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1 Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations 1 Notes 1 Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations 1. Saudi Arabia and Iran share at least three joint oilfields, each known by its Persian or Arabic name, respectively: Esfandiar/Al Louloua, Foroozan/Marjan, and Farzad/Hasbah. Arash/Al Dorrah is shared between Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The three states have yet to reach an agreement over the demarca- tion of the maritime boundary in the northern Persian Gulf that affects the field. Iran’s share of the Esfandiar and Foroozan fields has dropped to levels that make their further development uneconomic, in part due to Saudi ability to extract faster from the fields. Saudi Arabia and Iran signed an agreement to develop the Farzad/Hasbah A gas field in January 2012, and were scheduled to sign a second agreement to develop the Farzad B gas field and Arash/Al Dorrah oilfield, pend- ing the removal of international sanctions against Iran. In 2014, they contested their respective shares in the Arash/Al Dorrah. 2 . British administration in the Persian Gulf began in 1622, when the British fleet helped the Persian Safavid king, Shah Abbas, expel the Portuguese from Hormuz island. The period of the British Residency of the Persian Gulf as an official colonial subdivision extended from 1763 to 1971. 3 . Interview with Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of Gulf Research Center, Riyadh, November 30, 2011. 4 . Alinaqi Alikhani, yad dasht ha-yi asaddollah alam , jeld shesh, 1355–1356 [The Diaries of Alam], vol. 6, 1975–1976 (tehran: entesharat maziar va moin, 1377), pp. 324–325; 464. When the shah insists that the United States should under- stand that it cannot make Iran “a slave [puppet] government,” Alam informs him that the Americans have tried to make contact with different groups in Iranian society—alluding to dissidents. 5 . Interview with Ambassador Gafaar M. Al Lagany, former advisor to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia to Washington, DC, February 16, 2005. 6 . Email interview with Awadh Al Badi, advisor to Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, March 27, 2012. 7 . Telephone interview with Abbas Maleki, former deputy minister of research and education (Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and head of the Institute for Political and International Studies, July 8, 2008. 240 ● Notes 8 . See Stephen M. Walt, “The Enduring Relevance of the Realist Tradition,” in Political Science: State of the Discipline III , eds. Ira Katznelson and Helen Milner (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), pp. 200, 204. 9 . Interview with Mohammad Ali Fatollahi, former deputy for political affairs to Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, New York, September 25, 2009. 10 . Interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, September 18, 2006. 11. Interview with Saad A. Al Ammar, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, Riyadh, November 30, 2011. 12 . Interview with Prince Muqrin bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, former director gen- eral of the General Intelligence Directorate of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, December 5, 2011. 13 . For a detailed discussion about the balance of power approach, see David J. Myers, Regional Hegemons: Threat Perception and Strategic Response (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), p. 90. 14 . See recent studies in history and anthropology, for example, Terry Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 2007), pp. 4–5, 11, 31, 39, 54. 15. See Raymond Hinnebusch, “Introduction: The Analytical Framework,” in The Foreign Policies of Middle East States , ed. Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), pp. 19, 21. 16 . For a similar argument on the balance of power see Stephen M. Walt, Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 216. 17 . Interview with Nasser A. Al Braik, former ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Iran, Riyadh, December 9, 2011. 18 . Telephone interview with Zamul Saeedi, diplomat with Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a former appointee to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), May 13, 2012. 19 . For similar arguments on leadership roles in the Middle East, see Hinnebusch, pp. 10–11. 20 . Ole R. Holsti, “Theories of International Relations and Foreign Policy: Realism and Its Challengers,” in Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the Neoliberal Challenge , ed. Charles W. Kegley, Jr. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), pp. 35–65; Paul Salem, Bitter Legacy: Ideology and Politics in the Arab World (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994), pp. 273–274. 21 . “Complexity theory” examines both the macro-level (actions of the state) as well as the micro-level (inter alia, “change in the skills of people”). See James N. Rosenau, Distant Proximities: Dynamics Beyond Globalization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. xi; 203–217. 2 How Religion Shaped the Saudi–Iranian Relations 1 . Hossein Nasr, Ideals and Realities of Islam (Chicago: ABC International Group, 2000), p. 147. Notes ● 241 2 . I b i d . , p p . 9 5 – 9 6 . 3 . I b i d . 4 . M a r t i n L i n g s , Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (Rochester: Inner Traditions International, 1983), p. 330. 5 . Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi’is of Iraq (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 49. 6 . Interview with Mazin Motabagani, member of al-Madinah Center for the Study of Orientalism, Riyadh, November 29, 2011. 7 . R o s c h a n a c k S h a e r y - E i s e n l o h r , Shi’ite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the Making of National Identities (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), p. 134. 8 . Nakash, p. 47. 9 . Interview with Masoud Adib, faculty member of the Department of Philosophy, Mofid University, Qom, June 16, 2014. 1 0 . M i c h a e l C o o p e r s o n , Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age of al-Ma’mun (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 190–191. 1 1 . H a m i d A l g a r , Wahhabism: A Critical Essay (New York: Islamic Publications International, 2002), p. 81, cited from manhaj al rashad li man aran al sadad, printed as appendix to Muhammad Husayn K ashif al Ghita al abaqat al anbariya fi l tabaqat al jafariya, ed. Jauder al Qazwini, Beirut, 1417/1998, p. 555. 12 . Nakash, pp. 15, 24, 44. 13 . Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, first published 1985, paperback 1988), pp. 14–18. 14 . Ibid., pp. 14–18, 25. 1 5 . N a k a s h , p p . 5 4 – 5 5 . 16 . Safran, p. 40. 1 7 . A l e x e i V a s s i l i e v , The History of Saudi Arabia (New York: New York University Press, 2000), pp. 227–228. 18 . Nakash, pp. 68–69, 77. 19 . Hamid Ahmadi, ravabet iran va arabestan dar sadeh bistom: doreh pahlavi [Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Twentieth Century: Pahlavi Era] (tehran: markaz chap va entesharat vezarat oumur kharejeh, 1386/2007), p. 50. 2 0 . N a k a s h , p p . 7 8 – 9 0 . 2 1 . I b i d . , p . 1 6 8 2 2 . A l i M o h a g h e g h , asnad ravabet iran va arabestan saudi (1304–1357) [Documents of Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia (1925–1979)] (tehran: markaz chap va entesharat vezarat oumur kharejeh, 1379/2000–2001), document number 25, 19 borj saratan 1303, pp. 6–7; see Ahmadi, pp. 48–49. 23 . Mohaghegh, document number 714, October 29, 1925, pp. 35–37. 24 . Ibid., archives of the Foreign Ministry of Iran, container 30, file 2, document no. 127, 12 neisan 1925, pp. 61–62. 25 . Saeed M. Badeeb, Saudi–Iranian Relations 1932–1982 (London: Centre for Arab–Iranian Studies and Echoes, 1993), pp. 80–81. 26 . Ahmadi, p. 55. 242 ● Notes 27 . Mohaghegh, document number 211, 11 dei 1304/3 January 1926, p. 48. 28 . Ibid., document number 212, 11 dei 1304/3 January 1926, p. 53. 2 9 . I b i d . , “savad tarjomeh rooznameh umm al qura [Literacy to Translate the umm al qura Paper],” document number 53, 22 jamadi al thani 1344, pp. 55–56. 3 Saudi Arabia and Iran in Early Twentieth Century 1 . Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, first published 1985, paperback 1988), pp. 34–36. 2 . I b i d . , p p . 3 5 – 4 0 . 3 . I b i d . , p p . 4 4 – 4 5 . 4 . A l i M o h a g h e g h , asnad ravabet iran va arabestan saudi (1304–1357) [Documents of Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia: 1925–1979] (tehran: markaz chap va entesharat vezarat oumur kharejeh, 1379/2000–2001), document no. 438, 3 jamadi al-thani, 1344, p. 44. 5 . Hamid Ahmadi, ravabet iran va arabestan dar sadeh bistom: doreh pahlavi [Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Twentieth Century: The Pahlavi Era] (tehran: markaz chap va entesharat vezarat oumur kharejeh, 1386/2007), pp. 52–53, cited in Foreign Ministry archives, container 30, file 5, 1305/1925–1926. 6 . Mohaghegh, document no. 212, 11 dei 1304/3 January 1925, p. 53. 7 . Ibid., document no. 254, 24 dei 1304/15 January 1926, p. 58. 8 . Safran, p. 52. 9 . See also Raymond Hinnebusch, “Introduction: The Analytical Framework,” in The Foreign Policies of Middle East States, ed. Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), p.
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