relevance of these movements to the case of this study which is to assess the orientation of revolutions in the Middle East with specific interest in Saudi

Arabia, it is important to ask the question of how Islamic social movements were relevant in the Iranian case but less so in Saudi Arabia.

Asef Bayat (2008) states that Islamist movements are usually portrayed as being very homogenous and coherent social units united by the discourse of their unique ideologues. However, Wiktorowicz (2002) states that it is important to dissect 44

! the movements to reveal orientations and structures. As such, one can differentiate the

Islamic revolution from other forms of revolutions with the statement that the larger proportion of the Shi’a population of Iran were certain of their dissatisfactions (of

Pahlavi rule) and their aspirations (a religiously oriented government, the historical custodians of the Islamic tradition). On this basis it is debatable whether Saudi masses are certain of their dissatisfactions and aspirations.

In looking at the relevance of social movements in the Iranian revolution, it is imperative to look at the position of Asef Bayat (2008, p. 893), stating that the resource mobilization theory, along with other rationalist approaches, focuses on the rational motives of actors for being part of a group. Yet, similar to collective behaviour, it also assumes the presence of an apparently metaphysical collectiveness among social movement players, with the disparity that this commonness is based on the understanding of the actors or players concerning their collective interests. This model also places particular attention on collectivities dependent on complex and structured coalitions in which the leaders of the movement play a vital role. The religious icon creates and propagates the required frame for the revolution based on collective interests. This defines the revolutionary movement, like the case of the

Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Irrespective of the fact that the Iranian revolution was led by a radical Islamic leader, it was achieved by very vast and varying social groups, encompassing the middle class, workers, urban lower classes, students, and ethnic (and even some members of non-Muslim religious) minorities. This is visible in the decisive role played by Ayatollah Khomeni in the Iranian case. It is important to note here that such an icon or leadership figure has not been identified in the Saudi case and may be one of the reasons why social movements are not relevant in Saudi

Arabia. 45

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Regime Stability Approaches

It is only rational to be aware of the fact that any objective assessment or investigation into the potential for the occurrence of an Islamic revolution in Iran shall nevertheless be informed by a capacity of the Saudi Monarchy to sustain itself politically. This then leads credence to the imperative of this paper to carry out a broad and yet objective literature review of the various theories of regime stability to fully comprehend remote or immediate sources of regime instability.

Ayoob (1984) maintains that security is the main foundation for regime stability. He states that third world regimes such as those in the Middle East are vested with defining the threats to their respective states and on the basis of their apparent lack of legitimacy. They tend to define these threats basically in terms of regime security instead of the security of the state in general. Security is defined traditionally as the preservation or protection of core values and in these states the core values of the regime which have self preservation as the core of the core are placed at far reaching variance with the core values upheld by the larger society who are ruled. Therefore on the basis of the discrepancies derived from the definition of core values and security as a concept, it is arguable that this is the reason why strategic threats to the security of the regime are derived from within the states or societies. This then forms the basis for which these states place considerable emphasis on coup-proofing to maintain their hold on power.

Ayoob (1984) also stated that discrepancies in economic development coupled with disparities in income, communal and ethnic tensions among other socioeconomic issues lead to a deficiency of social consensus on significant fundamental issues and to the unrepresentative and suppressive orientation of most Middle Eastern regimes 46

! and as such to the internal threats to the regime’s security and to the state frameworks in which they rule.

Lucas (2004) delves into the reason why some authoritarian regimes in the

Middle East (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Kuwait) are still in power. He posits that this may be due to fact that they are of the sultanistic regime (a particular subtype of authoritarian rule) type of regimes unique to this region. Jason Brownlee

(2007) also makes an assertion to this case. Chehabi and Linz (as cited in Lucas,

2004, p. 104) define a sultanistic regime as a regime identified by personal rule without any restraints, norms, or political ideology. In these regimes corruption is rampant in all tiers of society under a monarchy; the line dividing the state and the regime is very thin. This implies that in a sultanistic type of regime, the ruler has excessive discretionary powers, irrespective of the narrow social base of the regime.

On the other hand, Linz in Lucas (2004, p. 105) explains that an authoritarian regime is a political system with restricted, irresponsible, political pluralism. This implies that they are devoid of any clear cut guiding ideology with characteristic mentalities, devoid of any extensive or intensive political mobilization, and where a ruler or small group exercises power within officially poorly defined but quite predictable limits.

Lucas (2004, p. 105) maintains that irrespective of the fact that none of these two regimes hesitates in the repression of dissent, an authoritarian regime aspires for general political indifference that may be selectively informed at various periods. An attempt by a sultanistic regime to mobilize society is only for the personal deification of the ruler’s pride or her/his personality cult. Lastly while an authoritarian regime is identified by predictable limits to the authority of the government, a sultanistic regime possesses a total discretion to the ruler on concerning the boundaries of power. 47

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In looking at the reasons behind the survival of most monarchies in the Middle

East, Lucas (2004) posits that it is primarily as a result of the rentier state. He states that the rentier state is the reason for the absence of democracy in oil producing

Middle Eastern states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and other petrol-rich states of the region, owing to the fact that the state has no need to tax the production of wealth or tax per capita income. Instead, the rentier state’s major objective is the distribution of resources. As such, if there were “no taxation without representation” (the cry of subjects of once British colonies in North America), in the

Gulf rentier states of the Middle East, there is in effect the policy of “no representation without taxation.” And “no representation” going hand in hand with provisions of services and benefit such as “no taxation” implies or even induces apathy towards political participation and a reduction or numbing in the tendency for dissent from political disillusion. Cultural and domestic causal factors are also identified as being behind the success or fall of monarchies in the Middle East with an emphasis on the structure of the regime and the fall of the Iranian Shah from power in a non-Arab monarchy reveals that irrespective of large amounts of both superpower backing and monetary resources, a regime devoid of a social base can fall as a result of leadership failures (p. 110).

Concisely, according to Uhlin (1997) for an authoritarian regime that owes a considerable segment of its legitimacy to the performance of the economy, a loss of legitimacy is synonymous to an economic catastrophe or predicament. Exemplifying, we can see this from the transition case of Iran, during the course of the alteration in which the country’s dramatic and radical modernization and Westernization reforms led to the loss of popular support and hence a drop in the perception of legitimacy arising from the propaganda of the Ayatollah against the ruling elites (Wiktorowicz, 48

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2002, p. 191). Conversely, economic crisis can craft tensions which consequently may lead to increase or rise in the possibility of coups, reforms and many other motions or motives targeted at change in regime within the ruling elite (p. 45). Economic crises can impede the distribution of reimbursements to supporters and partners of the dictator, whose loyalties are highly characterised by an extreme function of personal patronage (Bayat, 2008). “Economic downturns affect the loyalty of the political military elite by reducing the ability of the government to deliver material benefits”

(Haggard & Kaufman, 1995, p. 267). These types of tensions are capable of severely causing alterations of the political landscape. The cleavages created within the elite may consequently tend to interact with developments from below. Explaining, the soft liners of a regime can tend to seek and find aid among the masses. Besides, novel or fresh coalitions can emerge within the realm of the civil-military relations. As within the government the military may either decide to find new allies or partners, stage a coup of its own making or simply retrench aid of the present regime or the ruling elite

(Geddes, 1999, p. 139).

Snyder (1992, p. 383) stated that one of the primary and significant factors in the sustenance and lifespan of an authoritarian regime is the sort of nondemocratic governance used by the particular government in question. Irrespective of the fact that there is no universal classification template, a large number of studies differentiate widely among personalist (neopatrimonial or sultanistic) single party and military types of authoritarianism. On the part of authoritarian regimes with personalististic orientation, the massive dependence of the autocrat on informal or unstable channels of individual support for political capital avenues that the loss of such an icon can—in the lack of a steady progression of the personality patronage—result in a political void 49

! in which former dormant forms of political factionalism and opposition may spring up

(p. 384).

Experimental proof in the democratization studies posits that the demise of the dictator is a primary causal origin of the fall of a particular regime in such political scenarios. Geddes (1999, p. 142), for instance, discovered that just four of the personalist regimes explored in the data set of her study stayed viable past more than a short time after the demise of the leader. On the leadership stage, the origins of regime sustenance can be seen in the intrinsic orientation of the regime as it is as a very personalistic isotope, so-to-speak, of authoritarian dictatorship. This is characteristic of Middle Eastern regimes and as stated before, economic misfortunes could negatively have an impact on the distribution of material merits; simultaneously, however, the motivational framework facing followers of personalistic regimes makes the leadership excessively defiant and insusceptible to internal divisions (Hinnebusch, 2006, p. 382).

Brownlee (2007) claims that people inside a patrimonial ruling alliance such as is found in the extended royal family of Saudi Arabia are less likely to push for a reform, conscripted and sustained with tangible inducements, without an independent political foothold, and meticulously compromised in the corruption of the regime, they are reliant on the sustenance of the incumbent. Those of the inner circles of the regime typically have moved up through the levels of political service and, separate from topmost leaders who may have invested in individual or selfish capital holdings, acquire livelihood chiefly from state offices. Owing to the fact that they face the possibility of losing all obvious avenues of followership in a political transition, they have very few options but to hold on to the regime, to float or drown with it. 50

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Coup-Proofing in Regime Stability

A crucial strategy in the maintenance of any regime in the Middle East is the concept of coup-proof. Saudi Arabia and Iraq (under Saddam Hussein) have employed this tool to achieve their objectives. Quinlivan (1999, p. 131) defined a coup as consisting of the infiltration of a small but significant portion of the state apparatus, which is then employed to remove the government from its control over the rest of the state machinery followed by a rapid acceptance of the new authorities by the rest of the government arms and the total population. The goal of a coup is not just the displacement of the incumbent regime, but the takeover of power for the coup plotters. Based on this emphasis on the seizure of power, a coup entails more than a mere assassination of the leader of a regime.

Therefore Quinlivan (1999, p. 133) maintains that on the basis of the goal of a coup resting on the forceful taking of the state by a small cohort within the state machinery, the aim of coup-proofing is the establishment of frameworks aimed at minimizing the feasibility of any small cohorts achieving such ends. He then defines

“coup-proofing” as the collection of policies taken by a regime to prevent a coup. He then highlights the common characteristics of coup-proofing, which are:

1. The efficient exploitation of ethnic, family and religious affiliations or

loyalties for positions vital to coup plots, balanced with larger or broader

participation and less restrictive loyalty standards for the whole regime in

general.

2. The establishment of an armed force similar and beside the regular military;

3. The creation of multiple internal security agencies with intertwining

jurisdiction that perpetually watches and observes the loyalty of the military 51

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and each other with independent communication accesses to significant

leaders.

4. The promotion of expertness in the regular military; and

5. The regulation of these measures.

Coup-proofing in the Middle East is now at a uniquely advanced stage and the leaders in Saudi Arabia and Syria, among others, have all developed efficient but expensive means of shielding their regimes from coups. This has been achieved via trial-and- error adjustment of the apparatuses that initially brought them to power. These authoritarian leaders may not have envisioned in the beginning what their regimes would later be like, but progressive decisions by individuals placed in positions of power have resulted in the development of states with a larger emphasis and attention or obsession on protecting the incumbent regimes (Quinlivan, 1999, p. 133).

The basic demonstration of efficient coup-proofing is the persistence of the

Saudi regime irrespective of external threats and internal tensions. The following sections describe components of coup-proofing.

The utilization of special loyalties. The basis on which political action is placed in Middle Eastern authoritarian states such as Saudi Arabia is the “circle of trust” that had the desire to act in unison. The fundamental nature of regimes in the region is still based on the consolidation of the regime’s circle, creating accommodations with other communities and repressing those that are not within the possibility of trust. Ibn Saud, the founder of the Saudi state, established the conviction that the sense of belonging to a group can only come from blood relationship or any bond parallel to that. This has led to a development or evolution of a modern Saudi state shaped by a balancing of tribal loyalties and aspirations, religious and individual interests, and the dynastic and selfish interests of the extended royal family. 52

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Irrespective of the fact that commentators see the fragile nature of this balance, the long life or persistence of the balancing act evidenced that the tools of the Saudi leaders are more effective than generally perceived (Quinlivan, 1999, p. 134).

The structuring of parallel armed forces. Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes found or have established parallel armed forces to counterbalance the regular military forces, which have the tendency of being used against the regime in a military coup. Parallel armed forces also make it possible to create bigger regular military forces tailored towards projecting power outside the country with greater confidence (Quinlivan, 1999, p. 135). This is seen in Iran under the Shah who had a strong military that was geared towards external enemies and a strong internal security service called SAVAK to repress dissent.

Owing to the fact that the objective of a parallel military force is the protection of the regime, it must be tied to the incumbent regime via special loyalties and social relationships such as elucidated previously. A segment of the security machinery devoted exclusively to the physical security of the ruler and his associates must be placed in the immediate surroundings of the leadership. The tendency of assassination attempts aimed at the ruler is higher in the presence of large numbers of individuals with a vendetta for revenge for numerous dissents. The provision of bodyguards for the protection of the ruling elite require substantial resources and this perpetual security presence leads to the apparent sense of paranoia and besiegement among the ruling elite within its own state (Quinlivan, 1999).

Furthermore, the parallel armed force must not be as big as the regular military, nor must it be capable of defeating the regular military in a full scale civil war. But it needs to be a bit large, sufficiently loyal, and effectively deployed to be capable of engaging or repressing any disloyal forces in the immediate vicinity of the 53

! vital nodes of the regime. Nevertheless, the parallel armed force must have the intrinsic belief of being able to face the regular military units. Coup-proofing also usually extends to air or naval forces. For instance in Saudi Arabia and Iran restricting access to fuel is commonly implemented to limit the flying range for training flights.

This shows that the basic tactic of coup-proofing is to prevent troops from reaching the nodes of the regime, best achieved by a ground-based paramilitary force

(Quinlivan, 1999).

Saudi Arabia expresses an efficient employment of balancing mechanisms and it is seen in the degree of emphasis placed on this. Saudi Arabia’s parallel army is the oldest in the Middle East and is also older than the Saudi regular army itself. It is important to note how well deployed the Saudi National Guard is with its key bases located in the tribal areas and between the capital and the regular military.

Multiple security services. Quinlivan (1999) states that the survival of a regime depends on the loyalty and efficiency of the security services in and this dependence is more complex than the reliance of the regime on the regular armed forces. It is possible for a regime to fall if the security services do not meet their expectations. The proliferation of security agencies with intertwining portfolios leads to the development of a market with many sellers of a single commodity known as the security services and a sole buyer. This ensures efficiency and loyalty.

In their suppressive tasks, the security forces operate within a broad order sustained by police forces of a more pedestrian orientation. The loyalty of the public and functioning of the police and the individual loyalty and functioning of its attendant informant circles are the most fragile and still most effective defences in the counteracting or repression of uprisings. It is only the police force on the basis of 54

! perpetual contact with the populace that can identify and forestall the movement from public unrest to mob uprising (Quinlivan, 1999, p. 144).

In Saudi Arabia, crucial military units of internal security are located inside the Ministry of Interior, the National Guard, and the independent religious police respectively. The Ministry of Interior is responsible for the organization of four basic organs of security, which are the Special Security Force (a counterterrorist unit deployed to counter massive incidents), the Coast Guard, the Public Security Police and the Frontier Force. The Public Security Police encompasses the regular Police force and the General Directorate of Investigations, which is the state secret Police or mubahith (Quinlivan, 1999, p. 145). The General Directorate of Intelligence organizes and maintains extensive computer databases of Saudi citizens and expatriates and can detain suspects for interrogation for protracted periods devoid of charges or access to family or legal aid. It is important to know how the National Guard’s internal security role is handled by troops from the tribal levies and infantry battalions. These infantry troops are not heavily armed and drilled in comparison to National Guard’s mechanized units with heavier weaponry and tactical training. These infantry troops are oriented along tribal lines positioned under the headship tribal leaders and thus have a stronger sense of tribal allegiance to the ruling House of al Saud (Quinlivan,

1999).

The religious police or mutawwiin impose standards of public conduct as directed by Wahhabi religious tenets. The procedures necessitate the regular police to accompany the religious police in carrying out any arrest (one of the intertwining of portfolios). As an internal security apparatus, the religious police are more efficient at repressing secular tendencies than the religious fundamentalists who have headed movements against the Saudi monarchy (Quinlivan, 1999). 55

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The Promotion of Professionalism in the Regular Military

“Professionalism” in the armed forces entails three basic features: social responsibility, expertness, and a corporate character. Practically, coup-proofing seeks to dissolve the corporate loyalty and corporate identity of the armed forces; simultaneously, it may try to expand the expertness of the armed forces in a stringently technical sense.

Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern states like Syria have all established intricate systems of military education that provide real opportunities for learning the true military profession. This “expertness” entails an understanding of the force necessary to carry out certain military operations and related procedures. An enhancement of the technical skills of the officers of the regular armed forces increases not only their capacity to handle foreign regular armed forces, but also their perception of the tactical risks faced in attempting a coup. An appreciation of these attendant risks renders them less likely to be involved in any coup attempt and therefore more vulnerable to detection in the event of any coup attempt (Quinlivan,

1999). Encountering the existence of efficient parallel military units and the worst- case scenario that these units cannot be suppressed except via a defeat, tactically proficient regular army officers will see the need to combat might greater than that at the reach of the parallel armed forces. On the basis of the increase in the number of units needed to carry out a coup, there is an attendant problem of making sure that the required units perform acts as part of the conspiracy (Quinlivan, 1999, p. 150). The increase in the amount of communications between conspirators also elevates the tendency of detection. 56

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The Importance of Money

Quinlivan (1999, p. 151) states that multiple security agencies and armed forces require considerable funds and resources to maintain. Saudi Arabia has devised a means to pay for these security agencies while, nevertheless, balancing other requirements of the regime. Saudi Arabia and Iran are both rentier states with oil incomes being the predominant contributor to government funds. The capacity to exploit oil revenues ensures that the state is not compelled to acquire revenue internally. As a matter of fact, untransparent financial transactions ensure that the rentier state succeeds in holding public knowledge of the true amount of revenue accrued from external sources and orientation of the internal distribution of this income. The “wholesale” organization of this money politics is revealed in the establishment of subsidies and benefits that attach and unite groups to the regime. In

Saudi Arabia prior to the advent of crude oil, Ibn Saud provided incentives in the form of gold or precious stones to loyal tribes. In modern times following the discovery of oil, income accrued from crude oil has ensured the sustenance of a traditional Bedouin culture existing alongside a modern commercial culture. The incentives are most obviously passed through the lines of the Saudi National Guard both as a traditional show of the culture of the desert warriors and as a show of personal loyalty expressed to the ruling house. The Saudi regime still makes considerable public spending for public intents that consolidate kinship connections to the al-Saud house.

Authoritarianism in the Middle East and the Reasons for its Persistence

Authoritarianism is defined by Shepard and Greene (2003) as a type of government identified by an emphasis on the authority of state in a republic or union,

(p. 22). It is a political structure under the control of typically nonelected leaders who 57

! usually only allow some degree of individual freedom. The Middle East is home to some of the most persistent authoritarian leaders in the world, whose very permanence questions the potential for express change in the subregion. The extended time span of diplomatic and political discourse concerning the composition and structure of Iraq’s new government and the protracted nature and persistence of insurgency in a post-Saddam Iraq are at best two major indicators of the challenges of introducing, installing and consolidating democratic orientations in the subregion.

Taking hindsight at the 1950s and 1960s, the predominance of authoritarian government in the region did not differentiate the Middle East from other developing nations then referred to as the third world nor did it differentiate the region from the

Eastern European communist states. But the region did not move on with the third wave of democratization that commenced in the 1970s within the circles of third world countries in Latin America, passing on to other developing countries and, in the

1990s, to the Eastern part of the European continent (Shepard & Greene, 2003, p.23), referred to by some as the fourth wave of democratization.

It is imperative to note here that it was just in Lebanon and Turkey that an authoritarian regime was followed by general elections that, regardless of impedances, culminated in a recycling of elites. In other parts of the Middle East, political liberalizations that had sparked off in some nations cooled off, if not experiencing a turnaround. Furthermore it is important to note that none of the numerous authoritarian regimes or governments of the Middle East has been removed from power via competitive general elections.

Since this study seeks to comparatively assess the possibility of a revolution geared towards ousting an authoritarian regime in Saudi Arabia similar to what transpired in Iran, it then implies that there is an intrinsic need to assess the factors 58

! that could or have eliminated this apparent tendency. This is tantamount to a literature review of relevant literature or theoretical propositions concerning the resilience or persistence of authoritarian rule in the subregion with a view to identifying the practicality of this study.

This section of the literature review is structured on the basis of whether scholars place their ultimate explanatory focus on state- or society-based variables.

Domestic factors encompass the individuals in possession of political authority in a country and the various institutions of government. Societal variables take into close consideration the population that is governed: individuals and their respective activities—and any groups they may function in—while interacting with the ruling government. The major theoretical approaches to this subheading concerning the persistence of authoritarianism can generally be segregated into two broad schools of theoretical thought: the “prerequisites” side, with the proposition that cultural, institutional or economic factors are the imperative and necessary for feasible transitions from authoritarianism to take place; and the “transitions” perspective, which perceives any transition or regime change a dependent choice of regime and opposition actors that could exist as a result of the existence of various socioeconomic and cultural circumstances (Anderson, 1999; Burnell, 1998; Carothers, 2002). This division is a subset of the bigger double edge within the social sciences torn in the middle of theories that focus on the limitations of human behaviour created by macrostructural variables and those that benefit individual agency (Mahoney &

Snyder, 1999). 59

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Cultural Preconditions

A larger portion of literature aimed at understanding the absence of other forms of government such as democracy in the Middle East fall into the prerequisites, or structural, group. In this category, cultural assessments have contended with economically dependent propositions. These literatures in some situations provide a rejection, and in some ways amplification and elaboration concerning these former advances. They also highlight new fundamental variables, especially with an emphasis on previously neglected political or institutional factors.

On the part of the Arab nations that are in the majority in the Middle East, one set of cultural propositions and perspectives states a patriarchal and tribal state of mind or orientation as an obstacle to the advancement of pluralist values (Sharabi,

1988). The patriarchal orientation renders Arabs more susceptible to accepting patrimonial rulers, while the latter stands as an impedance to the perception of national unity that some scholars such as Horowitz (1993) and Karatnycky (2002) proposed as a necessity to successful regime change from authoritarianism to democratic forms of governance. As a matter of fact, the ethnic divisions that render the bid by the United States aimed at democratizing Iraq more complex have been the reason why many analysts such as Karatnycky (2002) perceive sectarianism as the primary impedance to a shift from authoritarianism in the Middle East in general. The question that arises in contemplating this issue is if Arab constitutional monarchies with feeble but legitimately elected parliaments would emulate the way of previous

European monarchies in arriving at parliamentary democracies with only figurehead monarchs. To this end, Karatnycky agrees that ethnic frictions caused by ethnic divides stand as an outstanding impedance to the appearance of secular or contemporary parliamentarianism in most Arab oriented monarchy systems. 60

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Karatnycky further notes that in Jordan, sectarian dissections are seen in ill-allocated electoral districts, implying an inherent weakness in the legitimacy of the legislative arm of government. A major reason for the very restricted authority apportioned by the ruling Bahraini family to that legislature is that the royal family is Sunni, while the majority of the population is Shi’a. This is quite similar to the situation in Saudi

Arabia.

On the basis of this perspective, segregation and animosity resulting from ethnic disparity thus stand out as a causal factor to the persistence of authoritarianism in the Middle East. However Herb (1999, p. 221) does not highlight them as being a prerequisite or adequate condition. He marks out some other informants preventing the cessation of authoritarian systems where such divides are not so outstanding.

Anderson (1995, pp. 192) stated in her criticism of the aforementioned perspective that tribalism is not the cause of the resilience of authoritarianism in the Middle

Eastern states that are characteristically homogeneous in their religious and linguistic orientation, like Egypt. The wider, and established, cultural theory for the persistence of authoritarian systems among the Arab nations relates it to the prevalence and dominance of Islam in the subregion. Frequently referred to as orientalist, on the basis of the antecedents of the renowned endeavour of Edward Said (2005, p. 166), it states that an inherent incongruity exists between democratic values and Islam. Previous positions of the proposition held that this immiscibility was a function of the conflation of the spiritual and political rule in the nascent periods of the Arab/Islamic

Empire, supposedly excluding an approval by Islamic faithful of secular or conventional political power and rendering civil society subordinate to the state.

Yahya Sadowski (1993, pp. 14–21, 40) perceived the neo-orientalist approach as being contradictory. Nevertheless, Islam has also been perceived as promoting the 61

! situation of weak states that can never achieve the concentration of power required for its ensuing dispersion to take place. The 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran and the ensuing dispersion of Islamist movements looking to use violence in acquiring political authority and forcefully enforce Shari’a has increased the relative credibility of the orientalist approach.

Contemporary bids aimed at testing the purported link or relationship between

Islam and authoritarian systems via quantitative methods have yielded findings that are surprisingly contradictory. An analysis by Fish (2002) revealed that the correlation was strong. Among various causal variables under investigation, he discovered that the best elucidation was in more elevated degrees of gender discrimination in Islamic countries. Nevertheless, Stepan and Robertson (2003), employing parallel data, posit that when degrees of economic development are considered, it is just the Arab

Muslim nations that comparatively differ in their prevalence of democratic systems.

Brownlee (2007) counters the orientalist perspective on this, recalling that particularly Confucianism and Catholicism have been identified as being incompatible with democracy at various periods and scenarios. However, these cultural orientations have not acted as impedances to the removal of authoritarian systems in South America, East Asia or Europe. At various times, popular socio- political revolutions succeeded in Tunisia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Libya. In all these settings Islam was the springboard or basis for the development and inculcation of ideas for the mobilization of people against dictatorships. It is worthy to note here that even though transformation from one regime type to another through revolution was successful in Iran, it has not been feasible in Saudi Arabia and this may be as a result of the traditional orientation of the Saudi populace towards respect for traditional

Arab monarchy separated from Islamic tenets which were more upheld in Iran. 62

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The Effect of Rentier Structures

An optional prerequisites elucidation of the resilience of authoritarian systems in the Middle East, usually stated overtly as defiance to the cultural arguments, focuses on the particular nature of Middle Eastern economies. Numerous nations in the Middle East, especially those within or around the Arabian Peninsula, acquire considerable revenue from crude oil exports. Their economically less privileged neighbours are connected to the hydrocarbon resource economy via a dependence on labour migration and the attendant allowances, immediate assistance flowing from the

Persian Gulf nations, coupled with transit-related revenue. The propositions provided by the theory of the “rentier state” hold that this availability of a readily available resource and revenue enables regimes in this particular region to be less dependent on accruing revenue from their citizenry so as to fund the state coupled with being able to woo the backing of the populace via the charitable provision of social amenities and government employment. If antagonism to capricious taxation was the power behind to the sustenance of democratic systems in Europe and the Americas, then support and the absence of an arduous tax load on the petrol-rich states’ populace could be the reason behind the purported inability of citizens of these Middle East nations to look for a larger portion of participation in the organization and operation of government (Anderson, 1995; Beblawi & Luciano, 1987). However, to the contrary, it is arguable as to whether the rentier state approach to the explanation of the persistence of authoritarianism in the Middle East is not so far reaching as in Iran, since oil revenues were not able to keep the Shah in power.

The propositions concerning rentier orientations initially developed around the

1980s in a quest towards explaining the divergence of the Middle East’s richest crude oil exporters from the relationship—popularly held from the seminal endeavour of 63

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Lipset (1960)—concerning nations with elevated per capita resources and democracy

(Przeworksi, Stokes, & Manin, 1999; Rueschemeyer, Stephens, & Stephens, 1993).

However, testing on this was not carried out outside the Gulf region. Nevertheless, the

“no taxation no representation” proposition has been opposed by Richards and

Waterbury (2007), who discovered that policies of extraction in the Middle East are substantially similar to those in other developing regions. Ross (2001) generally counters the prerequisites approach. Instead of a lack of socio-cultural or socioeconomic prerequisites for removal of authoritarian systems to commence, Ross associates the resilience of authoritarianism to the existence of institutions and informants, especially those that reinforce the coercive arms of these regimes.

Contextually, irrespective of the fact that rentier revenue is salient, implying that it plays an active role in the maintenance of extensive and effective security agencies by incumbent authoritarian regimes, fiscal prosperity is vital and imperative for providing incentives for people who are part of the state’s coercive effects.

Furthermore, according to this argument, the region is identified uniquely by the relatively elevated amount of government spending apportioned to security agencies and machinery.

Keshavarzian (2005, p. 81) validates that impact by stating that some recent variations of the rentier state theory provide an important prediction of political insecurity emanating from a sharp fluctuation of crude oil income. He states that some questions arise concerning the helpfulness of that proposition concerning the Islamic

Republic of Iran, which, has persisted past major price fluctuations over the past two and a half decades and phases of dropping oil income. Nevertheless, the availability of rents has propelled the support for elite resort and has provided funding for multiple coercive outfits, both providing their parts to the elite disintegration and the 64

! administration of factionalism by conservatives attributed to the robustness of the

Iranian regime.

A decline in the availability of rents may consequently not be deemed a suitable or imperative requirement for the removal of an authoritarian regime but seems, regardless, to be a predecessor to some degree of political emancipation.

Irrespective of the fact that before the 1980s, the Middle East was marked overtly by single-party regimes and monarchies, some nations after that period have observed a different fashion. Nowadays, forms of contested parliamentary elections take place in some Middle Eastern countries such as Iran, Kuwait, Yemen, Egypt, and Morocco among others and even in Palestine, under the dictation of Israel (Carothers, 2002).

This encompasses virtually all oil-poor nations in the subregion with the exception of

Syria, Sudan and particularly Kuwait, whose political status quo can arguably be associated or attributed to extraordinary international coercion coming after the first

Gulf War. This list however does not encompass the wealthiest crude oil rich states.

This robustly points to the fact that some effective relationship exists between falling rentier revenue and the upheaval of authoritarianism (Anderson, 1997; Brumberg,

2001).

Elections and Political Parties

The structures of political parties and electoral regulations are important here.

Posusney and Angrist (2005, p. 241) employing a historical-institutionalist perspective or paradigm (Collier & Collier, 1991; Steinmo & Thalen, 1992) tried to provide an explanation for the reasons why competitive party politics seem to have a stronger foothold in Turkey in comparison to other parts of the Middle East, coupled with accounting for differences in the types of authoritarianism practiced in the 65

! countries of the region. This paradigm states that the failure of imperial power is a significant point at which the orientation of growing or young local party structures critically affected the forms of political governments that later developed. In nations that possessed a sole, leading party upon independence, one-party states were produced. Sole, preponderant party systems did not lead to the inevitability of authoritarianism, but created an environment that undemocratically motivated elites to rapidly and efficiently cultivate authoritarian leaderships owing to the fact that they had no rivals and owing to the situation that single party systems are efficient political apparatuses.

Posusney and Angrist (2005, p. 287) also reveals that electoral systems, responsible for politically oriented results in democratic systems (Cox, 1997;

Kopstein & Reilly, 2000), are imperative to the scheme of things and of politics in nations whose leaderships are resistant to any change from authoritarianism. It also reveals that electoral manipulation is an alarming threat to any eventual change from authoritarian regimes to a democracy. To this very end, Herb (1999) reveals that government manipulation and tinkering with election results is more severe among the Middle Eastern monarchies. In Jordan for example, results are also engineered via district mal-apportionment. Lust-Okar (2005) posited that the relevant electoral laws and regulations are not the ones dictating the results among electoral contestants but instead those overseeing the parties allowed or cleared to contest the elections.

The Significance of Institutions

The notion of institutions concerns both formal and informal organizations, rules and processes that dictate the procedure of political organization. Institutional examination encompasses the total array of state institutions that inform the definition 66

! of interests and orientation of relations of influence to other cohorts by political actors. This contextually encompasses the laws governing electoral contention among groups or actors, the orientation of party frameworks, the links between various segments of government, and the organization of economic players such as labour unions (Steinmo et al., 1992, p. 2). Noneconomic relationships like domestic and internationally dependent human rights and environmental factions are also put under this particular rubric.

A more recent criticism of the transitions perspective by Carothers (2002) necessitates the revived focus on the position of institutions in politically oriented reforms in countries with authoritarian regimes (pp. 8-16). Bellin (2004) on the other hand provides arguments aimed at an array of institutional variables. Nevertheless, while Carothers foresees the recognition of institutional orientations or structures that may be vital for the change from authoritarian regimes to more democratic systems to happen, as such making institutions prerequisites, Bellin takes up divergent approaches. Others use a prerequisites assessment, but some consider institutions as the light in which the vital decisions of the players in transitions are taken. Put collectively, both approaches reveal how institutions could play the role of bridges linking other variables and the position of human agency.

Military and Security Agencies

Bellin (2004) states that military and security agencies constitute the anatomy of the state, but there is also a disparity in the way in which the agencies of countries relate with policymakers (p. 192). This perspective places some considerable emphasis on the framework or orientation of relations concerning incumbent leaders and the security agencies like the army or national guard, contrasting between an 67

! institutionalized security agency, where enlistment and promotion principles are based on reason, and one reliant on primitive ties to executive power. In the first setting, related to the military possessing a larger sense of national duty, the tendency of officers turning down positions in the administration or incumbent regime or as the custodians of national security are more elevated. In most nations of the Middle East, nevertheless, it is the norm to find patrimonial security agencies. This kind of security agency existed in Iran as the SAVAK before the Islamic revolution and still exists in

Saudi Arabia as the secret police and National Guard troops.

Brownlee (2007) also observes the ability of the military or security agencies to suppress opposition, especially in periods of political tumult and looks further into scenarios where the survival of authoritarian regimes was threatened by popular uprisings. In Iran, the popular uprising led to the collapse of authoritarian regime of the Shah but in other Middle East scenarios such as in Saudi Arabia, it only culminated in regime restabilization. Brownlee (2007, p. 301) related this situation to the ability of the incumbent leader to quell opposition via the coercive apparatus of the authoritarian regimes that are the security agencies. Keshavarzian (2005) on the other hand states that in Saudi Arabia, there is a plurality of security agencies, each with the ability to function independently of the other. This implies that coercive agencies are capable of escaping supervision both by the legislature and other international monitors. The control of these independent security agencies by antagonists of change make them capable of suppressing reformers effectively.

The Governing Elites

Bellin (2004) and Brownlee (2007) maintain that the emphasis should not be on societal players but should be directed towards the ruling elites. Brownlee provides 68

! the argument that the comparative endeavour concerning transitions has been focused largely on the opposition groups and regime soft-liners so much that the incumbents resistant to reform have been neglected. It is the desire and capability of the incumbent elites to resort to violence in a bid to prevent a collapse that is responsible for the persistence of most authoritarian regimes. The neopatrimonial leaders of the

Middle East are consistent with this perspective; he posits that the instructive capacity to employ severe suppression has been neglected by political analysts trying to isolate a factor unique to the Middle East responsible for authoritarian resilience there.

Bellin (2004) similarly makes the observation that the resilience of authoritarian regimes calls for the ability of the regime and its attendant desire to suppress dissent, and states numerous factors having an impact on that particular tendency. Like the case of Iraq, Algeria, Syria, and Egypt where the incumbent regime took over authority via a coup d’état, military institutionalization, as aforementioned, affects the predictions of the officers concerning the potential hazards of a return to the military barracks. Elevated degrees of institutionalization promote the emergence of softliners who hold the belief that the effectiveness of the military and unity are forfeited by possessing the paraphernalia of power. Where patrimonialism exists, nevertheless, military personnel have the justification to fear for jeopardy if their individual positions as a result of political transformations.

Ruling elites and their security forces also make predictions concerning the attendant implications of repressing opposition groups. At this particular juncture, Bellin proposes that a comparatively declined degree of political mobilization in the Middle

East is introduced: When the masses move around the streets in popularized protests and demonstrations, the political implications of suppressing opposition are less. It is imperative therefore that the final phases of the Iranian revolution was not violent, as 69

! when throngs of people were protesting against the shah, the military refrained from opening fire on them.

International Influences

While ‘transitions theory’ places emphasis on the decisions of political leaders in authoritarian regimes, Posusney and Angrist (2005) elucidates that the political choices of external players are also significant in the status quo of authoritarian regimes. She alludes to a positive position that international agencies occupy via election observation, which has been instrumental in restricting election rigging in some nations. Langohr (2005) posits on the other hand that some good willed foreign agencies have inadvertently played a significant part in keeping incumbent authoritarian rulers in power. Indeed, election monitors may not be able to instil much–or any significant–democratic principles to a given regime (as can be seen in many postSoviet states, the elections of which are monitored by armies of Western election observers). Stalin is known to have said in 1923 that “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything” (p. 34).

Despite their well intentions, election observers, in the end, merely observe rather than count the votes and authoritarian regimes appear to be well aware of this reality.

Bellin (2004) and Brownlee (2007) maintain that sustenance of Middle

Eastern authoritarian regimes is a deliberate Western policy. Bellin maintains that persistent diplomatic backing for incumbent authoritarian regimes is a major advantage enjoyed by Middle East authoritarian leaders in comparison to their current and past counterparts in other places. Richards (2002) refers to military support as a

“strategic rent,” which adds to the fiscal prosperity of the security paraphernalia of some countries. He states that this aid is as a result of two vital Western strategic 70

! issues: the permanence of hydrocarbon supplies and curbing the Islamist threat.

Brownlee (2007) reinforces this issue, especially in the current perspective of the

U.S.-led antiterrorism campaign. In Brownlee’s four scenarios of regime restabilization, however, it is not international backing provided to the ruling elites; instead, their lack of dependence on external benefactors allowed their choice of violence. As such, it is not actually the international support but instead it is the absence of international containments and checks on the ability of the leaders or a certain tacit support to resort to brutality that is the functional factor in his assessment.

This deficiency of checks can develop either as a result of active Western backing for authoritarian regimes or as due to the independence of the authoritarian regimes from the Western patrons. It is important to note here that irrespective of the strong backing provided by the United States to the Shah in Iran prior to the Islamic revolution, the regime still fell as a result of internal dissent and wide spread disillusion with the rapid Westernization policies of the Shah’s government. At the same time, the Shah’s fall coincided with an ambivalent period in U.S. foreign policy where consideration for human rights ideals was selectively utilized. Thus Western support for the Shah, given the widespread criticism of key Iranian and international civil society actors, appears to have also been losing strength towards the end of his reign. In this case it can be seen that international involvement is sometimes detrimental to the popular support for authoritarian regimes with poor claims to legitimacy. However, in the

Saudi Arabian context it is seen that international backing and involvement has not been detrimental to the monarchy as a result of the welfare state rentier system implemented to reduce dissent and apathy to political affairs and a string emphasis on the pro Arab political perspective seen in the support to Palestinians divergent from the apparent position of the United States. 71

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Section Summary

A comprehensive review of this and other literature reveals some relevant bases for comparison of the two monarchic states of Iran and Saudi Arabia and their respective socio-political contexts as well as challenges that are probable in the course of making a credible comparison. The challenges and gaps in the first two topics shall be elucidated below.

Summary of Islamic Revolutions and the Iranian Islamic Revolution

There were many violent Islamic movements in the 1970s and 1980s, encompassing well known Muslim countries like Syria, Egypt and Iran. But most are better expressed as coups d’état. Only in Iran did unrest develop into all out revolution and the putting in place of an Islamic theocracy. Munson (1988) writes that

Iran’s revolution developed out of conditions of popular dissatisfaction, the existing government was incapacitated, and the existence of opposition forces able to articulate popular objections and coordinate political movements (p. ix). Munson’s assessment produces perhaps the most important point made recurrently in the array of literature surveyed for this paper: Irrespective of the rhetoric, Islamic revolutions, whether informed by radicals and reformers, are basically political, not religious, in orientation.

The degree or intensity of a given revolution concerns the willingness and propensity of the movement to employ violence, on one hand, or to follow the ‘band wagon’ of the political mainstream on the other hand. Revolutionaries, or radicals, and reformers differ, however. Revolutionaries place some emphasis on foreign control and influence (a heavily observed grievance in prerevolution and even postrevolution Iran, with shouts of marg bar Amrika [“death to America”] having 72

! become a standard slogan of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and regime), while reformers characteristically place heavier attention on conformity to Islamic legislation. Like

Egypt and Pakistan, the former usually have vitriolic ties with the United States, while the latter frequently have (or aspire to) good ties with the United States. The Islamic

Republic of Iran also supports revolutionaries of other states like the Lebanese

Hezbollah, a Shi’a political party (which some states, including Israel and the United

States, consider as terroristic) and radical Shi’a factions and minorities in Iraq and

Afghanistan, while Iranian reformers have the higher tendency of being supported by

Sunni Saudi Arabia (Munson, 1988, p. 6). The themes are not mutually exclusive, nevertheless—Al Qaeda looks like introducing trends from both ends of the divide.

Bin Laden’s rhetoric places some emphasis on both foreign domination of Islam by the United State and compliance with Islamic law and is frequently anti American, yet many sources heavily depend on Saudi financiers and recruits. Saudi-connected funds are still known to be trickling into radical violent Sunni Wahhabi groups in Chechnya,

Pakistan and Afghanistan. Arjomand (1988) cites Crane Brinton to highlight the point that contemporary revolutions in the Islamic world do not take place in stagnant societies, but in those experiencing substantial social change (p. 4). Arjomand also states that irrespective of some factors combined to produce a revolutionary opening, the mode of the revolution is influenced by Islamic ideology (p. 5).

Applying the theory of Goodwin and Skocpol (1989) to the comparison of Iran and Saudi Arabia, one identifies with the notion that where Iran passed through a radical revolution which fundamentally altered significant institutions of the Iranian nation (p. 10), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may actually pass through a nonradical revolution, a revolutionary movement that is very conservative and looks for state power but which also seeks to preserve or at most to reasonably reform the existent 73

! economic, social, and cultural frameworks, without altering them fundamentally (p.

11). Sick (1985) posits that the lack of vigour and obvious progress is one of the immediate reasons behind the Islamic revolution. When governments perform optimally, radical movements move to the extremes of politics but when governments are seen through a corrupt and inept prism, drastic solutions become more feasible (p.

19).

Irrespective of the fact that there is no harmony on root causes among the literature employed regarding Islamic revolutions, there is wide spread concordance that the movements are politically oriented, but depend on Islam for a convincing ideology. This agreement will be significant or imperative in the course of assessing the opposition frameworks of Iran and Saudi Arabia in more detail in this dissertation.

The available literature on Iran’s Islamic Revolution fails to sufficiently produce a common basis for the precipitating causes of the revolution. Numerous researchers and authors agree, nevertheless, on the themes that produced the context of social turmoil and political restiveness in which the revolution took place:

1. Popular dissatisfaction and alienation, which were both functions of the

Shah’s fast modernization programs and resultant rapid economic

development and rural-urban migration of masses

2. A widening gap between the rich and the less well-to-do or the intensification

of relative deprivation

3. Nationalist bitterness towards foreign domination, corruption, perceived

weakness and repressiveness of the then Pahlavi cabinet

4. Islamic revival (which happened at the same time as the societal developments

shaped by rapid modernization and migration to the urban areas and the 74

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ensuing clashes of traditionalism with modernism and religiosity with

secularism)

5. The charismatic leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, which reinforced the

opposition and made it capable of exploiting the weaknesses of the regime

Summary of Revolutions and Revolutionary Theories

Revolutions and the attendant theories associated with the socio-political phenomenon are seen by this researcher as appropriate tools or concepts for conducting a comparative study of revolutionary Iran of the late 1970s and contemporary Saudi Arabia. This is owed to the fact that the base of the study involves assessing the tendency of an outbreak of a revolution in Saudi Arabia; basing the results of this study on the success of a comparative study weighed against a previous revolution that had occurred in Iran (a country with a similar socio-political milieu). It is apparent and arguable that previous revolutions have been theoretically assessed or analyzed (including the Iranian Islamic Revolution exploited as a comparative base in this study) and provide a causal framework for having a clearer comprehension (though not necessarily predicting) of the circumstances that would most feasibly trigger the outbreak of a revolution in Saudi Arabia.

It has previously been stated in the course of this paper that predictions are not necessarily dependable when dealing with issues concerning human behaviour or interaction. This is the impedance generated by the human agency factor, which holds that it is impossible to determine the behaviour of individuals under certain circumstances. Moreover, the functionality approach of countries holds that society is akin to a sentient organism and learns in a similar fashion to how people also learn.

Therefore, countries also learn from past events and establish measures policies that 75

! help deter similar circumstances from occurring in their respective countries in future.

It is then arguable to state that Saudi Arabia learned from the case of Iran’s Islamic

Revolution that ousted the Shah and took preemptive steps to eliminate any threat to the Saudi monarchy.

Revolutionary theories can be used to explain and understand the reasons, the processes as well as the outcomes of revolutions that have occurred in the past.

However, it is not possible for current theories to predict the future occurrence of revolutions. This is primarily because not all revolutionary situations that have happened in the past have culminated in revolutions. In addition, there are other factors that are unique to a specific situation such as political culture, uniqueness and chance (Goldstone, 1994). Goldstone further notes that revolutionary theories are formulated using the data that are collected from past revolutions and the attempt to apply them on future ones is quite problematic.

Summary of Social Movement Theories

In Saudi Arabia, social movements of dissent against the Al Saud regime have been on the forefront for some time now. According to Fandy (1999a), some of the dissent movements in Saudi Arabia include the Committee for the Defense of

Legitimate Rights, Advice and Reform Committee, the Shi’a Reform Movement, and the Movement for the Islamic reform. Fandy (1999b) notes that many of these emergent social movements in have existed as cyber movements and mobilization of followers is predominantly through the World Wide Web. However, social movements in Saudi Arabia have failed to be as effective and revolutionary as those in Iran because the regime has succeed in fragmenting, separating and co-opting these 76

! movements (Fandy, 1999a). This undermines their ability to influence and mobilize resources and the masses to undertake any decisive action against the regime.

The irony in the Saudi Arabian case is the fact that many of the emerging social movements of protest are based on Islamism and religious fundamentalism.

Saudi Arabia is a Muslim state and is governed by Islamic law. However, the social movements of protest are in opposition of Islam’s role in the legitimization of the Al-

Saud monarchy. In the case of Iran, social movements of dissent opposed a secular government, such as that of the Shah before the revolution. Therefore, the role of

Islam in protest movements is seen as paradoxical since Saudi Arabia and the current regime is based on Islam and, to a large extent, Islamic religious fundamentalism. The

Islamic social movements in Arabia may clearly perceive the manipulative tactics being applied by the Saudi monarchy through the calculated use of the religious establishment as tool to quell dissent and buy public docility (Dekmejian, 1994).

However, even in a seemingly stable authoritarian monarchy such as the Al

Saud regime, the government has long been aware of the influence that the emergent social movements of opposition have in creating public dissatisfaction. With this, the monarchy is aware that in order to remain relevant and challenge any possible forms of opposition, it needs to gradually introduce some reforms. Oil revenues, which the regime is heavily reliant on for the suppression of dissent, are becoming more volatile on the global market and “decades of economic mismanagement, endemic corruption and wasteful expenditure have greatly reduced the basis of their infrastructural powers” (Khalaf, 2003, p. 553).

The social movement theory is also relevant in the case of both Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Al Saud regime has consistently ensured that state revenue, especially that which is gained from oil rentierism, is evenly distributed throughout the society. 77

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This ensures that there are no wide economic margins, which are often the root cause of dissent in undemocratic states. In addition to buying public docility, distribution of economic resources ensures that the society does not become fragmented along economic lines and therefore the established social order is maintained.

The Shah in Iran failed to maintain this equilibrium as state revenue was not fairly distributed across the Iranian society. As a result, there emerged large divisions in terms of economic status, where the urban and rural poor grew increasingly marginalized and poor while the ruling elite became even more prosperous.

Furthermore, more state revenue was being directed towards the Shah’s radical modernization projects, which further alienated a still largely traditional society from the ruling class (Tullock, 2009).

According to the social movement theories, dissatisfaction and dissent within the masses grows in the same proportion, as there is reduction of per capita income and the even and fair distribution of national resources. As the Iranians perceived themselves as not sufficiently benefiting from the revenue accrued from the oil resources, they became increasingly dissatisfied and the situation precipitated the onset of the 1979 revolution (Tulloch, 2009). The Al Saud regime has on its part successfully maintained this economic equilibrium where rents are distributed across the society and the margin between the rich and poor is fairly minimal.

The Al Saud regime has also learned valuable lessons from situations that have occurred in other Arab and Muslim countries that have been the cause of revolutions and political turbulence. Empowering the religious establishment in Saudi

Arabia can largely be seen as a precautionary measure that was undertaken after observing the precedents of the political revolution in Iran. The Shah repressed the authority of the religious establishment in Iran and therefore his regime lost 78

! legitimacy with the masses. The Al Saud regime has not only managed to give relative influential power to the ulama (Muslim leaders), but also ensured that they are under the employment of the regime, which means that they are directly answerable to the Al Saud leadership (Tullock, 2009). However, with some measure of power, the Saudi ulama can only exercise their influence to the extent that it does not upset the policies of the regime.

The Al Saud regime’s use of caution in starting modernization practices and projects can be perceived as a lesson learnt from the drastic measures undertaken by the Iranian Shah to modernize Iran. The regime also ensures the equitable distribution of rents across the Saudi population, a practice that the Shah regime failed sufficiently to undertake. Therefore, even in the cases where the existing political and social revolutionary theories do not adequately explain why some authoritarian regimes persist while others do not, they can be used to predict the future behaviour of societies in similar situations and therefore the regimes are able to use these lessons to strengthen their authoritarian rule.

Summary of Regime Stability Theories

An assessment of the various theoretical analyses concerning the concept of regime stability with a specific emphasis on the Middle Eastern political context is very important to an objective investigation into the tendency for the occurrence of an

Islamic revolution in Iran determined to a larger extent by a capacity of the Saudi

Monarchy to maintain its hold on power irrespective of the inevitable challenges and resistance efforts. Some theoretical contributions allude to reduced economic performance (Haggard & Kaufman, 1995) as a highly important causal factor for the provocation of mass uprisings or demonstrations that efficiently elevates the 79

! implication of coercion to undermine the capacity of a regime to stake its claim of legitimacy. This was visible in Iran prior to the Islamic revolution but this may not necessarily be the case in current Saudi Arabia as the economic performance far surpasses what is held as a failure. Nevertheless, other equally important causal mechanisms will be reviewed to aid the validity of the results of this study.

The mounting pressure to modernize and democratize, which is largely emanating from the Western world, is seen as an influential aspect on the regime stability in the

Middle East. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the monarchy has successfully maintained a crucial balance between Western pressure and traditional values and beliefs (Tulloch,

2009). The Al Saud regime has ensured that there is minimal influence of Western ideas in the Saudi society which is largely traditional. The regime does this by maintaining a closed society in addition to buying public docility. The Shah’s regime on its part failed to do so by undertaking drastic modernization projects within the society. This opened the Iranians to Western ideas, which were perceived as being contrary to the still dominant traditional and religious beliefs of the society.

In addition to creating anti-Western sentiments, the modernization projects further opened Iran to democratic expressions of dissent such as publicly speaking against the regime. This situation was hijacked by the religious fundamentalists who instigated the people to demand the removal of the Shah. The religious fundamentalists were able to mobilize and organize large masses of Iranians to participate in public demonstrations and riots demanding for a more inclusive government. The Western influence on Saudi Arabia has not been extensive, because of the closed and traditional society that is Saudi Arabia. However, this stable situation is constantly under threat primarily because of the regime’s association with the West particularly the United States (Tulloch, 2009). !

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! FOUR: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF IRAN-SAUDI RELATIONS

As a result of numerous political and cultural disagreements all through history, relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran have been strained. Saudi Arabia and

Iran set up some considerable diplomatic relations as early as 1928. In 1966, King

Faisal of Saudi Arabia paid a visit to Iran with the purpose of further reinforcing the relationship that had previously existed between the two countries (Lewis, 1988). The then Shah of Iran returned the gesture by officially visiting Saudi Arabia which eventually resulted in a peaceful resolution of the Persian Gulf’s islands of Arabia and

Farsi. An agreement was arrived at between Iran and Saudi Arabia that the island of

Farsi would be under the ownership and authority of Iran and the island of Arabia would be under the possession of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The unparalleled aspect of the agreement is that it was only concerned with the territorial water to the

Islands but it failed to designate the continental shelf to any of the aforementioned islands. Furthermore, in 1968, when Great Britain declared her intention of a withdrawal and vacation from the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia and Iran took the basic responsibility for ensuring peace and security in the subregion (Cottam, 1988).

In the course of the 1970s, Saudi Arabia’s primary concern over Iran was

Iran’s modernisation of its armed forces and its military supremacy throughout the region. Secondly, Iran’s reclamation of the Islands of Little Tunb, Big Tunb, and Abu

Moussa in 1971 was seen as a challenge to the claim of the United Arab Emirates over the same. It is more significant to note, however, that the ties between Iran and

Saudi Arabia were never really as friendly as they were between the 1968 and 1979. 81

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Following the Iranian revolution in the year 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini and other prominent Iranian leaders explicitly opposed and criticised the nature and religious legitimacy of the Saudi regime (Bakhash, 2006).

Also following the developments of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the foreign policy of Iran was altered significantly. In numerous cases diplomatically-opposed and rival Arab nations turned to a more cooperative nature with Iran, while some hitherto ally nations reduced the degree of their support. Ayatollah Khomeini, who was the then leader of the Islamic revolution and founder of the newly formed Islamic

Republic of Iran tantamount to its premier supreme leader pronounced openly that the monarchy is a contradiction to the concept and values of Islam (Bakhash, 2006). As such, Arab leaders came up with an antagonistic attitude towards the newly formed

Islamic Republic of Iran. The Ayatollah’s notion of supporting the mustaz’afeen (“the downtrodden”) who are wronged or oppressed individuals in opposition to the mustakbareen (“arrogant people”) resulted in numerous problems with neighbouring nations, since some Arab regimes were being judged by major Iranian jurists to belong to the latter category (Mottahedeh, 2000). Ayatollah Khomeini was blatant in his pursuit to export the Islamic Revolution to other regions of the Muslim world.

Consequently, in the course of the early 1980s, Iran found herself in isolation both internationally and regionally. This economic and diplomatic isolation increased considerably in the course of the Iran-Iraq War in which virtually all Arab nations, apart from Syria, were in support of Iraq both economically and logistically on a moral basis. According to some observers, Saddam Hussein was involved in the fight on behalf of other Arab nations that perceived the Islamic Republic as a probable threat to their stability. 82

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In the later periods of the 1980s and early periods of the 1990s, the revolutionary enthusiasm and morale cooled off and a level of pragmatism was taken up by the policy makers of Iran. In the course of the presidency of Akbar Hashemi

Rafsanjani and that of Mohammad Khatami, the foreign policy of Iran moved to bring down international tensions and Iran sought to normalize its ties with its Arab neighbours. When the United States invaded Iraq, waging war on that country with a coalition of like-minded states, in the early 1990s, it unconsciously increased the political influence of Iran in the Middle East subregion (Mottahedeh, 2000).

From 2000 until present, Iran’s status has been totally altered. The most considerable aspect has been the decision of the Bush administration to carry out a military assault on Iraq in 2003, which resulted in the fall of Saddam Hussein who was a Ba’athist leader with considerable pan-Arab sympathies and heavily determined to balance the regional influence of Shi’a Iran. Following the deposition of Saddam from the throne, Iran discovered that a major obstacle to its expansion was eliminated

(Ayoob, 2008). This provided Iran with an excellent chance of emerging as a major political player in the region with an Islamic ideology capable of filling the void left by the three ideological currents of socialism, nationalism, and Marxism in the Middle

East particularly among the Shi’a. Haass (2006) stated that Iran would become one of the two most influential states in the Middle East. The influence of Iran and her affiliate groups in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq has strengthened. Furthermore, some Arab states—encompassing Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE—united against Iran, aided by the United States. Other Arab nations, particularly those in Africa, persisted in having normal relations with Iran.

Another feature of tension between Shi’a-Iran and Sunni-Arab nations has been sectarianism. Added to the fact that in the course of the early periods of the 83

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Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini sought to close the divide between Shi’as and

Sunnis by opposing all the Caliphs who preceded Ali. Nevertheless, the power of Iran on Shi’a communities external to its borders and the territorial attrition with Arab neighbours among other issues stay as major sources of tension in the Iran-Saudi

Arabia ties (Fuertig, 2006).

Hegemony and Rivalry in Saudi-Iran Relations

Irrespective of the aforementioned concerning Saudi-Iran relations, in providing an elaborate elucidation on Saudi-Iranian political affairs over the past decades, one has to take into consideration three significant factors. The primary factor is the regional, strategic aspect: three powers, namely Saudi Arabia, Iran and

Iraq all located in the oil-rich Persian Gulf. They have for some considerable duration of time been local rivals for dominance and hegemony. A larger portion of the realist logic of a balancing play can be applied to this political triangle.

The second issue concerns ideology, although one must be cautious in selecting the most appropriate type of ideology. For instance, numerous people stress religious arguments, which are significant in an active mode, but fall short of explaining the changes in alliances above, coupled with extended periods of harmonious coexistence between the Sunni and Shi’a realms (Okruhlik, 2003, p. 116).

Rather, the explanatory partition in previous periods was between conservatism (or status, the Pahlavis and the Al Saud) and radicalism (or anti status quo, first the

Nassarist kind of pan-Arabism, then a sort of Ba’ athist nationalism, and finally

Khomeinism). Important is, for instance, Tehran’s keenness to pacify secularly ruled, but similarly anti status quo Arab nations such as Libya and Syria, while downplaying the significance of Islam in these relations (Ehteshami, 1995). Secondly, and 84

! connected, there was a significant domestic urgency to exploit the edge of virtue, not just in Iran where it was required to summon support for a regime seeking to reinforce its power, but also in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the 1979 Islamic

Revolution occurred simultaneously with interior opposition which in the November of the same year showed itself or emerged in the seizure of the Grand Mosque

(Fuertig, 2002). Consequently, King Fahd saw the imperative of polishing up his

Islamic credentials. Furthermore, the current disrespect of the Islamic ‘edge’ in mutual relations, even against the backdrop of reinforcing sectarian strife in Iraq, aids in the explanation of the progressive pragmatism between Riyadh and Tehran

(Hertog, 2009, p. 52).

The third issue of significance is the international terrain. A large part of the

Middle East has been under some form of colonization by Western powers (although not Saudi Arabia and Iran) and the Cold War expressed itself quite substantially in the subregion. Prior to the advent of the Islamic Revolution, Iran and Saudi Arabia were both strongly in the Western camp; certainly both nations were necessary blocs in the twin-pillar policy of the United States (Al-Suwaidi, 1996, p. 136). There was already a trace of rivalry between the two states with regard to dominance and hegemony in the Persian Gulf and leadership of OPEC, but similar interests of both monarchies ensured that such rivalry remained low key. It is fascinating to know that the Al Saud at first offered congratulations to Ayatollah Khomeini on his victory and highly praised the founding of an Islamic Republic. This, on the other hand, shifted swiftly when it was obvious that Khomeini was diametrically opposed to what he referred to as the ‘American Islam’ of the Gulf monarchies (Ehteshami & Wright, 2007). It is not uncommon that relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have witnessed an improvement in the course of the 1990s, although there is some considerable 85

! argument about the actual timing and agency of these apparent improvements. Some provide the suggestion that the rapprochement emerged with the 1997 election of

Mohammad Khatami, but this is problematic for numerous reasons. One, the Iraqi incursion or assault on Kuwait was very significant. Second, it was obvious that many in the Iranian regime were advocating for change in regional policy prior to the eventual death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 (Ehteshami & Wright, 2007, p. 130).

On a final note, the significance of the ‘succession’ by Crown Prince Abdullah following the stroke that affected King Fahd in the year 1995 is usually underestimated. Hence, it is arguable and quite fair to say that numerous factors between 1988 and the culmination if the millennium aided this apparent improvement of relations (Hinnebusch & Ehteshami, 2002, p. 52).

Two crucial factors, however, have made these improvements uncertain and wary. One is that, while the Saudi Kingdom was strongly protected by the U.S. security umbrella, Iran was a significant and vital adversary of the United States in the

Gulf. The second aspect in the mix was that in the course of the 1990s, increasing economic troubles in both Saudi Arabia and Iran (while more imperative in the latter) and the abridged leverage capacity of OPEC ended in vehement competition between

Arab states of the Gulf and Iran. It was these identical economic challenges that kicked off a drive for economic development in other avenues and the required foreign investments necessary for a stable regional terrain (Hinnebusch, 2006). As such, others in the Gulf saw the fact that they possessed a firm stake in the pragmatism that was emerging. Others have posited that the primary challenge to regional cooperation has been washing away too. Okruhlik (2003), for example, posits that the rapprochement between Iran and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia should partly be elucidated via increasing Saudi disillusionment with the United States and its 86

! policies concerning Israel, Iraq and the problem in Afghanistan. Furthermore, recently there has been an argument in both the press and academia concerning the increasing influence of China in the Gulf (Niblock, 2005, p. 170), which could turn into the central ally for Iran and Saudi Arabia, respectively.

Saudi Arabia has an extensive history of playing off various external powers and that, meanwhile, the unique ties between the United States and the Saudi

Kingdom have mainly stayed undisturbed and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, whereas Iran in the course of the 1990s maintained a lot of its foreign ties, the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has hugely reversed this progress (Fawcett, 2005). While it is luring in lieu of this to suggest that Saudi-Iranian relations will be cast in bitter rivalry once more, the current state of affairs reveals that this has only very limitedly been the case. While Iran is surely disillusioned with

Saudi diplomacy in such instances of the 2006 Lebanon war (the Saudis vehemently condemned the ideology and actions of Hezbollah) and Saudi involvement in the

Palestinian internal disputes and skirmishes between Fatah and Hamas, thus further limiting the influence of Iran, Iranians have stayed outstandingly mute in both instances (Halliday, 2005). As a matter of fact, Saudi-Iranian cooperation has been vital and imperative in aiding to ease friction in Lebanon particularly (Okruhlik, 2003, p. 118). Similarly, Saudi Arabia has been cautious or wary of the nuclear ambitions of

Iran and its meddling in Iraq, but has cautiously stayed on talking terms with the

Iranians, intending to contain the ambitions of Iran, but simultaneously not willing to clash with it (Halliday, 2005).

Significantly, it is worth stating that the Saudi Arabian elite for the most part see the ambitions of Iran as power politics, not a quest for sectarian hegemony and influence. And whereas Ahmadinejad has placed himself in the international view as 87

! the mouthpiece of the deprived, whether Muslim or not, placing attention on anti imperialism and fairness for the world’s south as a hero of a long gone era (Hiro,

2007), he has achieved this without assaulting the Al Saud or other monarchies in the

Gulf. As a result, while the heart felt animosity that existed in the 1980s has mainly disappeared, Saudi Arabia and Iran stay steeped in distinct trenches and as such lack of trust and suspicion will persist in the orientation of bilateral ties (Gause, 1991).

However, as both the ideological orientation and regional environment involving both nations have shifted quite considerably since the 1980s, there is space for common interests and cautious, pragmatic cooperation.

FIVE: THE CASE OF THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION

This section is designed as a review of the tendency for an Iranian-style revolution to spread into Saudi Arabia, as a condition resulting in an impact to the entire Gulf region. It is thus necessary to comprehend the orientation of the Iranian revolution and its impact on the Persian Gulf region, which could potentially create an enabling environment for the replication exporting of the Iranian revolution to Saudi

Arabia and the Gulf region as a whole.

Importance of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

The Iranian revolution was very significant due to its historical relevance as the only major revolution in the Middle East involving religion as a social mobilization tool for removing an autocratic regime from power. Irrespective of the aforementioned, it is necessary to note here that the Iranian revolution is unique within academic circles based on the fact that its emergence was not anticipated or arguably predicted by most analysts. In this way, its unpredictable occurrence is not unlike the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, also largely unpredicted by nearly all major academic and policy and intelligence circles. Added to this, the Iranian revolution was also uniquely a nonviolent revolution (at least in its formation and in the events leading to the fall of the Pahlavi regime) in comparison to previous revolutions and coupled with the fact that it was largely an urban social phenomenon that involved minimal contribution from the rural peasant population.

Finally, another significant characteristic of the Iranian revolution that gives it credence and prominence in academic discourse is the fact that there was no external 89

! involvement and influence from other states or external powers, such as the United

States, Russia or any other country.

The Islamic Revolution of Iranian Islamic revolution is a turning point in contemporary Middle Eastern annals. The Iranian revolution was among the most unusual among the political events based on the fact that it was in every sense a real social and political revolution in contrast to the French and Chinese revolutions.

Furthermore, the impact of the Iranian Islamic revolution like that of the French and

Russian revolutions was not curtailed by the limits of its national borders (Gause,

1991, p. 25).

One of the regional implications of the revolution is that it considerably altered or transformed the regional politics of the Gulf. The Iranian revolution annihilated the American-Iranian alliance, which was one of the two foundations of the U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf region. The Iranian revolution also brought into the fray, a hitherto unknown global oil crisis, with oil prices almost doubling around 1978 and 1980. It directly resulted in the development of the Iran-Iraq war (given the young

Saddam Hussein’s perception of vulnerability of Iranian security forces and Iran’s blatant call for the export of its revolution to neighbouring states), which was not just an altercation over ideology or even regional hegemony but was a race over the political spoils of the Persian Gulf. This new dawn saw revolutionary Iran in contention and direct antagonism to the position of Ba’athist Arab nationalism in Iraq and monarchies in the states of the Persian Gulf. Iran formed alliances out of former foes even if these were temporary and changed the structure of regional alignments developed in the 70s. The implications of the Iran-Iraq war, which carried on for almost 8 years, brought on huge economic and financial costs and about 1 million casualties and more than 400,000 wounded. 90

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The war left the Persian Gulf deprived by as much as hundreds of billions of dollars in unactualised oil production, physical damage to infrastructure and wasted economic resources. Nevertheless, the political and economic effects of the war paled in comparison with its destructive impacts on human and economic resources and in the end, neither Iran nor Iraq could force its will on the other. Gause (1991) looked at the regional and international impacts of the Iranian revolution, which were both immediate and remote in relation to the regional politics, the world oil market and the impacts of the revolution on the policies of the super powers in the region.

Political Impact on the Persian Gulf

After the removal of the Shah from power and the return of Ayatollah

Khomeini from France in 1979, the revolutionaries took control of the state, and every other state in the region felt the effect of Iran’s revolutionary policies. Iran was seen as the greatest nation among the Shi’a in the Arab states and as such, the domestic political effect was more apparent in the Shi’a majority states such as Iraq and

Bahrain, and in states with important Shi’a minority communities such as Lebanon,

Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In terms of the regional regimes such as in Saudi Arabia, the tendency of a popular revolution akin to that promoted by Iran threatening to oust them from power was a real threat. This threat was more pronounced on the basis that

Tehran was encouraging or inciting similar revolutions in neighbouring states. The bid by Tehran to export the revolution led to significant changes in the domestic and foreign policies of all Arab states in the Persian Gulf (Gause, 1991, p. 30).

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The Iranian Revolution and Oil Markets

Irrespective of the impact of the Iranian revolution on the Persian Gulf, it is apparent that it had a greater impact on world oil markets. Oil prices had flattened out in the mid-1970s following the oil shock of 1973 to 1974, with relatively minimal price rises from 1975 to 1978. Then after that, labour strikes in the Iranian oil sector dictated by the revolution started in 1978 and led to a fall from 6 mbd in September to

2.4 mbd in December 1978 (Gause, 1991, p. 52). The anarchy created by the revolution drove Iranian oil production down to below 1 mbd in January and February

1979, recovering a little in March 1979 to 2.4 mbd but not in any way close to level prior to the outbreak of the revolution. In the following 6 months, almost about 10% of world oil production, equivalent to Iran’s prerevolutionary portion, was de facto taken out of the world market. This shows the drastic and significant impact of the

Iranian revolution on the global oil supply and to the Gulf and perhaps the world in general (Lesch, 2001).

Causes of the Iranian Revolution

Numerous deductions exist among scholars and commentators on the Middle

Eastern context concerning the various causal factors responsible for the outbreak of the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979. The Iranian revolution has been portrayed as the last greatest revolution of the 20th century and has been deemed the exemplary model of emulation in the Islamic world. In order to be able to juxtapose the Iranian revolution to a potential revolution in Saudi Arabia one has to dissect the revolution’s underlying causes.

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Based on the review of the literature on revolutions and the Iranian revolution in particular, I contend that one has to differentiate between permissive causes and active causes of revolution. Permissive causes are circumstances that allow or give an opportunity for the intervention of certain actors, like the Shah’s rule, his lack of political legitimacy, the perceived fading of U.S. support, the effects of the white revolution (modernization), and economic downturn. These are conditions conducive to revolution. The active elements that actually made use of the window of opportunity available from the conjunction of several political, economic, and social forces are clearly the decisive elements in the revolutionary process: the multiclass opposition coalition, the resources produced through the ulama-bazari alliance, and the charismatic leadership of Khomeini with his unique application of an Islamic theory of revolution. An equally important aspect that falls into this last category of active elements is the Shah’s inconsistent or limited response to pressures on his regime.

Permissive Causes

Autocratic and repressive rule. For one, the Shah’s autocratic and patrimonial rule is widely viewed to be an underlying factor. Reza Shah Pahlavi

(1925-1941, the father of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, the last king of the two king dynasty) maintained total control over the majlis (Parliament), the cabinet, the bureaucracy, and political parties. His son’s rule brought restricted freedom, arbitrary decisions, political repression (through the use of the secret police, SAVAK), corruption, cronyism, and bureaucratic inefficiency, and the growing gap between the economic classes are cited by many observers as ultimate forces that finally led to his downfall (Bashiriyeh, 1984; Kamrava, 1992, pp. 9-22). 93

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Lack of political legitimacy. Second, claim to legitimacy of his dynasty was irreparably damaged after the U.S.-engineered August 1953 coup, which overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohamad Mussadeq, the Prime Minister at the time and put the young Shah back on the throne. The coup, also known by its code name “Operation Ajax,” jointly organized by the CIA and British intelligence, MI5, returned the exploitation of Iran’s oil to a consortium of Western oil companies

(Arjomand, 1988, p. 63; Halliday, 1979, pp. 26-27).

U.S. pressure and inconsistent policy response. In the mid-1970s human rights organizations and the Western press started a campaign against violations of human rights in Iran and criticized the Shah for the mistreatment of political prisoners. The Carter administration’s objective was to compel the Shah to be more observant of human rights without destabilizing Iran or jeopardizing the close ties between the two countries. As a result of the increasing criticism, the Shah decided to permit a limited amount of public discourse. The problem with the Shah’s liberalization process was that the public perceived it as a weakening element in his rule (Green, 1982; Munson, 1988). The Shah was determined to get ingratiated with a new U.S. patron (President Carter), who made no secret of his resentment for infamous antecedents of the regime in regard to human rights and leadership upon assuming office. The Shah on realizing this took some steps aimed at reorienting his policies to appease the new U.S. government that appeared to be a loss of direction and confidence by the Shah’s regime. He may have succeeded in appeasing the

Americans, but surely not his own people and opponents—chief among them

Ayatullah Ruhullah Khomeini—who saw his liberalizing moves as a sign of weakness and hence an opportunity for regime change.

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Modernization and Westernization. It has also been argued that the Shah’s massive modernization program and his emphasis on Westernization alienated large parts of Iranian society. The main aim of the so-called White Revolution of 1962, which was meant to be a modernization program implemented by the Shah, was to redistribute the land to landless peasants. Besides not fully succeeding in that respect, it created a rift between the Shah and the religious establishment. Many, especially the ulama (Muslim clergy) that had owned a lot of property (including some 40,000 charitable endowments) from which they had been deriving major income through religious taxation, were thus now being deprived of their financial independence.

Along those lines, the Shah set forth to Westernize Iranian society and pattern it along

American lines. This process of the Americanization of Iranian society was designed with the help of American planners. Among other things that irked some Iranians was the fact that military personnel and U.S. advisers were granted personal immunity.

However, the Shah did not realize that modernization as a process—and a Western pro-American version of it, while creating a political environment feasible for its own growth—neglected the importance of religion and culture in society (Keddie, 1981, pp. 160-167; Parsa, 1989).

Uneven development and economic downturn. Last but not least, economic factors led to the subsequent fall of the Pahlavi dynasty. Although industrial development did take place in Iran, it proceeded very unevenly and was dependent on the state, oil revenues, and external technology. The oil sector expanded primarily in response to the world market rather than to domestic demands. Partially as a result of this, Iran experienced a phase of hyperinflation, growing unemployment, a rising cost of living, and an erosion of business confidence, resulting in capital flight of and estimated more than U.S. $100 million or more a month during by 1975-1976 and a 95

! decline of private investments. Strikes by the oil workers and bank employees led to the final blow to the regime’s well being (Amjad, 1989; Amuzegar, 1991; Katouzian,

1981).

Active Causes

Multiclass opposition coalition. Some scholars contend that the broad and rapidly congealed coalition forces that overthrew the Shah were a decisive factor. The diversity of opposition cultures was reflected in the language of dissent and protest, which was largely antimonarchy, antiimperialist, third-worldist, nationalistic and religious. The unifying aim of all groups was to oust the Shah. Only the massive rate of participation made the revolution possible. This was achieved through the disciplined and coordinated use of primary nonviolent tactics despite the repression directed against it (Foran, 1993a, pp. 22-34).

Ulama-bazaari alliance. Two social groups that were very much affected by the Shahs rule/policies, the bazaaris (conservative, religious merchants) and the ulama (mullah, Iranian Shi’a clergy), established close ties and this proved to be a formidable alliance. This alliance often took the form of a strong financial linkage between the two groups, with the bazaaris paying their tithes to the ulama. Although the bazaaris did not contribute to the revolutionary movement as an independent political force, they rendered critical financial support to those who took part in revolutionary activities, especially high ranking clergy. The mullah-mosque network in turn served as the leadership and organizational backbone for the opposition to the government. Iran’s estimated 8,000 mosques provided a neutral, informal nationwide communication network. The mosques served as centers for dissent, political organization, agitation, and sanctuary (Hussain, 1985, p. 76). 96

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The bazaar and the mosque have been two fundamental arenas of public life in urban Iran for some centuries. The two of them made up the context in which city dwellers structured their communal life tantamount to the orientation of their political allegiances or loyalties. This combination of the bazaar and the mosque has been the major force informing such major political movements in the contemporary history of

Iran like the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911, the oil nationalization movement of 1950-1953 and finally the events leading to the Islamic revolution of

1978-1979, respectively.

Revolutionary Islamic discourse. In this context, revolutionary Shiite Islam transformed into a discursive ideology transcending class differences and social divisions, and providing an effective channel of communication between the leaders and followers (through its symbolic structure, its rituals and calendar, and its theme of martyrdom). Events and incidents that symbolize the importance of Islam within the revolutionary context of Iran and which had an impact on the course of events were, for example: The minister of Information planted an article in a daily newspaper attacking Khomeini and discrediting him. This led to sit-ins of religious students in

Qum, which in turn led to violent repression from the side of the Shah. Another example is that of several hundred demonstrators who were killed during peaceful gatherings in early 1979, later to be known as the “Black Friday massacre” and

“Jahleh Square massacre.” The deaths of many demonstrators was used as an instrument to set forth a cycle of further protests. In a 40-day rhythm, mourning processions were staged to commemorate the deaths of protestors as heroes and martyrs (Moaddel, 1993, pp. 144-154).

Charismatic leadership of Khomeini. Of course, Ayatollah Khomeini was generally known to be viewed by many as a charismatic leader and source of 97

! inspiration for the revolutionary movement, which towards the end of the Pahlavi reign had even brought in atheists and communists as among his followers. He was one of half a dozen Shi’a Marja’i Taghlid (source of emulation), a position that enabled him to give wide publicity to his views. His significance, however, was derived primarily from his vehement political stand against the Shah, which led to his exile in 1964. Khomeini was also credited with expounding the theory of government that claimed that during the Mahdis absence, the community could only be governed by a Vali-e-faqih. He could be the only person to execute God’s will on behalf of the hidden Imam, an agency with the mandate to rule both politically and spiritually. His conceptual reformulation of the originally quietist precept was innovative (Moshiri,

1985; Salehi, 1988). No doubt, with the events leading to the 1979 Revolution,

Khomeini could no longer have been categorized as a Shi’a religious leader of the quietist category.

Exporting the Revolution

Since the main objective of this project concerns the effect of the Iranian

Islamic revolution on another comparatively employed country in the Middle East, it is then imperative to assess the orientation of the bid by the coordinators of the

Islamic revolution in Iran to export this concept or religiously oriented ideology to other countries in the subregion. After the success of the Iranian revolution, it was obvious from the proclamations of the regime in Tehran that it was actively encouraging the development of similar Islamic revolutions in neighbouring states, referred to as exporting the revolution (Gause, 1991, p. 48). This threat became apparent when a wave of popular Shi’a unrest swept over the Arab states following the demise of the Shah’s regime. 98

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Additionally, in Iraq, Shi’a protests and opposition coupled with a resultant government repressive reaction were of a very violent nature. This bid from the revolutionary government in Tehran to export the revolution goes back to the period before Ayatollah Khomeini’s coming came to power in Iran. In 1978, Khomeini appointed representatives to the Shi’a communities living in Bahrain and Kuwait but these representatives were apprehended and deported from these countries following the outbreak of Shi’a demonstrations in these countries. After the ascent of the revolutionaries to power in Iran Ayatollah Sadeq Rouhani threatened that if the government of Bahrain failed to adopt an Islamic form of government similar to that in Iran, he would compel Iran to revive its territorial claim to Bahrain. In January

1980, Iranian state Radio announced via an Arabic broadcast that it had plans to set up a force to export the Islamic revolution (Marschall, 2003, p. 49).

It is therefore apparent that at the genesis of the Islamic revolution, the leaders in Iran maintained that the Iranian Islamic state was a model to be applied by other states to the paramount objective of uniting the entire Muslim world. Marschall

(2003) stated the implication of such a vision was that monarchies such as the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in Iran had to be removed from power and it was observed that the governments, which felt more threatened, were the regimes in those countries considered as close neighbours of Iran such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

However, possibly due to the Islamic Republic’s failure to export its revolution and possibly due to the maturing of some of its political leaders who now preferred to take a more pragmatic foreign policy line, the revolutionary zeal dropped after a few years following the revolution in Iran, and the government also shifted its radical perspectives and paradigms to place more attention on the development of its own nation more importantly as a result of the Iran-Iraq war (itself, partially having 99

! occurred due the Saddam Hussein’s real perception that an Iranian-style and encouraged Shi’a Islamic Revolution could be emulated in Iraq). For Iran’s Islamic

Republic’s leadership, therefore, the attention on national interest was now preferential to ideology and the Iranian Islamic regime was now more eager to have improved relations with its neighbours.

It is now known that the Islamic Revolution of Iran could not be exported to the nations of the Gulf—and apparently to any other part of the world—but the regimes of the Gulf States were nevertheless wary of the reaction to the revolution in the wider Muslim world. The state of the issue seemed like the Iranian Islamic

Revolution was just the first of future Islamic revolutions in the region. On a general note, Iran officially (and unofficially, but through its actions) expressed a higher desire to export its the revolution to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Lebanon, and after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, as well.

All these countries had in common that they were Muslim countries with substantial portions of Shi’a populations. However, the Arab Sunni-run Persian Gulf States carried a deep distrust for a Shi’a-run Islamic Iran following numerous coup attempts, bomb explosions, acts of sabotage and assassination attempts on their soil. Toward the late 1980s, Even though these events had occurred in the early 1980s they were still fresh in the consciousnesses of the ruling class after more than 10 years, thus hampering any rapprochement. The population and living standards of its respective

Shi’a demographic determined the effect of the Iranian Islamic revolution on the other

Gulf States. Even though Ayatollah Khomeini started out to appeal to both Sunni and

Shi’a alike as Muslims, it is evident that the Shi’a in the region were deprived politically, socially and economically and were as such more accommodating of a revolutionary message seeming to better their lot (Arjomand, 1986), in addition to the 100

! fact that the Ayatollah’s message did not resonate with the Arab Sunni population, who have traditionally been hostile to Shi’as and Iranians in general.

The basic ideology and propaganda of the Iranian Islamic Revolution maintained that Orthodox Shi’ism is not only an arm of the Islamic religion but also a movement of a socio-political nature against oppression perceived to be superior because of the inability of the leaders after Prophet Mohammad to rule according to the tenets of true Islam though in the Gulf area, the ideological perspectives of

Khomeini had a higher influence amongst the Shi’a. Nevertheless, Khomeini had coined a wider universalist approach to all Muslims in inciting oppressed (mustazafin) to rise up and fight injustice. Ayatollah Khomeini called for the creation of

Islamically oriented governments devoid of the domination and influence of super powers from the West. Khomeini perceived the liberation of humankind as a divine obligation on Iran called for acknowledgement of the Arab world of Iran’s spiritual propriety and political primacy. In order to achieve these aims and objectives,

Ayatollah Khomeini necessitated the export of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, and even emphasized it as a divine or holy obligation (Foran, 1994).

The specific meaning or definition of exporting the revolution as put out by

Khomeini is not comprehensible since the government’s perspective was that Iran should be the model for other nations and that the revolutionary message be spread by word alone. However, other groups such as the Revolutionary Guard carried out armed attacks and acts of sabotage. Ayatollah Khomeini’s objective, in turn, was to enlighten Muslims of their rights inherent in their liberation from the domination of super powers and autocratic oppression but it is not easy to ascertain the extent the

Ayatollah actually sanctioned the employment of violence by the revolutionary

Guards or if they derailed from this directive or misunderstood it (Marshall, 2003). 101

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Even if he may not have ordered or condoned acts of violence by the Revolutionary

Guard, he did not forbid such acts nor punish their perpetrators, hence giving his tacit agreement.

The Iranian Islamic Revolution, however, failed to be exported as was earlier anticipated by many inside and outside of Iran or planned by Iranian revolutionary leaders and numerous reasons are behind why the revolution failed to be exported to the other states in the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia. In the first instance, a larger proportion of the population in the Gulf states were not accommodating of the appeal of the Shah concerning Iran’s revolution. The largest threats to the regimes in the region had been Ayatollah Khomeini’s attention or focus on the lower class and the call for social equality and increased political participation and representation. The states that felt the larger part of the effect were Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.

The Saudi government curtailed mass dissent by enhancing living conditions in the poor Shi’a Haha province and closely monitored the Shi’a community. The Shi’a in

Kuwait were surprised by the violence expounded by some Shi’a cohorts and revealed a sense of satisfaction upon acquiring political participation in the reinstituted

National Assembly. In Bahrain, the situation was curtailed after the opposition was repressed in the early 1980s but larger opposition emerged again in the mid-1990s.

Another factor that contributed to the failure to export the Islamic Revolution in the

Gulf was seen in the fading interest within Iran in toppling regimes and establishing new Islamic states. The trend of supporting a cultural export of the revolution started in the mid-1980s when focus was turned to the Iran-Iraq war and Iran came to the realization that its neighbours were in support of an Arab aggressor to the detriment of a Persian enemy and hence not expressing any desire to emulate the Iranian model.

After the Iran-Iraq war and the resultant lessons learnt in the context of her Arab 102

! neighbours, Iran shifted to a conciliatory stance of improving or establishing relations with her neighbours instead of pursuing a radical policy of exporting the Islamic revolution, a policy that was not appealing to the Gulf States (Arjomand, 1986, p.

387).

Long (1990) provided two facets for assessing why the revolution could not be exported to the Gulf States tantamount to its effect on the region namely: (a) ideologically/intellectually and (b) psychologically/politically (p. 104). From the ideological perspective, the revolution fell short of having a considerable or influential effect on the Gulf Sunnis, owing to the Shi’a background of the revolution.

Sunni Muslims possess or take up a prevailing perspective that secular governments are legitimate, provided they govern the people along the tenets of the Sharia or

Islamic law. Based on the beliefs and perspectives of Shi’a Muslims, as the Twelfth

Imam stays in occultation, the religious populace have the right and audacity to challenge the legitimacy of any provisional leader. The velayat-e faqih (government headed by Islamic clerics) concept of Ayatollah Khomeini is dependent on this Shi’a notion and is pivotal to the Iran’s revolution. The ideological effect of the Iranian

Islamic revolution on the Middle Eastern or Gulf nations of the revolution was as a result of this notion being confined to the minority Shi’a communities in the area.

Nevertheless it was not capable of inciting a considerable degree of political turbulence irrespective of the apprehensions contrary to this, according to Long.

The psychological and political edge and effect of the revolution on the Gulf states was equally feeble. The major causal factor behind this is that the citizens of the various Gulf nations lacked a proper means of identifying with the revolution, owing to the apparent fact that they did not pass through the same throes of frustrations, disillusions, and dissent in comparison to their counterparts in Iran. The population of 103

! the Gulf countries, with the exclusion of Iraq, are conservative. Irrespective of such reasons, there was a substantial degree of concern in the region, particularly in Saudi

Arabia, concerning the effect of the revolution on their political stability. For instance, in Saudi Arabia a large number of important positions in the oil industry were occupied by Shi’a employees, and had a traditional loyalty to ARAMCO (Fuertig,

2006, p. 36). However, the average age of the Shi’a population at the time of the revolution was about 17 years. The government was wary of the fact that they would not be oriented towards an equal degree of loyalty as compared to the older generation who were well aware of the poverty that was experienced prior to the oil boom. The government considered the Shi’a community a major threat, and they placed a large amount of attention on curtailing the potential political restiveness that could emerge

(Long, 1990).

One can assert that there are five causal factors responsible for the failure of the occurrence of the anticipated uprisings, irrespective of some considerable dissent in the Shi’a communities in the Gulf states:

1. The way in which the new Iranian regime treated its own people was

perceived with dismay by the Arab states nations of the Gulf and seen as much

less preferable in comparison to the various practices and policies of the

inherent local regime (p. 106).

2. The Arab side was heavily supported in the course of the Iran-Iraq war

because of its detrimental economic implications, and perceived it as a conflict

between Arabs and Persians instead of Shi’a-Sunni conflict. It is also

interesting how the Iraqi people (regardless of being Shi’a, Sunni, or Christian

or of being Arab, Kurd, or Turkoman) appear to have seen the Iran-Iraq war as

a national war of Iraq against the Persian-dominated Iran. 104

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3. The absence of local Shi’a leaders to coordinate the Shi’a communities.

4. The sensitivity to Shi’a grievances was elevated by the Arab leaders in their

respective countries, such as the initiative of the government of Saudi Arabia

to increase development in Shi’a areas or districts.

5. There was a strong middle class mentality in the subregion, even within Shi’a

communities.

The threat posed by Iran to the legitimacy of the Saudi leadership is exceedingly the most significant influence of the revolution. Long (1990, p. 107) maintains that the doctrines of the Iranian Islamic revival have been distinctly deficient in ideological and intellectual demand. However, there has been a definite deficiency or absence of people in the subregion who are politically disaffected with the tendency towards these behaviours.

Finally, it is important to note that Iran decided not to exhaust its resources in its quest to keep on actively propagating the export of the revolution. Additionally,

Shi’a and Sunni Islam are different in terms of the role of ulama, and their relationship to the state; as in many cases, the local or regional groups had very specific grievances or dissents that needed to be dealt with, making them less vulnerable to a broad Shi’a ideology. Finally, many states in the region took specific measures to preempt their own problems at home.

Saudi Arabia’s Reaction to the 1979 Iranian Revolution

Based on the objective of Iran and the ideology of Ayatollah Khomeini, to export the Islamic revolution to the Gulf States, the new Islamic regime in Iran perceived the relatively large Shi’a population of about 300,000 in Saudi Arabia as an ideal conductor for the export of the Islamic revolution and as an immediate 105

! revolutionary tool. Iran perceived the Shi’a in Saudi Arabia as being intrinsically valuable because of their location, being concentrated in the most significant part or region of the Saudi Kingdom (the oil region). This exacerbated the threat they posed to the Saudi regime in Saudi Arabia. The danger was not only held within the Shi’as but also in the contagious effect that their opposition could have on other dormant resistance groups in Saudi Arabia (Goldberg, 1990, p. 156).

In the course of effectively activating the Shi’a community in Saudi Arabia and other subversive groups, the mass media was the primary tool employed to achieve this objective. Iran’s state Arabic radio broadcasting Radio Tehran was the principal medium employed in regard to Saudi Arabia and their daily few hours of

Arabic language program transmissions were increased to 17 hours per day daily after the Iran-Iraq war. This transmission was aimed at the Shi’a Saudi public Arabia and was by a group referring to itself as “the revolutionary Islamic organization of the

Arabian peninsula” to its Shi’a listeners. Its major theme was calling “all oppressed

Muslims to rise up and take over the secular and corrupted deviationist Saudi royal family” (Goldberg, 1990, p. 157)

The Saudi regime because of its knowledge of the threat posed by the ambitions of Iran to spread the revolution into the Kingdom—tantamount to annihilating the Saudi monarchy—took some preemptive steps aimed at preventing and curtailing the potential incitement and revolt of the Shi’a population to revolt against the ruling elite.

The Shi’a also perceived these troops as agents of Saudi oppression and this mutual animosity resulted in an escalation in the fighting that saw 17 people dead and many more wounded (Teitelbaum 2001, p.25). Irrespective of all this, increasing amounts of propaganda flooded the Shi’a communities in Saudi Arabia inciting the 106

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Shi’a to continue denouncing the Saudi regime and demanding immediate reforms.

This led to more uprisings that were curtailed with violent repression and a “carrot and stick” policy, which fulfilled certain demands of the Shi’a (Fuertig, 2006, p. 39).

Looking at the policies, it is noticeable that in the beginning, upon the collapse of the regime of the Shah followed by a reinforcement of the position of the ulama, the

Saudi regime denied that they feared the emergence of the new Islamic state of Iran.

The Saudi regime reacted to the assertion of Ayatollah Khomeini that the Kingdom was secular and that Iran was the model and primacy of the Islamic world stating that the Saudi republic was based on solid Islamic foundations. Prince Abdallah stated,

“Islam would from that point be the foundation of the relations and common interests of the Kingdom” (Safran 1985, p. 18). To this end, it became imperative for the Saudi royal family to show that the revolutionary wave was not going to be applicable to the

Kingdom and to refute the comparison with the ousted Iranian Shah and prove that the disparities between both regimes are far greater than the purported similarities

(Goldberg, 1990; Marschall, 2003).

The Saudi regime more than before faced the imperative to combine modernization with the fostering of the traditional way of life in the wake of the realization that within the religious or fundamentalist confines, there was a rising resentment for the erosion of traditional Saudi-Wahhabi values and norms. A large number of them knew of the wide division between the official puritanical Islamic orientation and the shifting, usually secular, daily realities encompassing the individual activities and behaviour of many elite prices. This reinforced the need to refute the comparison between the Shah and the Saudi royal family. To this end, the

Saudi ruling elite vehemently stated that Saudi Arabia was truly Islamic and categorically rejected or condemned the separation of state and religion. It also stated 107

! that the ruling monarchy had always governed within the confines of Islam rather than against it in contrast to the Mohammed Reza Pahlavi regime. The Saudi kingdom was the only Muslim state without a secular constitution but only the Sharia as the legislation and in contrast, the royal Mohammed Pahlavi regime alienated itself and the state from anything Islamic with policies contrary to Islamic tenets. To underscore this position, it is important to recall that the Saudi royal family in 1984 adopted an

Islamic national hymn and pronounced that the honorific title of His Majesty be discarded and replaced by Servant of the Two Sacred Shrines (Goldberg, 1990, p.

160).

Fuertig (2006) stated that the Saudi regime did not fear Wahhabi accommodation to Shi’a ideas. However, it was more afraid and upset about the fact that the diplomatic attrition had now shifted to the field of religion, a field the Saudi government had previously regarded as its own monopoly. As such, the Saudi regime also took some significant steps to contain the great threat from the ulama as was the case in the Iranian Islamic Revolution. Based on this, the Saudi regime maintained close ties with the ulama and consulted them on many major issues. Coupled with the ties of kinship, the religious establishments had an inherent interest in the sustenance and continuation of the rule of the Saudi royal family under which they possessed considerable power and influence. Comparatively, the policy of Mohammed Pahlavi’s regime placed the regime on an antagonistic path with the majority of the ulama

(though it did temporarily co-opt some by having even put them on the Savak payroll), which later rose up and toppled the Shah’s regime (Amjad, 1989).

Based on the desire of the Saudi regime to substantiate all these positions, the

Saudi family started to express higher respect toward the Wahhabi ulama and to insist on a stricter public enforcement of the strict and restrictive Wahhabi code of law and 108

! morality. Under pressure from the ulama, the Saudi regime placed a ban on all religious services apart from the Islamic religious services and applied greater power that was apportioned to the religious police known as the “committee for the condemnation of virtue and the condemnation of vice” responsible for enforcing a firm observance of Islamic tenets in public places (Fuertig, 2006, p. 161).

The Saudi regime also went on the offensive, targeting Tehran. The Saudi family made accusations against the “corrupt cohort in Tehran” that have turned Iran into a gruesome slaughterhouse to the extent of building special gallows for executing children (referring to the Islamic Republic’s child soldiers and also the execution under-age alleged opponents of the regime). It also claimed that Islam offers no parallel to the meanness and rancour of the leaders of Iran seen as a disgrace to Islam and agents of Satan. The Saudi regime also pronounced that rather than propagating or exporting Islam, Tehran was exporting imperialism and terrorism working to create anarchy and instability to the Gulf States. Some commentators such as Prince Na’if made comparisons of Khomeini’s ideology with that of the Nazi Third Reich and stated that both Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini and Adolf Hitler were seeking to actualize political and ideological schemes outside their own territories. They made predictions that the fate of Ayatollah Khomeini would be akin to that of Hitler and that the fall of this perverted revolutionary ideology was near and inevitable (Fuertig,

2006, p. 66).

The Saudi family also criticized the covert sale of Israeli made weapons to

Iran and propagated the notion that Tehran was in an alliance with Israel against the

Arab world, and in Khomeini, Israel had found a formidable ally. If the “enemy of my enemy is my friend,” then Iran being an enemy of Iraq, if not becoming a friend of

Israel, during the Iran-Iraq war, the Islamic Republic was happy to covertly purchase 109

! as much as U.S. $500 million worth of military hardware from Israel, despite all the anti-Israeli, anti-Zionist propaganda (Hunter, 1986). This view was reinforced by the situation in which the Saudi government started to refer to Iran as Persia to reveal the nationalistic and even imperial-oriented aspirations and motives informing

Khomeini’s ideology contrary to the Islamic message Iran claimed to uphold. More specifically, the Saudi regime referred to the Iran-Iraq war as an Arab-Persian war in which Arabs cannot stay neutral and hence ensure Iraqi victory (Hunter, 1986, p.

163).

One of the major tactics of the Khomeini-led Islamic Revolution was to undermine Saudi Arabia’s leadership of the Islamic world, which would subsequently lead to the fall of the ruling monarchy in the Kingdom. To this end, Ayatollah

Khomeini declared that the Islamic faith in Saudi Arabia was degenerate and labelled it “American Islam” (Fuertig, 2006, p. 40). Khomeini also pronounced that all true

Islamic states should sever ties with Saudi Arabia since it is in alliance with America, the “Great Satan.” In 1987, Khomeini also said that Mecca is now in the hands of incompetent infidels who have no knowledge of what to do (Fuertig, 2006, p. 41).

Being aware of this threat, the Saudi regime took steps aimed at consolidating or reinforcing its hold and image as the leader of the Muslim world. One major step that was taken by the Saudi regime was the creation of a $1 billion investment company called Dar al-mal al-islami with the paramount goal of providing opportunities to

Muslims in order to enable them to carry out their business dealings in line with the tenets of the Sharia (Goldberg, 1990).

Furthermore, the pinnacle of the challenge of Ayatollah Khomeini to Saudi

Arabia was his perception of the pilgrimage and his undying will to politicize it. This then provided a dilemma for the Saudi regime on how to handle the Iranian pilgrims. 110

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Deterring the participation of Iranian pilgrims by obstruction or placing a restriction on the number allowed to participate would have been unwise and would lead to interpretation as a contravention of Saudi guardianship of the holy places (Fuertig,

2006, p. 42). In the initial stages, the Saudi regime pronounced warnings against all forms of politically oriented activity during the pilgrimage and tried to reach a consensus with the Iranian authorities concerning a rancour-free pilgrimage. To this end, in 1981, King Khalid called for Khomeini to advise Iranian pilgrims to stay clear of acts that would cause rancour but the Ayatollah turned down this request.

Following various clashes between Saudi security authorities and Iranian pilgrims in the course of the 1979, 1980, and 1981 pilgrimages, the Saudi regime tried once more in 1982 to reach an understanding with Iran, requesting the regime to be directly responsible for the conduct of Iranian pilgrims. However, it took until 1983 before both sides of the rift arrived at a common ground and agreed that there would be not hostile propaganda against each other during the pilgrimage and there would be no calls for mass protests, which previously incited riots and clashes (Goldberg, 1990, p.

171).

Nevertheless, there was the 1987 pilgrimage, which witnessed the worst clash ever experienced with Iranian pilgrims leading to the deaths of about 400 unarmed people according to Saudi sources. This episode represented a turning point in the previous position of the Saudi authorities regarding the participation of Iranian pilgrims in the hajj. The Saudi regime was of the opinion that its inability to effectively monitor and curtail the activities of about 150,000 Iranian pilgrims was a major embarrassment for the Kingdom. The Saudi regime was also increasingly vexed at the inflammatory comments of Khomeini promising to order even more pilgrims to cause more violent protests than previously seen. As a direct consequence, the Saudi 111

! regime chose to limit the quota of Iranian pilgrims for the hajj to a manageable number but, not willing to show that the decision was only targeted at Iran and looking to confer the mark of all-Islamic legitimacy upon their decision, the Saudi regime acted via the Islamic Conference Organization. Even though Khomeini was displeased by this policy to limit the quota of all pilgrims to about one pilgrim to

1,000 people from all countries, and chose to boycott the pilgrimage as a whole, the objective of the Saudi regime was achieved in the absence of Iranian pilgrims, hence making sure of peace and rancour-free pilgrimages (Goldberg, 1990).

The Saudi regime came up with a new long term policy, based on the awareness of the Shi’a disturbances in 1980. The new policies were consistent with the knowledge that war was the result of a snowball effect of the Iranian revolution assisted by a latent Shi’a dissent, derived from a perception of a lower level status among the citizenry of the Kingdom, and economic-political injustice. The policy entailed quelling or repressing disturbances violently and rapidly by the security forces coupled with arrests of the Shi’a leaders and on the other hand making improvements on the living conditions of the Shi’a in Hasa. This was a successful policy, eliminating dissent and the tendency for a revolution as the restiveness in Hasa was abated, and there were no further riots or demonstrations. On a final note, it is worthy to note that the Iranian revolution taught a lesson to the Saudi government on regime stability and as such forced the Saudi royal regime to revisit their approach toward the rapid modernization going on in the Kingdom (Goldberg, 1990; Terhalle,

2007). 112

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The Shi’a Crescent: The Role of Ideology

Based on the threat posed by the objective of Iran to export the Iranian revolution via an incitement of the Shi’a population in the Gulf, it is then important for this paper to assess the concept of the Shi’a Crescent, which has emerged in the political discourses concerning the Gulf region. This assessment of the Shi’a Crescent concept is important to this paper because of the fact that the long standing struggle for hegemony in the Gulf between Saudi Arabia and Iran progressed from the religious approach (export of the Iranian revolution) to the religious sectarian ethnic dimension seen in the rise of the Shi’a Crescent. It is then necessary and relevant for this paper to look into the rise of the Shi’a Crescent as another field of the wider cold war tactics employed by Iran to achieve its goal of regional political hegemony in the

Gulf.

In the year 2004, Jordan’s King Abdullah of Jordan made widely popularized warnings concerning the surfacing of an ideological Shi’a crescent stretching from the

Persian Gulf to Beirut. Since the declaration of that warning, the arguments concerning the intentions of Iran to establish a Shi’a crescent has been an important topic of discourse within the circle of scholars and commentators on the issues of the

Gulf. There are three presumptions cantered on the role and intentions of Iran. A Shi’a crescent is perceived by the ruling elites of the Arab Sunni as a bid by Iran, in the first instance, to involve the masses in the region towards pro-Iranian agitation, and in addition, the building of an ideological stretch of sympathetic Shi’a regimes and political groups in such countries as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and the wider Persian Gulf region, and to increase its regional position and influence. As such, in order to understand the actual orientation of such a Shi’a Crescent it is imperative to assess how realistic these stipulations are. What is the capability of an emerging Shi’a 113

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Crescent in challenging more than a 1,000 years of Sunni hegemony in the Islamic world and the possibility of Iran leading it? (Barzegar, 2008, p. 57).

Proctor (2008) believes that there are two factions of intellectual and political elites that tend to highlight the discourses of a rising threat of a regional Shi’a crescent: (a) the Arab Sunni ruling class, and (b) antagonists of the growing regional image of Iran in the West, particularly in the United States. Nevertheless, the discourse or arguments over the Sunni elites has three facets:

1. The diminished power of the Sunnis

2. Increasing concerns over the rising political demands of their Shi’a

populations

3. The increasing role of Iran in “Arab” affairs

On the first note, from the side of the Arab Sunni ruling elites, the resurgence of Shi’as in Iraq has destabilized the bases of hegemony and politics in the Middle

Eastern subregion. This setting or background will resultantly produce a new dynamic in which the political roles and images of the Sunni elites in the Gulf’s power balance are off shaken. Irrespective of this situation, the larger part of Shi’a have been an informing factor for socio-political movements and reform in Bahrain and Iraq. The rise of the Shi’a to political prominence, in an Arab state, has never been seen before and has made the Sunni ruling classes extremely wary. This wariness is not only due to the demands and aspirations of their Shi’a communities, irrespective of their majority or minority status to gain more socio-political privileges, but also via a process that could later culminate in the ouster of the existing Sunni ruling class from power in the so-called Shi’a crescent regions of the Gulf (Proctor, 2008, p. 30).

Furthermore, the position of the Gulf’s Shi’a communities, which make up about 70% of the population of the region, has become more apparent in the course of 114

! the last 6 years owing to three interconnected developments: The first is the consolidation of the geopolitical role of Tehran following the collapse of Saddam

Hussein’s and the Taliban’s regimes and its bid to broaden its bilateral ties in the

Gulf. Second is the widening of Shi’a awareness, hastened by the democratization programs of the United States, in states where the larger section of the populations are

Shi’a or followers of Ali (the first Imam of the Shi’a Ali). The third note concerns the drop in the hold of the United States in Iraq, related to Iran’s effective support of the resistance and oppositions of international pressure to cease its nuclear program, coupled with its ensuing rhetorical hubris, which further scares its neighbours

(Terhalle, 2007, p. 69).

The most frequently employed doubt to the notion of a developing or rising

Shi’a Crescent with Iran as its leading state is the fact that Iran is Persian (or at least dominated by ethnic Persians), while the other countries found in the purported crescent are mainly ethnic Arab states. Those in objection to the model of the Shi’a

Crescent immediately allude to the persistent animosity or friction between the Arabs and Persians that predates the emergence of the Islamic religion, when the former were nomadic Bedouin people and the latter were rulers of a prehistoric civilized empire. It is apparent that this debate is the main theme in the discourse concerning the rise of the Shi’a Crescent owing to the fact that it is the most easily employed.

Shi’a Crescent adherents also allude to the alliance between Iran and Shi’a

Arab Hezbollah—a crossbreed insurgency, political party and social service organization, funded and drilled by Tehran. It has been is apparent at times in the

Lebanese political spheres that Hezbollah is on course towards the goal of installing or creating a Shi’a theocracy in the state of Lebanon. Israel was not able to eliminate

Hezbollah in a 1-month conflict in 2006, as it managed to inflict higher than expected 115

! losses on the invading Israeli forces in the 2006 conflict. Sectarianism, thus, seems to have trumped ethnicity in this rising or growing alliance (Terhalle, 2007, p. 31).

Furthermore, it has been revealed that Iran has also set in place relations with factions of Shi’a Arabs in Iraq, assisting and funding militias such as Jaysh al-Mahdi

(“Army of the Mahdi”) and polarizing icons encompassing the radical cleric known as

Muqtada al-Sadr, Muqtada–the praising of whom could clearly be heard seconds before when Saddam Hussein was hung by rope at a Baghdad gallows in December

2006. The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which is the most influential Shi’a political party in Iraq, was established in Iran in the 1980s, while its leadership were staying in exile during the course of the reign of Saddam Hussein. People wary of a rising Shi’a

Crescent allude to these ties as further proof that religious affiliation supersedes ethnicity in contemporary Middle Eastern politics. A relatively significant connection that disproves the Persian-Arab proposition is the relationship between Iran and Syria.

The Iranian-Syrian alliance started when Syria backed Tehran in its 10-year war with

Iraq. Since then, the relationship has become astonishingly durable. Advocates of the

Shi’a Crescent notion posit that the collective religious identity of the regimes in

Syria and Iran has increased the resilience of this relationship. Proponents of a rising

Shi’a Crescent allude to these events as evidence of the fact that religion is falling under the shadow of ethnicity in the restructuring of the Middle Eastern scheme of things (Terhalle, 2007).

Additionally, irrespective of the perspectives of the proponents or advocates of the aforementioned notions concerning the rise of the Shi’a Crescent, the other perspective is that Iran is actually seeking to expand its economic-political influence in the region of the Persian Gulf. However, one can argue that this is based on strategic power interests and calculations and not on a Shi’a brand of Islam (Terhalle, 116

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2007, p. 33). Finally, one should consider the numerical disproportionality or disparity, which holds that the Sunnis are in the clear majority in the Gulf and those controlling the petroleum resources of the region, so any scenario that envisions a takeover by Shi’as is arguably unrealistic.

SIX: POLITICAL STABILITY AND INSTABILITY IN SAUDI ARABIA

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The question of an unstable Saudi Arabia is not particularly welcome in the

West. This is primarily because of Saudi Arabia’s role as a strategic base and alliance for Western states, especially the United States. Ahrari (1997) poses this question of the probability of an unstable Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom holds the largest oil reserves in the world, which makes it very valuable to the West. A revolution—and an anti-Western one—in the country would certainly cause the global oil prices to skyrocket and threaten global economic stability. Ahrari asks the following:

Will Saudi Arabia remain stable, or will it face the fate of Iran? These are some the questions troubling the West. A possible demise of the monarchy in Saudi Arabia is a troubling scenario for the west and promises to make the politics of the Persian Gulf almost as turbulent as they were after the overthrow of Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlevi in 1979-1980. (Ahrari, 1997, p. 100)

Following the question of how susceptible Saudi Arabia is to a revolution,

Katz (2001) is quoted as saying:

On one hand, Saudi Arabia seems more stable now than it was during the heyday of Arab nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s, or in the wake of either the 1979 Islamic fundamentalist revolution in Iran or the 1990-1991 conflict with Iraq ... however, the history of the twentieth century [holds] that nondemocratic regimes are inherently unstable, displaying a marked tendency to fall sooner or later. Although the Saudi monarchy has avoided this fate to date, can it reasonably be expected to continue doing so? [...] revolution in Saudi Arabia is hardly inevitable but neither in absence. (p. 12)

The statement by Katz is arguably valid based on the fact that there have been some incidents in the last two decades that point to the presence of an apparently hidden 118

! threat of dissent within the Saudi Kingdom. Some of these incidents include the 1996 terrorist bombing of the Khobar military barracks in Saudi Arabia leading to the death of 19 American personnel, the revelation by the FBI that 15 of the 19 hijackers in the

September 11 attacks in America were from Saudi Arabia and that some recruiting, funding and organization for the attacks took place inside Saudi Arabia. These provided credence to the notion that the kingdom may be susceptible to a revolutionary movement by dissident groups. In providing more insight into the status of the threat of a revolution in the like of the Iranian revolution, Sciolino (2001) drew a comparison of the status and position of Saudi Arabia akin to the orientation of Iran before the revolution in 1979: She is quoted as saying the following:

The anxiety [of a revolution] is compounded by charges from critics in the kingdom that the Saudi royal family is too close to Washington, and by critics in the United States that the family is not close enough. The Islamists think the Saudis have sold out to the Americans, and the Americans think they have sold out to the terrorists. Eventually this translates into an erosion of legitimacy—that if you are not satisfying the Arabs and Washington, then you’re on your own. But does that translate into popular revolution in the name of Islam? Certainly there are parallels between the House of Saud and the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran. Like prerevolutionary Iran, Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian, oil-rich monarchy with a Muslim population. It is notorious for corruption and profligate spending, resistant to democratization, viewed increasingly as subservient to the will of Washington, dependent on American weaponry and criticized by radicals in exile and some conservative clerics for not being Islamic enough. (p. 2)

An interesting source that advocates a similar position comes from Robert Baer, a field officer with the CIA stationed in the Gulf region, who made the observation alluding to an imminent or inevitable collapse of the current authoritarian Saudi regime. He claims that “…the country is run by an increasingly dysfunctional royal family…today’s Saudi Arabia can’t last much longer—and the social and economic fallout of the demise could be calamitous” (Baer, 2003, p. 33). Similar to the 119

! previously stated position by Katz, Kechichian (2008) speculates that a revolution is imminent in the Kingdom but one of a different guise and orientation. He suggested that:

One comes away with the idea that where Iran experienced a radical revolution which fundamentally transformed important institutions of the Iranian state, Saudi Arabia may well experience a nonradical revolution, a “conservative revolutionary movement” which “seeks state power but which also wishes…to preserve or at most to moderately reform existing economic social, and cultural arrangements, without changing them fundamentally. (pp. 10-11)

Lewis (1988) provides a perspective of the status quo, which in spite of its differing view reinforces the notion that the Kingdom is vulnerable to a revolution. He comments:

In 14 centuries of Islamic history there have been many opposition movements within Islam. Almost all of them and certainly all those of any significance were religiously expressed. Opposition to the prevailing order, criticism of an existing regime, found expression in religious terms just as the prevailing regime defined its authority and its legitimacy in religious terms. Saudi Arabia is today, as was the Shah in 1978, confronted with an opponent who bases his determination to overthrow the regime on Islam. (p. 8)

A fundamentalist inclined revolution seems more likely to topple the current regime in Saudi Arabia based on some of its pro-Western affiliations and Bremmer

(2004) reinforces this position in the statement that:

Recent events have quickened the concern that the Saudi regime might collapse from within. It is worth recalling that scarcely anybody in intelligence or in academia foresaw the scale of the Iranian crisis of 1978- 1979, and the latent strength of the ayatollahs. Might not Saudi Arabia produce the next Islamic revolution? Stated bluntly, the Saudi status quo is unsustainable. In fact, over the long term, the threat of a Saudi upheaval makes it the world’s largest single political risk. (p. 27)

All the aforementioned comments and suggestions concerning the tendency or level of vulnerability of Saudi Arabia to a revolution, either radical or nonradical, 120

! goes to reinforce the proof of this threat. Put vividly, these comments reveal that there are perceptions of dissent with the will to be vocalized and this is the primary element that leads to mass mobilization in the development of a revolution as was seen in the

Iranian revolution of 1979.

Issues That Have Plagued Saudi Authorities

Economic Problems

The economy of Saudi Arabia has expanded in leaps and bounds and is now regarded as among the dominant economic powers. This economic growth is credited to petrodollars, the principal contributor to the national GDP. Between 1970 and

2005, the economy of the kingdom expanded almost eight times while the population grew about four times (Rivlin, 2009).

With expansion of the economy and increasing oil revenues, the regime poured the money into the Saudi society, in a bid to create docility and limit the chances of eruption of dissent. Consequently, the population, used to cooptation and buying-off tactics, continues to demand more from the regime and is no longer satisfied with the regime’s efforts.

Rivlin (2009) observes that the paradoxical effect of the economic growth is the creation of a growing population of unemployed people in Saudi Arabia (p. 218).

The number of students graduating from high school and universities are many but the employment sector is unable to absorb all of them into the working force. This, while considering that the native Saudi population (vs. the noncitizens, many of whom are also born in the Kingdom) have been socialized to expect well paying white collar employment (as opposed to lower paying blue collar jobs, which is generally reserved for mostly south- and east-Asian-origin residents and guest workers). Peterson (2002) 121

! observes that on average, there are 175,000 students graduating from high school while the available employment opportunities can only absorb one out of every three jobseekers.

According to Sager (2005), there has been a steady decrease in the living standards of the Saudi population since the 1980s. He further notes that “the government has done too little to diversify an economy that is overwhelmingly dependent on oil revenues” (p. 236). Accordingly, as petrodollars have played a significant part in keeping the regime stable, the very volatile nature of the international markets is bound to have similar effects on the stability of the state. The disruption of the traditional channels through which to distribute the rents means that there is increasing social stratification within the Saudi society, which is a critical precipitant of dissent, oppositions, and revolutions. The regime has been plagued by the inability to cushion the economy against the unpredictable cycles in the price of oil and other export income. Cordesman (2009) observes after the boom in 2003 created by high global oil prices, the oil sector in the Kingdom country has suffered at the onset of the global economic decline that started in 2008.

Peterson (2002) observes that after Saudi Arabia experienced the economic boom of the 1970s and early 1980s, which may never be experienced again. The later years characterized by a steady economic decline have created years of budget deficits. Development projects which are now recurring budget items and the cost of the Kuwait War, “have all meant that the size of the economic pie has shrunk” (p. 54).

Consequently, the economic boom of the 1970s and early 1980s created a culture of materialism and state-dependency, the implication being that many Saudi Arabians are living beyond their economic means. 122

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The present per capita income has dropped to $7,000 per year, relegating

Saudi Arabia to a third world economy—though the state still provides many subsidies and benefits not available in the typical third world state. In addition, the ruling family is an economic burden to Saudi Arabia’s deteriorating financial situation. The royal family continues with lavish lifestyles, which have created resentment among economically burdened population. The regime has also failed to utilize or properly invest (as for example petrol-rich Norway has) the sizeable revenue surplus when oil prices have been high. When oil prices are high, the regime engages in wasteful spending and economic mismanagement.

Owing to over-expenditure, especially in purchasing American weapons and the cost of the Gulf war, Saudi Arabia’s national debt has been growing over the years. In 2002, it the numbers stood at a total of U.S. $171 billion in domestic debt loans and over U.S. $35 billion for foreign debt obligations loans (Rouleau, 2002).

Cordesman (2009) observes that Saudi Arabia is plagued by a unique problem that affects its economic performance. Many Saudi Arabians who enter the job market are used to high standards of living, but they do not have sufficient academic credentials and demonstrate poor work ethics. Rouleau (2002) observes that the educational system produces mediocre graduates that are not adequately equipped to work in modern corporations. This is partly because more than 30% of school hours are solely dedicated to reading and analyzing Islamic texts and the school system prohibits non-Islamic philosophy.

Rouleau (2002) states that this is to blame for the poor working force since

“university graduates end up more qualified to analyze holy texts than to work as engineers, architects, computer specialists or managers” (p. 83). This suggests that they fail to gainfully impact the economy because they lack the basic skills. 123

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Cordesman (2009) also notes that disguised employment rate is significantly high.

This means that there is a bloated public sector bureaucracy with many individuals employed by the government whose jobs have no meaningful economic output.

Sustaining this working force has become a burden to the economy.

Legitimacy Problems

Hottinger (1979) observes that suspicion of the West’s alliance with Saudi

Arabia has created unrest within the ruling family as well as the populace. The suspicions from both sides are underscored by differing reasons, but all reasons involved are sufficient to lead to a revolution similar to that of Iran. On one side, the

Saudi society, which is governed by the Wahhabi ideology, perceives outside influences as corrupting the Islamic traditions. Wahhabi tradition limits interaction with outsiders and the Al Saud regime’s close alliance with the United States certainly presents a legitimacy obstacle, for a state that claims to be legitimized by Islam, and the pact with the Wahhabi leaders to work together to form a kingdom that reflects on

Wahhabi interpretation of Islam (Sager, 2005).

The Wahhabi doctrine perceives non-Wahhabi as idolatrous. These include all

Muslims who do not adhere to Wahhabism (Doran, 2004). Doran further observes that the monotheism doctrine is supported by the Tawhid principle instituted by the founder of Wahhabi doctrine, Abd al-Wahhab. The principle suggests that all those who are not aligned to monotheism and Wahhabism are enemies of Islam are engaged in a conspiracy to destroy Islam. These groups include especially Jews, Christians,

Shi’a Muslims, and any other non-Wahhabi Muslim religious faith.

This principle is one of the bases for radical Islamism such as that of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. The Ttawhid (or the belief in the single God) justifies the 124

! waging of jihad against polytheists. In addition, tawhid implies the Tafkir can be used to punish others, including non-Wahhabi Sunnis, who can be punished or even killed for practicing takfir or apostasy. The ulama can issue fatwas, a religious ruling, declaring death against one who has been accused of such a crime of takfir.

Wahhabism considers close association with the enemy or polytheist as a form of apostasy. In this context, the presence of, and association with the West is a potential threat for religious legitimacy of Al Saud (Doran, 2004).

Furthermore, as much as the Al Saud regime needs U.S. military support, in the event of regional or local conflict, the close collaboration is a basis for suspicion and erosion of legitimacy (Champion, 2003a). Despite investing heavily on military hardware equipment, and establishing a parallel army drawn from the Bedouin tribes, the Al Saud military might is perceived as weak and susceptible to internal and external attacks. For this reason, the monarchy relies on the alliance with the United

States to defend itself. This has led to criticism from the population and the Wahhabi ulama are faced with the dilemma of contradicting themselves by endorsing the close ties of the regime with the West (Graham 1993, p. 66). The clergy, who are extensively co-opted into the state machinery, have attempted to quell this criticism by issuing fatwas legitimizing the presence of the U.S. military in Saud territory.

Nevertheless, the clergy’s measures have not been sufficient in justifying the close ties of the regime with the West, particularly the United States (Brooker, 2009).

There have been subsequent protests from oppositional elements and the regime has been compelled to yield to the pressures of the populace to limit ties with the United

States. In 2003, the American military bases based in Saudi Arabia were closed, an indication of the pressure being exerted by the dissent groups. (Ironically, the closure of the bases fulfilled one of Osama Bin Laden’s demands). A point to be noted in this 125

! respect is the nature of the rebel groups in the kingdom. The Wahhabi interpretation of the Sunni tradition provides for the waging of radical war against the ‘infidels’ or those who do not adhere to the principles of Sunni/Wahhabi traditions, whether they adhere to Islam or not (Brooker, 2009).

Some oppositional elements in Saudi Arabia have adopted the strict interpretations of Islamic fundamentalism, and therefore oppositional war is not only waged against the regime, but also on its close allies. The strict interpretation of

Wahhabi tradition supports the idea of radical Islamism such as terrorism and waging war against fellow Muslims who do not adhere to the strict Wahhabi tradition.

On the other hand, the regime as well as the population is sceptical about the real motivation behind the American support of the regime. Hottinger (1979) observes that, “in Riyadh there are clearly prominent personalities who simply cannot understand how Washington could have done nothing to save its close friend the

Shah” (p. 2). Hottinger contends that though the some oppositional elements against the monarchy’s alliance with the West is based on the Wahhabi tradition, other factors indicate that the regime has fundamental doubts about the ability, or the willingness of the United States to defend the royal family in the event of a revolution. Despite being a close ally and collaborator with the Shah in Iran, and the Shah’s attempts to model the state of Iran as a Western parallel, the U.S. government did not come to his aid and help him maintain his rule and prevent the revolution. The suspicions of the Al

Saud government are genuine, especially when it is put into context that the Shah himself was installed by a stage-managed political coup in 1953. Perhaps the United

States was not behind the revolution, though one can argue that by not coming to the aid of the Shah, it gave its tacit approval of the revolution, and albeit in the periphery this lack of decisive action to help the Shah has been noticeable by the Saudi royals. 126

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Population Growth

After the rapid economic growth that was experienced in Saudi Arabia, and the distribution of the rents within the population, the government encouraged the population to have large families. The basis for this policy was not only because of a stable economy, but the state perceived that the country needed a larger population to protect its expansive geographical area as well as the oil resources therein (Rivlin,

2009). Population growth was also impacted by the availability of quality healthcare, which reduced mortality rates and improved the quality of life (Peterson, 2002).

Initially, the regime took in stride the population growth, and was able to maintain the traditional channels through which rents were distributed (Rivlin, 2009).

A rise in population also did not create a challenge in provision of employment and the government was able to absorb the working class in state ministries. However, as the population continued to expand, the regime found it increasingly difficult to distribute rents to the population through the traditional channels, and was unable to provide employment for the population.

Rivlin (2009) also observes the Saudi population is growing at the rate of

2.7%, and is considered among the fastest growing populations in the world. Labour immigrants in the country have also contributed to the population increase of the country. Workers from the West, who come to the country as skilled personnel to establish government projects, and those who remain to run them, but specially unskilled labour that is sourced from mostly south- and east-Asian states (many of whom are by now second- and third-generation residents of the Kingdom) contribute significantly the population influx in Saudi Arabia.

Approximately one in four persons in Saudi Arabia or 27% of the Kingdom population is made up foreigners, and the majority is in the working class segment. 127

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Rivlin (2009) observes that 65% of the total working force of the country is made up of foreign labourers while the Saudi labour force accounts for only 35%. Rivlin attributes the high unemployment rates to an economy dependent on rents, which has low demand for labour. The dominant industry in Saudi Arabia, which is oil, does not rely on a large labour force and is therefore not able to absorb many employees.

Foreign and uneducated labour, particularly from Asian countries, is cheaper and easier to control. Corporations in Saudi Arabia employ more foreigners than locals.

Other than their labour being more costly, the locals are more difficult to manage with constant demands using their labour unions. Foreigners can work at minimum (or even below-minimum) wage and do not have labour unions to represent them, thus making them an attractive option for employers.

According to Sager, (2005) the population of Saudi Arabia is made up of 55% of the youth, and observers believe that there thus should be a population youth explosion and increasing demand from the government mainly by the youth in the near future. The youth in Saudi Arabia have come to expect much more compared to those of the past, a situation that is bound to precipitate opposition sentiments. These restless youth are being drawn into opposition movements, where they feel their demands are being addressed much more than the state is doing. The explosion of the population has subsequently created a big strain on the economy, as well as straining the infrastructure and social services and reducing individual earning capacities thereby lowering the once high living standards (Peterson, 2002).

Dissatisfaction and Opposition Groups

Dissatisfaction within Saudi Arabia is based on many political, social and economic factors. The population is dissatisfied with the manner in which the rents 128

! have been distributed and the lavish lifestyles of the royal family, excessive spending, and massive corruption. Limited opportunities for employment and widening gaps between the rich and the poor are creating feelings of dissent within the population.

The Saudis are also dissatisfied with the inability of the regime to minimize the influence of the Westernization and modernization in the conservative society.

Moreover, religious fundamentalists continue to criticize the regime for failing to govern the state within the Quranic teachings. They regard the application of Sharia law in Saudi Arabia to be stained by human reason and that for the Al Saud regime to be a legitimate Islamic state, the Islamic laws and traditions should be applied and enforced in a strict manner (Sager, 2005).

Among the foremost opposition groups working against the regime are Al

Qaeda, the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia headed by Sad Al Faqih, Defence of Legitimate Rights (CDLR), and the Movement of Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIR).

Most of these movements have found support among the restless Saudi youth in Saudi

Arabia, many of whom are no longer satisfied with the regime’s haphazard efforts of creating employment opportunities and economic stability. Other groups that are in support of the opposition groups include intellectuals, students, workers and even some members of the extremely large royal family.

Niblock (2005) states that opposition and reform movements in Saudi Arabia since 1990 can be conceived as two sets of ongoing opposition between those within the regime and those opposing from the periphery. The dual elements of opposition are those who are characterized by Islamic fundamentalism (fundamentalists) and those whose reform agenda is underpinned by modernization objectives (modernists).

The former draws support from both elements within the religious establishment of

Saudi Arabia while the more radical elements condemn both the regime and the 129

! religious establishment of supporting un-Islamic governance. The latter draw support from elements within the government structure while the extremist of the modernizers distance themselves from the government structure and call for nothing short of a complete overthrow of the incumbent regime government (Niblock, 2005).

The basic demands of the fundamentalist Islamist movements are for the respect of human and civil rights, basing the said human rights, however, not on

Western precepts but on the provision of their interpretation of Islamic traditions and laws. In this context, the suppression by the state of Islamist opposition is deemed as an abuse of human rights and the use of torture in extracting information or the presumption of guilt until proven otherwise is also condemned.

The Islamist oppositional movements use various means to gain audience with the population. Due to the extreme suppression that is attracted by any opposition to the regime, the opposition movements’ main challenge has been how to sell their views to larger numbers of people and increase their support bases. The advent of technology has gone a long way in facilitating fast conveyance of messages and established new networks through which to recruit movement participants. The internet has in particular expanded the audience of the opposition movements, and opposition agendas are being spread through the World Wide Web. In addition,

Islamist groups reach out to society through tape recordings and printing of pamphlets.

Another form of opposition is that coming from the Shi’a community and based on liberal religious ideas opposition (Niblock 2005). The strengthening emergence of anti-Shi’a radical Wahhabism has generated fears of insecurity among the Shi’a minority. Their demands are for more political opportunities and representation, which will also shield them from the compulsory converting to 130

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Wahhabism. Fandy (1999a) observes that the outcrop of militant Wahhabism poses a great risk to the Shi’a community. Fatwas, such as the one issued by Shaikh Al Jibrin condemning the Shi’a Muslims as infidels and calling for their killing, without any sin being committed, demonstrates the extent of human rights abuse by both the clergy and the state.

The modernizers’ opposition has been accused of being too pro-Western and not representing the Islamic values at the core of Saudi Arabian society. They have been charged with using Western terminology in their petitions for change, since they are critical and doubtful about Islam’s ability to govern the Saudi Arabian government. Rivlin (2009) observes that the modernizers’ opposition is firmly rooted in academia, and its foremost leaders are several outstanding academics in state universities.

This section of the opposition garners its support from family members who have stood in solidarity with their cause. However, similar to other types of opposition in Saudi Arabia, they have not been able to survive for long as the regime monitors the development of oppositional movements, and their retaliatory suppressive strategies go a long way in stifling the cause of the movements. Their leaders are often arrested and jailed for their actions. Those who do not end up in jail are gradually co-opted into the system. The state accomplishes this by acting as though they are responding to the values and concerns of the movements, and subsequently co-optation of the movement leaders occurs.

All the above forms of opposition have failed to cause major political change in Saudi Arabia, as most operate individually, under distinct ideologies and agitate against the regime for seemingly divergent reasons. In addition, they engage distinct tactics in their opposition of the incumbents. This then makes them highly fragmented 131

! and thereby unable to bring about meaningful political change with the society. They have failed to coalesce under a common umbrella ideology that will give them greater negotiating power based on popular support. The failure to coalesce is because there has not been a leader charismatic enough to call for the unity of the opposition elements giving them collective bargaining power.

Challenges to the Al Saud Regime

Attack on Holy Mosque in Mecca in 1979

Saudi Arabia is considered the birthplace of Islam and the holiest shrine of the religion are to be found in the Kingdom. Among the holy shrines is the Holy Mosque of Mecca, which is visited annually by Muslim faithful from around the globe. The

Muslim Arab world, particularly Iran, has been critical about the manner in which the

Saudi regime manages these holy shrines. One of these criticisms is based on the heavy presence of foreigners in the Kingdom. Sager (2005) observers that close proximity to Islam’s holiest shrines by non-Muslims is considered heretical. In addition, the presence of the U.S. troops on Saudi territory as a buffer for its defence was perceived as a failure by the Al Saud regime to defend the holy shrines and therefore needing foreign troops.

Saudi Arabia faced a crisis in the wake of the Iranian revolution in 1979 when there was an attempt by Islamic fundamentalists in Iran, under the inspiration of the

Khomeinism ideology, to export the Iranian revolution to other neighbouring states.

Khomeinism ideology criticized Saudi Arabia for failing to adhere to strict Islamic traditions and thereby claimed that the regime was illegitimate. The ideology further claimed the Al Saud regime were not capable of protecting the Holy Shrines. 132

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In 1979, an individual by the name of Juhaiman al Utabi captured the Grand

Mosque in Saudi Arabia, creating a crisis within the monarchy. The government successfully retaliated and was able to put the situation back under control without much incidence. Niblock (2005) observes that although the event was not necessarily a direct threat to regime stability, the event had far reaching implications in religious politics of the country. The capture of the mosque was a challenge to the legitimacy of the regime based on its alliance with the Wahhabi ulama. The insurgents behind the capture of the great mosque criticized the regime for betrayal of the agreement demonstrated through its failure to back a strict Islamic tradition and its close ties with the West.

The motive behind Juhaiman al Utabi’s capture of the holy mosque appears to have been largely was apolitical, but related to an obscure Wahhabi religious group under the smokescreen of religion. Juhaiman al Utabi claimed that another individual named Muhammad ibn Abadallah al Qahtani was sent by Allah as the Mahdi to guide and instruct Muslims. His political motivations criticized and denounced the Al Saud regime for corruption, love of money and co-opting religious leaders to support their dishonest rule. To justify the capture and occupation of the holy mosque, al Utabi claimed that people were not under any obligation to obey corrupt leaders such as the

Al Saud family, who though claiming to lead under Islamic traditions, had failed to follow and strictly adhere to them (Niblock, 2005).

The occupation of the grand mosque by Utabi’s men lasted 2 weeks. The

Saudi military had a limitation on appropriate means to remove the insurgents from the mosque, a primary reason being the avoidance of massive damage to the mosque and further desecration of an Islamic holy site. The state responded to the situation by using calibre machine guns and other heavy weaponry. The Saudi army found their 133

! way inside the basement where more shootouts continued. Meanwhile, the insurgents held pilgrims who were caught in the melee hostage inside the mosque. After the fight at the mosque’s basement had gone on for several weeks without an end in sight, the

Saudi government accepted advice from United States to respond with more strength as their previous tactics had failed to put an end to the bloodshed. On 5 December

1979, the insurgents were overpowered and subsequently beheaded on 9 January of the following year (Trofimov, 2007).

Juhaiman al Utabi, the man behind the seizure of the great mosque, was a descendant of the Wahhabi and his opposition to the regime was a significant factor in the overall impact of the siege. In addition, he came from Najd, a region where the Al

Saud regime draws its strongest support. A rebellion emanating from its closest ally in the Kingdom implied that the Al Saud family was falling out of favour with its greatest supporter, and this dissent would easily spread to other tribes, which were not strong supporters of the regime. Prior to the seizure of the great mosque, the views of

Juhaiman al Utabi had become widely circulated within the regime. He criticized the royal family for major corruption, the lavish spending of the family especially in building and decorating palaces mosques instead of spending the money on refurbishing mosques in the state. Other criticisms circulated through pamphlets accused the Al Saud regime of persecuting individuals who were opposing the regime while giving rewards and incentives to those who were in its support.

Arts and Dejuine (2009) observe that the accusations levied by Juhaiman al

Utabi and his supporters against the regime were based on the cooptation of religious leaders in supporting the monarchy. A specific reference was made of the falling out of Bin Baz a one-time ally of Juhaiman al Utabi, who was believed to have abandoned the cause after the royal family paid him off. In addition to this, Juhaiman al Utabi 134

! claimed that Bin Baz was being used to influence other senior clerics to minimize their criticism against the regime. This was especially after the ulama was perceived to have relaxed their stance about the regime’s corruption and were increasing collaborating with the regime policies. The crisis created by the capture of the mosque took about 2 weeks to resolve, but its effects were far more reaching than the events that occurred within that period. The situation would continue to influence subsequent strategies adopted by the Al Saud incumbents to deal with issues of legitimacy and opposition (Arts & Dejuine, 2009).

Shi’a Riots and Opposition

The Shi’a Muslims form a minority religious group in predominantly Sunni

Saudi Arabia whose population is predominantly made of Sunni Muslims. The two divisions (of Sunni and Shi’a) practice Islam differently based on the different interpretations of the Quran and the Islamic traditions. The two Islamic sects are governed by fundamentally different ideologies, which have put them at loggerheads over the millennium. The Shi’a minority have on many occasions launched rebellions and opposition against the Al Saud regime based on suppression, lack of political opportunities as well as economic marginalization (Jones, 2010).

In the wake of the Iranian revolution, the Shi’a living in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province acquired new confidence in carrying out demonstrations and riots across Saudi Arabia (Niblock, 2005). The new confidence was drawn from the success of the Iranian revolution, which occurred within the framework of Shi’a ideology and succeeded in establishing an Islamic state based on Shi’a traditions.

Furthermore, there was a rise in the politicisation of Shi’ism across the Gulf region, a 135

! factor that encouraged the Saudi Shi’a to engage in resurgent activities within the regime, highlighting and fighting for their cause (Jones, 2010).

The Iranian Islamist fundamentalist regime, in its bid to challenge the Al Saud royal family, which it perceived as being illegitimately in power, capitalized on the situation and used the Saudi Shi’a to fight incumbents from within. The Iranian

Islamic Revolution created a battle for religious supremacy between Iran and Saudi

Arabia. The principal actors behind the revolution did not want to stop there; they wanted to spread their version of an Islamic state to other parts of the Gulf. The revolutionary agents thus “actively and militantly promoted and enhanced ties with

Shi’a communities in different parts of the world” (Niblock, 2005, p. 7). Iran encouraged riots and protests by Saudi Shi’a, funded their activities, and provided logistical support for their insurgency. The annual Hajj was one way of spreading the ideology of Shi’ism in Saudi Arabia as well as influencing other participants from different parts of the globe. Iran was accused of recruiting rioters to disrupt the Hajj of

1979 and engaging in demonstrations in Saudi Arabia. The Hajj demonstrations would go on until 1987, when a massive demonstration led by Iranian pilgrims was attacked by Saudi police in which 400 of the demonstrators lost their lives.

The Shi’a demonstrators demanded that the Al Saud regime distribute the oil wealth equitably among all Saudi citizens without discriminating against the minority

(Jones, 2010). The first of these public demonstrations by the Shi’a occurred in

November of 1979, and was met with forceful suppression of government security agents. The situation would soon get out of control with running battles over the next

2 days and more than 17 Shi’a lost their lives. Similar demonstrations occurred sporadically and within a few years, the Shi’a community in Saudi Arabia had organized itself under the common pro-Iranian Shi’a identity of Shi’ism. It should be 136

! noted that the Shi’a community live in the oil producing provinces of the Kingdom, and there have been fears that they may attempt to destroy or sabotage the oil production facilities in their region.

The current state of Shi’a opposition is based on nonviolent activism. The regime on its part has responded “favourably to Shi’a entreaties for relief and protection” (Jones, 2010, p. 46). The Shi’a community presently enjoys more inclusion than it did in the past and has been able to access political opportunities such as the Municipal council elections in 2005. In addition, the prohibition that had been in place that denied the Shi’a the opportunity to publicly observe their religion has been abolished. This is especially significant as they can now celebrate publicly the festival of Ashura, an important day in the Shi’a calendar, where ironically the

Sunni are indirectly vilified as Imam Hussein was killed by a Sunni.

However, the Al Saud regime remains deeply suspicious of the Shi’a community. Their potential to fuel a revolution in the Kingdom cannot be ignored, especially because they are perceived as an extension of Iran and its revolutionary ideology. Jones (2010) notes that the regime’s efforts to provide more inclusion for the Saudi Shi’a have been reluctant and slow paced. There have been isolated incidents in which the Shi’a community undergoes harassment for publicly practicing their faith. In early 2009, the Mutaween (religious police) and the regular police besieged Shi’a worshipers in Medina. The Shi’a, in turn, have subsequently issued warnings against eruption of violent confrontations if the regime kept on harassment and fails to live up to its promises for greater inclusion for the Shi’a community. 137

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Middle Class Protest

Among the most prominent protests by the middle class that the Al Saud regime has had to contend with was an organized demonstration by women demanding for the right to drive cars. They made sure that the structure of their demands was closely aligned with Islamic religious teachings, which made provisions for equal treatment of all individuals within Saudi society (Sager, 2005). In retaliation, the state arrested the group of 45 demonstrating women who were described by the regime as products of a Western education and thus not embodying the fundamentals of Islamic teachings. All the women lost their jobs and would later find it difficult to be reinstated. Similar petitions have been made over time by the middle class. Their demands have included that the regime allow more media independence in the country, the formation of consultative assemblies, an overhaul of the educational system as well as greater opportunities be available for women.

Reformists within the intellectual factions and high-ranking executives led the petitions (Niblock, 2005).

Al Qaeda Attacks

Weakening religious legitimacy in Saudi Arabia has witnessed the growth of religious fundamentalist groups who oppose the monarchy based on its religious legitimacy to rule the Kingdom. Among these religious opposition movements is Al

Qaeda, a radical movement, with the ultimate head of Osama Bin Laden, that embraces jihadist ideology in its opposition to the regime and its Western allies (Al-

Rasheed, 2007). Sager (2005) states that the Al Qaeda movement is the most radical activist movement in Saudi Arabia. 138

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The threat that Al Qaeda poses is significant as it calls for the total destruction of the Al Saud regime and replacing it with the Caliphate system. Since 2003, the

Saudi government has been waging war against Al Qaeda, which has launched several localized attacks against its incumbents. The Al Qaeda movement extends to many countries across the globe, thereby making it more difficult for the Al Saud regime to annihilate the movement (Hegghammer, 2009). The extremist ideology of Osama Bin

Laden is also popular among the younger generation of Saudi Arabians, who are being recruited to wage the holy war against the infidels in Saudi Arabia and in other parts of the world, notably Iraq (Cordesman, 2009).

Al Qaeda’s founder is considered a hero for having challenged the United

States by striking at two key symbols of its power: its embassy in Kenya and

Tanzania (1998) and the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 (p. 78). This is important because although the bloodletting of Bin Laden’s activities may be considered unlawful by Islamic teachings, the attacks on the West gives it a measure of legitimacy as it is perceived as intruding into the affairs of the Kingdom and imposing their wishes on the Saudis. Interestingly, Rouleau further adds that the support that the Al Qaeda movement finds in Saudi Arabia is rooted in nationalism and not necessary in Islamic ideology.

Osama bin Laden also happens to have played a significant role in the

American backed Islamist movements in the 1970s and 1980s. These Islamists were sent to other countries in the Gulf during the cold war and Bin Laden was among those sent to Afghanistan. Upon his return and after the subsequent defeat of the

Soviet army union, he was denied the mandate to protect Saudi territory from Iraqi threats and expel them from neighbouring Kuwait. Rather than lead a comfortable life that his achievements accorded him, he set up to fight the Al Saud regime and its 139

! backer, the U.S. government. This was particularly the case after U.S. military forces were given operational bases in the Kingdom. This outraged Bin Laden, a fundamentalist, as he considered it a desecration of the holy land. Subsequently, he launched a network, aimed at waging a holy war against the incumbents for their collaboration with the enemy, as well as to punish the perceived enemy for its role in corrupting the conservative Saudi society.

The campaigns of violence carried out by Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia had left a total of 300 people dead by the end of 2007 (Hegghammer, 2008). The Al Qaeda movement operations attracted global interest in 1996, when Osama Bin Laden declared a Jihad against the United States. Their primary goal was to remove the

American troops from Saudi Arabia and restore the kingdom in observance of their interpretation of Wahhabi traditions. During this time, and the subsequent 5 years, the movement would develop extensive operational capabilities while establishing a base in the adjacent state of Afghanistan (Hegghammer, 2008). The organizational capabilities of the movement would then prepare it to launch jihadist attacks globally.

After a relative absence of attacks on the Arab Peninsula, the Al Qaeda movement began to focus its attention on Saudi Arabia, preparing underground networks, safe houses, and weapon stockpiles across the Kingdom. This new strategy is believed to have been put in place between the year 2002 and 2003. According to

Hegghammer (2008), the situation was made possible by the lack of experience on the part of the Al Saud government, which was not equipped to monitor the movement of funds and weapons within the Kingdom. The author also observes that the security policy of the regime at the time was nonconfrontational and therefore not suitable for monitoring and countering terrorists’ attacks. In addition, the state had been reluctant 140

! in following up on other minor attacks that had been launched against Westerners in the Kingdom.

Similar to prerevolutionary Iran, there emerged groups of Islamic fundamentalists led by radical factions of the Saudi clergy. Among these sheikhs was

Ali Al-Khudayr and Nasir al-Fahd who wanted to establish themselves as Islamic fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia. This new breed of Sunni Wahhabi sheikhs preached anti-Western ideologies and attacked other seemingly conservative sheikhs for their collaboration with the West regarding the 9/11 attacks in the United States

This further strengthened jihadism within Saudi society and the Al Qaeda movement found sympathizers for its course. Consequently, the movement again established itself in Saudi Arabia and was able to launch a series of attacks in 2003 and 2004. Hegghammer (2008) observes that the situation created by the terrorist attacks within the Kingdom created “a political earthquake by Saudi standards, triggering a sense of societal crisis and a process of collective soul-searching” (p.

712). The crisis created by Al Qaeda attacks in Saudi Arabia threatened to spiral out of control and was perceived by many as capable of causing a regime change in the

Kingdom.

The above challenges have caused serious threats to the survival of the Al

Saud regime, and many observers, both internal and external, have forecast a tumultuous political period in which the Kingdom would not be able to avoid an

Iranian style revolution. The Al Saud royal family is not ignorant of the serious threat, and over the years has been mapping out well thought out plans to ensure that it stays in power. The threat by radical Islamism holds the biggest danger to the survival of the monarchy (Hegghammer, 2008). He says that radical Islamists such as Al Qaeda have taken to launching attacks on the distant enemy in the hopes of precipitating a 141

! revolution at home. By creating a crisis and acquiring sympathizers for its cause, both local and international, Osama bin Laden hoped to increase the political momentum needed to cause a revolution in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the Wahhabi doctrine within which Saudi Arabian radicalism is based on the same factors that legitimize the Al

Saud regime. This paradox has created a problematic situation for the regime, both at home but particularly at the international level, where the regime has been criticized for breeding radical individuals. As Bremmer (2004) observes, the royal family avoids dissolution of its rule and outdated political system by letting religious leaders, preach radical fundamentalism in the Kingdom’s mosques.

Notable in all the challenges that the Kingdom faces in a bid to endure, religion is in all cases at the forefront. The different interpretations of Islamic religion create most of the tensions experienced in the Kingdom. Shi’a demonstrations, middle class opposition, and extremist movements are all underscored by how Islam is interpreted.

Regime Strategies for Survival

Diversification Strategies

Despite enjoying an expanding economy that is based on oil, the Saudi

Arabian government has faced critical economic problems. The fluctuating oil prices on the global platform present the regime with hurdles particularly in maintaining a society that is unaccustomed to heavy taxation and relies on the government for provision of most basic amenities. The regime has attempted to diversify the economy by encouraging investment in other sectors, such as manufacturing and agriculture.

Rivlin (2009) observes that in the 1980s the government instituted policies aimed at diversifying the economy especially the agricultural sector. 142

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The government spent billions of dollars preparing the desert for wheat production starting in late 1970s and was so successful in producing wheat that by the early 1990s, production reached over 4 million tons/year, not only satisfying internal consumption, but becoming one of the leading wheat exporters in the world, allowing sales for example to the former Soviet Union and even donations to friendly states such as Syria. The policy adopted to boost wheat production required that the government heavily subsidize agricultural inputs, give subsidized loans, build expensive irrigation infrastructure and provide a safe market for farmers. Although this project was a heavy burden on state budget, the regime continued to buy wheat from farmers at costs four times higher than those on the global market. Such policies were part of the many strategies that the regime uses to keep the public happy, subdued, and less likely to criticize and oppose its policies. At the end, the government’s scheme proved too expensive (as it was paying a premium for the wheat to local farmers) and, more importantly, the program proved detrimental to domestic water resources. And by 2007, the Kingdom decided to gradually do away with irrigating the desert and growing wheat all together and once again fully import its wheat by 2016 (Rivlin, 2009).

Economic Strategies

The government has also created cash reserves to cushion the Saudi economy in times of economic recessions and low oil prices. This policy was based on lessons learnt after the government and the royal family engaged in wasteful spending during the economic boom of the 1970s and early 1980s, which left the government with budget deficits that it would bear for years to come. The regime has also learned valuable lessons of the volatility of the oil market, and for a state that is highly 143

! dependent on oil revenue, any downfall in prices is likely to affect the economy adversely.

Crown Prince Abdullah has also implemented strategies to reform Saudi

Arabia’s economy that is highly depended on petrodollars and lacks a diversified economy. The dual strategies aimed to revitalize the failing economy of Saudi Arabia are plans to modernize government operations and secondly, extensive plans and incentives that are aimed at liberalizing the economy (Rouleau, 2002). Rouleau observes that the move to appoint Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki as the Saudi Arabian

General Investment Authority has borne positive fruit. After his appointment, he was able to attain investments in the economy totalling U.S. $10 billion. The liberalization policy has also opened up the oil sector to foreign investors, a move that is expected to generate up to U.S. $30 billion in a decade.

Legitimacy Policies

During the period in which the stability of the regime was threatened by

Islamic fundamentalism being exported by the postrevolutionary Iranian radicals, the

Saudi government undertook measures to stabilize itself (Meijer, 2009). These strategies are reflected in the three-pronged approach, which was implemented in a top-down method (Niblock 2005). Faced with a legitimacy crisis that was being expressed within its borders by the population, as well as heavy criticism from the new religious fundamentalist state of Iran, the Al Saud regime needed to strengthen its historical ties with the religious establishment to avoid a situation, where they aligned themselves with the opposition as happened to Iran.

The regime increased the role and the participation of the religious ulama in state matters and policy formulations. Niblock (2005) also adds that the Kingdom 144

! began associating itself and its rule with Islamic religious symbols as well as giving the clergy substantial influence in the educational system of the state. There was increased spending in enhancing Islamic education with funds being allocated to cater to the increased numbers of university students who were being accepted into Islamic universities. The regime also allocated funds to expand the network of mosques all around the kingdom, which would subsequently facilitate increased control and monitoring of the religious channels.

The ulama was given the power to issue directives on new societal codes that would see the Saudi Arabian community follow strict religious laws. The clergy was given expansive authority on the moral conduct of the Saudis, a factor that was instrumental in the historical agreement between the Wahhabi and the Al Saud family, and on which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is based. The Al Sauds have consequently reinvented the myth of the Saudi state and its creation, based on conquering regions and integrating them as one Kingdom. The regime has also emphasized the role of the

Wahhabis in the creation of the state. In addition to working to strengthen its religious legitimacy within the kingdom, the monarchy presented itself on the global platform as an Islamic state and negotiated with global partners as such, a strategy aimed at minimizing criticism that was coming from other Islamic states, especially postrevolutionary Iran.

To ensure that the clergy fully supported the rulers, the Al Saud government put the religious establishment under state control. The ulama were under the direct employment of the state and therefore were bound to support the regime as their source of revenue. Being under state employment ensures that the ulama have no financial independence and do not enjoy autonomy as their Iranian counterparts do.

Lack of financial independence also means the ulama cannot mobilize substantial 145

! opposition against the regime. The Al Saud government also has firm control of mosques, which are considered state property as opposed to belonging to the clergy.

The situation presented by this strategy is based on the ability to use the clergy for legitimacy purposes, while at the same time ensuring that they do not become all too powerful and influential as to stir up a revolution or back up a revolutionary movement. The clergy has increasingly become a mouthpiece for the Al Saud regime and critics observe that the Sunni ulama are losing their credibility in their indiscriminate support of the regime.

The second strategy adopted was to minimize the risk of an outbreak of a revolution fortifying the regime’s relationship with America. Niblock notes that this strategy was aimed at minimizing the risk of external attacks such as were being threatened by export of the Iranian revolution into the Kingdom. The close alliance was aimed at deterring any such attempts as well as enabling the regime to retaliate in case of an actual attack. The alliance with the United States created a heavy presence of American troops within the Kingdom and acted as a deterrent or defence against internal threats. Heavy military equipment was also purchased from the United States, which increased the capacity for the monarchy to defend itself against potential threats.

This close alliance has also been a source of criticism emanating from the conservative Saudi Arabian society. The Wahhabi doctrine disapproves of association with outsiders, in this case non-Muslims, or even Muslims who do not adhere to

Wahhabism. In the past, the regime has dealt with this criticism by using the clergy to support this cause. During the initial periods when the regime was heavily condemned for its association with the West, to the extent of allowing the U.S. military to have a base in the kingdom, which was considered as a desecration of the holy land, the 146

! clergy was pressed to issue a fatwa in support of the presence of the American military. More recently, the regime has yielded to the pressures to expel American forces from the kingdom, and adopted a more subtle alliance. By publicly distancing themselves from the U.S. government, the regime is hoping to convince Saudi society that it no longer enjoys a close relationship with America. The United States has on its part continued to fortify this strategic relationship by providing arms to the regime.

Both partners also support each other in terms of political or strategic policies, one of these being the agreement to unite and fight terrorism.

The third element of the three-pronged strategy was to co-opt factions which presented the biggest risk to regime stability. These were mainly the minority groups in the country, which include the Shi’a Muslims, marginalized tribes and communities and opposition movements and their leaders (Jones, 2010). This has been accomplished by inviting the marginalized groups for dialogue, creating job opportunities for marginal populations as well as adopting some opinions proposed by the opposition movements. Even as the regime is confronted by economic challenges and has been forced to reduce spending in the provision of some social services, government spending in marginalized areas, particularly those populated by the Shi’a, has increased and development of infrastructure in these areas has intensified. Such measures are intended to satisfy the demands of the Shi’a minority for equitable distribution of rents and subsequently reduce the dissatisfaction of this section of the

Saudi community, which has previously threatened to disrupt the stability of the regime. 147

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Employment Strategies

To curb unemployment, the government has instituted polices to localize labour, otherwise known as Saudization. These policies include wage subsidies for the private sector, charges on foreign labour, wage restraint fees, quotas and employment targets (Kapiszewski, 2001). The regime gives attractive incentives to corporate companies when they employ locals, which is meant to cover training programs.

These incentives are particularly welcome, as the cost of employing Saudi nationals is higher than that of employing foreigners. To increase the chances of the nationals for finding good employment opportunities, the government has implemented policies to improve the educational sector and ensure that the quality of graduates being produced have the relevant skills to be competitive in the modern corporate job market.

Kapiszewski (2001) notes that previously the educational systems in Gulf countries have failed to provide sufficient numbers of business managers, accountants, engineers, doctors, and nurses. He further states that the majority of the graduates are only skilled in Islamic and social studies. The Al Saud regime is still struggling to expand modern educational systems with an emphasis on computer literacy and English language, while many institutions offering technical courses have been opened all over the country (Kapiszewski, 2001).

Counter-Terrorism Strategies

Despite the role that the ulama plays in legitimizing and endorsing the Al

Saud regime, the monarchy has perceived an underlying threat if the religious establishment were to be given more autonomy. The religious extremists who are opposing the regime as well as the religious scholars and the ulama seem to find 148

! common ground on some contentious issues especially those on the practice of Islam and the need for the enforcement of strict moral codes to govern the society.

Sager (2005) states that “indeed, the radicals and the religious establishment increasingly seemed to share similar educational experiences and hold relatively similar views” (p. 252). This suggests the possibility of the clergy being recruited into the opposition movements, which will lead the Al Saud regime to lose its religious legitimacy. To minimize the possibility of such an event happening, King Fahd, in

1993, created a Supreme Council of Islamic affairs and Council for Islamic mission and guidance. The creation of these councils was a strategy that was aimed at marginalizing the ulama and reducing their influence in Saudi Arabia’s government affairs (Sager, 2005).

Faced with the threat of terrorism by extremist movements, the Al Saud monarchy has used several strategies to minimize or eliminate the risks. Over the years, the threat posed by radical fundamentalists has become more real and manifest.

Radical movements of opposition, particularly Al Qaeda, have shown their potential in causing extensive damage and threatening the Al Saud royal family. One strategy being used for reducing these risks is enforcing strict security measures within the

Kingdom. State security agents have intensified surveillance measures over the whole population and dismantling underground movements using extreme measures.

Individuals suspected of participating in opposition movements are routinely monitored, and most are jailed or detained without trial. Increased surveillance has facilitated the capture of large amounts of ammunition and explosives.

The regime is also working collaboratively with other countries to fight terrorism. There has been pressure from the international community for Saudi Arabia to control radicalism within its borders, given that the most radical terrorist 149

! movement, Al Qaeda, has strong roots in the country. In addition, Al Qaeda, like the

Al Saud monarchy, bases its ideology on Wahhabism, which serves as a legitimizing factor for itself and the regime. In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the Al Saud regime not only lost a significant amount of credibility within the home ground, but also faced a crisis with the international community (Cordesman, 2009). In a bid to rebuild its international credentials, the regime has put in place policies that require its security agents to collaborate with other international security agents such as Interpol, in the apprehension and extradition of suspected terrorist. The regime has also entered into an agreement with the U.S. security agents, for collaboration in a joint anti terrorism commission (Sager,

2005).

Stopping the channels through which the terrorists’ networks obtain their funding is another strategy adopted by the Saud government to fight terrorism. This policy allows the government to monitor the movement of funds to ensure that they do not flow to terrorist networks. The policy also allows the state to freeze all financial assets of individuals suspected of engaging in terrorist activities. Another measure has been to restrict the activities of groups operating as charitable organizations. This has come after reports were presented incriminating several nongovernmental organizations of having been involved in funding and funds transfer of money used to carryout the 9/11 attacks.

Ansary (2008) observes that such strategies have yielded real success in averting the risk of terrorism in the Al Saud Kingdom. Most of these strategies were adopted during and after the year 2003 when the Riyadh compound was attacked by terrorists. Ansary further indicates that this situation made the royals realize the real threat posed by radical Islamism and that the measures that were in place had not been 150

! effective. The regime thus understood the need for more effective counterterrorism measures, which were shaped by two main approaches that were securing measures to be undertaken by all security forces in the state and the advocacy and advisory strategy. Ansary notes that this strategy involved dialogue and counselling, involving radical Islamists in dialogue, to help them understand how their perception and interpretation of Islam may have errors. This strategy aims to “confront thoughts with thoughts, and to confront the appeal of extremist takfir ideology by presenting the true interpretation of shariah principles and by promoting the true values of the Islamic faith and the importance of tolerance” (Ansary, 2008, p. 118). The regime has also stepped up its screening of education and monitoring what is preached in mosques in a bid to prevent radicalism spreading within the population.

The religious establishment in Saudi Arabia has been used to deter extremism by issuing fatwas condemning the killing of innocent people, destroying the peace and destroying property. Ansary (2008) notes that in 2002, “the Islamic Fiqh council of the Muslim World League in Mecca stressed the fact that extremism, violence and terrorism have no connection with Islam” (Ansary, 2008, p. 124).

Dialogue and Campaigns

To counter the dissatisfaction and criticism that is coming from the intellectuals in the country, the state, through Prince Abdullah, established the Center for National Dialogue in Riyadh (Sager, 2005). This has given the intellectuals a platform on which to discuss sensitive issues of governance.

Through mass media campaigns, the regime has been trying to root out the extremist mentality within Saudi Arabian society. The move is aimed at curbing the negative influence that radical Islamism has exerted on the population through 151

! underground recruitment networks, and the use of technology especially the internet.

The efforts have led to the netting of Imams who are perceived as sowing seeds of extremism among the Muslim society. The Imams are jailed or compelled to go through religious education again before they are allowed to serve again in mosques.

Faced with the persistent condemnation by Iranian authorities, the Al Saud regime has experienced a crisis of its Islamic legitimacy, within its border, regionally and on the international platform. After the seizure of the grand mosque in 1979 and ensuing Shi’a riots all over the eastern region, the Al Saud regime faced a challenge its ability to defend the holy shrines of Islam. Moreover, the religious fundamentalists in Iran disputed the claim by the Al Saud monarchy of being the rightful custodians of the holy shrines. Despite the holy places being located within the territory of Saudi

Arabia, thereby giving the Al Saud family jurisprudence over their protection, the

Iranians claimed religious supremacy over the Al Saud and regarded themselves as being key players in creating a global ideology of Islam and that of safeguarding the holy shrines of Islam.

This posed a potential threat to the monarchy and it challenged the very claim of religious supremacy, and their responsibility to provide guidance to the rest of the

Islamic world. To salvage the situation, King Fahd declared himself the ‘Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques’ (Niblock, 2005). This declaration affirmed the claim of religious supremacy of Saudi Arabia, which is in reality the birthplace of Islam, and attempted to ensure that the Iranian claim of being instrumental in protecting the holy shrines was refuted.

To gain regional credibility as a legitimate Islamic state, the Al Saud regime has actively supported Islamic causes within the region. One way of going about this was to support, along with the United States, the Islamic opposition movements in 152

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Afghanistan, the so-called “Mujahedin” fighting the “godless” Soviet Communist army. (Ironically, among the noteworthy Mujaheddin, whom the departed American president, Ronald Regan, and the CIA had repeatedly referred to in the 1980s as

“freedom fighters,” was none other than Osama Bin Laden). Niblock observes, “By supporting a cause which had the flavour of an Islamic struggle against communist oppression, the regime was able both to underpin its domestic Islamic legitimacy and to strengthen its global Islamic leadership” (p. 10).

Another dimension of Saudi Arabia’s support for political Islam abroad is given by Al Rasheed. She states that the Al Saud’s strategy has been to “Islamize geography as a sign of piety. In this context, the rationale for jihad at home was removed from the pubic imagination, now domesticated and enjoying the fruits of the early struggles and sacrifices of the previous generation” (Al Rasheed, 2007, p. 206).

Al Rasheed goes on to state that this has propagated the belief that it is only the ruler who can call for a Jihad, whose decision should be sanctioned by the ulama. The regime and the clergy have therefore used this means to support military operations outside of its borders as Jihad. One example is that of Afghanistan, which strengthened the fundamentalism ideology of mujahids (Islamic fighters), such as

Osama Bin Laden. The highest religious authority, Sheikh Abd al Aziz, in 1979 endorsed the invasion of Afghanistan and the waging of jihad against the communists.

SEVEN: EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCES IN OUTCOME

! Following from the previous assessment and explanation concerning the status of stability in Saudi Arabia, it is unreasonable for this paper to make any summary conclusions without explaining the differences in outcome between Iran and Saudi

Arabia concerning the emergence of a revolution. This section will elaborate on the significant differences, with an explanation of why Saudi Arabia has remained stable and not experienced a revolution akin to that of the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran.

These differences are assessed based on the various emergent factors that separate both contexts as derived from the contributions of various pieces of the literature.

They include:

1. Religious and political legitimacy

2. Opposition movements

3. Modernization strategies

4. Role of ulama and religious justifications

5. Saudi strategies in countering dissent

Religious and Political Legitimacy

The legitimacy of the Al Saud regime is dependent on two foundations:

Religion and oil. It is first imperative to explain the disparity in the historical roots of the Saudi and Iranian regimes, which include both inner and outer influences on the government. In the first instance, Reza Khan Pahlavi rose to the throne of the Shah of

Iran with British assistance in 1925, while his son ascended to the Iranian monarchical 154

! throne first by the forceful removal (in 1941) and exile to Madagascar of the father by order of the allied leaders of WWII (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) and remained in power by an American orchestrated coup (1953), thus maintaining the Pahlavi dynasty for another quarter-of-century. The Shah’s legitimacy was undermined as a result of his ascent to power using the 1953 CIA backed coup, in which Mohammed

Mossadegh, the prime minister of Iran, was toppled by Islamists aided by American and British agents and royalists loyal to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The previous

Shah installed by Britain in 1931 conceded Iranian oil pumping rights to the Anglo

Persian Oil Company (now called British Petroleum). When he backed Hitler in the

Second World War, he was deposed by the British, but the agreement persisted even after that. However, Mossadegh, the first democratically elected prime minister in

Iran, in 1950 planned to take back the oil assets in Iran developed by the British, which was in violation of the oil contract with British Petroleum. This led Britain to litigation in Belgium’s International Court against the prime minister’s decision.

Britain lost the case. Britain then went ahead to enforce a blockade of the Persian

Gulf, thus stalling the trade and economy of Iran. The United States was apprehensive that Mossadegh was seeking support from the Soviet Union against Great Britain, and in order to secure their economic and political interests in the Gulf, the American government agreed with Britain to restore the pro-Western Shah to power, culminating in the 1953 CIA and MI6 arranged coup that overthrew the Iranian prime minister (Kinzer, 2003).

The Western powers were involved in the political fortunes of Iran for the sake of their economic and political gains such as access to oil. In both situations involving the removal of the Iranian leadership (the Shah and the prime minister), the economic interests of the Western powers were threatened, which implies that the 155

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West, especially the United States, has the ability and desire to influence a regime change in the Gulf states, as well. However, there has been no reason for such an involvement in Saudi Arabia, as the Al Saud government has secured or progressively maintained the economic interests of America using the longevity of oil drilling and processing, information technology and military contracts that have conceded to

American companies (Kinzer, 2003). It is important to know that irrespective of the fact that Saudi Arabia also maintains strong relations (military and diplomatic) with the United States in a similar vein as Iran did under the Shah, the Al Saud have been divergent in their ability to be able to minimize dissent from this relationship. This has been achieved by using the separation of the tribal and religious values of the

Kingdom from Western influences. The inability of the Shah to preserve core Islamic values against the backdrop of Western influences was a major node for the proliferation of dissent among the people of Iran and particularly the ulama (Peterson,

2001).

Furthermore, in the Iranian Pahlavi dynasty context, at least with regard to the continuation of the dynasty after the 1953 coup, it can be argued that the regaining of the throne was surely not done using legitimate succession based on popular support for the regime. Thus the last quarter-of-century of Pahlavi rule in many ways had an aura of illegitimacy, where political pluralism was gradually extinguished and freedom of expression stamped upon and freedom of organization clamped down on.

On the other hand, the Al Saud family have been in power in the Kingdom of Saudi

Arabia long enough to be perceived as legitimate rulers in a kingdom that strictly upholds tradition. Going forward with this explanation, it is obvious that the Al Sauds have maintained their historic religious legitimacy using a progressive and perpetually intimate relationships with the Saudi religious establishment known as the ulama. 156

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Additionally, it involved increasingly promoting the propaganda of its claim to upholding Islamic values in conservative Saudi society, and endorsing the legitimacy of the Al Saud led regime by the ulama, which incorporates vital elements of supporting the persistence of the Saudi regime.

The interdependent ties between the Al Sauds and the religious establishment in contemporary Saudi Arabia is basically an expansion of the religious-political agreement between Ibn Saud and Ibn Abdul-Wahhab that served as the base on which the monarchy was founded in 1744. A similar connection was established in 15th century in Iran between the Safavid dynasty and the Shi’a clergy (Arjomand, 1988).

By the late 18th century, in Iran, the clergy had become so wealthy and powerful that they had liberated themselves from the political patronage characteristic of the

Safavid era even to the extent of acquiring their own independence. During the rule of the Safavids and particularly the Qajar era, the power of the Shi’a ulama increased and they were able to exercise a role, either existing autonomously or in a compatible way with the government. In Iranian society, the clerics received massive amounts of respect and esteem, owing to their autonomy from the regime and significant ideological influence. This autonomy was the basis for the religious and political influence of the ulama in coordinating the Iranian revolution. This influence is also visible in the Tobacco boycott protest of 1890, a revolt led by the Shi’a ulama against a tobacco concession from the Shah to Britain. The protest was a widely obeyed fatwa against tobacco use, in opposition to Western colonialism and was one of the times the ulama succeeded in compelling the regime to retreat from an undesirable policy

(Nasr, 2006). This continued with the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911, the antirepublican movement of 1924, the oil nationalization movement of 1950-1953, the 157

! urban uprising of 1963 (Ashraf, 1988) and the concessions received just prior to the

1979 revolution.

Conversely, the traditional relationship between the Al Saud family and the

Wahhabi religious establishment implies that The ulama in the Kingdom do not receive the same sort of prestige owing to the fact that they are not independent or autonomous and their position has been co-opted by the Al Sauds. In essence, the Al

Saud-led government has largely been able to maintain the ulama by employing them using state institutions. Furthermore, in Iran, the Shah became vulnerable to a theocratic revolution by suppressing demands for religious reform and repressing the religious establishment coupled with other disillusioned groups in Iranian society

(Arjomand, 1988). In Iran, the Shah threatened the position of the ulama and a large section of the ulama were opposed to the land reforms of the Shah’s 1963-instituted

White Revolution, which was implemented by the bid of the Shah to undermine the religious opposition. This was because the ulama’s own endowments of land were not exempt from the land reforms (Ashraf, 1988).

The Saudi regime has taken a significantly different approach by permitting the ulama to retain full ideological power and influence coupled with enjoying the benefits of largesse from the Kingdom’s oil wealth. While the religious ulama in the

Kingdom do not directly control the political arena as in postrevolutionary Iran, the Al

Saud regime has conceded to them the freedom to exert considerable ideological influence over civil society and governance to be content with their subordination to the regime. This differs widely from the revolutionary dispositions that developed inside the Iranian clergy, which were compelled to vie with the repressive regime instead of cooperating with it. The vital or pivotal disparity is that the power 158

! framework of the ulama in Iran has historically been parallel to those of the regime, while in the Saudi context, they have always been part of it (Waltermire, 2005).

Unlike the situation in which the Shah lost hold of popular support in Iran by

1978, in Saudi Arabia, the Al Sauds had ensured that there is no weakening of central authority in the Kingdom. The Saudi regime has not threatened the interests of significant segments of the population in contrast to the Shah in Iran whose rapid

Westernization programs threatened the influence of the religious establishment.

Islamism is not a religious movement but a political one. Peterson (2002) posits that

Wahhabism is more traditional and has an intrinsic perception of allegiance to the existing order in contrast to Shi’ism in Iran, which is more religiously inclined. A large segment of Saudi Arabia’s Islamists, instead of being not only reactionary, are opposed to the notion that modernity essentially implies Westernization. Their rejection of this notion is founded upon their perception of how the pursuance of modernity in Saudi Arabia has become corrupted, culturally as well as financially.

Peterson’s position is that a fundamental feature of contemporary Islamists is their opposition not to the modernization of the Kingdom but to the inability of the regime to engage in essential reforms in an Islamic context. However, the Al Saud regime has employed some aforementioned strategies and policies that have curbed and checked these dissents.

Irrespective of the fact that various elements of the Saudi society have at times been vocal in regard to dissents and grievances, there has been no popular disaffection that cuts across tribal, class or religious boundaries. Also interesting is the fact that the

Al Saud regime has differed from the Pahlavi led regime in Iran in the late 1970s on the basis that it has been proficient in ensuring that religious, merchant and technocrat elites of the Saudi society maintain their foundations of influence and stakes in the 159

! government. This was a problem for the Shah in 1979, when his policies informed by

Western pressure were a threat to the influence of the bazaar merchants (also known as bazaaris) and other significant elites (Gause, 1991). The land reforms of the Shah’s

White Revolution made the bazaaris turn to the opposition. This was because the

Shah’s industrialization policies and punitive price control measures were detrimental to the business interests and financial influence of the bazaaris (Kurzman, 2004).

Furthermore, the introduction and proliferation of private banks and investment companies that replaced the functions of the bazaar were widely considered by the bazaaris as a threat to their longevity (Pesaran, 2008). This reinforced the oppositional resolve of the bazaaris, their coalition with the ulama and eventually even the left-wing opposition and ultimately led to the ouster of the Shah in the 1979

Revolution.

The Shah made only faint attempts at presenting himself under the guise of

Islamic piety, such as retaining the religious establishment (the Majlis). Iran was declared a neutral (but not a secular) country and the Pahlavi regime was not willing to incur the wrath of the ulama of Iran by totally departing from Islam and to some extent Islamic law. Irrespective of the fact that numerous legal changes were made which brought Iranian law closer to the Western world, the influence of the religious establishment relating to marriage, divorce and child custody, for example, were still largely intact and the provisions for the first Iranian civil code were primarily derived from Sharia law. Furthermore, the Shah regularly paid his religious taxes, contributed to charitable funds, conducted the Hajj ceremony on several occasions, promoted an anticorruption stance and maintained a generally good relationship with the ulama as signs of piety and honour in the eyes of the bazaaris (Ashraf, 1988; Stephan, 2006).

However, the Shah witnessed a calamity of legitimacy as his modernization programs 160

! began to erode the societal foundation of Iran. This legitimacy calamity came ironically or not surprisingly at a time when the incomes of the average Iranian household were on a significant rise, just as corruption, income disparity, and the expectations-to-reality gap were also increasing. Khomeini effectively stripped the

Shah of his legitimacy by convincing Iranians that the Shah misplaced his Muslim identity and was fouling the country by engaging in un-Islamic behaviour. The Saudi royal family is, in a similar vein, beginning to hear an increasing volume of rhetoric from Islamist opponents concerning the Al Saud’s Islamic credentials. Some members of the royal family are well known for their personal and moral corruption, and the regime in general is vulnerable to criticism for its economic and political ties to the

West, which is interpreted by many as being in contradiction with Islamic interpretation (Katz, 2001). A political principle applicable to both Iran and Saudi

Arabia is that, “Power seeks legitimacy, and attains it more effectively, among

Muslims, from Islam rather than from national or patriotic or even dynastic claims, still less from the Western notion of national or popular sovereignty” (Lewis, 1988, p.

4).

In explaining this comparison of the differing dispositions of both Iran and

Saudi Arabia’s regimes in maintaining legitimacy, it is important to note that unlike the Pahlavi’s leadership that was not based on tribal orientation, the Al Saud regime is founded upon tribal allegiance structures. The Shah played on the Persian allegiances of Iranians by promoting the view of being the heir to the kings of ancient Iran, and in

1971 he hosted a celebration marking 2,500 years of the Persian monarchy. However, in 1976, the Shah took this Persian approach too far by replacing the Shi’a Islamic solar calendar (only used in Iran vs. the lunar calendar used in most Arab states parallel to the Western Christian calendar) with an “Imperial” Persian solar calendar, 161

! which purportedly commenced with the foundation of the Persian Empire more than

2500 years earlier. These actions were considered un-Islamic and thus led to a more religiously oriented opposition by the clergy (Skocpol, 1979). This approach was to the monarchy’s detriment in further weakening its support among the majority Shi’a allegiances that were Islamically inclined. However, in regard to the Shah’s handling of the minority Sunnis, it will be seen that the Shi’a ulama had already been resentful

(going back hundreds of years) of the Sunni minority based on their deferring views on the legitimacy of Prophet Mohammed’s successor. This meant that the Sunni ulama became the target of Shi’a persecution and so unconsciously suppressed the

Sunni minority for the Shah in order to promote the Shi’a brand of Islam (Marschall,

2003).

It is significant to state that a core element of political legitimacy in Saudi

Arabia and other states of the Gulf is the concept of the ruler as the paramount Sheik.

Rulers maintain close relations with the tribal leaders in the tribal tradition of the

Majlis, irrespective of the modernization that is ongoing in the Kingdom, the relationship between the rulers and the governed has been unchanged. This has been possible because the Al Sauds are often politicians first and monarchists second

(Gause, 1991). Furthermore, Wahhabism, which is the official state and dominant

Islamic denomination in the Kingdom, is the final key to the sustenance of the Saudi regime’s legitimacy. To this Peterson (2002) states that the Saudis have remained staunch Wahhabis and that the primary difference between them and the Saudi Shi’a minority (aside from the fact that Sunni believe in the Caliphate and Shi’a believe in the imamate) being that the Sunni Saudis hold and perceive the rule of the Al Sauds as legitimate (p. 150). 162

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The origins of the tribal allegiance-oriented perception of legitimacy accorded the Al Saud regime by the society go back in time. The contemporary Saudi state was founded by Abd al Aziz bin Saud, the fourth generation offspring of Mohammed Ibn

Saud. Abd al Aziz, in collaboration with his Wahhabi army, the Ikhwan, waged a campaign in 1902-1924 to amalgamate the regions that currently make up Saudi

Arabia. Upon taking control of Riyadh in 1902, Abd al Aziz acquired the backing of the religious establishment and set himself as the leader of the Al Saud and as the

Wahhabi Imam. From the beginning, as rulers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Al

Sauds were tightly connected with Islam. Upon capturing Hijaz in 1924, Abd al Aziz became the custodian of the two holy mosques in Mecca (McAllister, 1997).

This newfound responsibility afforded Abd al Aziz a wider view of Islam, eventually leading him to challenge the Ikhwan as a result of their enthusiasm for violently pressing their kind of Unitarian Islam upon non-Wahhabi Muslims. To maintain power, Abd al Aziz was compelled to militarily oppose the Ikhwan. To succeed in this, he went out to the countryside, marshalling support and consulting not only those who would be fighting by his side, but also with religious authorities, soliciting their advice and consent. This marked the beginning of a tradition of consultation with and subordination of the ulama, which is now maintained by the

Saudi regime (Simons, 1999, p. 43).

The population is separated along tribal and class structures, coupled with regional interests. Thus it is obvious that each Saudi sees him or herself as having three allegiances: class, tribe, and region. Consequently, the Al Sauds exploited these perceived allegiances by organizing marriages to promote dependency and marginalization, coupled with breaking the internal cohesion of the tribes. The Saudi

National Guard, a force headed by Crown Prince Abdallah which is independent of 163

! the regular army, has formations strictly established along tribal lines and about 80% of all Bedouin have at least one “bread winning” family member in the National

Guard (McAllister, 1997, p. 15).

Tribal cooption policies have a far reaching employment in the state bureaucracy as well and tribal values modified state administration, making it a significant instrument for propagating the legitimacy of the regime. A consolidation of these values progressed under each successive Saudi king, and currently there is an increase in the government’s central control by making local officials directly answerable to the King and also by establishing a Ministry of Justice to regulate the autonomous religious courts. Reinforcement of power and influence in the Kingdom was also actualized using other branches of the state bureaucracy (Waltermire, 2005).

Oil rents have been passed on straight to the centralized channels of the Saudi state, which then shares them using contracts, gifts, interest-free loans and subsidies.

During the oil boom years, these distributive policies carved out a new private sector, which reflected the tribal and regional composition of the bureaucracy, connecting business and government using kinship relationships, tribal loyalties and business partnerships. Thus, the ultimate patron-client framework was set up with the Al Saud organized at the center as the patron for all major players in the Saudi political arena

(Simons, 1999).

Opposition Movements

Irrespective of the Sunni and Shi’a divergence between Saudi Arabia and Iran respectively, in assessing the comparative disparities between the opposition movements in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the facet of Islam emerges as a commonality in both contexts. Thus Waltermire (2005) states that, in about 1400 years of Islamic 164

! history, there have been numerous opposition movements within the Islamic world or

Islam as a religion. The majority of these opposition movements with any significance were religiously expressed. Opposition to the existing order, challenge to a prevailing regime, was actually expressed based on religious orientation just as the existing regime defined its authority and its legitimacy on a religious basis. In order to face a religious regime, a religious challenge was imperative.

Before providing an elucidation of the differences in the outcomes in prerevolutionary Iran and contemporary Saudi Arabia concerning the threats from opposition movements, it is objective to state that Iran’s Shi’a brand of Islam was more active. In comparing the orientation of Shi’a opposition movements to the Sunni opposition in Saudi Arabia, it will be seen that the Shi’a Islamists were influenced by the Shi’a ideology that places the responsibility of leadership on the religious clerics as the temporary proxy of the 12th Imam who went into spiritual occultation. Thus the

Shi’a oppositionists were eventually disposed to respect a leadership endorsed or led by the Shi’a religious clerics such as Ayatollah Khomeini and not an U.S. “puppet regime” (Bayat, 2008, p. 89).

Conversely, the Saudi opposition movements are largely Sunni, who do not share the radical ideology of the Shi’a Islamists but rather respect and uphold the tribal traditions of the Sunni, a tradition that recognizes and is loyal to the traditional monarchy of the Al Saud and the endorsement of the Wahhabi ulama (Fandy, 1999a).

Furthermore, in Saudi Arabia, the Shi’a are demographically a minority and thus, their resentment towards the Al Sauds are overwhelmed by the more popular Sunni support for the Al Saud, thus undermining their ability to express their opposition as they succeeded in doing in 1979 Iran (Kostiner, 2006). In their inability to express dissent, the Shi’a Islamists in Saudi Arabia have resorted to the Shi’a concept of 165

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Islamic martyrdom for suicide acts of terror against the Saudi regime as a means of opposition. However, these techniques have not been as popular as the Saudi regime has been proficient in using coercion to quell or prevent some of these attacks using careful intelligence and policing (Ansary, 2008).

Prior to the outbreak of the Iranian revolution, the dissent against the Shah, both socio-culturally and materialistically, were actually oriented on the symbolism and language of Islam. Similarly, in the Saudi context, Islamic rhetoric and the expression of material grievances are very similar. First of all, it is imperative to explain the orientation of the opposition movements in Iran before looking at the

Saudi context. Thus, it will be shown that in Iran, these networks were the means used by Khomeini to coordinate the Islamic Revolution in opposition to the Pahlavi regime. There is a dearth in the number of published works concerning informal urban networks in the Kingdom. However, the little knowledge available shows that the

Saudi opposition is fragmented among the circle of violent jihadists and loyal reformists. The Jihadists, although drawing more media attention, are only weakly incorporated within society and are in the minority among the common Saudis

(Gause, 1991).

In Iran, the Shah undermined and repressed the influence of formal political organizations challenging his authority using modern instruments of the state (Savak, the bureaucracy, and the army) but made the error of neglecting to establish ties between his informal power centres and his regime. The Shah was therefore incapable of repressing dissident forces that found expression by using informal networks

(Waltermire, 2005). Even though it is an inherent characteristic of opposition forces to have some form of organization, in an authoritarian regime this organization is usually informal, not institutionalized in labour unions, political parties or other 166

! formal political organizations. There were only three groups representing the formal opposition fronts in Iran, such as:

1. National or ethnic minority groups: the Baluchistan People’s League, the

Front for the Liberation of the Arab areas of Iran, the Kurdish Democratic

Party of Iran and the Revolutionary Democratic Movement for the Liberation

of Arabestan. These groups agitated for independence and autonomy from the

government (Enayat, 1983, p. 198).

2. Guerrilla groups: Organization of the People’s Combatants made up of the

(Marxist-Communist) Fadaiyan and (left-wing Islamist) Mojahedin were not

influential in the 1978 movement leading to the 1979 Revolution owing to the

fact that they functioned in an extreme political environment requiring

clandestineness. These organizations had no connections to existing mass

political organizations when they sprang up, and it had not been possible for

them to create any such organizations. Thus these guerrillas remained virtually

cut off from the Iranian population in whose name they claimed to be

operating. However, individual members of these guerrilla organizations

actually took part in the riots and protests, but there was not a significant

organizational contribution (Farhi, 1988, 244).

3. Traditional opposition organizations: As of 1987 these were limited to the

Tudeh Party (a Communist Party formed in 1941) and the (right-wing)

National Front headed by the Muhammad Musaddegh in the 1950s,

respectively. By the 1970s, the National Front, whose major objective and

agitation was for the restoration of a constitutional government, could not

easily offer a real oppositional front owing to the fact that it was not a true

political organization, but was actually an alliance of various factions within 167

!

the parliament coupled with the fact that they lacked the organizational ability

to withstand conditions of dictatorship. The Tudeh Party, which was the

Iranian Communist party, was much more inherently organized, but was

widely (and rightly) seen as the Soviet’s puppet party. Furthermore, since it

was deeply penetrated by Savak and its leaders operated from exile, there was

the widespread notion that the Tudeh leadership were ‘traitors’ because they

had left Iran. This explains the feeble nature of Iranian opposition movements,

but the manifestation of the latent power of the opposition forces as 1978

progressed was clearly orchestrated (Kamrava, 1992, p. 60).

Based on the explanations of the previous paragraph concerning the weakness of the formal opposition forces in Iran prior to the emergence of the Iranian revolution, it was later seen from 1978-1979 that the Shah was indeed well equipped to handle formal opposition forces, but that he misjudged the origin of the true opposition forces in Iran: The informal urban networks. These informal networks which were beyond the control of the Shah were exploited by Khomeini’s cohorts.

The informal networks that served as the most vocal source for expression by the opposition groups were specifically an urban phenomenon. Irrespective of the fact that the rural poor and nomads had historically been occasionally problematic to the

Shah’s regime, by 1978 they were an insignificant factor. The rural poor had, however, been turning into the urban poor all through the 1970s, as a result of massive rural-to-urban migration. Nomads, in a similar vein, had dropped to just about 5% of the Iranian population. Groups of Kurdish, Arab, and Baluchi nationalities also mixed with the rural poor and nomadic people, and were no potent opposition force of any significance (McDaniel, 1991, p. 67). 168

!

In response to the orientation of the rural informal networks, the rural poor took up a passive nature of opposition and were relatively alienated from other political influences. The external influences to which the rural poor were exposed were apparently those permitted by the state. The urban poor, conversely, were a large and critical facet of the informal networks, and thus turned into, eventually, a formidable political force (Waltermire, 2005). In the 1970s, formal Iranian opposition organizations had been totally suppressed by the Shah’s security and political organs and since prior to the outbreak of the revolution, while there was considerable hatred for the Pahlavi regime, there also existed no formally organized group in a position to oppose the regime. Due to these conditions, the Iranian opposition became informally-oriented rather than formally-oriented (Gause, 1991; Waltermire, 2005).

The informal orientation of the Iranian revolution can be seen from the 1960s and 1970s, when the Shah’s well intentioned policies primarily focused on modernizing Iran, which served as a threat to the various interests of large segments of Iran’s rapidly increasing urban population. At the same time, these actions restricted the traditional interests and political powers of the clientele list brokers in

Iran: Shi’a clerics and the bazaaris. The Iranian bazaar was able to act as an opposition front owing to the fact that it was a self-contained community, in which shared interests and interpersonal ties promoted a vibrant perception of collective belonging or identity. This was a balancing force for the teeming masses of rural migrants, but also potentially destabilizing when there was a threat to the bazaar’s shared interests and collective identity. The bazaar has perpetually been a base of civic foundations and no Iranian settlement could persist without the presence of a bazaar, irrespective of its size. Based on the cultural and social dimensions of the bazaar, it could promote the smooth transmission of information within it. The tea 169

! houses, restaurants, gymnasiums, bathhouses and the covered bazaar alley itself were meeting places for people within the bazaar for exchange of information (Bill, 1988).

Traditionally, socio-religious events and festivals have witnessed massive participation by the bazaari segment who also take part in the social activities of the bazaar and in the collective prayers of traders in mosques, a large amount of which are located around the bazaar. The social and cultural facets of the bazaar, therefore, created the foundation for the informal mass communication networks. However, before the advent of the Shah’s Westernization policies, prominent bazaaris played the role of patrons, serving as a stabilizing link between the lower classes and the ruling elite in the bazaar community. This role was eroded away as the physical expansion of Iranian cities and modern industry created divergence between the

Shah’s regime and the bazaar (Ayoob, 2008).

The regime also implemented a modernization strategy to eradicate the physical presence of the bazaars with road construction or building projects. Despite these efforts, the bazaar still maintained its communal might for several reasons: First, the Shah had suppressed the formal leftist organizations that had the tendency of taking advantage of the socio-political disparities within the community. Secondly, every level and group possessed an economic interest in the bazaar’s endurance and longevity as an institution. Thirdly, the close nature of bazaaris to one another resulted not only in friction but also a tightly knit unit against external forces. The physical severance of the bazaar from urban society consolidated the “us vs. them” attitude.

Furthermore, the destabilizing aspect of the network in previous times had occasionally shown itself using simple collective activity like the temporary closure of the bazaar in protest of government decisions that were viewed as arbitrary or detrimental to bazaaris’ interests. The same commercial networks and contacts later 170

! provided the means of communication which enhanced coordination and organization of the massive protests which later transformed the country’s informal religious structures into the revolutionary regime of the Islamic Republic (Waltermire, 2005).

In assessing the opposition movements of the Iranian revolution, the religious network (and thus the mosque) emerges as the most important means for mass mobilization and incitement of dissident activity exploited by Khomeini against the

Shah’s regime. The prominent position of religious networks as a form or political opposition is dependent on the dominant role of Islam in Iran. In explaining this,

Waltermire (2005) posits that Islamic ideology, which has informed or influenced the orientation of the Iranian revolution and could have failed without the remarkable institutional assets of its instigators: the Shi’a clerics. The history of the Iranian

Islamic Revolution is perceived to have commenced with the positioning of Shi’ism as the state religion in 1501 along with the reinforcement of Shi’a clerical authority and the frequency of a dual system of power until the advent of centralization and the extension of the authority of the state (Salehi, 1988, p. 20).

The aforementioned dual system of authority is composed of the Iranian state and the theocracy (the ruling body composed of clergy) as both institutions of legitimate authority, encompassing the inevitable rivalry between both parties for the loyalty of the Iranian populace. Also significant in the fray is the dual system or authority implied that the Shi’a theocracy was totally independent. Thus the most significant aspect dividing Shi’a Islam from Sunni Islam has always been the separation of political and religious power, and the attendant autonomy of the religious institution from the state. The separation of the Shi’a theocracy from the

Shah’s regime, the increased unity of the ulama as a status group, and the sharpened unique orientation of their identity from secular intelligentsia were the major reasons 171

! why they were successful in leading the first traditionalist revolution in modern history (Arjomand, 1988).

The Marja’ network was monetarily maintained using the payment of religious dues, over which the regime had no control. This was the network through which Khomeini redistributed funds as a form of benefaction to Islamic seminary students, charitable causes, and the maintenance of his network. Such a network was basically composed of a caucus group of many devoted ex-students who were also in charge of a huge network of mosques and religious centers for the propagation of proper Islamic faith, each with its own considerable congregation. As a result, the religious establishment’s amorphous organization under the Shah became the informal power base of the Iranian revolution. Due to the division between the state and the religious establishment, the influence of the ulama had emerged foremost in the power of their relations with the people. The integration of the Muslim clerics within society made them capable of vocalizing and widely exploiting the long held dissent against the Pahlavi regime in the 1970s, particularly those grievances which were apparently threatening to the culture and Islamic integrity of most Iranians

(Waltermire, 2005).

As related to the religious establishment, Arjomand (1988) hypothesizes that the most efficient avenues through which the Iranian people expressed their dissatisfactions and dissent to the religious establishment, and through which the

Islamic clerics consequently informed the population, were informal gatherings and associations. In the initial periods of the 1970s, religious groups blossomed. The rural- to-urban migration was also historically linked to rising religious orthodoxy and a more intensive devotion to the legitimate and puritanical fundamental tradition of

Iranian version of Shi’a Islam. The increase in religious movements was due to 172

! opposition to Western and official values, in part, as a reaction to the sudden social transformations, and partly in consolidation of the mosque as the sole institution holistically exclusive and autonomous of the state, an institution, which despite its strength, viewed the penetrating vestiges of Westernization as inimical to Shi’a Islam.

Such Western values included (a) state sanctions on import, production, and consumption of alcohol, (b) the mingling of the sexes, (c) spread of Western attire including the wearing of skin-revealing clothing by women, and (d) the broadcasting of Western movies (dubbed in Persian) on the now widespread national television where sexuality was not frowned upon, including the making of Iranian movies with similar tones.

The places for such meetings, mosques, houses of prominent religious figures and shrines and sacred sites served as secure venues for the expression of popular grievances and dissent against the Shah. A meeting place, such as the local mosque, could be a place not only for praying—for the very devout, five times a day—but to also hold a de facto minipolitical meeting or one-on-one discussions five times a day, as well. There was also the threat posed by the relationship hay’at, the relationship between the mosque and the urban poor, which played a prominent role in the eventual outbreak of revolution in Iran. Within the Mosque network, the interaction between the clerics and group members established durable lines of communication and a perception of solidarity connecting the hierocracy and the urban poor, as also binding the attendees. There was also the previously stated benefaction function of the cleric, sharing food, clothing, and other commodities to the poor, thereby exerting an influence beyond the small membership of the meetings (Waltermire, 2005).

Just prior to the Revolution, Iran was made up of a mixed coalition of various actors and political ideologies (from extreme religious to atheists, communists, and 173

! even some non-Muslims) that united to oppose the Shah under a charismatic leadership of Khomeini. The decision of these fragmented groups (such as Mehdi

Bazargan and his disciples, the bazaaris and other notable Shi’a clerics) to unite under the figure of Khomeini was as a result of their collective dissent and aspirations coalesced through a collective perceived enemy: The Shah. These were embodied in the charismatic followership and influence of the speeches of Khomeini, an Islamic cleric with a spiritual image of legitimacy. The people who, previously, had not wanted to oust the Shah suddenly decided that they indeed wanted to do so (Kurzman,

2004). These groups stayed in the fringes and were excluded from the political fray until the early days of 1978, when with dramatic spontaneity they were heavily mobilized against the Shah’s regime by the traditionalist party of Khomeini. Under the influence of a Shi’a establishment with no other apparent course of action, in

1978, the urban poor mobilized, while the Hay’ats gave the revolution the majority of both its martyrs and foot soldiers (Waltermire, 2005).

The capability of informal networks in opposition to the authoritarian rule of the Shah was seen by the efforts of the urban poor, and was also visible among the

Iranian intelligentsia, who triggered the revolution. In Iran, the position of students and intellectuals was unstable. Irrespective of the fact that the students made up the most consistent and vocal opposition to the Pahlavi regime, the regime largely suppressed its capacity for political expression. At the end, the intellectuals saw the official culture of the Pahlavis as Western, financially corrupt, and they disapproved of the Shah’s national mythology as militaristic and chauvinistic. Nevertheless, the

Shah was forced to carry out an expansion of higher education as a result of his modernization and Westernization policies, he created the need for an educated workforce. The increase in the rate of Western influence that followed Iranian 174

! modernization, however, established a correspondingly intrinsic perception of cultural alienation among the circle of Iranian intellectuals (Kazemi, 1995).

Looking at the various opposition movements, it will be seen that the informal connections of the religious establishment to the educated classes therefore provided the political momentum for the Iranian revolution, connections with the urban poor were the source for the foot soldiers, and ties to the bazaar in turn provided the financial impetus for the revolutionary movement. Indeed, the mosque-bazaar alliance was pivotal to the success of the revolution. Irrespective of the fact that the Iranian merchant community were considerably disjointed along ethnic and regional lines

(with a large part of especially the Iranian merchant community being ethnic Azeri), it still formed a relatively homogeneous antigovernmental group, serving as one of the factors that catalyzed Iran’s merchant community to stand together in defence of its communal interests under the threat of Western economic infringement, in turn seen as being detrimental to Islam and Iranian sovereignty, respectively. The ulama’s status quo was at the same time improved in an equal degree, so that when Western influences started to encroach upon the material and cultural interests of Iran, the ulama and bazaaris, coupled with the networks they commanded, went into an instinctual alliance against the powers that were. No entity had a better qualification to vocalize discontent than the ulama against the infringement of infidels in the abode of Islam. As for the bazaaris, they had the capacity to provide both the financial edge and the large numbers of demonstrators that protest movements required for achieving success (Salzman, 2008).

The incorporation of the Shi’a leadership into all levels of Iranian society using independent informal networks was the reason why an apparently underestimated, but brilliant political operator such as Khomeini was able to in a 175

! highly unprecedented way effectively translate popularly held dissents and perceived threats into an all out Islamic revolution. More important is the fact that Khomeini’s network reveals strengths and strategies that a similarly charismatic figure would require in order to duplicate in a country like Saudi Arabia (Waltermire, 2005).

Khomeini’s network to marshal such popular support borrowed massively from

Shari’ati, to craft a radical utopian ideology that widely exploited the widely held grievances of all those affected by the Shah’s good-intentioned but insensitive, intrusive, and unpluralistic policies.

Khomeini’s network propagated its ideology all through Iran, and over time it gained momentum at each level (Foran, 1994). In making himself the unofficial spokesperson of the oppressed, the Ayatollah was capable of achieving something that no one in Sunni Islam ever had achieved. He pulled in the mass appeal and backing of the traditional rural and urban foundations that had always had faith in the leadership of a cleric of accepted stature, and added them to the support of the more modern social entities of the urban centres (working middle class, students, and other progressive-minded). These individuals were accommodating to a perspective that empowered them as forerunners of the future.

Hay’ats were then the pivotal components of Khomeini’s network when his followers in the mosques of Tehran, Qum and other cities were engaged in the distribution of tape recordings of Khomeini’s sermons disparaging the Shah and these cassettes were played enthusiastically at the same Hay’ats (Arjomand, 1986).

Khomeini kept the financial self-sufficiency required to provide funds for the expanding movement and support his followers as members of his network still collected religious dues (zakat). Khomeini was also able to maintain a significant link 176

! to the new Iranian middle class by nurturing his previously existing contacts among pious Muslim intellectuals who were in opposition to the Shah (Ayoob, 2008).

Taking a look at the Saudi Arabian context of the opposition and how divergent it is to the Iranian case leading to the 1979 Iranian revolution, some significant differences emerge: First and foremost, it is important to note that the internal workings of the Saudi regime and opposition groups are just as difficult to identify and easy to misinterpret now as were the political and social dynamics of the

1979 Revolution. Saudi opposition groups are different from those in other Muslim

Gulf states, as a result of the extreme limitations on conventional expressions of dissent within the Kingdom. There are various groups such as The Movement for

Islamic Reform (MIRA) and the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights

(CDLR), among others, but these groups have failed to unify under a common cause as was seen in the Iranian opposition united under Khomeini. These groups have remained fragmented due to tribal disparities and the fact that the Saudi government with its traditional institutions has efficiently limited the appeal of its opponents by censoring their messages (Fandy, 1999b).

Saudi Arabia has also been divergent from the status of 1979 Iran based on the fact that it usually presents itself as the defender of the faith in the light of a cultural and religious pressure from the West. Therefore, in the larger political terrain or global terms, the Kingdom presents itself as an opposition group–and a radical one, as well, one which directly supports Wahhabi missionaries in the Muslim world and which clandestinely and indirectly (likely with the support of some sympathetic royals) supports Jihadist resistance movements, such as in Chechnya’s war in Russia.

The state’s allocation of resources to cater to the holy places and its persistence as an

Islamic state that applies Islamic law further affirms the Kingdom’s image as a 177

! frontrunner in the fight against Western corruption. Moreover, Saudi opposition groups vary from the 1979 opposition groups in Iran, as a result of the extreme limitations on conventional expressions of dissent within the Kingdom, a process which in the Iranian case was the beginning of the end for the Pahlavi reign, in other words, de jure and de facto permission to openly criticize the state by the late 1970s

(Fandy, 1999a).

As a result of the conservative nature and the closure of the political order in the Kingdom, movement in intermediate spaces is pivotal to the politics of the state and the opposition alike. Consequently, in the modern world, domination and resistance have not only shifted from real to virtual space but the Saudi political opposition has relocated its headquarters to a different physical place, namely Great

Britain. This has been as a result of the effective limitation to the expression of dissent. Opposition leaders, such as Dr. Mohammad al-Mas’ari and Dr. Sa’d al-Faqih, now operate from London as well as Saudi establishment newspapers such as al Hayat and al-Sharq al-Awsat and weekly magazines such as al-Majalla. The Al Saud family also has set up a camp in Britain with its Middle East Broadcasting Corporation, which broadcasts and prints counter opposition material to counteract the propaganda of the resistance (Fandy, 1999b).

This shows that the Al Saud allocates a great deal of money and effort into the regulation of the flow of information. This regulation is achieved using building institutions responsible for censorship and maintaining state ownership of both radio and television. Telecommunication is also under state control, so the regime perpetually monitors international phone calls and faxes. Additionally, the Saudi state controls the alternative media, foreign publications, and other information regarded as a threat to the hegemony of the ruling elite and their ideology. This censorship 178

! encompasses all books, magazines, audio and video cassettes, newspapers, newsletters, and bulletins. This was not a major emphasis for the Shah in Iran who was not effective in suppressing the communication of the informal networks in Iran, leading to a successful coordination of the revolution (Fandy, 1999b). Yet, given the ever expanding information age and technology (e.g., internet, mobile phones, and satellite TV, which were nonexistent in the 1970s), suppression of opposition messages are surely much more difficult (and at places impossible) for the Saudi government in the 2010s.

In contrast to the Iranian revolution, Saudi Arabia’s most vociferous opposition group remains to be Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, operating on the outskirts of Saudi society. Additionally, it will be seen that divergent from the Iranian context, even though Osama bin Laden possesses some significant charisma, he has been widely unsuccessful in marshalling most Saudi Muslims and Muslims in general to his type of Jihad. Opponents of the Kingdom’s status quo with the deepest roots in society are confessed loyalists of the Al Saud and do not, as such, pose a threat to the royal Al Saud’s longevity. This then implies that, for the opposition to present a formidable and threatening front, they must be united. This also implies that, to succeed, the opposition groups must become less fractious, bound by a persistent decline in oil prices that erodes away the patronage power of the regime, and a well- integrated and charismatic representative figure of the opposition figure must emerge to coordinate the Saudi opposition as was the case in the Iranian revolution (Krisher,

2006; Tulloch, 2009).

A look into the orientation of the Saudi political opposition will show that the

Kingdom is ruled by a paternalistic and authoritarian regime that strictly curbs all means of political expression. The Al Saud collects all state income and distributes it 179

! in using a massive system of patronage that covers every major social, economic, educational, religious, and political institution. Due to these conditions, there is a general indisposition among the wide array of recipients of state largesse to have been co-opted by the state and to not oppose their source of livelihood and thus not cooperate with the political opposition (Gause, 1991).

In Saudi Arabia, the official religious establishment is an apparatus of the state and as such provides little outlet for either popular political expression or clerical autonomy as was seen in Iran prior to the outbreak of the Iranian revolution. The establishment financed by the regime is in total control of personnel management in

Saudi mosques and also the inherent content of the sermons preached by those clerical appointees (Waltermire, 2005). According to Gause (1991), the Wahhabi clerics and religious apparatuses are neither financially nor administratively autonomous from the

Al Saud regime, as was the Iranian clergy. This encompasses the religious establishment as being a component of the wider discourse concerning the Saudi opposition, though, because it is the establishment that has borne the heaviest burden of Saudi legitimacy all through history, thereby placing the greatest constraints on the

Saudi regime’s room for political manoeuvres. Nevertheless, the religious sector is so vast that it is not hard to find a niche in it from which to say and write critical things about the Al Saud (Gause, 1991).

The religious institutions remain the largest and most influential organized force in Saudi Arabia. Their funding directly originates from the Al Saud; this is for all individuals in the religious sector, ranging from the Grand Mufti all through the members of the Higher Council of Ulama and the religious ministries to the professors in the religious universities and the Imams of the local mosques are all intrinsically employees of the regime. And the individuals at the topmost levels are all 180

! directly appointed by the Al Saud. As has been previously stated, this alliance began with a political-military-religious partnership between the founder of the contemporary Saudi state and the founder of Wahhabi Islam, and persists today in a symbiotic arrangement in which the royal family acts as a benefactor to the religious establishment in return for consistent religious justification of the Saudi political status quo (Gause, 1991).

The Wahhabi establishment is losing its appeal to the growing Saudi youth, many of whom aspire to join the official ulama. However, members of the establishment have little incentive to challenge the regime that provides their funding, to bite the hand that feeds them, so to speak, nor does the religious establishment take a stand against foreign policy issues like the “unholy” Saudi-U.S. relationship.

Irrespective of the fact that Al Qaeda has no official voice within the Saudi religious establishment, it has become the most popular political opposition in Saudi Arabia. Al

Qaeda stands for the extreme right wing of the Islamist scale as a kind of local branch of a Transnational Jihadi faction. Its major objectives, regardless, are local, not transnational. The organization is bent on the expulsion of “infidels,” especially

Americans, from the Arabian Peninsula and violent toppling of the Al Saud regime, against which it has proclaimed apostasy (Gause, 1991). It also harbours anti-Shi’a sentiments.

However, in explaining the limitations of Jihadists, Cordesman (2009) states,

Al Qaeda is cut off from the populace or the society by its strictly secretive disposition. Furthermore, the Al Qaeda organization relies on tentative and unstable lines within the mass media, means albeit only capable of triggering an immediate emotional response of support, a transitory enthusiasm. This reaction is normally immediate, but short lived, owing to the fact that unlike the Iranian Islamic clergy of 181

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1978, its instigators do not have any of the social relay nodes of a well-entrenched movement with the capability of translating such emotion into civil unrest.

While the Saudi regime has been reluctant to accept a local root of international terrorism even after proof of the participation and logistical support of

Saudi citizens in the 9/11 attacks, it was the terrorist attacks within the borders of

Saudi Arabia in May and November 2003 that propelled the regime in to embark upon determined counterterrorism efforts. Still, despite their original stalling, Saudi counterterrorism efforts have been considerably successful, aided by the fact that Al

Qaeda violence also affected fellow Saudis, not just Americans and other so-called infidels. The fact of existence of ordinary Saudi citizens as victims among Al Qaeda’s attacks seems to have alienated the group from both senior Wahhabi clerics and mainstream Saudi society (Gause, 1991).

Irrespective of the fact that some Saudis agree with Al Qaeda’s denunciation of

Al Saud’s Islamic credentials, all indications are that the majority of the Saudi populace vehemently reject Al Qaeda’s violent methods, at least when it comes to utilization of such tactics within the Kingdom. As such, Al Qaeda appears to be heading for failure as long as it does not set up “social relay points” within the

Kingdom. The major point about the Gulf region’s Al Qaeda remains the fact that even though it attracts more headlines than any opposition group, it is inherently weak and fails to provide a significant opposition front to threaten the Saudi regime’s stability since it is alienated from the larger Saudi society. Al Qaeda’s revolutionary

Iranian equivalent was the Fadaiyan guerrillas and the Mujahidin-e Khalq, not the powerful informal networks of the Iranian mosque and bazaar (Ansary, 2008; Bradley,

2005; Waltermire, 2005). And yet, the Fadaiyan and Mujahidin were able to recruit potential militant sympathizers and recruits from among mostly students and young 182

! intellectuals, while simultaneously forging a larger alliance with the bazaaris and other nonmilitant intellectual opposition in Iran, something Al Qaeda, with its overt violent message geared towards a state-co-opted Saudi population, has clearly failed to do.

In Saudi Arabia, another opposition force challenging the status quo is the

Islamist movement. The Al Saud-led regime has been troubled by some challenges from Islamists in the past, most notably the 1979 hostile takeover of the Grand

Mosque in Mecca by a group of religious fanatics, who were likely inspired by the

Iran’s regime change just a few months past. The Islamists, however, are not a united front for antiregime opposition groups. There are many forms of political Islam, encompassing religious reformers, political reformers, social reformers, conservatives and a small number of secular liberal reformers. The assortment of the compositional groups of Saudi Islamists thus encompasses a spectrum of Jihadists, reformists, rejectionists, and Shi’a Islamists. The Islamist opposition groups are thus a disjointed force, but nonetheless an opposition force to be reckoned with. Their disjointment may well be due to the efforts of the Saudi regime and security forces, which have been proficient in curbing or limiting the ability of any of these groups to vocalize their inherent grievances using the exploitation of security forces and the tribal allegiance network, a facet of rentierism (Ansary, 2008).

Finally, it will be seen that in the Iranian context, Ayatollah Khomeini rose up as the leader of the revolution by laying claim himself, or his immediate followers, to being the representative of the 12th Imam on earth, a figure respected by the then large part of the Shi’a in Iran. This claim was given an image of legitimacy as a result of

Khomeini’s status as a leader among the ulama and also as a result of his personal charisma. Nevertheless, in the Saudi context, there has been no charismatic figure 183

! emerging to unify and lead the opposition groups against the Al Saud regime. The most prominent single individual has been Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network but he has also been unsuccessful as a result of an absence of religious legitimacy. Bin Laden has not been able to provide sufficient claim of religious or tribal legitimacy to garner popular support for his opposition. This inability has been exploited by the Al Saud in their counter propaganda against Osama bin Laden projecting bin Laden as an enemy of Islam and the Muslims, due to the terrorist attacks of Al Qaeda on Saudis and the umma (Kostiner, 2006).

Modernization Strategies

The modernization policies and the outcomes in both prerevolutionary Iran and Saudi Arabia remain another aspect of divergence; therefore, taking a look at the

Iranian context, it will be observed that the Pahlavi regime, in the course of its

American-informed rapid modernization programs, to a large extent introduced modernity into the socioeconomic terrain of Iran. Many of its reforms were organized around women, placing them in the public eye, an act that was popular among the

Western-educated or leaning elite, but unpopular with a large segment of still traditional Iranian society, an act that was also strategically exploited by Khomeini and the religious opposition. Prerevolutionary Iran witnessed a wide array of transformations to both the structure and lifestyles of the Iranian society. The Shah’s objective in this modernization program was to nationalize and secularize Iranian law and society, while he also had ambitions for more state control of all government functions (Cordesman, 2009).

As mentioned in a previous chapter, in his bid to modernize Iran, the Shah implemented the White Revolution, considered as a blue print for his modernization 184

! agenda. The White Revolution’s reform program was particularly intended to empower those classes in support of the traditional system. The Shah promoted the

White Revolution as a move towards modernization and countering leftist calls towards justice, but it is also apparent that he had ulterior political motives; the White

Revolution was a means for the Shah to increase the perception of legitimacy of the

Pahlavi dynasty and thus to further ingratiate himself amongst the masses. One among the various reasons for launching the White Revolution was to get rid of the influence of the landlords and create a new foundation of popular support among the peasants and working class. However, as mentioned above, this did not augur well for the religious establishment whose position and authority were being undermined

(Skcopol, 1979).

The Shah’s largest success was in his bid to unveil the women of Iran, a process begun by his father. In 1929, Reza Shah enacted a new legislation compelling

Iranians to wear Western clothing. Initially, the edict appears to have focused primarily on men who were ordered to put on Western attire including, even specifying, the wearing of European hats. Reza Shah went ahead with his modernization policies in 1936, when he enacted a much more radical law banning women from wearing the veil (known in Iran as the chador). This latter law was applauded by a vocal minority of urban women in Iran (the equivalent of the then- feminists), but more importantly, it led to a perception of resentment from the ulama and other Islamists. This animosity was further compounded by the Shah’s introduction of both modern civil and penal codes in 1928 and with his controversial replacement of religious judges and lawyers with secularly-educated ones, implying that the influence of the Sharia and the ulama in the courts were now heavily undermined if not shattered all together. Among a large portion of the population 185

! opposing these moves, therefore, these steps created a formidable cohesive force for unifying opposition forces against the Shah’s regime in the coming decades

(Moaddel, 1993).

By the 1970s, as a result of the increasingly megalomaniac character of the regime of the Shah, where political dissent was brutally suppressed, despite the improving of the economy, Iranians were increasingly becoming dissatisfied with the regime. This led to the emergence of charismatic clerics who were very vocal in their opposition to the Shah’s modernization programs. The most prominent of these clerics was Ayatollah Khomeini and he and his cohorts used all possible means to get their ideas across. Khomeini provided the vehement argument that the inherent psychological, physical and sexual disparities between men and women are inevitably perceived in various rights and responsibilities. For Khomeini and the majority of his

Islamist followers, females were feebler and more easily excited, while men were instinctually driven by their sexual drives. According to Kazemi (1995), these religious clerics challenged the regime and argued that the veil was imperative for the interest of society. There is an infamous saying by one of the first presidents of the

Islamic Republic, Abulhassan Bani Sadr (in exile in France since 1981), originating from such a stance. Bani Sadr is known to have uttered in a televised presidential debate in late 1979 that “there is a certain radiation emitted from women’s hair that tends to induce men into lustful thoughts” (Entekhabi-Fard, 2001, p. 33). The veil consolidates the sacred and fundamental institute of marriage, as it enhances the desire of the youth to enter into matrimony at a young age and properly both restricting their sexual desires outside of the home and institution of marriage and also fulfilling the same by encouraging marriage at a young age. The veil, it is argued, also raises the integrity and respect of women. The religious clerics were not against the 186

! social and economic activities of women, as long as the veil was to be always present.

Though it took over 30 years, in today’s Islamic Republic of Iran, there even exists an, albeit veiled, national women’s football team, with their initially controversial and

FIFA-banned Islamic attire now sanctioned by FIFA, which came to a compromise decision by allowing the Islamic Republic’s women’s football team to compete in international games if they wear caps to conceal their hair rather than the Muslim veil.

Based on the aforementioned orientation of the Shah’s modernization programs, it is arguable that modernization in prerevolution Iran pursued by the Shah was actually a deviant kind. It is widely suggested that authoritarian regimes are incapable of modernizing their societies. Irrespective of the fact that many authoritarian regimes commenced the modernization process, it was only successful when they were democratized. Iran arguably succeeded in developing its economy, and it was also relatively successful in creating very modernized intellectual groups.

This success led to the creation of a social dichotomy, however. The intellectuals were kept on the fringes by the undemocratic political decisions of the Shah (Krisher,

2006; Waltermire, 2005).

In the Iranian context, the Shah embarked on the modernization of economy and society. But the Shah had a limited and distorted understanding of modernization and its essential components. A look at the economic modernization policies prior to the outbreak of the revolution will show that irrespective of the fact that Iran’s plans were ambitious; the country’s economic growth in the 1970s–at least a level of growth that would satisfy the appetite of an increasingly (economically and politically) demanding public–was ephemeral. It turned out that economic growth and significant increases in public wages, by themselves, could not satisfy the public’s higher demands. And yet, at the same time, similar to Saudi Arabia, the economy was 187

! dependent on oil as about 85% of Iran’s revenues were derived from it. Consequently, by 1976, the per capita income of Iran rose to a world record of U.S. $2,000. Thus, rapidly increasing revenues led to the Shah’s development of more ambitious industrialization programs and the Shah had ambitions of transforming Iran into the fifth most industrialized nation in the world in less than 20 years (Marschall, 2003).

Many argue this could have been achieved if the Islamic Revolution had not taken place. A comparative case in point—albeit, a nonpetrol-rich state—is that of neighbouring Turkey, which in 1977 had a per capita income two times below that of

Iran (estimated at U.S. $2,500 vs. U.S. $5,000 on a purchasing power parity basis), while 30 years later, by 2007, Turkey’s per capita income of U.S. $13,000 had overtaken the Islamic Republic’s U.S. $11,000 (Cordesman, 2009).

The Shah made the fatal error of promising too much and delivering too little.

The outcome of rapid industrialization, without considering low productivity, a lack of skilled personnel, shortages of port facilities and other communications limitations, were fatal to the regime. The Shah’s ambitious plans eroded the government treasury, which relied on importing of expensive technological goods, including large amounts of American military hardware. The Shah was guilty of foolishly turning the oil bonanza into a fatal industrial failure. This is evident in the fact that even though in

1974, Iran had a U.S. $2 billion surplus in its budget, the country ended 1978 with over U.S. $7 billion deficit. These ill-considered and executed industrialization programs increased the country’s reliance on imports and foreign trade. The increase in the rate of imports and the growing dependence on foreign industries massively weakened Iran’s industry and traditional merchant class (i.e., the bazaaris). This was a point of dissent against the Shah’s regime. Rich Iranians, some feeling an incoming instability but most simply unable to find prudent investment opportunities at home, 188

! began to invest their funds abroad due to Iran’s restive, still undeveloped and eventually unstable economic and political environment. It is thus fair to say that the

Iranian revolution emerged as a result of the relative perceived economic hardship after 1976 and as a result of the country’s socio-political turbulence (Green 1982, p.

27).

Based on the failure of prerevolutionary Iran’s socio-economic modernization and rapid industrialization programs, it is essential to assess if the Shah could have embarked on the parallel political modernization that would have smoothed his ambitious modernization programs. A look at this issue would show that while Iran passed through economic and social transformations, a parallel political transformation was not taking shape. The Shah’s authoritarian regime did not allow the actualization of the democratic process many would argue necessary during times of economic progress. Even though Iran was ostensibly a constitutional monarchy, it actually operated as a dictatorship or dictatorial monarchy. The Shah heavily suppressed opposition groups and limited political freedom, forcing the opposition to go underground and thus become radicalized. Irrespective of the fact that the Shah made various references to the merits of both democracy and free elections, this transformation was never actualized, with the political spectrum even narrowing, rather than widening in the mid-1970s (Cordesman, 2009).

Consequently, by the late 1970s, it was becoming obvious that not even the

Shah’s reforms or Savak were capable of curbing the rising dissent against the regime.

Call for economic and political change, much of it by Islamic fundamentalists, was rapidly growing, spreading all over Iran. From late 1977 to 1979 the degree of conflict and confrontation between the religious establishment and the regime became more intense. The conflagration finally climaxed in mid- and late-1978, and mass urban 189

! demonstrations commenced in opposition to the Shah. The nationalists and leftists held a perception of humiliation by the Shah’s persistent use of foreign advisors, and the ulama were emphatic to the moral decadence Iran was experiencing as a result of the modernization policies of the regime. This later became the central point of the

Islamic Revolution with a forging alliance of nationalists, leftists and Islamists, culminating in the ouster of the Shah’s regime and the Pahlavi monarchy (Waltermire,

2005).

Now conversely, from Saudi Arabia’s perspective, the outcome of the modernization policies of the Al Saud have yielded more positive results than the

Iranian context prior to the 1979 Revolution. For more than 50 years, the Kingdom has aligned its foreign policy with the West and many Saudis citizens readily embrace

Western and particularly American products and pop culture even though they oppose

U.S. policies relating to the Middle East. Irrespective of its shortcomings, the Al Saud regime has spent hundreds of billions of dollars of its oil revenues in the development of the Kingdom and in improving the living standards of Saudis, coupled with purchasing highly expensive U.S.-made weaponry and technology (Quilliam &

Kamel, 2003).

Similar to the Iranian context, after 30 years of massive modernization, Saudi

Arabia’s urban infrastructure was massively developed and technologically advanced.

Excellent health care centres and educational institutions offer free medical care and education to all Saudi citizens. Shopping malls showcase French and Italian fashions, supermarkets sell groceries and fruits flown in from the Holland, restaurants offer

Chinese or haute cuisine, and amusement venues with separate hours for male and female customers are found all over the Kingdom’s urban terrain. Suburban neighborhoods with detached apartments and swimming pools for single families 190

! masked by high walls are found in commercial districts, and satellite communications make a phone call from Riyadh to New York as fast and clear as one made from

Connecticut to New York (Quilliam & Kamel, 2003).

Massive oil incomes have been the source of massive wealth to Saudi Arabia.

This new found wealth has proven to be janus-faced: The dilemma that Saudis encountered in the 1990s was to maintain their cultural and religious heritage while being aware of the merits that such wealth might bring. The Al Saud regime has embarked on a quest to acquire Western technology while keeping and upholding those values that were pivotal to Saudi society. It has not been an easy ambition. The

Kingdom has its origins in the Wahhabism, a reform movement within Islam in the

18th century that agitated for a return of Saudis to the purity and simplicity of the early

Islamic community. It was the coalition between the House of Saud (Al Saud) and the

Wahhabi religious reformers that provided the Arabs of the Gulf with a new and compelling emphasis on their loyalties and fostered the unification of the Gulf peninsula under the leadership of Abd al Aziz Ibn Abd ar Rahman Al Saud (Quilliam

& Kamel, 2003).

Saudi Arabia has been steeped in religion-based conservatism derived from the Wahhabi reform movement. The might of conservative perception has increased even as the speed of economic change has grown. Religious conservatives and modernizers have always been in disagreement on the kinds of technology that should be used appropriately and how best to make use of the vast wealth of the Kingdom.

The divergence between the two has been at the centre of much of the Kingdom’s political affairs. There has, however, been common concurrence that the Kingdom’s modernization, irrespective of the form, must reflect its Islamic values. Massive urbanization and the shifted economic environment have catalyzed both the forces of 191

! conservatism and change. Urbanization has introduced with it new social groups in students, technical professionals, and a wide array of foreign workers among them.

The regime has tried in the best ways possible to isolate the Saudi populace from the foreign influences; the task has become more difficult as the rate and population of expatriates in the work force has increased. The increase in educational and economic opportunities has polarized those pursuing secular studies vs. individuals pursuing religious studies (Quilliam & Kamel, 2003).

Irrespective of the fact that the Kingdom has been positioned with one side firmly placed among the most highly developed countries of the world, while the other side stayed rooted in the highly traditional and Third World. More than one- third of the Saudi populace resides in rural areas very far from developed urban nodes, some being nomadic and seminomadic herdsmen and some living as oasis agriculturists. Other families are split in the middle, divided between the devaluation of local products and the elevating cost of livelihood associated with development.

Men [go] to distant towns to work as drivers, labourers, or soldiers in the Saudi Arabian National Guard, and women [are] left to take care of family plots and livestock and raise children. Medical care and education [is] available to much of the population but … often located far from rural areas. For many rural people, lack of knowledge, a lack of incentive, illiteracy, physical distance, and bureaucratic obstacles [limit] access to the resources of Saudi Arabia’s booming society. (Quilliam & Kamel, 2003, p. 18)

The population of the Kingdom also provides a plethora of cultural contrasts.

Included in the different cultures are the Saudis, with a strong and almost tangible belief in the righteousness of seeking a life according to God’s laws as prescribed in the Quran and the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Conversely, the interpretation of the implications of living according to God’s laws had assumed differing meanings to various groups. This has been seen in the fact that some have the desire to adjust 192

! traditional values to the present circumstances; others have the aspiration of adjusting the circumstances of the present to traditional norms and values. In no facet of Saudi

Arabian society is this tension more expressed than in the issue concerning of the societal role of women. The conservative perception is in favour of complete partition of women from men in public life, with the education of women emphasized on domestic skills, while the liberal perception aspires for a transformation of “separation values” into “modesty values,” permitting the increase of the opportunities of women in work and education. However, unlike the Iranian context, the Al Saud have learnt from the mistakes of the Shah and struck a balance between both interest groups in maintaining the core Islamic values while still focusing on the education and empowerment of women in modern Saudi society. This empowerment of the women however still keeps them away from public life as demanded by the Islamic code

(Quilliam & Kamel, 2003, p. 20).

In the political terrain, the early 1990s witnessed unprecedented vocalizations and expressions of political dissidence derived from the economic restiveness and shifts in the social boundaries yielded by the development or modernization programs of the Al Saud regime. In some petitions to the regime for reform in the political system and using some vehement political sermons in the mosques, the Saudi people have demanded an implementation of core Islamic values. However, to prevent an occurrence of a revolution (akin to the Iranian case) in the Kingdom, the Al Saud regime has taken some simultaneous steps aimed at both conciliation and repression thus effectively using a balanced means to both allow partial dissent and also curb the expression of extremist dissent. However, the major threat the Saudi government faces as a consequence of its modernization stance leading to pro-Western affiliations is the presence of American military formations on Saudi soil and the Kingdom’s 193

! close links with Washington. This has been a central point in the justifications for opposition against the Al Saud regime in recent years.

Role of Ulama and Religious Justifications

The ulama played a prominent role in the outcome of the Iranian revolution and also have had an active role in the socio-political terrain of Saudi Arabia.

However, taking a look at the Iranian context prior to the outbreak of the 1979 Islamic

Revolution, it would seem that the restive environment in Iran, prior to 1979, prompted the ulama to take such a prominent part in the Revolution. This is unlike the modus operandi of the Islamic ulama in general as in the rest of the Islamic world, the ulama usually maintains a low profile in social and political matters. On the other hand, in Iran, the Shi’a ulama (also known as Mullahs) have traditionally had a distinct orientation and historians dealing with their politics provide an ideological explanation, which asserts that Shi’a ideology is the main determinant of ulama politics. The Shi’a ulama have a dominant theme of Islam that is clearly and indisputably the Imamate: an institution of a succession of charismatic figures who dispense true guidance in comprehending the esoteric sense of prophetic revelation.

And though there are various Shi’a sects, the majority of Iranians, around 90%, belong to the so-called Twelver Shi’a Islam, what a total of 12 Imams, starting with

Ali, is believed to have ruled Islam after the Prophet’s passing, with the 12th Imam, the Mahdi, being in occultation, to reveal himself in the end of time. (The current president of Iran is part of a Shi’a Twelver group that puts a highly special emphasis on the Mahdi). The notion that the 12th Imam is in occultation adds to the belief that no worldly legitimate authority has been left on Earth. In addition, as far as any attitude to the state and existing authority can be deduced from the teachings of the 194

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Imams, it is one that combines a denial of legitimacy with a quietist patience and abstention from action. This implies that the dictates of the high clerics (such as the handful of living Ayatullahs) are more valid than the dictates of a political or traditional leader based on the fact that the Ayatullah represents the 12th Imam, who is a way to return to this world at a later time. This then shows why the Shi’a ulama in

Iran, prior to the Iranian revolution, did not show any allegiance to legitimizing the

Shah’s regime but rather formed the basis of the opposition groups against him

(Moaddel, 1993).

Moaddel (1993) provides some insight into the orientation of the ulama in Iran prior to the Iranian revolution:

The larger proportions of the ulama were flexible in their social and political attitudes, being fully able to vary their approach according to what they perceived to be their best interests. Prior to Khomeini, we can find almost no figure in Shi’a history who was opposed to the existing government in the sense that he advocated its complete overthrow and replacement with a clerical government. (p. 23)

The larger portion of the protests of the Shi’a ulama, in the past, has been that the regime conformed its policies to be closer to that of the Sharia, which in practical terms has implied that the regime needs to make its policies align with what the ulama perceived as being in its best interests. It is actually only with Khomeini, in the later parts of his life, that opposition to the regime became an unchanging and nonnegotiable position dependent on a political theory that considered the very existence of the government an affront to their beliefs (Daneshvar, 1996, p. 86). Based on the inherent perception of allegiance among the Shi’a ulama, as the rate of economic growth in Iran of the 1970s began to slow down, political repression became more apparent. While Western penetration of influence into the country increased alarmingly, the Iranian people increasingly turned to the ulama in their traditional role 195

! as the voice of and intercessors for the people. Whereas most of the ulama were content with their traditional aloof attitude in regard to social and political questions, a few under the leadership of Khomeini began to take a more active stance (Moaddel,

1993).

Conversely, the Sunni or Wahhabi ulama found in Saudi Arabia are different from Iran’s Shi’a ulama on the basis of their perceived tribal and traditional allegiances. This is a missing factor in the relationship between the Shah’s regime, the people and the religious establishment. However, in Saudi Arabia, the coalition between Muhammad Ibn Saud and Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, in1745, fostered a significant relationship of religious zeal and secular power. Based on this alliance, both parties have reinforced each other’s status, and tried to perpetually upgrade their mutual claims to legitimacy. However, it is important to mention here that both parties make use of bargaining tools to balance this alliance. However, it is obvious that the

Al Saud regime possesses the most formidable bargaining resource in the oil wealth as the discovery of oil has given them a persuasive tool through which they could foster stronger ties with their people, and simultaneously shed some of their dependence on the ulama (Aarts, 2004, 2007; Katz, 2001).

Unlike the Iranian situation, in which the regime was cut off from the ulama, the Al Saud has always had available and been able to rely on the ulama’ fatwas to reinforce legitimacy during periods of societal insecurity. Nevertheless, the official ulama, in most occasions, have relied on the regime for their livelihoods and their influential status among the people is consolidated and enhanced by the presence of religious agencies, such as the morality police and the Sharia courts. The Al Saud performs its obligation of keeping the ulama employed using the authority to act as custodians and enforcers of Islamic values in society, which is the vocal mission of 196

! the Saudi regime. This makes the ulama perpetually obligated to the Al Saud and thus they have a lesser tendency to oppose the Al Saud their source of livelihood and legitimacy (Aarts, 2007; Ansary, 2008; Burke, 2004).

It is also apparent that the Al Saud regime has come up with an effective solution to the problem that led to the ouster of the Shah by the religious establishment in 1979. This is the problem created by a lack of support by the religious establishment in which the people of the peninsula have so much faith. The

Al Sauds have exploited the traditional and statutory obligation of the ulama to the regime seen in the fact that, as custodians of Islam, the ulama legitimize the Islamic credentials of the Al Saud within Saudi society. They are an indispensable player in legitimizing the internal, regional and international policies of the regime. However, the ulama are usually called upon by the Al Saud to justify detested policies, even on occasions when dissident clerics oppose the Islamic orientation of the rulers. This allays any perceptions of a violation of Islamic values by the regime, something that was imperatively needed by the Shah in pursuance of his rapid modernization programs (Aarts, 2007). In some instances, the ulama have become state and society middlemen. Based on their role as the principal intermediary between the regime and society, the ulama wield considerable authority in the society, as their injunctions and observations are popularly accepted. As a result of this status, they are able to define the facets or compositions of Islamic discourse and organize the communication between state and society. Aarts writes:

Essentially, [the ulama] are attorneys of the status quo, and their position and obligation is to check the Islamic aspect of the regime’s policies, whilst being wary of the limits put upon them by their political patrons—it is the perfect marriage between state and Mosque, and similar to the ‘state and church’ system in Medieval Europe. (p. 50)

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The aforementioned divergence in the productive fortunes of both the Shah in

Iran prior to the 1979 Revolution and the Al Saud regime in contemporary Saudi

Arabia reveals that the Shah lacked the much needed support of the religious establishment. This lack of religious legitimacy and support from the Shi’a ulama was exploited by Khomeini and the opposition groups, leading ultimately to the demise of the Pahlavi monarchy. However, in a dissimilar nature, the Al Saud has been able to remain in power as a result of the harmony in their alliance with the Wahhabi ulama; which was an alliance with a history of more than a hundred years. The ulama are traditionally, tribally and economically bound to the fortunes of the Al Saud and thus perpetually provide the much needed legitimacy and religious justification for the Al

Saud’s unpopular and usually pro-Western policies.

Strategies in Countering Dissent

In the Shah’s Iran dissent and opposition in society was countered mainly by use of force and intimidation. This was achieved by the enactment of widely unpopular policies seen in the introduction of restricted individual liberties and the press, arbitrary decisions, political repression, much of it achieved using the employment of the dreaded secret police (Savak, Sazeman-e Ettela’at va Amniyat-e

Keshvar, National Intelligence and Security Organization). Savak was set up by the

Shah in 1957 as a fortification against what he referred to as antistate activists, both domestic and abroad. Savak had two major objectives: identification and arrest of

‘antistate’ entities, particularly members of the two guerrilla organizations (the

Fadaiyan and the Mujahidin, the former a avowed Marxist-Communist group and the latter a left wing Islamist group); and the placement of agents within the government bureaucracy to prevent state infiltration by those not loyal to the Shah (Waltermire, 198

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2005, p. 57). Savak agents were remarkably effective in their brutal and omnipresent efforts at suppressing the Iranian opposition and vocalization of dissent among the populace. However, the Iranian society’s fear and resentment of the Savak led to a situation in which its personnel became popular targets for reprisal as the revolution escalated, with the head of the Savak, General Nematollah Nasiri, having been among the first individuals executed only days after the return of Khomeini from Paris to

Tehran. Regrettably for the Shah, it was the very apparatuses of a modernizing government-bureaucratic ministries, the military, and the SAVAK, coupled with the enforcement of modernizing policies which aggrieved the populace and reinforced the opposition using informal networks, culminating in the eventual demise of the Shah’s reign, according to Waltermire.

However, in the Saudi Arabian context, it appears that the regime of the Al

Saud has taken some cues from the unfortunate mistakes of the Shah before the

Iranian revolution and embarked upon some policies and measures that effectively counter dissent and extremism. To do this, the Saudi regime has developed two strategies: the Security Strategy, implemented by the entire Kingdom’s security forces with the cooperation of the public, and the Advocacy and Advisory Strategy, actualized using counselling dialogue and programs, advisory and advocacy campaigns. The advisory approach is marked by two methods: prevention, reducing the sources of extremism using transforming the wrong understanding of Islamic law; and treatment, making use of truthful dialogue, reconciliation and confrontation, to encourage terrorist sympathizers to repent. The latter method makes use of all lines of communication, including the Internet, to dialogue on ideas, proffer solutions and convince extremists to repent and be righteous (Ansary, 2008). 199

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The Al Saud regime has come to the realization that placing emphasis on the eradication of terrorists, instead of focusing on their radical ideology as a whole, was ill-advised and counterproductive. The regime faced the imperative of countering extremism by waging a campaign within. This led to the development of the

Counselling Program, an intense religious reorientation, rehabilitation, and counselling program for security prisoners who belong to, sympathize with or provide support to extremist groups. The Counselling Program is not part of the criminal- investigation process; rather, its objective is encouraging security prisoners to renounce their radical ideology using the provision of psychological and sociological counselling and intensive religious dialogue (Ansary, 2008).

There is the Tranquillity Campaign that involves religious and academic scholars, psychiatrists, sociologists and other specialists equipped with Internet skills.

These volunteers visit the websites, chat rooms and forums of Islamic extremists to hold online dialogues aimed at curbing the propagation of recruitment and radicalization using the Internet. This was necessary when the regime realized that the web is now the main battleground in the struggle against al Qaeda ideology.

Furthermore, there is the Religious Authority Campaign implemented by the

Kingdom’s religious establishment seen as a vital asset in Saudi Arabia’s fight against radical ideology. Senior religious clerics and legal figures have progressively put out fatwas condemning terrorism in both moral and religious terms (Ansary, 2008, p.

121).

The Saudi regime has also increasingly faced the imperative to combine modernization with the fostering of the traditional ways upon realizing that within the religious or fundamentalist confines, there was a rising resentment for the erosion of traditional Saudi-Wahhabi values and norms. There are some concerns relating to the 200

! wide division between the official puritanical Islamic values and the shifting, usually secular, lifestyles and behaviour of many elite princes; similar to the lifestyle of the

Shah in Iran before the revolution. To this end, the Al Saud has seen the need to refute the comparison between the Shah and the Saudi royal family. Thus, the Al Saud has constantly promoted the notion that the Al Saud had always governed with Islam rather than against it in contrast to the Mohammed Reza Pahlavi regime. The Al Saud have also promoted the notion that the Kingdom is the only Muslim state without a secular constitution but only the Sharia as the legislation thus solving the problem faced by the Shah who alienated his regime and the state from anything Islamic with policies contrary to Islamic values (Goldberg, 1990).

Furthermore, to allay any dissent concerning its Islamic credentials as a result of some of its pro-Western policies, the Al Saud have enacted laws insisting on a stricter, public enforcement of the strict and restrictive Wahhabi code of law and morality. The regime has also banned all religious services apart from the Islamic religious services and apportioned greater authority to the religious police known as the “committee for the condemnation of virtue and the condemnation of vice” responsible for enforcing a firm observance of Islamic tenets in public places (Ansary,

2008, p. 161). Nevertheless, in order to handle other dissents of non-Islamic nature, the regime in Saudi Arabia invested with unshakeable legitimacy, has sought to accommodate and rehabilitate its discontents, especially Saudis from the central Najd region, with a range of strategies. Irrespective of the fact that the regime has the ability to govern by coercion, in some situations it chooses the option of consensus, which has a cultural precedent amongst the Arab tribes of the Peninsula. This can be seen in an example in which the Saudi regime responded to the Letter of Demands issued by the Saudi liberals in November 1990, and the petition signed by religious 201

! scholars, by establishing some new state institutions formulated to inform the decision-making process. This consensual tendency has allowed the state to absorb discontent, and reinforce its cultural legitimacy, according to Ansary.

More importantly, since the 1980s, the Al Saud regime has employed a multidimensional model, which makes use of roughly six distinct approaches

(Quilliam & Kamel, 2003): shaping public discourse, Islamicization and education, consensus, rentierism and patrimonialism, exporting dissidents, and coercion.

Shaping Public Discourse

The Saudi state, together with the ulama, handles and attempts to exert control over Islamic discourse both within the Kingdom and the (Sunni-dominated) Islamic world in general. Based on the fact that the Kingdom houses Islam’s two holiest cities, it thus wields considerable advantage over other Muslim-majority states, especially on the basis of the claims over Islamic authority, organizing the Hajj

(pilgrimage) and the implementation of Islamic law. Unlike prerevolution Iran with its rapid modernization and de-Islamicization of society, Islam has provided the Al Saud regime a nonconvertible currency that has made it capable of commanding authority within the Islamic world; and the Kingdom’s oil bounties have reinforced the value of that currency (Quilliam & Kamel, 2003, p. 36). These authors state:

The Saudi state … has continued to shape the Islamic discourse of the Ummah, and within Saudi Arabia it has employed another strategy of reinforcing Islamist values. The relationship between the state and ulama has produced a mutual dependency pact, and the state has given the ulama free reign over nonpolitical issues, including social behaviour, women’s issues and education. (p. 40) 202

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Islamicization and Education

In Iran, before the outbreak of the revolution, the Shah was found guilty of eroding the Islamic values of Iranian society, a way of life that defined the cultural and traditional identity of the Shi’a. This was, many argue, the central point of resentment against the Shah’s regime. However, in Saudi Arabia, the case seems different as whenever the Al Saud regime reinforces the application of Islamic values, particularly in the softer regions of the Saudi society, it fulfils its Islamic legacy.

Irrespective of the fact that the secular aspirations of foreign policy have overwhelmed the regime’s Islamic mission, the regime has also been instrumental in

Islamicising society instead. By hegemonizing the Islamic discourse terrain between state and society, the Saudi regime has successfully fostered its image of fulfilling an historic obligation (Quilliam & Kamel, 2003; Waltermire, 2005).

Nevertheless, it is important to state here that this Islamic mission of the Al

Saud regime has left it with some irreconcilable objectives, namely, the quest for an

Islamic foreign policy in an apparent international political fashion. This has also led to a considerable disparity between state rhetoric and policy, and domestic and foreign policy, respectively. Therefore, there has been a bid by the Kingdom’s dissident elements to exploit these contradictions to expose the fallacy of the Al

Saud’s claim to legitimacy. Thus, in a bid to compensate for its perceived non-Islamic foreign policy, the regime has frequently tried to Islamicize the Saudi society even further, Some of these measures of furthering Islamicization of society have been, inter alia, to compel expatriate workers to observe the Islamic values of society, and passing regulations prohibiting girls from continuing their education abroad. In so doing, the regime has been able to quell dissent based on its perceived Islamic credentials. 203

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Consensus as a Tradition for Decision-Making

Governing by consensus is in line with the traditions of an ancient Arab nomadic lifestyle. The Al Saud led regime has structured its leadership on consensus and the position of local, regional and national Majlis has been a very imperative means of communication between the regime and the governed. Quilliam and Kamel

(2003) write:

This informal network allows information to percolate both up and down ranging from issues of national concern to individual concern. The Majlis provides a forum, whereby citizens can address the local ruler or governor in an informal setting. Likewise, a local leader would consult with his peers prior to taking a decision that would affect the family, tribe, region or homeland. In fact, the Majlis has also provided the perfect setting for issuing favours, influence (wasta [mediation]), and finance. (p. 44)

A look at the orientation of the Shah’s leadership, however, will show that it was highly personal, excessively dictatorial or autocratic, and was devoid of any application of a consensus framework. The Shah’s ruling base was small and relied on

Savak (with its 5,000 staff and up to 60,000 agents) and the military for survival.

Conversely, the Al Saud is a huge family, which gives them the enormous advantage– in addition to the Mukhabarat, the equivalent to a Saudi Savak, of having eyes and ears in every area of Saudi Arabia and the community. Added to the traditional network of allegiances and patrimony which is a feature of their advanced rentierism, the Al Saud have been able to ‘carry along’ the Saudi populace in an illusion of a consensus government and thus minimize dissent from alienation (Hamzawy, 2008, p.

188). 204

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Rentierism and Patrimonialism

Based on the possession of enormous oil wealth, the Al Saud have not just been able to co-opt dissident forces with new institutional arrangements, but also the

Saudi society in general using economic means. Since the discovery of oil, the state has appropriated the Kingdom’s oil incomes and distributed this wealth based on existing patrimonial linkages within Saudi society; as such, the regime has been capable of cultivating bonds of loyalty using surplus wealth, coupled with Islamic piety. Oil revenues have provided the Al Saud regime with an additional source of legitimacy originating from the just distribution of “Allah’s bounties.” In possession of the oil revenue, the state has provided extensive welfare services to the Saudi people in the areas of education, healthcare and energy consumption, coupled with an establishment of a substantial infrastructure throughout the Kingdom (Khalaf, 2003, p. 539). Conversely, in the Iranian context, the Shah did not sufficiently exploit this advantage of rentierism to provide a welfare-state system for the Iranian people, at least at the scale that the Al Sauds have done in Saudi Arabia. Instead he chose to implement his White Revolution programs aimed at increasing the empowerment of the common man using increased land acquisition to the detriment of the ulama. And by the mid- to late-1970s when the public wages have substantially risen, the demands of the population were no longer purely materialistic, thus demanding increased political rights, though at the same time given the creeping cronyism and corruption, the gap between the economic classes was on the rise, which by itself was a major source of contention. It was no secret among the Iranian people that the Shah and his cohorts were living lives of extreme financial extravagance and financial corruption while there was economic depression arising from the miscalculated implementation of the Shah’s rapid industrialization programs, and the Shah was no longer able to 205

! purchase, so-to-speak, the much needed popular support for his regime, while not making a commitment to curtail corruption (Ashraf, 1988).

Use of Coercion

The Saudi state has made use of a less sophisticated strategy aimed at managing dissent among the Shi’a community in the Kingdom. The Shi’a make up about 7% of the population of the Kingdom, mainly occupying the oil rich Eastern province. Based on the traditionally strict Hanbali application of Islam in the

Kingdom, the ulama and their disciples have persecuted so-called deviants and heretics from the Wahhabi Islamic norms and values as a matter of religious purpose.

It is obvious that religious intolerance has been incorporated or integrated into state policy, and thus, the Shi’a community has experienced discrimination not only from the puritans of Saudi Arabia, but also from the institutions of the state. This is seen in the Shia’s limited access to state resources and relatively lesser employment opportunities in the bureaucracy, military and professional careers (Haji-Yousefi,

2009; Terhalle, 2007).

The opposition and animosity of the majority towards its minority, which is basically dependent on religious foundations and an apprehension of Shi’a conspiracy with Iran, with the support of the state and ulama, has implied that that the Shia’s whole existence has been crowded in resistance and opposition (Bradley, 2005).

Quilliam and Kamel (2003) state:

As a result, the Shi’a opposition has always been critical of the government. In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, Shi’a opposition openly criticized the state and denounced its discriminatory policies. The Shi’a opposition, led by Sheikh Hassan al-Safar, was even reluctant to negotiate with the regime, as it considered the Al Saud to be illegitimate. (p. 54)

206

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Differing from other opposition groups within Saudi Arabia, the Shi’a community had no desire to be co-opted, as its ideological viewpoints were irreconcilable with those of the Al Saud and the religious establishment (Teitelbaum

2001, p.25). Therefore, in the pursuance of their resistance the Saudi Shi’as employ clandestine activities using such organizations as the Organisation of Islamic

Revolution (Munadhamat al-thawra al-islamiyyah), and with the support of Shi’a communities in other Arab Gulf states, like Kuwait and Bahrain, the Saudi Shi’a community have engaged in localized political actions in the Eastern province, such as compelling workers’ strikes and mass demonstrations in protest to the regime’s ‘anti

Shia’ policies. These protests and demonstrations are perceived as being detrimental to the confidence of the Al Saud, and the state thus sometimes responds brutally and crushes these uprisings, such as the 1980 Shi’a uprising (Haji-Yousefi, 2009).

According to Quilliam and Kamel (2003):

[T]he regime could not afford to bring such a heavy-handed response with its Sunni population [but] it had the latitude to do so with the Shi’a community, almost with the blessing of ulama and society. Evidently, the regime has employed a repressive strategy in dealing with its Shi’a opposition....., the state [is] less conciliatory in its approach towards the Shi’a community, as it could afford to discriminate against the community, as a whole, and its clerical class. (p. 68)

Considering all the aforementioned measures embarked upon by the Al Saud regime, and aimed at countering dissent in the Saudi society, it will be seen that the regime has been successful in formulating distinct context-tailored approaches aimed at countering the various types of dissent emerging within the Kingdom. However, in the case of pre-1979 Iran, there clearly was a lapse in the single-approach method of the Shah, which focused mainly on the use of force, seen in the employment of the

Savak for repression and political intimidation and disempowerment, while unable to 207

! utilize sufficient and timely economic means to appease the population. In prerevolutionary Iran, the Shah insisted on the development of an expensive army too large for border clashes, insurgency and internal security. This army was intended to violently repress dissident groups and intimidate the public. However, irrespective of the intent for developing the army, the army was too massive for tackling informal opposition networks and was akin to “using a cannon to kill a mosquito” (Zabih, 1988, p. 21). Conversely, the Al Saud regime has been able to make use of other nonviolent means to eliminate the threat posed by extremists, while also embracing a conciliatory approach rather than a totally coercive methodology. History has showed that the

Shah’s measures only succeeded in alienating him and his regime from the people, which proved fatal to him in the 1979 Revolution. However, the Al Saud has conversely been able to endear itself to the people while also suppressing and curtailing dissent. EIGHT: CONCLUSION

The frequently made comparison between contemporary Saudi Arabia and pre-1979 Revolution Iran commonly asserts that the Al Saud regime of, like the

Pahlavi dynasty, is fated to being toppled by radical Muslims, culminating in a new anti-Western oriented, and fundamentalist Islamic state. A significant flaw among these comparisons and assertions is that they ignore a wide assortment of critical differences between the two cases and fail to provide a rigorous, detail-oriented academic assessment of the underlying causes behind a potential Islamic or otherwise revolution in Saudi Arabia as opposed to pre-1979 Iran. It is apparent that both states possess marked similarities as regards their social and economic challenges. However, in disparity to prerevolution Iran, Saudi Arabia has not yet experienced a revolution.

This formed the central problem or research question for this study. Thus, the researcher asked the following questions: If Saudi Arabia is being compared to Iran with respect to the similarity in challenges and oppositions, then why has Saudi

Arabia still not experienced a revolution akin to Iran’s? What lessons could the Saudi regime have learned from the Iranian case, which have enabled them to avoid revolutionary turmoil? What makes the Iranian revolution so unique so as to make its replication rare or highly improbable amongst other oil-rich rentier states of the

Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia? In this dissertation, when comparing the two cases, the researcher has looked into the similarities and differences. Let us first summarize the similarities.

Prerevolution Iran and contemporary Saudi Arabia share a variety of similarities irrespective of some notable disparities in societal structure and orientation. A look into these similarities in this dissertation revealed that: Both cases 209

! under comparison are dynastic and authoritarian monarchies. Prior to the 1979

Revolution, Iran was governed by the authoritarian regime led by Mohammed Reza

Shah Pahlavi (1919-1980), the second and last King of the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-

1979). This was a short dynastic succession from his father, Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878-

1944), the previous shah, and also promoted a claim to being the heir to the kings of ancient Iran (Persia). Similarly, Saudi Arabia has an orientation with the Al Saud royal dynasty dating back to the 17th century. The Al Sauds have ruled over the monarchy since the establishment of the second Saudi state, up to the establishment of the contemporary state of Saudi Arabia by Kind Abdul Aziz Al Saud (1876-1953, also known as Ibn Saud) in 1932. Thus, it will be observed that prerevolution Iran and contemporary Saudi Arabia share a similar structure of monarchic autocratic government.

Both prerevolution Iran and contemporary Saudi Arabia are rentier states with an elevated susceptibility to, and reliance on global oil price fluctuations. Both are oil- producing Middle Eastern nations, and rentierism is responsible for the fact that the state has not needed to tax the production of wealth or tax per capita income. Rather than embark on the taxation of its citizens, both rentier states have given themselves a paramount obligation or objective of distributing resources. This indeed is a characteristic orientation of Middle Eastern oil producing states and is a source for a majority of the problems of both prerevolution Iran and contemporary Saudi Arabia as elucidated in the course of this dissertation. This is because the fluctuation in global oil prices and booming populations, combined with creeping corruption, can create impedance to the effective distribution of patronage to existing and potential supporters and partners of the regime, whose loyalties are identified by an obvious function of personal patronage. 210

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A further consideration of the similarities between prerevolution Iran and the current Kingdom of Saudi Arabia reveals that both states have been key components of the U.S. twin-pillar policy. The twin-pillar policy was a U.S. foreign policy strategy in the Middle East made up of the pro-Western regimes of Iran and Saudi

Arabia as complementary pillars supporting the military and diplomatic presence of the United States in the region. This policy was intended to provide a double base for the promotion and security of U.S. economic and political influence and interests in the Middle East. Before the development of the Islamic revolution, Iran and Saudi

Arabia were both heavily allied with the West, while the alignment has been popularly regarded as the “unholy alliance” among many Muslims in the Middle East and led to the proliferation of Islamic and other opposition and dissent by both secular intellectuals and Islamic fundamentalists and the religious establishment (ulama) in both states.

Saudi Arabia and prerevolution Iran have been considered by the circle of

Islamic fundamentalists as being guilty of fraternizing with the West, a relationship that extensively led both regimes to invest heavily in Western military equipment along with Western tactical and security support. In Iran, this was the focal point exploited by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989) and the Shi’a ulama in undermining the Islamic credentials of the Shah. Similarly, in Saudi Arabia the heavy investment in U.S.-made weaponry and U.S. tactical support in quelling several uprisings (such as the 1979 al Utaybi’s seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca) have been resented among Islamists. This is in addition to the allowance of U.S. military installations on Saudi soil, which has been a source of contention among some segments of the Saudi Islamic society, including the Shi’as, with opponents considering Western military presence as a threat, but even more, an insult to the 211

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Islamic credentials of Saudi Arabia. Among the chief critics of this policy has been

Osama bin Laden as chief of the Al Qaeda opposition force, which though now a global entity, has a significant number of Saudi members and sympathizers. The dissent emanating from the Saudi Shi’a has focused on economic grievances and a contestation of the Islamic legitimacy of the regime. This is because the Shi’a are of the belief that a religious cleric should be the supreme leader of the Islamic holy land

(a proxy of the 12th Imam on earth) instead of the corrupt ‘puppet’ regime of the Al

Saud. Therefore, it was illustrated in this work that both cases share a common orientation and similar threats to legitimacy as a result of their alliance with the West as regards military and tactical support; cultural and ideological borrowings from the

West by the elite of the two states also causes resentment among the majority traditional segment of their populations.

Finally, a comparison of the similarities shared by both states is only complete with an elucidation of the parallel internal threats faced from Islamic opposition. The legitimacy in the societies of both states is primarily derived from religion (Shi’a and

Sunni Islam) and patronage from oil wealth. A blemish to the Islamic credentials of a regime in both nations is tantamount to a loss of legitimacy. Thus based on the fact that the Shah rose to power via an American-orchestrated coup in 1953 in which

Mohammed Mosaddegh (1882-1967), the prime minister of Iran, was ousted, the

Shah’s legitimacy was severely opposed. This was as a result of the fact that the Shah did not ascend to the throne via legitimate succession and by popular support. The major threat from the Islamic opposition was in regard to the Shah’s decision to declare Iran a religiously neutral (conventional or secular) state was perceived among the ulama as a digression from Islam. Muhammad Reza Shah also faced a threat and opposition to legitimacy as a result of his modernization programs, which were 212

! eroding the societal foundation of Iranian society (such as a ban on the chador and erosion of the influence of the bazaaris). Thus, Khomeini and the ulama later effectively undermined the religious legitimacy of the Shah’s regime by convincing the Iranian people that the Shah had lost his Muslim credentials and was corrupting

Iran with non-Muslim behaviour through association with Western expatriates, but most importantly through alignment with the United States.

The aforementioned status of the Islamic opposition to the Iranian Shah prior to the 1979 Iranian revolution becomes familiar when the current internal situation in

Saudi Arabia is considered. This is obvious from the fact that in a similar pattern to the Islamic opposition to the Shah, the Al Saud royal family is beginning to witness an increasing degree of rhetoric from Islamist opposition groups in regard to the

Kingdom’s Islamic credentials. A point exploited by the Islamic dissident groups derives from the fact that some members of the Al Saud royal family are renowned for their personal lifestyles marred by moral corruption and Westernized lifestyles.

Thus the Al Saud regime in general becomes susceptible to some considerably threatening criticism for its economic and political ties with the West, which is viewed as being in contradiction with the strict tenets of Sharia and Islam in general.

This relationship between the West and the Al Saud regime is often referred to as the

“unholy alliance” with America, the Great Satan confronting the Islamic world.

Irrespective of the collective or parallel similarities between contemporary

Saudi Arabia and prerevolution Iran, there are still some more far reaching disparities between the both cases and the two regimes. It was shown in the course of this comparative study that in assessing the various factors which distinguished both regimes on the basis of outcomes, that religious and political legitimacy were the most paramount factors differentiating both states. In fact, religious and political legitimacy 213

! is intrinsically responsible for the diverging outcomes concerning the persistence of both regimes. The Shah’s legitimacy was undermined due to the orientation of his rise to the throne via a 1953 CIA- and MI5-backed coup. This was a coup planned by the

United States and Britain to secure their “parasitic” economic (i.e., petroleum) and political interests in the Persian Gulf as part of the twin-pillar policy. Thus it was perceived among the Iranian people that the Shah did not ascend to the throne via legitimate succession based on popular support for the regime.

This perception of illegitimacy created a sense of animosity towards the Shah from the religious establishment (ulama). The Iranian ulama has grown so wealthy and powerful that most had liberated themselves from the political patronage of the regime, with political and religious influences so massive that they were able to exercise a role, autonomous of or compatible with the government. This implied that the Iranian ulama, generally speaking, commanded popular respect and esteem as a result of their autonomy from the regime and ideological influence starting decades past. This influence is apparent in their ability to incite the tobacco boycott protest of

1890 (during the Qajar dynasty) and ultimately the ouster of the Shah and the Pahlavi dynasty during the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Before the outbreak of the Iranian revolution, the Shah became susceptible to theocratic revolution based on his unpopular rapid modernization policies accompanied by neglecting the demands for religious reform, repressing the ulama and other disillusioned groups such as the bazaaris and intellectuals from amongst the

Iranian society. At the same time, by persisting in his implementation of his modernization policies, the Shah stood as a threat to the position of the religious establishment and thus, a large section of the ulama became opposed to the land reforms of the Shah’s 1963-commenced White Revolution. This threat to their 214

! position was made more severe by the desire of the Shah to undermine their religious opposition as their own endowments of land were not exempt from the White

Revolution’s land reforms. All these threats to their influence, in addition to the perception of illegitimacy towards the Shah’s leadership, consolidated the opposition and served as a cohesive force uniting the opposition against a common enemy:

Mohammad Reza Shah, ultimately culminating in the deposition of the Shah from the throne during the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Conversely, the outcome of the situation in Saudi Arabia has been divergent irrespective of the aforementioned similarities that align the current regime of the Al

Saud with the Shah’s regime prior to the Iranian revolution. An assessment of the divergent outcomes between both cases has shown that the Al Saud regime has been able to remain in power as a result of its efficiency through promoting the perception of its claim to upholding Islamic values in a conservative Saudi society. This claim to the legitimacy of Islamic credentials has been facilitated by the relationship between the Al Saud and the ulama, originating in a religious-political relationship between

Ibn Saud and Ibn Abdul-Wahhab and forming the foundation upon which the Al Saud dynasty was founded in 1744. The ulama is primarily saddled with the obligation of endorsing the legitimacy of the Al Saud-led regime. This obligation to the monarchy is necessitated by the symbiotic relationship between both parties and basically from the patronage accruing from the Al Saud in the form of funding, contracts and all other forms of largesse originated from oil resources. Both approaches thus ensure the persistence of the Al Saud-led regime.

Although a similar relationship had existed previously in 15th-century Iran between the Safavid dynasty and the Shi’a clergy, this framework had broken down before the ascent of the Pahlavi dynasty to the throne. While there were revolutionary 215

! tendencies emerging within the Iranian clergy compelling the ulama to compete rather than cooperate with the Shah’s repressive regime, the Al Saud regime in Saudi Arabia has been able to eliminate this threat by conceding to the ulama the freedom to express considerably strong ideological influence over society and governance and to thus be satisfied with their subordination to the Al Saud monarchy. Furthermore, the

Al Saud has shown proficiency in ensuring that religious, merchant and technocrat elites of the Saudi society retain their bases of influence and stakes in the government.

This disability served as a threat to the Shah’s regime prior to the revolution, when his rapid modernization policies threatened the influence of the bazaaris and other significant traditionally-oriented elites. Thus, it will be seen that the Shah was without sufficient credible and respective sources of religious endorsement in a society which despite rising incomes and education was still traditional and religious in much of its core, factors which led to the demise of his reign.

There is another factor differentiating the outcomes of the two cases under study: Irrespective of the fact that Islam stands as a commonality in both scenarios, there are some significant disparities concerning outcomes influenced by the impact of opposition movements. The grievances emerging from dissident groups against the

Shah and the Al Saud are actually structured in the symbolism and language of Islam.

In prerevolution Iran, the fragmented opposition networks (Islamists, communists and nationalists) were ultimately united under Khomeini to coordinate regime change via the route of the Islamic Revolution. The Shah undermined and suppressed the influence of formal political organizations that were challenging his authority through the Savak, the bureaucracy, and the army but erred fatally in failing to establish relationships with the informal power nodes such as the bazaaris and the ulama. At the end, therefore, the Shah was incapable of repressing dissenting forces that 216

! ultimately expressed their grievances via informal networks. This was also because the existing formal groups such as ethnic national groups (e.g., the Baluchistan

People’s League the Front for the Liberation of the Arab areas of Iran, and the

Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran), the Guerrilla groups (e.g., the Fadaiyan and the

Mujahidin), and the Traditional opposition organizations (e.g., the Tudeh party and the National Front) were being effectively repressed by the Shah and forced to go underground, thus were not a formidable front for the expression of popular dissent.

Therefore it was obvious that the Shah underrated the source of the true opposition force in Iran: The informal urban networks (the mosques and bazaars, later joined by students and intellectuals). These informal networks were well beyond the reach of the Shah’s repressive apparatuses and were exploited by Khomeini’s groups and served as the most vocal source for expression by the opposition.

The informal networks of the religious establishment and the bazaars with their contacts later served as a means of communication which promoted coordination and organization of the popular protests metamorphosing into the revolutionary regime of the Islamic Republic. Since the ulama maintained an apparent autonomy from the regime, there was a dual system of authority in the Iranian state composed of the Iranian state and the ulama as institutions with a claim to legitimate authority.

This also resulted in a bitter rivalry between both parties for the loyalty of the Iranian people. However, as a result of the depth to which the ulama were integrated within the Iranian society and due to the fact that the Shah’s reforms served as a threat to the culture and Islamic integrity of many Iranians, the ulama were capable of vocalizing and widely exploiting the long held dissents against the Shah’s regime prior to the revolution in 1979. Thus, the separation of the religious establishment from the

Shah’s regime and the elevated cohesion among the opposition were the major 217

! reasons why the informal networks succeeded in orchestrating the Iranian revolution of 1979.

Finally, apart from the contribution of the influence of the informal networks as an opposition front, the Iranian revolution was also successful in ousting the Shah as a result of a unity among the various opposition groups. In the course of assessing the orientation of the Iranian revolution, it was revealed that prior to the revolution,

Iranian society was composed of a mixed coalition of various actors that united to oppose the Shah under the charismatic leadership of Khomeini. The decision of these fragmented groups (such as Mehdi Bazargan’s pro Mosaddegh’s Liberation

Movement of Iran, the bazaaris, Shi’a clerics and Fadaiyan and Muhajedin sympathizers) to unite under a single charismatic figure in Khomeini was as a result of their collective dissent, aspirations and having a single common enemy in the person and regime of the Shah. These were embodied in the charismatic followership and influence of the speeches of Khomeini, a high Islamic cleric with a theological and spiritual image of legitimacy. The spectrum of people who previously had not attempted to oust the Shah collectively (though struggles by individual groups had taken place throughout the decades) suddenly saw the opportunity and incentives to do so (Kurzman, 2004, p. 338). These groups had stayed in the fringes and were excluded from political fray until the early days of 1978, when with dramatic spontaneity they were gradually mobilized against the Shah’s regime through the traditionalist and Islamist umbrella and charismatic leadership of Khomeini. Under the influence of a Shi’a establishment with no other apparent course of action in 1978, the urban poor mobilized via the informal networks gave the revolution the majority of mass protesters. 218

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Conversely, the outcomes in Saudi Arabia have seen the Al Saud remain in power without the development of any Islamic revolution a la Iran in 1979 or other forms of major upheavals. It is important to note that the Al Saud regime has been quite proficient at managing or handling the threats arising from the internal opposition. In the first instance, this dissertation revealed that the Saudi opposition groups suffer from extreme limitations on conventional expressions of dissent within

Saudi Arabia. This is visible in the fact that irrespective of the presence of various groups such as the Movement for Islamic Reform (MIRA) and the Committee for the

Defence of Legitimate Rights (CDLR), they have been unable to be united under a common goal or personage, a phenomenon that proved to be vital to the success of the

Iranian revolution: Uniting against the Shah and under Khomeini. To the contrary, the

Saudi opposition groups have remained split among themselves as a result of tribal disparities and due to the effectiveness of the Saudi regime’s cooption tactics and use of traditional institutions to limit the appeal of the opposition and censor antiregime messages.

Also varying from the Iranian context is the fact that Saudi Arabia has an external opposition group, namely Al Qaeda of the Peninsula, which remains a most vociferous opposition group even though it operates mainly from outside the

Kingdom. Al Qaeda has been unsuccessful due to the fact that it is cut off from the

Saudi society by its strictly secretive disposition and previous violence affecting

Saudis. Another facet of disparity based on the orientation of the opposition is in the absence of a charismatic figure similar to the status of Ayatollah Khomeini in the

Iranian revolution. Irrespective of the fact that Osama bin Laden possesses some significant charisma, he has been unable to woo most Saudi Muslims to his cause.

Furthermore, notable opponents of the regime are confessed loyalists of the Al Saud 219

! and do not, as such, threaten their continued rule. The opposition has also been unable to exploit the weakness of the regime, seen in a persistent decline in oil prices, in turn reducing the patronage power of the regime. Therefore, the inability of the opposition to be united under a common cause or a charismatic figure has been identified by this dissertation as the main reason why they have been unsuccessful in emulating the

1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran.

Furthermore, since Al Saud is a paternalistic and authoritarian regime, it has vehemently limited all means of political expression. The Al Sauds have been proficient in distributing state largesse via a massive system of patronage covering every major social, economic, educational, religious, and political institution. In so doing, there is a general unwillingness among the large demographic of recipients of this state largesse to oppose their source of livelihood or ‘bite the hand that feeds them’ via political and violent opposition. It is also important in the course of this conclusion to highlight the fact that in divergence from the situation in Iran in which the ulama were solely responsible for coordinating the masses and ultimately the revolution, in Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabi ulama is an apparatus of the state and thus is incapable of popular political expression or clerical autonomy as was seen in the

Iranian context. The ulama, financed by the regime, are in total control of personnel management of the religious establishment and also the inherent content of the sermons preached in the mosques. Contrary to the Shi’a ulama of prerevolution Iran, the Wahhabi ulama are neither financially nor administratively autonomous from the

Al Saud regime. The ties between the ulama and the Al Saud are a symbiotic arrangement in which the Al Saud performs the role of a benefactor to the ulama in return for consistent religious justification and endorsement of the Saudi political status quo. 220

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Finally, as regards the difference in the outcomes concerning the opposition groups, it was revealed in this study that the Islamist movement, as a whole, is another major force challenging the regime. The Al Saud led regime has witnessed significant trouble from Islamists, most notably the violent takeover of the Grand Mosque in

Mecca in 1979 by a group of religious fanatics led by Utaybi and later on from Al

Qaeda and its intermittent verbal and physical attacks aimed at the Al Saud and its security forces from within and outside the Kingdom. Nevertheless, the Islamists have not been successful as an opposition group since they are not a united front for anti regime opposition nor were they able to garner sufficient sympathy from the majority of the Saudi public who have been largely co-opted throughout the years by both handsomely benefiting from the Kingdom’s oil largess and coming to believe that the

Al Saud is the true face of Wahhabi Sunni Islam, and not the Islamist opposition. The

Islamist opposition groups are thus disjointed, split among political reformers, social reformers, religious conservatives, jihadists, rejectionists, and Shi’a Islamists.

Nevertheless, this dissertation revealed that the Saudi regime has been proficient in limiting the ability of any of these groups to vocalize their inherent dissents through the use of security forces, the tribal allegiance and patronage network and substantial distribution of petroleum benefits, a key feature of rentierism.

It was also revealed here that the most significant aspect dividing Iranian Shi’a from Saudi Sunni Islam has always been the divergence in political and religious power, and the associated autonomy of the religious institution from the state.

Nevertheless, this dissertation revealed that the Saudi opposition is fragmented among the circle of violent Jihadists and loyal reformists. The Jihadists, irrespective of drawing more media attention, are only weakly integrated into Saudi society and are in the minority among the common Saudis. They make good headlines and redeem 221

! sympathy with their anti-Israeli and anti-American rhetoric by the Saudi public (and some among the Al Saud household) and yet fail to make inroads towards agitating the same when it comes to anti Al Saud rhetoric and action.

In line with the opposition dissent, one of the most significant factors that led to the demise of the Shah’s regime in the 1979 Iranian revolution was concerning the resentment for the Shah’s rapid modernization policies, considered to be sacrilegious in the eyes of a significant portion of the still tradition- and Islam-bound Iranian population. However, an assessment of the modernization policies implemented by the regimes in both contexts revealed that in the Iranian context, the Pahlavi regime, in the course of its American-encouraged rapid modernization and Westernization programs, especially by the mid-1970s, was trying to modernize and industrialize the socioeconomic sector of Iran at an unrealistic pace. In prerevolutionary Iran, the

Shah’s objective in this modernization program sought to nationalize and secularize law in Iran with ambitions for more state control of all government functions.

In this modernization experiment of Iran (already commenced by Reza Shah with, among other things, forced unveiling of women and the sending of several hundred young men to Europe to receive advanced education), Muhammad Reza

Shah, in turn, implemented the White Revolution by 1963, a reform program particularly intended to empower the lower socioeconomic classes and to simultaneously guarantee their continuous allegiance to the monarchy and to do away with the left’s long-held criticism of gross economic disparities in the Iran as a monarchic state. Though the Shah promoted the White Revolution as a reform in line with his modernization agenda, it is obvious it was intended for him to increase the perception of legitimacy of the monarchy. This legitimacy was to be derived from popular support from the peasants and working classes by cutting off the influence of 222

! the landlords and partially silencing leftist criticism of the regime. However, the

White Revolution was detrimental to the ulama whose position, authority and even personal wealth were simultaneously being undermined. The ulama were thus placed in opposition to the Shah’s White Revolution reform agenda and his regime, all of which they considered as threatening to their interests. Reza Shah’s modernization programs had already banned the veiling of women and compelled Iranians to wear more Western clothing such as requiring men to wear hats in public. And though these edicts were largely ignored towards the reign of Mohamamd Reza Shah, especially in the outlying regions of Iran, he too attempted to build on his father’s and his own modernization programs and initiated significant legal reforms favouring women’s rights, which naturally did not fare well with the ulama and the still traditionalist-majority Iranians. The ulama’s animosity towards the Shah was further increased by the Shah’s controversial replacement of religious judges and lawyers with secularly educated ones, a move necessitated by the replacement of the Sharia or

Islamic law and the ulama in the courts with secular law and secular judges, some of whom were females. As a result of the miscalculated policies of the Shah, including the narrowing of legal opposition and curtailing of freedom of expression and assembly, Iranians (both the majority traditionalists and minority secular-oriented) were becoming increasingly disillusioned with the regime, leading to the emergence of charismatic clerics who were very vocal in their opposition to the Shah’s modernization programs. And in the case of Ayatollah Khomeini, this vociferous opposition to the Shah was conducted from the safety of neighbouring Iraq (and the latter half of 1978, France), a state that by the 1970s, given a long-running border dispute and skirmishes, had extenuated its anti-Iranian stance. This spectrum of religious, leftist and bazaari opposition was thus able to coalesce under the Khomeini 223

! leadership umbrella and culminated in the ouster of the Shah from power in the 1979

Iranian revolution.

There was also an economic aspect to the failure of the Shah’s modernization policies to woo popular support and this was seen in the fact that modernization was accompanied by rapid industrialization. This industrialization, however, failed to consider low productivity, a lack of skilled personnel, insufficient basic infrastructure and other relevant limitations. Thus, the rapid modernization policies, including the purchasing of billions of dollars of American military hardware, depleted the state’s treasury. This implied that the oil bonanza became a fatal industrial failure, compelling Iran to rely on imports and foreign trade (with over 90% of exports being oil), thus marginalizing Iran’s already underdeveloped industry and traditional merchant class (the bazaaris). This then led to a situation in which the Shah’s policies became suicidal, a point of dissent against the Shah’s regime. Thus it is apparent that the 1979 Revolution was also a result of misjudged economic policy and consequent socio-political turbulence.

From the Saudi perspective of the comparison, it was revealed that the Al

Saud learnt some lessons from the Iranian revolutionary experience and attempted to apply measures to avoid a similar scenario in Saudi Arabia. Among other things, the outcome of the modernization policies of the Al Saud has provided more positive outcomes than the Iranian context prior to the Iranian revolution. This is irrespective of the fact that the Saudi regime has also carried out some far reaching modernization programs in the Kingdom, seen in more than 50 years of being aligned with the

United States and the Western world and the fact that many Saudis embrace Western and particularly American products and pop culture (even though they oppose U.S. policies relating to the Middle East). The Saudi regime has spent billions of dollars of 224

! its oil revenues in modernizing Saudi society in addition to purchasing highly expensive U.S.-made military hardware and other technology. However, the Saudi brand of modernization has been successful because in the course of acquiring

Western technology, the Al Saud has also ensured the preservation of traditional tribal and religious values that are still pivotal to Saudi society. This was necessary as the monarchy was wary of incurring the wrath of the religious establishment as was visible in the Iranian context. Therefore, the regime concurred with the ulama’s demand that the Kingdom’s modernization, irrespective of the form, must reflect

Islamic values. In pursuance of this concurrence, the Saudi regime has also sought increasingly to isolate the populace from foreign influences, though this has largely been a losing battle in an age of the Internet. Still, this conservative approach to modernization has persisted with near-complete partition of women from men in public life, placing emphasis on the education of women on domestic skills irrespective of permitting the increase of opportunities of women in work and education. Unlike the Iranian context, therefore, the Al Saud has been able to maintain the core Islamic values while still focusing on the education and empowerment of women in modern Saudi society.

Finally, as a result of some vocalizations and expressions of political dissent and restiveness originating from creeping economic instability and shifts in the social boundaries resulting from the modernization programs of the Al Saud regime, the Al

Sauds have tried to prevent political instability similar to the Iranian revolution by craftily simultaneously using conciliation and repression (coercion). This policy has maintained an apparently balanced means to curtail the expression of dissent and is an indication that 31 years after the Iranian revolution, the Al Saud regime has been capable of preventing the revolutionary turmoil against the monarchy by finding 225

! suitable solutions to key problems it has been facing and which the Shah faced in the years leading up to the 1979 Iranian revolution.

The researcher would like to state that in the course of this dissertation, some theories were assessed in trying to provide an explanation to the topic under study from a conceptual or theoretical perspective. These sociological theories such as the social movement theory, revolutionary theories, theories of regime stability and theories relating to authoritarianism in the Middle East all had various degrees of relevance and application. However, it is important to be able to identify how these theories were applicable to the provision of an objective explanation to the comparative study of actual and potential revolutions in the cases of the Iranian and

Saudi Arabian monarchic states.

A look at social movement theory reveals that it refers to collectivities, massive informal gatherings of people or groups focused on particular socio-political issues or actualizing, antagonizing, opposing or reversing a social transformation

(Chesters & Welsh, 2006, p. 12). A consideration of the orientation of the Iranian revolution shows far reaching similarities with the definition of social movements since it was a revolution by massive gatherings of people from the bazaaris to traditionalists and disciples of the ulama to students and intellectuals and to members and sympathizers of the violent Fadaiyan and Mujahedin underground militant groups, all coalesced—albeit temporarily—in a bid to oust their common enemy: the last Pahlavi monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah. Furthermore, based on the perspective of social movements as a progression or sequence of controversial actions and campaigns by which common individuals made collective claims on others, it is obvious that this theory was one of the most applicable for explaining the mass 226

! participation of ordinary people in public politics in the case of the 1979 Iranian revolution.

However, there are various theories of social movements that seek to explain the dynamics of social movements such as the theory of collective action, the theory of relative deprivation, value-added theory, theory of resource mobilization, frame analysis theory, new social movement theory, and political process theory. Among these, the only one applicable to the Iranian and Saudi cases appears to be resource mobilization theory. Resource mobilization theory was found to be applicable to this study based on its proposition that social movements prosper and grow when people with grudges and discontent are capable of mobilizing enough resources to react. This emphasis on resources provides an explanation concerning why the Iranian revolution was successful and why the discontented opposition in Saudi Arabia have been incapable of organizing, let alone enticing a revolution. This is because, true to the assumptions of resource mobilization theory, individuals in both the Iranian and Saudi cases were conscripted via networks, and commitment sustained (or otherwise as in the Saudi case) by establishing a collective identity and going on to sustain interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, since social movement organizations need resources and leadership, this theory was applicable in the explanation of how the opposition in Iran succeeded because they were able to mobilize resources and had a credible leadership in Khomeini and the ulama-bazaari’s intellectuals alliance. The theory is also efficient in providing an explanation to the inability of Saudi opposition to marshal resources as a result of efficient government coercion and repression.

The political process theory is very similar to resource mobilization, but not intrinsically applicable to this topic as it has the flaw of focusing on a different aspect of social stratification significant to the development of social movement, which 227

! implies political opportunities. Since the political process theory refers to the perceptions of deprivation and grudges, a combined perception of inequality that members or potential members of the movement hold as the primary motivation for movement organization, it fails to be applicable to both cases under comparison. This is because the Iranian revolution was to an extent a process in which people’s behaviour was influenced by their assessment of the scope of protest. Average

Iranians became involved when they viewed the revolutionary movement as viable, meaning that they perceived it as having a reasonable chance of success, hence a form of tipping point or critical mass was eventually reached leading to more and more people deciding to be active revolutionary participants, leading to a decision by the

Shah to leave Iran and for the armed forces to also side with the revolutionaries. No such assessment can be attributed to the opposition movements in Saudi Arabia. At the same time, the culture theory proved to be quite applicable to this dissertation since it explains social movements via their culture implying collectively held ideas and ideologies, beliefs, values and other worldviews. This is applicable to the Iranian revolution and contemporary Saudi Arabia since both cases concern the perception of

Islamic, traditional and tribal (more applicable to the Saudi case) values as a point of dissent.

The mass society theory was also found to be quite applicable since it defines social movements as a composition of people living in big societal structures with an apparent feeling of being insignificantly or socially cut off. The theory posits that social movements provide a perception of empowerment and belonging aspired by followers of the movement. This theory was particularly applicable to this dissertation as it contextually provided an explanation to the Iranian revolution based on the fact that the masses had a sense of alienation from the polity and economic dividends and 228

! decisions and hence resorted to sympathy with the greater opposition, which had coalesced around an Islamic movement that identified with the “common Muslim” but also “common citizen,” many of whom were secular Muslims, some non-

Muslims, in the Iranian case. The Shah’s rapid Westernization program alienated many a common man and woman from the mainstream society and thus created an aspiration for a place of belonging that was only offered by the Islamists.

Revolutionary theories were also applicable to this dissertation since they concerned the assessment of past and potential revolutions. Among the theories relating to revolutions, regime-specific explanations were very applicable to this comparative study. This is because some scholars such as Goldstone (1994) have argued that the causes of the Iranian revolution, and other revolutions for that matter, lie in certain characteristics present in the political system. This theory identified personal or patrimonial monarchies and sultanistic regimes such as those in prerevolution Iran and Saudi Arabia, respectively, as being susceptible to a revolutionary movement. However, the theory fails to properly explain why in some cases, “personal regimes” such as the Al Saud have persisted and others as the Pahlavi regime succumbed to a revolution even though the Shah’s regime was more personal, a “presidential monarchy” even, as referred to by Brooker (2009). A proposition in the theory states that “weak states are weak states” however long they may last (p.

69). This, one could argue, was evident in prerevolutionary Iran and the rather rapid crumbling of a previously thought strong regime and security apparatus of the Shah.

Thus, if the Shah’s regime was mighty in terms of military hardware and secret police

(Savak) structures, in the end it proved much of its avowed might and strength was a de facto façade as—to use a American military terminology—its modernization program and rhetoric of the upcoming age of Iranian “golden civilization” ultimately 229

! either failed to be fully actualized or when actualized to “win the hearts and minds of the population.” Theory of revolution also provides an explanation of how oil wealth and its mode of expenditure and development are important variables to regime longevity or lack thereof, a pivotal reason for both the fall of the Shah and the longevity of the Al Saud regime.

It is important to state that state structural theories of revolutions were found to be of limited application to the explanations of this dissertation as a result of the focus on the individual rather than the masses. Skocpol’s (1979) approach provided only a partial explanation for this very distinct factor that has contributed to the

Iranian revolution. The elaborations in this approach revealed that a multidimensional explanation is imperative to fully understanding the causes of the

Iranian revolution. The approach of the structural-state-centred theory fails to account for a sustained theoretical treatment of the Iranian revolution, and an attempt at an explanation of it, in a comparative perspective.

Regime stability theories were also important to the explanation concerning why the Shah’s regime fell and why the Saudi regime has remained in power. These theories were very relevant based on their provision of a pivotal causal factor responsible for the persistence of regimes. The primary factor posits that economic downturns or fluctuations and slowdown in the rates of GDP growth tend to provoke mass uprisings and protests, potentially leading to a revolution as was evident in Iran.

The propositions of this theory show that for an authoritarian regime, such as the Shah or the Al Saud, that owes a considerable amount of its legitimacy to the performance of the economy, an erosion in the flow of funds (or the perception in the relative deprivation from the economic benefits) can be tantamount to a catastrophe in political legitimization. Economic crises have the tendency to slow down the 230

! distribution of largesse to supporters and partners of the regime, whose loyalties are highly characterized by an extreme function of personal patronage, as seen in the ability of the Al Saud to secure legitimacy via patronage. The ability to distribute largesse among subjects in order to purchase legitimacy or co-opt the masses is an attribute of rentier structures as provided under the theoretical provisions concerning authoritarianism in the Middle East and the reasons for its persistence.

Finally it is significant to state as conclusion that the analogies between pre-

1979 Revolution Iran and contemporary state of Saudi Arabia as regards the possibility of a revolution are not misplaced. These analogies or comparisons are arguably justified based on the similarities that are found to be associated in both cases. However, while it is tempting to make these comparisons, they can also be superficial if one does not consider or assess the major differences between the two, as it is hope was done here. Analysts who use these analogies very often draw false conclusions since each case is unique. One of the possible reasons behind the compulsion for this analogy is the apparent similarity between both states concerning dissent and internal opposition concerning their dispositions even though the Saudi regime has so far, with good reason as shown here, been able to evade a revolutionary scenario a la 1979 Iran.

!

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