COLD WAR IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD ALSO BY DILIP HIRO Non-fiction The Age of Aspiration: Power, Wealth, and Conflict in Globalizing India (2016) The Longest August: The Unflinching Rivalry Between Indian and Pakistan (2015) Indians in a Globalizing World: Their Skewed Rise (2014) A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Middle East (2013) Apocalyptic Realm: Jihadists in South Asia (2012) After Empire: The Birth of a Multipolar World (2010) (Short-listed for Mirabaud Prize, Geneva, 2011) Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Iran (2009) (On Financial Times’ List of Best History Books of the Year) Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World’s Vanishing Oil Resources (2007) The Timeline History of India (2006) The Iranian Labyrinth: Journeys through Theocratic Iran and Its Furies (2005) Secrets and Lies: Operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’ and After (2004) (On Financial Times’ List of Best Politics and Religion Books of the Year) (Long-listed for the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing) The Essential Middle East: A Comprehensive Guide (2003) Iraq: In The Eye Of The Storm (2003) War Without End: The Rise of Islamist Terrorism and Global Response (2002) The Rough Guide History of India (2002) Neighbors, Not Friends: Iraq and Iran after the Gulf Wars (2001) Sharing the Promised Land: A Tale of Israelis and Palestinians (1999) Dictionary of the Middle East (1996) The Middle East (1996) Between Marx and Muhammad: The Changing Face of Central Asia (1995) Lebanon, Fire and Embers: A History of the Lebanese Civil War (1993) Desert Shield to Desert Storm: The Second Gulf War (1992) Black British, White British: A History of Race Relations in Britain (1991) The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (1991) Holy Wars: The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism (1989; Re-issued, 2013) Iran: The Revolution Within (1988) Iran under the Ayatollahs (1985; Re-issued, 2011) Inside the Middle East (1982; Re-issued, 2013) Inside India Today (1977; Re-issued, 2013) The Untouchables of India (1975) Black British, White British (1973) The Indian Family in Britain (1969) Fiction Three Plays (1985) Interior, Exchange, Exterior (Poems, 1980) Apply, Apply, No Reply & A Clean Break (Two Plays, 1978) To Anchor a Cloud (Play, 1972) A Triangular View (Novel, 1969 DILIP HIRO Cold War in the Islamic World Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Struggle for Supremacy A A Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Copyright © Dilip Hiro 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available Dilip Hiro. Cold War in the Islamic World: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Struggle for Supremacy. ISBN: 9780190944650 Printed in the United Kingdom on acid-free paper CONTENTS Spelling and Transliteration vii Preface ix Prologue xix 1. Introduction 1 2. Black Gold and America Shape Iran and Saudi Arabia 21 3. Faisal’s Enduring Imprint; the Shah’s Vaulting Ambition 39 4. An Islamic Revolution in Iran; Initial Misreading by the Saudis 55 5. Iran’s Second Revolution; A Millennial Challenge to the House of Saud 71 6. The Iran-Iraq War Steels Khomeini’s Regime 93 7. The Saudi-Iranian Race to Influence the Muslim World 111 8. Saudi Arabia at the Center of the Twentieth Century’s Last Major War 125 9. Saudi-Iranian Détente 141 10. The Gulf Rivals’ Eastward March 163 11. Iran’s Nuclear Saga; and Iraq Averts an Inter-Sectarian War 201 12. The Arab Spring—Reversed by a Saudi-backed Counterrevolution 241 13. Multi-front Cold War between Riyadh and Tehran 275 14. Trump Fuels Gulf Rivals’ Cold War 313 15. Conclusions 351 16. Epilogue 363 Notes 391 Select Bibliography 435 Index 437 v SPELLING AND TRANSLITERATION A word about place names, and the spellings of Arabic, Persian and Urdu words. A foreign word written in italics at the first mention appears in roman later. There are many ways of spelling Hussain and the Islamic prophet’s name. I have chosen Hussein and Muhammad, and stayed with these for the sake of consistency. There is no standard way of transliterating foreign words. In each case, I have chosen one of the most widely used spellings in the English-language print media— except when the spelling of an author is different from mine. There I have reproduced the published spelling in the quoted material. As someone familiar with Arabic and Persian, I know that the spelling Hizbollah is more precise than the alternative Hezbollah, and that the spelling of Iran’s supreme leader as Khamanei is as accurate as Khamenei. While using Hizbollah and Khamanei for the first time, I mention the alternatives in brackets. In April 2015, when writing about two top Saudi princes—Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef and Muhammad bin Salman—Western journalists resorted to using their respective monograms, MBN and MBS. This practice is unsuitable for a book with an index. I have therefore opted for Bin Nayef and Bin Salman in the manner of Bin Laden used for Osama bin Laden. The Epilogue, which takes the narrative to May 2018, is not indexed. Dilip Hiro, London, May 2018 vii PREFACE The purpose of this book is to examine the ongoing rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the leading nations in the Gulf region, to trace its roots and analyse its evolution. After being a rock of stability and conservatism in a volatile region, Saudi Arabia has generated more eye-catching headlines in the interna- tional media in the three-year rule of King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud than in the previous three decades. I open my narrative with a Prologue which describes the totally unexpected elevation of the Deputy Crown Prince, Muhammad bin Salman, to the heir to the throne, in place of his cousin, Muhammad bin Nayef Al Saud, in June 2017. Moreover, Bin Nayef was divested of the Interior Ministry, which he had run for five years. Press TV of Iran described the Saudi monarch’s surprise decision as “a soft coup.” The Introduction serves several functions. It compares and contrasts Saudi Arabia and Iran. Their claims to exceptionalism rest on different pillars. Since Iran’s chronicles cover nearly 6,000 years, Iranians have a deeply ingrained sense of identity. In contrast, Saudi Arabia is a modern entity, with its existence in its present form dating back only to 1932. Its distant predecessor, the much smaller Emirate of Diriya in central Arabia, was established in 1744 when Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab founded his Wahhabi school within the puritanical Hanbali jurispru- dence of Sunni Islam. Hostility to Shia Islam was a core element of Wahhabism which is the official religion of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I explain how Shias differ from Sunnis in doctrine, ritual, law, theology and religious organization. ix PREFACE In Chapter 2 I interweave the striking of oil in Iran in 1908 with its much later discovery in Saudi Arabia, and show how the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s lack of interest in exploring for petroleum in Saudi Arabia opened up opportunities for American oil companies from 1933 onwards. Since then petroleum from Saudi Arabia has been the chief reason why the United States maintains such close links with the Kingdom. Given the primacy that the petroleum industry came to acquire in Iran, the ownership of its sole oil company became a point of conten- tion between Britain, which owned the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and Iran, ruled by the democratically elected, nationalist Prime Minister Muhammad Mussadiq. During the crisis precipitated by Mussadiq’s nationalization of Iran’s sole oil company, he was over- thrown by the American Central Intelligence Agency, aided by Britain’s secret intelligence service, MI6. To fill the gap in oil supplies to the West, caused by Iran’s oil nationalization, Saudi Arabia’s oil corpora- tion, Aramco, increased its production. Iran’s loss proved to be Saudi Arabia’s gain. By contrast, the dramatic oil price hike in 1973–1974, resulting from the Arab oil boycott led by Saudi King Faisal during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, benefited both countries. In Chapter 3 I deal with the consequences of this bonanza. Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi became over-ambitious. Among other things he gained influence in Afghanistan. In a similar vein, Faisal established a Saudi footprint in Pakistan. He was killed by the twenty-seven-year-old, American-educated, Faisal bin Musaid, whose father was Ibn Saud’s twelfth son. The widely held belief in the Arab world was that his oil boycott of the US in 1973 had brought about his assassination, in which the CIA was allegedly involved.