Saudi Arabia and Iran

Saudi Arabia and Iran Friends or Foes?

Banafsheh Keynoush

SAUDI ARABIA AND IRAN Copyright © Banafsheh Keynoush 2016 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-57627-9 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission. In accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 2016 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN The author has asserted their right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of Nature America, Inc., One New York Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, NY 10004-1562. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. ISBN 978-1-349-99536-3 ISBN 978-1-137-58939-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-58939-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Keynoush, Banafsheh, author. Title: Saudi Arabia and Iran : friends or foes? / Banafsheh Keynoush. Description: New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015028785 | Subjects: LCSH: Saudi Arabia—Foreign relations—Iran. | Iran—Foreign relations—Saudi Arabia. | Middle East—Politics and government— 1979– | BISAC: POLITICAL SCIENCE / International Relations / Diplomacy. | POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Freedom & Security / International Security. | POLITICAL SCIENCE / Peace. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Regional Studies. Classification: LCC DS228.I7 K47 2016 | DDC 327.538055—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015028785 A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library. In loving memory of: My grandmother, Effat, who raised me on her lap My grandfather, Ebrahim Keynoush, a charitable man and To my father, for teaching me that the best political analyst is the most impartial one

Contents

A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s ix

I n t r o d u c t i o n 1

Part I A Historical Overview of Saudi–Iranian R e l a t i o n s Chapter 1 Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations 9 Chapter 2 How Religion Shaped the Saudi–Iranian Relations 21

Part II Early, Middle, and Post Mid-Twentieth Century Saudi–Iranian Relations Chapter 3 Saudi Arabia and Iran in Early Twentieth Century 39 Chapter 4 Early Diplomatic Relations 53 C h a p t e r 5 D i p l o m a t i c R e l a t i o n s : 1 9 5 5 – 1 9 6 3 6 7 Chapter 6 Epoch of Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry 85

Part III Saudi–Iranian Relations after the 1979 I r a n i a n R e v o l u t i o n Chapter 7 Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran 109 Chapter 8 Saudi–Iranian D é tente 131

Part IV How Current Conflicts between Saudi Arabia and Iran Impact the State of the World Chapter 9 Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s Quest for Stability after 9/11 153 viii ● Contents

Chapter 10 Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Gulf Geopolitics: The Case of Iraq 175 Chapter 11 Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Levant Geopolitics: The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine 203 C o n c l u s i o n 2 2 7

N o t e s 239 B i b l i o g r a p h y 261 I n d e x 265 Acknowledgments

book of this scale, covering the full history of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, could not have happened without the support A of a few key individuals. I was fortunate that chance, destiny, and hardwork allowed me to meet them, and I have attempted to remain impar- tial in the delivery of the message that these individuals with diverse under- standings of the issue have each imparted to me. As a sign of respect for Saudi Arabia and its people who hosted me, I mention them throughout this book before my native land Iran and its peo- ple who also helped with this research. At the King Faisal Center for Islamic Studies and Research, I am indebted to its chairman Turki bin Faisal Al Saud whose vision on the importance of the Saudi–Iranian partnership enabled me to conduct the field research for this book. The center generously hosted my umrah trip, enabling me to travel to Makkah and Madinah, and interact with colleagues in Jeddah. It was, beyond doubt, the most important trip of my life. My profound gratitude goes to Secretary-General Yahya Mahmoud bin Jonaid and Dalal Mukhlid Al Harbi. Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center, and his dedicated staff, Bandar and Sonya, helped ease my trip to Saudi Arabia. I am deeply grateful to Abd al Rahman Al Shobeily, for his wisdom and support, and to Sami Angawi. There are many others who have enlightened and informed this book: Abd al-Muhsin Al Akhlas, Ibrahim Hadlaq, Abdul Rahman Al Hadlaq, Mashaal Al Shemaishy, Saad Al Ammar, Mishary Al Nuaim, Gaafar M. Al Lagany, Nasser Al Braik, Osamah Ahmad Al Sanosi, Abdulrahman Al Suhaibani, Awadh Al Badi, Abdullah Al Shamri, and Basel Raouf Khatib. I am thankful for the friend- ship of two fellow Fletcher graduates, Jamil Al Dandani who hosted my visit to Dhahran, and the late Major General Abdulrahman Abdulwahid. Two Saudi scholars, whose earlier books on the Saudi–Iranian relationship made the present work possible, deserve special mention: Saeed Badeeb and Faisal bin Salman Al Saud. The latter along with Abdul Rahman Al Hadlaq and Saleh bin Suleiman Al Wahaibi, generously gave me their time to meet in x ● Acknowledgments person, but I regrettably could not due to conflicting schedules. There are many other Saudi friends who have helped, by reminding me that I should say things as they were, and sharing their exceptional hospitality. I am equally indebted to several key figures in Iran. At the Institute for Political and International Studies, I am thankful to the former head of the institute, Abbas Maleki. The magnificent building where the institute is at, in the foothills of Tehran, was an exclusive membership-based club before the 1979 Iranian revolution, built then by government funds overseen by my grandfather for the families of Iran’s foreign ministry employees to enjoy. I spent some of the best times of my childhood there, and was heartbroken when it was closed down after the revolution. However, when I saw it years after while attending a conference there, I was relieved to find that it was put to good use, serving as a premier foreign policy research institute. Thanks to the vision of its new leadership, it hired many of Iran’s former diplomats from before the revolution. I am grateful to Ahmad Danielli, chief of proto- col to Mohammad Khatami, with whom I briefly discussed the topic of this book before making a decision to write about it. In the process of compiling the research, several individuals were instrumental: Mohammad Khazaee, Ali Asghar Khaji, Hussein Amir Abdullahian, Mohammad Reza Fayyaz, Mostafa Zahrani, Abolfazl Mehrabadi, and Mohammad Ali Fatollahi who patiently explained the key drivers of Iran’s foreign policy behavior. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Manuchehr Mottaki granted me three inter- views each. I am thankful to Mohammad Mousavi Bojnurdi, Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, and Ahmad Iravani for our brief conversations. Javad Rasouli, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, gave me an appointment to meet him in Riyadh, which I regrettably could not, due to conflicting schedules. This book was primarily researched in Saudi Arabia and in Iran and through some 50 interviews with senior-ranking officials and policy makers, but written in the United States, thanks to which I could aim to develop a detached understanding of the key drivers of the Saudi–Iranian partner- ship. In the United States, I thank the The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. I am indebted to Andrew Hess, Kathleen Bailey, David Deese, and the late William Martell and John Galvin. I am grateful for support from Gregory Gause, Elaine Papoulias, Elizabeth Prodromou, Leigh Nolan, Geoffrey Gresh, Bernadette Kelley-Leccesse, Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, Majid Rashidi, Charles Freeman, Thomas Mattair, Flyntt Leverett, Gwenn Okruhlik, Mohsen Kadivar, Mohammad Taqi Sept, Dan Grey, and Thomas Pickering. I thank R. K. Ramazani for our brief conversation. The team at Palgrave Macmillan made the experience of publishing a book a joy. In London, Reza Ghasemi, and Mohammad Khakpour were always happy to lend a helping hand. My editor Mitch Albert was a friend in the trying times it took to write this book. Acknowledgments ● xi

There are some good friends I wish to thank: Kristin, Najla, Arwa, Dalia, Joyce, Parisa, Nic, Mike, Bruce, Marcos, and Peter. I thank my parents, who always step in to support me. My father provided good insights into Iran’s diplomatic history and the people who shaped it. Ida, Nilou, Maryam and their families were constant supports. A very heartfelt thanks goes to my son; wise beyond imagination, and who told me not to give up, otherwise “all that ignoring” that I had levied in the course of writing the book “would go to waste.” I sacrificed too many weekends, evenings, and family time, to produce this work, and never faced complaints, and always saw a happy face. This book is a labor of love, and I wrote it listening to traditional music by the great Persian master Gholam Hussein Banan, and to a selection of Arabian tribal songs hand-picked by General Abdulwahid. I also incorpo- rated in the original manuscript prior to publication, in every chapter and its sections, lines of poetry relevant to the content, derived from works by Saudi and Persian poets, as well as the rich tradition of Nabati poetry. Due to com- plications regarding copyright, they had to be deleted. But there is, beyond doubt, a rich poetic tradition in Saudi Arabia and Iran, two countries that have a great deal in common, despite their differences. Banafsheh Keynoush San Francisco, November 2015

Introduction

n November 2001, I shared a ride in an elevator in the United Nations building with Iran’s former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami. I I was his interpreter in New York, had received a master’s degree in inter- national affairs, and was preparing for my PhD oral exams. Iran’s president inquired what my research interest was. I replied vaguely that I wanted to write about Iran’s foreign policy in the Persian Gulf. Years earlier, during the course of the Iran–Iraq war, I had made the decision to write about this topic someday. Yet even back then, Iraq did not fascinate me as much as Saudi Arabia, which seemed a world apart. I knew very little about the Kingdom and it felt strange that the rare first-hand accounts of it that I received from Iranian pilgrims or politicians focused on one narrow experience or interac- tion. In fact, in all the years that I lived in Iran, not once did I hear a traveler speak about Saudi Arabia’s people, culture, or natural environment, or pres- ent a holistic opinion of Saudi society and politics. As Iran’s president commended my choice of topic, I recalled that he had overseen the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 1997. I now contemplated studying the connection between these two states, but I dismissed the idea quickly, convinced that the rapprochement would not last. Nonetheless, having spent most of my life outside America and lived through the war, I recognized the importance of writing about the topic from the Saudi and Iranian perspectives: much had already been said about the security of the Gulf region from the vantage point of the United States. Later that day, I discussed the idea with an aide to the president, who invited me to observe a meeting held on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly between Saudi Arabia’s then-Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud and President Khatami. The conversation between the two leaders, whose friendliness could not conceal the distance between them, focused on the topic of women. I was impressed that women’s activ- ism had succeeded in bringing the question of equal rights to the forefront of the political debate between the two countries. Prince Abdullah inquired of President Khatami about the restrictions that women faced in Iran in 2 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran advancing their rights. President Khatami spoke about women’s achieve- ments in Iran. The irony of the exchange did not negate its significance: women’s demands for increased rights had, even then, become impossible for the leaders of these countries to ignore. Since then, women in Saudi Arabia and Iran have continued demanding change. I left the meeting determined to write about the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but soon discovered that it encompassed broader research than I had planned in light of developments after September 11, 2001 and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. As the first full-scale work on interstate politics between Saudi Arabia and Iran, this work’s scope was extended to an examination of the impact of international relations on the politics of these two states. The study of the Saudi–Iranian relations presents an interesting ques- tion: Is the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran the cause of regional instability, or is it a consequence of that instability? I argue that this rivalry is caused by regional instability generated by foreign interventions in the Gulf, which disrupt the balance of power between the two local states. This implies a break with previously hegemonic conceptions of Saudi Arabia and Iran, in which the two states compete for influence based on narrowly defined ideological and/or nationalistic worldviews. The ideological and/ or national divide may serve to explain the two states’ contentious relation- ship, but it does not grasp the multiple dimensions of their security concerns against the backdrop of international developments where the United States remains the most powerful player. The three states may have conflicting interests, but I have set out to explore their common interests—which have largely been ignored to date—by describ- ing how the security they all seek, though viable, has eluded them. Unless the United States is able to contribute to the building of a stable balance of power between Saudi Arabia and Iran, one that provides mutual security guarantees to both, it will be unable to advance peace in the Gulf region and beyond that in the Middle East. This task has become more urgent since the Arab Spring given that the regional balance is increasingly defined by a more restricted US role. This should allow interactions among regional states to take center stage, and demonstrate how US involvement might better adapt to local regional security concerns. As valid as the US point of view is where the Saudi–Iranian relations are concerned, it cannot grasp the full range of the two states’ shared experience, or local concerns and interests.

A Note on History The holy Qur’an is one of the early texts that links the history of Arabia to Persia. The book, revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) Introduction ● 3 in the Arabian heartland, speaks of the Persian Empire in its battles with the Roman Empire. In 621 ad, the Romans attacked the Persian heartland, and were defeated. Muhammad was believed to have adopted some of Persia’s combat techniques, including the building of trenches around Yathreb (now Madinah) where he migrated to in 622 ad, and defended it in the famous Battle of the Trenches ( ghazwa al-khandaq ) in 627 ad . In 628 ad , the prophet sent a message to Khusrau II, the Sassanid emperor of Persia, to embrace Islam, which the latter rejected. Later historical events that have connected Arabia to the Persians are about the split between Ali’s followers, known as Shi‘is, from other Muslims—Sunnis—over the question of the prophet’s rightful successor following his death in 632 ad. Although many link Shi‘is with Persia, Arab Shi‘is had settled in the eastern Arabian penin- sula, Iraq, Bahrain, and Yemen, before Persia adopted Shiism. The decline of the Persian empire around the time of the prophet’s death led to the loss of control over the territories surrounding the Gulf, while increasing number of Arabs including Shi‘is began to migrate to the area. The Arab invasion two years after Muhammad’s death finalized the con- version of Persia’s Zoroastrian population to Islam by 645 ad . Historians believe that Islam appealed to the Persians, but the invasion was at times equated with a decline of Persian culture and civilization, and brought along a deep resentment of Arabs even among the Persian clerical establishment. Over the following centuries, Persia was ruled by Arabs or their Ottoman patrons at various junctures and followed the Sunni school of faith. By the early sixteenth century, central Persia’s ruling Safavids had adopted Shi‘ism, which had spread to areas surrounding Persia, and built a new Persian “nation-state” with a distinct identity that could protect their empire from further Arab invasions. The Safavids converted Persian Sunnis to Shi‘ism, and allowed clerics to develop a new national narrative as well as a dif- ferent interpretation of Islamic history. The clerics established judicial and religious institutions, and a hierarchy that granted them power within the new state. Two centuries later, in present-day Saudi Arabia, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab who was believed to have traveled widely across the Middle East including Persia, and may have witnessed Persia’s religious transformation and successful state-building under the Safavids, decided to counter the dominant Ottoman power and its distortion of religious practices in his native Najd in the Arabian mainland by preaching a unitarian brand of Islam to bring its tribes together. Abd al-Wahhab formed an alliance with Muhammad ibn Saud to build the first Saudi “nation-state” in 1744. The realm collapsed in 1818, but clerics realigned with the Al Saud clan to form the second Saudi realm in 1824 and the third in 1902, out of which the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia emerged in 1932. 4 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

As important as these historical events are, they were not major factors in the formation of the twentieth-century diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. When Reza Shah and Abd al-Aziz Al Saud assumed power in modern-day Iran and Saudi Arabia respectively, religious fervor in the lands over which they reigned (before the establishment of the modern states they were to build) had nominal influence over their decision to establish ties. The two rulers sought to control territory that had been under the influence of foreign powers for centuries; the Saudi–Iranian relationship had no other formative connection but for the religious memories of the past, which these leaders ignored. To reflect this early diplomatic history, I focus less on such memories and more on the evolution of the “reason of state” in the Saudi–Iranian relation- ship, which, from its inception, was subject to foreign interventions.

Names and Methodology A symbol of the misunderstanding that has come to define the Saudi–Iranian partnership is the failure to arrive at a consensus on the name of the vital waterway between them. Is it the “Persian Gulf” or the “Arabian Gulf”? The debate perpetuates the myth of the inevitability of the Saudi–Iranian rivalry, although it represents a superficial understanding of the far deeper realities that shape this relationship. More interestingly, it reflects the cen- tral theme of this book that without a stable balance of power in the Gulf region between Iran and its Arab neighbors, even differences over names cannot be resolved. Historical documents and maps have used both names, in fact. The term “Arabian Gulf” derives from the Ancient Greek Arabios Kolpos , which for- merly referred to what is now the Red Sea. (The later Latin term, influenced by the Greek, was Sinus Arabicus .) The term “Persian Gulf” derives from the ancient Greek Persikos Kolpos (later Latin: Sinus Persicus ), as well as the ancient Persian Parsa Darya. These names reflected the dominant geographical view of the area when the Greeks and Persians were the two major regional empires. The Persians laid claim to being the earliest settlers around the coastal areas of the Gulf. The Gulf was also referred to as the “Basra Gulf” and the “Arab Gulf” by later settlers. In the early Islamic era, Muslim geographers called the body bahr/khalig faris —hence the term “Persian Gulf.” Over the past two centuries, most historical documents in Iranian and Saudi archives refer to the waterway as the “Persian Gulf.” Internal UN direc- tives use the same name. Some Arab historians argue that it is best to retain that name, while others insist on “Arabian Gulf,” which is the official Saudi title for the waterway. Meanwhile, alternative names were proposed at dif- ferent junctures by both Arabs and Iranians, including the “Arabo–Persian Gulf” and the “Islamic Gulf.” Iran insists on “Persian Gulf,” however. Introduction ● 5

The dispute over the nomenclature of the Gulf was invariably exploited. In 1958, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser promoted the term “Arabian Gulf” after the Shah of Iran granted de facto recognition to the state of Israel. In the 1960s, rising pan-Arab sentiments across the Middle East encouraged other Arab leaders to dispute the name “Persian Gulf.” Former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad insisted on the term “Arabian Gulf” so to carve out a nominal leadership role for Syria in the Arab world, and to challenge the shah over Iran’s better ties with Syria’s rivals, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein used “Arabian Gulf” to indicate his displeasure with the shah’s efforts to project superior Iranian power in the region, and later to provoke Iran in the course of the Iran–Iraq war. Rather than heeding the advice of his veteran diplomats in the Arab world to resolve this issue with the Arab states, the shah opted to avoid acknowledging Arab competition—a typical response that continues to characterize Iran’s apathetic outlook toward its non-Persian neighbors. To make matters worse, the shah used Iran’s historic claims over the Persian Gulf to drive nationalistic sentiments whenever he struggled at home to advance his policies. This practice was repeated by Iranian governments fol- lowing the Islamic revolution in 1979. Iran’s embattled President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rallied public support by encouraging the composition of national hymns celebrating the name “Persian Gulf.” At the height of his unpopularity, he declared April 29 “Persian Gulf Day” to mark the anniver- sary of the expulsion of the Portuguese military by Persia, albeit with British aid, from the Strait of Hormuz in 1622. Moreover, many Iranians have refrained from using the term “Shatt al-Arab” to refer to the waterway that runs between Iran and Iraq, prefer- ring “Arvand Rud”—despite the fact that “Arvand” is another name for the Tigris, which is a confluent of the Shatt al-Arab. Abol-Ghassem Ferdowsi, the great poet credited with reviving Persian from Arabic linguistic influ- ences, and whose work is widely cited to validate Iran’s historical territorial claims, seems to have used “Arvand” in his poems. It is, however, unclear if he meant to refer to the entire river or simply to the Tigris. Ferdowsi’s poems are still studied, centuries after they were first produced, to arrive at conclusive opinions including whether or not many of the poems attributed to him were indeed his. Nonetheless, according to the following lines attrib- uted to him, it appears that—by mentioning Arvand—he actually refers to the Tigris: “If you are Pahlavani [i.e., a speaker of the Old Persian Pahlavi language], then you may not know that the Arvand is called the ‘Tigris’ in Arabic.” Arab and Iranian geographers and historians can resolve the issue of what to name these contentious bodies of water only when the balance of power in the region is restored. This book uses the term “Persian Gulf” in deference to historical precedence. It refers to the “Gulf” on a discretionary basis or 6 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran as a defining noun, for ease and flow of language. In return, I use the term “Shatt al-Arab” when referring to the waterway, in an effort to ensure partial balance between the Arab and Iranian views. The book’s methodology is historical, as per its chapter breakdown and the chronology of events. Important timelines are identified to trace the shifting balance of power that defines Saudi–Iranian ties. This permits a subtle understanding of how that balance conditions ties over time, and with varying degrees of force. Part I offers an overview of the book. Chapter 1 examines the emergence of bilateral ties. A theoretical perspective is offered to address how concerns about the regional balance of power shape Saudi–Iranian relations in more recent times, providing the analytical framework for the book. Chapter 2 reviews the religious dimension of relations to offer a historical context for the book’s key argument that religious differences are a variable of political and strategic determinants. Part II examines the Saudi–Iranian relations in its formative stages. Chapter 3 documents the geopolitical considerations in the early twentieth century that impact the position of the two regional powers internally and in their interactions with external actors in the Persian Gulf—namely the British, Ottomans, and Russians. It concludes by examining the nature of the balance of power in the Persian Gulf prior to the inception of formal ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 1929. Chapter 4 examines the early diplomatic history, and relations during World War II and in the immedi- ate postwar period. Chapters 5 and 6 explain the evolution of the regional balance of power through various phases of the emerging Saudi–Iranian partnership, including the Cold War impact on ties from 1954–1978. Part III reviews Saudi–Iranian ties following the Iranian revolution. Chapter 7 looks at the impact of revolution on the regional balance of power, and investigates how that balance evolved through the Iran–Iraq war and the Gulf War. Chapter 8 looks at ties after the Gulf War until 9/11. Part IV reviews the current conflicts between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Chapter 9 looks at the multiple challenges confronting them after 9/11, and the evolution of Iran’s political decisions behind its nuclear activities and the impact and strain on Saudi Arabia. Chapters 10 and eleven explore the reasons behind the Saudi–Iranian responses to a series of regional issues, including in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and over Palestine. These cases under- score the leverage that Riyadh and Tehran have over the Middle East region. The conclusion reviews Saudi–Iranian ties in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. This period is unique in that it has witnessed an uncharacteristically assertive Saudi foreign policy, while Iran has largely been on the defensive despite its outwardly confrontational rhetoric. The chapter returns to the examination of balance of power theory, offering an overview as well as some considerations for the future of this critical partnership.

PART I

A Historical Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations CHAPTER 1

Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations

efore World War II, Saudi Arabia and Iran had limited exchanges, except over the regulation of the annual pilgrimage to the holy cities B of Makkah and Madinah in the Hijaz region of western Arabia. The pilgrimage encouraged small-scale trade of Persian goods, mainly carpets, and the settlement of a small Persian community in Jeddah. Meanwhile, boundary disputes, which included several joint oilfields, remained dormant when the challenge of internal state security was a more urgent concern. 1 Saudi Arabia and Iran relied on the British Residency in the Persian Gulf to ensure stability along their borders in this period.2 But as British power waned during the war, critical US financial aid helped Saudi Arabia and Iran cope with severe wartime economic afflictions. During the Cold War, US military arms imports to the two countries increased; it was expected that they would help fight the spread of communism in the Middle East. In 1971, the “Twin Pillars” policy, developed under the Nixon Doctrine but conceived by the British, accelerated arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Iran. The policy allowed Washington to keep an “over-the-horizon” posture in the Persian Gulf to avoid direct combat in the region with the Soviet Union. Iran’s larger economy and well-trained army compared to Saudi Arabia, and proximity to the Soviet Union, made its role central to the success of the policy. Saudi Arabia was uncomfortable with Iran’s new role, and believed that Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s susceptibility to US coaxing permitted Iran to be the favored partner under the policy. 3 The shah suffered from the need for excessive US attention; in private, however, he scorned the Americans for intervening in Iran’s affairs, although he was careful not to upset them in public. Moreover, Washington was aware of his agenda to rid the Gulf of foreign presence, and it relied on Riyadh’s cautious foreign policy toward big 10 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran powers to temper the shah’s ambition. Iran’s exposure to Russian influence turned Saudi Arabia into the preferred US ally. Nonetheless, the shah’s personal friendship with President Richard Nixon, who encouraged arms deals with Iran’s leader, sustained the criti- cal US–Iranian partnership. Under President Gerald Ford, the partner- ship deteriorated, and the anguished shah who was losing US backing on account of disagreements over his drive for higher oil prices, became vulner- able to domestic opposition, frequent strikes, and high inflation rates of over 30–40 percent. By the time Jimmy Carter assumed the US presiden- tial office in January 1977, US diplomats were in direct contact inside Iran with dissidents who stood to inherit the shah’s sophisticated army.4 D e s p i t e repeated protests from the shah, who aimed to appease dissent by revamping the faltering Iranian economy through higher oil prices, Saudi Arabia lever- aged the oil supply market to keep prices steady and help the United States in the midst of a presidential election and a global recession. The Islamic revolution of Iran overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The balance of power the “twin pillars” policy helped build between Saudi Arabia and Iran subsequently collapsed. The revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Mostafavi Mousavi Khomeini, asserted that the region should be free of Western influences; unlike the shah, however, he made no false pre- tenses about his intentions. Khomeini called for the overthrow of pro-Amer- ican Arab rulers. When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran on September 22, 1980, he asserted that it was a Saudi and US ploy. Rumors in Iran quickly spread that Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States had offered financial support in the tune of some USD 800 million to the shah’s young son, Reza Pahlavi, to lead a coup, which he declined. Meanwhile, Iraq’s victory over Iran proved elusive. The Shi‘i clerical establishment mobilized volunteers for the war front, and Khomeini insisted on removing Iraq’s Baath regime. When Iran advanced into Iraq two years later, Saddam’s resolve to fight back strengthened. Iraq received substantial financial support from Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states, followed by US wartime aid. Nonetheless, Ayatollah Khomeini refused to accept a ceasefire agreement until August 1988. On August 2, 1990, over a year after Ayatollah Khomeini’s death, Saddam invaded Kuwait. Iraqi troops were repelled after Saudi Arabia funded a US-led coalition to rescue Kuwait. The Gulf War ended on February 21, 1991, but it dismayed Tehran to see US troops stationed in the region. Tehran remained neutral in the war, nonetheless, to deflect potential military threats. Even so, it quietly felt justice had been served to Saudi Arabia and the United States for supporting Saddam in the course of the Iran–Iraq war. According to a senior Saudi diplomat Gafaar Al Laghani, the kingdom thought Iran took an “honorable position” by remaining neutral in the Gulf Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 11

War. Yet when he was dispatched to Tehran to reopen the Saudi embassy, which was closed down after Saudi security forces killed Iranian pilgrims charged with stirring riots in Makkah in 1987, a Saudi diplomat was attacked by a mob and lost an eye.5 (Another mob attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran following the Makkah incident; a Saudi diplomat jumped from an embassy window, plunging to his death.) Not surprisingly, Saudi–Iranian interactions remained minimal in the aftermath of the war. Tehran, meanwhile, decided to resume diplomatic rela- tions with Baghdad and expand trade with Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, declared a no-fly zone since the Gulf War, by a coalition of military forces from Britain, France, and the United States. The zone kept Iraqi troops out of the area, and allowed coalition forces to conduct regular military opera- tions to contain Baghdad, conditions ripe enough to allow Iran to gradu- ally expand its influence over Iraq. Tehran expanded trade, the exchange of seminary students, and it bolstered support for Iraqi dissidents. It also proceeded to resume pilgrimage to the Shi‘i holy sites in Najaf, Karbala, and Samara, despite the public apathy among Iranians toward Iraq as a result of the Iran–Iraq war. The internal debate in Riyadh over Tehran’s decision to resume ties with Baghdad was mute. The decision by the coalition to sanction Baghdad’s gov- ernment meant that Tehran could not expand meaningful ties with it, and the kingdom chose not to openly react. It also decided not to resume formal diplomatic relations with Baghdad. But Saudi businesses were allowed into Iraq in 1998 as part of the UN-sponsored oil-for-food program designed to alleviate the impact of sanctions, in place since August 1990. 6 The US policy of nonengagement with Iran and Iraq, however, dis- turbed the relative peace in the region that was obtained after the Gulf War. Furthermore, although Washington adopted an “offshore balancing strat- egy” to avoid large-scale troop deployments to the Gulf, it maintained forces in Saudi Arabia, which unnerved Iran. In February 1994, the United States officially announced the “dual containment policy” against Iran and Iraq. Saudi Arabia’s leverage with the United States grew, but Iran and Iraq became increasingly isolated. The kingdom faced internal opposition for hosting US troops itself—a fact conceded in private by Crown Prince Abdullah to Iran’s president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, at a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) held in Pakistan in 1995. 7 Regional concerns over Iraq’s stability, also discussed at the meeting, mounted when Washington shifted its policy to a “forward military strat- egy” in the Gulf after 9/11. The strategy was shortsighted: in its haste to protect US interests through preemptive military strikes, it failed to consider the concerns by local states that the region could not absorb a new war. These concerns were exacerbated by the fact that Saddam could not directly 12 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran be linked to the terrorist attacks, and despite Washington’s assertions, posed no immediate threat to American interests. President Mohammad Khatami paid a short visit to Crown Prince Abdullah in Jeddah while on pilgrimage, to discuss the pending war. The two leaders agreed that the war could have grave consequences for the region. However, mindful of its inevitability, Iran decided to view the war as an opportunity to reconnect with Iraqi Shi‘is. Saudi officials forewarned the United States that an invasion of Iraq would lead to increased Iranian regional interventions, which the United States ignored. The US decision to invade Iraq defied a sacrosanct tenet in international relations: when local states are sensitive to the balance of power as a result of prevailing insecurity, they become uncomfortable whenever one state—in- cluding an extra-regional power such as the United States—becomes signifi- cantly stronger.8 The general consensus in the Gulf was that the US invasion aimed to turn Iraq into an ally, and into a new energy hub. This could con- tain Iran, and reduce US reliance on Saudi Arabia from where most of the 9/11 terrorists had come. Subsequent Saudi and Iranian efforts to use ideol- ogy (in this case the Shi‘i–Sunni dichotomy) to broaden their power base in Iraq proved the extent of their determination to stall US efforts. Iraq turned into the second country after Iran in the Gulf region to elect a Shi‘i-dominated government. It also became the first Arab Gulf state to draw closer to the non-Arab state of Iran than to its Arab neighbors. Iraqi– Saudi relations rapidly deteriorated. Although Tehran asserted that with an ally in Baghdad, Riyadh could never again consider itself in a position to rival the Iranian influence in the region, the kingdom disagreed and strove to ensure the survival of friendly governments elsewhere across the Middle East.

Dissecting a Difficult Union: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United States The endurance of the US–Saudi alliance combined with US–Iranian ten- sions make Iran’s relationship with Saudi Arabia seem secondary to the international politics that prevail in the Persian Gulf. This has represented the dominant mindset in Iran and among the many Western-based Iranian scholars who attempted to discourage the writing of this book. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s political advisor, Mohammad Ali Fatollahi, was more encouraging. But he told me in an interview: “When US–Iranian ties normalize, so will the Saudi–Iranian relations.” 9 T h e p r e s i - dent of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also told me in an interview that he doubted if the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran could shape itself independently of the US factor. 10 Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 13

The prevalence of this mindset has allowed Iran’s relationship with the United States to overshadow the question of the important regional bond with Riyadh. Furthermore, it has perpetuated Iran’s historical fear that Saudi Arabia has jeopardized a US–Iranian d é tente in order to ensure the robustness of the US–Saudi “special partnership”—making Iran accord- ing to its politicians, the “second wife” in the critical relationship with the United States. From Tehran’s perspective, the Saudi endorsement of mea- sures to contain the Iranian role in the region aim to perpetuate hostility in the US–Iranian ties and marginalize Iran in the region’s relationship with the West. As a result, Tehran has never been too serious in efforts to reach out to Riyadh, preferring to invest in the elusive idea of improved ties with the United States. To achieve regional strategic parity with the United States, moreover, Iran has frequently jeopardized Saudi security interests. The Saudi stance toward Iran reflects the kingdom’s difficult position of needing to balance its interests against the competing, and potent, Iranian and US interests. Saudi Arabia regards itself as the weaker state, and unlike Iran, it is not inclined to challenge US dominance in the region directly. Yet, it seeks to assert its position in the Gulf by rejecting the United States or Iran as regional hegemons given their power to contain the Saudi influ- ence. Therefore, while as the so-called weaker link, the kingdom follows the powerful trends that shape US–Iranian relations, it seeks to influence those trends on its own terms. For example, Saudi Arabia rejected US and Iranian interests when they converged over Iraq in 2005; the kingdom did not fully endorse the Iraqi political process and elections, which the United States called for and which Iran endorsed. The challenge to maintain an interdependent relationship as an equal partner with the United States and Iran is not easy, requiring the king- dom to adapt to centrifugal political trends in the US–Iranian relationship. The kingdom is also required to abandon a traditionally cautious foreign policy—the result of a nascent national identity and foreign diplomacy—in favor of proactive measures, without the time to build consensus within the Royal Family or the religious establishment over those measures. Even then, Saudi Arabia lacks sufficient guarantees that its interests will converge with those of either the United States or Iran. In those instances, it depends on its partnership with the United States to sideline Iranian interests, and uses the religious establishment to demonize the Iranian role. All too frequently, it also reacts to Iranian provocations to the detriment of longer-term strate- gies toward Tehran. The result often leads to a diminished Saudi position in the region, which the kingdom tries to restore, through aggressive posturing toward Iran and winning over US support for the kingdom’s massive arms build-up. 14 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

This commonly leads to mixed policies on the question of the US–Iranian relationship as well. For example, like most other Gulf states, Saudi Arabia is concerned over any so-called grand bargain between the United States and Iran, which might resolve their differences but marginalize Saudi interests in the process. At the same time, the kingdom has at times dispelled tensions in the context of Iran’s discussions with the West over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, by proposing measures that allow Iran to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. In this process, Saudi Arabia attempts to safeguard its own interests, by reducing the possibility of a US war with Iran that can destabilize the Gulf region. As it pursues its national interests in response to US threats, Iran is inca- pable of separating Saudi Arabia’s indifference from the kingdom’s inability to summon adequate responses to the crisis in the US–Iranian ties. Instead, Tehran frequently takes the easy path, faulting the Saudi alliance with the United States, despite its full awareness that US–Saudi interests are not always compatible. Even when Iran detects signs of desire for change in Saudi Arabia’s behavior toward it, it responds cautiously, fearing that the kingdom might at any time trump up the Iranian threat if it needs the US attention.

The Need for a Balanced Point of View The long-term partnership between Saudi Arabia and Iran is governed by the geographic factors that make the two countries permanent neighbors. As permeated as security is given the constant conflicts in the Persian Gulf, its pursuit has often allowed Saudi Arabia and Iran to avoid irreparably disturb- ing their relationship for the simple fact that they are neighbors that must live together; that is, of course, unless the severance of ties is perceived to pose a lesser security threat than its continuation. Hence, hardly have they severed bilateral relations even in the worst of times. It is noteworthy that to preserve their immediate border security, even when Saudi Arabia and Iran disagree on policy issues, their preference is to avoid open confrontation. Instead they rely on indirect, covert, or proxy operations, no matter how evasive the goal of reaching political solutions through these means are. Since Saudi–Iranian politics are volatile, navigating it requires caution. As a result—despite the kingdom’s concerns over Iran’s nuclear program— senior Gulf official Saad Al Ammar told me when we met in Riyadh that the Arab Gulf states did not wish to see Iran attacked over its nuclear pro- gram. 11 Such an attack would disrupt the regional status quo and bring unintended consequences. In fact, policies that disturb the status quo are not the best choices for Saudi Arabia, and the kingdom is keenly aware of it. In a brief interview, the former head of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 15

Directorate (GID) Prince Muqrin bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud underscored the kingdom’s hope that Iran would be the one to make positive changes and ward off fears about its nuclear ambitions. 12 Otherwise, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states would be placed in the difficult position of choosing between two evils depending on which is less threatening to their security: a nuclear- powered Iranian military capability, or war with Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Thus Saudi Arabia is unwilling to challenge Iran directly over the issue, but has, at the same time, taken measures to change Iranian behavior. Such measures include indirectly supporting UN sanctions, which, although Prince Muqrin was personally opposed to them (and no Saudi officials have spoken in favor of them either), have been advocated unofficially by Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, who for decades headed the GID before his resig- nation in 2001. More recently, Saudi Arabia worked closely with France, a negotiating partner in the nuclear talks with Iran, to ensure Iranian compli- ance with a strictly peaceful nuclear program. In pursuing their relations, Saudi Arabia and Iran are restrained in their ability to act independently without taking into account US interests. Generally, they tend to muster resources to make autonomous foreign-policy choices where they can, for example, their policies toward Iraq after the US-led invasion. Post-invasion, through its controlling presence in Iraq, the United States replaced the Iraqi state in the balance of power equation with Saudi Arabia and Iran; but it was unable to independently force either to comply with its goals. Against this backdrop, US strategies that can rein- force the balance of power in the Persian Gulf will enhance the region’s stability. This power has historically been distributed between Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia since the inception of the modern Iraqi and Saudi states in 1921 and 1932 respectively. Foreign threats or interventions, such as the US invasion of Iraq, tend to exacerbate anti status quo behavior, as these regional states will attempt to change developments in their favor. The balance of power approach does not guarantee peace given the con- stant presence of policies that disturb the status quo in the Persian Gulf. But with skilled statesmanship, it might serve as a better safeguard against future wars.13 Other factors that partially help explain the Saudi–Iranian relationship—ideological, leadership, and domestic factors—as indicated in the following sections, are relevant. But they are secondary to the vital impact of international politics on Gulf affairs. Saudi Arabia and Iran use ideology to influence the Islamic world. The application of ideology to politics is appealing when regional power imbal- ances prevail. In such cases, religion becomes a powerful tool to advance state decisions in the face of insecurity. Hence, ideology can further the state’s decision-making power. 14 At the same time, as relatively new formations, 16 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Saudi Arabia more, and Iran to a lesser extent, are incapable of subordinat- ing ideology to rational decision making. They are driven by ideology as opposed to possessing the ability to drive it. Hence, the state’s relationship with religion is complicated. On the one hand, neither state is able to turn the religious establishment into an actor capable of making rational choices at all times. On other hand, the religious establishments frequently, if not always, follow state policies, because the state possesses enough wealth and power to control and guide religious forces. Therefore, in both countries, ideology can simultaneously impede and advance state goals. 15 The boundaries between the state and the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia and Iran wane when they are faced with increased regional insecurity. This confuses their foreign policy roles and empowers the reli- gious establishment to direct foreign policy. With fewer instruments to advance foreign policy goals, the state enables the religious constituencies to shape foreign policy, which also helps reduce domestic tensions with the radical religious establishment in both societies. This issue is poignant in the Saudi–Iranian connection, where the Shi‘i–Sunni dichotomy frequently plays out to advance political goals. Yet, this acute religious-ideological rivalry is not itself a source of conflict in the region. In the past, Saudi Arabia and Iran have forsaken tensions aris- ing from their different religious perspectives by addressing the geopoliti- cal considerations that help restore the regional balance of power between them. For example, when the Middle East enjoyed a relatively stable period in the decade after the end of the Gulf War, they expressed mutual concern over Washington’s anti status quo policies toward Iraq in the 1990s and after 9/11. However, there is no doubt that the strong Islamic identities adopted by Saudi Arabia and Iran have often led to competition for leadership of the Islamic world. Moreover, Saudis and Iranians have been indoctrinated around differences between Arabs versus Persians over centuries which, along with the Shi‘i–Sunni rivalry, serves to separate them from each other emotionally. It was my observation that the Saudi people appeared keener to have contacts with the Iranian people than the reverse. After all, Iran’s Persian Shi‘i identity has, in part, been construed as a reaction against the core states constituting the Sunni Arab world. In Saudi Arabia, during times of internal crisis the state compensates for the incongruity between a weak national identity and a powerful ultra national Arab and Islamic identity in part by rejecting the Persian Shi‘i paradigm. The Shi‘i–Sunni rivalry is often a symptom of dire regional circum- stances in which the United States frequently plays a controversial role. Though Saudi–Iranian interests are instrumental in shaping strategic and political developments in the region, it is the United States that acts as the Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 17 principal foreign power capable of reshaping those developments and defin- ing the external threats that partially inform the Saudi and Iranian ideologi- cal orientations. Even when the United States is not directly involved in a regional conflict, such as in Bahrain or Yemen since the Arab spring, the ripple effects from its grand regional policies—in the case of the spring, to reshape events in a manner inclusive of the US presence in the Middle East—exert an impact on the ideological orientations of the Saudi and Iranian states. This is exacerbated by the fact that Washington chooses to side with Riyadh—not always, but more than often—on account of its lack of relations with Tehran. However, it does not ponder the long-term conse- quences sufficiently when it boosts the Saudi regional position to the detri- ment of ignoring Iran, and thereby inadvertently or not, enables the growth of radical ideological orientations in Saudi Arabia that are designed to con- tain Iran. Moreover, the Iranian ideological orientation is somewhat valid, to the extent that it can encourage the Shi‘i dissidents in the Arab Gulf states to constructively engage with their Sunni leaderships, or to counter the growth of radical Saudi-led ideologies, which Washington fails to suffi- ciently take into account in this process. The violent bombing, for example, of a Shi‘i mosque in Kuwait in June 2015 (which killed 27 including three Iranians) by a Saudi man loyal to the self-proclaimed political entity, the “Najd Velayat,” and the uproar among Kuwaiti Sunnis who insisted that the Shi‘is who constitute a third of Kuwait’s population were their broth- ers, serves to demonstrate that Iran and its Arab neighbors have more in common than we acknowledge in the fight against growing radical trends within the Sunni world. In the end, Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s ideological campaigns in places such as Bahrain or Yemen are part-and-parcel of the balance of power paradigms that shape their relations.16 Careful examination reveals that the Islamic identity of both countries is informed by realist interests—although it also shapes and constrains those interests, depending on the level of external threat to the individual state and the degree of internal cohesion at any given time. The Shi‘i–Sunni dichotomy is relevant to their foreign policy behav- iors, but it is not the chief driver of foreign policy at all times and on every issue, which after all, is dominated by sovereignty concerns. Saudi and Iranian elites play a key role in advancing the state’s sover- eignty concerns. But they do not represent cohesive bodies to be able to articulate state concerns clearly. In fact, the self interest exhibited by various political actors that are associated with the main power centers often prevails over long-term policy objectives to prevent meaningful discussions on the Saudi–Iranian partnership. Disputes among different political actors can also have an impact on state foreign policy, making it harder for the Saudi and Iranian leaders to identify their two country’s mutual interests. In Iran, 18 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran parallel official power centers compete to advance state agendas that, at times, conflict. For example, the Iranian constitution grants overlapping foreign policy prerogatives to the offices of the supreme leader and the president. Following Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed special envoy Ali Akbar Velayati to establish a direct line of com- munication with Saudi Arabia; the initiative was silently halted. The former Saudi ambassador to Iran, Nasser Al Braik, told me in an interview that Riyadh was dismayed, and failed to fully grasp the reason for the com- munication breakdown—which Iran never disclosed. 17 (Velayati declined to answer my inquiry on the subject.) Later developments in Iran revealed that Ahmadinejad was determined to make his own mark on foreign policy by placing key figures from among his staunchest supporters, which did not include Velayati, in critical offices. The move preempted the supreme leader from taking charge of the Saudi–Iranian file. In Saudi Arabia, where for- eign policy is developed by a small group of royals, frequent family schisms can influence the kingdom’s position on how real or perceived the Iranian regional threat actually is. The king is the ultimate decision maker, although he may follow the advice of a small group of royals, close ministers, or other political appointees. Nonetheless, the Iranians are left to speculate about the actual impact of schisms on Saudi policy toward Iran. For example, it was commonly believed in Iran that the late defense minister, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, opposed close Saudi–Iranian ties because of his superior connections with the US defense establishment—notwith- standing efforts by then Crown Prince Abdullah to restore the relation- ship. Resumption of relations did go ahead despite the Iranian perception. This led a few seasoned Iranian diplomats with long experience of living in the kingdom to argue that, ultimately, personal differences within the royal family would not intrude upon overall policy adopted toward Iran. 18 However, many Iranian diplomats have frequently failed to grasp this argu- ment, which may have enabled them to better reach out to the various politi- cal actors in Saudi Arabia without prior biases. This is complicated by the relatively opaque domestic decision making processes in Saudi Arabia, not to mention in Iran. Ultimately, however, these processes also serve the primary function of promoting state agendas and preferences for the advancement of foreign policy. Since leaders’ roles in Saudi Arabia and Iran are subject to pressures exerted by foreign forces— including, specifically, the reality of the large US presence in the Persian Gulf, their foreign policy is not merely shaped by their individual tastes, ideological choices or leadership styles. Owing to significant state wealth, at the same time, Saudi Arabia and Iran can make foreign policy choices based on “reasons of state.” State power thus directs the leadership, rather than the reverse.19 Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 19

This brings into focus the question of how domestic developments in the two states might impact their foreign policy toward each other. Neither of the two states is immune to internal turmoil, and there is a chance that their regimes may collapse. There is no doubt, in fact, that increasingly, national interests and policy decisions are defined by complex and potent domestic forces.20 Internal threats caused by disenchanted segments of the popula- tion can influence external acts of balancing, and have the power to reject the status quo as people gain awareness of distant developments. 21 Witness the case of the Arab Spring, which quickly spread from one Middle Eastern country to the next. Nevertheless, the Saudi–Iranian relationship has so far remained sufficiently armored against rapid internal change. The internal status quo in Saudi Arabia and Iran remains entrenched in special interest groups such as the pro state religious establishment, political elite, and the commercial and industrial classes. As a result, the two states retain a sub- stantial amount of autonomy from their people in formulating their mutual ties and foreign relations.

CHAPTER 2

How Religion Shaped the Saudi–Iranian Relations

ran is a center of Shi‘i theology; since overthrowing the Pahlavi monar- chy, it has also aimed to export its Islamic revolution to other countries I in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has custodianship of Islam’s two holi- est cities, Makkah and Madinah, and thus unrivaled power and prestige in the Islamic world along with an equal determination to preserve it; Iran challenges this dominant Saudi position. But religion is not a key deter- minant of the important political and strategic circumstances informing Saudi–Iranian ties, despite the obstacles it creates. It is but one determining variable that often acquires influence within the context of advancing politi- cal goals. Saudi Arabia views Iranian revolutionary politics as distinctly geared to promoting Shi‘i Islam in a predominantly Sunni Muslim world, posing an existential challenge to the kingdom, which remains concerned about Shi‘i activism. Although the Al Saud, which has its tribal roots in the urban set- tings of Najd and Kuwait, has long coexisted with the urbanized and rural population of Shi‘is of the eastern Arabian peninsula (known also as the hadhar ) and associated with them culturally and linguistically more than the local Bedouins (also known as badu ), it is feared that as a path for emula- tion, the Iranian model could incite the significant population of Arab Shi‘is in the Persian Gulf. Furthermore, Iran’s frequent calls for Muslim unity— combined with actions that aim to influence the Arab Shi‘i community— imply that the Sunni Arab monarchies of the Gulf are unfit to build such unity. Iran’s promotion of political Islam seeks to revise the Western-dominated regional order in the Middle East, and echoes the desire within the Muslim community since its inception to build a powerful, unified nation or 22 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran caliphate. Shi‘i and Sunni leaders alike have called for unity among Muslims to help restore Islam’s Golden Age (750–1258), and to carve out a more assertive role for Islamic nations in world politics. In this regard, Saudi Arabia plays a critical role. Muslims are required to make the pilgrimage to Makkah, where the kaaba and the masjid al-haram are situated; many pilgrims also visit Madinah, the site of the Prophet Muhammad’s tomb and his mosque. Muslims pray according to the qiblah, that is, toward the kaaba, in Makkah—one way in which they are united in the practice of their faith wherever they may be; thus the qiblah , by default, adds to the kingdom’s responsibility to promote Islamic unity among Shi‘is and Sunnis. This unity is critical to the kingdom’s own secu- rity when it has to accommodate five million Muslims, and an additional 30 million, both Shi‘is and Sunnis, to perform the annual haj and the umrah (haj out of season) in the next five years respectively. Iran views Saudi Arabia’s adherence to Wahhabism as a distraction from Muslim unity, while adamantly refusing to accept that Shi‘i Islam has hin- dered the process of building unity as well. It maintains that Shi‘i Islam is more practical as a faith than Wahhabi doctrines allow, and is therefore more adaptable to the times; it contends, moreover, that Saudi Arabia’s wealth has endowed Wahhabism with an undeserved status within the Islamic world, and that puritanical Wahhabi views not only mobilize forces against Shi‘is, but also serve to radicalize Sunni Islam. Iran’s stance places the kingdom in a difficult position. Saudi Arabia is required to guarantee the safety of all Muslims making pilgrimage regardless of creed, as well as access to the holy sites. This duty can be acquitted only if the kingdom is able to maintain a nonhostile relationship with all Muslim states—thereby presenting a dilemma with regard to relations with Iran. When Saudi Arabia’s political and strategic interests clash with Iran’s, they should nevertheless not interfere permanently with the kingdom’s primary responsibility to preserve the sanctity of Islam’s holiest sites. Saudi Arabia’s religious duty explains Riyadh’s frequent unwillingness to openly clash with Tehran over their respective spheres of influence in the region. Iran takes advantage of this reticence, becoming aggressive in Shi‘i and Sunni dissi- dent political and religious circles in which the kingdom cannot afford to be as proactive or openly partial. Thus the development of an open policy toward Iran is removed as an option, and Saudi Arabia frequently reacts to Iranian provocation. This response, in turn, increases religious opposition toward Shi‘is, and prevents the kingdom from developing policies with which to address the grievances of its own Shi‘i community. While Iran boasts that it has raised the aware- ness of the Saudi Shi‘i community, the fact is that it has also put them at a disadvantage. Hence, Saudi Shi‘i community leaders have generally How Religion Shaped the Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 23 remained loyal to Riyadh, even when Shi‘i dissidents have challenged the state or taken more extreme actions against it.

Impact of the Early History of Islam on Ties Before Islam emerged in the seventh century ce , the Arabian peninsula’s fate as a center of faith had already been sealed: according to the Qur’an, it was in Makkah that the Prophet Abraham relaid the foundations of the kaaba. It was also there that the Prophet Muhammad received his divine revelations. In 622, Muhammad emigrated from Makkah to Madinah with his followers, escaping persecution. In Madinah, he laid the foundation of an Islamic city-state that enabled him to conquer Makkah eight years later. His flight to Madinah symbolized the search for freedom to which Muslims were to aspire, and the return of the Muslims to Makkah was an effort to restore unity in the city following the division of its community on account of the emergence of Islam. Hence the path (tariqah) of pilgrimage evolved, to encourage Muslims to journey to the holy city in an effort to cultivate the unity they had attained. After the prophet’s death, the Muslim quest for freedom and unity led to utopian aspirations for a single Islamic nation. However, political rivalries led to the collapse of this model entity. A small group of Muhammad’s disciples supported his nephew and son-in-law Ali ibn Abu Taleb, who had also been the first man to accept the prophet’s call to Islam. Muhammad, they main- tained, had declared that the young Ali should succeed him. The majority of the prophet’s followers disagreed with Ali’s leadership, and swore allegiance instead to Abu Bakr ibn Abu Quhafa who was chosen as the first Muslim caliph. Ali continued to render public service to the first three caliphs, Abu Bakr (632–634), Umar ibn al-Khattab (634–644), and Uthman ibn Affan (644–656). His leadership after the assassination of Uthman was contested, but he became the last of the four main caliphs (al khulafa al rashidun) to succeed the prophet. After Ali’s death in 661, the Muslim community split over the selection of its next ruler. The followers of the Umayyad branch of the Quraish tribe, which was originally from Makkah but had immigrated to Syria following Abu Bakr’s death, became known as Sunnis, derived from the phrase ahl al-sunnah wa al-jamaah (“those who follow the tradition and the consen- sus”). The followers of the direct descendants of Muhammad, including Ali, became a dissident group known as Shi‘is, derived from the Arabic shi‘at Ali , or “Ali’s partisans.” Sunni and Shi‘i theologians parted over the concept of a caliphate versus an imamate. Sunni authorities viewed the Umayyad caliphate as a legiti- mate political institution that could help build a unified Islamic nation. 24 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

At times, they even referred to it as an imamate, which in turn referred to the person whose duty it was to enforce the Islamic legal code to unify the Umayyad Empire. They argued that any Muslim from any tribe could be a caliph under the system, as long as he was faithful, pious, and had a clear mind—but the caliph could not realistically possess supernatural or meta- physical qualities. 1 Shi‘is adopted the term “imamate” to refer to the direct descendants of the prophet, whom they decided to follow as their religious and political leaders, and assigned infallible attributes to them. The limits to the ideal of a caliphate were soon exposed. The caliphate brought neither freedom nor unity to the Muslim community; under the Umayyad empire, the territories of which stretched from Central Asia to Spain, the enforcement of a model Islamic legal code became subject to the individual interpretations of judges living in disparate lands. Furthermore, the Umayyad rulers transformed the caliphate into a hereditary dynasty. As a result, Muslim jurists decided to accept only the first four caliphs after the prophet, while the Shi‘is who suffered persecution under the Umayyads rejected the notion of a caliphate.2 The Abbasid dynasty (750–1517) arose in resistance to the Umayyads’ lack of moral authority. Shi‘i and Sunni scholars under the Abbasids were able to develop a unified Islamic legal code (the shari’a ). 3 Sunni theologians continued to build schools of thought opposing the tyrannical rulers of the time, including any self declared caliph within the vast Abbasid Empire. Shi‘is developed their own theological schools based on the tenets of the Sunni schools that preceded them; consequently, most legal and theological aspects of Sunni and Shi‘i Islam remained the same. In the first four centuries of Islam four Sunni schools emerged that have survived. The schools differ on the usage of the five sources of Islamic law: the holy Qu’ran; the sunnah , or traditions of the prophet and the hadith , or documentation thereof; qiyas, reasoning by analogy; and ijma , or consensus. The Hanafi and Maliki schools promote the study of the Qur’an and the hadith and, in the latter’s case, the customs of the prophet in Madinah. The Hanafi school evolved to include consensus and analogy. The Shafe‘i school developed methods of jurisprudence by making religious sayings, analogy, and consensus sources of law. The Hanbali school, which is dominant in Saudi Arabia, rejects the analogy and consensus rules except those devel- oped by jurists in the first three centuries of Islam. New religious ideas are entertained, but the school has strict interpretations of what is permissible. Islam’s fourth century marked the inception of Shi‘i legal thought, but it was the Ja’fari school that built the foundation of Shi‘i jurisprudence, in the year 700. The school maintained that, in the absence of imams, Islamic jurisconsults ( mujtahids) should wield the authority to interpret divine law. The institution of the Shi‘i imamate rested on the continued interpretation How Religion Shaped the Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 25 of divine law to ensure that it evolved based on the times. The rise of several Shi‘i dynasties from the tenth century, such as the Fatimids (who originated in Tunisia and Egypt, and ruled from 909–1171), the Hamdanids (who originated in Syria and northern Iraq, and ruled from 890–1004), and the Buyids (who originated in northern Iran and parts of Iraq, and ruled from 934–1055), contributed to the strengthening of Shi‘i legal schools. To Sunni leaders who followed in the footsteps of the prophet and the four early caliphs, the idea of a contemporary mujtahid was not a necessity. All four Sunni schools maintained that the gates of jurisprudential lead- ership ( ijtihad) had been sealed upon the deaths of Muhammad and his contemporaries, although they supported the advancement of Islamic law. Sunni scholars could, at best, accept the use of the intellect and of reason to promote the path of pilgrimage, which symbolized the openness of Makkah to Muslims and to ideas from around the world. Otherwise, the “five pil- lars” of Islam (arkan al-islam )—the shahada (declaration of belief in the one God and Muhammad as His Messenger), prayer, giving alms, fasting, and pilgrimage—were considered sufficient tools with which to unite all Muslims. While the Shi‘is divided into the Zaidi and Ismaili schools, Persia adopted the Twelver school (ithna ashari ) after the decline of the Safavids in 1736. The school recognizes Ali and his 11 successors as having been the rightful rulers of the Muslim world; the twelfth imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, is believed to be in occultation. This belief is based on a predic- tion attributed to the prophet that a leader of whom men will speak as “the Mahdi” (“the rightly guided”) will emerge from his lineage to bring justice to the world.4 The Twelvers do not share the views of the Zaidis who split over the suc- cession of Hussein ibn Ali, the third Shi‘i imam from the prophet’s lineage. Hussein was killed in 680 by the forces of the Umayyad ruler Yazid ibn Muawiya ibn Abu Sufyan, during the famous battle of Ashura, in Karbala, modern-day Iraq. The Zaidis chose to follow his grandson Zaid, maintain that the Mahdi may be any of Ali’s competent descendants, and believe that there can be more than one imam in existence at a time, and that they are fallible. (Another group of Zaidis, known as the Zaidi Wasatis, recognize all twelve imams .) The Ismailis (Seveners) maintain that only seven of the prophet’s descendants—including Ismail, the eldest son of the sixth imam, Ja’far ibn Muhammad al-Sadiq (702–765), were his rightful successors, thereby reject- ing the Mahdi. Finally, a fourth Shi‘i school, the Alawis are Twelvers who venerate Ali, a practice that is looked at disdainfully by clerics in Iran who also control the activities of the Aliollahis, followers of an underground religious group who celebrate Ali’s life over that of the prophet. According 26 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran to a senior cleric I spoke to who is responsible for preserving Ayatollah Khomeini’s literary and theological legacy in Iran, the Alawis are not con- sidered real Shi‘is by Iran, despite the political alliance between Tehran and the Alawis in Damascus in recent years. Although there are minor legal differences between the Shi‘i and Sunni legal schools, their theological outlooks are different. In Sunni Islam, distinct disciplines evolved around the sayings of the prophet—the hadith —and the study of the Qur’an. In Twelver Shi‘i Islam, while the question of spiritual leadership in the absence of the imams remained disputed for centuries, the Qur’an and hadith were used as guides. But only sayings passed on from the prophet to his line of 12 imams, endorsed by the imams or the community around them, were accepted. The consensus rule by which Sunnis would arrive at decisions about the validity of other hadiths was given secondary value. While the Twelver Mu’tazilat had attempted to develop a rational approach to the study of theology in the eighth century, in the eighteenth century, the Twelver Akhbaris (“those who report”) attempted to return to the original sources of Islam, the Qur’an and the hadith, for interpretation, but were crushed by the Usulis (“adherents to the principles”), who wanted to develop theological principles (usul al-fiqh ) for general use. The Usulis developed the doctrine of emulation ( taqlid ), which remains valid among Twelvers today, but they prohibited emulation of deceased religious figures and required Shi‘is to follow a living mujtahid to obtain spiritual guidance suiting the requirements of the time.5 The institution of the mujtahid became more prominent given the Shi‘i belief that the line of infallible imams ended with the twelfth, Imam Muhammad (later to be referred to as the Mahdi), who was born in the Iraqi city of Samara in 869. Some Twelvers maintain that, under pressure from rulers who were believed to have killed his father and grandfather, Muhammad al-Mahdi went into a minor occultation (gaybat al-sughra ) as a young boy in 874. During this period, he communicated with the world through his deputies ( naibeen). In 939, he went into a greater occultation ( gaybat al-kobra), until his reappearance ( zuhur) at an unknown point in the future. Persian Shi‘is call their land that of the Mahdi ( sarzamin imam zaman) to emphasize that its rich natural bounty destines it for the Mahdi’s return. Twelvers respect the other Shi‘i imams equally (four of whom are buried in Saudi Arabia, six in Iraq, and one in Iran), and attribute extraordi- nary qualities to their presumed martyrdom—including, at times, healing powers. This belief was unappealing to the simple sensibilities of the Wahhabi faith. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), who had received fiqh and shari’a training in Basra, Baghdad, Madinah, and Najdi urban cen- ters and believed to have also lived in Persia, including Qom, Esfahan, and How Religion Shaped the Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 27

Hamadan, began a reform movement to return Islam to its early days. After returning to Diriyah south of the village of Oyaynah where he was born, Abd al-Wahhab attempted to rectify the misrepresentation of faith by other Muslims and by the Ottomans, who had adopted the less stringent prin- ciples of the Hanafi school in order to qualify for the Islamic caliphate after the collapse of the Abbasids in the sixteenth century. Reputable Najdi theologians rejected Abd al-Wahhab’s views as intel- lectually inferior. But he adopted the Hanbali school, and argued that it was only necessary to follow the text of the Qur’an and hadith just as the prophet’s followers ( al-salaf al-salih) in the early days of Islam did. Hence his followers are called “Salafis,” meaning “those who follow their predecessors.” (Many of my Saudi friends insist on being called Salafis rather than “Wahhabis,” while Iran insists on calling radical Wahhabis as Salafis or “Takfiris.” The Saudi state has begun calling these radicals Takfiris as well.) Through strict practices, Wahhabism expanded the Saudi realm among the Bedouins and tribes that previously enjoyed a wide array of faiths and relatively tolerant religious views. The dryness and paucity of Wahhabi prac- tices, which aim to rid religion of unnecessary rituals, is reflected in the somber call to prayer ( azan ) in Saudi Arabia. (I shared this observation with Saudi policy-makers during and after my first field trip to Saudi Arabia. The azan I heard in Riyadh more recently is less somber than before.) Yet, the Saudi azan still stands in stark contrast to the wailing melody of the azan in Iran. Other elaborate Persian rituals, mystic and divine sensibilities, often embellished by rich symbols, to promote fatalism and the worship of the imams and their shrines contributed to the differences between Shi‘ism and Wahhabism. This was despite the fact that Abd al-Wahhab, considered a progressive Muslim thinker for his time, did not directly challenge the Shi‘is or Sufism—the mystical dimension of Islam practiced since its inception that encourages an understanding of the exoteric ( zahir ) and the esoteric ( batin ) nature of divine law. Yet, the Shi‘i ritualistic practices generated sufficient controversy for Abd al-Wahhab to denounce many of them as acts of heresy ( shirk ). This entailed hostility toward Shi‘is, to the point that some later scholars of the Wahhabi faith insisted on the Jewish origins of the Shi‘i faith and gave as “proof” the harmony between Jews and Shi‘is during the Fatimid period (909–1171).6 (A certain degree of tolerance for other religious minorities was also promoted then.) Other scholars refuted the idea that Shi‘ism had been born in the Arabian peninsula, and maintained that it was purely a Persian invention that had no religious standing. Persia’s clerical establishment was equally intolerant toward Wahhabism, calling it a British-incited belief sys- tem especially meant to counter Shi‘ism when it spread into Iraq in the eighteenth century. This was despite the fact that the spread of Wahhabism 28 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran contributed to the anti-British insurrections in India, and would influence similar anticolonial trends in Africa. I believe that claims of Islamic authenticity in Shi‘ism and Wahhabism failed to grasp that the ideologies they helped construct were but shifting responses to the sociopolitical pressures of their times. Different religious identities were constructed by Shi‘is and Sunnis elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world. For example, the Shi‘is of Lebanon and Iraq did not identify with the extreme displays of bereavement by Persian Shi‘is over the battle of ashura, and questioned whether or not the wailing and self-flagellation that mark ashura in Persian culture corresponded with the way Hussein would have liked his martyrdom commemorated. 7 Iraqi Shi‘is, largely representing tribal converts who originated in the Arabian peninsula, preferred instead to celebrate Hussein’s valor in the battle of ashura, which they regarded as con- sonant with the courage and honor of their Bedouin ancestors.8 M e a n w h i l e , Arab Sunnis generally followed the religious verdicts of al-azhar in Cairo, which, compared to later preachers of Wahhabism, also showed greater tol- erance toward Shi‘is. In the end, to most Muslims, Shi‘ism and Wahhabism represented two acceptable modes of thinking about Islam.

Evolution of Political Islam Building a unified nation resembling the prophet’s rule in Madinah became a utopian goal from Islam’s first century. The change in the religious status of the followers of Ali implied a break from that ideal, suggesting rejection or defection. Hence the Arabic term al-rawafidah in reference to Ali’s fol- lowers after their refusal to accept a truce with the first Umayyad caliph, Muawiyah ibn Abu Sufyan, who succeeded Ali. While Sunnis did not regard Muawiyah nearly as pious as Ali, the refusal by Shi‘is to follow the caliph of the time marked the beginning of political Islam as it has come to symbolize conflict between Shi‘is and Sunnis today. As a result of this early history, bereaved minority Shi‘is began exhibit- ing euphoric attitudes toward the martyrdom of their imams when I believe their main struggle was against the injustices of their time, during which many Sunni religious leaders were also persecuted. Indeed, three Shi‘i imams—Zayn al-Abidin al-Sajjad (d. 712), Muhammad al-Baqir (d. 732), and Jafar al-Sadiq (d. 765)—died in Madinah (where they are buried) dur- ing the reign of Sunni caliphs who persecuted Shi‘is and Sunnis alike. The remaining five imams also died under the reign of Sunni caliphs, and were buried in Iraq and Persia. These were Musa al-Kazim (d. 799 in Baghdad), Ali Reza (d. 817 in Mashhad), Muhammad al-Taqi (d. 835 in Baghdad), Ali al-Naqi (d. 868 in Samara), and Hassan al-Askari (d. 874 in Samarrah). However, it is the dominant Shi‘i narrative that all the 11 imams, including How Religion Shaped the Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 29

Hassan ibn Ali (d. 670 in Madinah), were killed. (Some prominent Shi‘a theologians contest the narrative, and argue that there is proof for the mur- ders of only a few of the Shi‘i imams. It is incontestable that Ali, stabbed to death, and Hussein killed in ashura, were Shi‘i martyrs. There is con- clusive evidence that imams Hassan, Kazem, and Ali Reza were poisoned. Yet, evidence that would support claims that the other imams were killed is lacking or weak). 9 The struggle against the ruling caliphs had widespread appeal to both Shi‘is and Sunnis. The founder of the Hanbali school, Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Hanbal Abu Abdullah al-Shaybani (780–855), went fur- thest in the line of Sunni thinkers who attempted to define Islam’s enemies; he refused to submit to the inquisition of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun, who propagated rationalism and sanctified it above the revelation of the Qur’an. Al-Ma’mun’s views polarized Shi‘i and Sunni theologians, who endeavored to pronounce and critically define their respective doctrines in an age of rationalism. Al-Ma’mun persecuted Ibn Hanbal and is believed to have ordered the death of the eighth Shi‘i imam, Ali Reza. 10 In the tenth century after Islam, Shi‘i political thought gained momen- tum amongst Ismaili leaders. The group’s fervor died away, but in the elev- enth century Hassan Sabbah took on the mission to propagate the Ismaili faith, also prevalent in Bahrain, on behalf of the Fatimid leaders from his fortress of Alamut in the modern city of Qazvin in Iran, which remained under Abbasid rule. Sabbah ordered the assassination of key political figures of his time, both Shi‘is and Sunnis, through a group of devout followers known as the hashshashin . The group endured beyond Sabbah’s death in 1124, and was defeated by Mongolian invaders in the thirteenth century. Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328), considered by many to be the father of political Islam, witnessed the Mongolian invasion of Arab lands and was concerned with the question of when Muslims could engage in a just war against Mongolians who had converted to Islam. Islam encour- aged holy war (jihad) against injustice. Ibn Taymiyyah argued that it was legal to perform jihad against a bad Muslim, and dethrone or eliminate an enemy who did not comply with religious doctrines even if that enemy was Muslim. He also conducted debates with Shi‘is over their religious practices, following a custom in Islam to hold debates with individuals or groups in disagreement with each other, and especially with other Muslims, before making a decision on whether or not a just war against them was justifiable. In 1501, the Safavids defeated the Mongolians. The Sunni Safavid ruler Shah Ismail promoted political Islam to help build a Persian nation-state by aligning with the clerics. When Iraq fell to the Ottomans in 1533, the Safavid rulers granted the Persian clerical establishment permission to 30 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran influence Iraq, which Persia had laid claims to and at times controlled until then, in order to help guard the Persian empire from repeated Ottoman incursions. The Arabs in the Arabian peninsula viewed the clerics as agents of the Persian state, and watched over them when they made the pilgrimage to Makkah via Hasa, the eastern region of the peninsula. While the clerical institution was reigned in under the Qajar ruler Nasser ol-Din Shah, his assassination in 1896 led to the reemergence of clerical authority in Persia, and their attempts to dominate Persia’s political and educational systems, which had modernized under the Qajars. Two centuries later in the Arabian peninsula, the promotion of political Islam helped consolidate the first Saudi realm when Abd al-Wahhab aligned his forces with those of Muhammad ibn Saud. In 1744, the first Saudi realm was established in Najd with Diriyah as its capital. Under the Saudi realm, political authority stayed with the Al Saud clan but religious authority was to be overseen by the Al Sheikhs—the name given to Abd al-Wahhab and his descendants—with communal advice from the clerics ( ‘ulema ). When Muhammad ibn Saud died in 1765, Sheikh Abd al-Wahhab pledged alle- giance (bay’ah ) to Abd al-Aziz bin Muhammad ibn Saud as imam , thereby sealing his position as co-imam with the new leader. Shi‘i and Wahhabi forces began clashing for influence over Iraq, disturb- ing the peace in the northern central Arabian peninsula, which was ruled by the Jabbal Shammar (otherwise known as the Emirate of Hail or Rashid) and considered a region tolerant of Shi‘is and Jews (The Jabbal Shammar rulers regained power in the late nineteenth century as the Al Saud’s realm declined in the Riyadh area.) In 1765, to punish the ruler of Hijaz who had prevented Wahhabi forces from performing the haj after their capture of Qasim and Hasa, militant Wahhabis prevented Iraqi and Persian pilgrims from visiting Makkah. These pilgrims may have frequented the historic al- Zubaydah route that ran through Qasim to reach Makkah. Ironically, the route was built by the wife of Haroun Al Rashid who Shi‘is maintain killed the seventh imam Musa al-Kazim. Eventually, the loss of pilgrim revenues compelled Hijaz to allow the Wahhabi fighters back in. Wahhabi forces confronted the Ottomans in the Hijaz, by attempting to take over Makkah and Madinah that they briefly controlled. From 1790–1797, Wahhabi forces continued to attack Iraqi tribes until an agreement with the Ottomans helped end the raids. In 1801, the Wahhabi forces placed a siege on Najaf twice and sacked Karbala. In 1802 they raided imam Hussein’s shrine in Iraq, a measure of their contempt for the Shi‘i tradition of shrine worship, considered idolatry by Wahhabis (one reason why none of the Saudi kings’ burial sites are marked, although the act of worship of the prophet’s companions was also common among the Sunnis in the peninsula before the emergence of militant Wahhabism). For almost a How Religion Shaped the Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 31 century, Shi‘is mourned the event with an annual ceremony resembling the ashura. In 1803, Wahhabi forces attacked Makkah, desecrating its tombs and historical sites. In 1804, they captured Madinah, with Najd, Makkah, and Jeddah following a year later. Wahhabis then desecrated the tombs of the four Shi‘i imams buried in Madinah, which the Shi‘is mourned and commemorated again for another century. Until these frequent raids, which aimed primarily to convert the Iraqi tribes and expand the Saudi realm, the Shi‘i clerical establishment did not seriously heed the challenge of the Wahhabi creed; but by 1805, with Najaf under siege, Ja’far Kashif al-Ghita (1728–1813) made a self-proclaimed deci- sion that as a mujtahid, he could declare a defensive jihad against other Muslim enemies of the faith. (He referred here to Wahhabi forces.) Even then, al-Ghita was cautious not to irate the followers of Wahhabism directly. In a courteously worded letter addressed to Abd al-Aziz bin Muhammad bin Saud, he questioned the practices that Wahhabism deemed as shirk , such as visiting shrines and seeking help from deceased imams, which could help enhance spirituality, beseeching him to ponder the matter carefully. Al-Ghita, known for advocating against restrictions on Shi‘i rituals, which he believed could have real impact through the open practice of such rituals, drew exclusively on Sunni books of hadith to refute the accusations leveled by followers of Wahhabism against Shi‘is.11 As the frequency of Wahhabi raids against other Sunni Arab tribes increased migration into Iraq, Persian Shi‘is were able to increase the rate of conversion of Bedouins. Interestingly, while some Sunni clerics were offended by the Shi‘i conversions, others did not mind it—many of the tribes were not regarded as “real” Muslims on account of their lax religious practices. In 1818, the Wahhabi raids in Iraq stopped after Egypt’s governor Muhammad Ali undertook a mission from the Ottoman empire, led by his adopted son Ibrahim Pasha, to defeat the Wahhabi army and sack Diriyah, which also put an end to the first Saudi state. In 1831, the Ottomans resumed direct control over Iraq, which, due to its remoteness, had received nominal interest from the empire until then. The subsequent stabilization of Iraq led Persian clerics to arrive in large groups, leading to calls by Ottoman officials to check the spread of Shi‘ism there.12 In 1824, the Saudi state was revived. By 1833, it had expanded along the western and southern coast of the Persian Gulf. Under Sheikh Faisal ibn Turki, who was less zealous about cultivating militant Wahhabism, the second Saudi state flourished until 1865. Faisal introduced a transition from “revolutionary Wahhabism” to “Wahhabism in one country,” which aimed to promote the Saudi state as a much smaller and more unified geographic entity. Wahhabism quickly ceased being a force for endless holy war against other Muslims, and became an internal issue for the Saudi state to deal 32 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran with.13 When Faisal asserted his rule over the southern Persian Gulf regions of Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial Sheikhdoms (which later became the United Arab Emirates), he exempted inhabitants of these regions includ- ing Shi‘is from having to subscribe to Wahhabism if they continued paying tribute and tax to Riyadh. In 1871, the Ottomans seized Hasa. The defeat, along with routine fam- ily feuds within the Al Saud clan, led to the collapse of the second Saudi state in 1891. One of its lessons was how little the Wahhabi establishment contributed to the orderly resolution of family disputes that arose prior to the collapse. The religious establishment developed an attitude of cautious neutrality, whether between Al Saud family members or between the Al Saud and outsiders. Clearly, militant Wahhabism had given way to the traditional Sunni political doctrine of accepting the rulers of the time as long as they were pious and subscribed to Islamic law. More importantly, Wahhabism without militancy was finally accepted as an integral part of the Saudi realm’s identity.14

Early Twentieth-Century Contacts between the Third Saudi Realm and Persia Wahhabism was considered a passing trend as the Persian and Turkish con- stitutional revolutions took shape. 15 The Persian constitutional movement of 1903 gave Shi‘i clerics the ability to articulate a vision of how to build a uni- fied Islamic nation. It focused on the common goal across the Middle East: to curb the power of foreign states competing over the division of the region. Meanwhile, in 1908, the Young Turks’ revolution attempted to reverse the corruption of the Ottoman empire and the latter’s decision to suspend the parliament. The revolution affected the Arab heartland, where the Ottomans remained the dominant power. Simultaneous foreign penetration into Persia and the Arab lands gave fresh life to calls for Islamic revival through Shi‘i– Sunni solidarity. The prominent Shi‘i cleric Muhammad Hussein Kashif al- Ghita (1877–1954) published al-din wa al-islam wa al-daw’wa al-islamiyya (“Religion and Islam and the Islamic Call”); Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Naini (1850–1936) called on Muslims to educate themselves and contribute to the promotion of Muslim unity. Meanwhile, the consolidation of the third Saudi state (1902–1932), later known as the “Wahhabi Revival,” was underway. During the first decade of this revival, Abd al-Aziz Al Saud (also known as “Ibn Saud” in earlier literature on Saudi Arabia) approached religion cautiously when it came to advancing his political goals, mindful not to upset the big powers. 16 H e w a s known as an imam to the tribes that he controlled. But in 1912–1913, Abd al-Aziz united the settled tribes in the valley between Kuwait and Qasim in How Religion Shaped the Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 33

Artawiyah. He gave them protection against rival clans, and in return they built new colonies of settlers (hijar ). The colonies promoted the concept of a single brotherhood—the ikhwan—that would transcend tribal rival- ries. 17 The ikhwan propagated Wahhabism, which was strictly regulated by mutawwi’in, or moral enforcers. Although Abd al-Aziz depended on clan ties to protect his realm, that was insufficient to unify Arabia, and he allowed Wahhabism to shape the identity of the new Saudi state. Within less than three years, the ikhwan became a powerful military force of 100,000 men. In 1920, when Iraqi Shi‘i clerics revolted against the Anglo-Persian agree- ment signed the year before, which granted Britain a monopoly on access to Iranian oilfields in exchange for a supply of arms and military training in Persia, Shi‘i clerics renewed calls for a unified Muslim nation regardless of Shi‘i–Sunni differences. The Hashemite ruler of the Hijaz, Sharif Hussein, joined forces with them, hoping Persia would then recognize the Kingdom of Hijaz—given to him after the allied powers of World War I allocated the administration of former Ottoman lands in the Middle East at the San Remo Conference in April 1920. To mobilize both Sunnis and Shi‘is, Muslim preachers were encouraged to promote debates characterizing the foreign interventions inflicted on the community as a disgrace. The issue, however, was a sensitive one in Shi‘i–Wahhabi debates, as each side charged the other of being part of foreign ploys. Meanwhile, differences between Shi‘i clerics and the ikhwan resurfaced in 1922, when the ikhwan led a raid into Iraq, killing several hundred peo- ple. This incident led prominent Iraq-based Shi‘i clerics to call for a con- ference uniting Shi‘is and Sunnis against future ikhwan onslaughts, which they attributed to Wahhabism. The British rejected the plan, fearing it could lead to agitation against their recently established mandate over Iraq. As a result, Sharif Hussein’s son, Faisal, who was sent to lead Iraq in 1921, dispar- aged the Shi‘i clerics as non-Arabs, given that many were of Persian descent, in his efforts to promote an Iraqi pan-Arab identity. 18 He only briefly agreed to accommodate the clerics, acceding to his father’s request to appease them while Hijaz battled the ikhwan aggression.19 Although Shi‘i clerics managed to delay the preparation for the Iraqi Constituent Assembly, Faisal forced many of them to leave the country. Some departed for Persia, while a few left for the Arabian peninsula, but would later return to Persia. Faisal also used the emerging religious vacuum in Iraq to promote Arab Shi‘i clerics as a counterweight against Persian-born clerics. 20 The collapse of the Ottoman empire in 1924—which served as the last vestige of Muslim unity—ended calls for Shi‘i–Sunni unity. I maintain the Persian Shi‘i clerics now faced a dual challenge: the rise of a modern state in Iraq, and the expansion of the Saudi realm. In Iraq, the formation of an Arab state with secular ideals led to the rise of Iraqi nationalism. Meanwhile, 34 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran the Iraqi Shi‘i clerical establishment radically shifted its position toward the British and became more accommodating of them in order to avoid being politically sidelined by the Sunnis. The Shi‘i–Sunni schism in Iraq quickly became a function of politics, and Sunni prejudices toward the Shi‘is were used to build authority for the central state. Persia’s subsequent delays in recognizing Iraq, or its continued assertion of leverage over the Iraqi shrine cities, proved ineffective—although Persian clerics occasionally banned the pilgrimage to Iraq, which affected the revenues of the shrine cities in the 1920s. 21 Meanwhile, Persia was unable to send pilgrims to Makkah as the tribal battles between the Hashemites and the ikhwan forces erupted. While Persian clerics approved of the haj despite the conflict, Reza Khan preferred only to work with the Hashemites rather than trust the unknown Al Saud clan. In 1924, he dispatched Montakhab ol-Dowlah, his representative in Cairo, to Jeddah as consul to assess the situation on the ground. Sharif Hussein asked that Persia recognize his self-declared caliphate by sending an ambassador. Montakhab ol-Dowlah informed him: “Persia has no objection to the issue of the caliphate, but does not see fit to intervene in or vote over a religious matter that depends on the views of the public.” 22 In effect, Persia decided not to take sides in the tribal battles. In a separate letter to the government of Persia intended to provoke Tehran over the actions of the ikhwan , the Hashemites accused the brotherhood of “un-Islamic conduct” and argued that “Ibn Saud’s invasion of Hijaz exposed the country to the most violent foreign events.” The letter described how the ikhwan desecrated the tombs of Khadijah (first wife of the prophet), Aminah (mother of the prophet), and Abu Bakr, and shelled the “green dome of the prophet’s resting place.”23 Reza Khan decided not to send pilgrims to the Hijaz, and only inter- vened to advise Abd al-Aziz not to allow the ikhwan to attack the kaaba following Makkah’s occupation. His offer to mediate an end to the siege on Jeddah was rejected unless Persia recognized Abd al-Aziz’s rule in the Hijaz. When the siege was briefly lifted due to summer heat in 1925, the Hashemites renewed contacts with Persia to no avail. Abd al-Aziz, who, like Sharif Hussein, respected Persia’s status as a strong and stable Muslim state, sent a letter to the Persian consulate in Jeddah after the takeover of Hijaz, emphasizing his guarantee of security for the area as well as for the freedom of pilgrims to perform their religious rites: “We declare to all our Muslim brothers that all the problems, hardships and shortcomings that Hussein created in those holy realms has come to an end and the doors of Hijaz are open to anyone who seeks to enter it.”24 To inspect the conditions for pilgrimage, the Persian consul general in Syria, Habibollah Hoveida (known as ayn ol-molk or “eye of the land”), was dispatched to Jeddah on October 20, 1925 from where he proceeded to How Religion Shaped the Saudi–Iranian Relations ● 35 visit Madinah. A day later, a second Persian delegation arrived and departed after inspecting the kaaba, and being informed to their surprise, that the gravesites of the prophet’s companions in Makkah and Madinah, includ- ing the revered Shi‘i imams were unmarked, following the Hanbali school’s practice of the dissuasion of Muslims from seeking blessing (baraka ) from the deceased men. 25 Hoveida, whose Baha’i ancestors escaped persecution by Persia’s Shi‘i clerics and settled in Palestine, was an informed observer of Arab affairs. He investigated and verified the accuracy of the allegations leveled against the ikhwan over the destruction of Shi‘i sites, except for the tomb of the prophet that had been left untouched, yet concluded that Makkah under Abd al-Aziz’s rule was in better hands than it had been under the Ottomans or Hashemites. Indeed, Abd al-Aziz had decided to send his own son, Faisal, who had previously led the successful battle in Asir to the south of Hijaz and who along with his brother Muhammad commanded the ikhwan cap- ture of the Hijaz, to Makkah, in order to prevent the ikhwan from causing havoc there. Moreover, the ikhwan policed the region, and thus Abd al- Aziz achieved what the Hashemites had been unable to: the difficult task of fighting bandits and lowering crime rates against pilgrims. Nevertheless, in 1925 the ikhwan desecrated the four tombs of the Shi‘i imams as well as the tomb of the prophet’s daughter Fatima, in the cemetery of jannat al-baqi in Madinah; Hoveida reported this, but Persia did not immediately react. 26 When the ikhwan attempted to destroy the prophet’s graveyard in Madinah, Abd al-Aziz stopped them, mindful that such an act could enrage other Muslim states. In a private meeting with Abd al-Aziz, Hoveida discussed the allega- tions of mistreatment by the ikhwan of the peninsula’s 30,000 Shi‘i inhabit- ants, scattered mainly in Madinah, Qatif, and the south where Ismaili and Zaidi Shi‘is also lived. In general, the Shi‘is had long accepted Abd al-Aziz’s rule for his ability to bring more stability to the Hasa region; however, the ikhwan engaged in repressive religious practices that forced the Shi‘is to alter their rituals or conceal their identity. In addition, the Shi‘is were taxed heavily, and lacked a defined social status in the new Saudi realm. Many were engaged in low-wage jobs in the palm tree cultivation in Madinah, and looked down on and referred to as the nakhawilah (from nakhl or “palm tree”) or olad-sigeh (“children of concubines” in reference to the Shi‘i practice of concubine marriages). Abd al-Aziz dismissed the charges, and asked that the government of Persia send a representative to Hijaz to help decide the future of the holy cities. He also expressed willingness to help Persia restore the desecrated Shi‘i sites, despite the objections he could face from the ikh- wan. 27 In a separate report, Hoveida later recounted Abd al-Aziz’s insistence that he treated the Shi‘is fairly. 28 In reference to a newspaper published in 36 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Egypt, which was handed to Abd al-Aziz in the middle of his meeting with Hoveida, the Saudi ruler also expressed surprise that Muslim leaders were outraged over the destruction of burial sites by “ignorant Bedouins,” in ref- erence to the ikhwan , which had been carried out prior to his arrival in the holy cities, yet they chose to remain silent when the “civilized French” crushed the Syrian rebellion, destroyed holy Muslim sites there, massacred its people, and—unlike Abd al-Aziz—refused to invite foreign representa- tives to oversee the actions.29 Thus, I argue, at the turn of the twentieth century, it appeared that the region’s emerging leaders were mindful of the need to address religious disparities and resolve them pragmatically. More importantly, despite the actions of the i khwan, religion played no part in fueling any major politi- cal rivalries between Persia and the Al Saud. Persia, like all other Muslim states, attached secondary importance to the Al Saud’s Wahhabi identity, and turned its attention primarily to urging Abd al-Aziz to safeguard the custodianship of Makkah and Madinah. Likewise, Abd al-Aziz recognized that his prestige in the Islamic world rested on how well he could ensure the safety of Muslim pilgrims, regardless of creed. Religion was therefore treated as a mere identity issue in this formative stage of the relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia, no more than the Arab versus Persian identities. The ideological differences between Shi‘ism and Wahhabism did not, in fact, play a prominent role in shaping the emerging foreign policies of Iran and Saudi Arabia toward one another.

PART II

Early, Middle, and Post Mid-Twentieth Century Saudi–Iranian Relations CHAPTER 3

Saudi Arabia and Iran in Early Twentieth Century

he relative weakness of state authority in early twentieth-century Gulf history made the task of stabilizing the region arduous. This T barred Saudi Arabia and Iran from retaining lasting ties of major sig- nificance, which was further complicated by Iran’s foreign policy outlook. Whereas the leaders in the Arabian peninsula preferred to persuade foreign powers as they fought amongst themselves (out of which process the Saudi state was formed), Iran’s more advanced and cohesive state structure, vibrant civil society, and long history of battling colonial influences placed it at odds with external powers in the region. Persian nationalism, distinctly tied to the grandeur of pre-Islamic Persian civilization, permeates anticolonial tendencies. For over twenty-five centu- ries, Persia (renamed Iran in 1935) was an imperial power led by numerous dynasties and frequently conquered by other foreign powers. At its peak, the Persian empire’s influence extended from the northern regions of the Arabian peninsula to Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The impe- rial state evolved through a relatively well-organized and modestly urbanized bureaucracy around the concept of iranshahri —comparable to the Greek city-state—and shaharmani , with a political culture largely based on king- ship traditions regardless of centrifugal ethnic and/or tribal tendencies. Persia had unique exposure to the outside world given its central geo- graphic location and fertile land, facing the Caspian Sea in the north and the Persian Gulf in the south. It also had access to historic transit routes for trade that linked west to east. This placement accelerated the develop- ment of indigenous social and political forces, which brought their share of adventures in the early twentieth century. In 1903, a constitutional revo- lution against the Qajar dynasty (which had ruled since 1794) led to the 40 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran establishment of one of the first modern legislative assemblies in the Middle East, as well as the ratification of a constitution in 1906 that sought to curtail the power of the monarchy. From 1906–1924, five assemblies with members representing traditional, religious, modern, and secular forces led Persia into a new democratization phase, which dramatically advanced the country’s bureaucracy and the education and elections systems. Despite such advances, Persia could not liberate itself from foreign powers. Britain, firmly entrenched in the Gulf, aimed to end Persia’s his- toric territorial claims along the Gulf’s southern shores. In the north, the Russian military conquest of Persian-controlled territories in the Caucasus (in 1813 and 1828) led to the Turkmenchai Agreement, humiliating the Persians. In the east, the British—who feared Russia’s power would expand after Turkmenchai and disturb their access to India—dislodged Herat in Afghanistan from Persia’s control through the Treaty of Paris in 1857. The bankrupt Qajars made endless concessions to the British and Russians to stay in power. Thus Persia entered the twentieth century as a revisionist state, deeply suspicious of foreign intrusions and determined to redefine the regional order. Consequently, the tobacco monopoly granted to the British was can- celed in 1891; protests erupted over a customs agreement with the British and the Russians in 1901–1903; and disagreements over the terms of the D’Arcy agreement—the first oil concession granted in the Middle East to a foreign company—broke out in 1901–1908. In 1907, the Anglo-Russian Convention was sealed, establishing a truce between the two powers over their respective political and commercial spheres in Persia. It created a central, neutral zone that remained under the authority of the government in Tehran. Persia gradually lost the ability to run state affairs in the northern provinces under Russian control and in the south along the Gulf coast under British control. Furthermore, the course of the constitutional revolution was frequently derailed. While the constitutionalists played one foreign power against the other, they were susceptible to favors, which fueled British and Russian intrigues in Persia. When constitutional forces attempted to cut back foreign influences, the Russians used artillery against the first assembly in 1907, pushed to dissolve the second assembly in 1911, and threatened—along with the British—to attack the third assembly during World War I in 1915. Persia attempted to remain neutral during the war, but national sen- timents tilted toward Germany, which was defeating the Russians at the front. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 increased anti-Russian sentiment in Persia, as the communists were determined to lead an aggressive foreign policy toward Tehran; they did not wish to forsake Tsarist interests in the Persian Gulf. In response to growing wartime grievances, not only owing Saudi Arabia and Iran in Early Twentieth Century ● 41 to famine and social hardship, but also to increased foreign manipulation, Russia and Britain increased the number of troops under their command in Persia to 11,000 each. Russian-trained Persian Cossack troops maintained control in the north, and the British-led South Persia Rifles (also manned by Persians) held the south. In 1919, to counter the Russians in the Gulf, Britain signed a new agree- ment with Persia. Ostensibly it was designed to help reconstruct the country in the aftermath of the war, but it also meant to ensure that Britain kept the Russian Red Army out. The agreement was repeatedly criticized internally in Persia, by both anti-British forces and pro-Russian groups. British hos- tility increased toward these groups, as well as toward the clerics, many of whom were involved in the constitutional revolution. In 1920, the British were forced to reconcile with the Russians over Persia. An incursion by Russian forces into northern Persia led to the occupation of the Caspian port town of Anzali, and the subsequent dec- laration of independence in the north by the socialist rebel leader Mirza Kuchak Khan. As the Red Army prepared to advance toward Tehran, Britain managed to secure an agreement with the Russians to halt sup- port for Kuchak Khan in exchange for a new agreement between Persia and Russia that could guarantee the latter’s vital interests. Kuchak Khan’s rebellion was crushed by the Cossack officer Reza Khan. Russia subse- quently withdrew support for Kuchak Khan’s self-proclaimed autono- mous territory, and in February 1921 signed a treaty with Persia that enabled it to advance troops there should a third party use it as a base of operation against Moscow. The Red Army threat convinced the British and Persians that Tehran needed a centrally strong military government. At the same time, the con- stitutional revolution had strengthened republican sentiments, and when Turkey became a republic following the collapse of the Ottoman empire in 1923, Persia’s fifth legislative assembly debated becoming one as well. The idea was overruled by the Shi‘i clerical establishment, who wished to continue supporting the Persian monarchy out of expediency—after all, the alliance between clerics and the Safavids had preserved the Persian empire against Ottoman incursions in the past, and consequently led to the consoli- dation of the power of the clerical class. Moreover, the new Turkish republic had sidelined the Turkish religious establishment, and therefore had not set a good model for emulation. Prominent clerics such as the staunch constitutionalist Seyyed Hassan Moddares supported retaining the Qajars. Yet many other clerics supported Reza Khan, who was instrumental in crushing tribal and nomadic rebellions. Reza Khan contemplated leading the country as a republic, but decided to depose the Qajars and establish the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925. 42 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Reza Khan followed in the footsteps of the new Turkish president, Mustafa Kemal Atatü rk, modernizing Persia through a powerful central bureaucracy. Similarly, a zealous nationalist, he favored a secular orientation for society. Reza Khan was challenged along the way by Persia’s relatively vibrant civil society, which included a multiple-party political system, an advanced media, and the clerical class. He also faced an equal challenge from the sophisticated urban and feudal agricultural sectors. As a result, Reza Khan tolerated the legislative assembly with its wide array of political groups, as well as journalists. But his ideas, including the establishment of a modern judiciary, antagonized the clerics, who were in favor of a shari’a system. In 1928, Reza Shah built a constitutional monarchy, along with a cabi- net and legislature, and granted women financial aid to study abroad. Although he dismantled some women’s political associations in place since 1910, he granted women the right to study at Tehran University in 1935, a year before introducing forced unveiling. Led by secular elites, and an army more advanced than its neighbors except for Russia, with officers who were trained abroad, his government began a rapid modernization program aided by oil revenues that placed the Iranian economy and military ahead of its Gulf neighbors. Along the way, Reza Shah silenced the clerical oppo- sition and led an aggressive policy to demolish remnants of Iran’s tribal culture. He also encouraged the anti-imperial sentiments that prevailed in Persia with equal fervor, defying British influence in the Persian Gulf—by, for example, ordering Persia’s modestly sized navy to raid smaller Gulf islands in objection to Britain’s alliance with the Arab sheikhdoms. Historically, Persia had lost and regained numerous territories through such raids, includ- ing most notably Khargh and Qeshm (now under Iranian sovereignty) and Muscat and Oman. As a result of his policies, Reza Khan also remained detached from Arab struggles for independence, and frequently viewed the southern Gulf as Persia’s backyard to send its dissidents, minorities, and cheap labor to. During World War II, lacking an army that he could trust to with- stand pressures from the allied forces, Reza Khan sided with Germany, the consequence of a traditional foreign policy that often sought third-party patrons when in conflict with major powers. It cost him his throne: in 1941, the British forced Reza Khan to abdicate in favor of his 21-year-old son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who having long feared his father’s strong per- sonality, easily caved into foreign power intrigues and the political chagrins of the internal opposition. While in exile in Johannesburg, South Africa, Reza Khan died on July 26, 1944, telling his son that in hindsight, he might have chosen to rule more leniently. Saudi Arabia and Iran in Early Twentieth Century ● 43

Formation of the Saudi State The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the outcome of the third and most success- ful endeavor by the Al Saud family to unite the Arabian peninsula. The first and second Saudi realms (1744–1818 and 1824–1891 respectively) failed to permanently unify the peninsula’s vast territories and multiple tribes. After the fall of the second Saudi realm, its leader, Abd al-Rahman Al Saud, was forced into exile to Kuwait by the Rashidi clan. In 1902, his son Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd al-Rahman Al Saud reclaimed Riyadh. He secured the city with 40 men in an ambush resembling a coup, which marked the beginning of the third Saudi realm. It took two more decades to form a nation-state with aid from an army of traditional warriors. Abd al-Aziz proved to be an astute political strategist. From 1903–1906, he sent repeated proposals to the British for help in seizing Hasa from Ottoman officers. Controlling Hasa and its urban areas would turn the Al Saud into a Gulf power. In return, the pragmatic Abd al-Aziz offered to accept British control of the Gulf’s foreign policy. Britain refused, however, preferring to appease the Ottomans and the Germans, who had plans to construct a strategic railway in Iraq. Abd al-Aziz was thus confined to ruling Najd. He advanced the idea of a pact with the British over Hasa once again in 1910–1911, after the Young Turks in Hasa revolted against their Ottoman rulers. Abd al-Aziz also made occasional threats against the smaller Gulf entities of Qatar, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai, in order to force the British to support him. In 1912, with his eyes on conquering Hasa, Abd al-Aziz united the tribes of Mutayr, Utaybah, and the Harb under the ikhwan movement. In May 1913, he defeated the Young Turk officers in Hasa. He then guaranteed safe passage for pilgrimage and freedom of worship to the local Shi‘i populace in Hasa in exchange for pledging allegiance to his rule—despite calls by the ikhwan to convert the Shi‘is. Many of the Shi‘is who along with Sunnis had left Hasa, due to Ottoman inability to control the region and the Wahhabi raids, and who had sought protection in Iraq or Bahrain, chose to remain in the region under Abd al-Aziz’s protection. However, Abd al-Aziz still failed to obtain British recognition as a Gulf power. In July 1913, as a result of the Anglo-Turkish Convention, Britain granted the Turks sovereignty over any area north of the Qatar peninsula to the border between Aden and Yemen, including Najd and Hasa. Subsequently, within the year, Abd al- Aziz allowed limited Turkish garrisons in to Hasa. 1 Britain abandoned support for the Ottomans after the outbreak of World War I. The rapid decline of Ottoman power sent the British searching for friends in the Arab world, and in 1915, they formalized an agreement with Abd al-Aziz to recognize Najd, Hasa, Qatif, Jubail, and their dependencies 44 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran in return for his agreement to disavow claims over any entities in the south- ern Gulf region, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman. He was also to avoid entering into correspondence or agreement with other foreign powers in the Persian Gulf without British consent. Abd al-Aziz was asked to enter into a pact with the British against the Ottomans. He accepted, but avoided exhausting his men in battle on Britain’s behalf, preferring but to use them to protect his realms from the Rashidis in central Arabia and the Hashemites in western Arabia. 2 Like other rival Arab leaders in the peninsula, Abd al-Aziz continued to receive partial financial aid from Britain and the occasional company of British military experts and political agents in the Gulf region who befriended him. But the cautious Abd al-Aziz chose to be self-reliant in his dealings with big powers, and he depended largely on the meager revenues generated in central Najd. Nonetheless, the frequency of problems experienced by the Najdis mak- ing the pilgrimage to Makkah made Abd al-Aziz determined to defeat the Hashemite ruler of Hijaz, Sharif Hussein ibn Ali. He was also motivated to restore the sanctity of Makkah and Madinah, and by the resource-rich cities of the Hijaz. Beforehand, however, he had to gather the ikhwan and his Kuwaiti patrons and attack the Rashidis in Hail. In 1921, he did this, and after defeating the Rashidis, secured a permanent peace with them by granting amnesty to many of its notables and intermarrying with the tribe. Subsequently he declared the new Sultanate of Najd and Its Dependencies, which Britain recognized. This victory emboldened Abd al-Aziz to make his move against Hijaz, but doing so was no easy undertaking: the Hashemites enjoyed immense support from their foreign patrons, including Britain and the Ottoman empire. The Ottomans in fact controlled the Hijaz’s foreign policy, and in 1908 the Young Turks had turned over daily administration of the area to Sharif Hussein—he helped the Ottomans conquer Asir and Abhar in the southern Arabian peninsula. The Hashemite ruler, who spent 18 years under supervision in Istanbul, was close to the Arab elite in Damascus and Beirut, and received recognition and support from them. He also enjoyed the cus- todianship of Makkah and Madinah, along with the fertile agricultural and rich urban zones of the Hijaz. In 1915, Britain had lured Sharif Hussein into proclaiming a jihad against the Ottomans, with the aim of establishing a single state in the Arabian pen- insula. Thus Britain hoped to advance the grand railway plan designed to connect the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, and to the British mandates in Iraq and Palestine. In 1916, Hussein successfully enlisted British sup- port to establish the Kingdom of Hijaz. Although he was disappointed by London’s refusal to recognize his rule over Arabia at the 1919 Paris Peace Saudi Arabia and Iran in Early Twentieth Century ● 45

Conference, Hussein also received London’s endorsement to send his sons Faisal and Abdullah to rule over the newly appointed British mandates of Iraq and Transjordan (later Jordan) in 1921. In May 1922, the British concluded the Treaty of Muhammara to draw boundaries between Iraq, Najd, and Kuwait. Abd al Aziz asked for a recon- sideration of the treaty, which led to the Uqair Protocol in November, to persuade him to agree to boundary lines that favored Iraq in exchange for the recognition of his claims over Kuwait. Abd al-Aziz accepted the new treaty obligations because they would help neutralize Faisal of Iraq when he decided to make his move against Hijaz.3 In March 1924, when the Grand National Assembly of Turkey pro- claimed the abolition of the Muslim caliphate the Ottomans had held for four centuries, Hussein declared himself the new caliph. The ikhwan peti- tioned for a campaign against Hijaz, and informed Abd al-Aziz that they would advance on Makkah even without his consent, as they had repeatedly done in other areas across the peninsula. Britain’s announcement on March 24, 1924 that it would terminate payments to Arab leaders impressed upon Abd al-Aziz the need to take control of Makkah’s revenues. In July, he con- vened a meeting with ikhwan leaders in Riyadh and called for a holy war against Hijaz. He ordered an attack on Ta’if to the south of Makkah, before taking control of the holy city. Sharif Hussein sought Persia’s recognition in the face of threats from the Al Saud, but Persia showed minimal interest in getting involved in the tribal battles over Hijaz. Hussein was even less successful with other Muslim states, which felt he had failed to provide security to pilgrims because of chaos in the Hijaz area. His decision to side with the British further down- graded his position as a caliph. Recognizing his limits, Hussein abdicated in favor of his son Ali in October 1924. Abd al-Aziz pressured the Hijaz notables to compel Ali to abdicate as well. Ali called on Persia to recognize his rule over Makkah, but decided to turn the city over to the Al Saud after news of atrocities committed by the ikhwan in Ta’if reached Makkah. In December 1924, Abd al-Aziz entered the city. Ali sent a letter through a minister, Sheikh Fouad Al Khatib, to the Persian minister plenipotentiary (vazir mokhtar) in Egypt, Ghafar Jalal ol-Saltaneh, indicating that he had chosen to forfeit his office in order to prevent the destruction of lives and property and that he intended to depart for Iraq and set up a government-in- exile.4 He secretly dispatched messengers to inquire as to whether or not the Persians (including the clerical establishment) would be willing to host it. In October 1925, Habibollah Hoveida, and Jalal ol-Saltaneh, met with Ali and Abd al-Aziz. The latter briefly considered granting Ali a custodianship role in Makkah’s administration—but, according to Hoveida, it was clear that Ali’s reign had reached its end.5 46 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Abd al-Aziz sought Persia’s recognition of Najd and Hijaz, and asked that it use its influence over Afghanistan for recognition from that state as well. When Reza Khan offered to mediate an end to the siege on Jeddah by the ikhwan, Abd al-Aziz accepted on the condition that Ali leave office. 6 H e then advanced to Jeddah, which he conquered after the year-long siege in December 1925. In January 1926, following the ikhwan’s siege of Madinah, that city’s elites ceded control to the Al Saud, too. Abd al-Aziz’s military accomplishments served to win support from the local Hijazi elites, which, combined with skilled political leadership and flexibility, won him the vote of confidence and oath of allegiance ( bayat ). Correspondence between Persia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia indicate that, shortly thereafter on January 22, 1926, Abd al-Aziz declared to Islamic world leaders that as he had given them two months to respond to his letters sent in late 1925 calling for a Muslim congress to decide the future of the holy sites in Hijaz and had not received an answer, he had decided to form a new government in that region. Two days after the announcement, on January 8, 1926, he declared himself King of Hijaz and Sultan of Najd and Its Dependencies. According to Hoveida, the announcement contradicted the spirit of the talks between Abd al-Aziz, Jalal ol-Saltaneh, and himself. 7 Indeed, Abd al-Aziz had tactfully disclaimed any ambitions in those talks over Hijaz to appease Muslim states, some of whom called for an inter- national administration over Makkah and Madinah. In specific, Muslim leaders in India and Egypt contested the take-over of the cities without their consultation. Thus, Abd al-Aziz immediately embarked on the difficult task of securing the Hijaz for the safety of haj pilgrims to win recognition from these leaders. Abd al-Aziz developed an administrative structure to combine the more progressive urban system in Hijaz with the inland tribal system of admin- istration. In August 1926, he promulgated the Basic Law for the Hijaz. In January 1927, he established the Kingdom of Hijaz and Najd and Its Dependencies. Mindful that militant Wahhabism could break his new king- dom, in February 1928, Abd al-Aziz appealed to rebellious ikhwan leaders, some of whom were randomly attacking Iraqi and Kuwaiti border posts, and offered to step down if they agreed to pick another leader from the Al Saud clan. Many accepted his leadership, and he proceeded to patiently appease those who did not comply.8 The ikhwan rebellion was finally crushed deci- sively at the Battle of Sabilla in March 1929, under Abd al-Aziz’s orders. The remaining members of the ikhwan were pushed out and some fled into Iraq, and even sought British protection. They were subdued in later expeditions by the Al Saud, led at times by Abd al-Aziz’s son, Saud. This allowed Abd al-Aziz to help restore the Shi‘i rituals and practices that the ikhwan had suppressed. Saudi Arabia and Iran in Early Twentieth Century ● 47

In 1931, after a brief insurgency in Asir, Abd al-Aziz consolidated his rule there having first secured northern Asir in 1920–1924 and control over it in the decade that followed by sending his son Faisal to command the ikhwan army. In September 1932, he passed a royal decree proclaiming the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He would immediately build a fledgling defense agency, which would be elevated to a full ministry in 1944 led by his son Mansur, and send Saud and Faisal to lead a brief expedition in Yemen that ended with a border treaty in 1934. Abd al-Aziz used his authority as the custodian of Makkah and Madinah to reject the forces of modernity swaying elites in rival lands of the Arab East ( mashreq ), from Egypt to Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Iraq. This gave him added leverage over influential Arab elites in the Arabian penin- sula who shared pan-Arab nationalistic sentiments with the mashreq . Yet, as a new state entity, Saudi Arabia frequently confused reason of state (i.e., national sovereignty) with reason of nation (i.e., pan-Arabism),9 r e g a r d l e s s of Abd al-Aziz’s penchant for maintaining careful distance from the rest of the Arab world. In response, Abd al-Aziz demanded compliance to both Islam and the Al Saud, to unify behind his cause the centrifugal pan-Arab nationalistic tendencies in the kingdom. Through the granting of gener- ous financial protection overtime, this slowly built a distinct Saudi identity based on the basic tenants of wealth distribution and adherence to Islam, in a society where clan and tribal identities remained equally if not more domi- nant. By default, without wealth and Islam, this implied that the newborn Saudi identity could cede to exist, which drove successive Saudi rulers to develop a strong welfare state. Abd al-Aziz valued modernity, having tackled with the harsh realities of life in the desert regions of central Arabia. Thus, he introduced seden- tary programs to unify a largely tribal society with scattered Bedouin settle- ments, including agricultural settlements for nomads and his ikhwan army. The task was easier under the Sultanate of Najd and Its Dependencies, given the predominance of personal and tribal politics in his ancestral lands. In addition, modest subsistence farming and date production made the Najdi mainland population and Hasa easier to administer. With the capture of Hijaz and its highland agricultural areas, Abd al-Aziz inherited a far more sophisticated administrative system from the Ottomans, as well as public administration of the haj. He therefore adopted far-reaching measures such as the establishment of an educational system and a shari’a -based judicial system. Administrative bureaucracies including a ministry of finance was set up in 1932 to unify the monetary system by the 1950s. Persian commercial agents would play an important role in building up the Saudi economy after 1932 often through laissez faire practices with limited government control. 48 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

A separate ministry of commerce was established in 1954, for a time headed by a member of the Alireza family, originally Persians who had settled in the Hijaz. In 1961, Iran established a branch of Mellat Bank in the kingdom, which merged with the local al-Jazirah Bank a decade later. 10 Abd al-Aziz also took a keen interest in encouraging business and invest- ments in the kingdom, a key tenant of the Hanbali school, and in the latest technological advances to help meet the challenge of exploiting the natural resources of the desert. He set a precedent in this way for his successors to continue the quest for modernization after the end of his reign in 1953.

Gulf Politics in Disarray The decline of Ottoman control over the Arab Gulf region that the empire had established in the eighteenth century, sent Britain and Russia in search of local allies, in part to contain Persia’s historical influence in the area. The first task they undertook was to demarcate the boundaries between Persia and Iraq. Iraq had effectively buffered conflict between the Arabs, their Ottoman patrons and the Persian empire. In 1913 Britain and Russia concluded the Istanbul Protocol with the Ottomans and Persians, secur- ing Russia’s borders with the Middle East by defining the boundaries between Persia and Iraq—just as the League of Nations began the process of demarcating the latter’s borders, which were finalized in 1920. Although the protocol served as the foundation for subsequent boundary agreements between Iran and Iraq, Persia was placed in a position where it was forced to forsake lands to which it had laid claim before the Ottomans arrived in 1533, and which were now in Iraq. Tehran viewed as an imposition the protocol’s preamble, which included details of talks between Britain, Russia, and the Ottomans, in which Persia was never consulted. A final affront was the fact that the protocol granted the Ottomans sovereignty over the entire Shatt al-Arab waterway and its islands, with the exclusion of Abadan and Khoramshahr, which remained Persian territory.11 Persia, its own borders along the southern Gulf coast sparsely controlled and in relative disarray, tried to challenge Britain when the latter divided the area amongst local Arab authorities. Persia maintained a sense of historical entitlement to the southern Gulf by virtue of having ruled in the area since the fifth century bce , 12 and having been the first to settle it at a time when only the aboriginal population traveled between the Persian plateau and Oman in the seventh century bce .13 After the advent of Islam, the region was dominated by Arabs, who migrated from central Najd and the southern Arabian peninsula around Yemen. Persia retained an ethnic Arab popula- tion of its own along the northern shores of the Gulf coast, and by the time Islam spread into the land, the southern Gulf turned into a frontier territory Saudi Arabia and Iran in Early Twentieth Century ● 49 in which Persian and Arab cultures interacted. 14 In the fifteenth century, foreign intervention by European powers at a time when Persia was in armed conflict with the Ottomans polarized the distinct political identities that had formed in the Gulf region between Persians and Arabs, followed by Arab territorial assertions over the southern Gulf. As a result of this early history, Persia retained outstanding territorial disputes with its neighbors in the southern Gulf, particularly over Bahrain and the islands of Abu Musa, and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs. With the decline of the Safavids, Gulf Arabs laid claim to these territories; although Nader Shah succeeded in returning them to Persia in the eighteenth century, the Qajars had to renew Persia’s claims, without much success. This was in part due to Britain’s determination to change the balance of power in the southern Gulf. In 1903, amidst British disagreements with Persia, its forces occupied the Abu Musa island, citing the need to repel possible Russian incursions in the Gulf in the event of Persia’s disintegration in the midst of a constitutional revolution. From 1909–1914, Britain concluded three agreements with local leaders in Bahrain to lead their foreign policy.15 I n t h e province of Khuzestan in southwestern Persia the British supported Sheikh Khazal al-Ka‘bi, who sought to establish an independent Arabistan state in the area. 16 In 1925 Reza Khan defeated him, as Abd al-Aziz watched with concern, and built up Persia’s naval force, sending a clear signal to Britain and to the inhabitants of the Gulf islands not to challenge the authority of the central government in Tehran. Lacking a strong navy to control British actions, Reza Khan, however, was able to assert his authority inland, but he failed to advance Persia’s claims over Bahrain and the Abu Musa and Tunb islands through the League of Nations. Unlike Persia, the Arabian peninsula in the early twentieth century lacked the features of national and geographic unity, except possibly Bahrain where a larger political entity had once existed extending from Hasa to Oman. Central Arabia’s arid lands and inaccessible routes made the task of develop- ing a strong national identity even harder. It was not until World War I that the central peninsula was able to develop a foreign policy on its own. The only region that came closest to obtaining modern statehood in the Arab world in this regard was the mashreq , by virtue of geographical proximity to Europe and the influence of a European-educated Arab political elite. Under these circumstances, Abd al-Aziz was unable to fully integrate the territories he conquered with the rapid developments taking place around the Arabian peninsula, where he decided to leave the British alone. He was most successful in unifying the central regions of the peninsula, which remained furthest from direct foreign-power intervention or the influences of the Arab East, and frequently relied on covert dealings, military action, and religious indoctrination to advance his realm. However, Abd al-Aziz 50 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran was not immune to the transnational Arab and Islamist sentiments shap- ing other regions of the peninsula, which limited his freedom to enact a nascent foreign policy that could remain independent from the rest of the Arab world. Even his efforts to build an alliance with the United States—to serve as a counterweight to British support for the Hashemites in the Hijaz, Transjordan, and Iraq—did not prevent the frustration of his plans to unite the Arabian peninsula. On account of these constraints, Abd al-Aziz’s foreign policy developed according to a simple principle: to deny other prominent actors in the region a position of substantial influence that could tip the balance of power against his new kingdom, while remaining cautious toward the global powers.17 A s a result, Saudi Arabia developed a frequently reactive foreign policy. In the southern Persian Gulf, where the regional balance of power rested on British efforts to control Persian and Saudi territorial claims, Abd al-Aziz refused to demarcate any boundaries beyond Kuwait and Iraq—mindful not to upset Britain. In May 1927, Britain signed a bilateral treaty with Abd al-Aziz in which the latter formally recognized the governments of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman. The treaty served to counter Reza Shah’s assertions of power in the southern Persian Gulf, and guaranteed the security of the Al Saud’s realm by avoiding confrontation with a superior imperial power. The British declined Persia’s request to retain a representative in Bahrain, although they allowed Abd al-Aziz, who had rejected his claims over Bahrain, to maintain a local representative there. The move offended Persia, which had long viewed Bahrain as its own province, invested in its development, and established one of Bahrain’s first modern schools before even the British could in the late nineteenth century. Defying the treaty, Persia refused to recognize the new Kingdom of Hijaz and Najd and Its Dependencies. It also sent a memorandum to Abd al-Aziz’s government through the Persian envoy in Cairo, objecting to the treaty and demanding the return of Bahrain to “Persian domain and authority.” Abd al-Aziz rejected having prior knowl- edge of Persia’s claims over Bahrain, and reminded the British Legation in Jeddah that he had recognized Bahrain despite the fact that at some point it had also belonged to his ancestors. Saudi Arabia issued a similar statement when Iran objected to a 1935 Saudi-Bahraini trade deal. Persia also filed an official complaint about the treaty in the League of Nations in November 1927. 18 Throughout the following decade, a defiant and bruised Reza Shah refused to recognize the Arab sheikhdoms that Abd al-Aziz vowed to leave alone. 19 Keen to preserve his kingdom internally unified through adherence to the regional status quo, Abd al-Aziz prevented militant Wahhabis from confronting the superior British forces. Unlike Iran where a strong sense of nationalism drove its assertions in the Persian Gulf, Abd al-Aziz’s Saudi Arabia and Iran in Early Twentieth Century ● 51 predominant concerns involved building local consensus to instill a mod- est sense of nationalism while safeguarding the Gulf borders. By contrast, Reza Shah maintained a revisionist stance of noncompliance, and remained deeply challenged by his rivalry with the big powers. Thus Persia was unable to advance or adhere to policies that secured the interests of the Gulf Arabs, who depended on the British guarantees of protection that it contested. Persia’s sense of being forcefully isolated, and its desire for full indepen- dence despite it, led to growing self-deception about the actual scope of its power and influence. With the arrival of the Ottomans, Persia had lost most of the power it had previously held in the Gulf region. A misplaced sense of nationalism led to a selective memory of this history, which cast a shadow over its ability to arrive at a realistic assessment of the new regional status quo. Furthermore, Persia’s historically expansionist goals, combined with a sense of cultural superiority and strong Shi‘i identity, led to more false pride, which contributed to Arab fears of its less-than-peaceful intentions. The Arab states’ fledgling status as regional actors then led to exaggerated levels of fear of Persia itself, which was often combined with resentment toward Persians in general. Persia’s desire to free the region of foreign influences became a constant annoyance to the Arabs, who felt dictated to by a party they could not trust, although quietly they admired Persia’s ability to assert its independence. Persia was thus unable to reap the benefits of the emerging regional order. Consequently, the balance of power sought by the British in the Persian Gulf accentuated the power imbalances between Persia and its Arab neighbors. Peace in the Persian Gulf, however, was assured through the region’s self-balancing features. The power imbalances that prevailed in the region would, naturally, leave none of its states immune to any disorder it cre- ated. As a result of this awareness, under the Ottomans, the southern Gulf’s undefined territorial boundaries never challenged the Arabian peninsula’s or Persia’s internal security, as long as the regional status quo remained undis- turbed. The lesson was sufficient for Reza Khan, who continued to view the Arabian peninsula largely as a segment of the vast Ottoman empire even after its collapse, to recognize that Abd al-Aziz could not disturb Gulf secu- rity even as his army advanced to unify the peninsula’s tribes. Contributing to Reza Khan’s detachment over the Al Saud clan’s rise to power was the knowledge that countless attempts had already been made throughout his- tory to redraw the Gulf’s boundaries. Hence, Gulf leaders understood that boundary or demographic changes would not create pressing territorial dis- putes so long as their internal security was guaranteed. Neither Abd al-Aziz nor Reza Shah looked favorably at the British pen- etration in the region, which curtailed their power. In 1928, they both ini- tially rejected British requests to establish air routes along the Gulf coast, 52 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran and in Persia’s case, it attempted to renegotiate new routes and terms. 20 A t the same time, they lived with the reality of British presence, in order to help maintain the regional status quo. This mutual understanding could be witnessed in later years during countless successful efforts to resolve local boundary disputes. Inevitably, as Britain became determined to grant inde- pendent authority to the southern Gulf territories, a healthy contest emerged over the sovereignty of several Gulf islands as well as over a host of maritime and land boundaries. Saudi Arabia faced territorial challenges with Bahrain over the islands of Abu Saafa and Greater and Lesser Lebinah; and with Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over the Buraimi oasis. The two disputes were settled in the 1960s and 1970s respectively: Saudi Arabia obtained sovereignty over Abu Saafa and Greater Lebinah, and began shar- ing access with the UAE to oil revenues from the Buraimi oasis as well as passage rights to the Persian Gulf through Abu Dhabi. The kingdom also resolved its boundary disputes with Kuwait over the Qaruh and Umm al-Maradim islands, and with Qatar over their common land border. Iran’s dispute over Bahrain’s sovereignty was settled in 1971, while its dispute with the UAE over the islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs remained unresolved. A host of other territorial disputes were resolved in later years, including the celebrated 1968 Continental Shelf Agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, for its contribution to the international law on maritime boundaries.

CHAPTER 4

Early Diplomatic Relations

n December 1925, months after Persia placed a three-year ban on the haj because of tribal war in Hijaz, Reza Khan established the Pahlavi dynasty and became Reza Shah. Abd al-Aziz sent a message congratulat- I 1 ing him, and vowed to protect Persian pilgrims. As Persia did not recognize Abd al-Aziz’s newly established Kingdom of Najd and Hijaz, Reza Shah was advised not to send a formal reply. He decided to maintain communications with the new ruler of Hijaz, under pressure from Shi‘i clerics who wished to resume the haj despite their opposition to the Wahhabi takeover of Makkah and Madinah. A delegation was sent to Hijaz to thank Abd al-Aziz, and to stress that Persia wished to maintain close ties with the government of Hijaz.2 Reza Shah was encouraged by the prospect of ties. Thousands of Persian pilgrims entered Hijaz from third states during the ban on the haj, and they reported the general conditions there were fair. However, occasional prob- lems caused temporary rifts between Tehran and Hijaz. In 1926, Shi‘is were attacked by ikhwan forces during an ashura ceremony in Makkah, which led Persia to issue a strongly worded condemnation against Wahhabism. 3 Meanwhile, Tehran had called for a Muslim congress to decide how to administer the haj . But it remained receptive to attending the Muslim con- gress in the Hijaz, and Reza Shah ordered his emissary Habibollah Hoveida to investigate the issue. Hoveida reported that once Abd al-Aziz took over the Hijaz, he was not keen to hold the congress despite his earlier verbal and written commitments to the governments of Persia and Afghanistan to host it. He further argued that Persia must understand that Abd al-Aziz was reluctant to have other Islamic states decide the fate of Makkah consider- ing that he had proclaimed himself the ruler of Hijaz before the congress was held. Nonetheless, Saudi sources reveal Persia attended the congress, 54 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran which was convened in Makkah during the haj in June 1926. 4 ( T h e r e a r e no records to my knowledge in Iran’s foreign ministry archives that point to Persia’s attendance.) Abd al-Aziz was displeased with Persia’s reluctance to recognize his gov- ernment, and he reacted to it in August 1927, by asking for the transfer of the Persian consul in Jeddah, Mohammad Ali Moghadam. He cited con- cerns about Moghadam’s communist leanings and attempts to promote the ideology inside the kingdom. Meanwhile, Abd al-Aziz’s son, Prince Faisal bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, had held discussions with the Persian consulate and observed that Persia might recognize the kingdom in return for basic guarantees of protection for the Shi‘i holy sites. 5 Subsequently, in 1928, Abd al-Aziz reached out to Reza Shah to sign a mutual security pact, insisting that if Persia were to sign a treaty and send a representative to Hijaz, he would “send his son along with great gifts” to the shah. 6 At the mercy of a rebellious ikhwan army that had raided Iraq and Kuwait as well as British forts along the Gulf coast, Abd al-Aziz likely believed a pact with Persia— which had a superior naval force—could minimize threats to the kingdom from the Persian Gulf. Reza Shah agreed to initial contacts with a view to establishing formal diplomatic ties, but was reluctant to enter into a proper alliance. Finalizing a pact with the kingdom would have meant ignoring the actions of the ikhwan ; moreover, Bahrain was a thorny issue between Abd al-Aziz and Reza Shah, and there were few other mutual interests besides the haj to warrant a military alliance. Abd al-Aziz’s initial proposal for mutual material support against an attack was rejected, and substituted with a nonbinding promise of nonag- gression. 7 Abd al-Aziz had in fact rejected additional Persian conditions for a treaty, including the repair of demolished shrines and burial sites in Makkah and Madinah; guarantees of Shi‘i religious freedoms including in the Shi‘i- dominated areas in Qatif and Hasa; judgment by Persian officers over crimes committed by Persian pilgrims; downgrading the punishment of cutting off hands and beheading for pilgrims residing in Hijaz and found guilty of crimes to lesser punishments; and delivery of dead pilgrims’ belongings to Persian officers.8 Abd al-Aziz’s representative argued that the kingdom was unable to make any concessions prior to official recognition by Persia, although he vowed to deal leniently with three Iranian pilgrims whose ritu- als during the 1928 haj had disturbed puritan Wahhabi sensibilities. 9 A b d al-Aziz also informed Reza Shah that Shi‘i rites performed in private were permissible, but could not be performed in public during pilgrimage.10 The diplomatic exchanges were not entirely fruitless. On August 13, 1929, Persia proceeded to grant formal recognition to the “Government of Hijaz and Najd” four years after making initial contact with Abd al-Aziz. This recognition was followed by the conclusion of a Treaty of Friendship Early Diplomatic Relations ● 55 that acknowledged Abd al-Aziz as the public administrator of the haj . The treaty reiterated the commitment of the two parties to regulate the haj for Persian pilgrims. It also included language that promised to expand ties, reflecting calls made in the Persian parliament to allow trade relations with Hijaz to grow independent of the haj. The treaty was signed in Persia, exchanged in Jeddah, and recorded in the archives of the League of Nations. In 1930, Hoveida was appointed the Persian viceregent to the newly estab- lished embassy in Jeddah, and Abd al-Aziz assigned Rashid Pasha, whom Hoveida had proposed, as his representative to Persia and Iraq. Persia also established a consulate in Najd. 11 In May 1932, Prince Faisal visited Persia on his way back from Russia. Persia’s representatives to the consulates of Baku, Tiblisi, and Batumi were ordered to greet the prince—who had served as viceroy of Hijaz and foreign minister since 1930—on his way to Tehran. Hoveida advised the foreign ministry to accord the prince great hospitality and introduce him to the splendor of Persian palaces and military marches to instill “hope and fear” in Arabia about its future ties with Persia. Prince Faisal’s six-day visit proceeded without problems, except for a minor mishap: when Reza Shah decided to award decorations to the prince and his delegation, the foreign ministry did not have ready a comprehensive list of their full names and titles. The deco- rations were engraved once that list was obtained, and sent to Saudi Arabia after the prince returned. 12 Reza Shah was not interested in returning the visit or in performing the haj. In fact, Hoveida’s personal rapport with Abd al-Aziz was the highlight of the Saudi–Iranian honeymoon. A reflection of the friendship between the two men was the arrival of a naval ship from Persia, newly acquired from Europe; it docked at the port of Jeddah, where the crew was warmly received by the government and the city’s residents.13 M e a n w h i l e , H o v e i d a ’ s legal team frequently dismissed complaints by Persian pilgrims about their mistreatment, which forced the Persian interior ministry to summon him to Tehran to respond.14 There is no evidence to suggest that Hoveida’s Baha’i persuasion could have led him to a religious bias against Shi‘i pilgrims. Likely, this astute diplomat tempered the pilgrims’ frequent complaints against the larger interests of the Persian state to retain friendly ties with Arabia. In April 1934, Hoveida returned to Persia on account of his failing health. His departure marked a lull in Persia’s ties with Abd al-Aziz, as a global economic recession followed. In 1934, Mohammad Ali Moghadam was dispatched as Persia’s last viceregent to Saudi Arabia before the outbreak of World War II. Moghadam spent his one-year residency in Jeddah, where the Saudi foreign ministry was first based, looking for sea routes along which to transfer pilgrims from Beirut by leasing French boats. 15 I n 1 9 3 6 , 56 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Grand Ayatollah Hassan Tabataba’i Qomi asked Reza Shah to urge Saudi Arabia to refurbish al-baqi cemetery in Madinah, where several figures holy to Shi‘ism are buried; but the kingdom declined the request to build shrines or vaults on the premises. The only other significant developments in the relationship were a 1938 Iranian initiative to convene the first conference on the Middle East. The meeting was held at the Sa’adabad Palace in Tehran, and was intended to encourage regional states to conclude friendship and security pacts as Europe descended into its prewar crisis. Tehran and Riyadh did not conclude a mutual pact at the conference—perhaps mindful of the need by the latter not to disturb the major powers in the region—nor in December 1940, when Iran dispatched an envoy to the kingdom to urge it to join. In 1939, Iran and the kingdom attempted to hold a summit for Muslim unity in Turkey. The measure failed when German troops invaded Poland in September of that year. 16 Trade between Iran and Saudi Arabia subsequently halted.

Saudi and Iranian Foreign Policy in World War II The United States became a major political player in Iran during World War II, though its economic interests in the region had been established after World War I when Washington’s search for opportunities abroad brought American companies into the Persian Gulf. In late 1921, the Persian parlia- ment decided to grant an oil concession to the United States, but British and Russian protest broke off the deal. Reza Shah then sought US financial advice for his government, which he later rejected: the recommendations he received involved harsh austerity and tax policy. When Reza Shah’s govern- ment came close to financial collapse because of an unresolved oil dispute with Britain just before World War II, the Germans bailed him out by offer- ing an economic package. The decision to turn to the Germans hastened Reza Shah’s downfall, and when Britain and Russia decided to oust him from power in September 1941, the United States condoned the plan. The US–Saudi relationship was smoother from the start. Although Abd al-Aziz was cautious about allowing foreign companies into the kingdom, in 1922, the United States signed an agreement to extract oil in the Arabian peninsula after conducting successful geological surveys in Bahrain. As Britain was far less interested in exploring oil in the peninsula partly because of its larger oil stakes in Persia, the United States was able to expand its operations along the Gulf coast by 1935. Oil in commercial quantities, around 1,500 barrels a day, was found a year before the war in 1938, right when the Germans were using their vast economic-development ties in the Middle East to tilt the kingdom against Britain. However, Abd al-Aziz distrusted the Nazis, and remained neutral in the war at first, before Early Diplomatic Relations ● 57 his timely decision to side with the allies and expel Germans when he was asked to do so in 1941. Financial hardship during the war in part due to the drop in pilgrimage revenues was offset by a 1943 US Loan-Lease aid program, and advance payments from the oil companies Socal and Texaco, and Washington promised to protect Saudi Arabia should Britain attempt to colonize it after the war. Iran’s wartime neutrality did little to prevent its pro-German tilt. Reza Shah refused to expel German technicians and engineers, and balked when the allies decided to transfer supplies via Iran. His concern was not entirely misplaced; Britain and the Soviet Union were fueling revolts inside Iran. In the throes of war, Reza Shah crushed revolts by tribes in Khuzestan, nomads in central Iran, and Turkish nationalists in the north. In August 1941, sus- pecting an Iranian–German alliance, Russian troops occupied Iran’s north- ern region while British troops invaded the southern regions along the Gulf coast. Their suspicion was somewhat, but not entirely, justified. In fact, Reza Shah had also repeatedly appealed to US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for help, but was turned down, and offered to purchase American warplanes and make new oil deals with US companies. British and Soviet troops subsequently threatened to invade Tehran, which was left under Reza Shah’s control, forcing his abdication. In January 1942, the new Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi agreed to a tripartite alliance treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union, extending nonmilitary assistance to the war effort in exchange for their agreement to withdraw troops from Iran within six months after the end of hostilities. When Iran declared war on Germany in September 1943, the allies gathered in Tehran to reaffirm their commit- ment to Iran’s territorial integrity. In 1944, Iran’s future prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh proposed to place the country on neutral ground by pursuing a policy of negative equilibrium, which meant refusing favors to and from any of the big pow- ers. Although the policy served as precursor to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of developing nations that formed during the Cold War in 1961, at the time it was untuned to Iran’s multiple realities. Although Iran was eco- nomically decently well-off, it was under occupation, and from 1941–1946 its politicians repeatedly used oil as bait to receive favors from the allies amidst frequent cabinet reshuffles, including the removal of 11 prime min- isters. British and Soviet forces finally withdrew from Iran in 1946, the for- mer willingly, and the latter not without promises of further oil concessions. Tehran did not receive the expected reparations for its wartime collabora- tion with the allies, who had damaged Iran’s newly constructed modern roads and railways (built with oil revenues and mainly by the Germans); moreover, Britain had opted to remove most of the country’s advanced port facilities in the Persian Gulf when it ended the occupation. 58 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Compared to Iran, Saudi Arabia presented better investment opportu- nities to the United States. The kingdom was internally stable, remained distant from the epicenters of war, and the regional challenges it confronted were largely caused by British interventions alone. In February 1943, formal US–Saudi military ties were established. In the spring, Roosevelt dispatched an envoy to Saudi Arabia to find out why American oil companies operating inside the kingdom were reluctant to share their profits with Washington. Instead, he realized that since the oil business was lucrative, it could offer potential revenues to the Saudi government which, lacking an army capa- ble of warfare, was in need of US military assistance. In September, Prince Faisal traveled to the United States for a month-long visit, and met with members of the US Congress. The US envoy’s visit and Faisal’s journey helped Roosevelt make an important decision: namely that American com- panies should be allowed to manage the economies of oil independently of the US government, while Washington focused on expanding its military and political interests in the kingdom. In 1944, the United States began plans to construct an airbase in Dhahran, on the Gulf coast. In May 1945, Roosevelt formalized the US–Saudi ties, having met with King Abd al-Aziz in February aboard a US cruiser on the Red Sea. Roosevelt promised to support Saudi Arabia’s inde- pendence in return for the security of US oil interests. Abd al-Aziz urged the United States to deliver the light weapons stored in Iran to the kingdom once wartime hostilities ended; in exchange, the monarch agreed to declare war on the axis powers. 17 The request was an effort to receive assurances of the United State’s continued security interests in the kingdom once the war ended; perhaps, it was also a reflection of the fledgling Saudi rivalry with Iran over their respective relations with Washington. The weakened relationship between Riyadh and Tehran due to war led to a drastic decline in the number of pilgrims journeying to Hijaz. Insufficient transportation to Makkah from Iraq prompted an Iranian request for alter- native pilgrimage routes via Basra and Kuwait. But most Iranian pilgrims preferred to avoid Makkah by making detours to the shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf, which were closer. Pilgrims who made their way to Hijaz received far fewer protections, and the kingdom was unable to provide adequate transportation or health services. In 1943, a fight broke out between Iranian pilgrims en route to Makkah and local residents who objected to the Iranian caravan’s morning call for prayers (azan ), which bears witness to imam Ali being the prophet’s rightful suc- cessor. 18 In December, an Iranian citizen by the name of Abu Taleb Yazdi was arrested and beheaded after a local judge in Makkah passed a verdict charging him with a crime on the extremely sacred premises of the masjid al-haram, where the kaaba is located. According to Iranian diplomats, Egyptian pilgrims testified that the Iranian pilgrim became nauseous, Early Diplomatic Relations ● 59 vomited in his garb and then supposedly attempted to throw it at the kaaba — when, in fact, he had only lifted his garb to avoid polluting the grounds of the masjid al-haram. Despite official objections to the verdict by the Egyptian embassy representing Iran’s interests in Saudi Arabia after the incident, and despite Egypt’s subsequent attempts to issue a tripartite statement to resolve the misunderstanding, the local judge held up the testimony of the Egyptian pilgrims.19 (The decision may have been influenced by the archaic belief that Shi‘is were responsible for smearing excrement on the Black Stone of the kaaba, an act of desecration dating to the seventeenth century.)20 Abd al-Aziz was generally opposed to such extreme measures. After tak- ing over Jeddah, he had intervened along with Faisal to stop a bloodbath, with relative success, when the ikhwan attacked Egyptian pilgrims who were chanting ritualistic songs during the covering of the kaaba with the black cloth, kiswa, ceremoniously produced in Egypt. He therefore reached out to the shah. When Abd al-Aziz sent a congratulatory message for nourouz (Persian New Year) to Iran in the spring of 1944, the shah asked that the two states resolve pending diplomatic crises over the beheading of the pil- grim. Abd al-Aziz replied that the beheading was legal, but reiterated his commitment to maintaining friendly ties. The Iranian embassy in Cairo advised banning the pilgrimage, but did not expect third-party states such as Britain, Egypt, Iraq, and the United States—to which the shah turned for help—to take sides on the issue, given their own interests in Saudi Arabia. The shah cut formal relations, and the number of Iranian pilgrims dropped from around two thousand to a few hundred annually. Lebanon represented Saudi interests in Iran until October 1946 when Abd al-Aziz convinced the shah to resume ties, and offered to upgrade the relationship by sending a viceregent to Iran. The shah embraced the initiative and conveyed his great sorrow over the misunderstanding that had occurred. 21 In 1948, Iran resumed the pilgrimage to Makkah and Madinah, and requested that the kingdom expand its trade ties just as it had done with Turkey.22 But frequent problems with the pilgrims persisted. In 1949, King Abd al-Aziz sent close aides to end a sit-in by Iranian pilgrims who asserted that the day of standing at Arafat during the haj was recorded inaccurately by Saudi religious authorities, and refused to leave Arafat. (Similar dis- agreements would arise over the Saudi versus the Iranian spotting of the new moon that marks the end of the fasting month of ramadan.) In 1962, Iranian pilgrims had to be stopped from throwing dirt at the areas of the tomb of the prophet where the first two caliphs Abu Bakr and Omar are also buried. In 1968, a visit to Tehran by Saudi officials helped improve and regulate the conduct of Iranian pilgrims. By 1970, Iran would dispatch medical teams and field hospitals to assist Saudi Arabia and Iranian pil- grims, considered to be some of the wealthiest and most generous groups visiting the kingdom. 23 60 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Saudi–Iranian Foreign Policy in the Postwar Period Relations between Riyadh and Washington evolved while those between Tehran and Washington deteriorated in the postwar period. The United States valued Abd al-Aziz’s durable leadership, the kingdom’s distance from Soviet influences, and the country’s promising oil prospects. In 1950, Saudi Arabia received a limited package of loans and military aid, followed by a defense agreement that authorized the establishment of a military training mission in the kingdom. But Iran’s tumultuous history with Britain pre- vented it from forging a steady partnership with the United States. When Tehran had decided to make new concessions to US oil companies in 1937, Britain had protested, forcing the Americans to lose interest in Iran. When the war ended, the shah attempted to grant new oil concessions to the United States, but Washington was reluctant to make the deals although the US Congress offered Iran limited aid. The young shah himself retained only nominal control over a country that resented the wartime presence of some 30,000 US troops and service- men. Furthermore, he faced tensions with various political parties including the Islamist Fadayan, the socialist Tudeh, and Mossadegh’s National Front. A conflict with Britain over shares in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) was also brewing. The Iranian parliament rejected offers of less than 50–50 profit-sharing with the AIOC, and in March 1951, Mossadegh proposed a bill that sought oil nationalization. Prime Minister Ali Razmara argued against the rapid nationalization that the bill would mandate, and the subsequent political turmoil it could create with Britain. Instead, to appease the British, he proposed a supplemental oil agreement with the AIOC that would leave Iran with terms less favorable than similar agree- ments concluded by US companies with countries such as Saudi Arabia. The Fadayan, which supported nationalization, assassinated Razmara, and the parliament voted to nationalize oil despite the arrival of an offer from the AIOC to split shares 50–50. In April, Mossadegh replaced Razmara, although the shah protested, mindful of Mossadegh’s penchant to sidestep his decisions. When the International Court of Justice failed to rule in favor of Britain after the latter filed a suit against Iran, London halted oil production, forced tens of thousands of Iranian workers and contractors out of jobs, unilaterally blockaded Iranian oil, and placed an embargo on certain major food sta- ples. Washington imposed additional blockades to force Iran to agree to a 50–50 arrangement with the AIOC, and provided oil to its allies, who were adversely affected by the embargo. The United States resisted British plans to invade the oil-rich port town of Abadan, however, and the scheme was replaced by an increase in covert operations to divide the political parties inside Iran. Britain and Iran both rejected subsequent American proposals to split AIOC profits in half. Early Diplomatic Relations ● 61

By 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower consented to a British plan that his predecessor Harry S. Truman had rejected: to overthrow Mossadegh in a coup d’é tat. On August 19, Operation Ajax was launched, and the shah— who had fled Iran months earlier—was able to return to power and oust Mossadegh. Iran was subsequently placed within the defensive-perimeter strategy that Eisenhower had devised to contain the Soviet Union. The shah received a generous loan to restore the Iranian economy, while Iran was permitted to retain ownership of its oil. Tehran proceeded to grant con- cessions to an international oil consortium, with 40 percent of the shares going to US companies and other foreign firms and another 40 percent to the AIOC, which was now renamed British Petroleum (BP). Eisenhower strongly rejected Britain’s demand for a 50 percent share in the consortium, in effect breaking the British monopoly over Iran’s oil. Nevertheless, the coup damaged the United State’s long-term relation- ship with Iran in part on account of Mossadegh’s larger than life personal- ity. Mossadegh’s proclivity to drama, which he displayed in speeches during the course of the nationalization movement as well as in court during his trials after the coup, spoke to his countrymen’s highly charged emotional mindsets, and at times trumped otherwise sound political reasoning. Undoubtedly, Mossadegh was able to infuse a powerful sense of victimhood and righteousness into Iranians over the issue of neutralizing foreign inter- vention, but along the way he was even opposed by cautious and seasoned clerics such as Ayatollah Abdul Ghasem Kashani. Nonetheless, the coup halted Iran’s process of democratization. The shah sidelined his opponents in the National Front and Tudeh Party when he returned to power, used the threat of Soviet encroachment to receive US support for his policies and to win clerical backing. Iran’s oil nationalization frequently took on a socialist character in the Arab world. In Bahrain, the National Front demanded that the govern- ment repeal the oil concession made to the United States, rallying public opinion and serving as a powerful precursor to the establishment of the pro-Tudeh Bahrain National Liberation Front. In Iraq, pro-Tudeh com- munist parties held similar protests to end oil concessions to Western cor- porations. In Saudi Arabia, where a dispute with Britain over oil drilling rights in the Buraimi was escalating, and fledgling socialist and commu- nist orientations were also shaping in the oil-rich Eastern Province, offi- cials privately praised Mossadegh for his efforts. Iran’s viceregent in Jeddah, Mozafar Alam, reported that Prince Faisal spoke highly of Mossadegh and the National Front, and expressed satisfaction that Iranian technicians were able to operate a refinery in Abadan, from which port the British had previ- ously run their oil operations. According to Alam, heated discussions over dinner with Faisal during which the prince focused almost exclusively on Iran’s oil nationalization lasted into the late hours of the night. The ‘ulema 62 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran in Makkah and Madinah took the extra step of visiting Alam on a sepa- rate occasion to tell him that their prayers were with Mossadegh. In 1952, the kingdom had expanded trade ties with Iran despite the boycotts, and in April 1953 it concluded a one-year commercial agreement, subject to subsequent renewal, to facilitate trade between Iranians and Saudis. It was also decided that Iranian pilgrims would leave for the kingdom on Iranian planes and return on Saudi aircraft, so that the two states could share flight revenues.24 Iran’s nationalization movement overlapped with similar events in Saudi Arabia to help the kingdom arrive at an agreeable division of profits with international oil companies. Saudi Arabia did not provoke Britain over the Buraimi; however, it insisted on resolving the dispute in Riyadh’s favor. Riyadh also imposed income tax on the net profits of foreign oil firms in 1950. In February 1954, despite British and US objections, it granted oil trans- portation rights to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who ceased operations after international oil firms boycotted his ships. 25 In t h e S h i ‘ i - dominated Eastern Province, Saudis—including Shi‘i and Sunni employees trained by the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco)—sought better terms of employment by shaping the country’s first trade unions. Despite the rapid transformation of the social and political landscape in Saudi Arabia on account of oil, Abd al-Aziz was careful that growing socialist trends in the region, which he partly faulted for the coup in Iran, would not jeopardize the special partnership he painstakingly forged with the United States. In a meeting of the Arab League right after the nationalization of Iranian oil, Prince Faisal insisted that the issue of Iran’s oil nationalization would not affect Aramco, which had inherited the massive operations in the kingdom from its predecessor companies in 1944, i.e., Socal and Texaco. Saudi leaders instead opted for the gradual takeover of Aramco (which was able to design the kingdom’s oil policies until the early 1970s) through con- tractual obligations made to the Saudi government via tax payments under very favorable terms. In 1950, a modified agreement split oil profits in half, shared between the government and Aramco, prompting Riyadh to estab- lish a central bank, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) to manage the kingdom’s reserves. In 1973, Saudi Arabia acquired a quarter interest in Aramco, which increased to 60 percent the year after. Saudi shares increased instrumentally until the kingdom purchased Aramco’s entire equity in 1980, and received full ownership of the company in 1988, with a pool of staff and workers that are by this present time predominantly Saudi nationals. King Abd al-Aziz’s decision to accommodate US interests through Aramco was understandable in light of his need for US support within the region. After World War II, Saudi Arabia remained at the mercy of British plans to unite the Hashemite lands into one country. The king assessed Early Diplomatic Relations ● 63 his regional rivals, not only touring the Arab states, but also conceding to Britain’s exertions to form the Arab League in 1945. Yet he was dismayed by Transjordan’s King Abdullah, the second son of Sharif Hussein, who had hoped to restore the Hashemite dynasty by advocating plans for a Greater Syria inclusive of his kingdom, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria; meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Said advocated his Fertile Crescent Plan to unite Iraq with Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Transjordan. Undoubtedly, the creation of a Greater Syria or Fertile Crescent could have contained Saudi Arabia, which was already encircled by the advanced armies of non-Arab states (Iran, Israel, and Turkey) on its periphery. Abd al-Aziz viewed Syria as a partner in his regional survival strategy; it was a weak state that could be easily influenced. Moreover, the Syrian tribes in the north had helped him defeat the Rashidis back in his early days, and there were strong historic commercial and intellectual links between Syria and the kingdom. In 1943, King Abd al-Aziz had helped Shukri al-Quwatli, whose family of traders worked in Saudi Arabia, to assume the presidency while Syria was still nominally under French rule. Abd al-Aziz cultivated ties with other Syrian leaders, mindful that the country’s precarious position after gaining independence in 1946 would inevitably lead to power trans- fers. In March 1949, al-Quwatli—who was sympathetic to the communists and in general far more tolerant of diverse political views than the king had hoped for—was replaced by the Kurdish Syrian leader Husni al-Za’im in a coup backed by the United States. Al-Za’im opposed plans for a Greater Syria or Fertile Crescent, and advanced his own ideas for a union between Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. He also defied the British by supporting the construction of a US-planned trans-Arabian oil pipeline (Tapline) from Saudi Arabia to Syria and the port of Sidon in Lebanon, which was com- pleted in 1950. From August 1949 when al-Zaim was killed by army offi- cers, through 1954, three subsequent Syrian coups paralyzed the country as power returned to groups supporting a Greater Syria and opposing the construction of the pipeline. Gaining influence over Syria became essential to Arab leaders keen on confronting Israel in 1948, given the former’s common borders with the newly established Jewish state. A year earlier, when the UN had ruled to par- tition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, Egypt and the Hashemite Arab rulers pressured Abd al-Aziz to break his ties with the West over Israel; but he refused to allow strong pan-Arab nationalist sentiments in Egypt or Syria to dwarf the kingdom’s relations with Britain and the United States. Abd al-Aziz maintained that neither of the two Arab states could be relied upon, not only because of their rivalry with him, but also because of their relative weakness and lack of natural resources, which meant that their political landscapes could shift. 64 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

While denying recognition to Israel (a similar practice preceded him since the 1922 Arab boycott of Jewish businesses in Palestine), Abd al-Aziz decided to adopt a policy of quiet restraint toward it—reflecting the king- dom’s propensity for not taking on a challenge unless its security was at stake. Nevertheless, national sentiment even within the royal family was markedly pro-Palestinian. When Prince Faisal made a passionate speech against the partition at the UN, the Saudi position clearly came closer to the Iranian stance on Palestine. The shah believed partition was unfeasible considering the trifling size of the territory, and to demonstrate his solidar- ity with the Arab world. More importantly, though, Iran had an open policy toward Israel and the Jews, which meant that it was unwilling to fight the battles that Egypt and the Hashemites wanted to pick with regard to the Jewish state. While Iran aimed to work with them over the issue of Palestine, it could not endorse collective Arab measures that violated its interests. These included its bilat- eral relations with the West and the need to protect Iranian Jews as well as preserving the vast commercial networks between them and Iran. Iran con- tinued to reject most demands raised by Syria and Iraq in particular, such as their insistence that it should join them in blocking wartime reparations to Israel by West Germany. Arab newspapers also frequently objected to Jewish activities inside Iran, including the right to publish Jewish journals that Iraq wanted shut down.26 In the end, Iran voted against granting Israel membership at the UN to appease the Arab world. Surprisingly, the main Shi‘i clerical figures in Iran at the time such as Ayatollah Kashani were tolerant toward Israeli statehood, believing it could not pose an existential threat to Iran. 27 Yet, in 1949, the shah ordered Iran’s consulates to cease granting transit visas to the Jews who chose to immigrate to Israel via Iran because the country offered safer passage compared to most other states in the Middle East and had a proud record of assisting European Jews—particularly from France and Poland— during World War II. Nevertheless, the Iranian parliament granted de facto recognition to Israel in March 1950. A public statement released by the cabinet declared that Iran extended this recognition in order to protect the interests of its nationals residing in Palestine, where at least some 20,000 Iranian Jews had settled. 28 The Iranian foreign ministry placed the figure at 100,000 Iranian Jews, many of whom had settled on kibbutzim in Gaza prior to Israel’s recognition. 29 In protest, Arab states refused to participate in the Islamic Economic Conference convened in Tehran in 1950. In July 1952, Mossadegh’s government retracted Iranian recognition of Israel on grounds that the National Front was opposed to it, and that then- Prime Minister Mohammad Sa’ed Maraghei had been bribed by Israel to pass the bill that had granted it. Evidently Sa’ed, along with another member of the Iranian parliament whose identity was never disclosed, were bribed Early Diplomatic Relations ● 65 by an Iranian Jewish merchant with help from an American agent; although a trial was to be held, there are no existing records to show that one took place. Sa’ed resigned from his position days after the parliament recognized Israel, and almost immediately became a senator in Iran’s bicameral legis- lature.30 Yet the timing of the revelation appeared to have been manufac- tured by the National Front and Ayatollah Kashani prior to his falling out with Mossadegh on account of the latter’s inflexibility on the issue of oil nationalization, in order to ensure Arab support for Iran’s oil nationalization program—particularly as rumors had been spreading that Iraq would con- sider granting over-flight rights to British warplanes to invade Abadan. Iran subsequently shut down its consulate in Jerusalem, arguing that the decision was necessary to save costs. With the shah back in power in August 1953, he attempted to crush leftist groups and appease the religious establishment. But increased dependence on the United States and partiality toward Israel built up clerical resentment against him. On his return from his brief exile, rumors circulated pointing to his willingness to respect Iran’s earlier de facto recognition of Israel. In March 1954, Iraq reacted by calling for the independence of Khuzestan (which it referred to as “Arabistan”) in southwestern Iran. In June, Bahrain’s heir apparent Sheikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa was invited to attend the coronation of King Faisal II in Iraq, which further angered the shah. Arab governments refused to side with Iran over the issue of Khuzestan or sup- port Iranian candidacy for a seat on the UN Security Council, which it lost to Lebanon. The birth of Israel prompted Abd al-Aziz to take an open stance against Britain in the matter of the kingdom’s dispute with Oman and Abu Dhabi over the Buraimi oasis; to signal his displeasure regarding British policies in Palestine; and to pick a fight with Britain by supporting the quest for statehood by Ibadi Muslims in inner Oman. The ensuing quarrel over the Buraimi oasis, where Saudis would reportedly be stationed by Aramco to help return the disputed territory to the kingdom, went on for years before it was finally settled, in part with Iran’s assistance, and tacit US support for the Saudi position. But the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and subsequent Arab defeat left Abd al-Aziz with fewer options to work out a solution over Palestine. The defeat undermined the kingdom’s credentials as a champion of pan- Arab causes. Egypt, Jordan, and Syria’s armistice agreement with Israel the following year was a further blow, as Israel was then able to gain control over more territory and Jordan annexed eastern Palestine. Moreover, the armi- stice was arrived at without sufficient consultation with Saudi Arabia, which had contributed only two small battalions of tribal fighters to the war; King Abd al-Aziz had shown that he was unwilling to engage in military warfare except to protect Saudi Arabia, and like the shah, was determined to main- tain a regional foreign policy independent of the issue of Palestine. 66 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Saudi–Iranian interests also converged over Egypt, which began exploit- ing the Saudi reluctance to champion Arab causes. In 1952, Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew King Farouk’s Alawiyyah dynasty, which had ruled over Egypt since the nineteenth century. The socialist-republican coup, born out of frustration over British colonial policies, brought Cairo closer to Moscow despite Nasser’s earlier friendship with Washington, forcing Abd al-Aziz to look more favorably at the shah who not only feared Soviet penetration into Egypt, but was also connected to Farouk by marriage through his first wife, Fawzia, Farouk’s sister. (Although the couple divorced in 1948, Iran and Egypt had remained close allies until the republican coup.) The Egyptian challenge could not have arrived at a worse time for Saudi Arabia. In May 1953, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles—an archi- tect of Operation Ajax and a staunch anticommunist—toured the Middle East to build regional alliances against Soviet-backed governments. Dulles concluded after his tour that the Arab world was too weak and fragmented to build cohesive policies. He urged instead that Washington strengthen its ties with the countries in the northern tiers of the region, including Iran, Turkey, and possibly Iraq; the plan ignored Saudi Arabia. In November 1953 Abd al-Aziz’s reign came to an end with his death, amidst uncertain- ties in the foreign policy realm. On the one hand, Riyadh had to accept Washington’s preference to strengthen its alliance with Tehran. On the other, it now needed Egypt to contain the Hashemite-ruled Iraq as well as Iran. As plans to build a representative government through a council of ministers ( majlis al-wukala) was still being shaped, and foreign policy was monopolized by a few members of the royal family who were all too aware of the need to accommodate the United States, Washington was able to push for modest reform in Saudi Arabia (which, at the time, suffered from an illiteracy rate of 95 percent). The kingdom also invested in the only main asset it had—oil—in order to ensure continued US support. The strategy worked, and Saudi Arabia was able to postpone reforms that it deemed were unsuitable to its traditional social and political structures; but it continued to shape the regional subsystem by exerting influence through oil revenue, a style that came to characterize the Saudi role in international politics. Meanwhile, the unity within the royal family and the religious elite was necessary to help the kingdom weather the challenges that it faced exter- nally. Thus, remembering that royal rivalry brought about the fall of the second Saudi realm, before his death King Abd al-Aziz urged his sons Saud and Faisal to work together. After his death, the shah sent King Saud a Pahlavi Order and Crown Prince Faisal—whom Saud assigned as deputy prime minister and foreign minister—a Crown Order. He also expressed deep interest in advancing Iran’s ties with the kingdom. 31

CHAPTER 5

Diplomatic Relations: 1955–1963

n May 1955, the Baghdad Pact—launched to connect the US geographic spheres of influence in the Middle East—polarized the region into east- I ern and western blocs and marginalized the Saudi regional role. The pact was designed as a bilateral defense agreement between Iraq and Turkey; it was extended to include Pakistan and also Britain, who was the protector of the southern Persian Gulf. Iran was the last state to join the Baghdad Pact, on October 11, 1955, after the shah’s persistent efforts to bring the country into the western sphere of influence. He did so against the advice of the British who believed that the Iranian economy could not sustain the military costs of the pact. More likely, Britain did not wish Iran to compete with it through the pact. Saudi Arabia blasted the pact for blatant interventionism in the region. The pact was designed to potentially include Jordan (Saudi Arabia and Egypt prevented that prospect by inciting government reshuffle in Jordan), which combined with Iraq’s membership posed a renewed Hashemite threat to contain Saudi Arabia. King Saud publicly maintained that the pact aimed to boost Israel’s regional position, given the divisions it created within the Arab world. Quietly, he feared that the pact altered the regional balance in Iraq’s favor. On a visit to Cairo he even expressed his displeasure that the pact was named after an Arab capital given that Arabs were not proud of it. 1 Adding to his concern was the decisive alignment between Iran and the United States through the pact at a time when Riyadh was reluctant to forge a full-blown partnership with the West in order to balance its relations with Egypt. In fact, Riyadh and Cairo had discussed means of strengthen- ing a regional defense pact for the Arab states independent of, or under the aegis of the Arab League, in order to counter the Baghdad Pact; the former thus supported Egypt’s decision to purchase arms from the Soviet Union 68 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran after Nasser’s unsuccessful bid to acquire US arms. That the Baghdad Pact could also trigger an Iranian–Iraqi alliance was all the more unsettling to the king. The shah remained complacent about King Saud’s concerns. An alliance with the United States through the pact was necessary to boost his tarnished image at home after the 1953 coup, and to build up Iran’s army. The shah’s dismissive attitude toward Saudi concerns over a potential Iran–Iraq alli- ance through the pact might be explained by the fact that such an alliance would be an aberration of history. Border tensions between Iran and Iraq continued despite the pact, for one thing. However, the shah briefly con- templated a marriage union between his daughter Shahnaz and Iraq’s King Faisal II, which the former rejected. 2 Although the marriage would have sealed an alignment with Iraq, the shah may have encouraged it because of a personal debt he felt he owed Iraq for briefly hosting him when he fled Iran in 1953. When Syrian President Hashim al-Atassi contemplated joining the Baghdad Pact to counter Egypt’s interventions in Arab affairs, Saudi Arabia went on the offensive; an Iraqi–Syrian alliance through the pact would imply a resurgence of the Hashemite threat. Equally disconcerting was Syria’s commitment to transporting Iraqi oil from Kirkuk to the Mediterranean. Saudi trepidation was fathomable, given its broken ties with Damascus fol- lowing the sidelining of Syria’s multiparty political system by the left-lean- ing Syrian Baath Party, which had been elected to parliamentary victory in 1954. The well-respected and elderly statesman, al-Atassi, who believed that Nasser was too young and inexperienced to be trusted, was forced out of office. Riyadh had helped reinstate Shukri al-Quwatli to head the govern- ment in Damascus in September 1955, and continued to influence multiple Syrian parties; but a growing number of Syrians rejected Saudi intervention because of the kingdom’s perceived US connection. As a result, al-Quwatli sided with Egypt’s President Nasser. The Syrian army proceeded to reject the Baghdad Pact, though, after concluding an arms deal with Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. 3 This prompted US assessment of whether to include Saudi Arabia in an anti-Soviet regional bloc. Washington had briefly advocated for a Middle East defense pact hoping to generate Arab–Israeli cooperation, which Saudi Arabia and Egypt rejected, on grounds that it represented foreign interven- tion in regional affairs. Now, Riyadh appeared to be the only capital of standing in the Arab world with interests aligned with the United States, but the kingdom’s fear of Iraq and Syria led it to continue rejecting the Baghdad Pact, which raised Egyptian stature in the region and compelled King Saud to accommodate Nasser through a series of tripartite security agreements between Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen, the latest of which Diplomatic Relations: 1955–1963 ● 69 was concluded to counter the Baghdad Pact in 1955–1956. However, the agreements encouraged Nasser’s influence over Yemen and the Saudi army’s socialist leanings. Yet Saud advocated Nasser’s doctrine of “positive neu- tralism,” partly modeled after Mossadegh’s earlier policy of “negative equi- librium,” which urged balanced relations by regional states with both the eastern and the western blocs, to ensure that Egypt was not fully isolated and to keep Iraq contained. The king also financed a loose tripartite alliance with Egypt and Syria, but rejected Nasser’s offer of a full union.4 Saud’s posturing backfired when it was discovered that a group of senior army officers had plotted to overthrow the monarchy in the spring of 1955. The army was rapidly purged of Nasserist sympathizers, but divisions within the royal family emerged over the handling of the relations with Egypt. The near-overlap of the coup with two labor unrests in Saudi Arabia in 1953 and 1959 led to an increased crackdown on pro-Nasser cells in the Eastern Province, where Aramco and major Saudi military bases were located. In the process, Saudi Shi‘is employed by Aramco, whose US policy experts were doubtful that the kingdom could sustain pressures, became one of many advocates (including Sunnis) for fairer compensation for workers— leading to suspicions by the kingdom of Iranian interference in the Eastern Province. A general Saudi apprehension about Iranian Shi‘i influence was understandable given Shi‘i clerical efforts to politicize religion across the Gulf region at the height of the anticolonial movement in the Middle East and North Africa that the Americans also sympathized with. Saudi suspicions directed at Iran served to avoid questions about its shaky partnership with the United States due to the internal sources of the kingdom’s troubles, while signaling ongoing tensions with Tehran over the Baghdad Pact. Riyadh charged that Shaban Jafari (nicknamed “Shaban the Brainless” in Iran) plotted to assassinate King Saud. A Tehran street hus- tler, Jafari was recruited by the CIA to incite the protests leading to Prime Minister Mossadegh’s overthrow in 1953. Tehran refuted the charge that it had issued Jafari a fake passport to enter the kingdom via Dhahran. 5 Y e t the charge against Jafari may have suggested that King Saud harbored per- sonal fears of being targeted by Iran or the United States for opposing the Baghdad Pact. Despite the tensions, the shah hosted King Saud in Tehran in August 1955. The visit, which lasted almost a week, marked the first face-to-face meeting between the leaders of Iran and Saudi Arabia. A jovial figure, the king believed his reception by the withdrawn shah was a cold one, because of his opposition to the pact (which Iran was to soon join). Nevertheless, the shah agreed to support Saudi Arabia against a claim by Abu Dhabi to the Buraimi oasis when that dispute was brought up on Riyadh’s initiative at the UN in 1956. In return, Saud endorsed Iran’s charge that its citizens 70 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran in Bahrain, including a large merchant class, had been mistreated by the British.6 However, the Saudi embassy in Tehran barred Bahraini well-wish- ers with Iranian heritage ( ajams) or names from visiting the king during his stay due to Iran’s claims over Bahrain, and fear for the king’s security.7 The kingdom later banned these Bahrainis from entering Saudi Arabia via Dhahran.8 In July 1956, despite the prevalent view to the contrary, I believe that Riyadh and Tehran drew closer after an initial hesitation, when Nasser decided to nationalize the Suez Canal. The shah refused to condemn Britain, France, and Israel for invading Egypt in October, but offered to mediate the conflict through the Baghdad Pact. King Saud supported the nationaliza- tion, and although he vehemently rejected the pact, he remained apprehen- sive over Nasser’s ability to dominate regional affairs. Before the Suez crisis Nasser had avoided antagonizing the United States directly, which signaled to the kingdom that its partnership with the latter might be in jeopardy. Nasser later reversed his position despite Washington’s refusal to provide combat support to Israel; but combined with Nasser’s arms purchase from Czechoslovakia the year before, the measures were sufficient to convince Saud to tone down his opposition to the Baghdad Pact. Crown Prince Faisal went a step further, stating the pact could place Baghdad, Islamabad, and Tehran in a position to halt hostilities toward Cairo and bring peace to the region. 9 In November, Saud traveled to Washington to meet President Eisenhower—a clear signal of his desire to part ways with Nasser. The trip reinforced the balancing role that Washington was to soon play in the Persian Gulf, bringing Saudi Arabia closer to Iran and Iraq. Washington joined the military commission of the Baghdad Pact to help reconcile the kingdom’s differences with Iraq in particular. It also offered the kingdom a generous package of military aid. Saud met with Iraqi representatives during the US visit, and traveled to Baghdad. The measures helped divert Iraq’s irredentist outlook on Jordan and Syria. The shah and King Saud kept a low-key profile toward the Gulf sheikh- doms throughout the trials of the Baghdad Pact. This helped allay British concerns that the balance of power that the Eisenhower Doctrine aimed to uphold between Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia could sideline its interests in the southern Persian Gulf. 10 Egypt remained concerned, however, by the evolving Baghdad–Tehran–Riyadh axis, and to break it, Nasser promoted the use of the term “Arabian Gulf” within the Arab League to incite Arabs against Iran (it helped that Iran hosted the largest US military aid mission in the world). When Tehran objected, Nasser wittily remarked to Iran’s repre- sentatives in Cairo that he felt confined by Iranian provocations both in his home—because his spouse was Iranian—and in the region. He also accused the shah and Saud, who faulted Nasser for encouraging the Soviet influence Diplomatic Relations: 1955–1963 ● 71 in the Middle East, of siding with imperialists. That helped gather Arab support for himself as he tackled Egypt’s numerous economic problems with backing from Egyptian clerics who called for a Muslim unity conference to assert Egypt’s leadership role.11 In March 1957, the shah visited Saudi Arabia for six days, and performed the haj. Before the trip, the Iranian mission in Jeddah sent a letter to the Saudi foreign ministry objecting to the use of “Arabian Gulf” on Saudi radio, and in the Makkah-based al-bilad newspaper.12 King Saud rejected the shah’s proposal to sign a joint military pact, which I believe would have detached the kingdom from Egypt and Syria and boosted the shah’s stand- ing with Iraq and within the Baghdad Pact. Riyadh’s relations with Britain were weak after breaking off ties with London following the Suez crisis, and accepting the shah’s proposal would have granted Tehran a stronger regional position. The proposed military pact could also extend the Saudi-Iranian partnership into the southern Gulf. London therefore remained cautious of the pact, but willing to tolerate it in the eventuality of British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf. Saud and the shah discussed ways to end the Saudi–British dispute over the Buraimi oasis, the Suez crisis, the unresolved legal status of several Gulf islands, and the uncertain future of Palestine. They agreed to increase the number of flights for Iranian pilgrims and share the burden and profits of transportation in equal measure between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which helped end the dispute on the issue by 1961. 13 However, as a sign of public objection to Iran’s refusal to break off ties with Israel after the Suez crisis, the official communique released after the meeting made no mention of the expansion of formal economic ties, which witnessed a lull afterward, although laissez-faire commercial practices were left largely undisturbed. 14 Saudi papers listed Jewish-owned companies in Iran, however, and urged Arab businessmen to cease trading with them. The official boycotting of third-country companies with branches in Israel had begun in 1952 under the Arab League’s Damascus-based Central Boycott Office established a year earlier. The Saudi foreign ministry raised a formal objection against advertisements in Iranian papers that encouraged Jews to immigrate to Israel, and urged that Iran observe limits on how far its papers went to advocate for Israel. 15 In September, Saud asked the shah to halt exports of goods to Israel. 16

Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Arab Cold War In August 1957 the United States drew up plans to overthrow the regime in Damascus, which it feared posed a communist threat to the region. Syria had forged ties with the Soviet Union to avoid being sidelined by Egypt and 72 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Saudi Arabia, but ended up isolating itself as a result; by virtue of its frag- mented political system, breaking it from the eastern bloc appeared to be an easy task. On behalf of Syria’s neighbors, Washington therefore invoked the Eisenhower Doctrine of January 1957, which vowed to counter aggres- sion by countries controlled by international communism, and deployed the Sixth Fleet in the eastern Mediterranean with the aim of liberating Syria while calling on its people to rise against their government. As members of the Baghdad Pact, Turkey and Iraq sent forces to the Syrian border to assist the United States, but Washington was forced to handle the Soviet counter- threats, and Egypt sent forces to defend Syria. 17 Riyadh tried to remain neutral in the conflict, mindful that escalation could fuel the region’s arms race and hostilities. Privately, Saud informed Washington that he believed the Syrian communists did not pose a threat to the country or region. The real threat, he argued, came from ambitious Syrian army officers who had finally convinced Nasser to send troops to Syria by suggesting that the communists could take over the country. 18 K i n g Saud was correct: the officers encouraged Nasser to form the United Arab Republic (UAR) comprising Egypt and Syria in February 1958, with Cairo as its capital. The UAR may have prevented Syria’s potential disintegration, but it triggered socialist rebellions in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Yemen, which marked the beginning of the Arab cold war. 19 The UAR also permanently altered the Saudi–Syrian partnership. Whereas it had rested on a close-knit political and financial patronage system, it now became a loose association based on Damascus’s and Riyadh’s different positions toward Washington. Sensing Saudi hesitance to break away from Syria because of US policies, Nasser mediated a short-lived Saudi–Syrian d é tente in September before the formation of the UAR, but reversed his position to maintain his influence over Damascus.20 The Eisenhower Doctrine proved sufficient to safeguard the Persian Gulf from wider disorder in the Arab Middle East, with help from Iran and Saudi Arabia. However, neither the shah nor Saud felt prepared to handle the rapid events of the Arab cold war, preferring to follow US policies and offering only token support to weaker regional allies. King Saud dispatched loyal Bedouin troops to Jordan, where revolts threatened the continuity of the now pro-Riyadh Hashemite monarchy; the shah pledged to contribute forces to support the embattled King Hussein, who agreed to unite Jordan with Iraq through a short-lived Arab federation, which Saudi Arabia backed on account of British and US support for the plan. In 1958, Lebanon’s president, Camille Chamoun, invited US intervention to prevent a social- ist coup in that country, and received Saudi and Iranian moral and mate- rial support. In Yemen, a socialist coup in 1962 confirmed the shah’s fears Diplomatic Relations: 1955–1963 ● 73 of Soviet expansion in the Persian Gulf region to encircle Iran. He helped Saudi Arabia contain the ensuing Yemen crisis. Although the kingdom was able to continue its vital partnership with the United States, at the local level its position reflected an aversion to the Eisenhower Doctrine. Saud was suspicious of the Americans, and the group of princes who followed him were affected by the currents of nationalism in the Arab world, and they called for greater independence from the United States. Furthermore, the doctrine was based on the premise of a power vac- uum in the Middle East after the defeat of Britain and France in the Suez crisis, and an attempt to ensure that regional communist forces would not fill that vacuum. Saudi Arabia had difficulty accepting that premise, given that none of the countries in the region were considered communist by local states despite their thriving communist parties. The kingdom also main- tained that the doctrine aimed to ensure the continuity of foreign-power domination over regional affairs. Moreover, Riyadh recognized the need to work with Egypt to moderate Nasser’s socialist provocations. 21 S a u d i regional policy frequently displayed conflict between its local interests and the Eisenhower Doctrine. For example, although Saud was disturbed by Iraq’s regime change from a monarchy to a republic in 1958, he was not completely disheartened by it as it implied Iraq’s break from British influ- ence and therefore the Baghdad Pact. 22 (The pact was subsequently replaced by the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) but no longer had Arab state members). Saud also publicly rejected the premise of the Eisenhower Doctrine, maintaining a close association with Egypt and Syria right after receiving US commitments (during his trip to Washington) to supply the kingdom with military equipment—although in 1957 alone, the kingdom had received more American military equipment than it had ordered, an indication of the US desire to boost Saudi Arabia’s regional standing.23 Syria and Egypt escalated covert operations against the kingdom, as the latter attempted simultaneously to appease and contain the UAR. Syria helped establish the Saudi Baath Party in 1958; together with Egypt, it urged Iraq to join the UAR, against reluctant efforts by the kingdom to promote the Arab federation. Egypt and Syria meanwhile backed the Saudi National Front opposition group, which demanded press freedom and the restoration of the rights to Aramco employees.24 Egypt provoked the Saudi army as well as the royal family, and Saudi officers joined the Free Officers movement that Nasser had originally shaped to overthrow the Egyptian monarchy after its defeat in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Nasser also accused King Saud with bribing Syrians to assassinate him, while Riyadh earlier charged Cairo of plotting to kill the king in his private palace quarters. 25 Although the validity of the allegations against Saud was 74 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran not fully ascertained, they served to discredit the king. Embroiled in a fam- ily feud with Crown Prince Faisal over the management of foreign policy, King Saud transferred his powers to Faisal in March 1958 amidst the bank- ruptcy of the state due to wasteful spending by the elite. Faisal developed a policy of calculated neutrality in response to the chal- lenge of balancing Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the United States against the strong currents of Arab nationalism. This was necessary given his lim- ited resources and the regional political ties working against him, along with a defeatist cabinet comprising nonroyal members that he had inherited from King Saud, and royal princes who had lost faith in the stability of the Saudi state. He abandoned the kingdom’s open hostility to Egypt by recalling Saudi troops from Jordan and denouncing US and British military inter- vention in Lebanon and Jordan. In a visit to Cairo in August 1958, Faisal informed the Iranian representative Ziauddin Gharib that he believed the US policy of refusing to sufficiently help Nasser out economically or mili- tarily could drive Egypt into the Soviet sphere of influence.26 W a s h i n g t o n briefly maintained that the crown prince’s position implied a rejection of the Eisenhower Doctrine, and suggested that the kingdom might join the UAR. Faisal, however, was all too aware that the regular Saudi armed forces that were supported by the Eisenhower Doctrine could not be counted on to confront Egypt, as the army’s recruits increasingly became targets of ideo- logical proselytizing by Nasser. 27 He therefore reduced Saudi defense spend- ing to build up internal security instead; the kingdom also had a penchant for using its National Guard—known for its strict religious adherence and loyalty to the state—in order to respond to regional threats. (The National Guard was first established in the 1940s under the name of the White Army or jaish al-abyadh due to its tribesmens’ long white garbs).28 On July 14, 1958, General Abdul Karim Qasim overthrew the pro- British Iraqi monarchy by marching on Baghdad with Iraqi Free Officers sent to guard the border with Jordan. King Faisal II, who had believed Qasim to be a trusted officer, and the Iraqi royal family were executed in the palace courtyard, and Iraq was declared a republic. The coup was a mixed blessing for Iran. On the one hand, its relations with Iraq deterio- rated as Baghdad forced the Iranian ambassador and Iranian nationals out of the country. On the other hand, Baghdad gave Tehran the opportunity to address its border disputes without British interference, which had been excessive during Faisal II’s reign. Tehran began showing tolerance of Qasim, given Iraq’s rising regional stature through its alliance with socialist states and the Soviet Union. 29 Qasim’s ascendancy was also a mixed blessing for the kingdom, although Saudi complicity in his rise to power was not entirely out of the question. Iraq ended the Arab federation with Jordan, and withdrew from the Baghdad Diplomatic Relations: 1955–1963 ● 75

Pact in March 1959; but Qasim espoused the Arab cause and promoted close ties with the UAR, though as an ardent nationalist he rejected a union with Egypt. That same month, a US–Iran military treaty was signed, and a military base subsequently built in Iran to help contain Iraq’s Soviet tilt. Internal developments in Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, deteriorated. In December 1960 Prince Faisal handed his powers back to King Saud, under pressure from the Saudi Free Princes, a liberal political movement that had been founded in 1958. Saud refused to renew the lease on the US air force base in Dhahran, marking a departure from pro-US policies. In addition, his reinstatement revived calls for a constitutional monarchy combined with efforts to strengthen the majlis al-wukala .30 Saud backtracked on Faisal’s neutral foreign policy and tight measures to control internal oppo- sition; emboldened, Nasser proclaimed a strategy to overthrow the Saudi monarchy. 31 Qasim’s promotion of Iraqi nationalism, however, forced King Saud and Nasser to unite and repel Iraqi troops from Kuwait following that country’s independence in June 1961. The shah offered to send troops to Kuwait. He also retained hopes that Nasser-sympathizing Iraqi army officers along with Iraqi communists would overthrow Qasim. However, Qasim played Iraqi opposition groups against each other for a while, supported anti-Nasser Iraqi and Syrian communists, and helped Syrian army officers stage a coup that ended the UAR in September 1961. In December, Faisal was asked to resume his powers to deal with Nasserist provocation. King Saud spent most of the next two years abroad due to illness. By the summer of 1962, Egyptian forces had arrived in Yemen to prepare for a coup, Egyptian radio was attacking Saud and his family, and Nasser had threatened to leave the Arab League. On September 26, the Yemeni Free Officers proclaimed a republic after ousting the royalist Zaidi Imam Muhammad al-Badr. Egypt, the Soviet Union, a number of Western countries, as well as the UN recognized the republic. The kingdom was in dire need of US assistance during this period, given that its defense spending would soon be directed to Yemeni royal- ists and that it was unwilling to use its air force, which would not fully shape until 1964. However, the advent of the Kennedy administration had turned Washington into a reluctant partner for the kingdom, and in a clear departure from Eisenhower and his doctrine, President Kennedy explored the idea of supporting Arab socialism, maintaining that it could serve as an antidote to communism. Prince Faisal’s October 1962 visit to Washington aimed to urge Kennedy to delay recognizing the new Yemeni government. The crown prince argued that the new republican regime depended on the Egyptian military intervention in Yemen, and that Nasser’s claims that the Yemeni republic was a progressive government was false. All the same, the 76 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

United States granted Yemen recognition in December 1962, in exchange only for tenuous guarantees of Egyptian withdrawal. Although a group of Saudi pilots subsequently defected to Egypt, developments in Yemen soon showed that only a minority of Yemenis endorsed Nasser’s policies, and most were reluctant to embrace a socialist ideology despite grievances over the country’s feudal political structures. Faisal rallied clerics to protest Yemen’s socialist agenda, appointed a council of ministers that comprised loyal princes, and expanded the princes’ tribal connections to increase Saudi defensive capabilities along the borders with Yemen.32 King Faisal and the shah withheld recognition from the new Yemeni regime. In November 1962, Egyptian expeditionary forces in Yemen attacked Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, Faisal avoided direct confrontation with Egypt; according to the Iranian embassy in Jeddah, when the Egyptian air force destroyed a hospital in Abha, Faisal chose not to strike back.33 B u t following attacks on Najran and Jizan in late December, he called for a gen- eral mobilization for the war front at a mass rally in Riyadh. The Iranian chargé d’affaires in Jeddah, Ali Asemi, reported that a public mobilization of over 30,000 volunteer men had taken place for the war front in January 1963; 18,000 were from Jeddah alone, including members of the royal fam- ily. The kingdom provided regular updates to the Iranian embassy in Jeddah on developments concerning Yemen, informing Iran on one occasion that Nasser’s claims about Saudi troops being stationed in Yemen were false. 34 I n fact, Faisal insisted on the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Yemen as a precondition for peace. Although President Kennedy had dispatched a letter of support to Faisal in January 1963 that was broadcast on Makkah radio to help mobilize forces, Washington’s general support for Nasser emboldened the Egyptian president’s campaign in the Yemen republic from where he hoped to control the Port of Aden and Saudi Arabia’s oil fields across Yemen’s border. By early March, Russian-supplied Egyptian aircraft penetrated deeper into Saudi ter- ritory, bombing Khamis, Mushait, Shahran, and Asir. In April, six months after the start of the Egyptian offensive, Faisal agreed to extend support to Muhammad al-Badr when the latter requested aid. Nasser had claimed al-Badr, who had sympathized with him, dead. But al-Badr had escaped to the Yemeni mountains in the north after the Egyptian invasion, from where his forces would be backed by Faisal. Faisal accepted two attempts toward a disengagement plan with Egypt, nonethe- less, briefly halting direct hostilities, and maintained the channels of com- munication open with Nasser throughout the conflict. In the first attempt, although some of Nasser’s troops returned to Egypt in May, replacements were quickly sent and bombing against Yemeni villages and Saudi Arabia continued. Efforts by UN peace observers to buffer the frontier between Diplomatic Relations: 1955–1963 ● 77

Yemen and Saudi Arabia would subsequently fail. As reports surfaced that Yemen’s new republican President Abdullah bin-Sallal was facing disagree- ments with Nasser, and internal rivalries between the Zaidis and the domi- nant Shafei Sunnis in Yemen mounted, Faisal resumed aid to the royalists. Yet, the kingdom was mindful that it could not defeat the Egyptians in Yemen with six trained pilots that it had at the time and 30 reserve pilots. They could only deter them until a more desirable outcome was found. In 1964, several months after reports surfaced that Nasser may have used poi- son gas in air raids over a village in Yemen, the shah decided to help arm and aid the Zaidi royalists, many of whom were transferred from Saudi Arabia to Iran to receive training.35 The Yemen war continued until Nasser, tired of battle, appealed for peace in 1964. The United States urged Faisal to embrace the initiative. Faisal invited republican officers to Saudi Arabia for talks, and many would subsequently defect from Yemen. But by February 1966, after the British announced their intention to withdraw from Aden, Nasser saw a fresh opportunity to control southern Yemen. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia was able to contain the conflict despite Egyptian attempts to sabotage the kingdom’s internal security. A year later, Egyptian forces withdrew from Yemen. With the Saudi position briefly sidelined in the region by the conflict in Yemen, Iraq figured prominently in the Kennedy administration’s regional balance of power strategies. In February 1963, the CIA backed a pro-Nasser Baathist coup in Baghdad, which ousted Qasim from power. 36 A l t h o u g h the elite Iraqi communist party and Iraqi Shi‘is formed the backbone of the postcoup leadership, they were systemically persecuted by the Baath Party’s radical Sunni membership.37 (The extreme positioning of the Sunnis eventu- ally led to the rise to power of Saddam Hussein within the ranks of the Iraqi Baath Party.) A month after the Iraqi coup, the Syrian Baath Party staged one as well, proposing plans to unite with Egypt and Iraq. It established the Arab Baath Socialist Party to undermine the Saudi royal family; the Saudi Free Princes, led by Prince Talal bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, subsequently departed for Cairo, where they formed an exiled network for Saudi activists known as the Arab National Liberation Front. The group was tolerated by Faisal, as it helped to divert attention from the pro-Syrian socialist party. The net result of the Iraqi and Syrian coups was a weakened Iranian position in the Arab world, not to mention Saudi isolation. Tehran severed its ties with Damascus when it leveled claims that the Iranian province of Khuzestan was Arab land, thus inciting Iraq’s new regime to take a similar stance that led to border tensions with Iran. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, took action against groups influenced by Egypt by expelling Syrian workers with leftist inclinations and tightening its grip on Shi‘is in the Hasa region with whom the local Sunni elite comfortably associated and could therefore be 78 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran influenced by. Subsequently, hundreds of Shi‘is were arrested there for pro- tests (which Nasser and the Syrians had exploited) against Aramco’s work- ing conditions. Disheartened by the disorders in the Arab world, the shah—who was now assured of military support from the US—turned to Israel to help contain the anti-Iranian Arab onslaught by Egypt, Iraq, and Syria. In April 1960, the shah contemplated sending an ambassador to Israel. The Arabs feared that he had granted Israel de jure recognition. Yet, he had gained hard expe- rience a decade earlier, when the more radical Arab states responded to Iran’s de facto recognition of Israel, and now agreed to close down Iran’s consulate in Jerusalem despite the inconvenience it caused for Iranian nationals in Palestine. But the shah was not about to do another favor on such a grand scale for the Arabs over Palestine; to save face, Iran argued that this move had been designed to save costs. Nasser proceeded to break off ties with Iran on account of its overtures to Israel, however, and the Arab League called for similar action. Saudi Arabia refused to sever relations with Iran; it had avoided a similar course of action as endorsed by the league when the shah sold oil to Israel following the outbreak of the Suez crisis. As a result, I would argue, the shah remained aloof toward Israel to avoid jeopardizing the kingdom’s tenuous position in the Arab world. He also exploited Israel’s vulnerable position by refusing to formally recognize it, while extracting concessions from both Israel and Saudi Arabia against tenuous promises not to ignore the dynam- ics of Arab–Israeli tensions. Saudi newspapers at times reacted to the shah’s double play, but in general Faisal and Saud maintained a nonconfrontational foreign policy toward the shah, recognizing the important balancing role the Saudi–Iranian partnership played in regional affairs. Grateful for the Saudi position, Iranian Prime Minister Ali Amini made it clear in official statements that Iran viewed Saudi Arabia as the only stable country in the Arab world. As a sign of this new, unflinching Saudi–Iranian relationship, King Saud extended a warm reception to Amini when the latter attended an Islamic conference and performed the haj in 1962.38 By 1963, I maintain that the Arab cold war had shifted from the Middle East to the Persian Gulf, where Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Yemen directly com- peted for influence with Iran and Saudi Arabia. As inter-Arab relations continued to foreshadow Arab–Iranian ties, the shah’s ambivalence toward Arab governments in general increased. He was particularly dismayed that while his narrow military-driven vision regarding Iran’s proper regional role stretched beyond the rapidly shifting concerns of the Arab world, Arab poli- tics continued to dominate Iran’s regional relations. This was evident in the occasional rows with Riyadh. For example, on January 21, 1964, the Saudi al-madinah newspaper suggested that the Diplomatic Relations: 1955–1963 ● 79 philosopher and scientist Avicenna had been an Arab, followed by similar claims in the Makkah-based al-nadwah , which referred to Avicenna, Zakaria Razi, and Abu Reyhan Birouni as Arab thinkers. As Iran maintained that the scientists had been Persians (although many produced work in Arabic as the dominant language in the region), the Iranian ambassador to Saudi Arabia Afrasiab Navai objected to the articles and observed, diplomatically and somewhat sarcastically, that Iran would have preferred it if these scien- tists had at least been referred to as Muslims rather than just as Arabs, to allow Iran to share in their glory. 39 In 1963, the shah ordered his son-in-law, Ardeshir Zahedi, who had married his daughter Shahnaz, to set up a Persian Gulf department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the objective of developing Arab–Iranian relations. (He was also turning his attention away from the region to restore Iran’s ties with the United States after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.) The department was inactive in its early days, however, given the British dominance over the southern Gulf. 40 Saudi Arabia and Iran each proceeded to strengthen ties with the new adminis- tration of Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson; US troops were engaged in Vietnam, and the new president preferred to avoid upsetting the Gulf region’s balance of power. The brief prelude to the establishment of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) saw Saudi Arabia and Iran pursue goals inde- pendently of the United States. By the late 1950s, the wave of nationaliza- tion sweeping across the Middle East led oil-producing states to organize under OPEC. The body was designed as a permanent intergovernmental organization, and was spearheaded by Saudi Arabia and Venezuela at the Baghdad Conference in September 1960. In addition, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and eight other countries joined the group to coordinate oil policies among the producing countries.

US Ties: The Dilemma Relations with the United States were rife with tension during Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s critically formative stages as regional powers in the 1950s and early 1960s. In my view, the US doctrinal approach to the study of the Middle East, shaped by US idealism at the height of the American–Soviet rivalry, frequently challenged its relations with the two local states at a time when a nuanced understanding of their regional dynamics was required. The Baghdad Pact isolated the kingdom, armed the shah despite his weak standing at home, and triggered Saudi behavior to undermine the pact and ignore Iran. The Eisenhower Doctrine’s view of all left-leaning regional provocations as acts of communist subversion stifled Riyadh’s and Tehran’s 80 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran ability to engage with the socialist Arab states, and fueled a regional arms race—although it inadvertently encouraged the balance of power between the kingdom and Iran. The Kennedy administration, having tied US military aid to badly needed social reform, had a profound impact on internal opposition in Saudi Arabia and Iran. Kennedy viewed leaders such as Nasser as progressive socialist actors who could bring the needed reform to the Middle East; although this perspective was valid up to a point, it could not reverse the arms race that US policies in the region had stirred. Furthermore, it placed the entrenched monarchies in Riyadh and Tehran in the difficult position of simultane- ously introducing reform, handling an increasingly vocal local opposition, balancing ties with Washington, and managing regional interaction with socialist Arab states. I believe that Kennedy’s disregard for nuances over a subject as touchy as socialism in the Islamic Middle East was not particu- larly reassuring to Saudi Arabia and Iran, which looked uneasily at a diverse range of socialist trends, including the mainstream military and civilian Baath Party regimes in Syria and Iraq respectively, anti-status quo socialism in Jordan and Lebanon, and the armed mobilization of socialist forces in Yemen and Oman. The Kennedy administration’s specific reform prescriptions caused appre- hension in Riyadh and Tehran as well, and it tipped the regional balance of power against the latter. In Saudi Arabia, reforms were advocated discreetly following a 1951 state department policy insisting that Washington should observe the traditional fabric of Saudi society, given how important the country was to its interests. 41 One of the most important reform measures involved persuading the kingdom to abolish slavery, a practice that predated the formation of Saudi Arabia and which prevailed across the Gulf region despite Islam preaching against it (Iran on British urging had attempted to abolish slavery by signing on to the antislavery conventions in 1882 and later in 1926 under the League of Nations). 42 Faisal took the additional step of renewing the majlis al-wukala, dividing the council’s administrative power from that of the monarch’s and introducing a ten-point reform and develop- ment program that eventually led to the kingdom’s first five-year develop- ment plan, introduced in 1969.43 Washington insisted on rapid reform in Iran which held two fraudulent parliamentary elections in 1960–1961 that led to the temporary dissolu- tion of the legislature. Amini, who was a former member of the National Front led the Kennedy administration’s reform plans in Iran. Like the lead- ers of the Saudi Free Princes movement, he aimed to reduce the absolute power of the monarchy. The shah complied with US prescriptions for Iran, but the pace of reforms led to internal political opposition, including the Diplomatic Relations: 1955–1963 ● 81 establishment of the Freedom Movement in 1961 that later shaped the back- bone of the anti-US Islamic revolution of 1979. The opposition was not confined to moderate forces alone. Ruhollah Mostafavi Musavi Khomeini led the radical clerical opposition. In the early 1960s, Khomeini became a vociferous critic of the United States and the shah over the issue of capitulation rights, which granted full diplo- matic immunity to US military servicemen and their dependents in Iran. Khomeini invited the shah to embrace an alliance with the clerics to survive. The ayatollah opposed Israel, but he lacked a sharply defined worldview toward Arab states, and at the time likely regarded Saudi Arabia through the prism of the Shi‘i clerical outlook on Wahhabis in general. However, like his predecessor—Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi—Khomeini favored a rapprochement between Shi‘is and Sunnis with the aim of stop- ping Western encroachment on Muslim lands while actively promoting the Shi‘i creed. Khomeini went into exile in Iraq in 1965, where the shah hoped pervasive anti-Shi‘i sentiment in the Iraqi Baath Party would keep him silent. Indeed, Khomeini avoided controversy, but the experience with Iraqi Shi‘i seminar- ies exposed him to the larger debates and grievances of the Arab Shi‘i com- munity; consequently, he began forming his ideas for a unified government across the Islamic world. Khomeini’s rejection of the shah, Israel, and the United States came to shape his regional foreign policy vision. By rejecting what he perceived to be Iran’s three main foes, Khomeini formed his posi- tion regarding the pro-US Arab regimes. When he came to power in Iran in 1979, he called for their removal. Iran’s leftist Tudeh Party, which openly advocated a socialist platform, was to join forces with the Freedom Movement and Islamists eventually in 1979, to overthrow the shah. The Tudeh enjoyed influence in the army and posed an additional challenge to the shah’s regime by way of its strong intellectual appeal to a segment of Iran’s educated class. Moreover, it had following in Bahrain and Iraq among groups that aimed to overthrow Arab monarchies and called for reduced US influence in the region. The shah attempted to appease all the above groups, but he believed that rapid modernization could spread the wealth and lessen pressure from opposition groups. However, his modernization plans alienated many tradi- tional segments of society. He was resentful, in particular, of the traditional bourgeoisie including state elites, feudal landowners who controlled Iran’s rich arable lands, the clerical establishment, and traditional merchants. The shah preferred to support liberal industrialists and businessmen, and favored minority-owned large scale industrial businesses by Armenians, Baha’is, and Jews who could not challenge his political authority. 82 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

In the end, although certain important reforms were introduced in Iran (including new parliamentary elections in 1964, women’s suffrage, and the establishment of a nationwide literacy corps), these—along with other policies introduced by the shah through the so-called White Revolution to appease the United States, including land reform—disrupted the feudal and clerical power base. It also proved difficult to enforce in traditional, nonurban sectors, where the shah failed to win support despite the modest initial popularity of land distribution reform. These were sectors over which the clerical establishment held influence; it was able to rally them for the revolution’s cause. In Saudi Arabia, trade union rights advocacy led to major opposition to the state, along with protests in the Eastern Province demanding a fair share to the right to development as oil wealth poured into the country. However, the opposition remained largely confined to nonreligious groups that also, at times, supported Nasser’s socialist views, while the state effectively co-opted the religious establishment. Faisal, who was connected to the Al Sheikh reli- gious leadership on his maternal side, also used his influence on the clerical establishment to help control opposition by rejecting new socialist trends, and to advocate only for the most necessary development and moderniza- tion programs, including women’s education that was soon to follow under the championship of his wife, Effat al-Thunayan. Faisal’s austere policies also contributed to the tightening of the state budget. A second source of opposition in Saudi Arabia came from within the military ranks. In October 1962, several air force officers defected to Egypt, which prompted Riyadh to ask Washington to patrol Saudi airspace.44 T h i s prompted the recruitment of new pilots only from royal members or other powerful families, and was followed in 1963 by joint air exercises with the United States to signal to Nasser the US determination to protect the kingdom, and the US congressional questioning of the wisdom behind the Kennedy administration’s decision to support Egypt. A military conspiracy was also discovered against the Saudi monarchy, which led senior royal fam- ily members to rally behind the stronger-willed Faisal in order to end the political stalemate that Saud had created over Egypt. After the shah created his secret service SAVAK in 1957, Faisal would proceed to expand a Saudi intelligence service by assigning his brother-in-law Kamal Adham to lead the kingdom’s connections with US and Western intelligence services. The polyglot Adham who had led multiple foreign missions for Faisal since the 1950s, would also serve as a liaison with the shah. The main challenge for the kingdom remained defending and reforming itself as changes across the Arab East took shape. Prince Faisal succeeded in controlling the emerging currents of political opposition not through sud- den reform—unlike the shah—but by first instilling the need for the royal Diplomatic Relations: 1955–1963 ● 83 family to unite in the face of instability. That was essential given Saud’s open overtures to Nasser by early 1964, which led to his final removal from power by November through a joint decision of senior princes and clerics. Also, unlike the shah, Faisal conceived his own vision of what development meant for Saudi society rather than adhering to US policy prescriptions. Rather than building up the military, he opted to increase internal secu- rity. When he faced family opposition over his conservative foreign policy outlook, Faisal moved decisively to purge the National Guard from Saud’s appointees, and promoted his closer half-brothers including future kings Fahd and Abdullah as well as defense minister Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud. In January 1963, he would simultaneously place Prince Salman bin Abd al-Aziz in the key post of governor of Riyadh. He reined in the Free Princes by accepting it as a voice for change—on the condition that it sever its ties with Nasser. His moves surprised even American analysts at Aramco, a company with a larger than life presence in Saudi Arabia, which had earlier proclaimed that the perceived royal family rally behind Faisal was misleading. Nonetheless, the arbitrariness with which political loyalties shaped within the royal family revealed that it remained vulnerable in times of external stress and over the issue of succession. 45 Faisal eventually resolved the crucial question of succession after him by appointing his trusted half- brother Khaled as deputy prime minister and crown prince, and Fahd as the second prime minister.

CHAPTER 6

Epoch of Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry

n November 1964, Faisal assumed full power in Saudi Arabia. His rule, made in part possible through the alignment with the clerical establish- I ment, was marked by a commitment to Islam as a unifying force in Saudi domestic and foreign policies. When the shah had earlier dispatched his foreign minister Abbas Aram to convey to Faisal his hope for improved Saudi–Iranian relations, Faisal urged support for Saudi initiatives across the Muslim world to fight communism. The shah was convinced that his ambi- tious modernization programs would make Iran the most stable country in the Middle East, and he insisted only on promoting Islamic values that were compatible with modern times. Faisal was weary of the shah’s assertions about Iran’s regional standing. But in December 1965, he stopped in Iran on the first leg of a tour of Islamic states he was making after leading two conferences on Islamic unity in Makkah in May 1962 and April 1965. The initiatives led to the establishment of the Muslim World League ( rabitat al-alam al-islami ) and the Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC). Iran actively participated in the proceedings of the Makkah conferences, became a founding member of the league and helped establish the OIC, which was inaugurated by Faisal and the shah in Morocco in 1969.1 The shah’s pro-Israel stance along with Faisal’s assertions of Islamic lead- ership, challenged by Egypt in particular, led radical Arab regimes to view the new Riyadh–Tehran partnership with suspicion. Faisal was cautious, because the shah’s outreach to Israel could clash with his pan-Islamic goals. So the shah went the extra mile to allay Faisal’s concerns; the Iranian press denounced Mayor John Lindsay of New York’s decision not to meet with Faisal on his visit to the United States in June 1966, because of the mon- arch’s position on Palestine. That same month, Faisal repaid the shah’s favor 86 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran by dispatching the future Saudi minister of state and foreign affairs Omar Saqqaf to Tehran on a courtesy visit, proving that he would not hesitate to work with Iran, a non-Arab, Shi‘i state. (Indeed, this degree of outreach toward Iran would never again be replicated by a Saudi monarch.) The kingdom’s regional standing improved as a result, indicating that it promoted an inclusive Islam that espoused unity. The shah encouraged the idea, maintaining that as Shi‘i Islam represented a minority belief system in the Muslim world that it could not be allowed to undermine the Saudi– Iranian partnership nor overshadow the Saudi role in the Islamic world. 2 T o reinforce the point, at a state dinner held in his honor in November 1968 at the Malzar Palace, the shah stressed that he wished to delegate to King Faisal the responsibility to mobilize Muslims. 3 He would also address Faisal in public as amir al-mumeniin (“leader of believers”), 4 a title that Iranians bestowed Ali, the fourth Muslim caliph. The Muslim World League played a critical role in the fledgling rela- tions, which witnessed a threefold increase in the volume of trade between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 1964–1966. In early 1967, Saqqaf and Sheikh Alam Muhammad Sarvar Al Sabban, the head of the league, visited Iran. An agreement was signed to allow Saudi medical students to attend Pahlavi University in Shiraz—considered to house the best medical school in the region—and Iran began providing full scholarships for the program. In November of that year, the head of a Saudi organization for educational guidance, Sheikh Hassan ibn Abdullah Al Sheikh, visited Iran to sign the agreement, and asked for help to set up a school of medicine in Riyadh. 5 Riyadh and Tehran finalized an agreement for the transport of Iranian pil- grims, which expanded civil air ground services and the number of Iranian flights to the kingdom. Encouraged by these developments, Iran’s diplomats in Jeddah urged using the league to dispel negative views about Shi‘is by sending high-quality theological publications in Arabic to book fairs in the kingdom.6 It is unknown whether or not those books were sent, but Tehran proceeded to obtain image reproductions of some 414 historic handwritten Persian documents and manuscripts archived in Saudi libraries.7 In June 1967, Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian forces advanced into Israel. The brief and largely symbolic embargo of Arab oil to the West a day after the conflict erupted lasted through September. Faisal was in a vulnerable position during the war. The Saudi public opinion tilted in favor of Nasser, and fierce protests erupted in Aramco surprising the Americans who still believed that the Saudi population was on their side. The shah, who was emboldened by the US proclamation a year earlier that Iran was a developed nation, felt strong enough to refuse to join the embargo; but the Iranian press was allowed to support it, and Iranian companies were permit- ted to disavow connections with Israeli businesses after the Saudi ministry of commerce called for sanctions against Israel. 8 Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry ● 87

The shah made a point of condemning Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip, the Sinai peninsula and the West Bank. When King Faisal visited Tehran in December, he emphasized that it was Islam that helped bond Saudi Arabia with Iran during this critical phase. Faisal also delivered an impassioned talk before parliamentary deputies and the shah in the senate, urging them to embrace reforms and Islam, and to recognize that Saudi Arabia and Iran shared the same interests as neighbors and brothers in faith. 9 The talk endeared him with the Iranians, and sealed Faisal’s position to date as the most popular Saudi monarch. Confident that Iran’s position among the Arabs had been sufficiently restored, King Faisal was then able to turn his attention to urging Washington to avoid confusing its Arab Middle East policy with Israel’s interests; he pushed for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory, aided by the rise in oil prices after the war. Egypt’s defeat in this war affected the outcome of the conflict in Yemen. In August 1967, Nasser was forced to withdraw Egyptian forces from north Yemen, which became the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR). Saudi Arabia rec- ognized the YAR three years later on July 27, 1970. In November 1967, the socialist regime of south Yemen—the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY)—proclaimed independence after Britain withdrew from the Gulf of Aden. The leftist nature of the PDRY disturbed Faisal, who decided to keep the Saudi armed forces out of Yemen regardless. But the prospects of unification between the north and the south, which could allow Yemen to influence the kingdom on far stronger new terms, prompted Faisal to subsidize Nasser in order to reduce his intervention in more conservative republican north Yemen to allow pro-Saudi royalists to gain clout, and to work toward moderating the leftist political trends in south Yemen.10 B u t an armed opposition in south Yemen, supposedly backed by the Saudis on grounds that it represented moderate forces, was defeated in 1968, and the PDRY, which by then had co-opted Baath and communist groups in the south, called for the liberation of the Arabian peninsula and launched a brief attack on Saudi Arabia in 1969. The turmoil destabilized the kingdom internally and led to a foiled coup, prompting Faisal to resolve the question of succession and strike a tenuous internal balance of power through a series of administrative and security measures. To contain the Yemen crisis, Faisal then turned for help to the shah who had secured a close partnership with the Johnson administration in Washington. Aware of Iran’s military capabilities, the king requested mod- ern antiaircraft equipment to counter south Yemen’s air raids. The shah rec- ognized that Faisal had rarely ever appealed for his direct assistance, and ordered round-the-clock flights for two days to deliver military equipment. He privately expressed surprise, though, that the PDRY could threaten Saudi Arabia’s Jizan airport, though he was possibly unaware of the extent of the purges that had taken place in the Saudi army following the attempted 88 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran coup. The shah also urged the United States to guarantee assistance to Riyadh, which, unlike Tehran, struggled to acquire military supplies from Washington during that period. 11 (The United States, however, did not wish to disturb Soviet turf in Yemen.) The kingdom’s financial constraints, fear of revolt by the army, and lack of capacity for training had significantly slowed the build-up of Saudi armed forces and dampened US interest in furthering its military abilities. The radical Arab regimes also constrained Faisal’s ability to reach out to the United States, compelling him to rely on his own defense systems and low-profile diplomacy. 12 Faisal would continue to render financial and logistical support to pro-Riyadh groups in Yemen, which served to strengthen the leftists’ determination to fight back until the north and the south decided to unify and adhere to the 1934 Saudi–Yemeni border treaty that was set to renew in 1974. When the conflict in south Yemen spread into Oman, Iranian forces intervened to contain it (with US blessing), on account of hesitant Saudi policy and military limitations. In Oman’s Dhofar region, rebels called for the liberation of the “Arabian Gulf.” The insurgency that followed enabled rebels to control Dhofar with Soviet, Chinese, and Cuban assistance from their base in Aden in southern Yemen, claiming Iranian lives—but perma- nently sealing Iran’s special ties with Oman. By 1973, Iran had dispatched close to 35,000 troops to Oman. This startled Riyadh, and it dismissed it as the shah’s attempt to assert superior Iranian military power. In 1975, an additional elite Iranian force of 3,000 men was able to decisively crush the rebellion. The shah enjoyed the partnership with Oman. It reminded Arab govern- ments that insisted on the term “Arabian Gulf” that despite their anti-Iran stance, it was Iran that helped crush Arab radicalism when it threatened the stability of the Persian Gulf. The partnership with Oman also served his ambition to project Iran’s naval power beyond the Gulf of Oman into the Indian Ocean, and Iranian forces stayed in Oman until January 1977. Indeed, Iranian efforts combined with Saudi financial and logistical aid, respectively led the Soviets and Chinese out of Oman in 1976–1977. Saudi Arabia viewed the Omani–Iranian partnership with trepidation, however, in the face of its own challenge to overcome political rivalry and unwill- ingness to project military power in the southern Gulf. Its relations with Oman had been uneasy too; from 1955–1959, to settle the dispute over the Buraimi, Riyadh unsuccessfully supported the Ibadis who aimed to estab- lish an inland state in Oman and contain Muscat. When Riyadh resumed diplomatic relations with the PDRY, in part through Iran’s ability to oust the rebels in Oman to south Yemen, it called for the withdrawal of Iranian forces from Oman. Meanwhile, following King Faisal’s decisive stance in the 1967 war with Israel, Iraqi leaders (led by President Abd al-Rahman Arif al-Jumaily) had Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry ● 89 turned to Riyadh to resolve their contentious border dispute with Iran over the Shatt al-Arab waterway. Saqqaf helped build a framework agreement after attempts by King Faisal to encourage Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait to resolve their joint border disputes in January 1966. But Saddam Hussein and Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr’s victory in Iraq’s second Baath Party coup in July 1968 foiled the deal. 13 Al-Bakr held a conservative foreign policy outlook, but his illness allowed Saddam to lead the new Baath regime, which rejected Iran’s claims over Shatt al-Arab and established the Freedom Front of Arabia to sabotage Iranian oil pipelines. 14 Saddam defied the kingdom as well, by threatening to unify Arab lands and by reaching out to Nasser. Faisal attempted to appease Iraq, and the shah retained a cordial relation- ship with Baghdad by recognizing the Baath government—but he provided military and financial aid to Iraqi Kurds to contain the regime in Baghdad, while Faisal chose to ignore the shah’s intervention; Baghdad’s preoccu- pation with the Kurds could reduce the tensions in Iraqi–Saudi relations. Greater peace was necessary, particularly as Iraq’s Baath Party resurgence overlapped with the rise of the Syrian Baath Party in 1967, and talk of their union threatened Saudi Arabia and Iran. The union proved to be a false start on account of the inherent rivalries between the two Baath regimes, leading Saddam to persecute many Iraqi officials he believed to be sympathetic to the Syrian Baath Party. 15 Faisal continued to provide nominal annual aid to Damascus to boost its position vis-à -vis Baghdad, but his inability to repair Saudi–Syrian ties contributed further to rifts inside the kingdom. Critics of Faisal’s discreet approach to foreign policy included Saudi princes who believed in an active partnership with Syria to contain Israel. Faisal’s misgivings about the Alawis, who were in power in Syria and constituted the largest number of recruits in the Syrian army, led to measures by the Syrian Baath regime to cur- tail the Saudi base of support among Syria’s majority Sunni population by funding opposition groups in the kingdom. Faisal reciprocated by arresting Saudi Shi‘is charged with membership in the Syrian Baath Party and aided the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, while Saudi clerics discredited the Baath’s secular pan-Arab policies as a false identity compared to the kingdom’s pan- Islamic credentials. 16 The shah detached himself from developments in Syria, as its efforts to alter the name of the Persian Gulf and demand Khuzestan’s indepen- dence warranted a cautious approach including minimizing the risk of an Iraqi–Syrian alliance against Iran. Iranian diplomats stationed in Syria were also urged to show caution; during their diplomatic orientation, they were advised by Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveida to sip coffee and smoke a cigarette before reacting to the anti-Iran Syrian government provoca- tion and press propaganda that was constant. 17 However, as tensions with Baghdad and Damascus increased the potential for conflict in the region, 90 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Tehran accepted Riyadh’s favorable offer to settle their boundary disputes in October 1968 through an agreement that demarcated the maritime median line dividing the continental shelves, which revised and concluded an ear- lier agreement in 1965. In 1969, Saudi and Iranian ministers and officials met periodically, and a task force was created through the Tehran-based Arab–Iranian Friendship Organization (set up after King Faisal’s 1965 visit to Iran and headed by Hoveida) to investigate the impact on the Persian Gulf of the Soviet–US maritime boundary agreement banning the military use of shared waterways. 18 Tensions with Syria subsided after Nasser’s death in September 1970. In March 1971, Hafez al-Assad took power in Syria and reversed the radical socialist policies of his predecessors, which he blamed for Syria’s isolation. In Egypt, with Saudi encouragement, President Anwar Sadat expelled Soviet military advisors. Soon Saudi Arabia and Iran joined Egypt and Morocco in the Afro-France Safari Club, a code name for an elite intelligence force formed to support anticommunist regimes and overthrow leftist govern- ments at a time when the United States was less willing to be involved in conf lict zones, following its withdrawal from Vietnam. Originally conceived by the French, the club was also funded and aided by Saudi Arabia and Iran, although there were apparent rivalries between the two. Prince Turki al- Faisal, who became the head of the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate (GID) in 1977 would meet with his Iranian counterpart that same year in Riyadh, and the following year in France, to coordinate the activities of the club. However, when he dispatched a representative to Tehran to collect the file on the club’s latest activities, the Iranians held on to the file, but assured their Saudi counterpart that it was in safe hands. (Iran would leave the club following the Iranian revolution.)19 Iraq continued to challenge Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s regional leadership roles that was bolstered by the newly announced Nixon Doctrine’s twin pillars policy. In response, Iraq concluded a 15-year friendship treaty with the Soviet Union in April 1972. Washington reassured the shah of unlim- ited military support against the Iraqi threat, which Saudi Arabia welcomed despite apprehension over Iran’s growing regional power. With fiscal rev- enues nearly 69 percent higher than Iran’s (in 1971), Riyadh knew it could complement if not match Tehran’s military power. In March 1973, when Iraq seized a Kuwaiti border post near Basra in a bid to reclaim the Kuwaiti islands of Bubiyan and Warba, fear of a joint Saudi–Iranian reprisal forced it to withdraw.20 In September 1974, Saudi intelligence chief Kamal Adham along with a prominent Saudi prince rep- resenting King Faisal, and Egyptian representative Muhammad Ashraf Marwan, traveled to Tehran to explore ways to resolve the Iran–Iraq bor- der dispute and control the regional arms race. The shah believed the Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry ● 91

Egyptian–Saudi efforts would fail to bring Iraq out of the Soviet fold. Yet he agreed to halt support for Iraqi Kurds in return for a resolution of the dis- pute with Iraq over the Shatt al-Arab, which the Algiers Agreement settled in 1975 by demarcating the water boundary according to the Thalweg line (i.e., along the waterway’s lowest elevation). 21 In October 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israeli-occupied territory, attempting to end the occupation of the Sinai and Golan Heights. Despite their rapid advancement, their armies were defeated by the second week of the war. Faisal imposed a crippling oil embargo against the West, under- mining the shah, who had decided to maintain relations with Israel. When Prince Fahd traveled to Iran in November to ask the shah to cut off oil supplies and halt commercial flights to Israel, the request was declined.22 The shah, however, agreed to supply crude oil to Egypt and extend medical aid to the Arab war front. He also sought to project neutrality, commit- ting to reducing regional tension. Thus he rejected British and US proposals to encourage a Kurdish rebellion against Baghdad, and assured Iraq that Iranian forces would not invade the country if Iraqi troops were sent to help Egypt. To prevent US and Soviet penetration into the region on account of the conflict—the shah worried this would undermine Iranian regional lead- ership—he also played one superpower against the other. According to his former ambassador to Moscow, Ahmad Mirfendereski, he agreed to allow a limited number of Soviet planes across Iranian airspace to aid Egypt. 23 B u t the shah also provided Israel and US military bases in the region with badly needed oil during the embargo. 24 When the Nixon administration reportedly sent a message to Faisal suggesting that the United States would consider using force against the kingdom for imposing an embargo on countries supporting Israel,25 t h e regional balance of power briefly tilted against Riyadh; but the force of Faisal’s conviction shifted that balance back, as did his view of the occu- pation of Jerusalem—an affront to his religious views that grew stron- ger during the last three years of his life. 26 Faisal proceeded to revive the Damascus–Riyadh–Cairo axis by taking the helm of the Arab embargo, which led to skyrocketing oil prices and accelerated the conclusion of the latest Arab–Israeli conflict. He maintained the embargo until Israel signed a peace agreement with Egypt and Syria. His stance was critical in break- ing the Damascus–Cairo axis before the war, which had brought tremen- dous pressure on the kingdom to force Israel to negotiate an end to the occupation of Arab lands, and helped calm the situation in Jordan—where Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) fighters and some 700,000 resi- dent Palestinians threatened to drag the country into civil war. The shah rejoiced at the higher oil prices and reached out to Syria after it signed the US–Saudi-mediated June 1974 disengagement agreement with 92 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Israel. In 1976, after King Hussein of Jordan informed the shah that Hafez al-Assad had spoken highly of him at the Arab League meeting in Cairo that October, Iran and Syria exchanged ambassadors.27 The shah also sup- ported al-Assad after the league endorsed the presence of Syrian-led forces in Lebanon in May 1976 to end the armed conflict between Maronites and Palestinians. Al-Assad reciprocated the shah’s favors by pressing US President Jimmy Carter to realize that the shah should lead developments in the Middle East, at a time when Washington was falling out with Tehran over delayed Iranian reforms. 28 King Faisal was assassinated by his half-brother’s son on March 25, 1975. Iran declared a week of mourning, and on April 28, the shah paid a two- day visit to King Khalid to offer his condolences, but decided that the era of Muslim unity had ended as Saudi Arabia and Iran battled over oil pric- es. 29 He continued, however, along with Saudi Arabia, to help the United States conclude a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Saudi financial aid helped Egypt break with radical Arab states, leading to the first and sec- ond Sinai agreements in 1974 and 1975 respectively, followed by the Camp David Accords in 1979. By then, Saudi Arabia and Iran had withdrawn from the forefront of efforts to lead Egypt into the western hemisphere, allowing the United States to take the credit for their past efforts; but there was no doubt that they had guided Egypt in the earlier years, before the West could achieve consensus to rally behind the country. The early signs of the shah’ s own declining political fortunes in the region began to emerge in southern Lebanon, where the Iranian cleric Musa Sadr’s Shi‘i Amal (“Hope”) party was based. Sadr had reached out to both Faisal and the shah, and the latter had occasionally accepted his pleas to help improve the lives of Shi‘is in southern Lebanon, but the shah was convinced that Shi‘i clerics were losing their traditional power base throughout the region. 30 Reluctance to sufficiently engage with these clerics cost the shah his crown. He was also misled by SAVAK, his secret police, which—to win favor with him—covered up the veracity of reports produced by Iranian diplomats in Lebanon about the real threat of transnational Shi‘i politics. SAVAK’s misinformation tactics frequently worked; when it had recom- mended dispatching one of its cadres as an ambassador to Lebanon, the shah questioned whether or not the country was an important enough sta- tion to warrant sending a member of SAVAK instead of “just a diplomat.”31 By then, the shah’s dependence on the SAVAK, whose members also fre- quently recruited Iran’s diplomats to spy on their peers, dissidents, and for- eign leaders, had instilled sufficient fear of Iran’s regional intentions, and undermined his standing. When Israel invaded southern Lebanon to crush Palestinian militancy in March 1978, the shah recognized the potential regional challenge to his Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry ● 93 rule. To prevent the PLO from accepting an offer of autonomy from Israel after the invasion, Syria sidestepped the mainstream Palestinian Fatah party led by Yasser Arafat, which Saudi Arabia also supported, and turned to fully supporting Amal. In return, Sadr issued a fatwa declaring the Alawis as Shi‘is. Syria also hosted Iranian revolutionary dissidents, and its alliance with Amal threatened to mobilize Shi‘i activists against the shah. The situa- tion worsened when Amal and Iran’s future revolutionary leaders took sides in the fight for southern Lebanon. Many revolutionaries decided to ignore Syria and Amal, which were rather moderate in their views about the shah, and forged a short-lived alliance with Arafat. 32 The shah’s fate was sealed as the revolutionaries became determined to fight for the Palestinian cause, and break the shah’s and Iran’s ties with Israel.

Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Gulf Security: 1968–1972 In January 1968, when Britain announced its intention to withdraw from the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia and Iran were faced with several key ques- tions: what would the post-British order look like? Would Arab states be able to assume Britain’s role and contain superior Iranian power, or would Iran fill the power vacuum in the region? Neither Britain nor the United States, which was preoccupied with Vietnam, wished to have direct involvement in Gulf affairs by 1968. Britain wanted a quick exit, to meet the demands of its strenuous fiscal policies without the fear of being replaced by the Americans or the Soviets in the Persian Gulf. Moreover, it wanted a viable order in the region. To this end, London sought to retain the regional balance of power based on the relative strengths of each local state. The multipolar order meant getting Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait to work with a federa- tion of former British protectorates, which included nine entities that later divided into seven Trucial Sheikhdoms to form the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after Bahrain and Qatar sought independence. Although it was expected that Iran would help lead the new regional order, Tehran had rarely explored opportunities to expand ties in the south- ern Gulf. Therefore, its call for a pact with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, or a British proposal for a joint Saudi–Iranian defense pact did not go far. Since the shah’s collaboration with Arab Gulf states to contain Iraq and the Soviets had also been challenging, he came to rely on US and British endorsement of his Gulf policies. Those endorsements were non-committal, and they exacerbated tensions between Iran and its Gulf neighbors. Moreover, the shah frequently relied on his judgments—shaped by personal relationships with Gulf rulers and poor reporting by the SAVAK—to analyze Gulf affairs, which contributed to Iran’s weak Gulf policies. The shah, who frequently hosted Gulf leaders in Tehran, assumed that might sufficiently instill respect 94 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran with the Gulf neighbors to comply with Iran’s policies. For example, when Bahrain’s Emir Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa visited the shah in 1970, the lat- ter who enjoyed receiving the attention that Arab leaders gave him, hastily concluded that Bahrain wished to remain closer to Iran than to its Arab neighbors. 33 Nonetheless, a task force created on the shah’s orders within the Iranian foreign ministry met daily to produce policy papers in the three months that it took to decide the fate of Bahrain, the disputed Gulf islands of Abu Musa and the Tunbs, and a modality for the formation of the UAE—issues Iran contested prior to the British withdrawal. In addition, a special commis- sion on Bahrain was organized to meet daily with foreign minister Ardeshir Zahedi and on a regular basis with Iran’s parliament, to develop terms of reference to resolve Iran’s position on Bahrain.34 Since British withdrawal could deny the kingdom the ability to con- tain potential regional rivals, including Iran, Riyadh proposed a collective Arab Gulf security network, despite political rivalries and border ten- sions between Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi; Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; and Bahrain and Qatar. To expedite this idea, Faisal settled the boundary dispute over the Buraimi in favor of Abu Dhabi and concluded an agree- ment with Kuwait on the division of the Neutral Zone, a territory between Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia with undefined borders. He also supported the idea of a federation inclusive of Bahrain, but wanted Bahrain to join the UAE as a counterweight against Abu Dhabi, which was close to Iran. 35 T h e kingdom maintained sufficient pressure on the Gulf sheikhdoms to arrive at border compromises that also favored it—for example, by using the Buraimi agreement in 1974 to make Abu Dhabi cede oil deposits in the Liwa oasis, or by controlling the Fasht Abu Safah oilfield in 1954 in return for sharing half its profits with Bahrain. Faisal also pursued a joint security program with Kuwait and Bahrain, and remained open to forming a federation of the remaining British protectorates. The shah favored bilateral Gulf security pacts, as opposed to dealing with a collective of Arab states with potential clout to match Iranian power. Alternatively, he remained open to a multilateral cooperation pact with the Arab Gulf states, which Iraq as well as other Arab states were reluctant to accept, given that Iran had done little to understand its neighbors. The point was reinforced by veteran Iranian diplomats: they advised Iranian army commanders to avoid an arms race with Iraq or the Gulf states following the British withdrawal, in favor of pursuing sound diplomatic relations that served to teach Iran how to live with its Arab neighbors as equal partners. However, the shah pursued plans to build up the army, intimidating Iraq and other Arab states. 36 In response, Saudi Arabia, the Arab Gulf states along with Turkey strove to provoke the shah, by insisting on the term “Arabian Gulf” and the federation that the shah prevented from forming. Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry ● 95

The shah, in fact, resolved not to object to the establishment of a federa- tion inclusive of Bahrain, but he would not be reassured until Bahrain’s fate was decided. If either Bahrain or the Trucial Sheikhdoms were merged into an Arab federation, then the Gulf balance of power could tip against Iran. So Bahrain’s independence was tied to the affirmation of Iran’s disputed sovereignty over the three Gulf islands. Tehran tried to influence the emir- ate of Ras al-Khaimah to waive its claims over the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, and the emirate of Sharjah to forgo the island of Abu Musa. Meanwhile, the shah delayed negotiations with Faisal over the continen- tal shelf, and the two disagreed over the division of its oil resources, mostly located on the Saudi side, as well as a host of other contentious issues. Iran rejected arbitration to resolve the continental shelf dispute, given the king- dom’s stronger legal claim. On February 1, 1968, an Iranian gunboat seized an Aramco rig and transferred American and Saudi Aramco workers to an Iranian vessel in the Persian Gulf, to object to Saudi Arabia’s drilling in the mid-Gulf in waters claimed by Iran. In early 1968, King Faisal accorded a royal welcome to Sheikh Isa, having earlier made it clear that an incursion by Iranian forces on Bahrain would be tantamount to an attack on Saudi Arabia. In protest, the shah cancelled a high-profile trip to Saudi Arabia that had been planned a year earlier, only two days before his scheduled arrival on February 3, 1968.37 King Faisal saw the gesture of the shah’s cancelled trip as a matter of protocol; he decided not to take issue, arguing, according to his son Prince Turki: “Iran was much too important for the kingdom to allow issues of protocol to affect the relationship.” 38 The shah met with Faisal at the Jeddah airport on his way to Addis Ababa in early June. The meet- ing, which Faisal had granted for 40 minutes on the shah’s request, was extended to five hours of discussions to restore confidence. Faisal observed that the shah contradicted Saudi positions, only to be led into moderating his views.39 In October, the king returned the shah’s visit and negotiated a draft bor- der agreement in favor of Iran that modified an earlier treaty in December 1965, providing equal access for both Saudi Arabia and Iran to the offshore oilfields of Kharg island. This helped dispel tensions over the division of oil reserves mostly on the Saudi side of the 1965 continental shelf boundary, which had led Iran to initially reject the treaty’s ratification. Tehran, how- ever, signaled that the issue was political rather than economically driven, suggesting that the shah would tie it to the resolution of Iran’s Gulf disputes. Ultimately, Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to divide the oil in place equally by half, and the shah accepted the Saudi claim over the area’s recoverable oil.40 In November, he visited Saudi Arabia, and signed an agreement establishing Iranian and Saudi sovereignty over the Farsi and al-Arabiya islands respec- tively, and the agreement dividing the continental shelf between them. Faisal 96 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran persuaded the shah to relinquish the claim over Bahrain and allow the UN to lead an investigative mission there to determine its fate. 41 Despite Iran’s public pronouncements to the contrary, the shah under- stood that Bahrain had its own government, received a degree of interna- tional recognition, and was able to conduct its foreign policy, measures deemed sufficient under international law to grant Bahrain statehood. Since Bahrain’s arabization had also been successful, it meant there were fewer bonds that linked Iran and Bahrain as a nation.42 But Iran’s parliament had declared Bahrain to be Iran’s fourteenth province in 1957, and according to Iranian sources, a year later Bahrain’s ruler Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa pledged allegiance to Iran. The parliament then argued that, even when Iran lost control over Bahrain, the latter was never independent, but regarded as a British protectorate; Britain’s support of Bahrain was noth- ing more than “foreign intervention.” Bahrain’s gradual arabization under British control, which led to the displacement of its Persian population, fur- ther urged Iranian parliamentarians to argue that Iran’s rule over Bahrain had endured for several centuries except for lapses in 1507–1602, when Bahrain had been occupied by Portugal and afterward by Britain.43 Like many other Iranians at the time and the present, the shah did not harbor strong sentiments toward Bahrain, given its Arab identity, and he dismissed its importance, simply for lacking sufficient oil or pearls, to eco- nomically warrant that it remained part of Iran. Yet he was torn over the right course of action, and when Iraqi defense minister Hardan al-Tikriti promised to protect Bahrain should Iran invade it, he turned to the army for advice. General Fereydoun Djam, Chief of the Imperial Joint Staff, reminded him that the army should be barred from intervening in political affairs. 44 Eventually the shah decided to sidestep parliament and relinquish Bahrain. Several counterarguments to parliament’s position governed Iran’s relations with Bahrain, which the shah maintained were valid. For example, in 1923 Iran tried to redeem the three islands in the Persian Gulf through the League of Nations, in exchange for relinquishing Bahrain. 45 I n 1 9 2 7 , Reza Shah attempted to renew the Iranian claim over Bahrain briefly, but decided against it after Britain resisted. 46 Finally, effectively by the end of World War II, Iran was too weak to reclaim Bahrain. Faisal’s refusal to pressure the Gulf emirates to abandon their sovereignty claims to the disputed islands (although he encouraged them to negotiate an agreement with Iran), and the British plan to engage the shah without concluding any agreements over these contested issues advanced Bahrain’s cause. In January 1969, the shah declared that he would refrain from using force to reclaim Bahrain should its population demand independence. The Iranian parliament was not consulted on the matter. Meanwhile, the shah followed Faisal’s lead in the region, as he believed that Saudi Arabia and Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry ● 97

Iran were responsible for ensuring its stability. Faisal helped Bahrain sign a continental shelf agreement with Iran in June 1971, and suggested station- ing a joint Arab–Iranian force on the disputed islands that the Arabs argued was part of the seven Trucial Sheikhdoms, if security and not asserting Iran’s sovereignty there, appeared to be the shah’s key concern as he claimed. 47 S o eager was the shah for this mutual leadership role that, following Saqqaf’s visit to Iran and a visit by Zahedi to Saudi Arabia in April 1970, he boldly informed the United States that it could procrastinate over how to protect the Persian Gulf for as long as it wanted, because Riyadh and Tehran were prepared to do the job.48 On May 11, the Iranian parliament approved a UN-endorsed agreement to carry out a plebiscite in Bahrain on the question of independence. Iran and Britain granted Bahrain formal recognition, which in turn paved the way for the UAE’s independence on December 2, 1971, and preempted the formation of an Arab federation that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had aimed to create. An Iranian diplomat I spoke to summarized the shah’s mood at the time: “The shah felt he won Bahrain over. He understood there were two other options, either to keep things as they were and just cope, or to occupy Bahrain. Both options were beneath imperial Iran’s dignity, and the world would not have accepted it either way.” Bahrain’s independence dispelled radical Arab propaganda by Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, and Libya against Iran. King Faisal was the first leader to congratulate Iran on its decision to grant Bahrain independence, sending a personal telegram. 49 The shah viewed Bahrain’s and UAE’s independence as conditional upon a tacit agreement with Britain, stretching Iranian sovereignty interests over the Tunbs, which were closer to Iran, and even Abu Musa which was further south to the median line. (This granted Iran a weaker legal claim over it in the event of a settlement.) By the early 1970s, the Strait of Hormuz carried USD 20 billion of Iran’s annual revenue. Moreover, the strait was essential to Iran’s ability to project naval power to keep international forces out of the region, granting Iran time to work with its Arab neighbors on building a region-wide security system—although in fact, this was not necessarily what Iran’s Arab neighbors sought. Just a year earlier, Iraq had laid claim to the entire Shatt al-Arab waterway. The shah’s understanding of the regional sta- tus quo was therefore one-sided, and more so in lieu of Iran’s past rejections of settlement over the islands. Since 1935, Iran had twice rejected British offers to relinquish claims over Abu Musa, including an offer to purchase the Tunbs and lease them to Ras al-Khaimah in exchange. Iran’s ownership of Sirri had also been tied to its willingness to settle the dispute over the Tunbs and Abu Musa. On October 17, 1970, the shah dispatched Zahedi to meet with King Faisal in Geneva, and to urge Saudi mediation to resolve the dispute. Meanwhile, 98 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran the shah delayed the formation of the UAE. Faisal did not believe the shah was right to argue that the islands were vital to Iranian security. Rather, he viewed the claims as economically driven, considering the islands’ offshore oil reserves and Iran’s assertion over the revenues they generated (given that it had as Iran claimed borne the bulk of the investment costs). Nevertheless, the king called for a Gulf conference in December 1971, which he thought it important for the shah to propose, to resolve differences with Iran. The idea fell through when Iranian military troops took control of the Tunbs on November 30, 1971. Concerned by the Soviets and by militant Arab groups threatening the Gulf waterway, the shah attempted to project the take over as an essential security step, although those fears would subside during the oil shock in the 1970s, which prompted Soviet decision to avoid disrupting Gulf security.50 A day prior to the seizure of the Tunbs, a last-minute agreement was signed between Iran and Sharjah, which Sharjah would quickly contest as being forced on it. The agreement left the northern and southern parts of Abu Musa under Iran’s and Sharjah’s sovereignty respectively with an admin- istrative line between the two areas, and dividing the island’s oil revenues in equal share. The shah avoided offering an outline for a future political settle- ment. He ignored Ras al-Khaimah, which had earlier shown to be receptive to receiving financial aid from Iran in lieu of a temporary settlement that would lease the islands to Iran, but would reject the latest British-mediated proposal in November that Iran would take over the Tunbs in exchange for compen- sation. The fact that Ras al-Khaimah delayed joining the UAE, in protest against what it perceived to be tacit Arab consent to Iran’s claim over the Tunb islands, pointed that Iran may have made quiet arrangements with Britain on the issue. Ras al-Khaimah had other grievances. It contested a lower repre- sentation in the UAE, and had hopes briefly pinged on becoming a wealthy oil state independently of the UAE. Even so, the UAE asserted the title to the islands on the same day as its independence, while carefully condemning the principle of the use of force to take over the disputed territory.51 The shah believed that delaying the stationing of Iranian forces on the islands till after British forces withdrew from the Persian Gulf on December 1, 1971, would have implied a hostile act by Iran against the UAE which was declared a sovereign state on December 2. He wanted the act to be perceived more as a move against the British who had taken the islands in 1904, and as a matter to settle with Britain rather than with the UAE. His private appeals for a final settlement through British and Saudi mediation, however, fell through as London and Riyadh preferred Tehran to settle the issue with the UAE itself. Saudi Arabia, however, expressed surprise and regret at the shah’s action; Tehran believed that Oman, Bahrain, and Abu Dhabi were willing to comply Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry ● 99 with the existing arrangement given that their rulers visited Iran frequently. A joint declaration issued by Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait in July 1970, which helped materialize Iranian acquiescence to the independence of the UAE and Bahrain, also seemed to reaffirm their understanding of the new Gulf order irrespective of Ras al-Khaimah’s challenge. 52 Nonetheless, Faisal did not pressure Ras al-Khaimah or Sharjah to con- cede to the new arrangement, following his instinct to project neutralism in contentious situations so as not to compromise the kingdom’s regional stand- ing. Moreover, the rulers of the two sheikhdoms had steadfastly pleaded with Arab states to resist Iranian claims over the islands, thereby turning the issue into a pan-Arab agenda that Faisal could not ignore. The shah was dismayed, believing that had the king tried, he could have secured the islands for Iran. 53 However, Faisal was in the habit of letting the shah know that he would not compromise his decisions for Iran’s sake. In his speeches honoring Iran and the shah in frequent state visits during this period, much to the displeasure of Abbas Ali Khalatbari (Zahedi’s successor as foreign minister)—who had earlier been placed in charge of negotiations over the islands—King Faisal would conclude his remarks with the reservation that “even among brothers there will always be differences.” 54 The shah continued to assert his position, considered sacrosanct (malak- outi), over the Tunbs and Abu Musa even if the islands’ strategic value to Iran was not fully proven. The vast majority of Iranians believed that the islands belonged to them. This helped boost the shah’s image at home and, along with Iran’s strong navy, contributed to aggrandized Iranian perceptions of their leadership role in the Persian Gulf. What might be called Iran’s victim mentality—resulting from the historically superior British naval presence in the Persian Gulf—at times prevented it from exploring new opportunities with the Gulf sheikhdoms. Meanwhile, and to no avail, Iran’s embassies repeatedly objected to the term “Arabian Gulf” frequently used in the Saudi press and across the Arab world. Iraq was the only country in the region to sever its ties with Iran over these islands. Algeria, Libya, and south Yemen referred the case to the UN Security Council when the UAE was admitted to the UN on December 9, 1971. It was dismissed when Egypt refused to join in. The United States, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia provided Iran with backdoor assistance to thwart the case mindful of Iran’s stabilizing role in Oman and in containing Iraq’s and south Yemen’s ambitions. Then, as the non-permanent member of the council, Somalia motioned the issue to leave the Security Council to allow the parties to negotiate a settlement.55 Nonetheless, Iran would repeatedly reject UAE offers of settlement through arbitration. Despite its claims to the islands, Iran remained a conservative power in the Gulf region. But none of the Arab Gulf states had the ability to counter 100 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran its power if it chose to be aggressive. A fierce arms race ensued between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 1972–1973, as each attempted to strengthen their air defense program. Riyadh was partly driven to counter the shah’s efforts since the 1960s to build a joint air force maintenance program with Israel, an idea that he dropped to appease the Arab Gulf states. Saudi Arabia also strengthened its military cooperation with the Arab Gulf states. By 1975, the Algiers Agreement gave new life to the idea of a collective regional security arrangement, but Iraq’s and Saudi Arabia’s unwillingness to concede a central role to Iran dampened US support for a region-wide pact. In the summer of 1977, the kingdom foiled another air force coup, delaying regional-security discussions. Then on January 11, 1978, the shah traveled to Riyadh, followed by an April visit to Tehran by Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud to renew talks, which Iraq stalled. On April 28, 1978, the shah visited Riyadh after Iran and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement to partition the neutral zone between them. By May, Iraq agreed to a new proposal for joint Gulf security after the alarming takeover of Afghanistan’s government by a Soviet-backed Marxist regime, which boosted the US interest in Iran as an anticommunist bulwark. In July, Crown Prince Fahd visited Tehran, followed by an August trip to Baghdad, to secure a new pact after south Yemen fell to leftist groups with Moscow’s help. Fahd laid out a set of principles including the exclusion of superpow- ers from the region, but Iraq refused any limitations on its alliance with the Soviet Union. By autumn, the shah had lost his own grip on power, and fled Iran on January 16, 1979. Iraq subsequently proposed an Arab security force to protect the Gulf, which was rejected: Arab leaders did not trust Saddam Hussein. 56

Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Controversies over Partnering with the United States In 1972, the Nixon administration’s twin pillars policy asserted US commit- ment to security in the Persian Gulf. The policy, entertained by the British since 1952 in the context of granting independence to the southern Gulf, required Saudi–Iranian cooperation. Lyndon Johnson had advocated a simi- lar policy during the Vietnam War, pressing Britain to settle Gulf disputes prior to its withdrawal to guarantee that regional states themselves would maintain future peace. The twin pillars policy could keep Iran’s lofty regional ambitions in check, by making Tehran depend on its Arab neighbors to uphold secu- rity. The task was not easy. Iran had witnessed an annual economic growth rate of 8–10 percent since 1965, which ended the American grant aid to it. This was replaced by US financing of Iranian military purchases through Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry ● 101 export-import credit banks. 57 Since the policy arrived in the wake of the 1970 oil market upheavals that transformed the United States into a net oil importer, it made Iran central to US foreign policy given its ability to oper- ate a vast national oil infrastructure and lead OPEC. Iran was also a swing producer in OPEC, a position that inflated its imperial ambition to police the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia would soon control its oil given the demand for sellers’ market, and renegotiate new participation terms with interna- tional oil companies. But Iran’s army of 150,000 men was still five times larger than the Saudi Arabian forces. Nonetheless, Riyadh was gradually able to take over Iran’s preferred position, aided by larger oil reserves, smaller domestic energy consumption, and fewer regional ambitions. Subsequently, while Faisal and the shah strengthened sympathetic political lobbies in the United States, US export of military goods to Saudi Arabia and Iran increased tenfold. Although Saudi Arabia lacked the capacity to absorb the higher military spending, in terms of actual arms purchases it matched Iran by 1979. Oil changed the paradigms of the twin pillars policy when Riyadh and Tehran set out to change market prices. For a decade, Saudi and Iranian oil ministry officials had aimed to sidestep the monopoly of multinational oil companies that dominated market prices. In 1970, King Faisal agreed to support the shah’s USD 0.33 price hike per barrel. Riyadh simultane- ously concluded new agreements with Tehran to expand commercial ties and shipping ventures in the Persian Gulf, and in January 1972, after a high- level visit by Iran’s ministry of finance officials, the two capitals expanded joint investments in their industrial sectors. When the Arab oil embargo broke down the OPEC consortium in 1973, the subsequent sale and purchase agreement gave Iran temporary control over its oil pricing. The shah planned a massive price hike of almost USD 12 per barrel in December. A US defense department mission survey of Saudi defense needs articulated the kingdom’s dependency on Iran for advancing regional security; King Faisal made the fateful decision to stick with the shah’s price hike proposal and absorb the huge revenues. 58 The increase in oil prices emboldened Saudi Arabia and Iran; although a large part of oil revenues were absorbed in a massive arms purchase from the United States, a latent challenge to Washington emerged. While Iran pushed for higher prices, Saudi Arabia maintained a full embargo on oil shipments to the United States until March 1974, after month-long negotiations with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to reverse a global recession. Discussions focused on Israeli troop withdrawal from parts of the Sinai that belonged to Egypt, and a promise to return the Golan Heights to Syria. In the process, Faisal obtained USD 15 billion worth of military equipment from American companies. Although Washington made occasional demands throughout 102 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

1974 to drop oil prices, it ended up working with Saudi Arabia and Iran on the issue because Faisal refused to immediately undercut the shah. The embargo triggered a new era of interdependency between Saudi Arabia and the United States, but weakened relations between Riyadh and Tehran, primarily due to the shah’s miscalculations. Riyadh and Washington were both displeased at the shah’s efforts in December 1973 to auction Iranian oil at the higher price of USD 17.4. Iran had clearly taken advantage of the oil shortage after the embargo. But Saudi desire to link oil policies to the resolu- tion of the Arab–Israeli conflict overshadowed the shah’s attempts to lead OPEC, which was evident by his frequent remarks about Saudi oil minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani and his perceived unfaithfulness to Iran when Yamani insisted on lowering oil prices by USD 2 per barrel in May 1974. President Nixon’s June 1974 visit to Saudi Arabia had the shah worrying that the kingdom would lower prices in exchange for 100 percent ownership and control of its oil operations. But contrary to the shah’s presumption that Washington controlled Riyadh’s decisions, the United States—according to a former US ambassador to Riyadh—“was never the master but the hired help” in the kingdom. 59 Indeed, after a decade of stringent fiscal poli- cies before the embargo, higher oil revenues now allowed Saudi Arabia to embark on a series of defense, development, technological and investment plans, on its own terms. Realizing his missteps, the shah hinted at moderating oil prices to help stabilize the world economy. In July, Yamani and Saqqaf urged him to accept a price cut. The shah believed the kingdom did not want the cut as a matter of policy, saying that was what Saqqaf had said to him in private, and was disheartened by Riyadh’s lack of transparency on the issue. 60 W h e n S a u d i deputy oil minister and future foreign minister Prince Saud al Faisal Al Saud visited Tehran in August, bearing a personal letter from his father to ask the shah to reduce prices, the shah rejected the offer. He promised to coordinate oil policies with the kingdom, but felt he could not trust the Saudis, bit- terly complaining that they frequently said one thing in his face but acted differently when they met the Americans.61 Prince Fahd and Saud al-Faisal would subsequently meet with the shah and members of the Iranian cabinet to smooth over the problems in late 1974, offering Iran to raise its non-oil exports to the kingdom, and increase the number of pilgrims by almost a half to about 40,000 annually. 62 The shah proceeded to strengthen economic ties with the Soviet Union. Although the kingdom agreed to cut prices at the urging of the United States, it eventually yielded to the shah’s demand for higher oil prices. Yet, it maintained influence over long-term oil markets, and aimed to discourage the development of non-oil energy sources by keeping oil prices competitive. The Algiers Agreement that ended Iran’s border tensions with Iraq allowed Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry ● 103

Riyadh a chance to refuse a further price hike by working with Iraq, another major oil producer. Two days after King Faisal’s death, Fahd—considered a proponent of relations with both Iraq and the United States—announced Riyadh’s intention to reach out to Baghdad.63 Faisal had failed to normalize ties with Baathist Iraq. Despite Saddam’s tactic, upon assuming power in 1979, of softening his tone to push Baghdad out of its diplomatic isolation, the Iraqi Baath regime had never ceased to verbally attack the kingdom throughout the 1970s. Its provocations induced Faisal to upgrade the border military base at Hafar al-Batin, and to seek Iran’s help in containing Iraq—mindful that a war with Baghdad would not be a conflict Riyadh could fight alone. By turning to Iraq to contain Iran, the new Saudi leaders followed the kingdom’s basic foreign policy rule to address the immediate challenge, which appeared to be Iran, without recall- ing the difficult past with Baathist Iraq. Riyadh’s overtures to Baghdad dampened relations with the shah, despite a visit in late 1975 by Prince Fahd to Tehran followed by King Khalid’s trip in May 1976. The Saudi delegation that included defense minister Prince Sultan, were pleased with their visit to Tehran. The shah ordered a warm reception to greet the king to his residence, the historic Golestan Palace; but he seemed less than eager to spend time with the Saudi monarch. He believed King Khalid was not a strong ruler with whom he could see eye-to- eye. When he was asked about details of the meetings with Khalid, the shah replied dismissively that, as long as the Saudis did not adopt damaging poli- cies behind his back and against Iran, he was grateful. In private, the shah maintained that the United States was turning Saudi Arabia against him. When Israel informed Iran that Washington had promised Saudi Arabia Maverick missiles should it refuse to increase oil prices, the shah replied that the offer probably aimed to break the good relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran.64 In May 1976, the kingdom stymied the proposed price hike by Iran and Iraq at a meeting in Bali, but a border dispute between Iraq and Kuwait— and Oman’s refusal to risk its special relationship with Iran—temporarily halted the Bali decision to maintain low prices. 65 When OPEC met in Doha in December, Riyadh turned down Iranian and Iraqi proposals for an initial 10 percent price hike followed by an additional 5 percent, agreeing only to a 5 percent price hike while other OPEC members except the UAE intro- duced a 10 percent increase. The Saudi decision was preceded in April by a flooding of the oil market to maintain a maximum 5 percent hike through- out the following year. The Carter administration hailed the Saudi effort, and by 1977 the shah was forced to accept the kingdom’s position. At a visit to Washington in November, a bruised shah who was now internally much weaker, pledged the US president to oppose price hikes. His stance reflected 104 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran an earlier agreement reached at in June with Saudi Arabia to freeze prices through 1978. Over the next two years, Iran—although it adhered to a coherent OPEC pricing policy—continued to campaign for higher prices as internal events leading to the Iranian revolution began to unfold. US policy of pressur- ing the shah for reduced prices suddenly seemed shortsighted, although it is unclear if the shah would have survived much longer in the event of an oil price hike. While Saudi Arabia was able to meet its development goals with lower prices and increased production of nearly 10 percent each year, Iran was unable to increase production by more than 2.5 percent. In effect, Washington (especially under Gerald Ford’s administration) allowed its oil policies to lead its long-term security policies for the Gulf region. The Carter administration continued the policy of pushing for lower oil prices while it shelved its reform agenda for Saudi Arabia, despite President Carter’s elec- tion promises to address this issue. At the same time, the administration allowed itself to be carried away by Iran’s internal turmoil, the shah’s grow- ing arrogance, and finally his refusal to comply with the reforms Washington advocated for Iran. The United States thus lost sight of Iran’s importance in maintaining regional stability, and would continue to do so for the next 30 years, leading average Iranians to speculate, somewhat in biased fashion, about a deliberate grand US design to always keep Iran weak because of its inherent geopoliti- cal power and capable human resources compared to the rest of the region. More importantly, through its actions, Washington disrupted the crucial balance of power between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which proved to be the best long-term guarantee of Gulf stability. Although that balance was hard to maintain, in the brief periods that Saudi Arabia and Iran were able to uphold it, they prospered, as did the region. Although US disregard for the concerns of an old ally disturbed Saudi perceptions about Washington’s loyalties, by 1978 the balance of power tilted unmistakably in Riyadh’s favor. The Saudi plan to maintain a positive standing in international markets also helped increase Saudi investments and political clout in the West. Yet the shah’s anguished demise was hard to watch for Saudis who had long relied on his partnership. In the fall of 1978, Fahd who had developed a friendly rapport with the shah, turned to the United States to find ways to support him. However, that hope was dashed when President Carter publicly stated, in December, that in his view the shah’s regime might not survive. Internally, Saudi Arabia struggled to respond to the Iranian crisis as new multiple power centers under King Khalid’s rule emerged, allowing power- ful princes to influence foreign policy. Nevertheless, the important posi- tion Iran held in Saudi policy calculations at the time was unmistakable. Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry ● 105

As Iranian oil production declined, the Saudis increased production to be helpful. The kingdom was equally anxious not to be seen siding overtly with the United States. As a result, four days after the shah’s departure from Iran on January 16, 1979, the kingdom decided to cut oil production for the first quarter of the year, against a decision arrived at only three weeks earlier in Abu Dhabi to increase it. Saudi decision was viewed as an expression of its displeasure with the United States for refusing to protect a friend, as well as a possible symbolic gesture to express dissatisfaction over Egypt’s peace deal with Israel after the Camp David Accords were signed. By February, the cut had managed to increase demand, which jolted the markets. On February 1, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran, and soon signaled Iran’s desire to pursue hawkish oil policies, forcing the kingdom once again to avert a price hike. Saudi Arabia never desired a weak or isolated Iran, contrary to the assumption that many Iranians have held on steadfastly since that period. Moreover, characterizing Saudi behavior toward Iran as being driven by rivalry especially on the issue of oil prices makes a simplistic, one- dimensional observation—despite being valid up to a point. Frequently, Saudi behavior comprised the sum total of its survival strategies to cope with both Iranian and American demands; rivalry with Iran represented only a segment of those strategies. The kingdom depended on a powerful, reliable Iran to complement its role in the region for most of the period under exami- nation in this chapter. Only when Iran implemented unharmonious policies would the kingdom, given its generally cautious foreign policy, reluctantly take tactical steps to contain Iranian actions. The shah and King Faisal embodied this understanding.

PART III

Saudi–Iranian Relations after the 1979 Iranian Revolution CHAPTER 7

Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran

rom its inception in the spring of 1979 following a national referen- dum, Iran’s Islamic republic was the antithesis to the Saudi monar- F chy. Khomeini called for the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy, and argued that Muslims should unite as one nation ( ummah) to administer the holy sites of Makkah and Madinah. The ayatollah gained a small follow- ing with Saudi Shi‘is who looked up to Iran as a center of the Shi‘i world, and inspired disgruntled Saudis who admired Iran’s ability to overthrow a powerful king. The majority of Saudis, however, had no intention of emulating the Iranian leader. Even when Khomeini banned derogatory references to the first three Muslim caliphs, which were pervasive in Iran, Saudis remained ambivalent about the Islamic revolution’s true intentions. “They felt they could not shake the hands of those who insulted the first three caliphs,” I was told by a former member of the Saudi Consultative Assembly ( maj- lis al-shura )—an advisory body set up in 1993 to advise the king. 1 S i n c e Saudi Arabia accorded the same respect to Ali as to the first three caliphs, evidenced by the naming in Madinah of a central freeway after the fourth caliph and the impeccable preservation of Ali’s mosque (masjid ali ), the Iranian behavior seemed incomprehensible. (Strangely, in Iran, the fact that the kingdom preserved Ali’s legacy was hardly ever told or recounted by its clerics who preferred to preserve a narrative that focused more on the con- cept of Shi‘i victimhood than its inclusion in the Islamic world). Similarly, the revolution’s disregard for the religious rights of Iran’s minority Sunni population, despite a new constitution calling for their protection, did not go unnoticed in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom’s influence and prestige in the Muslim world served as an effective deterrent against Iran’s attempts to export its revolution, a 110 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran fundamental pillar of the new Iranian foreign policy. Saudi efforts to fund the establishment of Islamic universities, schools, and mosques in other Islamic countries since the 1950s rendered pale by comparison Tehran’s goals for the Muslim world. On the one hand, the revolutionaries borrowed ideas from the shah’s time to form an Islamic common market or news agency, which implied willingness to work with other Muslim states. On the other hand, they aided and funded Islamic movements abroad to build opposition or stir revolts against ruling elites. But neither Riyadh nor Tehran were anxious to cast their rivalry in ideo- logical terms, and more so because the former had never felt at ease with the shah. Turki al-Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence, told me: “The king- dom viewed the idea of Shi‘i–Sunni rivalry with Tehran’s leaders as a myth, and was determined to pursue its national interests in its dealings with revo- lutionary Iran.”2 In this context, Khomeini’s universal message for Sunnis and Shi‘is, to avoid actions that broke their ranks enabled the Saudi leader- ship to devise realpolitik responses to the Iranian challenge. When Tehran insisted on spreading its revolution, for example, the kingdom charged it of exporting terrorism, and questioned whether revolution should be Iran’s aim, or the construction of a model Islamic state. Riyadh insisted that revo- lution was not threatening to its indisputable Islamic credentials. Saudi cler- ics were encouraged to develop an alternative Islamist discourse to counter the Iranian revolutionary challenge based on the tenets of Wahhabism that supported ruling monarchs. Yet, Crown Prince Fahd avoided publicizing the clerics’ new role to avoid openly stirring anti-Shi‘i hatred that could disturb the regional status quo. Mehdi Bazargan, who briefly led the provisional postrevolutionary government in Tehran, was as adamant as the leadership in Riyadh about maintaining a moderate foreign policy toward Saudi Arabia. In July 1979 he received a Saudi delegation led by the Secretary-General of the Muslim World League. The delegation tried to impress upon Iran that they had been disillusioned with the shah’s secular ideas, and expressed hopes to improve ties. In a message, King Khalid even called the revolution a beginning to further closeness and understanding, and Prince Fahd claimed great respect for Iran’s new leadership. 3 King Khalid and Prince Fahd also insisted on supplying kerosene, in short supply in Iran, with the king emphasizing that whatever came from the country, oil would be exported as long as its people needed it. 4 Riyadh’s overtures to Tehran were derailed when the armed Tudeh Party and the religious-Marxist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) tried to hijack the revolution from the Islamists, a prospect Crown Prince Fahd fore- warned Washington about when the United States abandoned support for the shah. Khomeini reluctantly sidelined Bazargan’s Freedom Movement Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran ● 111

Party that could moderate the radical trends shaping in Iran after the revolu- tion. The Islamists fought street battles with the Tudeh and MKO, and took 52 Americans hostage at the US embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. They justified the embassy takeover as a necessary step to halt Bazargan’s friendliness toward Washington and compromising stance with leftist par- ties who had also helped shape the revolution. Saudi diplomat Gaafar Al Lagany told me that by the time Bazargan lost hold of power, and the UN issued Resolution 457 calling on Iran to release the hostages, Riyadh felt “it had no choice but to take sides with the US.” 5 Even so, when Washington proposed to station military aircraft in the kingdom to signal its displeasure with Tehran, Riyadh insisted that the aircraft should not carry ammunition, a sign of its desire to avoid provoking revolutionary Iran. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on 27 December advanced the regional consensus between Washington and Riyadh. Saudi Arabia pri- vately financed US foreign policy in Afghanistan and helped recruit vol- unteers to fight the Soviets. In the process, it supported Afghan figures such as Abd al Rasoul Sayyaf who was thought later to have invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan, and Moulana Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi from the Harekat Enghelab Eslami who despite being a moderate himself, helped train many would-be Taliban leaders. At the same time, Riyadh sup- ported influential figures that Tehran also endorsed, including Sebgatullah Mojadedi and Gulbudin Hekmatyar. Tehran rejected major funding for Afghan fighters to avoid provoking Russia. Its funds to Afghan Shi‘i fighters seemed negligible or almost non- existent for the duration of the Soviet invasion through to February 1989. 6 Instead, Tehran opted to support Dari-speaking Afghans by helping build a seven faction coalition. This brought Ahmad Shah Masoud, a Sunni Tajik who led Afghanistan’s main military operations closer to Iran. At the same time, Tehran endorsed a Saudi-backed eight faction coalition of dominant Afghan Sunni parties. The two coalitions fell apart as Afghanistan’s war- time realities shifted, but they converged over the need to promote the country’s unity based on its multitude ethnic identities and not its religious divisions. 7 Likewise in Iraq, Tehran was forced to abandon narrow ideological goals to retain its influence in the country. Iraqi Shi‘i clerics rejected Tehran’s efforts to politicize Islam. The rejection was necessary. It helped protect Iraqi seminaries from intrusion by the Sunni-led Baath regime. Moreover, Iraqi clerics challenged Khomeini’s propagation of the principle of velayat faqih (rule of Islamic jurisprudence), designed to grant the ayatollah politi- cal authority in the Shi‘i world. In response, to avoid upsetting senior Iraqi clerics in Najaf and Karbala, Khomeini ignored Iraqi activists such as al-Shiraziyyin, who called for the overthrow of the government in Baghdad. 112 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

When their leader Muhammad al-Shirazi, also an outspoken critic of velayat faqih, arrived in Iran in exile, his activities were controlled. Khomeini also recognized that his influence over the Saudi Shi‘i clerics was limited. Like their Iraqi counterparts, Saudi Shi‘i theologians rejected threatening the state, more so given their long history of exclusion from power compared to Iraqi and Iranian clerics. In fact, throughout the history of the Arabian Peninsula until at least the 1950s, minority Shi‘is and major- ity Sunnis generally coexisted, which prevented the former from revolting. As the size of most politically mobilized groups remained small to begin with, and as Riyadh never viewed opposition as radical unless armed, a dis- course developed between Riyadh and the Shi‘i clerics. By the time Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980, most Shi‘i activists in the kingdom’s Eastern Province who were sympathetic to the Iranian revolution decided to follow Iraqi Shi‘i clerics instead, to endorse apolitical religious figureheads, and to show solidarity with a fellow Arab state. They also used the momentum to develop a discourse with the Saudi state to help advance Shi‘i rights in the kingdom. Infrequently, some Saudi clerics chose to study in Iran, which supported the self-created Organization for Islamic Revolution in the Arabian Peninsula (IRO),—such as the prominent Yusuf al-Mahdi—but they generally kept their distance from Iran’s power establishment. 8 However, a few Saudi cler- ics who had studied in the Iranian seminaries would later join the tajamu ‘ulema al-hijaz, the clerical wing of the Iranian-backed opposition group Hizbollah al-Hijaz set up in 1987. Some of these clerics, such as Hussein Al Radi and Hashim Al Shaks studied under Iran’s earlier revolutionary lead- ers including Ayatollah Ali Montazeri and Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi.9 But like their instructors who turned into more progressive thinkers within the Iranian establishment, they would also over time aim to adopt a constructive human rights discourse with the Saudi state. Nonetheless, antistate protests did erupt in the kingdom in the wake of the Iranian revolution, but only among the most radical Sunni and Shi‘i groups. Riyadh opted to appease the unarmed opposition that also enjoyed support among Saudi civic, intellectual and reform circles, includ- ing groups that even adhered to communist or socialist principles following the establishment of a Saudi communist party in 1975. The appeasement went through despite the ferocity of the opposition in the armed takeover of the Grand Mosque in Makkah by Sunni rebels led by Juhayman Al Utaybi in November 1979 and simultaneous protests in the Eastern Province and Madinah, which small, secret cells in the army, National Guard, and even the extended royal establishment helped support. 10 In the Eastern Province, young Shia leaders such as Hassan Al Safar and Tawfiq Al Sayf who fol- lowed the Movement of Vanguard Revolutionaries (MVM) established in Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran ● 113

1975 instigated further uprisings, but quickly abandoned armed action against the state by 1980 recognizing its limits to help advance Shi‘i rights in Saudi Arabia. 11 By defying the Saudi–US partnership, Iran’s key challenge to the king- dom remained nonideological. Tehran called for a new post-American regional order, and used the haj to propagate the message. At times, Saudi authorities charged that Iranian security agents joining the pilgrims car- ried low-grade plastic explosives to instigate riots. Iranian radio broad- casts reported that the kingdom was vulnerable to pressure from pilgrims, who advocated the message during protests in Makkah, abetted at times by Saudi willingness to allow them to denounce Israel publicly as long as they refrained from criticizing the kingdom or its ties with Washington. Discussions in early 1982 between Iran and Saudi Arabia helped resolve the problems. Riyadh developed a multipronged policy to balance its ties with the United States by delegating authority on the issue to key royals. Fahd pressed for rapid industrial modernization programs and basic political reforms, measures that were domestically beneficial and kept American investors and the US government engaged. (The plans would soon prove to be highly costly, as they also avoided heavy taxations.) Defense minister Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz and interior minister Nayef bin Abd al-Aziz urged Riyadh to provide ample material benefits to people to stifle potential unrest arising from the kingdom’s connection to the United States. Reflecting his conser- vative tribal constituencies, the head of the National Guard, Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz, favored cautious reform and distance from Washington. 12 I n my discussions with an advisor to the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh, I was told that some of King Faisal’s sons urged more engagement with Iran to balance the kingdom’s relations with the United States, but the majority of the Riyadh leadership did not view Iran as an essential strategic or economic partner. In the end, Prince Fahd rejected the Carter administration’s proposal to station US military forces in Saudi Arabia to counter a potential Iranian threat, but maintained an open line of communication with the United States over Iran. King Khalid and Abdullah strengthened Saudi ties with other Arab states as a counterweight against Iran, and worked with Baghdad and Damascus to tone down their vehement opposition to the Camp David Accords in order to preserve Arab unity. Simultaneously, Riyadh turned down Iraq’s demand for an oil embargo against the United States, but appeased Baghdad by refusing US calls for oil price cuts. Ultimately, the kingdom also rejected Camp David to silence the accords’ Arab critics. The one area where Saudi Arabia sought US help was over Yemen. Washington gave limited support in the form of emergency arms supplies to the Yemen 114 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Arab Republic (YAR), while the kingdom pushed for a regional solution to the conflict between north and south Yemen through the Arab League. 13

The Saudi Factor in the Iran–Iraq War Revolutions add to the pressures that lead to war by shifting the balance of power and giving states reason or opportunity to go to war. 14 Iraq, where a Shi‘i insurgency was brewing, cited concerns about the export of Iran’s revo- lution, and claimed that Ayatollah Khomeini rejected the Algiers Agreement, a charge the ayatollah’s opponents in Iran and within the Iranian exiled community had also levelled against him. This was serious enough for Iraq’s Arab neighbors to be alarmed, and show determination to fight back. The moderate-tempered Iraqi President Hassan al-Bakr, nonetheless, sought to maintain cordial ties with revolutionary Iran. But when Saddam Hussein succeeded the ailing president in July 1979, relations between Iran and Iraq rapidly deteriorated. As president, Saddam demanded that Iran relinquish the province of Khuzestan and the three disputed islands of Abu Musa and the Tunbs, ordered the deportation of Iraqis of Iranian origin and mem- bers of the politically active Shi‘i Dawa Party, forced Iraqi men married to Iranian women to divorce their spouses, and led a campaign to silence prominent Iraqi Shi‘i clerics, most notably Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr. Finally, on September 22, 1980, he abrogated the 1975 Algiers Agreement and ordered the invasion of Iran, citing a territorial dispute over the Shatt al-Arab. Iran contended that the United States and Saudi Arabia had incited Iraq to start the war, although only a series of loosely overlapping events sup- ported this claim. The war was preceded by the proclamation on January 23, 1980, of the Carter Doctrine, which allowed US forces to engage in opera- tions abroad. A Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF) was set up to grant US forces combat rights in the Persian Gulf. On February 8, Saddam unveiled the Pan-Arab Charter in Baghdad, which decreed that should Iraq go to war with a non-Arab state, other Arab countries must rally behind it. On February 13, led by Prince Nayef, Saudi Arabia expressed approval of the charter, believing Iraq to be the only credible deterrent against the prolifera- tion of Iran’s revolution. Although the Pan-Arab Charter rejected foreign intervention in the Persian Gulf, US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski emphasized that Iraq played a central role in containing Iran, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) opened a station in Baghdad. 15 By assigning Iraq a prominent position as regional balancer, Riyadh may have inadvertently gone along with Saddam’s decision to start the war, given his assertion that victory would be quick over Iran. Internally, however, con- fusion in Saudi Arabia prevailed about the war. According to an anonymous Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran ● 115 source who spoke to me in Riyadh, the kingdom aided Iraq logistically right after the war broke out, as the choice of defending an Arab state against a non-Arab state was obvious. (I could not independently verify this infor- mation.) But Riyadh almost immediately tried to dissuade Tehran from continuing hostilities, which cast doubt on the circumstances under which, according to Saddam, King Khalid might have blessed Iran’s invasion. Turki al-Faisal told me that Saudi Arabia did not provide material sup- port to Iraq until almost two years into the war, around the time Iran entered Iraq and occupied Faw and Majnoon. 16 The point was more or less confirmed to me by a former Iranian senior official at the foreign minis- try. Tehran was aware that Riyadh refused to aid Saddam when the war broke out. In fact, Riyadh’s financial aid to Baghdad arrived almost two years into the war, months before Iran advanced into Iraq after abandoning talks with Riyadh to end the war. But despite Saudi hesitation about aiding Saddam, Jordan and the YAR willingly supported him, which perplexed Iran. The kingdom aided both Jordan and the YAR; however, it remained wary of their radical Arab leanings and avoided provoking Iran so directly. In the end, Saddam’s generous financial aid to the YAR and Jordan above all explained their alliance against Iran—not to mention Jordan and Iraq’s historic Hashemite connections. There is little to suggest that Riyadh’s official policies toward Tehran in the course of the war stemmed exclusively from pervasive ideologically driven resentment toward Iran. The kingdom was cautious not to instigate Shi‘i-Sunni rivalries given the potential impact on the Saudi Shi‘is. Riyadh was even dismissive toward Saddam’s open attempts to reframe the war as a conflict triggered by Arab Baathism to one between Sunnis and Shi‘is, which he designed partly to ensure a wedge between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Rather, the kingdom encouraged Saddam to end the war. But at the same time, Riyadh could not remain indifferent to Saudi intellectual, religious, and dissident circles that continued, invariably, to hold stereotypical views of Iran. For example, dissident preachers such as Salman Al Aoun spoke of the “cultural pollution” that Persia represented to the Arab heartland. 17 In the course of this research, two views emerged that reflected how Tehran assessed Riyadh’s motives during the war. A former ambassador to Saudi Arabia after the revolution told me that ideology was the key factor in the Saudi decision to support Iraq. He argued that most Saudis believed that defending Sunni Iraq against Shi‘i Iran was a holy call that pressured Riyadh into backing Iraq.18 Indeed, certain radical Saudi groups even regarded that Shi‘i blood could rightfully be shed (zamm al-helal ). However, according to a veteran Iranian diplomat who served in the Arab world for over three decades under the shah, there was never a doubt in Iran that the Saudi lead- ership, if not a segment of its population, was progressive in its views on Iran 116 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran and, given the choice, never wished to confine its relations with Tehran to questions of Shi‘i/Sunni or Shi‘i/Wahhabi identities.19 Clearly absorbed by the revolution, Tehran failed to heed the signs of pending crisis with Saudi Arabia or Iraq, or anticipate wartime needs. When the war broke out, 140,000 army recruits had defected in the wake of the revolution, reducing Iran’s armed forces to 110,000 men. Fewer than a dozen tanks protected the borders with Iraq, which was able to penetrate 120 km into Iran and occupy over ten cities within weeks. 20 Senior military com- manders were executed, the air force was grounded, and army pilots were imprisoned only to be released after the war began, to train new pilots and fly. For weeks, local volunteers from Khuzestan, including members of my extended relatives, were Iran’s first line of defense against the Iraqi advance. Ethnic Iranian Arabs resisting another Arab state, they dispelled Saddam’s hope of annexing Khuzestan. The Iranians repelled the Iraqis by the second month of the war. The regular armed forces competed with revolutionary volunteers of young men who compensated for their lack of military training with a willingness to embrace Shi‘i martyrdom, fighting what they thought was an army of Baathist infidels. Still, based on my own firsthand accounts and memories of the war, Tehran’s politicians did not frame the war as a Shi‘i–Sunni conflict, to avoid hostilities with the general Arab public and maintain the revolution’s universal message. They also banned religious provoca- tions that could lead to Baathist reprisals against Iraqi Shi‘is—despite Saddam’s casting of Iranian Shi‘is as “flies,” encouraging the destruction of private property and violence against civilians, and supporting dehuman- izing techniques to break the bonds between Iraqi Shi‘i army recruits and Iranian fighters. Even so, the setbacks on the Iraqi battlefront alarmed Saudi Arabia. When Tehran charged that Washington had provided covert military and intelli- gence support to Baghdad, the kingdom—fearing Iranian reprisal—sought to acquire US-made Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS). The system depended on American backup support, which was later employed to help down Iranian aircraft that entered Saudi airspace. On May 25, 1981, based on a proposal forwarded by Kuwait, the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (Gulf Cooperation Council or GCC) was established comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. The kingdom had earlier rejected a pro- posal by Washington to set up a strategic consensus plan under its protection to counter potential Iranian or Iraqi threats. Yet Iran ignored Saudi efforts to keep Washington at arm’s length, arguing that the GCC was an American ploy against it, and proceeded to set up the Office of the Liberation Front of Arabia with the aim of jeopardizing internal Saudi security. Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran ● 117

The GCC position on the war held that neither Iran nor Iraq could emerge as victors or disturb the flow of oil through Gulf waters; but the organization was politically divided, and preferred to keep diplomatic chan- nels with both states open. By December 1981, it tilted toward Iraq after charging Iran of plotting to overthrow Bahrain’s monarchy. Iran rejected the charge as an exaggerated statement to gain American sympathy for Bahrain, and called on the GCC to recognize Iran’s concern over the organization’s support for Iraq. The charge came after Tehran’s radicals had turned down a painstakingly negotiated peace proposal by Riyadh. President Abolhassan Banisadr, who had initiated early contact with the kingdom to end the war, was impeached. Consequently Kuwait (where Iran would be implicated in several violent attacks in 1983 against Kuwaiti oil installations and in 1985 against the Emir of Kuwait Jaber al-Ahmad Al Sabah), along with Saudi Arabia, provided Iraq with its first major financial aid, to the tune of USD 4 billion each. In May 1982, Iran recaptured Khorramshahr and made its first advance into Iraq. Saudi Arabia reportedly sought Egyptian military intervention to protect Iraq, which Cairo rejected, and also signed separate bilateral security agreements with the GCC where clear divisions were emerging, indicated by the fact that the combined trade surplus of five GCC states excluding Bahrain had dropped by almost half in 1981–1982 alone due to the war. While Saudi Arabia could absorb the loss (although its foreign reserves too would considerably shrink by more than 50 percent), doing so was difficult for the smaller states. Oman, the UAE, and later Qatar advocated working with Iran, which had declared that it would block the Persian Gulf waterway until all the regional states helped restore Gulf security collectively. Alarmed, Riyadh urged Saddam to declare unilateral withdrawal from occupied Iranian territory and accept a ceasefire under UN Resolution 514 on June 11, 1982. On October 14, Saudi Arabia helped pass UN Resolution 522, to emphasize that the GCC expected Iranian reciprocation in accepting a ceasefire. Tehran rejected ceasefire calls, demanding Saddam be brought to trial. Turki al-Faisal told me the kingdom found Iran’s response baffling: “The Iranian people had repelled the Iraqi forces, and it seemed a good time to accept a ceasefire.” 21 Iran maintained it had been wrongly invaded, and as even the UN appeared unwilling to admit so, no ceasefire proposal could be genuine. More importantly, if Saddam was not brought to justice, a stronger Baath regime could reemerge and challenge Iran, with US and GCC backing. Despite Riyadh’s best attempts, therefore, Tehran used its fresh ground offensive to alter the Iraqi threat paradigm, and Ayatollah Khomeini vowed to fight until Karbala was liberated, rekindling Gulf fears of a hidden Iranian Shi‘i agenda. 118 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

King Khalid’s death on June 12, 1982, strengthened the US orientation of Saudi foreign policy. Prince Sultan was promoted to second prime minis- ter, and along with his position as defense minister he guaranteed Riyadh’s commitment to a military partnership with Washington. Sultan’s son and the favorite nephew of King Fahd, Bandar bin Sultan, was dispatched as ambassador to Washington to lobby for an active US role in maintaining Gulf security. In January 1983, President Ronald Reagan elevated the status of RDJTF to US Central Command for the Persian Gulf, followed by the launch of Operation Staunch in the spring by Secretary of State George Shultz to halt the illegal flow of US arms to Iran. Saudi Arabia remained the largest investor in US banks, treasury bonds, and real estate to cement this new Saudi–US understanding. 22 It also urged Washington, which had extended USD 400 million of credit to Baghdad, to resume formal ties with Iraq in 1984 (despite US hesitation due to Iraq’s use of chemical weapons in the war), which had been broken after the latter’s support for Egypt and Syria in the 1967 war with Israel. Unable to break the evolving Baghdad–Riyadh–Washington axis, Tehran challenged it on the issue of Palestine by condemning the Arab failure to support the cause. In 1981, an Arab summit in Fez endorsed Crown Prince Fahd’s proposal for a two-state solution to the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, and for the first time Arab states officially called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops to pre-1967 borders. That goal was never achieved, because Washington overlooked new Israeli settlements on land seized after that period. Iran took advantage of the breakdown in peace talks, and worked with its Arab allies to build a new front against Israel. In the process, it sup- ported Palestinian groups opposed to any Middle East peace settlement, undermining the PLO that supported Iraq. It also allied itself with Syria, which was frustrated by its inability to reclaim the Golan Heights from Israel. Thus a potential Baghdad–Damascus–Riyadh understanding over Palestine was overturned following the Fez summit. Iran’s and Israel’s interests seemingly overlapped after the Fez summit. Iran remained open to back-channel deals with Israel to purchase badly needed arms for the warfront. Israeli lobbyists pushed for US arms sales to Iran, which Washington eventually approved despite its neutrality in the war. This action fed existing suspicions in Saudi policy circles of an Iranian– Israeli quid pro quo to contain the core Arab states of the region. Tehran, meanwhile, turned its attention to Lebanon. It recognized that Lebanon’s complex confessional structure meant that Iranian influence there would be best served through a local ally. The Office of the Liberation Movement, run by Khomeini’s designated successor Ali Montazeri, which recruited volunteers for southern Lebanon, was placed under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and instructed to organize Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran ● 119 a resistance force in Lebanon. When Israel invaded Lebanon on June 2, 1982, the Iranian-backed Shi‘i party Hizbullah (“Party of God”) emerged as an offshoot of Islamic Amal (“Hope”), which itself was a breakaway faction from the Syrian-backed Amal Movement. Iran retained its relationship with Syria despite the fallout over Amal, to prevent the Iran–Iraq war from turning into an all-out Iranian–Arab war. Invariably, it would use Syria’s influence over the GCC. Saudi Arabia, however, felt strongly that Arab affairs had to be driven by the combined interests of the Arab states themselves. The Iranian position was therefore only partly effective as events would later see Syria shift to supporting the Arab position on the war. Iran’s intervention diminished Saudi–Syrian ability to advance the Arab– Israeli peace process, nonetheless, and led to their wavering partnership on the issue of the Iran–Iraq war. When Washington overlooked the Fahd Plan following the Fez summit, which was once again reaffirmed after Lebanon’s invasion, Riyadh found itself with fewer supporters and was forced to back the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood against Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, who refused to participate in the plan. When tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members and other Islamist groups were slaughtered by the Syrian army in early 1982, and with Iran advancing into Iraq, Riyadh turned to al-Assad for help to end the war. Al-Assad accepted a mediating role, and an uneasy relationship between Saudi Arabia and Syria evolved despite their opposing views on Iran. Iranian–Syrian relations complicated Saudi Arabia’s stance over Lebanon. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon aimed to bolster the government of Bashir Gemayel, push Syrian forces out of Beirut and quell a PLO rebellion. In 1983–1984, after United States, British, French, and Italian forces arrived in Lebanon to protect Gemayel, Iran and Syria launched a counteroffensive that involved taking Westerners hostage and bombing the US Marine Corps barracks in the capital. Iran’s actions stalled Saudi efforts to urge Syria and the United States to make peace over Lebanon. Al-Assad, whose forces had failed to protect Lebanon from the invasion despite GCC aid, refused to work with Washington or Riyadh. Prince Bandar was then tasked with helping to ease tensions over Lebanon and persuading Syria to accept a peace agreement over the Golan Heights, to help resolve the Palestinian conflict. Yet, despite the Reagan administra- tion’s 1982 plan to resolve the Palestinian–Israeli situation, the United States rejected Saudi peace proposals—including talking with the Syrians, reset- tling Palestinian refugees in Arab states or recognizing the PLO in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. Iran took advantage of this stalemate and sabotaged American and Saudi positions in Beirut through a series of attacks against US military sites and the Saudi embassy and diplomats. As 120 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

American casualties in Lebanon increased, the United States pulled its forces out of the country, and Saudi Arabia was left with the difficult task of restor- ing the Lebanese army in preparation for ending the civil war. 23 In 1984, Iran reclaimed its territory from Iraq but emboldened by its influence over Lebanon, Khomeini vowed to continue the war until al-Quds (Jerusalem) was liberated. The GCC urged al-Assad to push Tehran to accept peace, but the Syrian leader wanted Iraq engaged in the war to force Saudi mediation for a peace settlement over Golan. Tehran rejected UN Resolution 552 of June 1, 1984; turned down peace proposals by the GCC and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC); and declined offers of generous financial compensation by Saudi Arabia. Even so, the GCC sent processed oil to Iran to offset the loss it incurred as a result of Iraq’s targeting of its oil installations, which had cut Iranian oil exports to half. In April and May 1984, Iran attacked Saudi vessels in the Persian Gulf, and threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. The kingdom estab- lished the Fahd Line to patrol the waters, but it maintained contacts with Iran, mindful that the United States would intervene if need be. When an ensuing battlefield stalemate expanded the scope of war into the Gulf itself, the United States deployed forces to retaliate against Iranian and Iraqi fire on oil tankers. This intervention curtailed Iran’s retaliatory responses against Iraqi raids on its oil shipments, and Iran targeted Kuwaiti and Saudi tankers instead. Syria blocked the flow of Iraqi oil through its pipelines, and Riyadh built an alternative pipeline for Iraq that extended to its Red Sea ports. The escalation of the so-called tanker war made Syria hesitate about its involvement in Iran’s battles, with the prospect of a peace settlement over Golan in mind; this tempered Iranian behavior on the question of pro- longing the war. After Iraq ignored the UN-sponsored moratorium on the shelling of nonmilitary targets, and the GCC proceeded to establish the Peninsula Shield Force as a small defense contingency in Saudi Arabia, Iran’s wartime prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi and the pragmatic speaker of parliament Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani urged Khomeini to either end the war or increase supplies to the front to achieve a decisive victory. The protracted conflict gave Saudi Arabia and Iran reason to talk. In November 1984, when a passenger plane hijacked over Saudi airspace landed in Tehran after running out of fuel and was returned safely, Fahd extended an invitation to Rafsanjani to perform the haj, which Khomeini rejected. In early 1985, Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal visited Iran to reduce tensions, but was dismayed by inter-factional rivalries there. Despite Saudi offers of refined petroleum products and other incentives to end the war, Iran was reluctant to constructively change its war policy and only agreed not to incite pilgrims. Montazeri publicly banned discussions with the kingdom, and in May, several explosions in Riyadh were blamed Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran ● 121 on the Islamic Jihad Group that Iran backed. Although the kingdom tried again to balance its relations with Iran through the end of the year, it ulti- mately decided to increase oil production to bring prices down from USD 30 to about USD 10 per barrel to pressure Tehran. Under the umbrella of the GCC, it also conducted joint military maneuvers with the United States, which proceeded to sign bilateral military cooperation agreements to estab- lish bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Tehran remained confused over how to develop a modality for peace. It insisted that the GCC was interested in “peace” without delivering “jus- tice” by refusing to recognize Iraq as the aggressor.24 Mousavi, who had leftist political leanings, argued that Iran had a better chance of negotiating peace with the Iraqi Baath regime because of its socialist character, which resonated with the revolution’s anticapitalist ideals. Mousavi also urged Tehran to avoid the UN, which he maintained was under the influence of imperialism. Iran’s February 10, 1986 offensive into Iraq and the capture of Faw marked the beginning of the final demise of its wartime advances. The GCC called on the United States to reflag Kuwaiti oil tankers, and Kuwait expelled many Iranian residents from the country. Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen sent forces into Iraq, and Syria came under pressure from the GCC to reanimate its relations with Iraq; it complied, having forced Iran to confine its sphere of influence in Lebanon to the south a year before. The revolutionary guards needed better supplies just as Soviet arms sales to Iran dropped on account of its support for the Afghan mujahideen. Sporadic arms supplies from China and North Korea were insufficient to meet wartime demands. Tehran’s inability to reciprocate Iraq’s use of chemi- cal and biological weapons further hampered its progress on the war front. Ayatollah Khomeini, however, argued that Iran could not defend itself by means of toxic weapons even if it was attacked in that manner, invoking a hadith that tells of Muslim fighters advising the use of toxic material in water supplies used by the enemy during wartime, and the prophet warning in turn not to commit mass murder. On February 24, 1986, the UN passed Resolution 582, which deplored the use of chemical weapons in the course of the war and called for an immediate ceasefire. (Despite charges by some US intelligence analysts that Iran had indeed used chemical weapons, there was no persuasive evi- dence for this.) 25 Tehran ignored the resolution, saying it feared it would not receive a fair hearing if it submitted all aspects of its role in the conflict for UN mediation. It also hoped to win the war, as it was secretly receiving arms from the United States. In October 1986, Iran urged the GCC to halt its support of Iraq. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia grudgingly assisted Baghdad with crude oil as war relief. By November, the Iran–Contra scandal came to light, 122 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran revealing that Saudi Arabia may have supported the back-channel arms deal between Washington and Tehran in exchange for Iranian measures to help release American hostages in Lebanon. 26 Embarrassed by the scandal, Washington warmed up to Baghdad. The shift alarmed Tehran, which recognized it needed to work with Riyadh to prevent the war’s reescalation. However, Khomeini’s health was dete- riorating, and his successor Montazeri harbored deep resentment toward the kingdom and the Wahhabi faith. Rafsanjani reached out to the radi- cal Association of Combatant Clergy (anjoman rohanion mobarez) to arrive at a consensus to end the war, with assistance from the supreme leader’s son Ahmad Khomeini. Yet key members of the association—including Ali Akbar Mohtashamipur, Iran’s former ambassador to Syria and then inte- rior minister, and Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha, the representative for haj affairs and a leader of the US embassy takeover—rejected contact with Riyadh. In 1987 Iraq increased attacks on Iranian oil tankers and GCC ves- sels. More than 187 ships were attacked compared to 80 the previous year. Iran’s factional fighting delayed a ceasefire despite a brief effort by Syria and Oman to renew peace talks. In July 1987, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 598. Iran’s mission in New York tried to steer the country away from crippling sanctions, which the United States threatened to impose if Tehran refused to accept the resolution, but Tehran’s radicals sabotaged the initiative. Mohtashamipur blamed the mission for “flirting with the idea of peace” after Iran’s ambassador to New York, Mohammad Mahallati, released an unsigned letter in the council (without a clear mandate from the Iranian government) out of concern that Iran was losing an opportunity for peace. It implied that Iran’s agreement with the UN Secretary-General’s plan drawn in consultation with it to make peace with Iraq was tantamount to acceptance of Resolution 598.27 On July 31, 1987, Saudi security forces attacked Iranian pilgrims during the haj on charges of committing a security breach. Tehran reported that 400 Iranian pilgrims were killed. 28 Other sources numbered the casualties at 275 Iranians, 85 Saudis, and 42 other pilgrims, with 649 injured.29 I n October 1987, when Iran hit a US-reflagged tanker, Washington destroyed two platforms in its offshore Reshadat oilfield. In November, Syria joined the GCC to condemn Iran’s intransigence after Hizbullah waged a ground battle around Beirut against Amal. In April 1988 Saudi Arabia broke ties with Iran, citing concerns over the latter’s refusal to accept its designated haj quota of 45,000—a number far lower than the 150,000 pilgrims Tehran insisted on sending, which led Khomeini to boycott the haj after Tehran’s calls for an international body to administer the haj failed to gain momentum. In future years, Iran would Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran ● 123 make similar calls, to the detriment of sounder relations with Riyadh on the crucial issue of the haj. The breakup occurred within a week of US attacks on Iranian oil platforms and warships, and right before the US Congress voted in favor of an arms sale of USD 450 million to the kingdom. By that time, Iraq had recaptured Faw. As the missile attacks and air raids between Tehran and Baghdad (dubbed the “war of the cities”) escalated in the spring of 1988, Tehran’s residents (including me) began deserting the city en masse. Fears of an Iraqi chemical attack against Tehran, Esfahan, and Tabriz persisted. The radicals pressed Tehran to avoid a ceasefire, despite wartime inflation of 40 percent and unemployment rates of over 25 percent. (Unemployment rates had also surged in the kingdom partly due to the financial toll of the Iran-Iraq war.) But Khomeini removed Montazeri and also appointed Rafsanjani as acting commander in chief of the armed forces, signaling that the country was determined to end hostilities. The ayatollah then searched his soul over the future of Iranian–Saudi ties. At a private meeting, when foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati inquired about the leader’s final verdict on Saudi Arabia, according to Abbas Maleki: “Ayatollah Khomeini responded that despite any differences between Tehran and Riyadh, it was vital that the road to haj should remain open.” 30 Iran would proceed to insist that Saudi Arabia accommodate 4 million of its pilgrims, a number far higher than the standard quota of 10 percent of Iran’s population, to make up for the brief disruption of the haj . This placed enormous constraint on the kingdom’s capacity to absorb them, and it decided that it logistically could not. Nonetheless, according to Al Laghany, the kingdom recognized that: “It was too unusual for two Muslim countries and near neighbors not to have relations.” The king- dom therefore decided that the pilgrimage for Iran should not halt, and in the following years, some 1 million pilgrims made the trip from Iran to Makkah. 31 To signal goodwill to Riyadh, Tehran proceeded to curb support for al- Shiraziyyin, who had a following among Saudi Shi‘is. It also curbed support for the MVM, led by al-Shiraziyyin, although a host of armed transna- tional Shi‘i groups continued sabotaging refineries and petrochemical facilities inside Saudi Arabia and targeting Saudi diplomats abroad. Tehran also strengthened its ties with the Hizbollah al-Hijaz, which, although it recruited many former MVM members, represented a smaller and more organized body than either the MVM or IRO. 32 On June 20, 1988, King Fahd persuaded Saddam to accept a ceasefire. Ten days afterward, fearing wider US involvement in the war after the American missile cruiser USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian passenger plane over the Persian Gulf, Iran accepted UN Resolution 598. With a 124 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran ceasefire in place, King Fahd declared that he saw no major disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Iran. A reported 250,000 Iraqis and 750,000 Iranians were killed in the war, although Iran insisted the total number of its casualties was 220,000. However, an additional 550,000 men were seriously wounded on both sides.33 Thousands of Iranian civilians were killed by Iraqi air raids and missile attacks, and at least 15,000 Iranian troops, aid workers, and report- ers fell victim to Saddam’s rampant use of chemical weapons—some 400 deployments—which Iran contended were supplied by American and European companies. 34 Combined GCC aid to Iraq exceeded USD 50 bil- lion, with Saudi Arabia contributing USD 24.8 billion in addition to logisti- cal support.35 On August 10, 1988, an Omani delegation traveled to Iran to discuss pending Gulf security issues on behalf of the kingdom. Five days later, Iran declared its readiness to cooperate with the GCC to cleanse the Gulf water- way of mines, and began secret talks with Saudi Arabia about enhancing bilateral relations.36 Rafsanjani offered to establish a security pact with the GCC after Tehran merged the IRGC with the regular armed forces. Saudi Arabia did not immediately renew its ties with Iran, however, maintaining that the Iranian threat was constant. A Saudi source told me: “Iran had provoked unrest in Arab states and plotted the overthrow of Bahrain’s and Kuwait’s royal families. As a result, the kingdom held on to the view that if Iran were granted a chance, it would likely return to those old policies.”37 Neither the GCC nor the Arab League called for the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from the 1,000 square kilometers of Iranian territory under Iraqi control. The kingdom urged Saddam to show flexibility in the talks, and received reassurances from Baghdad that it would refrain from attacking Arab states by securing a nonaggression pact with Riyadh—although Iraq sent forces to support the primarily Maronite, right-wing Phalanges Party (Hizb al-Kataeb) in Lebanon, and formed the Arab Cooperation Council with Egypt, Jordan, and YAR on February 17, 1989. Tehran bitterly asserted that the Arab League endorsed Iraq’s claim of full sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab in May 1989. Disagreements over ceasefire terms led to a state of “no war, no peace,” which served to keep Iranian and Iraqi forces preoccupied along their borders. Tehran would also later argue that blatant GCC disregard for the internationally recognized shared border between Iran and Iraq emboldened Saddam to attack Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The kingdom, however, at least attempted to resolve the Iraqi–Kuwaiti boundary dispute, allowing Baghdad to receive more than USD 16 billion in debt forgiveness and oil revenue compensations from Kuwait, as well as control of the Warhab island (Iraq demanded control over Bubiyan island as well), which Saddam rejected. Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran ● 125

With the war over, Saudi Arabia resolved to end the civil war in Lebanon. By the fall of 1989, Riyadh managed to negotiate the final terms of the Ta’if Agreement, which restructured the transfer of power from the Maronite presidency to a cabinet divided between Christians and Muslims. According to Prince Turki, “The structure of the Ta’if Agreement was geared toward the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon, includ- ing Syrian and Israeli forces, a measure which had not been contemplated even by the United States before then.” The agreement also ensured there would be no political vacuum in Lebanon later for foreign countries to exploit. 38 Washington refused to commit to the Ta’if proposal, as it was torn between two positions. On the one hand, its Arab allies demanded that Israel return Arab occupied land, but on the other hand, Israel was keen to retain control over those lands and uncertain about whether or not to withdraw from Lebanon. The Ta’if Agreement arrived when Syria’s importance as a mediator with Iran had diminished following the end of the war, allowing the kingdom to meet Washington halfway by pushing for a phased Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon by 1992. Syria accepted Saudi terms in order to receive its support in negotiating a favorable peace agreement with Israel. Although full withdrawal never occurred in 1992, Damascus and Riyadh drew closer, and Syria would later join the coalition to liberate Kuwait. Iran’s radicals were keen to exploit the power vacuum in Lebanon in the event of a Syrian withdrawal, but Tehran viewed the Tai’f Agreement as a blessing: it did not prevent Hizbullah to remain armed as a resistance force. This new standing granted the party passage into mainstream Lebanese politics, allowing Tehran to control the radical IRGC contingent, which operated in Lebanon, and work with Damascus to bring about an end to clashes between Amal and Hizbullah based on the terms of a January 1989 truce between the two groups. The Ta’if Agreement balanced the interests of Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Levant, but was undermined by Washington, which continued tilting toward Baghdad rather than accepting Tehran’s role as a regional balancer; the United States believed Iran was less reliable than Saddam on account of its factional politics. Meanwhile, Saddam made sudden overtures to Iran to accelerate the implementation of Resolution 598 before his planned invasion of Kuwait. In a series of letter exchanges with Rafsanjani, he promised to recognize the Algiers Agreement. By August 1990, Iraq had withdrawn its remaining troops from Iranian-occupied territories. Tehran was confused by Saddam’s gesture, but decided to settle the boundary dispute, expedite the return of dead troops’ remains, resume pilgrimage to holy Shi‘i sites in Iraq, and facilitate the exchange of Iranian and Iraqi prisoners of war. Tehran and Baghdad agreed to reopen embassies by October 1990. Negotiations 126 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran to finalize the ceasefire began after Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait, but were halted when the United States launched Operation Desert Storm. 39

Gulf War Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait marked the end of the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). On November 29, 1990, a year before the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Moscow withdrew its historic support for Baghdad when the latter was condemned for invading Kuwait in UN Security Council Resolution 678. The pass- ing of the resolution helped the resumption of ties between Saudi Arabia and Russia, and allowed the United States to assemble a military coalition against Iraq pending an ultimatum to withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991. Saudi Arabia’s contribution to the coalition funds amounted to USD 62 billion, and Riyadh invited more than 500,000 US forces to the Persian Gulf. In addition, the kingdom recruited some 200,000 forces from 25 other countries including 14 Muslim states, and thousands of Saudi men were called up to serve in the national army and civil defense forces. These moves helped reduce domestic criticism over Riyadh’s reluctance to fight the war without coalition support, despite heavy spending on the kingdom’s military buildup in the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, it deflected attention from Riyadh’s military partnership with the United States by the socially disenchanted and economically marginalized Saudi volunteer fighters who had returned from Afghanistan to the kingdom, but were considered ill- suited to participate in the new warfront. Tehran felt validated by the Gulf War, which proved that Iraq and not Iran posed the greatest threat to the region. During the Iran–Iraq war, Iran had tried to convey just such a message to the GCC. Montazeri had warned Kuwait to cease supporting Iraq, as by doing so, it could jeopardize its own security. Ayatollah Khomeini also predicted that Saddam would turn against Kuwait when the war with Iran was over. This had GCC diplomats jokingly inquire of Tehran if the ayatollah could also let them know which Arab state would be next to fall after Kuwait. By the time the Gulf War began, Tehran’s factional rivalries had almost halted the outreach to Riyadh, despite the victory of the pragmatic camp led by Rafsanjani who won the presidential elections in mid-1989. Months before Khomeini’s death in June 1989, the Followers of the Imam’s Line faction called for a militant foreign policy toward Riyadh. When the Gulf War broke out, the new centrist supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for the waging of holy war against US forces in Saudi Arabia—a state- ment that was retracted when Iran decided to remain neutral in the war. Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran ● 127

Radical figures such as Mohtashamipur and Khoeiniha pushed for Iran to side with Iraq, and although the former was dismissed from his post as interior minister, he presided over a parliamentary election that assured the Association of Combatant Clergy would hold a majority of seats in 1988– 1992. Liberal revolutionary thinkers such as Iran’s future ambassador to Riyadh, Mohammad Ali Hadi, argued the country should side with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait’s government-in-exile and indeed the United States, which had eased economic sanctions against Iran following the release of Western hostages in Lebanon. Riyadh found it difficult, according to Al Lagany, “to predict how Iran would react to the Gulf War given its leadership was split on the issue.” 40 Saudi dissident and intellectual debates reflected the state’s dilemma over Iran in that period. The preacher Sheikh Safar Al Hawali saw the Gulf secu- rity problem as concerning not just the Arabs of the Gulf but all Muslims, yet he did not advocate a role for Iran. The nationalist-religious preacher Salman Al Ouda warned about the “Persian onslaught” and the need to keep the Arabian heartland protected from the destabilizing threats from Iran. Prominent reformists such as Ghazi Abd al-Rahman Al Qussaibi invoked the Iranian threat to warn preachers to tone down their opposition to the presence of foreign forces in the region. 41 Several factors barred Saudi Arabia from accepting a regional role for Iran in the wake of the war, although in principle it did not oppose restoring the balance of power with Iran and Iraq. For one thing, were Saddam to fall from power, his departure could empower Iraq’s majority Shi‘i population and trigger an Iraqi alliance with Iran. This concern had even led Saudi dissidents who criticized the deployment of US forces to the kingdom to show a general mistrust toward Iran and Saudi Shi‘is during the Gulf War. This was despite the fact that by then a royal pardon had led to the release of the members of the Hizbollah al-Hijaz, and many Shi‘is in the Eastern Province had chosen to remain and protect the area during Iraq’s scud mis- sile attacks on Saudi Arabia’s eastern borders. But even then, groups such as the Movement for Islamic Reform in Saudi Arabia (MIRA) as well as the Advice and Reform Committee charged Saudi Shi‘is of quietly work- ing with the Saudi state to ride the tides of Sunni militancy in the wake of the Gulf War. While MIRA would later accept an open interpretation of the faith to include the Shi‘i belief system, other Sunni fighters such as Bin Laden and his followers showed a general disinterest to engage with Saudi Shi‘is. If Riyadh reached out to Tehran now, it risked angering these radical Saudi groups among whom anti-Shi‘i sentiments remained pervasive. Riyadh was determined to ignore Iran, moreover, because key Saudi religious and political figures opposed foreign military presence in the region. Their position was quite the same as Iran’s on the issue, which then 128 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran questioned Riyadh’s credibility as a staunch US ally. A “Memorandum of Advice” to King Fahd, which dissidents signed and submitted through Sheikh Abd al-Aziz bin Baz, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia—who had earlier issued a religious fatwa condoning foreign forces in the kingdom— reiterated demands consistent with Iran’s foreign policy stance, urging support for Islamic movements and the expansion of Islamic international relations in order to counter Western threats. One such threat was per- ceived to come from the United States as a result of its reluctance to remove Saddam from power, which outspoken dissidents such as Al Hawali inter- preted as a plot by the West to justify its continued presence in the Gulf region. 42 Iran decided to pursue a semi-conciliatory policy toward the kingdom when the Gulf War broke out. The decision was momentously timed. Riyadh was anxious to prevent Saddam from inciting Saudi Shi‘is against the state, many of whom he would try to court, but who would shun him due to the Saudi government’s reconciliation with Shi‘i leaders. The reconciliation was aided by Turki al-Faisal, who assisted King Fahd to enhance citizenship rights for Saudi Shi‘is. 43 King Fahd’s son, Prince Muhammad, who was assigned as governor of the Eastern Province in 1985, also played a key role introducing political reforms that encouraged Shi‘i dissidents to return to the kingdom and insist on defending it during the Gulf War. Iran says that it was the first country in the region to condemn Iraq, 18 hours after it invaded Kuwait. 44 It also reached out to the GCC when Kuwait’s foreign minister traveled to Tehran, suggesting that his country would help Iran financially if it adopted the right position on the war. 45 After foreign minister Velayati traveled to GCC capitals with assurances of Iran’s goodwill, according to Iran, member states joined it one by one to condemn the Iraqi invasion. 46 When Saudi Arabia abandoned the OPEC quota system to increase capacity for supply shortfalls during the war, Iran complied despite the drop in oil revenues. Tehran openly parted with the kingdom over the conduct of US forces. Although there were rumors that Tehran had quietly allowed US air force to use Iran’s airspace, Rafsanjani had intensified diplomatic efforts to pressure Saddam to leave office before coalition air raids began, a stance endorsed by a younger generation of Saudi princes. When the coalition arrived on the ground and advanced into Iraqi territory, Iran condemned the destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure when signs indicated that Iraqi troops were with- drawing from Kuwait imminently. Iran accused the United States of using Iraq as a test case for its advanced military arsenal. (According to Iranian sources, the United States may have spread at least 400 tons of depleted ura- nium over Iraq during the war.) It also offered peace proposals to expedite the withdrawal of US forces when the war ended in February 1991. 47 Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran ● 129

To avoid antagonizing Riyadh, Rafsanjani barred volunteer IRGC and paramilitary Basij fighters from crossing into Iraq to help Iraqi Shi‘is when a rebellion broke out in the spring of 1991, although some along with mem- bers of Iraq’s Shi‘i exile community in Iran from the Badr Brigades may have entered Iraq to support the Shi‘is. The United States helped protect groups of Kurds in northern Iraq, but it believed that it could not logisti- cally, and perhaps politically, offer the same protection to the Shi‘is in the south and around Baghdad. Saddam quelled the Shi‘i rebellion, leading to tens of thousands dead, as Tehran, Riyadh, and Washington stood by. Rafsanjani’s prudence, however, paved the way for renewed ties with Riyadh. Al Lagany explained: “Saudi Arabia expected Iran to help Saddam during the Gulf War, but Iran took what we thought was an honorable position by remaining neutral.”48 By December 1991, the UN declared Iraq the aggressor in the war with Iran after Velayati met with GCC foreign ministers in New York. This boosted Oman’s efforts since March to host informal meetings between officials from Iran and Saudi Arabia to help them resume ties. These modest regional initiatives were overshadowed by Washington’s grander quest for influence in the Persian Gulf after the liberation of Kuwait. Unhindered by Soviet counterpower, Washington launched a new offshore military balancing strategy that allowed it to deploy forces when its vital interests were threatened and maintain a limited yet permanent military presence in the Persian Gulf. 49 The strategy fell under the rubric of the George H. W. Bush administration’s “New World Order” vision, which foresaw a collective regional security establishment in the Persian Gulf. To secure this strategy, Washington concluded defense partnerships with the GCC. However, considering Iran a weak state it ignored it, despite a brief call by Secretary of State James Baker to acknowledge an Iranian role in Gulf security arrangements. Had Washington grasped the opportunity to engage Iran, according to then-US ambassador to Riyadh Charles Freeman, it would not have been difficult to convince Saudi Arabia to accept it. 50 B u t the political influence of the Republican Party prior to the November 1992 US presidential elections discouraged contacts with Iran. Rafsanjani tried to appease Washington by recognizing US dependency on Gulf energy markets and suggesting that although US forces exacerbated the regional tensions Iran would not view them as a threat. Nonetheless, his optimism to be embraced by the Americans as a pragmatic politician was misplaced. Where he saw promising prospects for the revolution’s renewed ties with the United States, Washington saw consternation due to Iran’s past behavior. Indeed, it was soon clear that at least in terms of foreign invest- ments and trade, which Rafsanjani hoped to revamp, that Iran was destined to remain isolated. 130 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Predominant US power in the region after the Gulf War made Saudi Arabia apprehensive about its security options as well. Although Washington remained committed to preventing Iran and Iraq from becoming key play- ers, it placed Saudi Arabia at the center of its local partnerships. Combined with lucrative GCC military expenditures of USD 157 billion in 1989–1992 a lone, this disturbed the region’s inherent self-ba lancing features that R iyadh, Tehran and Baghdad could collectively uphold. Hence, Washington’s new collective security proposals failed to materialize on account of Saudi hesitance. In March 1991, for example, Washington proceeded to endorse a Gulf security system based on a six-plus-two arrangement between the GCC, Egypt, and Syria. Known as the Damascus Declaration, this plan rewarded Egypt’s and Syria’s assistance during the Gulf War. Saudi Arabia resisted any serious Egyptian or Syrian role in Gulf affairs from fear of subject- ing Gulf security to less reliable states. In addition, the kingdom was wary of the United States and Britain, which had shown reluctance to arm it beyond its defense needs, after establishing no-fly-zones in Iraq. 51 A l t h o u g h the kingdom imported a large quantity of US arms right after the war, and an additional USD 31 billion in arms from the United States and Europe in 1995–1997, Washington rejected the sales of advanced arms to Riyadh if it could threaten Israel’s security given that it also feared rising instability in Saudi Arabia due to recession and increased domestic terrorism. Combined with Riyadh’s severe budget deficits after the war and pervasive distrust of American motives in the region, this added factor triggered calls among the younger Saudi princes in the defense policy establishment to reduce depen- dency on US arms supplies. By then, Iran had all but abandoned hope of securing a region-wide non- aggression pact, and saw the Damascus Declaration as a deliberate effort to Arabize the Persian Gulf. In response, and given the unreliability of its for- eign relations, it began formulating a new national defense strategy focused on self-reliance and the buildup of its military capacities, given Iran’s modest arms imports of approximately USD 5 billion at the end of the Iran–Iraq war. The policy aimed to offset Iran’s wartime losses by allowing the mili- tary—now the country’s most experienced, best-mobilized group in the face of crisis—to assume defense and civilian functions.

CHAPTER 8

Saudi–Iranian D é tente

n June 1991, Saudi Arabia and Iran resumed diplomatic relations. Abdul Latif Abdullah Al Meymani and Mohammad Ali Hadi, a former mem- I ber of parliament and Rafsanjani aide in his secret arms deals with the United States during the Iran–Iraq war, assumed their posts as ambassadors to Tehran and Riyadh. Hadi announced that Saudi Arabia and Iran were “two wings of the Muslim world,” which eased concerns in Riyadh that radical groups in Tehran might sabotage the new relationship. In June 1990, radicals barred Rafsanjani’s government from thanking the kingdom for the delivery of relief to victims of an earthquake in Zanjan; when Saudi envoy Gaafar Al Lagany reopened the Saudi embassy in Tehran the following year, they attacked Saudi diplomats. In December 1991, after meeting Rafsanjani at an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in Dakar (and acting on behalf of King Fahd), Crown Prince Abdullah invited him to visit the kingdom. The invi- tation was redelivered formally by Saud al-Faisal, and Rafsanjani traveled to Riyadh shortly after the OIC summit and after making a controversial visit to Sudan—where the kingdom retained more influence than Iran—to expand Tehran’s economic ties with Khartoum and build contacts between Sudanese Islamist parties and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Prior to visiting Riyadh, Rafsanjani made a personal request to Fahd to expand collaboration in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), given market shortfalls caused by the cut in Iraqi pro- duction resulting from sanctions as well as the need to boost prices in light of Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s post-Gulf War debts. By May 1992, oil prices rose after Saudi Arabia cut production, while Iran was able to maintain a higher level of production to make up for revenue shortfalls. 132 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

In 1992, Iran’s foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati and Iranian intel- ligence, judiciary, military, and naval heads traveled to Saudi Arabia. The kingdom issued statements in defense of Tehran’s modest weapons pro- curement program. After several meetings in Jeddah, Riyadh, the Eastern Province, and Tehran to explore mutual economic investment opportuni- ties, King Fahd proposed that a joint economic commission be established to help remove the 1988 Saudi import ban on Iranian products. The king also ordered the haj quota for Iranian pilgrims to increase to 120,000. (The Saudi-backed newspaper asharq al-awsat published Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s message on the occasion of the resumption of haj for Iranian pilgrims in 1992.) 1 Tensions between Riyadh and Tehran persisted despite this easing of ties due to general mistrust, and exacerbated by Riyadh’s economic constraints after the Gulf War. Saudi Arabia ignored Iran’s quest to serve as an energy bridge between the Persian Gulf and the emergent Central Asian Republics (CARs) after the fall of the Soviet Union in December 1991, disregard- ing the earlier Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) vows to consider funding Iran’s overambitious pipeline proposals. Riyadh and Tehran competed for economic influence in the CARs, and along the way they revived the CARs’ dormant Islamic heritage. Iran promoted the status of Islamic parties there, and opened its religious seminaries to CAR students. Saudi Arabia built mosques and published Qur’ans in local languages. Their activities, how- ever, were restricted by Russia, which aimed to discourage Islamic influence in the CARs, perceiving potential radicalization of its own population of roughly 20 million Muslims—the population began to divide slowly along religious lines after Saudi fighters (previously engaged in Afghanistan) began competing with and influencing the Saudis’ CAR Islamist programs. Meanwhile, Iran’s engagement with the CARs expanded to the cultural realm, promoting Persian language and literature in parts of the republics that, for centuries, had remained under Persian control. Tehran also helped mediate the Nagorno–Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and played a key role in ending the Tajik civil war, where radical Saudi fight- ers aided Tajik Islamists as Russia, Iran, and the UN supported Tajikistan’s central government. In the Middle East, Iran’s influence was restricted by the US and Saudi measures to end the Arab–Israeli conflict at the October 1991 Madrid Conference, which granted Israel a degree of peace in exchange for a com- mitment to resolve the conflict. Iran hosted an international conference on Palestine that brought together Palestinians who deplored the Madrid talks, and supported a single-state solution despite international calls for a two-state paradigm. It also backed the Islamic Jihad. Its connection with the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood that shaped the core of Hamas was less defined, given Egypt’s closer ties with the group and its reluctance to engage with Iran. Saudi–Iranian Détente ● 133

In the Persian Gulf, Riyadh and Tehran rowed briefly over the disputed islands between Iran and the UAE, and over Bahrain. The disagreements flared up in April and August 1992, after the Iranian navy halted the khater , a ship from the UAE and barred those aboard from entering areas adminis- tered by Sharjah on the island of Abu Musa. The khater carried an unusu- ally large number of foreign (mainly Palestinian and Filipino) passengers, whom Tehran suspected of receiving stipends from Sharjah to establish resi- dency on Abu Musa. Sharjah declared that the foreigners were hired teachers for Arab families resident on the island. Although they had received UAE visas, Tehran demanded that they carry Iranian visas as well.2 Saudi Arabia indicated its disapproval by demanding that Iran resolve Ras al-Khaimah’s sovereignty claims over the Greater and Lesser Tunbs. But Iran remained unwilling to resolve its dispute over the islands despite earlier vows to do so after the UAE’s independence. Tehran’s occasional assertions of having natural rights over Bahrain also concerned Riyadh. Shi‘is in Bahrain constituted over a 60 percent majority, and many were fluent Persian speakers. Although the Bahraini Shi‘i cler- ics were compromising toward the Sunni Al Khalifa rulers of Bahrain who were originally of Najdi descent, many of them frequently pursued semi- nary education in Iran with Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Fazel Lankarani, who openly challenged Arab monarchies over their treatment of Shi‘is. The ayatollah was also considered to be quite hardline, and Iran was thus widely suspected of influencing dissent in Bahrain through its seminaries. To Iranian politicians, however, the nascent Bahraini insurgency reflected the Sunni-led monarchy’s inability to guarantee basic citizenship rights for its Shi‘i population while ignoring manifestations of liberal American val- ues in a small, largely traditional Gulf state. If Iran was blamed for the insurgency, it was to attract American sympathy for Bahrain, drive a wedge between Tehran and Washington and deflect attention from the mistreat- ment of Bahraini Shi‘is. Nevertheless, Bahrain’s perception of a real threat from Iran lingered, as did Tehran’s defiance. In a meeting with the Iranian deputy foreign minister Abbas Maleki, Bahraini foreign ministry officials blamed Tehran for a bomb detonation that had occurred at Maleki’s hotel in Manama the previous day; Maleki replied: “If Iran were behind the explo- sion, they would have waited for my departure before exploding a bomb at the hotel where I stayed.”3

Dual Containment and Power Imbalances Tehran was offended by Washington’s dual containment policy declaration in May 1993, which aimed, in Iran’s view, to exclude Iran and Iraq from regional arrangements between the United States and the GCC. Iran also believed the policy targeted it wrongly, given that it had remained neutral 134 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran in the Gulf War. Iran dismissed as propaganda the policy’s advocates who explained it by pointing to Iran’s poor human rights record, sponsorship of international terrorism, opposition to the Arab–Israeli peace process, and development of a secret nuclear weapons program. Iran-based policy experts argued that, given reduced dependency on the US military in Asia and Europe after the end of the Cold War, the United States had to ensure the primacy of its power in Gulf affairs, which it could do only by demon- izing Iran and sidelining Iraq as the region’s two key players. They also maintained that, as Washington aimed to boost relations between Israel and the Arab Gulf states after the failure of the Madrid talks and in the wake of the subsequent 1993 Oslo Accords, it had to ensure that both Iran and Iraq were contained because they opposed a Middle East peace agreement. 4 The dual containment policy ignored Iran in discussions over transit routes for the CAR energy markets, despite efforts by Iranian politicians to win international agreements to build pipelines through Iran. (They argued that the country offered the shortest, fastest, and most cost-efficient routes.) When Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE helped the United States reach out to Afghan Islamist fighters to secure routes via Afghanistan, Tehran felt doubly offended, given that these fighters opposed the pro-Iranian, postcommunist Islamic State of Afghanistan led by President Burhanuddin Rabbani and his defense minister Ahmad Shah Masoud. Rafsanjani invited King Fahd to visit Tehran during this period, and felt rejected when the king declined. Radical political factions then received Tehran’s tacit permission to stage an anti-Saudi demonstration during the haj in 1993, causing 11 deaths. (The effects of the protest, however, were neutralized as dissident Saudi Sunni preachers and Shi‘i clerics had received amnesty from the king that year, which also led to the dissolution of the Iranian-backed Organization for Islamic Revolution in the Arabian Peninsula.) Riyadh expelled the pilgrims’ leader Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri, and the king sent a message to Rafsanjani outlining the con- ditions and restrictions that would apply should Iranians be permitted to resume pilgrimage. In September, Saud al-Faisal avoided meeting with Velayati at the UN General Assembly in New York. Sensing the country’s growing regional isolation despite Rafsanjani’s pragmatic foreign policy agenda, Tehran resolved to develop a power- ful deterrent defense program. The timing overlapped with growing con- cerns in Washington over the fate of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. In 1992, the US state department had drawn attention to Iran’s efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction from the CARs and its stockpiling of chemi- cal agents designed to enhance asymmetric warfare capabilities. In 1993, US Secretary of State Warren Christopher called on Europe to halt the sale of advanced industrial parts to Iran that could be used to produce nuclear Saudi–Iranian Détente ● 135 weapons. Inhibiting Iran’s nuclear advancement for fear it could destabilize the Middle East became the objective of all subsequent US administrations. In response, Tehran expanded conventional military cooperation with the CARs and advanced its nascent nuclear research program (which had begun under the shah) through assistance from CAR markets, which Washington proceeded to block from Iranian access. Tehran continued to build up the intelligence and security apparatus with occasional Russian assistance in the form of military sales and training. In 1995, it asked Moscow to rebuild the Bushehr nuclear power plant after Western states withdrew contracts to reconstruct the site, which was repeat- edly bombed during the Iran–Iraq war. Tehran also went on the offensive, criticizing Western powers for violating Article IV of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that required them to provide developing states with peaceful nuclear technology. At the same time, it allowed inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to survey Iranian nuclear facilities in 1992 and in future, in compliance with the NPT. Meanwhile, Rafsanjani offered proposals for disarmament to the GCC and called on the organization to conduct joint land exercises with Iran, limit military spending, place a ceiling on arms imports to the region and exchange military information with Iran. The proposals were appealing; Saudi Arabia had gone into debt due to the Gulf War, and only resumed oil revenues to prewar levels in 1994. But Rafsanjani’s outreach efforts failed, because although the GCC had criticized the dual containment policy, it was reluctant to trust either Iran or Iraq. Furthermore, dual containment reinforced GCC bonds with Washington, although the United States failed to offer guarantees to resolve the Palestinian conflict in exchange for a tacit GCC understanding to keep Iran and Iraq in check. In the end, the GCC continued to rely on Washington’s security guaran- tees over Iraq, where the US operated a no-fly zone in the north to protect Iraqi Kurds and would operate airstrikes to control Iraqi military buildup. The United States also backed UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspections of Iraqi weapons capabilities. But Iraq’s subsequent isolation disturbed the regional balance of power between Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, and offered a brief opening in Saudi–Iranian relations, upon which Rafsanjani seized.

Saudi–Iranian Rapprochement Rafsanjani was reelected in the 1993 presidential race by a tight margin, having failed to ease the political environment in Iran on account of its radical state policies. He also promoted economic liberalization programs that disenfranchised the middle class and the underclass of Iran–Iraq war 136 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran veterans. Europe’s engagement policy with Iran was under attack from both Iran’s hardliners and Washington; to silence his critics, Rafsanjani tried to improve Iran’s relations with the Arab Gulf states, and developments in Iraq offered him the first chance to reengage with Saudi Arabia after Baghdad made threatening moves toward Kuwait in 1994. Tehran increased its military presence in Abu Musa, but, recognizing that containing Baghdad would require cooperation with Riyadh, the two capitals embarked on a series of secret visits (including one by Iran’s intel- ligence minister to Saudi Arabia).5 Iranian authorities returned from the visits convinced that the dual containment policy was acceptable to Saudi Arabia, to the extent that it delayed Washington from taking direct mili- tary action to topple Baghdad’s regime, which could further destabilize the region. Containing Iran was not the kingdom’s main objective, as Iranian guarantees were needed that, in the event of a US-led war with Iraq, an unfriendly Iraqi Kurdish or Shi‘i government would not replace Saddam’s Sunni-led Baath regime. Riyadh and Tehran agreed that an alliance with Baghdad was undesir- able as long as Saddam Hussein was in power.6 In the interim period, they retained contacts with Iraqi opposition groups. Riyadh backed the Iraqi National Congress (INC), headed by Ahmad Chalabi since 1992; Chalabi retained closer ties with Tehran than with Riyadh or Washington. The INC maintained connections to the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shi‘i group based in Iran led by Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, who would be invited to visit the kingdom. Tehran and Riyadh had links to Kurdish parties through the INC, which backed the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) headed by Masoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Jalal Talabani. Iran also backed the Kurdish Islamist Party (KIP), which supported the KDP. Its historic proximity to the Iraqi Kurds, however, and their collaboration during the Iran–Iraq war—especially with the PUK—guaranteed greater Iranian influence over Iraqi Kurdish groups. In fact, Tehran had ended fighting between the KIP and KDP when CIA-led mediation efforts failed, although Iran ultimately decided to side with the PUK by 1994–1995.7 Pockets of Shi‘i unrest in Saudi Arabia, and the international sanctions against Iraq, complicated Riyadh’s contacts with Tehran. The Shi‘i insur- gency in southern Iraq in particular posed a threat as it led Iran and Syria to increase support for Shi‘i opposition leaders from SCIRI and the Dawa Party. Meanwhile, the failure of the US-backed UN oil-for-food program to alleviate the suffering of Iraqis—because of international sanctions—threw into question the extent to which Saudi leaders were willing to be com- plicit with the United States in punishing Iraq. Riyadh appeased the Shi‘i opposition brewing at home, and by 1994 it had successfully reached out to Saudi–Iranian Détente ● 137

Shi‘i leaders in the Eastern Province as part of a national dialogue initia- tive (despite opposition by the radical Sunnis) and established a consultative council (majlis al-shura) to advise the king on internal and foreign policy affairs. By 1995, the year Prince Abdullah took over management of state affairs from King Fahd, five prominent opposition Saudi Shi‘i clerics in Iran, Syria, Great Britain, and the United States returned to Saudi Arabia, including Hassan Al Saffar, who had fallen out with Iran’s government by 1987; Tawfiq Al Seif; Jafar Al Shayib; Sadiq Al Jubran; and Isa Al Muzil. 8 In the summer of 1994, Rafsanjani quietly dispatched his son, Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Iran’s ambassador to Germany, Hussein Mousavian, to meet with Crown Prince Abdullah at the latter’s summer retreat in Casablanca. After four days of talks, Mousavian was informed he had been assessed in Casablanca to decide whether or not further talks were warranted. Mousavian was subsequently invited to Jeddah in the fall, where he met with Abdullah for four more consecutive late night meetings during which they agreed to speak “candidly and be blunt.”9 Abdullah emphasized that Riyadh and Tehran should recognize that Baghdad was one corner of a triangle, and that developments there had to remain stable for the three countries to work well together. He also expressed concern over Iran’s intervention in the Eastern Province. Mousavian expressed similar concern over Saudi Arabia’s own interven- tion in Iran’s Sunni-dominated eastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan. Prince Abdullah raised the issue of funding by Iran of Shi‘i parties in the Middle East, including Hizbullah, but “pragmatically took into account” Mousavian’s arguments in defense of Iran’s support for Shi‘is. At the conclu- sion of the talks, the prince and Mousavian agreed as a confidence-building step, that Iranian and Saudi businessmen could receive residency and other permits to engage in investment and register companies in each other’s coun- tries, a privilege the kingdom would grant Iran for the first time. Finally, it was decided that Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s foreign ministers should meet biannually, and their other leaders at least once a year, and that the two states should form a joint security commission.10 Mousavian held a working session with interior minister Prince Nayef, who was “harsh, bitter, and hard” but agreed with the roughly 16 key issues Prince Abdullah had covered in his talks with the Iranian envoy. When Mousavian called Rafsanjani, the Iranian president instructed him to inform Crown Prince Abdullah that he would accept the full terms of his agree- ments. Mousavian and Hashemi then met with King Fahd, who, on account of illness, received them for only twenty minutes. The king stressed that he endorsed Abdullah’s agreements, and underscored the importance of pre- serving the balance of power between Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. He added that Saudi Arabia did not wish to pursue relations with Iran if it undermined 138 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran the kingdom’s strategic interests with any other country, which Mousavian construed to mean the United States. In response, Mousavian recited a verse from the Qur’an to the effect that every view was to be respected.11 H e left the meeting with the understanding that working with Riyadh meant Tehran could not fuel hostilities with Washington. In talks with me, Mousavian credited the success of his meetings to Abdullah’s keen interest to fix relations with Iran. This was a departure from the prince’s previously ambivalent stance on Iran after the revolution, likely triggered by a desire to reduce Saudi dependency on US security guar- antees. Abdullah conducted the talks on his own, with a note-taker in the room, and magnanimously offered the Iranian negotiator a gift; Mousavian requested and received a top piece of the kiswa that covers the kaaba. He and Hashemi also performed the haj , and visited the masjid al-nabawi and al-baqi cemetery in Madinah as guests of the crown prince.12 Back in Tehran, Velayati was elated that the talks had proceeded success- fully. Rafsanjani and Mousavian met with Supreme Leader Khamenei, who agreed with the agreements and reviewed the list of concerns that Prince Abdullah had raised about Iran’s foreign policy, along with a proposal aimed to show that the kingdom “cared for Iran as a second home.” Abdullah had proposed to purchase a plot of land by the Caspian Sea in Iran as a sum- mer retreat, and to ensure regular visits to the country.13 (The land was apparently acquired, I was told by a Saudi ambassador to Iran, but remained largely vacant. According to Rafsanjani’s family, Prince Abdullah’s family visited Iran, as they would frequently visit the kingdom. Iran would pro- ceed also to build a luxury convalescent hospital hotel by the Caspian Sea and an advanced medical hospital in Shiraz, which accommodated Saudi nationals as well as other nationals from the Gulf states, and nearby Asian countries.) Although trade ties improved slightly, political relations remained stag- nant, attributable in part by Washington’s political standoff over how to deal with Iran. Rafsanjani argued bitterly that Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia could formulate a working relationship that guaranteed more certain results than through sustained foreign intervention in regional affairs. Tehran also tried to appease Washington over the Middle East peace process, and Iranian speaker of parliament Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri (a close Rafsanjani ally) announced during the Syrian peace negotiations with Israel that lasted from 1994–1996 that Tehran would not break relations with any Arab state that signed a peace treaty with Israel. However, back in Washington, although the Democratic Party pushed for easing pressures on Iran, the republicans in Congress prevailed, forcing the Clinton administration to tighten sanctions against Tehran in 1995. Saudi–Iranian Détente ● 139

In March 1995, after the dual containment policy came under severe criticism for its loopholes, which allowed continued American trade with Iran, US firms were barred from investing in the country—including the oil company Conoco, which had successfully bid to develop two offshore oilfields. By April 1995, a range of sanctions were to be imposed against non-US foreign firms investing more than USD 40 million in Iran’s oil and gas industry. In May, President Clinton signed an executive order to end American trade and financial transactions with Iran. Combined with Washington’s refusal to reciprocate Rafsanjani’s intervention to help release an American hostage in Lebanon, these tight sanctions led the parliament in Iran to restrict the president’s agenda to reform foreign policy. This embold- ened radicals in Tehran to begin a fresh campaign against Saudi Arabia. Iran viewed the subsequent wave of terrorist attacks in the kingdom as a Saudi problem stemming from internal opposition to the presence of US forces in the region. But when an explosion in Riyadh targeted the Saudi National Guard center, killing five US military officers, Washington blamed Tehran. Further unrest that year in Bahrain, including a June plot to over- throw the government, was also attributed to Iranian agents given Tehran’s fierce opposition to the US decision to upgrade forces in Bahrain to a full Fifth Fleet. By December 1995, when Prince Abdullah and President Rafsanjani met privately during the OIC summit in Islamabad, the latter convinced the prince to acknowledge a wider regional role for Iran. In the private talks, Abdullah alluded to the danger that US troops posed to Saudi security, given rising domestic tensions over the US–Saudi military partnership, and informed Rafsanjani that plans were underway to reposition US forces from Saudi Arabia to Qatar. That was news to the Iranians, and the meeting yielded several important results. It altered Iran’s view that Saudi Arabia supported the presence of US forces in the kingdom. Iran’s leaders saw in Abdullah a leader with a new vision for the region, who seemed genuinely opposed to foreign forces in the Persian Gulf. Abdullah and Rafsanjani also discussed Iraq. 14 By the end of the meeting, the prince gave his support to Iran to host the OIC summit, a grand coup for Iran in light of its struggle for acceptance as an equal partner in regional arrangements by its Arab neighbors. Tehran understood that these overtures would not necessarily go far though. It recognized that despite Prince Abdullah’s concerns over the pres- ence of US forces in Saudi Arabia, that the United States would continue to operate Saudi military infrastructure, and Riyadh could therefore not suddenly shift its policy outlook toward Iran. Moreover, tensions between Washington and Tehran had prompted the GCC to expand its deterrent 140 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran capabilities and peacekeeping and rapid-deployment capacities, with Saudi Arabia remaining the most reliable guarantor of security for the GCC states against threats from Iran. Nevertheless, in February 1996, Riyadh’s and Tehran’s regional strat- egies briefly converged over a US-backed military cooperation agreement between Israel and Turkey. The agreement expanded Israel’s airspace capa- bilities in the eastern Mediterranean, closer to Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s bor- ders. Iran did not feel threatened by Turkey—as neighbors, they understood each other’s strategic positions and concerns. It did blame the United States for attempting to create a false rift between Iran and its neighbors. At the same time, Tehran enhanced cooperation with Iraq and Syria and expanded its naval defense program in the Persian Gulf. The number of Iranian troops in Abu Musa quadrupled roughly since the fall of 1994, and Iran began the construction of an airport and a port there. Its actions, however, did not significantly preoccupy Saudi Arabia, which was already perturbed by efforts to bring Jordan into the Turkish–Israeli military alli- ance—a move that could threaten the evolution of a core Arab security system and increase Israel’s power vis- à -vis Saudi Arabia’s, which like Iran decided to expand ties with Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, Qatar attempted to mediate an agreement over the islands between Iran and the UAE, which failed due to repeated Iranian refusal to settle the matter through an inter- national court or commit to a clear agenda to resolve the issue. By mid-1996, pro-Rafsanjani conservative factions in Iran seized control of parliament amidst criticism by radicals and segments of the IRGC of those factions’ monopoly over Iran’s key economic enterprises and political decision-making bodies. Tensions with Riyadh persisted because of the vola- tility of internal Iranian politics. In May, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who led the Qom Friday prayers, warned of “a revolution slowly taking over the land of Arabia.”15 His statement proved ill timed, as prominent Shi‘i clerics in Saudi Arabia such as Hassan Al Saffar were actively promoting a new nationalist dialogue with Riyadh. Then, on June 25, 1996, a bomb exploded outside a US army residential compound in Khobar in the Eastern Province, killing 19 American servicemen. Washington blamed Tehran for the bombing. Amidst calls to attack Iran, on August 5, 1996, President Clinton signed the Iran–Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA). In 2001, a US Department of Justice indictment would trace the bomb plot to the Saudi group Hizbullah al-Hijaz, which had ties to then- members of the Iranian government; no Iranians were charged. 16 T e h r a n did not take responsibility for the bombing. Its official position was that it was exonerated because no credible evidence was ever produced. According to Iran’s future ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Ali Asqhar Khaji: “Riyadh rec- ognized that Saudi citizens were behind the attack, and it could not be an Iranian job. The fact that similar attacks in Saudi Arabia were carried out Saudi–Iranian Détente ● 141 later and after 9/11 cleared Iranian or Shi‘i complicity in the Khobar Tower bombing.” 17 Indeed, a series of terrorist operations continued in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Yanbu. Iran-based analysts argued that by blaming Iran for the Khobar attack, Washington aimed to reconstruct the kingdom’s poor image to a moderate Muslim state after Riyadh’s backing of radical Islamist groups during the Afghan–Soviet War, the same groups that were now respon- sible for the terrorist attacks inside the kingdom. Furthermore, by point- ing fingers at Tehran as a key sponsor of terrorism, they maintained that Washington could advance the perceived threat among the Gulf leaders of Iran’s Shi‘i geopolitical challenge. 18 In discussions with me, Saudi scholar Saeed Badeeb and an expert on the Saudi–Iranian relationship emphasized that elements within Iran were behind the bombing, which was carried out by 13 men—half of whom, including their leader Ahmed Al Mughassil, fled to Iran. 19 ( M u g h a s s i l was captured in Lebanon by Saudi authorities, according to an announce- ment made in August 2015.) Yet no official Saudi government statement was issued charging Iran of involvement in the attack—“a sign of Riyadh’s desire to protect Tehran in a serious manner which Iran did not fully appre- ciate,” as I was told by a former Saudi minister.20 Indeed, Saudi Arabia aimed to avoid sabotaging the dé tente with Iran even if hardliners there were keen to. This was despite the fact that, during interrogations, at least one dissident Shi‘i confessed to receiving explosives from unofficial Iranian channels. Those arrested gave no indication that the Iranian government was directly involved, however, according to Gaafar Al Lagany. Al Lagany also dismissed the US argument that an Iranian-backed “Hizbullah” was behind the attack.21 (Saudi authorities avoided implicating local groups in the attack, and viewed Hizbullah al-Hijaz as a fluid association rather than a structured opposition force.) The Saudi Shi‘i community denied involvement in the bombing and argued that such an incident would not serve the cause of ending their marginalization. Dissident Saudi groups in exile blamed Sunni militants. 22 Certain dissidents, such as the outspoken Sa’d Al Faqih who was a promi- nent member of the Movement for Islamic Reform (MIRA), went as far as to blame the Saudi government for the bombing in order to crack down on needed reforms.23 Yet Riyadh steadfastly refused to engage in a heavy crackdown that could jeopardize the tenuous communication between the state and the opposition, although it dismantled the Hizbullah al-Hijaz group, prompting Ayatollah Lankarani to issue a fatwa in September con- demning the Saudi government for the arrest of Shi‘i activists. Riyadh would later allow members of the defunct group to take posts and jobs in the Eastern Province, as long as they refrained from armed action against the state. 24 142 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

In May 1997, Rafsanjani suffered a political blow when his pre- ferred presidential candidate, Nategh-Nouri, lost the national election to the reformist candidate Mohammad Khatami. Nategh-Nouri favored improved relations with Saudi Arabia, but adhered to strict state control over social and political developments. Khatami, however, encouraged by his landslide victory, having won the votes of women and youth (in a soci- ety where like Saudi Arabia nearly 70 percent of the population was below the age of 30), aimed to democratize Iran as a starting point to improving its foreign relations—a drastic contrast to Rafsanjani’s realpolitik foreign policy style. Khatami helped rebuild confidence in the Gulf region about Iran. In talks in the spring of 1997 with former Saudi oil minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani, I was informed of the hope held by many Saudis that Khatami would be elected to office because of his reform agenda. According to Al Lagany, the Saudis viewed Khatami not as part of the old guard, but a new- comer who genuinely believed in empowering Iranian society.25 T h e y a l s o maintained that Rafsanjani, despite his efforts to reach out to Saudi Arabia, was too affected by Khomeini’s messianic worldview. To the Saudis, it was Khatami who turned the relations with Saudi Arabia around because he was seen as a rational thinker and very reasonable man. Crown Prince Abdullah told Khatami’s deputy, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, that he felt Khatami would not harm Saudi interests. At the same time, he warned Abtahi to tell the new president to introduce reforms gradually, to avoid a conservative backlash. 26 Riyadh’s and Tehran’s domestic policies progressed along remarkably par- allel lines after Khatami’s election. In July 1997, King Fahd appointed a new majlis al-shura , the highest political institution since 1993 after the royal court and the council of ministers, expanding its membership to 90—in- cluding two Shi‘i representatives. Although many questioned whether or not the appointment of two Shi‘is to the majlis was nominal, it was by all measures a significant stride toward recognizing Shi‘is not just as a minority but as equal citizens of Saudi Arabia. The council expanded again to 120 members in May 2001, which also doubled the number of designated seats to Shi‘i representatives. In Iran, Khatami revived city and village council elections to help democ- ratize the state, although by July 1999 he faced student protests demanding rapid reform, which were suppressed by the state. In the kingdom, Abdullah endorsed the first-ever Saudi elections for municipal councils. Although women were barred from participation in that election, in September 2011 Abdullah granted them the right to vote and seek office—including in the majlis al-shura . By 2015, women were allowed to vote and run for office in municipal elections. Saudi–Iranian Détente ● 143

When Khatami called for a “dialogue among civilizations” endorsed by a UN General Assembly resolution in New York in 1998 to depoliticize inter-civilizational talks and revive the Islamic ummah , Abdullah not only dispatched a Shi‘i ambassador to Iran, Jamil Al Geishi with whom I briefly spoke by phone, but also introduced an “interfaith dialogue” initiative to pro- mote understanding among followers of various religions. In Saudi Arabia, scholarly debates ensued on the national views about Shi‘is, often conclud- ing that Shi‘is were wrongfully blamed for the larger divisions within the Saudi society that, in fact, had little to do with them. In my conversation in Riyadh with the Secretary-General of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, Saleh bin Suleiman Al Wahaibi, I also had the impression that the kingdom aimed to promote inclusive and progressive programs inside Saudi Arabia and across the Islamic world.27 Similarly, when Khatami advocated building Islamic civil society, Saudi Shi‘i scholars promoted the idea of civil society for collective action by Saudi citizens. Subsequently, the number of civic institutions grew rapidly in both Saudi Arabia and Iran, with many attempt- ing to address the relationship between human rights, women’s rights and Islamic law. When an earthquake hit Iran in 1998, Prince Talal bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, an outspoken advocate of improved relations with Iran, sent cash donations from his foundation, and in late 1999 he dispatched his representative Sarmad Zuqh to discuss ways to enhance civic participation between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In December 1997, GCC leaders arrived in Tehran following the failure of the US-sponsored Doha economic summit a month earlier to encour- age trade with Israel after its new prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, assumed office in June 1996. Crown Prince Abdullah flew to Tehran, taking along his own Mercedes-Benz, which he left behind as a gift for President Khatami. 28 In Tehran, Abdullah met privately with the supreme leader and Rafsanjani, and twice with Khatami. Present at one meeting was defense minister Ali Shamkhani, who reassured the kingdom of Iran’s peaceful intentions in the Persian Gulf. Abdullah was always touched that Iran should choose, as a defense minister, an ethnic Arab who conversed in Arabic with the Saudi leader. In return, the Iranians were also touched by the personal attention they had received in reaching out to Abdullah since 1996 from his second-in-command and deputy commander of the National Guard, the late Abd al-Aziz Al Tuwajiri. 29 The final OIC communiqu é issued at the end of the Tehran summit reflected a larger consensus between Saudi Arabia and Iran. It affirmed sup- port for the Middle East peace process based on the principles of the Madrid Conference, which Iran had earlier rejected and Saudi Arabia endorsed, and urged member states to consider the US Congress’s ILSA a violation of inter- national law and norms. 144 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Rafsanjani subsequently asked to visit Saudi Arabia for a month, and arrived there in February 1998 to travel for ten days across the country from the far west in Jizan to the far east in Dhahran, along the way inspecting numerous agricultural and industrial projects including a dairy farm out- side Riyadh and the Saudi Aramco headquarters in Dhahran.30 R i y a d h a n d Tehran had already agreed to maintain high oil prices and resume direct flights, and Rafsanjani met with Saudi businessmen to underscore Iran’s desire to expand trade ties. He also asked that Saudi Arabia open the coun- try to Iranian labor, including physicians, given the kingdom’s large popu- lation of seven million foreign workers and skilled-labor shortages. (The proposal to send Iranian physicians to the kingdom did not go far, according to former Saudi ambassador to Iran Nasser Al Braik, nor did the kingdom open its market to Iranian labor.) 31 Rafsanjani held private meetings with King Fahd, Prince Abdullah, Prince Nayef, Prince Sultan, and Prince Turki. He received a classified copy of the Khobar investigations, and suggested that Riyadh and Tehran should look into the root causes of terrorism. Rafsanjani also received a proposal to expand economic, commercial, technical, financial, scientific, and cul- tural relations. Finally, he performed the haj and visited al-baqi cemetery in Madinah. While at the masjid al-nabawi, he sat through a sermon that denounced Shi‘is. Prince Abdullah sacked the imam who had delivered it, and Rafsanjani took the extra step of denying that Saudi Arabia was hostile to Shi‘is in order to quiet Iranian radicals who criticized his trip. Before his departure, he paid a surprise visit to Bahrain by crossing the King Fahd Causeway, seen by Iranian officials as Saudi recognition of Iran’s goodwill toward the Arab Gulf states.32 In March 1998, foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi and Shamkhani signed a five-year cooperation protocol in Riyadh, which paved the way for an immediate expansion of cultural, educational, communications, commer- cial, intelligence, and security ties. An Iranian warship docked in Jeddah that same month, and King Fahd met with Kharrazi to extend an invitation to President Khatami to visit the kingdom. Iran exported carpets, saffron, food, and cement to Saudi Arabia, and imported oil, chemical products, and gasoline coolers. Riyadh and Tehran also signed an agreement to expand joint news and broadcasting services and petrochemical and transportation services, exchange expertise in the environmental and housing complex con- struction fields and engage in inter- majlis cooperation. 33 Despite these trends, the shadow of hostile US–Iranian ties loomed over the Saudi–Iranian dé tente. Washington approved funding for antigovern- ment radio and television programs in Persian, which offended the reformist Iranian president given his personal battle to restore press freedoms in Iran. The measure strengthened Khatami’s conservative, pro-Rafsanjani critics, Saudi–Iranian Détente ● 145 and also emboldened hardliners to push for tighter controls over the new president’s social and political reform programs. In discussions in New York in September 1998, where I was present, Khatami argued that the US deci- sion to ignore his government would ultimately return conservative factions to power. He also expressed fears that the United States might have to strike a deal with those factions, at the cost of ignoring badly needed reform in Iran. By May 1998, after Kharazzi and government spokesperson Ata’ollah Mohajerani repeatedly called on Washington not to ignore Iran’s interests, the Clinton administration began easing sanctions on Iran—possibly with Saudi encouragement. However, on May 22, at Friday prayers in Tehran, Rafsanjani dismissively declared that this sanctions relief was a sign of retreat. The statement was ill timed and his motives for making the statement were unclear, but it was widely speculated at the time that the conservatives were determined to prevent the reformists from negotiating with Washington, which they hoped to do themselves once they returned to power. Rafsanjani may have also been emboldened by the GCC’s refusal to permit further US airstrikes against Iraq from their territory, a sign that the dual containment policy was waning as far as Tehran was concerned. Nevertheless, Iran’s mixed messages—along with infighting in Washington over Iran—jeopardized Clinton’s outreach efforts. On May 23, 1998, the US Congress passed a draft bill to sanction foreign companies that sold arms to Iran. The irony of the bill was that it came to be while Pakistan, a staunch US ally, was simultaneously conducting more nuclear tests—and Khatami was urging its prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to show restraint. (Khatami received backing from Saudi Arabia, which also supported Sharif’s govern- ment.) On May 26, 1998, Saud al-Faisal, who was generally reserved in his compliments for Iranian officials, told Khatami he was a beacon of hope for countries in the region. With Iran on the defensive after the draft congres- sional bill passed, on June 9, 1998, Kharazzi defended Pakistan’s nuclear program, considered by many experts as a Saudi-funded project, as a deter- rent against Israeli nuclear-arms activities. 34 In June 1998, Riyadh and Tehran signed an agreement to expand techni- cal, industrial, transportation, environmental, investment, sports and tour- ism activities, which aimed to address, in part, the crisis of unemployment and underemployment in Saudi Arabia and Iran, where some 800,000 and 200,000 new jobs were required per year, respectively. On July 6, 1998, as US naval ships trespassed into Iranian waters during routine air raids on Iraq, Rafsanjani made an urgent call to Abdullah in which he expressed concern over the sharp drop in oil prices. Saudi Arabia proceeded to refuse permission to the United States to use its territory for launching attacks 146 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran on Iraq. Later that month in a meeting with Iran’s ambassador to Riyadh, Mohammad Reza Nouri, Prince Turki declared his view that the Saudi– Iranian relationship was key to resolving many regional issues. 35 O n J u l y 31, 1998, to reciprocate Saudi goodwill, Kharazzi participated in the OIC- sponsored al-Quds Committee meeting in Casablanca with Arab foreign ministers, including Prince Saud, to coordinate joint policies on Palestine. Afterward, Iran declared it would not oppose a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Even tensions in Afghanistan failed to disrupt the Saudi-Iranian rap- prochement. In 1992, with the fall of the Soviet-backed People’s Democratic Party (PDP), a civil war ensued in the country in which Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran were involved, supporting a host of Afghan factions. Neither Riyadh nor Tehran had supported the PDP, but both attempted to find a political solution to work with it, led by Iran. Saudi Arabia later joined after abandoning support for the Afghan fighters who had backed Iraq in the Gulf War. In the end, it was the newly formed pro-Iranian Northern Alliance, including Hazaras, Ismaili Shi‘is, Tajiks and Uzbeks, which ousted the PDP from power. Infighting within the alliance soon led to a bloody civil war, which changed the Saudi position in Afghanistan. The kingdom proceeded to cultivate its relations with a host of parties, including those previously backed by Iran as well as Burhanuddin Rabbani’s central government. By 1995 the government was battling the forces of the Pakistan-trained Taliban, which eventually ousted the leadership in Kabul in 1996. When the Afghan civil war subsequently ended, according to Turki al-Faisal, “King Fahd pro- posed that Iran should be a party on all peace initiatives in Afghanistan after Iran sent a delegation to talk with the kingdom on the issue.” Riyadh also invited Tehran’s participation to enlist warring factions, including the Hazaras, to build a loya jirga (“Afghan Consultative Assembly”).36 By September 1996, Riyadh had recognized the Taliban at Pakistan’s urging; Islamabad viewed the group as a stabilizing force, given the internal battle between various Sunni factions in Afghanistan. Iran sup- ported Rabbani’s government-in-exile, although it retained consulates in Afghanistan to handle local affairs, including the fate of over two million Afghan refugees in Iran. On August 8, 1998, the Taliban took Iranian dip- lomats and a reporter hostage in the northern Afghan town of Mazar-e- Sharif. Although Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE were the only states to recognize the Taliban, Iran refrained from condemning them. Instead, Khatami worked with Saudi allies, Pakistan, Jordan, and Kuwait to secure the release of the hostages. After the Taliban retrieved the bodies of the Iranian diplomats and reporter on September 11, 1998, Tehran closed ranks with Rabbani’s government-in-exile (which held the Afghan seat at the UN, Saudi–Iranian Détente ● 147 a year later obtaining UN Security Council condemnation of the murders as a violation of international law). To show solidarity with Iran, Saudi Arabia—which had already fallen out with the Taliban over its refusal to extradite Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who planned the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania—withdrew its chargé d’affaires Suleiman Al Omri from Kabul and expelled the Taliban representative Maulvi Shehabuddin from Riyadh. This helped ease the drive to fight the Taliban, which had been gaining momentum in Tehran as the Iranian army fortified its position along the Afghan border. Tehran ulti- mately chose not to confront the Taliban as, according to Mohajerani, “a common wisdom prevailed that confronting the Taliban directly would cre- ate more damage than gain.” 37 On September 20, 1998, Khatami arrived in New York to deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly the following day, outlining Iran’s regional policies. Khatami warned that developments in Iran’s immediate neighborhood—it was encircled by the Taliban on its eastern border and Iraq under Saddam to the west—would ultimately disrupt regional peace. On his return, he asserted that Iran was a principled country when it came to regional affairs, and that it was time others listened to it. The majlis al-shura proceeded to vote in favor of a bilateral cooperation agreement between Riyadh and Tehran in September, which the Saudi cabi- net of ministers approved on November 12, 1998. 38 On September 29, 1998, at the UN General Assembly, the kingdom emphasized that Iran was a posi- tive influence in relations between that country and other Gulf states, and that its role led to peace and stability in the region. On October 3, 1998, the OIC endorsed the establishment of a joint Afghan–Iranian Committee. 39 Other signs also pointed to Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s commitment to improve ties. At one meeting of Arab Gulf ministers in 1999—one of four regular GCC consultations each year in Riyadh—GCC foreign ministers reviewed the disputed-islands issue between Iran and the UAE. Despite pro- testations by the UAE and a US decision to take sides on the issue with it, Saudi Arabia advised the Emirates not to meddle with a bigger brother. Referring to Iran, it admonished the UAE to recognize that the enemy of one who does not know better is only oneself. 40 Iran’s then-ambassador to the UN in New York (and now foreign minister) Javad Zarif optimistically reinforced the message to me: “The islands are not a major problem in our relations with the Arab world because we are certain the UAE would never go to war on the issue with Iran.” 41 Iran would subsequently turn down the UAE proposal to send the dispute for arbitration through the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but express willingness to discuss and resolve the issue in bilateral talks. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar had also formed a trilateral committee to help resolve the islands dispute. 148 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Tehran proceeded to invite Washington to consider investing in oil proj- ects with it rather than trying to work with the Taliban, whose forces not only launched an attack on Iranian soil in October, but also supported al- Qaeda. On October 8, Iran invoked Article 7 of the UN Charter, calling the Taliban a threat to international peace. On 7 November, Kharrazi met with Prince Abdullah to seek help over Afghanistan. Simultaneously, Iran’s mission in New York pushed for a permanent seat for Muslim states on the UN Security Council. Kharrazi traveled to Saudi Arabia again on March 2, 1999, where he reached an agreement to halt the decline of oil prices that had forced Iran to close down a dozen embassies and consulates abroad. 42 In May 1999, Khatami made a point of visiting Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar in a single tour to avoid the impression that his main destination was to the kingdom, having once postponed his trip there back in March to pre- vent angering radical factions in Tehran. Khatami was also facing mounting protests in Iran at the slow pace of reforms, and according to his deputy Abtahi, felt increasingly besieged. 43 A wheelchair-bound King Fahd personally greeted President Khatami at the airport upon his arrival. Khatami’s trip was riveting to Saudi intellectu- als and diplomats whom I spoke to years later, and who held him in high regards. Evidently, the president did not cease to charm them and attempted to speak in Arabic, receiving standing ovations when he did. On his trip, he laid the groundwork for further cooperation on oil prices, as well as on evolving plans for Iraq. King Fahd insisted that the door was wide open to develop and strengthen relations between the two countries in the interests of the two peoples and the Muslim world. Prince Abdullah defended Iran’s right to meeting its defense needs—in fact, Iran’s military expenditures revealed far reduced levels of arms purchases compared to the GCC—and criticized the attention given to the country’s military program while Israel was allowed to maintain nuclear weapons. Foreign minister Kharazzi termed the statement “wise.”44 The statement arrived in the wake of US threats to attack the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Saud al- Faisal, however, was more cautious, maintaining that, although there was potentially no limit to the extent of ties between the two countries, the main requirement for solid relations was the restoration of confidence by settling outstanding problems amicably, such as Iran’s continued interven- tions in the Eastern Province. However, when Khatami was presented with information on the issue, he brushed it off, by saying he knew nothing about the matter. 45 Nevertheless, the Saudi foreign minister proceeded to discuss a prelimi- nary agreement to establish a trilateral committee comprising the GCC, Iran and potentially Iraq; Prince Sultan emphasized his country’s keen- ness to further expand defense relations with Iran; and Tehran and Riyadh agreed to exchange military attach é s.46 Saudi–Iranian Détente ● 149

In the fall of 1999, Nategh-Nouri and a 95-member delegation traveled to Saudi Arabia to conclude an agreement to enhance cooperation between Saudi state ministers and the Iranian parliament. Majlis al-shura members subsequently visited Tehran to help establish an Islamic inter-parliamentary union. A 120-member Saudi delegation led by Minister of Industry and Electricity Hashim Abdullah Yamani also wrapped up a two-week trip to Iran to participate in the Tehran Trade Fair, a visit designed to trigger mutual growth despite the heavily subsidized economies in both Saudi Arabia and Iran. In January 2000, Riyadh and Tehran concluded a memorandum of understanding to promote commerce and joint investments, and coordinate their stance in international and regional organizations. It established coop- eration in the areas of navigation, port development, and consulate affairs. Iran’s imports from Saudi Arabia increased 98 percent by 2000–2001 compared to 1999–2000, while its exports to the kingdom remained around USD 40 million per year—roughly 1.5 percent of the kingdom’s annual imports at the time, but nonetheless a significant stride for Iran, which jumped up from thirty-first to seventeenth on the list of exporters to Saudi Arabia. Their trade volume increased to USD 133 million in 2000 com- pared to USD 95 million the previous year. 47 The volume of Iran’s trade with the GCC also increased fivefold, from USD 1.71 billion in 2000 to USD 8.71 billion dollars in 2007, while GCC exports to Iran increased from USD 1.26 billion in 2000 to USD 7.33 billion in 2007. Iran also obtained private funding from GCC investment arms such as the Gulf Industrial Development Company, and in 2007 received loans in excess of USD 1 bil- lion from the Islamic Development Bank, based in Saudi Arabia. Despite Tehran’s efforts to turn over a new leaf in its relations with the kingdom, Iran lagged behind the Gulf region’s economic development. In 2000, Saudi Arabia eased visas for Iranian businesses and a number of joint water and manufacturing projects were initiated, but by 2003, there were only 18 Saudi–Iranian joint ventures in operation. 48 Other than a few on- and-off deals to export Iranian gas to GCC markets and token investments in Iran including USD 300 million from a Saudi business to make soft drinks for local markets, the scale of Iranian trade and commerce with its neighbors remained minimal. Meanwhile, by 2000, the GCC enhanced its economic unity by acceler- ating trade among its members, removing protective barriers, and—with the exception of Saudi Arabia—joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), from which the United States barred Iran. (Saudi Arabia joined the organi- zation in 2005.) GCC economic codependency totaled some USD 33 bil- lion, with foreign assets of close to USD 100 billion since 1999 and an active investment portfolio in global markets; it was also on the verge of experi- encing a new spike in oil prices from 2000–2003. Iran, however, remained ahead of its Arab Gulf neighbors in terms of human resource development 150 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran and capital. According to the UN Development Program’s Arab Human Development Report 2002, the Arab world (including the GCC) had three key deficits that were frequently overlooked in economic growth indices: the freedom deficit, the women’s empowerment deficit, and the deficit to relative wealth of human knowledge capabilities. In Saudi Arabia these deficits were acute; fewer than 40 percent of its working-age population formed part of the labor force, and over 80 percent of women were jobless. (Surprisingly, the official number of unemployed women in Iran would soon rise to 83 percent primarily due to the country’s economic hardships rather than a lack of desire for participation in the work force.) On April 18, 2001, Riyadh and Tehran signed a security agreement enhancing basic cooperation to fight drug trafficking, terrorism, and ille- gal immigration, and expanding transport and tighter border controls. The agreement materialized through the combined efforts of Prince Nayef and Hassan Rouhani. More importantly, it covered a host of political concerns and reflected a conscious effort to bridge the gap in the two countries’ under- standing of regional events. The agreement addressed the kingdom’s and Iran’s mutual resolve to end tensions in the Middle East, and condemned Israel’s policies toward Palestine and the latest attacks against Lebanon. It also outlined the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland, and Lebanon’s right to fight occupation—which constituted a de facto Saudi endorsement of Iran’s position on Palestinian refugees and Hizbullah as a resistance force against Israel. Both parties reiterated their solidarity with Syria, commending its steadfast determination to retrieve its annexed terri- tory from Israel. On Iraq, the two parties expressed mutual sympathy for the suffering of its people, and declared the country’s current living conditions unacceptable. The parties emphasized the need to alter the situation in Iraq based on international principles, so that while sanctions were carried out people remained safe and secure. They stressed the need to preserve Iraq’s territorial integrity and reiterated the principle of nonintervention in Iraq’s quest for self-determination. The agreement concluded by stating that Saudi Arabia and Iran were mutually responsible for expanding cooperation to secure the region’s peace and stability.

PART IV

How Current Conflicts between Saudi Arabia and Iran Impact the State of the World CHAPTER 9

Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s Quest for Stability after 9/11

ith fears of a new regional war looming, Saud al-Faisal and Kamal Kharrazi condemned 9/11, but warned Washington W against taking hasty action. Doubtful if a US attack against the Afghan Taliban could guarantee victory over the group, Riyadh had briefly attempted to reconcile the Taliban with the pro-Iranian Afghan Northern Alliance before the outbreak of the war. Tehran had welcomed the initiative although it was quickly stalled due to the pending war. The US decision to invade Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, in part made possible by the Northern Alliance’s ground forces, prompted Riyadh and Tehran to accommodate Washington regardless of their hesitations about the war. Both maintained that the Taliban was a highly mobile target and, therefore, difficult to defeat. Nonetheless, Riyadh granted Washington access to its command facilities, and provided humanitarian and financial aid to help rebuild Afghanistan. Tehran offered to assist US airmen in dan- ger in Afghanistan, and provided humanitarian aid and material support, and later launched a campaign to build schools in the country. Nonetheless, Washington chose to sideline R iyadh and Tehran as untrust- worthy partners over Afghanistan. Riyadh had supported the Taliban in the past, and Tehran was anxious to exploit the opportunities that would arise in the new Afghanistan especially if US policies there were to fail. In response, Saudi Arabia went along with Islamabad’s policies in managing relations with the new Afghanistan. That alarmed Tehran though, as the move also aimed to restore the Saudi–Pakistani alliance to contain Iranian influence over Afghanistan. Tehran, meanwhile, proactively convinced the Northern Alliance to build a new government in Kabul. However, as the alliance was unprepared to lead the country given pervasive factional fighting among 154 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran its members, Tehran seized the opportunity to join Washington to back Hamid Karzai’s presidency at the international talks in Bonn held in late 2001. Quietly, it hoped to align the US and Iranian interests in the new Afghanistan. In the process, Javad Zarif (then Iran’s key negotiator) told me that he convinced alliance delegation chair Yunus Qanuni to abandon his demanded number of cabinet positions in an interim administration. He also tirelessly worked with Mohammad Qasim Fahim of the alliance to gain a last-minute concession to bring only one armored division into Kabul, to prove Pakistan’s fear of a pending bloodbath baseless. But by January 2002, when US President George W. Bush named Iran as part of an “axis of evil” in his State of the Union address, which inter alia, helped deflect American public atten- tion away from Saudi Arabia whose citizens had carried out the 9/11 attacks, it was clear that Washington aimed to go it alone in Afghanistan. According to Zarif, Tehran was “puzzled”; it was Washington that had approached it for help, and US negotiators in Bonn were “not well-informed” to resolve interparty Afghan rivalries without Iran’s help. Moreover, they seemed to be quite open to discussing a host of regional topics with the Iranian negotiat- ing team, which was instructed to “focus only on Afghanistan.” 1 Unable to negotiate directly with the Bush administration, unlike Riyadh, Tehran felt defeated by the events that transpired after 9/11, although it had played no role in the terrorist attacks, and had tried to assist US operations in Afghanistan. The White House spared Riyadh its open rancor in the wake of 9/11. Nonetheless, American policy and media circles opened up a barrage of onslaughts that questioned the radicalization of Saudi society and the reli- gious system—given that 15 of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 attacks were Saudi nationals. Saudis were appalled, a feeling that was palpable even ten years after 9/11, when I visited Riyadh. The Saudi public, generally lenient toward the United States, deplored their society’s castigation through a flurry of journalistic, literary, and poetic writing. Even outspoken dissident Saudis, not to mention the radical clerical establishment, called for the sev- erance of Riyadh’s ties with Washington. Although Washington and Riyadh embarked on a strategic dialogue to resolve tensions between them, Saudi diplomats I spoke to four years after 9/11 contended that they had insisted any proposed reform be paced and self-initi- ated. 2 Reform began in 2003, when Crown Prince Abdullah accepted petitions on a national dialogue from Saudi intellectuals. One result was a brief coop- eration between Saudi and Iranian authorities over reform in their respective judicial systems; but a Saudi diplomat informed me, much later, that those meetings had been frequented by intelligence officers rather than experts, which pointed to the prevailing mistrust between Riyadh and Tehran. 3 Quest for Stability after 9/11 ● 155

Nonetheless, with a reduced sense of security after 9/11 and to signal its displeasure with Washington, the kingdom signed an oil agreement with Iran that led to high prices in international markets. Saudi trade minis- ter Osama bin Jafar Faqih insisted that US threats against Iran served to enhance the relationship with Riyadh. Meanwhile, Iranian speaker of par- liament Mehdi Karrubi and Saudi majlis al-shura chair Muhammad bin Jubair issued a joint statement rejecting US unilateralism in launching pre- emptive wars and Western media attacks on Islam. Abdullah then tactfully linked the question of terrorism to Israel’s actions. Saudi authorities even chided the United States, in a series of joint statements issued along with Iran, for refusing to take a proactive stance on the Middle East conflict. (Khatami’s then vice president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi told me Riyadh would strengthen its ties with Tehran “just to scold Washington for supporting Israel.”)4 Iranian political pundits similarly, and erroneously, argued that Abdullah needed Iran to circumvent Israel. The kingdom, however, aimed to restrict Iran’s involvement in Arab affairs, and that included over Palestine. In March 2002, Abdullah offered Israel a peace proposal at the Arab League summit in Beirut, calling for complete with- drawal from lands occupied in 1967 in return for normalized ties with Arab states. Riyadh was also anxious to restrict Tehran’s role in Afghanistan, and by extension over Pakistan’s Shi‘i population of over 20 million, even if Tehran generally preferred to remain detached from the chaos of Pakistani politics. Saudi Arabia was also embarrassed by Iran’s decision to arrest 2,300 al-Qaeda associates, mostly Arab nationals crossing from Afghanistan into Iran in 2002–2003. But Iran, which was attacked at least five times by al-Qaeda after the invasion, felt justified by its action. It believed that Riyadh, which tended to blame the violence brewing inside Saudi Arabia on external forces including Iran, was in reality incapable of controlling terrorism. A former Iranian dip- lomat in Riyadh told me: “The gravest blunder the United States made after 9/11 was to continue to think that it could depend on Riyadh at some level to stop terrorism, neglecting the extent to which radical religious views were pervasively embedded within the Saudi state and society.” 5 A b t a h i a s s e r t e d : “It was safer that Iran kept the al-Qaeda terrorists rather than Saudi Arabia, because the group lacked sympathy among the general public in Iran, unlike in Saudi Arabia.” He added: “Holding them carried no liability for Tehran, given the lack of ideological commonality between al-Qaeda and Shi‘i Iran.” Al-Qaeda’s contempt for Iran was evident even in the most mundane acts: its captives in Iran refused to consume meat although it had been slaugh- tered according to Islamic practices and made halal , “because they did not view Shi‘is as Muslims,” as Abtahi summarized. 6 156 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Riyadh found Tehran’s exploitation of al-Qaeda operatives irritating. Many of them had previously fought in the Soviet-Afghan War when the Saudi government supported them. Of special concern now to Riyadh was the alleged residency in Iran of Ezedin Abd al-Aziz Khalil, al-Qaeda’s Syrian alternative financier, as well as Osama bin Laden’s immediate family, some of whom returned to the kingdom almost a decade after 9/11 after intense negotiations between Saudi and Iranian authorities.7 Tehran would also proceed to extradite hundreds of terrorists to coun- tries including Saudi Arabia, reinforce its joint border security agreement with Riyadh and help Saudi intelligence apprehend a key al-Qaeda sus- pect, Khalid bin Ouda bin Muhammad al-Harbi, in eastern Iran in 2004. In return, in an act of “unbelievable forgiveness” according to Alireza Nourizadeh, an Iranian dissident close to the kingdom, Saudi Arabia let Iran keep Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian al-Qaeda agent who may have later con- ducted operations for Iran and departed for Waziristan along the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan in March 2010. 8 Washington charged Iran of inaction in combating terrorism, in the 2004 9/11 Commission Report . According to the report, Tehran sheltered one of bin Laden’s sons, Saad, and his son-in-law, Kuwaiti-born al-Qaeda spokes- man Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (who was later tried and convicted in the United States in 2014); it also approached al-Qaeda after the bombing of the USS Cole off the shores of Yemen on October 12, 2000, to propose collaborating on future attacks against the United States. Apparently, bin Laden rejected working with Iran to avoid antagonizing his followers in Saudi Arabia. The report was less openly critical of Saudi Arabia, but pointed to the kingdom’s refusal to cooperate with US investigators and failure to crack down on private funding to terrorists before 9/11. In response, Saudi author- ities clamped down on local extremists and suspicious charity. By 2011, they had established an independent counterterrorism body under UN supervi- sion, and apprehended thousands of extremists—many of whom received generous rehabilitation services and jobs to re-assimilate into Saudi society, but some of whom despite this service would return to Yemen or Iraq to rejoin al-Qaeda. Riyadh’s efforts to curb terrorism in Afghanistan were less successful, due in part to the departure prior to 9/11 of Afghan policy veteran Turki al- Faisal as head of the General Intelligence Directorate (GID). (Prince Turki later became ambassador to Britain and the United States.) The Afghan file, however, was transferred to the interior ministry’s General Security Service. Amidst the bureaucratic reshuffles, Riyadh’s influence receded over the so- called moderate Taliban while the group’s radical elements received private funds, which assisted Taliban-affiliated terrorist organizations such as the Haqqani network in Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban, and the anti-Shi‘i Quest for Stability after 9/11 ● 157

Lashkar Jhangvi. The financial nexus of Saudi private money assisting mul- tiple Afghan groups fueled the rivalry between Riyadh and Tehran. 9 Nonetheless, the two capitals supported talks with the moderate Taliban to help stabilize Afghanistan. But several factors contributed to the failure of negotiations with the Taliban. Senior members of the Taliban, at times, rejected Saudi calls for it to part with al-Qaeda, while pro-Iranian Afghan parties such as the Afghan National Army (comprising roughly 60 percent former Northern Alliance members) rejected a Saudi mediatory role alto- gether. Iran, meanwhile, opposed talks with the Taliban should they have empowered Taliban militants, but it let talks proceed despite the Taliban’s influence over the Sunni resistance group Jundullah in Iran, which Tehran accused the United States, Pakistan, and neo-Salafis of aiding—the last implying association with Saudi Arabia and thus encouragement to revolt in Sunni-dominated regions of Iran. Ultimately, Saudi Arabia transferred authority to deal with the Taliban to Qatar, with mixed results: the Taliban and its Doha hosts did not get along. As a result, Iran remained concerned that without a peace agreement in place prior to the scheduled departure of most US forces in Afghanistan in 2014 (9,800 US and 2,000 NATO troops would remain in the coun- try), the country could descend into civil war. However, it continued to stress accepting talks with the Taliban if the group agreed to disarm and engage in Afghanistan’s reconstruction, a measure that ensured the security of Iran’s eastern borders. It also welcomed security talks with Pakistan under Nawaz Sharif when he reassumed office as prime minister in 2013, to deal with Afghanistan. At the time of this writing, several high-ranking Taliban members had visited Iran on three occasions, and denounced the Islamic State (IS), an armed group in Iraq and Syria that aimed to build alliances with radical fighters in the region.

Iran’s Nuclear Program Gains Momentum On March 19, 2003, the US invaded Iraq. Given their failed experience to engage with Washington over Afghanistan, Riyadh and Tehran aimed to halt unilateral US military action against Iraq, jointly denouncing the inva- sion and encouraging UN intervention to quickly resolve the crisis over Iraq. They also rejected Washington’s argument of aiming to “spread democracy” from Iraq to its neighbors. If anything, Iraq’s invasion helped entrench the power base of radical political groups in Saudi Arabia and Iran quite easily. Riyadh appeased the religious groups opposed to the US war in Iraq, at times, at the expense of liberal voices aiming to introduce reform in the kingdom. Tehran warned human rights activists to halt demands for change as long as the threat of a US political or military attack loomed over the region. 158 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Riyadh also tightened its border arrangements and—with Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey—formed a system whereby members of these states contiguous with Iraq would gather for regular consultations. Bahrain would join the initiative, along with the Secretary-General of the OIC, the Arab League and, early on, L. Paul Bremer, the US Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. At least nine ministerial meetings were held by 2006. Before the invasion, Kurdish, Shi‘i and Sunni Iraqi opposition leaders visited Riyadh and Tehran as part of efforts by Washington to form a new government in Baghdad. Iraq’s first president under its new interim govern- ment from 2004–2005, Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawar, who had spent 14 years in Saudi Arabia, visited both capitals after assuming office—as did Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s first elected president. However, Riyadh feared Tehran’s influence over Iraq’s leadership. Key Iraqi political leaders were, by and large, close to Tehran. The pro-Iranian Iraqi political figure Ahmad Chalabi, for example, was believed to have influenced Washington’s decision to invade Iraq on false charges that it possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). His actions helped divert US attention from Iran’s nuclear program at the time when information surfaced about two clandestine Iranian nuclear sites under construction in Arak and Natanz in August 2002. That September, President Khatami made umrah and met with Prince Abdullah in Jeddah to address Iraq and Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran felt that it was being singled out for its nuclear program and that Washington was confident it could contain Iran in the wake of the rapid invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Abdullah predicted that Washington’s pressures on Khatami might push Tehran’s hardliners toward expanding Iran’s nuclear capability, a prospect that would force Riyadh to rethink its defense strategy. Yet Riyadh was unprepared to seek direct US intervention on the issue or receive Pakistani defense assistance, given strained ties with Washington and ongoing international calls for Islamabad to halt its own nuclear weap- ons program. Against this backdrop, a month later, Tehran invited the foreign minis- ters of France, Germany, and Britain to negotiate a nuclear deal. The EU troika declared that Iran was in violation of Article 2 of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by manufacturing nuclear fuel secretly. If the prospect of Iraq being invaded sealed Iran’s decision to master the nuclear fuel cycle, then it could bring it a step closer to building a nuclear bomb if it decided to. Talks with the French, Germans, and British gave it the time it needed to master the fuel cycle, which—by its own admission—it achieved in 2008. The conservative and reformist camps, however, remained concerned about potential US or Israeli strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Alarmed, Quest for Stability after 9/11 ● 159

Zarif voiced that concern during his frequent debriefing in Tehran, shortly after the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—the body responsible for safeguarding and inspecting Iran’s nuclear reactors—passed a resolution calling for stringent measures to con- trol Iranian activity. But a consensus emerged in Tehran that it must not cancel its nuclear program under threat. In November 2003, Tehran agreed by its own admission for tactical pur- poses to suspend uranium enrichment briefly while negotiations on a long- term agreement continued. The measure helped tone down a subsequent IAEA resolution on November 23, 2003. On 18 December, Iran signed the NPT Additional Protocol that allowed for snap inspections of its nuclear sites. The Iranian negotiating team was led by the current President Hassan Rouhani, who was then head of the Supreme National Security Council (a constitutional body established in 1989 that oversaw state policy, with direct contacts to the office of Supreme Leader Khamenei), and opposed opening up nuclear facilities to unrequired scrutiny when Tehran aimed to achieve full enrichment capacity; nonetheless, it concluded that IAEA inspections would face legal hurdles under the NPT if they aimed to hinder the enrich- ment program.10 Tehran also remained openly dismissive of Riyadh’s outreach. On December 26, 2003, a devastating earthquake struck the desert town of Bam, leaving anxious locals prone to rumors speculating that it had been triggered by an underground nuclear test. Saudi Arabia was one of the first countries to respond to the quake: Saud al-Faisal called the Saudi ambas- sador to Tehran, Nasser Al Braik, to inquire into what kind of assistance the victims needed. When informed that the roads to Bam were closed, the prince dispatched two planes with medical supplies and a dozen medical practitioners to Bam; but Tehran refused to thank Saudi Arabia publicly, although it acknowledged the far smaller contributions of other states to quake victims.11 In January 2004, Iran’s nuclear talks with France, Germany, and Britain halted when Tehran declared it was close to constructing a plant to pro- duce a heavy-water nuclear reactor in Arak that could serve a dual purpose, providing plutonium for nuclear weapons. In February 2004, hardlin- ers won a majority of seats in Iran’s parliament and set up a new political camp named the “principlists.” The camp served as an umbrella for some 14 different ultra-hardline factions to push for the presidential candidacy of Ahmadinejad, Tehran’s mayor who had been barred by reformists from attending government meetings. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei proceeded to side with the principlists, and criticized the previous reformist parliament for succumbing to Western pressure and signing the NPT. On March 27, 2004, the Esfahan uranium 160 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran conversion facility was inaugurated, despite a new IAEA resolution. In June and September, other resolutions followed that called on Iran to halt ura- nium enrichment and assembling centrifuges. In October 2004, EU and US officials met to discuss providing incen- tives to Iran. When negotiations with Tehran resumed in November in Paris, a tentative agreement reaffirmed Iran’s right to develop a peaceful nuclear program with Western assistance—but fell short of Tehran’s expec- tations of receiving assistance to develop nuclear reactors and pursue limited enrichment activities. The EU troika offered help with research reactors and encouraged Iran to obtain fuel from abroad, but felt that the country was unprepared to end enrichment. If anything, the Paris meeting reaffirmed Tehran’s commitment to advance the enrichment program to use as lever in future talks. Ayatollah Khamenei only briefly agreed to suspend the pro- gram for three months, for the sole purpose of buying time, free of Western pressure, to fix technical problems encountered in the enrichment facilities despite the successful instalment of centrifuges. 12 By then, the IRGC, under the leader’s command, was directing impor- tant state policies. To salvage the potential takeover of power by hardliners, however, Tehran’s negotiating team embarked on a final effort to devise a comprehensive agreement in December 2004 and January 2005. The agree- ment aimed to cover a wide range of security concerns along with a prom- ise by Tehran of non-diversion in its nuclear program, which Washington rejected. Rouhani proceeded to approach IAEA Secretary-General Mohamed ElBaradei, seeking help to send a message to President Bush urging compre- hensive talks with Iran. 13 Washington construed the gesture as implying a “grand bargain” formula to end US–Iranian hostilities, which Bush was compelled to reject in the wake of 9/11. Unbeknown to President Bush was the fact that the “grand bargain” formula was quite foreign to Iran’s political culture, espoused by less than a handful of Iranian politicians previously exposed to Western circles— including members of the nuclear negotiating team working to build a stra- tegic outlook to share between Washington and Tehran. But these negotia- tors remained detached toward pervasive hardline suspicions over a “grand bargain” formula with the United States. The team’s posturing advocating a “grand bargain” formula also came as a detriment to Iran’s relations with Saudi Arabia, which feared a bargain. It also led to a strong political back- lash in Iran when I witnessed firsthand how the next Iranian president and key decision-makers dismissively struggled to grasp the concept of a “grand bargain.” In February 2005, after the IAEA referred Iran to the UN Security Council, Tehran attempted again to make concessions, but it failed in its talks. A month later, Rouhani proposed limited enrichment, then threatened Quest for Stability after 9/11 ● 161 to end suspension. When Tehran reached out once more to the European troika in June 2005, it was informed that Washington would not agree to any centrifuge operations. Still optimistic that Rafsanjani might win the presidency and brush aside the hardliners, by then the reformists believed that France, Germany, and Britain might wait until a stronger government in Tehran came to power to make a final deal; but this decision weakened Khatami, who had urged the speeding up of negotiations to help win the reformists a political victory. Ultimately, setbacks suffered by the conservative-led Iranian negotiat- ing team intensified political wrangling with the reformists, who sabotaged Rouhani’s chance to run in the presidential elections by supporting their uncharismatic reformist candidate, a former education minister, Mostafa Moeen. Tehran’s ties with Riyadh weakened accordingly, as the Saudis apprehen- sively anticipated the destabilizing consequence of failed nuclear talks if Iran were to be led by hardliners. When Saudi officials informed the European troika of their concerns, Rouhani traveled to the kingdom in June 2005. In private discussions, he dismissed the suggestion of non-peaceful nuclear ambitions, and discussed holding joint security committees to meet biannu- ally. Riyadh rejected Rouhani’s proposal to enrich uranium jointly or build a nuclear fuel bank for power generation. Saud al-Faisal even dismissed his proposal to build a joint regional security system, bluntly reminding Rouhani that it was time Iran accepted the reality of six Arab Gulf states comprising a single power bloc as the GCC. Rouhani departed convinced it was late to reach out to the Saudis, mindful that if Iran’s full ability to develop low-enriched uranium (LEU) and build the next generation of cen- trifuges was soon revealed, then it would irreversibly upset Riyadh. 14 Back home, Rouhani and Khatami fell back into resignation, and tensions with Saudi Arabia were dismissed as a byproduct of US-Iranian regional dis- putes. This concealed the emerging deep rifts dividing the presidency, the negotiating team, the supreme leader, and the armed forces on the fate of Iran’s nuclear program. In this process, Khatami—who, never gained real clout nor demonstrated a strong desire to lead—remained uninvolved in day- to-day decisions. His key cabinet members were excluded from the nuclear committee that in practice only directly reported to the supreme leader. 15 Ironically, although the negotiating team was given the task of maintaining the momentum of the talks, its members too were uninvolved in the sensi- tive decisions taken behind closed doors over the technical aspects of Iran’s nuclear program.16 Against the backdrop of the ambiguity of the Iranian nuclear ambi- tions, there were speculations over a partial momentum now built in Tehran in support of a nonconventional weapons drive. Tehran’s actions over its 162 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran chemical weapons program during the Iran–Iraq war was revealing in this respect. In 1998, Iran had revealed to the third conference of state parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention that it allowed the development of chemical warfare expertise in the course of the Iran–Iraq war, but reversed the decision at the end of the war. Yet the conservatives in power at the time openly contemplated how Pakistan possessed weapons of mass destruction and the United States failed to control it. If Saudi Arabia, as Iran suspected, had even partly funded the Pakistani nuclear program, then that was more reason to be suspicious about US ability to stop nuclear proliferation in the region. By the end of Khatami’s presidency the hardline security and intelligence branches in Iran were rapidly gaining clout. Iran’s radical papers reflected the rising hardline trend by slamming Saudi leaders. When King Fahd died on August 1, 2005, the newspaper Kayhan unceremoniously accused the former monarch of being a US proxy who advocated for Iraq’s war against Iran.17 Iran also suspected that Saudi Arabia had funded Iraq’s WMD pro- gram. On the same day, it informed the IAEA of its decision to resume uranium conversion activities in Esfahan. The message from Tehran was disheartening to King Abdullah, who had struggled hard in the decade since King Fahd began ailing to gain control over the multiple decision-making centers in Riyadh, which hampered its ability to reach out to Tehran. In response, the kingdom sought to obtain, through the IAEA, small, permissible quantities of uranium and plutonium not subject to the agency’s frequent inspections. By then, Ahmadinejad had sidelined Rafsanjani in a race that other presidential candidates such as former house speaker Karrubi charged was fraudulent. On September 24, 2005, the IAEA adopted a resolution to refer Iran to the UN Security Council if it renewed its uranium-enrichment pro- gram. This shocked Tehran as, just days earlier in New York, Ahmadinejad had called for a consortium of nations inclusive of public and private sec- tors to oversee Iran’s nuclear program, and remained open to a wide array of proposals including one offered by ElBaradei to allow Iran to retain token nuclear fuel capacity. A new agreement could win the Iranian presi- dent needed support, and secure the power base of the hardliners in future Iranian elections. To avert a referral to the Security Council and help Ahmadinejad’s drive for a nuclear deal, Supreme Leader Khamenei issued a fatwa in October declaring that Islam banned the use of nuclear weapons. Khamenei also granted Rafsanjani, the new head of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council—which mediated internal disputes and set long-term guidelines to manage the state—authority to oversee government policies, which included the nuclear issue. This step was largely symbolic; as Western pressure on Quest for Stability after 9/11 ● 163

Iran mounted, parliament pressed for a bill to cancel Iran’s obligations to the Additional Protocol and rejected proposals to convert uranium in Iran and ship the resulting compound to Russia for enrichment. After a discussion with Rouhani’s brother, Hussein Fereidoun, I left thinking that the new government now planned to play hardball because it felt that when Iran accommodated the United States, it was frequently ignored. The UN sanctioned Iran on December 23, 2005, following which Tehran ended the implementation of the Additional Protocol but remained open to engaging with Washington in direct talks. 18 In January 2006, King Abdullah urged US Vice President Dick Cheney to give diplomacy more time. In June 2006, Prince Saud openly opposed a military strike on Iran. Former Saudi minister of social affairs Abd al-Muhsin Al Akhlas, told me: “Riyadh felt if the United States attacked Iran it would leave the region after a while, whereas it was the kingdom that had to live with the consequences given it was Iran’s neighbor.”19 The GCC then actively facilitated several high-level meetings with Iran through Oman’s foreign ministry, in which Tehran addressed a range of topics including controlling narcotics and terrorism, the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and relations with Hizbullah and Hamas. However, a conspicuous lack of progress on the nuclear issue dismayed the GCC, and Iranian foreign minister Manuchehr Mottaki told me: “Tehran’s preference was to resolve a range of issues through such diplomatic channels.” 20 T h i s could give Tehran an opportunity to show the GCC that Iran posed no threat to them. At the end of July 2006, the Security Council passed a second resolu- tion. Ahmadinejad blamed Rafsanjani for derailing his government’s efforts to arrive at an agreement that could also suspend enrichment.21 I n d e e d , Ahmadinejad believed that Rafsanjani had signaled to Riyadh that he would be able to replace the Iranian president in the upcoming presidential race in 2009, and end the Iranian nuclear crisis himself. However, Ahmadinejad remained hopeful about his ties with Riyadh. He told me, “The US could not harm Iran partly because of the anti-American sentiments in Saudi Arabia.” Saudi Arabia, he said, “would stand behind Iran’s right to its sov- ereignty. Without a government in Tehran, Riyadh or the region cannot remain stable.” He concluded that: “Relations with Riyadh were fine,” but that their economic ties “needed to grow.” 22 According to then-Saudi ambassador to Tehran, Osama bin Ahmad Al Sanousi, whom I met briefly in Ottawa, those relations remained stagnant for the most part. In my view, that was partly because of Tehran’s nuclear drive, which could tip the power balance against Riyadh. Indeed, even if Iran had nuclear weapons, “Riyadh was unlikely to be able to secure the endorsement of the United States to develop nuclear weapons of its own,” 164 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran according to Abtahi. 23 After all, Iran reasoned, how could the United States or Israel trust a nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia when the Arabs had fought several major wars with Israel? In January 2007, the Saudi foreign minister proposed an international nuclear consortium between the regional countries under the supervision of the IAEA that could be situated in a neutral country even outside the Middle East. His position aimed to simultaneously resolve the crisis with Iran and carve out a nominal role for the kingdom in securing its own interests in the face of the crisis. Ahmadinejad showed signs of impatience with the regional initiative. He told me: “Saudi Arabia’s views on building a nuclear consortium are important, but our position is that Iran’s nuclear file must leave the Security Council and return to the IAEA where it belongs.” 24 The Saudi-based OIC supported Iran’s bid to arrive at an agreement with the IAEA, and stated it was the only way to resolve the nuclear problem. By the time the Saudi proposal arrived, 152 members of Iran’s new par- liament had called for Ahmadinejad’s impeachment on charges of defiantly leading the country toward a political deadlock. This forced the supreme leader to call on the Arab Gulf states to view Iran’s nuclear program as a source of pride, and to recall that some of them had defended Saddam Hussein when he deployed chemical weapons on Iran.25 In response, on February 25, 2007, the foreign ministers of seven Sunni states including Saudi Arabia called for a diplomatic resolution to Iran’s nuclear crisis. Saudi officials proceeded to advise Ahmadinejad to tone down his remarks on the nuclear issue, while Khamenei cautioned the president not to personalize the topic and stated he would select a moderate team of nuclear negotiators. In March 2007, despite protests by the Bush administration, King Abdullah received Ahmadinejad at the airport on his first official visit to Riyadh. A Saudi ambassador to Iran told me: “Riyadh recognized the presi- dent could not do much within the Iranian system, but chose to accommo- date him. Just as it had embraced Khatami, the kingdom felt it had to give Ahmadinejad a chance.”26 Engaging with Ahmadinejad was also essential given that his hostile rhetoric against Israel and the United States had won him respect on the Arab street. Following his trip, Ahmadinejad consulted Saudi Arabia about Iran’s nuclear stance and the Arab–Israeli conflict, but he cautioned me not to read much into the new appointment by the supreme leader of former for- eign minister Ali Akbar Velayati as his direct contact with Saudi Arabia—a move that implied “the continuation of d é tente with Riyadh” according to Abtahi, but which did not yield results. 27 On March 24, 2007, the Security Council passed a resolution tightening sanctions, and the IAEA approved cuts in technical aid to Iran. In April, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran was able to produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale. In October, Iran’s new chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani Quest for Stability after 9/11 ● 165 seized, as an opening with the United States, on the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2007, which argued definitively that Iran had abandoned all military aspects of its nuclear program in late 2003. He concluded that the European negotiating partners were unable to make political decisions on Iran’s nuclear program that could stick, and felt the need to bring China and Russia on board with the talks. The United States would soon join in, which Iran welcomed if it could guarantee the implementation of a final nuclear agreement. Ahmadinejad subsequently informed Russia that Iran was willing to accept a moratorium on enrichment activities. Larijani then resigned to serve in his new perfunctory role as advisor to the leader on the Supreme National Security Council. There he called for the resumption of the “P5+1” talks with Russia, China, the United States, and the EU troika. Those talks— with Iran’s new nuclear negotiator and Ahmadinejad appointee Saeed Jalili—moved slowly, according to Javier Solana, then Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union. In December 2007, the P5+1 began preparations on a third UN Security Council resolution. Tehran answered a list of questions about its program to meet IAEA compliance requirements, but felt it did not receive a positive response because of anti-Iran influences in the Bush administration. On March 3, 2008, the Security Council passed the new sanctions. In response, Iran tactically softened its tone toward the United States’s Arab allies to avoid isolation in the region. Ahmadinejad welcomed the pend- ing proliferation of peaceful nuclear technology in the Gulf states, which could also help justify the Iranian nuclear program. He offered Tehran’s assistance to help build nuclear reactors. According to Abtahi: “Iran chose to accommodate Saudi Arabia and its Arab neighbors because they could serve as a buffer with the United States if it were to ever attack Iran.” 28 H o w e v e r , Riyadh was uninterested in Iran’s vision to advance joint nuclear technol- ogy, and unwilling to defy the international sanctions regime. Meanwhile, Rafsanjani assured King Abdullah that with Ahmadinejad’s pending depar- ture in the 2009 presidential race, Tehran would reemerge as a state com- mitted to preserving the regional status quo.29 Ahmadinejad would proceed to bitterly expose these contacts in a live television debate with his opponents in the 2009 elections, questioning whether they served Iran’s best interests or could be construed as two Iranian and Saudi political dynasties combin- ing interests against him. Tehran’s political rifts aired in local newspapers that also covered an increasingly vocal clerical debate about the permissibility of nuclear weapons in the Shi‘i faith. Although the most senior theologians seemed to oppose possessing them, some argued in favor of acquiring the know-how for deter- rent purposes—an issue which appeared to have been left unaddressed in the supreme leader’s fatwa . If so, it could be deducted that Iran remained 166 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran open to the Japanese model of possessing nuclear weapons know-how with- out the intention to mantle or use such weapons. The model could help Tehran develop an effective deterrent capability, without going through the legal, theological and physical hurdles of producing nuclear-armed weapons for possible use. In this process, clerics such as the late Ayatollah Azizollah Khoshvaght, a close relative of the leader who passed away in Makkah in February 2013, and whom the reformists had accused of issuing secret fatwas and decrees, held an uncompromising stance on Iran’s nuclear program. However, the consensus among the vast majority of senior clerics (possibly including Ayatollah Khoshvaght) was that the production of weapons of mass destruc- tion was banned. That meant the government would face problems using these weapons even if it had them, or possessed the capability; Shi‘i jurists opposed nuclear weapons, and because the government was constitutionally a religious government subject to religious codes and laws, it would face the hurdle of applicability. The typical blurring of lines of authority in Iranian politics and the flu- idity of state decision-making structures ultimately led numerous political groups inside Iran to act as stakeholders in the country’s nuclear program, which only reinforced the idea that it could possess secret components even if it did not. An Iranian government source lamented to me: “There are too many interests over and beyond the political figureheads that run the nuclear show now.”30 Certainly, Tehran aimed to complete the nuclear fuel cycle, an idea that received support at the highest levels of authority in the county. By July 2008, after the P5+1 talks in Geneva, the EU proposed that Iran cease enrichment in return for a freeze on sanctions, which Tehran refused. Ahmadinejad told me that if Iran had been able to withstand Western pres- sures during the Iran–Iraq war, it could certainly withstand the sanctions. 31 When the IAEA charged Iran with showing contempt for the agency, test- ing high explosives and modifying the cone of its long-range Shahab-3 mis- sile in a manner suitable for nuclear weapons, Tehran attacked the agency’s arbitrary thresholds regarding proliferation-proof and proliferation-prone technologies. Tehran also reached out to the Gulf states, once again, for political pro- tection. In November, it announced that it had a comprehensive proposal for the Arab Gulf states to create a consortium to develop and construct water nuclear reactors, which did not materialize. The GCC responded by objecting to the disturbing lack of contact between the P5+1 and the Gulf states. On December 16, 2008, senior diplomats of the P5+1 held an infor- mal meeting with the GCC in New York, led by the Russians. Following the meeting, Bahrain’s foreign minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Muhammad Al Khalifa expressed his desire to encourage negotiations between Tehran Quest for Stability after 9/11 ● 167 and the incoming administration of President Barack Obama. On December 23, 2008, the president of the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, condemned any potential US–Iran military confrontation. Meanwhile, King Abdullah held strong doubts about a full-fledged alli- ance with the United States should tensions with Iran persist. Ultimately, however, the orientation toward the United States prevailed under the leadership of defense minister Prince Sultan, and slowly converged with Abdullah’s regionalist inclination to contain Iran’s influence in the Arab world.32 When Iran held its first military defense talks with Russia in 2009, Riyadh proceeded, through the GCC, to urge Russia not to play the Iran card in its negotiations with the United States at a time when Tehran’s nuclear program posed a potential threat, and hinted at strengthening its ties with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a move that could contain the Russian influence in the Persian Gulf. By then, however, the election of President Obama had softened Iran’s tone. In fact, Tehran slowed down adding new operating centrifuges around the time of the 2008 US presidential race. In April 2009, Russia’s foreign ministry announced that the United States was interested in Iran’s positive participation in nuclear activities. On April 6, 2009, Tehran welcomed a US-backed global nuclear repository in which to put all uranium enrich- ment, under the strict international control of the IAEA. It also gave new confidential documents to the IAEA, and answered a series of questions about its nuclear program. Mindful of the sensitive time frame for talks with Washington, that same month 205 Iranian parliamentarians proceeded to sign an open letter asking the UN Security Council to issue a resolution declaring Iran’s nuclear program peaceful. In return, parliament—which had, in earlier years, threatened to with- draw from the NPT—vowed to keep nuclear talks within the IAEA treaty framework, which carried the promise that Iran would not pursue a weap- ons program. Led by its new speaker Ali Larijani and the principlists, about half of whom had parted with Ahmadinejad, parliament pushed for a broad- based agreement over the direction of Iran’s nuclear program. As a result, Larijani was able to pass a bill demanding that the government give par- liament full oversight authority on all state-issued declarations including those concerning the nuclear field, and the power to overturn them if they violated the law; he subsequently announced that all nuclear talks should be supervised. The June 2009 Iranian presidential race, however, reversed these positive trends. Ahmadinejad trumped up the nuclear card to win the race. His advi- sor, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, claimed that rival political camps in Iran had urged the West to halt the nuclear program by enforcing tighter sanctions, and pressed for importing nuclear fuel from abroad. 33 Along with the post- election loss of credibility for Tehran following a crackdown on protestors 168 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran who contested the vote, Mashaei’s statement raised concerns that Iran could become a source of greater agitation. Following the race, the IRGC turned into a leading source of strategy for Iranian foreign policy. This led to fresh domestic tensions over the fact that Iran’s uncompromising nuclear policy, in which the IRGC appeared to be a major stakeholder, was alienating its neighbor Saudi Arabia. Ahmadinejad accused Rafsanjani of receiving blank cheques from King Abdullah in order to ensure his return to power, and criticized conservative leaders who had fled into exile but were close to Rafsanjani—such as Ata’ollah Mohajerani, who was cited for his ongoing contacts with Riyadh. 34 Many Saudis that I spoke to, meanwhile, were hopeful that the Green Movement would moder- ate or even change the political system in Iran. On September 25, 2009, Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown disclosed, at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, that Iran had a secret nuclear site. When a Washington Post reporter broke out the news to Ahmadinejad collecting himself, Iran’s presi- dent reminded reporters that Tehran was not required to inform IAEA of the Fordou site until 180 days prior to its becoming operational. Saudi Arabia, however, remained skeptical, as later reports revealed that Iran continued clandestine nuclear-related operations at military sites that did not fall under the purview of the IAEA In addition, traces of uranium enriched to 27 per- cent were found in Fordou; Iran dismissed this finding as an error. Tehran’s missteps were compounded, I argue, by the US refusal to grant the GCC a role complementing the transatlantic context of nuclear talks with Iran, which could have channeled negotiations in a direction that would be seen by Tehran as less an effort by Washington to impose its views and more as an initiative by concerned neighboring countries attempting to engage Iran through collective reasoning and bargaining. In February 2010, Iran announced it would enrich fuel to nearly 20 per- cent for the Tehran research reactor—for medical purposes. Then, on May 17, 2010, Tehran issued a declaration outlining an agreement arrived at with Turkey and Brazil to exchange Iranian LEU with Turkey for fuel intended for its research reactor. Although Washington had not discouraged the talks in Tehran, it was anxious to pass a new UN sanctions resolution that, it maintained, was more conducive to a long-term diplomatic solution. This left Tehran empty-handed, with an agreement that was rendered tooth- less. However, the Tehran Declaration was simply a token step for Iran, which aimed to use it as a tester to assess US sincerity and willingly took the deal—an idea it had rejected six months earlier at the IAEA – in an attempt to foil further sanctions. A day after the announced declaration, the text of a fourth Security Council resolution was agreed upon, followed by US-led gasoline sanctions against Iran. The overlap of the new sanctions with the anniversary of Iran’s Quest for Stability after 9/11 ● 169 contested presidential elections did not stir public reactions in Iran, which remained muted. Iran did not contemplate withdrawing from the NPT, a move too risky to take. Riyadh, meanwhile, controlled the public debate that was in favor of the Tehran Declaration, barring a reporter I knew from live reporting for one year after defending the declaration. Over the next two years, Ahmadinejad reached out to Washington with- out much success. Meanwhile, according to the 2011 US National Security Intelligence Estimate, Tehran had resumed research and development on nuclear weapons; however, there was no evident definitive desire to produce a bomb, given the scattered nature of the work in progress and the high cost of building one. Iran’s plans to produce higher enriched nuclear fuel capabil- ity were in disarray too. Producing 20 percent fuel locally helped meet Iran’s medical needs, but it was costly. Ultimately, a risk of an Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facili- ties prompted Obama to seek an opening with Tehran toward the end of Ahmadinejad’s presidency. Similar pervasive fears of war were voiced in Riyadh. Obama was anxious for a deal, according to a White House source I spoke to. He was also anxious to stop Iran, under Ahmadinejad, from pursuing its many nuclear intrigues, by imposing tighter sanctions. In the process, the White House aimed to ensure that a deal with Iran would fit into a larger plan to restore the regional order in the Middle East in favor of the United States and its Arab allies. Tehran insisted the sanctions were coercive and would collapse. But by late summer 2012, public deliberations to resolve the nuclear impasse began opening up rapidly in Iran. In March 2013, Khamenei sent a representative to participate in secret talks with the United States in Oman, of which Saudi Arabia was aware. Based on my discussions with a key member of the US delegation at those talks, no real progress was achieved through the summer of 2013 until after Rouhani was elected to office in June. Abdullah welcomed Rouhani’s victory inasmuch as it enhanced regional stability, but the new Iranian president turned down the king’s invitation to visit Saudi Arabia and perform the haj in late October. In September 2013, I urged the Iranian president’s aides to consider the invitation, and equally emphasize fixing ties with Saudi Arabia as with the United States, or face serious hurdles in the region. They hoped, and I disagreed, that a trip by Rafsanjani to the kingdom would be sufficient to quickly mend the ties. For its part, as I was told by a senior member of the Saudi royal family, the kingdom was surprised that President Rouhani had not taken on a more outspoken role to turn his successful elections into a momentum to rebuild Iran’s regional ties. (In my view, the leadership role is a negligible factor in repairing the Saudi-Iranian ties, although it can help boost it.) Instead, he had chosen his foreign minister Javad Zarif as Iran’s public figurehead. Indeed, Saudi Arabia had pinned hopes on revived relations through a new 170 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran president in Iran just as it had done in the Khatami era, but those hopes were dashed by the Iranian president’s reluctance to reach out in person. Rouhani’s aides suggested that the president was conservative in his out- look and kept a low-key leadership style. I surmised that appearing lenient by accepting Abdullah’s invitation if Riyadh chose later to snub the new president in the face of political disagreements with Iran, would have been risky. But his foreign minister’s brazen public diplomacy style with the West did not appeal to the reserved sensibilities of Saudi authorities. Meanwhile, political pundits in Iran repeatedly reminded me that in their view Iran and the United States were the main powers in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. This implied that Tehran could ignore Saudi interests in the region. On November 19, 2013, on the eve of Iran’s new round of nuclear talks, a bomb exploded near its embassy in Beirut. A senior foreign ministry official told me that Tehran had clear evidence that the Saudi general intelligence ordered the attack. I could not independently verify the claim, but Rouhani’s government was to soon recognize the inevitable: after two rounds of talks in Geneva in the fall of 2013 the harshest sanctions against Iran would remain in place, in part due to Saudi insistence, until the country complied with more rigorous inspections than it had earlier anticipated. If Tehran had hoped to quickly overturn the international public opinion in its favor through a new president, it was wrong. While the reception to President Rouhani’s election was quite warm in the West, assuming that Iran could therefore ignore Saudi Arabia was wishful thinking. That sanctions were not immediately lifted pleased Riyadh, which remained skeptical of Obama’s sudden transformation in terms of diplo- macy toward Iran. In specific, Saudi political analysts whom I spoke to feared that President Obama would accept a nuclear capable Iran, based on the Japanese or South Korean nuclear models, as long as Tehran did not assemble a nuclear bomb. Hence, Riyadh held a series of informal and private discussions with Tehran, which according to insiders did not yield results, that included the prospect of building a wide-ranging security model for the Gulf region—initially proposed by Saud al-Faisal years ear- lier—based on the Helsinki Accords, which had been designed to improve relations between the West and the Soviet bloc. The initiative, in the view of groups in Riyadh receptive to having an opening with Iran, could help address Iranian security concerns, and convince it to reject building a nuclear bomb in the long haul.

Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Options For much of the period discussed in this chapter, Riyadh avoided formulat- ing a clear long-term defense plan vis- à -vis a nuclear Iran. With no pervasive existential fear of a nuclear-armed Iran among the Saudi people, early on Quest for Stability after 9/11 ● 171

Riyadh dismissed Washington’s arguments that Iran could use its nuclear program to threaten its Arab neighbors. Later, as talks of a potential Israeli strike against Iran escalated the regional tensions, Saudi Arabia began fear- ing Tehran’s capability for retaliation against US targets across the Persian Gulf including inside the kingdom, while the Arab public would generally side with Iran in the event of a strike against its nuclear program. Partly as a result of this, Riyadh questioned why the United States ignored Israel’s nuclear arsenal and delayed efforts to resolve nuclear arms proliferation in the Middle East. Yet, as a country that had never sought to acquire WMDs, Saudi Arabia was upset by Iran’s potential quest for nuclear weapons capability. In December 2006, Riyadh adopted a more proactive stance by aiming to enhance the nuclear capacity of the GCC, which had until then avoided contemplating a nuclear path and its member states had either ratified or acceded to the NPT. Partly on Riyadh’s urging, the GCC explored the acquisition of peaceful nuclear technology as a first, tacit step toward a col- lective response to the Iranian nuclear program. That response also implic- itly suggested that Saudi Arabia could more readily contemplate a nuclear weapons option, regardless of US objections. In 2008, Riyadh was able to win US approval for developing a peaceful nuclear program when President George W. Bush traveled there in January. By 2013, the kingdom itself had committed over USD 50 billion in investments to build nuclear reactors over the next 20 years, a budget that easily dwarfed Iran’s outlay for its nuclear program. In 2007, Saudi defense strategy expanded to be more inclusive of Russia, which began negotiations to sell arms to the kingdom. Riyadh also con- cluded a 20 billion dollar arms agreement with the United States. Yet the kingdom felt isolated when it came to formulating a military policy vis-à - vis Iran because US regional defense plans did not comply with realities on the ground: for example, in December 2008, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates proposed that Iraq join the GCC to form a wider alliance to contain Iran. However, the GCC refused to engage with Baghdad, which rejected this attempt to undermine Tehran’s security. Washington was also unable to provide Arab Gulf states with a security umbrella—despite prom- ises by incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the United States would create just such a defensive umbrella to deal with the eventuality of a nuclear-capable Iran. Saudi Arabia therefore pushed for a regional solution with Iran, by sup- porting Qatar, Oman, and the UAE to serve as primary GCC intermedi- aries with Tehran. It also strongly backed the OIC in rejecting a military option against Iran. Qatar and Oman called for collective cooperation in the Gulf region, and maintained that Iran’s nuclear capability was a ratio- nal rather than an ideological choice. During a visit to Tehran following 172 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Ahmadinejad’s reelection in July 2009, Qatari army chief of staff Hamad bin Ali Al Attiyah explored collaborative regional measures with the Iranians, and was followed by a rare trip to Tehran by Oman’s Sultan Qaboos. Gulf outreach to Tehran indicated a shifting trend inside the king- dom to decide the course of its defense policy toward Iran independent of Washington. This was triggered by hard realities with respect to Tehran. The Saudi public felt threatened by an Israeli rather than an Iranian nuclear arsenal. By 2010, 70 percent of respondents to a Zogby international poll in six Arab countries indicated that Iran should be allowed to complete its nuclear program, and 50 percent of Saudis endorsed the program even if Iran were to seek nuclear weapons. When asked to name countries that posed the biggest threat, 85 percent responded “Israel,” 72 percent “the US,”and 11 percent “Iran.”35 These trends implied that Washington could no longer rely on unqualified Arab support to contain Tehran even if it had a nuclear bomb. Therefore, rather than challenge Tehran directly over its nuclear program, Riyadh advocated the creation of a WMD-free zone in the Middle East, which would see both a nuclear Iran as well as Israel disarm; yet it indirectly asserted its right to benefit from a defensive nuclear program, though it was compelled to join the NPT (being the last GCC state to do so, reluctantly). Prince Turki—who, despite his unofficial position, was regarded as some- one who reflected the wider sentiments of the kingdom toward Tehran on this issue—outlined his personal views to me. He maintained that the risk of proliferation in the region called for an inclusive security structure that would create a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East and provide countries joining the zone with assistance in developing peaceful nuclear energy and a security umbrella. It would also sanction states militarily, economically and politically if they did not join the zone in favor of pursuing a nuclear-weap- ons option. 36 Such a plan could spare Riyadh from being forced to develop a costly nuclear-weapons program in the face of the Iranian nuclear threat. In my discussions in New York with a senior Rouhani aide, it was clear that Iran was hardly amused by the Saudi WMD-free zone proposal, which, in fact, Iran itself had first broached with Egypt in 1974. Furthermore, it appeared to me that Iran could be misreading Riyadh’s intentions as attempting to own an Iranian policy initiative when it had ignored Tehran’s call for such a zone in the Persian Gulf during the Iran–Iraq war. At the time, it was believed, though such claims could not be accurately verified in the absence of sufficient intelligence information on the subject, that Saudi Arabia had helped fund Iraq’s nuclear program as a counter- weight against the potential advancement of the Iranian or Israeli nuclear programs. But it appeared that the kingdom and King Fahd in specific opposed the development of any form of nuclear weapons. Quest for Stability after 9/11 ● 173

However, the kingdom’s show of restraint in the face of Iran’s and Israel’s nuclear drives meant it was well positioned to mediate between them, granted the opportunity. Saudi Arabia would subsequently proceed, along with the United States and Israel, to define a new WMD-free zone structure at a conference planned in Helsinki in late 2012—from which Washington withdrew believing that pressuring Israel into an agreement was unrealistic. However, the three states met again in 2013 over the issue, but Iran refused to join any meeting that involved negotiating directly with Israel. Furthermore, it distrusted the Saudi and Israeli intelligence, which it believed were jointly involved in acts of sabotage against Iranian nuclear facilities. The discussions failed to yield concrete results, in any case, as Israel charged Saudi Arabia of stalling talks in 2013–2014 after the kingdom may have decided to pursue an independent nuclear response option in answer to Iran’s nuclear threat, despite five rounds of talks that Israel held with Arab states. Finally, in May 2015, Washington stalled a UN proposal for a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East to protect Israel’s weapons program from international scrutiny. Iran, meanwhile, believed that Saudi Arabia could not obtain nuclear weapons even if it sought them, due to the US and Israeli opposition to the idea. But Riyadh had allegedly pursued nuclear defense options that Western intelligence sources linked to the Pakistani nuclear program, given that many believed it lacked the essential infrastructure and manpower to build a massive unconventional force that could match Iran’s. On December 5, 2011, signs emerged that the kingdom might seek to publicly assert its nuclear defense policy in the face of repeated Iranian attempts to dismiss various Saudi nuclear proposals. At a conference in Riyadh, Prince Turki tactically urged the development of a collective nuclear deterrent capacity with the GCC.37 A senior GCC official at the conference told me that Riyadh had felt misled believing that the decision to expand Iran’s nuclear program was made under Ahmadinejad, as the Iranian presi- dent’s political rivals in Iran repeatedly charged and informed the Saudis of, when information had emerged that the decision to obtain the nuclear fuel cycle was taken under Khatami’s presidency, a man whom the Saudis had trusted as a progressive thinker and reformer. In July 2012, Saud al-Faisal came out to support the P5+1 as long as it had a fixed timeframe for talks with Iran; he stressed, however, that it was Iran’s hidden underground nuclear facilities that were concerning. 38 What led the kingdom to openly implicate Tehran in having a secret weapons program is unclear, but at the time it was said that Israel was contemplating a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Information had also leaked of Israel’s airstrike on a suspected Syrian nuclear site funded by Iran back in September 2007. Prince Saud’s statement could therefore be construed as an expression of 174 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Saudi concern over a possible outbreak of war between Israel and Iran. More importantly, the statement signaled that Riyadh remained open to a peace- ful resolution, but was anxious to match or confront any secret aspects of the Iranian nuclear program. King Abdullah subsequently met with Pakistani defense envoys, which helped reinforce the message to Tehran that the king- dom retained alternatives to counter an Iranian nuclear-weapons program. The Saudi nuclear posturing strategy seemed to resemble the Japanese model of possessing bomb capability without assembly. Moreover, Saudi forces were believed to have trained in Pakistan for nuclear combat readi- ness, and it was widely reported that the kingdom contemplated the transfer of Pakistani nuclear warheads if required, which Iran-based military experts argued could mount on Saudi-acquired CSS-2 Chinese missiles and its bal- listic missile launch pads, even though the missiles were considered outdated by US military experts. Turki al-Faisal, who would subsequently publicly assert that the king- dom had managed to restore the balance of power vis- à -vis Iran, but who also remained a strong advocate of peace with Iran, proposed in February 2013 that the GCC should be involved in the P5+1, which neither the group nor Iran was keen to accept. Tehran would have welcomed the move if it believed that the GCC was sincere about resolving its differences with Iran once and for all. But it maintained that the group’s attendance at the talks would be obstructionist. By October 2013, Prince Saud openly intervened with the United States to ensure that talks with Iran would not derail Saudi security interests or fail to halt Tehran’s potential hidden nuclear agenda. However, Saudi Arabia welcomed the joint action plan drafted in Geneva in November as an initial step toward a comprehensive solution, and later the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that was concluded in 2015, and called for a WMD-free zone in both the Gulf and in the region as a whole, echoing earlier calls in September 2013 by President Rouhani at a high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East.

CHAPTER 10

Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Gulf Geopolitics: The Case of Iraq

espite initial hesitations about Iraq’s invasion in March 2003, Tehran quietly felt blessed by it. Saddam Hussein’s quick down- D fall removed pervasive fears in Iran about his alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Tehran could also now influence Iraq’s new developments. That prospect, as I witnessed in Tehran at the time, encouraged its politicians to reject feeling concerned by the war drums in Washington which called for attacking Iran. In the wake of Iraq’s inva- sion, Tehran in fact turned down Saddam’s secret overtures for an alliance against Washington, and encouraged the Iraqi clerics, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Ayatollah Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, to aid Washington to work with the underrepresented Iraqi Shi‘is. Such efforts were made easier by Washington’s antagonism toward Riyadh. Saudi extremists were joining the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11 or entering Iraq to fight US forces. Riyadh had attempted to divert attention from the issue partly by pointing the fingers at Iran’s interventions in Iraq. Iran, it was believed, recruited members of al-Qaeda for counterintelligence purposes or to sabotage US positions in Iraq. The Saudi head of Security Directorate, Abdul Rahman Al Hadlaq, told me al-Qaeda terrorists had been contacted or recruited by the Iranians or were in its custody, including Muhammad Atiq Awayd al-Awfi who later upon arrest in 2009 would pro- vide Riyadh with details of Iran’s inner dealing with al-Qaeda in Iraq. 1 Washington remained uninterested in Riyadh’s views opposing the inva- sion, nonetheless. Riyadh thus continued to harbor deep reservations about the war that could only increase Iran’s regional influence. The reservations were compounded by the fact that Riyadh, according to its ambassadors whom I spoke to, believed Washington had done little to coordinate its 176 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran efforts with Iraq’s neighbors. Riyadh also remained concerned by a poten- tial forging of a secret US–Iranian deal over Iraq. To Riyadh, this meant that Washington had no clear plans for Iraq post-invasion, and was prepared to feel its way through. Indeed, Washington had sought to negotiate with Tehran during the early occupation of Iraq. But according to the Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki, it failed to offer a clear framework for potentially meaningful talks. Tehran rejected the US overture. 2 The decision to dismantle the Iraqi Baath Party by Paul Bremer, the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq, threat- ened to bring Washington’s interests closer to Tehran’s. The party had con- trolled Iraq’s army and security forces prior to the invasion, and Iran could now take control of these through its Shi‘i proxies. This placed Riyadh in a difficult position because it had supported exiled Baath Party leaders who had fled Iraq in the decade prior to the invasion. Riyadh expected these leaders to shape the new Iraq, and to serve as a counterweight against the pro-Iranian Iraqi political parties. Moreover, Riyadh, as I was told repeat- edly by a number of senior Saudi policy experts, was concerned that Bremer’s decision could create a problem between the kingdom and Iraqi Shi‘is which had never before surfaced as it would so pandemically after the invasion. With its prospects in Iraq challenged, Riyadh’s official position retracted to following the general guidelines over Iraq which the UN issued with respect to the required assistance by the international community to help rebuild the country. But while providing humanitarian aid and building hospitals, it cut oil production to increase prices in the wake of the inva- sion. Although it had offered the Prince Sultan Air Base as a US command center, it would also reject making higher financial commitments to the US war in Iraq. Tehran downplayed Washington’s decision to dismantle the Baath Party, although it had earlier called on the party to work with the US weapons inspectors to evade war. The party had challenged Iran over the past half century, and had helped contain the perceived Iranian Gulf hegemony that Arabs feared. Now, after the invasion, Tehran risked provoking Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, Jordan and Syria, where sympathy for the Baathists was pervasive. Tehran refused to preoccupy itself over the party’s fate; it thought that was unnecessary. Mohammad Ali Fatollahi, a political advisor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, explained: “To think that the Baathists could lead Iraq was a stretch in light of their actions and crimes against the Iraqi people under Saddam’s reign.” 3 Riyadh harbored mixed feelings about the Baath Party as well, although it pressed for its members’ inclusion in Iraq’s new political process. The fact was the kingdom had refused to retain an ambassador in Baghdad for the decade prior to the invasion when the party ruled over Iraq, thus minimizing The Case of Iraq ● 177 its ties with the Baathists. At the same time, Riyadh had allowed local Saudi organizations to support the Iraqis in the face of international sanctions under Saddam’s rule. Many of these groups continued to sympathize with the now defunct Iraqi Baath regime and Saddam Hussein. This placed Riyadh under additional pressures to vouch for the Baathists. These Saudi groups, some of which may have had connections with the religious establishment, challenged Riyadh’s ability to control extremism both internally and in the region. Clerics upon whom Riyadh depended to control al-Qaeda internally, could be responsible for fueling the anti- Shi‘i hatred in Iraq by the Sunnis. Riyadh’s ability to contain al-Qaeda in Iraq was subsequently severely challenged, and members of the group would move to Iraq, at times encouraged by clerics and private sources of funding—such as by a number of prominent Saudi financiers whom Washington charged with aiding terrorists in Iraq. Although the extent of Riyadh’s backing, if at all, of the financiers or clerics was unknown, it was conceivable to Tehran that the kingdom could influence those members of al-Qaeda that were prone to state indoctrination or financial incentives to curb the growing pro-Iranian Shi‘i influence in Iraq. Several Saudis whom I interviewed readily conceded that was taking place, but in the absence of intelligence information available to me on this issue, I could not verify the claim. Nonetheless, the Iranian press alleged that Saudi extremists frequently received ammunition, training, and safe passage from members of the Saudi armed forces to fight in Iraq—thus implying Riyadh’s complicity in fueling the Iraqi turmoil—despite some attempts by Riyadh to identify and arrest those members.4 Tehran viewed Saudi measures to crack down on domestic terrorism only as token gestures meant to appease Washington in order to conceal the extreme religious trends that were shaping inside the kingdom due to Iraq’s invasion. Tehran, in fact, maintained that while the Saudi leadership in gen- eral was willing to arrive at an understanding with Iran over Iraq, sympathy for al-Qaeda’s cause of rejecting the occupation and fighting the Iranians in Iraq was pervasive among even the senior Saudi decision makers. Thus Tehran recognized early on that it would never see eye-to-eye with Riyadh over Iraq, a point repeatedly conveyed to me in meetings with successive Iranian ambassadors to Riyadh. Ahmadinejad was more diplomatic when discussing the issue, but assured me that Saudi concerns in Iraq had less to do with Iran and more to do with the internal “structural challenges” that confronted the Saudi leadership and society. 5 Tehran attempted to marginalize Riyadh’s role in Iraq. In an interview at his office in an exclusive wing of the Iranian foreign ministry in Tehran, a former Iranian ambassador to Saudi Arabia told me the task was relatively straightforward because Washington, too, was uninterested in granting Riyadh any major influence in Iraq: “When al-Qaeda established itself in 178 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Iraq after being pushed out of Saudi Arabia by the authorities in Riyadh, and began targeting not just pro-Iranian but also American forces, it signaled to the Americans to refuse to follow Saudi advice on Iraq.” The ambas- sador concluded that Riyadh would counter the Iranian and US influence in Iraq because: “America’s reduced dependence on Saudi Arabia for oil and regional security since invading Iraq means Riyadh is not keen to see the US succeed there.” 6 Verifying whether or not Riyadh was partly responsible for Iraq’s sub- sequent skirmishes was a tall order, but there was no doubt it feared being replaced by Iraq as a major oil producer—a deep, genuine concern I detected when speaking to senior Saudi oil executives. The implication was that despite its own rich reserves, Riyadh could steadily lose the ability to be a swing producer, a position it had enjoyed since the mid-1970s following the Arab oil embargo and which senior American oil executives told me had granted the kingdom the only real power that it had over the US Middle East policies. Tensions in the US–Saudi partnership gave Tehran the upper hand, which it used in order to reject the Saudi and US roles in Iraq that appeared confused and lacking orientation. All along, Tehran maintained that Riyadh should aim to work with it in order to partially compensate for its receding role in Iraq and costly partnership with the United States. However, Tehran did not believe the kingdom could easily reverse course, nor did it trust it on account of Riyadh’s role in supporting Saddam in the Iran–Iraq war. With fewer options in hand, Riyadh pragmatically proceeded to accept a stronger Iranian role in Iraq if Tehran respected Saudi interest to keep ex-Baathists involved in a power-sharing arrangement. The ascendency of Shi‘is to power in Iraq remained a secondary concern to Riyadh’s decision- makers who had long worked with and supported Iraqi Shi‘i political figures within the Baath Party hierarchy. Riyadh had even hosted scores of non- Baathist Iraqi Shi‘i dissidents, not to mention Iraqi Shi‘i refugees following the 1990 Gulf War. In principle, it therefore did not oppose the prospect of Shi‘i leadership in Iraq as long as Sunni Iraqis were not sidelined. To that end, Abdullah hosted different Iraqi political groups, including Shi‘i leaders close to Iran, after the invasion. Tehran ignored Riyadh’s position; its main preoccupation was to use Iraq as an opportunity to counter the US military operations there, and to minimize Washington’s chance of going to war with Iran by using Iraq as a launch pad for the war. It therefore ensured that only loyal Shi‘is took power in Baghdad, which did not include former Baath Party members. The goal became urgent given that Washington would spend over USD 24.5 billion to rebuild the Iraqi army by 2011, which could then pose a direct threat to Iran if the government in Baghdad was led by groups loyal to Washington or Riyadh. The Case of Iraq ● 179

The prospect of Iraq going to war with Iran was not completely out of the question. Iran and Iraq had never been easy neighbors. Over the course of more than four centuries from 1514 to 1980, Persia had fought 24 wars with Iraq’s Ottoman patrons, in addition to the Iran–Iraq war of the twentieth century. These conflicts, which frequently broke out over boundary disputes or the regulation of pilgrimage to shrine cities, would even see Iraqi Shi‘i leaders side against Persia at times. With this history in the background, I argue Tehran now ensured that no hostile political group would gain power in Baghdad, and that included the Shi‘is but also the Baathists who had led Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980, as well as other Sunnis or Kurds. The safety of Iran’s borders was best guaranteed if power in Iraq was shared among multiple political groups, and ideally if Baghdad was run by Shi‘i factions with varying political orientations, to allow Iran to influence them more eas- ily to secure their compliance in facing any potentially hostile trends against Tehran. In other words, a weak government in Baghdad was undesirable, but so was one led by a strong man even if a Shi‘i. To circumvent its regional isolation, Iran would also use its leverage over Iraq to strengthen transborder Shi‘i networks with the Levant. In the pro- cess, Iran invested heavily in Iraq’s infrastructure, building hospitals and roads primarily in major Iraqi shrine cities that would soon host well over two million Iranian pilgrims annually. Many of those pilgrims would walk voluntarily from cities, towns, and villages across Iran to the Iraqi shrine cit- ies to pay homage to their deceased imams . Tehran, which viewed Syria also as a promised land where reportedly 110,000 divine prophets were buried, would also transform the shrine in Damascus of the Prophet Muhammad’s granddaughter, Hazrat Sayyidah Zeinab, into a main gathering place for Iranian, Iraqi, and Lebanese Shi‘i pilgrims. All along, it felt that the promo- tion of Shi‘i politics was justifiable; Iran self servingly maintained that it was a moderating rather than radicalizing influence in the region, because Shi‘is could help prevent the spread of Wahhabism. Although that viewpoint was partially correct, it conveniently ignored the radicalizing influence that Iran’s Shi‘i politics had over Wahhabism. In fact, while asserting the dominance of Shi‘i politics in Iraq, Tehran failed to fully comprehend that al-Qaeda and other militant groups including members of the Muslim Brotherhood that came to Iraq from Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, and from across the GCC states to counter pro-Iranian forces could irreversibly destabilize the entire region. That prospect could complicate Iran’s policies in Iraq and challenge Saudi Arabia, which was never on easy terms with the brotherhood. But since Tehran had no preexist- ing animosity with the brotherhood, it did not anticipate being challenged by it over Iraq. As for al-Qaeda in Iraq, it believed that was a US–Saudi problem. More importantly, Tehran maintained that its special bonds with 180 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Iraq were not fully appreciated in the attempt to counter al-Qaeda, which it believed was to the detriment of US and Saudi ability to formulate a sound, reasonable and viable Iraq policy with Iran’s help. Riyadh and Washington harbored doubts whether Iran could play a con- structive role in Iraq given the ideological undertones and machinations of its foreign policy conduct. But denying Iran’s deep Islamic connections to Iraq was impossible if Riyadh or Washington were to resolve Iraq’s post-invasion crisis. Iraq was one of the first locations in the Islamic world to usher in the downfall of the Ottoman empire: defying a sacrosanct Ottoman edict for Arab lands, Shi‘i clerics in Najaf and Karbala ceased mentioning Ottoman rulers during Friday prayer sermons which the Persian Safavids had pro- moted, in the eighteenth century. Over the course of the next two centuries, the Persian clerics were in turn inspired by these clerics in Iraq as they tried to reshape their relations with Iran’s unpopular monarchs. In fact, a number of prominent Iranian clerics were at some point either based in Iraq or retained strong connections with the country. These included the relatively moderate Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Behbahani, the centrist Ayatollah Khomeini, or the hardline Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi (who, from his base in Qom, promoted the transna- tional Shi‘i cause). These clerics looked to the Iraqi revolutionary model for inspiration to rebel against the ruling monarchs of their time. More impor- tantly, they believed that an Islamic revolution in Iran stood the chance of success only through a union with Iraqi Shi‘is. That was one reason Khomeini had ordered the Iranian army not to damage Iraqi infrastructure or target civilians during the Iran–Iraq war, despite Saddam’s refusal to reciprocate. Iran needed the Iraqi people on its side, he argued, because they were destined to be allies. That Saudi leaders and clerics now felt embattled by an Iraqi–Iranian alli- ance came as no surprise. All three clerics mentioned above had caused rifts between previously harmonious Shi‘i and Sunni communities. Ayatollah Behbahani had advocated the Usuli school of evolving jurisprudence that challenged Shi‘i Akhbari clerics, who insisted, along with their unitarian Sunni counterparts such as the Wahhabis, that the Qur’an and hadith were sufficient sources of jurisprudence. Moreover, the ayatollah was known to be rather intolerant toward his adversaries: he coined the word takfiri (apostates), referring to Muslims who challenged the Usuli school. (In more recent years, Riyadh would also use the term to refer to local terrorists.) For his part, Khomeini had challenged the Sunni world by promoting a Shi‘i-led revolution, while Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi—recognized as a spiritual mentor by many Iranian hardliners, including Ahmadinejad—openly insisted on sacrificing Iran for Islam if need be by promoting the transnational revision- ist causes of Shi‘i Islam. The Case of Iraq ● 181

Iraq’s Constitutional Process: Deepening Existing Rifts As Iraq’s preelection political process slowly unfolded, Riyadh tried to unite splintering political groups there by appealing to their common Arab identity. Many of these groups were already targeting US forces on the ground. Washington suspected that Tehran was behind most of those attacks in order to expedite a US withdrawal from Iraq (the suspicion was well-founded, although Iran was not solely responsible for the political and security mayhem in Iraq post-invasion); Washington thus chose to support Riyadh, as an ally, to help safeguard the interim premiership of Ayad Allawi, a prominent Shi‘i and former Baath Party member from a family of Iraqi nationalists who had been persecuted by Saddam. Upon Allawi’s return to Iraq, he would lead the sizeable Saudi-backed Iraqi National Accord move- ment, with a very promising career ahead—which Tehran sabotaged in its drive to replace Allawi with its own allies. More importantly, I argue, Tehran aimed to ensure that Baghdad and the GCC would not align against it. That had once happened before, under the Arab banner, to contain Iran in the course of the Iran–Iraq war. The prospect was now quite likely under Allawi, who would openly charge Iran of plotting political assassinations inside Iraq. He too, Iran charged, was giving sensitive intelligence and security posts to Baath officers, plotting assassinations against and sidelining Iranian-backed Iraqi Shi‘is, and ignor- ing the Syrian-backed Iraqi Baathists who rejected a partnership with the United States over Iraq. Allawi’s charges against Iran, coupled with Iranian intransigence, fueled al-Qaeda-led Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Senior ranking government officials in Tehran told me that they believed Syria and Saudi Arabia both fueled the insurgency, as they continued to arm and support the former Baath regime’s political and security officers. Syria, however, would soon distance itself from the more extreme trends shaping in Iraq in no small part due to Iranian persuasions; lacking major financial resources of its own, it could not alter the course of Iraqi politics. Damascus therefore resigned itself to mostly hosting loyal ex-Baath officials fleeing persecution in Iraq. The insurgency was deadly by targeting Iraqi civilians and government officials, including, most notably, the head of Iraq’s largest Shi‘i group and the country’s closest Iranian ally, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), who was assas- sinated in a bomb explosion in Najaf on August 29, 2003. Iran condemned the killing, and argued that it along with SCIRI were better partners for the Americans to fight the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Iranian clerics defended Tehran’s position. Frequently, they cited the apparent ideological differences between pragmatist Shi‘is and dogmatic 182 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Sunni terrorists who adhered to the most radical doctrines of Wahhabism. Shi‘is, they contended, denounced the blind violence these insurgents per- petrated. In fact, it was the Shi‘i principle of taqiyya that denounced it. This principle, which most Sunnis regarded as “double-talk,” called on Shi‘is to accept the leading trends of the time, in this case, the US invasion of Iraq, and to work with it until new opportunities came about—even if they actu- ally condemned the invasion. In response, Saudi clerics blamed Iran for Iraq’s potential breakup, although Saudi diplomats I spoke to conceded that they believed the neo- conservatives in Washington were behind a similar scheme. The clerics threatened revenge by issuing fatwas denouncing Shi‘is as infidels, called for the death of a Saudi journalist who questioned Wahhabi views of Shi‘ism, and demanded the destruction of Shi‘i sites in Iraq and Syria. Iranian clerics insisted on the withdrawal of the fatwas and invoked Shi‘i doctrines that called for ending Shi‘i-Sunni strife. They openly debated as to whether or not the views expressed by Saudi clerics were sound, and questioned how Saudi Arabia could allow its clerics to issue fatwas calling for terror and other actions that threatened to destabilize the region, simply because Tehran was acting expediently, based on its interests. Fatollahi insisted that Tehran also adhered to taqiyya that rejected any course that portrayed a poor image of Muslims as people who killed each other.7 By 2004, the violence in Iraq surged. In April, the Saudis helped end a battle between US forces and Sunni insurgents in Fallujah, which in effect handed the city to extremists. Riyadh also offered to create a force made up of troops from Arab states to keep the peace in Iraq—a measure that might, at least, have protected the Sunni-dominated areas in Iraq. The pro- posal, however, was unfeasible if it sidelined pro-Iran Shi‘i groups, many of which were armed. Therefore it was quickly sidelined by Baghdad, partly also because of US opposition to any forces on the ground that were not under its command. Meanwhile, Iran helped end clashes between Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army militia and the CPA in April 2004. The Iran-based Grand Ayatollah Kazem al-Husseini al-Haeri, al-Sadr’s former mentor, would subsequently reject support for the Mahdi army. Washington, nonetheless, charged Tehran of arming it. Finally, in September 2004, al-Sistani, who was respected by the Americans for refusing to succumb to any foreign pressures including by Iran, helped end a standstill between US forces and Sadrist militias in Najaf. But Iran’s intervention to aid the Iraqi Shi‘i militants, and the militant’s objections to US policies, left American troops engaged in ongoing battles in southern Baghdad and other major cities in southern Iraq. Meanwhile, the Iranian Qods Force, a branch of the revolutionary guards, conducted Iran’s on-the-ground policies in Iraq. The Case of Iraq ● 183

Tehran would simultaneously pursue and prioritize soft-power goals by influencing Iraq’s politicians and its market economy, and frequently step- ping in to help unite fracturing Iraqi Shi‘i parties. It also funded the recon- struction of Iraqi Shi‘i sites, a measure that threatened more retribution killings by Sunni insurgents against Shi‘is. Nonetheless, Fatollahi told me that Iran was confident of the long-term impact of soft-power strategies to sway Iraq sufficiently because US hard military power there wavered and had too many shortcomings that, over time, worked in Iran’s favor. Moreover, the United States had to expend larger resources to get to Iraq, given the geographic distance, and to justify its presence there—a cost Iran did not have to suffer. Iran could afford to engage patiently with Iraq as its permanent neighbor. 8 Tensions between Riyadh and Tehran surfaced over Iraq’s political pro- cess. Washington had lent support to elections that would lead to the estab- lishment of a Transitional National Assembly after the CPA failed to revamp Iraq’s administrative structure. On January 30, 2005, the Shi‘i-dominated United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) won 48 percent of the seats in parliament. Subsequently, the leader of the Shi‘i Dawa Party, Ibrahim al-Jaafari became the new prime minister in April. Iran was charged with spending millions of dollars to ensure victory for al-Jaafari, who had spent years in exile there during the 1980s and remained loyal to Tehran despite the Dawa’s hesitation in working with SCIRI and its Iranian backers in the 1980s. Riyadh insisted that Iraq’s Arab identity should override its Shi‘i, Sunni, or Kurdish identities as it forged a new political future. That position reaf- firmed Iraq’s first modern constitution of 1925, which guaranteed the shar- ing of power among the three groups. Back then, Iraq was shaped as a deeply divided British mandate by the allied powers that split up the Ottoman empire in the 1920 San Remo Resolution. That agreement laid the founda- tion for the eventual independence of modern-day Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria, all of which were connected to the Arab Hashemite dynasty of the Hijaz. So powerful was this Arab thread, with its undertones of anticolonial- ism, that despite the obvious political rivalries between the Hashemites and the House of Saud, the two quickly reconciled around their common Arab identity upon receiving recognition for their lands. This shared Arab history was now painfully punctured by the Iranian presence in Iraq. Informally, Riyadh therefore called for a “civilized” military coup in Iraq that might unite the country based on its Arab identity.9 A coup would imply Baath Party ascendancy to power. Such a development could preserve Iraq’s territorial integrity by dismissing potentially divisive ethnic or religious iden- tities, which had once before threatened to break apart the country a short decade after San Remo. The Baath Party was able to avert that danger only when it consolidated its power in the 1960s, albeit through a heavy-handed 184 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran state policy that forced Iraq into unity. Yet such unity appeared to be critical for regional peace. Turki al-Faisal reiterated this point in discussions with me, saying: “No incident should affect Iraq’s territorial integrity, a message that Saudi Arabia reinforces as a central issue without any hesitation, and has told all Iraqi groups as well.”10 Riyadh’s fears about the lack of unity in Iraq were more understandable, as the country’s potential breakup could radicalize the Saudi Shi‘is or lead them to seek autonomy. But Saudi Shi‘is were known to be quite national- istic. Tehran therefore believed that this concern was in fact self serving so Riyadh could pressure Washington to crackdown on Iraqi Shi‘is. Tehran emphasized that Baghdad was keen to work with all political groups, not just Shi‘is, including former Baathists who chose to support Iraq’s new polit- ical process. Furthermore, it asserted that if Saudi Shi‘is were disgruntled, it was mainly on account of internal factors rather than because of develop- ments in Iraq. In general, Saudi Shi‘is were unlikely to revolt against the royal family as their interests were best served by navigating relations with Riyadh carefully. In the end, it was the government in Riyadh that protected them from Wahhabi extremists. In fact, as many activist Saudi Shi‘i clerics followed the Iraqi al-Sistani school of jurisprudence, al-Sistani’s advocacy of nonviolence generally helped keep the Saudi Shi‘is calm. Saudi Shi‘is did not lay claim to power—unlike Iraqi Shi‘is. “Their demands for representation were non-threatening and within reason,” according to Ali Asghar Khaji, a former Iranian ambassador to Riyadh. Therefore, from Iran’s vantage point, Saudi Arabia had no reason to be con- cerned by the Iraqi elections. The only guarantee it needed from Tehran was already in place –that is, that Iran would not use Iraq to incite Saudi Shi‘is. 11 The kingdom cautiously expanded its dialogue with Shi‘is partly in reac- tion to developments in Iraq. Shi‘i representation increased to four mem- bers in the majlis al-shura in proportion to official figures placing the Shi‘i population at 4 percent. In February 2005, Saudi Arabia also held its first elections for municipal representation, in which Shi‘i representatives won a majority of seats in the municipality of Qatif in the Eastern Province. As Iraq descended further into chaos, Riyadh was able to maintain a construc- tive dialogue with the Shi‘is in Qatif despite the frequency of antigovern- ment skirmishes in the area. In September 2005, Shi‘is connected to SCIRI and its militant branch, the Badr Organization, which had a force of some 12,000 men trained in Iran, clashed with British troops responsible for keeping the peace in Basra. The Mahdi army, meanwhile, demanded the release of its senior leaders in British custody, fueling deadly riots in southern Iraq that sidelined the smaller Shi‘i-led Hizb al-Fadhila (Islamic Virtue Party) that controlled the The Case of Iraq ● 185 governorship of Basra Province and was known for more moderate views. Differences between the Badr Organization and the Mahdi army over whether or not the south should become a federation or, as al-Sadr insisted, remain part of a centralist state, caused further violence to flare over the following months. Britain charged the Iranians of supplying the rioters with weapons, which al-Jaafari and Iran denied. Fatollahi told me that the con- duct of British forces on the ground was less than ideal and the main cause of the riots. 12 Meanwhile, Iran charged Britain of stirring riots along its borders with Iraq, a region dominated by ethnic Arabs. The events in Basra pushed Sunnis out of the region and sparked a verbal fight between Riyadh and Tehran; the former may have supplied funds and arms to help Sunnis remain in the area according to different reports. The kingdom was also concerned by calls among neoconservatives in Washington to grant the Iraqi Kurds independence. Saud al-Faisal forewarned that Iraq’s proposed new draft constitution, which planned a federative framework for the country’s northern Kurdish areas as well as the south, would give too much power to local governors in a predominantly Shi‘i state and divide the country, a prospect he stated would hand Iraq over to Iran.13 Apparently disappointed by these comments, Manuchehr Mottaki can- celed a planned visit to Saudi Arabia, later telling me: “Iran also accepted that Iraq’s Arab identity was its predominant feature despite the federative structure of its constitution. Iran just hoped that Saudi Arabia would accept Iraq’s other influences, just as Iran had to, and work with Tehran when it could.” Iran was driven above all by the need to minimize the cost of the invasion to its interests, which meant picking its battles with the United States over Iraq. Therefore, given for example general US support for Kurdish self rule, which Riyadh opposed, Iran chose not to go against a trend that had already taken shape in Washington since the 1990 Gulf War. Mottaki told me: “One of Saudi Arabia’s efforts was to remain flexible with regard to the question of a possible Kurdish federation which it believed would harm Iraq’s Arab identity.” Iran agreed with Saudi Arabia; however, it chose to go with the flow with regard to the idea of a Kurdish federation, recognizing that in the end it had to adapt to Iraq’s conditions, which in large part the United States determined, if Tehran were to build new opportunities for itself.14 Saudi officials I spoke to recognized that neither Riyadh nor Tehran could challenge the general terms of US policy in Iraq, given predominant US power in the region. Prince Saud retracted his statement, showing cau- tion and restraint. He reiterated that the greatest threat to Iraq was not the Kurdish demand for an autonomous region, but the division of Iraqi Arab population along Shi‘i and Sunni lines. 15 Such fragmentation would empower the oil-rich Kurdish and Shi‘i-dominated regions in Iraq in the 186 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran north and south, and lead to a new conflict over the division of Iraq’s resources. Riyadh then urged the UN to draft a resolution guaranteeing the country’s territorial integrity, and led several meetings to unite Iraq under the Arab banner—including an Arab League gathering in Baghdad when Sunni parties in the INA rejected the constitution, which was put to a ref- erendum vote on October 15, 2005. In the event the referendum failed, an interim assembly would have been elected by December to draft a new constitution. As a compromise, the Saudis encouraged the Sunni-led Iraqi Islamic Party in the Iraqi National Accord to back the referendum only if the constitution remained open to future amendments. The referendum cleared the way for Iraq’s first national elections for a full four-year constitutional government. Riyadh maintained that Tehran was instrumental in the decision by SCIRI to accept the constitution’s pro- posed federative structure. That may have been true, but if indeed Iran had planned on an Iraqi federation, its officials were unwilling to entertain the idea openly in my presence. Based on those discussions, however, I believe the idea appealed only broadly to Tehran. The potential competition among Shi‘i political parties in the south within a federation would be disturbing if it broke Shi‘i unity in Baghdad or challenged Iran’s influence over Iraq. In discussion with me, Fatollahi stressed: “Iran understood the com- plexities of Iraqi politics and the transitional nature of power in Baghdad. Therefore, it was willing to work with a federalist Iraq if it had to. But it pre- ferred a unified Iraq with central authority rested in Baghdad.” In fact, he stated: “Tehran was hardly as serious about the idea of federalism. Ayatollah Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim was serious about a federation in the south, a strategy he developed with the Iraqi Kurds. Iran did not have a position on the issue, but it continued to support al-Hakim as a general rule.”16 Mottaki reaf- firmed that Iranian pragmatism was “accepting of a federalist structure,” but that Tehran was primarily keen “to work with Baghdad’s central govern- ment and strengthen it.”17 In April 2006, despite months of political deadlock in Iraq’s parliament, Nouri al-Maliki was chosen as prime minister. As a member of the Dawa, he was disenchanted by revolutionary Iran, where he had spent time in exile during the late 1980s. Moreover, the Saudis and Americans saw him as a compliant figure; he was a junior party member who had slowly worked his way up. An ardent nationalist, al-Maliki rejected al-Hakim’s proposed fed- eration in the south. Rather, he emphasized Iraq’s Arab identity, and leaned toward better relations with Iraqi Sunnis than with the Kurds, a measure that also pleased Riyadh. Iran had anticipated al-Maliki’s leniency toward the Sunnis, as well as his desire to promote Iraq’s Arab-ness. According to Fatollahi, Iran was com- fortable with Maliki’s stance “as long as it did not build up Arab prejudice The Case of Iraq ● 187 against Iran.” 18 Emboldened by al-Maliki’s election, however, Iraq’s Sunni and Kurdish leaders openly blamed the GCC for not engaging enough with Baghdad to contain Iranian influence. Iran therefore considered subse- quent pledges of aid by Saudi Arabia to al-Maliki with suspicion. Riyadh had offered to support al-Maliki’s government if it remained committed to power-sharing, pledging USD 1 billion in support—half of which would be provided by the Saudi Development Fund to finance projects in Iraq, while the remaining half would encourage trade between Baghdad and Riyadh. 19 Iran believed that Saudi Arabia channeled funds to terrorists and Iraqi Sunni leaders through multiple businesses that it subsequently set up in Iraq. In August, US forces conducted three days of air strikes against Shi‘i militias in Sadr City without informing al-Maliki or taking equal mea- sures to curb the Sunni insurgency. Iraq’s Shi‘i political parties called for the withdrawal of US forces. The call arrived amidst growing evidence that Iraq’s political process had failed to slow down the build-up of the Sunni insurgency, led primarily by extremist Saudi and Jordanian fighters. In February 2006, these fighters were held responsible for bombing the holy Shi‘i shrine of imam Hassan in Samara. The incident led to killings as ret- ribution against Sunnis by Sadrist Shi‘i militias, and a subsequent wave of suicide bombings against Shi‘i civilians. Mottaki confirmed that by that time Riyadh and Tehran believed the Sadrist trend had turned radical compared to the moderate Shi‘i trend led by al-Maliki. Nonetheless, he surmised that the August raid confirmed that the United States was stirring internal Shi‘i strife and aggravating the ten- sions between the Shi‘is and Sunnis.20 Saudi Arabia hosted al-Sadr in 2006 in an effort to curb his radical leanings, but the United States rejected any measure to accommodate him, while Iran proceeded to mediate a ceasefire between al-Sadr and the Iraqi government. Tehran also insisted that arms should remain in the hands of the state, a position that, in no small part, aimed to place responsibility for Iraq’s security with Baghdad and expedite a US withdrawal.

Withdrawal Plans Disturb Balance of Power At the end of 2006, the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan body appointed by the US Congress, released a report outlining the requirements for a US withdrawal, including a recommendation for talks with Iran and Syria. Most other regional states, except for Iran, were apprehensive about Iraq’s inability to manage its own security, which could allow for greater Iranian intervention. Saudi authorities reacted strongly to the withdrawal plan. Saudi policy analyst Nawaf Obaid suggested that the kingdom would fund insurgents 188 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran to counter the potential massacre of Sunnis if US forces withdrew from Iraq. Obaid, who at the time was frequently in the United States, would return to Riyadh, though the comment and his return might have been an intentional echo of the Saudi concerns. (When I visited Riyadh, despite a brief introduction to Obaid, we were discouraged from speaking with each other.) Iraqi officials soon disclosed that Sunni insurgents had been able to pur- chase weapons with private funding by Saudi citizens. They also expressed dismay that the timeline for withdrawal demanded a level of responsibil- ity for security that the Iraqi government did not have. Tactfully, Baghdad focused on extending the withdrawal timetable. Subsequently, the Bush administration shifted away from a tight deadline toward setting bench- marks to expedite a withdrawal. In January 2007, a surge in US troops was implemented to help stabilize Iraq prior to the planned withdrawal in 2008. The surge brought 28,000 additional soldiers to Iraq and was made conditional on al-Maliki’s consent to a crackdown on Shi‘i militias. Five Sadrist cabinet ministers departed from the UIA in protest. Tehran and Riyadh, led by Prince Nayef, remained skep- tical that the surge would end the fighting, and the former approached the latter for help. Ali Larijani, then secretary of the Iranian National Security Council, paid four visits to Saudi Arabia, the last of which was concluded on February 14, 2007. He met both with King Abdullah and Prince Bandar, who then served as the Secretary-General of the Saudi National Security Agency, and would subsequently visit Iran. With this behind-the-scenes collaboration between Tehran and Riyadh, the surge briefly improved security in Baghdad and the western province of Anbar, the two most violent areas in Iraq that year. Nearly 1 million Sunni insurgents were pushed out of Baghdad and Anbar province as part of a political stabilization program, and relocated to areas around Mosul (which had been dominated by Kurds until Saddam’s “Arabization” drive slowly resettled Sunni Arabs in the area from the 1970s onward). This measure was combined with US-led efforts urging local Sunni and Shi‘i leaders to sign ceasefire agreements. Simultaneously, Washington initiated the “Sunni awakening” movement, supplying Sunni tribal leaders—including former insurgents—with arms to secure areas across Iraq from groups that refused to be incorporated into the Iraqi political process. Iran was ambivalent about the program, which Saudi Arabia backed. Ahmadinejad told me that Iraq’s tribal structure complicated its security, suggesting that the Sunni awakening actually served to exacerbate that structure and Iraq’s instability. 21 Indeed, violence against Shi‘is increased in 2007. Tehran maintained this was the case because Washington remained unwilling to pressure the Saudis sufficiently to curb the Sunni insurgents. The Case of Iraq ● 189

Along with the surge, the United States kept the military option against Iran open, which Ahmadinejad dismissed as “psychological warfare.” Only after Washington experienced military setbacks in curbing Shi‘i militia war- fare did it agree to adopt a less confrontational attitude toward Tehran. At the peak of the surge, it turned to Tehran to restore peace in Baghdad and in southern Iraq, through three rounds of talks over the spring and summer of 2007. Mottaki maintained that Washington was not serious about these talks, and their outcome did not prove very useful.22 A point of contention was the Iranian insistence that arms remain in the hands of the Iraqi govern- ment alone, which challenged the Sunni awakening. All the same, Iran encouraged al-Sadr and SCIRI outreach to Sunni groups willing to work with Baghdad, to help expedite the withdrawal plan. In May 2007, it also endorsed SCIRI when the latter changed its name to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) to appeal to a broader Iraqi con- stituency. With Iran’s intervention a month earlier, al-Sadr had also ordered his followers to show restraint as Iraqi security forces tried to rid two cities, Amara and Diwanya, of Mahdi army militias. He subsequently relocated to the Iranian city of Qom. The sense of security that was achieved by late summer would not have been possible without Iranian and Saudi assistance to the US counterinsur- gency strategy. Washington cosponsored a series of talks to encourage Gulf participation in Iraq, in preparation for the departure of US forces. In May 2007, 60 countries gathered in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for a ministerial- level meeting to adopt the International Compact with Iraq. The compact emphasized that an international commitment to rebuild Iraq was indis- pensable. To this end, Saudi Arabia declared that it would forgive most of Iraq’s foreign debt. A follow-up meeting in Istanbul in November, and in Kuwait in April 2008, led Iraq’s government to seek direct Arab engage- ment in rebuilding the country. Iran was pleased with the talks. Mottaki told me that the meeting in Kuwait, specifically, marked a turning point in the Saudi outlook on Iraq: “Iran sensed that a process of reflection in Saudi Arabia began when international efforts were made to reverse the course of violence over Iraq in 2007.” 23 The Kuwait meeting coincided with the crackdown on al-Sadr’s militias in Baghdad by the Iraqi army and US forces, in which Iran played a key role by encouraging al-Sadr to accept a ceasefire. Arab leaders subsequently praised Tehran for taking a strong stance, and the UAE’s foreign minister, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan—whose country often served as a Saudi intermediary in Iraq—made the first post-invasion visit by a foreign minis- ter of the GCC states to Baghdad. In August 2007, with a new Iran–Iraq border security agreement in place, Mottaki confirmed that Saudi Arabia promised to control border crossings 190 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran by terrorists aiming to fuel the violence in Iraq, although a deadly explosion in Shiraz would shatter a mosque in April 2008, which Tehran blamed on Arab extremists. King Abdullah, however, labeled the presence of foreign forces in Iraq an occupation, and held the US responsible for the increase in violence in Iraq—a statement that satisfied Iran. Meanwhile, Iran pressed Iraq to negotiate a timeline for the withdrawal of US troops. By midsummer 2007, the drive for withdrawal had gained momentum with help from Iranian allies in ISCI and the Iraqi interior min- istry, which was instrumental in guaranteeing Iraq’s security by incorporat- ing the Badr Organization into the Iraqi security forces and the national police. Al-Maliki demanded that Washington hand over control of Iraq’s security to its central government, forcing a reaction from then-Senator Hillary Clinton, who expressed concern about al-Maliki’s intentions and overtures to Iran and called for his removal. Riyadh would also issue state- ments attacking al-Maliki, in part for excluding Sunnis from Iraq’s security forces. Sunni political leaders and even al-Jaafari, who by then had split from the Dawa over al-Maliki’s entrenched positions, demanded that he step down. This furor drew al-Maliki closer to Iran, and more so after what Tehran believed was a Saudi-devised soft plan to topple him from his post that sum- mer. Fatollahi told me: “Saudi Arabia pressured the United States to remove al-Maliki. The United States heard the Saudi position and told al-Maliki verbally that he had to leave. But Iran talked with the Iraqi government, and political as well as non-governmental groups to help resolve the issue, and al-Maliki stayed in power.” Asked to explain Washington’s retreat from placing further pressure on al-Maliki to leave, he explained: “US decisions in Iraq could not stay constant because Iraq’s developments were in a state of flux. As a result, the US soon gave up on the idea.”24 In December 2007, a GCC summit in Doha to which Ahmadinejad was invited offered an indication that a departure from the organization’s past tendencies toward Iran and Iraq might be in the cards, despite the fact that multiple members of the group had rejected the inclusion of Iran in GCC discussions. Qatar, which was facing hurdles with Saudi Arabia over a boundary dispute and the handling of the Iraq dossier, pointedly embraced Ahmadinejad at the summit. The summit concluded with a vow of support for Iran’s political, security and economic cooperation with the Arab states and warned of foreign groups—referring to the United States—that tried to dissuade the GCC from forging partnerships with Iran. That same month, while Ahmadinejad performed the haj at the invita- tion of Saudi Arabia, delivered on the heels of the GCC summit, fighting between the Mahdi army and the Badr Organization resumed in Basra. Washington claimed that Tehran continued to support the Mahdi army The Case of Iraq ● 191 with cash and supplies, fomenting violence in the south as US troops pre- pared to replace British forces to secure a fragile military supply line that ran from Kuwait to Baghdad. Mottaki rejected the charges, telling me: “Iran’s mediation between al-Sadr and the Iraqi government helped end the con- flict in Basra in 2008. Iran chose to view the Basra event not from the point of view of any one Shi‘i group’s interest, but rather with the view that vio- lence in Iraq had to be curbed to build Shi‘i cohesion among the followers of al-Hakim, al-Sadr, al-Maliki, al-Jafaari, and others.” 25 In fact, in March 2008, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) launched an offensive against the Mahdi army to break the latter’s control of Basra. The clash ignited street fights between the Mahdi army, ISF and US troops in southern Baghdad. Almost concurrently, infighting between splinter groups of the Mahdi army and the Badr Organization ensued in other regions in the south. US airstrikes helped ISF curb the violence, but Iraq’s president Jalal Talabani sought Iranian intervention, which helped end the fighting. Iran proceeded to urge al-Sadr toward moderation by engaging in Iraq’s constitutional political process. By August, al-Sadr had agreed to suspend the Mahdi army’s armed operations and continue his seminary studies in Qom. Meanwhile, al-Maliki angered Riyadh by reigning in the Sunni awak- ening in early 2008, but as a compromise he gave the Sunni insurgents in US custody amnesty. Tehran later charged that some of these insurgents formed the backbone of the terrorist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS), when it emerged in 2014, and that the United States and Saudi Arabia masterminded the group’s rise to power to help counter the Iranian influence in Iraq and Syria. By July 2008, the Iraqi prime minister finalized an agreement with the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, the National Concord Front, to hold a national referendum by mid-2009 over the question of whether or not Baghdad should extend or expedite the withdrawal of US forces before the scheduled deadline of 2011, a measure that helped appease the Saudi con- cerns over a quick withdrawal plan. He also appointed six Sunni ministers to replace members who had departed his cabinet following a political standoff with the Sunnis one year earlier, and recruited Sunnis into the armed forces and to fill 25 percent of the senior positions in the police force. At the same time, al-Maliki initiated a de-Baathification program in the security and police forces. Finally, he ordered a crackdown on Sadrist militias and formed local councils in areas of Iraq controlled by ISCI to report directly to him. In August, he demanded that the US military hand him jurisdiction over Sunni-dominated paramilitary units. In February 2008, the Iraqi parliament passed a Provincial Powers Act that enhanced the power of the prime minister in dismissing local governors 192 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran but also anticipated provincial elections. Riyadh saw those elections as a test as to whether or not Iraq could bring about national reconciliation and strengthen state integration. By May 2008, signs had emerged that the king- dom was willing to reach out to Iran over the issue, when the GCC–EU Joint Council and Ministerial Meeting in Brussels put out a communiqué emphasizing the need to achieve regional political and economic security in tandem with Iran and Iraq. Riyadh subsequently urged a three-way dialogue with Washington and Tehran. The Saudi proposal, however, was ill-tuned to the realities: by then, Tehran’s key goal was to go around Saudi Arabia and the GCC. In short, Iran viewed Saudi Arabia as a weak link in Iraq, and was unwilling to engage with the kingdom seriously until the latter resolved its internal dichotomy over how to manage Iraq. Clearly disappointed, Saudi analysts now argued that Iraqi anarchy was preferable to an Iraq ruled by Tehran’s allies. Furthermore, they insisted that trade with Iran be restricted in order to force its withdrawal from Iraq.26 Saudi Arabia’s conflicting messages and Arab warnings about a rising “Shi‘i crescent” stretching from Iran to the Levant promised a fresh wave of reactive policies vis-à -vis Tehran. Tehran quickly counteracted, and allowed its political analysts and newspapers to coin the term “Shi‘i geopolitics.” The concept asserted Iran’s strategic influence over Iraq and the Levant. In the end, I believe both notions only served to escalate tensions in the region, and stymied the generation of alternative explanations by Iranian or Saudi political pundits to help end the crisis over Iraq. Riyadh, publicly at least, chose not to give credence to the idea of a Shi‘i crescent, refusing to take it as seriously as the Western media suggested. After all, transborder Shi‘i politics was not a new concept and predated the Iranian revolution; the kingdom had proven adept at surviving such political currents. The Saudis had even increased the annual quota for umrah visas to Iranian pilgrims from roughly 70,000 to some 200,000, and expanded the construction of the areas around the kaaba to accommodate, in part, the rising number of Iraqi Shi‘i and Sunni pilgrims. In May 2008, King Abdullah extended an invitation to Ahmadinejad’s rival, Rafsanjani, to attend a conference in Makkah on Islamic dialogue to enhance interfaith tolerance. The invitation was pointed, as it aimed to suggest that Ahmadinejad was responsible for Iran’s radical policies in Iraq. The king also aimed to grant through the conference a wider level of recog- nition to Saudi Shi‘is. His decision to appoint his son, Prince Mishaal bin Abdullah, as the governor of Najran Province (which historically had been populated by Ismailis) further proved the king’s commitment to engage with Shi‘is. Abdullah would also allow Shi‘is in Qatif to take advantage of direct flights to Mashad to visit the shrine of imam Reza—despite the fact that The Case of Iraq ● 193

22 radical Saudi clerics led by the influential Nasser Al Omar issued a joint statement condemning Saudi Shi‘is and Iran prior to the Makkah meet- ing, and attempted to halt the king’s measure to expand the area between al-Safa and al-Marwa, the hills flanking the kaaba, to accommodate more pilgrims. Abdullah and Rafsanjani delivered the conference’s keynote addresses. The king, who also sought Rafsanjani’s advice on Shi‘i affairs, then lifted a ban on women visiting al-baqi cemetery in Madinah. The Iranian women accompanying Rafsanjani’s delegation were subsequently granted permis- sion to visit the burial sites of the Shi‘i imams there. The decision later led to skirmishes between the Saudi morals police and Saudi Shi‘is in Madinah, also many Twelvers, including women, who wished to visit the cemetery, but Prince Nayef was able to intervene to halt the skirmishes. He was sub- sequently appointed second deputy prime minister in March 2009, and his influence helped maintain the delicate balance of power between the royal family and the radical religious establishment. Rafsanjani proceeded to forge a separate relationship with Saudi Arabia over Iraq. At the urging of officials from Iran’s foreign ministry and Supreme National Security Council, he had held meetings with Saudi authorities dur- ing the Makkah conference to discuss bilateral ties over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. He also reached out to Shi‘i seminaries in Iraq on a rare and high-profile visit to the country in 2009, which promised signs of mod- eration in Tehran’s policies. His meeting with al-Sistani, who had avoided Ahmadinejad when the Iranian president visited Iraq in 2008, tellingly spoke of Iraq’s displeasure with the hardline government in Tehran. (Ahmadinejad urged that I not read too much into the issue when we spoke.) Clearly, Rafsanjani was making progress. In discussions with Prince Muqrin, then head of the Saudi intelligence services, Rafsanjani had addressed the restoration of nearly 1,000 registered sites revered by Shi‘is in Madinah. According to Rafsanjani, when Saud al-Faisal traveled to Tehran to follow up on those discussions, aiming to set up five joint commissions to resolve all pending disputes as well, Tehran rejected Rafsanjani’s initia- tives. The foreign ministry, which had become significantly weaker under Ahmadinejad’s singular management style, also erroneously charged the Saudis of conducting a body search of Iran’s haj envoy Ayatollah Mohammad Reyshahri. Reyshahri himself rejected the claim, but Rafsanjani’s outreach to Riyadh had now been stymied.27 In 2008, al-Maliki held talks with Washington to finalize a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) setting out the conditions under which US forces could operate in Iraq after the end of a UN Security Council mandate on December 31, 2008. Fearing the complete handover of power to al-Maliki, Saudi Arabia remained apprehensive. It was equally concerned by the mixed 194 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran messages it received from Iran, and anxious to continue its own policies in Iraq. Iranian authorities told me that Tehran had, by then, received informa- tion that Riyadh was now prepared to reignite the Sunni insurgency, which was possibly aimed at preventing US forces from leaving Iraq. Meanwhile, Tehran opposed any talks that extended the withdrawal timeline, and pro-Iranian crowds demonstrated in Baghdad to call for an end to the occupation. “Our Iraqi friends have told us this agreement is not acceptable to them,” Ahmadinejad informed me during an interview in September 2008, right when speculation of a quick SOFA deal between Baghdad and Washington ran high in the United States. In October, follow- ing an unexpected eleven-month hold-up, Baghdad authorized al-Maliki to renegotiate changes on a draft agreement. Iraq opposed extending the time- frame for withdrawal but agreed that some 130,000 US forces should stay. Al-Maliki also remained open to the Bush administration’s demand to offer immunity to US troops. In return, Iraq sought to ban potential US military strikes against neighboring countries Iran and Syria. Once the United States agreed to Iraq’s demands, Iran toned down its opposition to the agreement. In November, the pact passed by a small margin with only 54 percent of Iraqi parliament deputies voting in favor of it. Iranian authorities expressed optimism that the agreement, which raised Iraq’s regional stature as a fully independent state after the invasion, could also help improve ties with Riyadh. Thus Tehran now aimed to place Iraq as a bridge over which to conduct outreach to the GCC. Ahmadinejad in fact expressed the hope that Iran’s good relations with Iraq would be replicated in the region with Iraq’s other Arab neighbors, ignoring the GCC frustra- tion with his government. Indeed, he told me optimistically, Iran’s burgeon- ing trade with Iraq was an extension of its desire to seek opportunities for growth and development in the region. 28 For a brief period, that prospect seemed slightly possible. In Iraq’s January 2009 provincial elections, al-Maliki aligned with pro-Sadr groups to form a nationalist platform, and won. The elections also showed that a larger num- ber of Kurds identified with Iraq’s central political process rather than with the political aspirations of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Kurdistan Democratic Party, the twin parties of the Kurdistan Regional Government that focused on a federative structure for the north. Following the elections, al-Maliki rejected the prospect of joining the new Iraqi National Alliance (INA), which was established in August to replace the UIA. With the imminent death of Iran’s main ally in ISCI, Ayatollah al-Hakim, Tehran began supporting INA. The alliance was headed by al-Hakim’s son and successor, Omar al-Hakim, who vowed to improve the party’s relations with Arab states. (He visited Saudi Arabia in April 2010.) The younger al- Hakim agreed not to insist on a federative structure for the south. As a The Case of Iraq ● 195 result, he now represented a body that included a broader coalition of Shi‘is, Sunnis, Turkmens, and Kurds, which would realign with al-Maliki’s State of Law to form the National Alliance in the lead-up to Iraq’s 2010 legislative elections. However, anti-Baathism remained a unifying theme of the new INA coalition and al-Maliki’s political platform. As a result, at the Arab sum- mit in Doha in March 2009, the Saudi delegation refused to hold bilateral meetings with al-Maliki, who accused Arab states of misleading the public by portraying the Baathists and Sunni awakening members as heroes. He also openly expressed concerns over the kingdom’s ability to control Sunni insurgents. Just a month earlier, however, King Abdullah had sought to introduce reforms to moderate the leadership of the religious police and the Saudi judicial system, while filling key positions with individuals close to him in the Senior Council of Scholars ( majlis al-‘ulama) , the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, and the justice and education ministries—institutions that could help prevent Saudi extremists from crossing into Iraq. Always predisposed toward constructive compromise that far outweighed the costs of confrontation, King Abdullah had also aimed to quietly offer solutions over Iraq, suggesting that the Iraqi prime minister meet three conditions: first, ensure the appointment of a Sunni president that Riyadh would approve of in light of the anticipated departure of Jalal Talabani on account of illness; second, allow presidential powers to expand; and third, form a solid alliance with the new Sunni president to form an inclusive gov- ernment. Fatollahi, who informed me of these proposals, stressed that: “Iran did not have a problem with these Saudi demands as long as they did not tip the power balance against Tehran.”29 Al-Maliki ignored Riyadh, and in April 2009, he ordered the arrest of fif- teen leaders of the Sunni awakening, but insisted that the detentions were not part of a deliberate campaign against Sunnis. At the urging of Washington, he vowed to hire awakening members in government jobs—although most of these were low-level positions. The Sunni armed forces under the com- mand of Baghdad also faced an uncertain future. Many would refuse to take up arms to defend al-Maliki’s government, and complained about low salaries. Al-Maliki’s decision to move Sunnis out of Iraq’s security forces into administrative institutions, and his inability to pay salaries to retain the forces, may have enraged Riyadh; in mid-April, Tehran charged, a trilateral meeting between former Iraqi Baath Party members and Iraqi Sunni reli- gious figures was held in the UAE to discuss the situation. 30 Tehran characterized the meeting as an effort to destabilize Iraq’s political process; although Iranian officials conceded to me that al-Maliki’s handling of security issues had been questionable, they insisted he still represented the 196 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran moderate Shi‘i trend which should please Riyadh. They also contended that Saudi Arabia provided arms and funds to create splinter groups within Iraq’s police and security forces, to weaken al-Maliki. The Iranian press further charged Iraq’s Arab neighbors of conducting mass campaigns inside Iraq to discredit Iran’s image by bringing up old boundary disputes and repub- lishing Baath pamphlets previously distributed under Saddam’s regime, which portrayed Iranians as defeated enemies of the Arabs.31 I n r e s p o n s e , the hardline press in Iran attacked efforts to misrepresent the actual num- ber of Shi‘is in Saudi Arabia, claiming they constituted over 30 percent of the Saudi population and governed 40 percent of the land. 32 The press also argued that major funding for al-Qaeda came from Saudi Arabia, with US knowledge. 33 The violence in Iraq resurfaced in the summer and autumn of 2009 after suicide bombers attacked Iraqi government buildings in Baghdad. Iraqi law- makers accused Saudi Arabia of funding the latest insurgency, and supplying former Baathists with billions of dollars to undermine Iraq’s security— although Saudi authorities denied any involvement in the latest insurgency.34 Al-Maliki would then directly charge Syria of inciting the latest violence. But Ahmadinejad hinted to me that he did so under pressure, adding that Damascus was too weak to challenge al-Maliki at that level, and that other regional countries (he did not name them) were behind the bombing, which, in his view, aimed to disrupt a constructive Iraqi–Syrian relationship.35 Tehran was very concerned by the disruption of the Iraqi–Syrian ties, given that its porous borders with Iraq meant it was susceptible to the poten- tial spillover of Iraqi or Syrian instability. Even secure border crossings such as the Mehran International Border Terminal, where Iran regularly traded fuel with Iraq, had lax controls. Moreover, at least one million Iranian pil- grims crossed into Karbala and Najaf every year through those borders, and many would then move on to visit Syria, and Tehran had to ensure their safety. Meanwhile, terrorists were entering Iran through the same borders, and Iranian intelligence and security forces were tasked with foiling terrorist operations as a result of the cross-border movement of Sunni insurgents into Iran, and their alleged funding by countries in the region. Tehran refused to implicate any of the regional states directly, although it did hint at Saudi and Israeli involvement. In Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, concern about surging terrorism in the region was adversely impacting King Abdullah’s efforts at reconciliation with the Saudi Shi‘is. In February 2009, promises were made to include Shi‘is in the majlis al-‘ulama, which also expanded to embrace followers of non-Hanbali Sunni schools. By the end of the year, however, Riyadh was forced to tighten control over activist Shi‘is to appease the extremists who were escalating the conflicts in Iraq and neighboring Yemen, where The Case of Iraq ● 197 an insurgency was brewing between Shi‘i Houthis (whom Riyadh charged Tehran of backing) and the pro-Saudi central government in Sana’a. Nonetheless, King Abdullah ensured that only members of the majlis al- ‘ulama could issue fatwas, a measure aimed at controlling the role of radical clerics in inciting anti-Shi‘i hatred. Bitterly, however, Zahir Al Harrasi, a member of the advisory council to the king, openly blamed Ahmadinejad’s militant ideology for the escalating regional violence and suggested that the kingdom would have better coop- eration with Iran if the reformists returned to power—a pointed reminder of Ahmadinejad’s very controversial June reelection.36 But the election results in Iran were not about to redefine Iranian policy over Iraq. In my view, Iranian foreign policy, in fact, hardly changed despite the presidents in power. Fatollahi reaffirmed the point in discussions with me: “There is no reason that Iran, regardless of who it was led by, should change course when it comes to its foreign policy since there are plenty of opportunities avail- able to it.”37 Ahmadinejad dismissed Saudi concerns over his reelection too: “Iran’s post-election developments are a passing trend. Each regional coun- try [here he indirectly referred to Saudi Arabia without naming it] should therefore seize the present opportunity with Iraq to resolve its problems with it separately, as that could best serve the region’s interests collectively.” 38 Meanwhile, Tehran insisted that, just as it had accepted the large-scale presence of US forces in Iraq and American military bases across the GCC, Washington and the GCC should now accept a role for Iran in Iraq and the rest of the region. Ahmadinejad reiterated the point plainly: “As long as the US remains in the region, it is a foreign object that people in the region will repel. Iran, however, cannot be repelled because it is part of the region and is here to stay.” 39 Fatollahi added: “Conditions are at their best for Iran to enjoy an improved regional status among the Arabs, given that the new US administration led by Barack Obama was the result of a tired America.”40 Yet, to silence its critics, Tehran proceeded to urge for the formation of a unity government in Iraq during the March 2010 parliamentary elec- tions. But the sole focal point of Iraq’s parliamentary elections, from a secu- rity perspective, was about the extension of SOFA. The agreement called for the departure of US troops by December 2011, which Iran supported. Saudi Arabia maintained that some level of US commitment would still be required to stabilize Iraq. Backed by Iran, al-Maliki vowed to uphold the agreement’s deadline— one of several reasons the United States and Saudi Arabia chose to support Iyad Allawi’s al-Iraqiya Party during the parliamentary race. In subsequent visits to Riyadh, Iraqi leaders including Talabani, Omar al-Hakim and Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region, vowed to help build a united government. However, al-Maliki circumvented 198 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran the popular vote, which saw Allawi surpass him, by passing a law making the candidate with the largest parliamentary coalition prime minister. In the nine-month power struggle that ensued to determine the future prime min- ister of Iraq, Iran managed to rally Syria behind al-Maliki and encouraged al-Maliki and Talabani to build a coalition with Shi‘i and Kurdish groups. At one point, Iran lobbied with Egypt and Jordan to send assurances to the GCC states that al-Maliki would aim to work with Iraq’s Arab neighbors. Saudi Arabia felt offended by al-Maliki’s increasingly authoritarian rule, and therefore, according to Fatollahi, promised the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad financial aid if he rejected working with Iraq’s prime minister, and the assurance that Allawi would empower the defunct Iraqi Baath Party which Syria supported. Tehran believed that it was regrettable that Saudi Arabia would make the Syrians believe that Baath sympathizers could win the Iraqi elections. Fatollahi added: “Iran could only conclude that its ties with Riyadh were deteriorating.” 41 In late September 2010, while in New York, Ahmadinejad settled the question of when Iraq’s new government would be formed, following an inquiry on the matter by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Nearly every decision-maker in the West was asking the same question, but no one had the answer. The Iranian president made the assurance that the transi- tion would take place in approximately three weeks. In October, US Vice President Joe Biden asked Talabani to hand over the presidency to Allawi. Talabani rejected the proposal and pushed for al-Maliki’s premiership. That month, Iran also secured Syria’s full cooperation over Iraq. Iraq’s relations with Syria improved; al-Maliki visited Syria and received recognition for his new efforts to stabilize Iraq. In November 2010, Talabani tasked al-Maliki with assembling a new government after the two men rejected the latest US plan to form a unity government with al-Iraqiya. Such a coalition was perceived as possibly harmful to the unity of al-Maliki’s government. A month later, al-Maliki reiterated the need to uphold SOFA. His actions triggered a Saudi decision to withhold further aid to Iraq. Al-Maliki also declared the Iraqi govern- ment’s belief that relations with Iran were necessary and positive to ensure Iraq’s security. This statement came as a slap; between 2003 and 2011, the US government had spent an estimated USD 61 billion to rebuild Iraq’s civil and military institutions. With the departure of US forces, these institutions would be run by many of Iran’s closest Iraqi allies. Washington’s withdrawal plans also neglected to develop mutually rein- forcing roles for Riyadh and Tehran over the future of Iraq. Since US poli- cies shifted continually to adapt to Iraq’s fast-unfolding events, it was unable to build sufficient trust with either Riyadh or Tehran on issues pertaining to Iraqi security. The Case of Iraq ● 199

Moreover, I maintain that the Shi‘i–Sunni divide that intensified after the withdrawal plans were finalized, appeared to Washington as a given. Feeling that it could do little to control it, whether by pressuring the Saudis or the Iranians, Washington appeared to be giving up. In the process it ignored a crucial fact: ideology served the Saudi and Iranian policy roles in Iraq; but it was not the main driver. The implications were too frequently overlooked. If ideology was not a primary motivation driving Riyadh and Tehran, then by aiming to ensure a balanced political role for both in Iraq, Washington could have helped stabilize Iraq prior to withdrawal. The United States, however, was in no mood to provide security guar- antees to Iran when its hands in Iraq were partly tied precisely because of Iranian acts of sabotage—but then, Saudi and Iranian cooperation over Iraq could not be secured. Such cooperation, as I show, had been necessary to the resolution of two previous major conflicts in Iraq, the Iran–Iraq war and the Gulf War. In both those wars, it was the self-balancing features dominating Persian Gulf politics—which Riyadh and Tehran could help ensure—that contributed to peace. The fact that Tehran and Washington did not view Riyadh as a serious peace partner due to the influx of Saudi terrorists into Iraq, was an addi- tional challenge in the post-withdrawal phase. Both Iran and Washington could have done a better job acknowledging the constructive role that Saudi Arabia frequently played in Iraq despite the shortcomings of its poli- cies there. While Washington would not divulge intelligence information that could compromise the kingdom’s handling of the situation in Iraq, the Iranian press frequently reported Saudi acts of sabotage there—although the veracity of such reports could not be confirmed, and there was no alter- native, reliable, Western-based information available to refute or endorse such claims. Saudi decision-makers were quite aware that the kingdom was not taken seriously in Iraq on account of its questionable policies. They took responsi- bility by cracking down on terrorist operations, and also patiently advocated regional dialogue with Iran in the absence of any major US initiative to resolve the conflict in Iraq after the withdrawal. Their position was sound. If Tehran could be convinced to accept Saudi dismay over Iranian actions in Iraq, then it could pursue a less costly policy benefiting all states in the region. In my discussions with Iranian authorities, however, it was evident they only reluctantly recognized areas where Tehran’s and Riyadh’s interests overlapped. Ahmadinejad told me he believed Saudi–Iranian differences over Iraq appeared to be more striking because there were two features on the ground to deal with: Iraq’s tribal fabric, which Riyadh identified with and backed, and the new institutional structures introduced in Iraq after the 200 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran invasion, which Tehran aimed to support as the only solid assurance to Iraq’s stability once US forces withdrew.42 Mindful of the reality of Iran’s greater influence over Iraq, Riyadh remained mute over Washington’s decision to tighten the sanctions regime against Tehran. For Riyadh, as one former Saudi ambassador to Iran told me, Iran’s heyday was in Iraq, and the kingdom would never again grant it such a golden opportunity to influence the region. Turki al-Faisal, in spe- cific, would openly advocate for tightened sanctions against Iran. Such sen- timents, however, challenged Riyadh’s ability to formulate policy toward Iran. But Riyadh argued that it found it difficult to develop a clear vision of where Iran was heading under Ahmadinejad. 43 However, regardless of who led Iran, a policy of maintaining minimal interests with it was likely to make Iran more determined to act unilaterally, whether Ahmadinejad was in power or not. The sense of frustration over Iranian actions contributed to a general feeling in Riyadh of being “uninvited” in Iraq, which Prince Turki told me was the reason Riyadh withdrew from full engagement with the country.44 Riyadh might have also been dismayed by its own inability to offer a cohe- sive Iraq policy, not just due to Iranian actions, but the kingdom’s failure to control Arab extremists that destabilized Iraq. In the end, the Saudis stated that they chose to stay out of Iraq because of that country’s multiple secu- rity challenges. (Saudi Arabia had delayed sending an ambassador to Iraq, but finally appointed Fahd Al Zaid, its ambassador to Jordan, as a nonresi- dent ambassador to Iraq in February 2012, although Iraq had reopened its embassy in Riyadh in 2009. In 2015, Saudi Arabia would proceed to appoint a new ambassador in residence to Iraq, Thamer Al Sabhan.) Similar security concerns had also led Omar al-Hakim and al-Sadr to call for al-Maliki’s resignation. By 2014, during Iraq’s new parliamentary elections, even al-Sistani, Kurdish parties and Sunni political figures were calling on al-Maliki to share power. Riyadh went as far as accepting either al-Sadr or al-Hakim as the next Iraqi prime minister in the 2014 race, sig- naling its intention to Tehran, according to the deputy Iranian foreign min- ister, Hussein Amir Abdullahian, who spoke to me in the Iranian capital in the summer of 2014. But Tehran maintained that chaos would ensue in Iraq if the outcome of its political process that secured a sweeping third-term vic- tory for al-Maliki was ignored.45 Only months after, under Riyadh’s stead- fast pressure, did Tehran reluctantly accept a post-Maliki scenario for Iraq. For a while, al-Maliki remained steadfast in his opposition to any major power-sharing arrangement, having foiled at least two major coups against his government in 2011 and 2014. Moreover, after being shrugged off by the Americans in his latest bid to acquire advanced weapons for the Iraqi army back in 2013, he was likely to remain loyal to Tehran for his protection. As The Case of Iraq ● 201 a result, his efforts after resuming office to extend a hand in friendship to Riyadh were ignored. Riyadh, meanwhile, keenly watched over al-Maliki as ISIS forces began to slowly advance into Iraq in the spring of 2014, forcing the resignation of the Iraqi prime minister in favor of a new government in Baghdad that would be more lenient toward Iraq’s Arab neighbors, and, therefore, better able to secure an understanding with them to control the influx of Arab extremists into Iraq. Abdullahian charged certain Arab countries (without naming Saudi Arabia directly) of supporting the ISIS advancement into Iraq, with Washington’s acquiescence. Tehran dispatched forces to assist the new Baghdad govern- ment to protect the Iraqi shrine cities and liberate Iraqi towns that had fallen to ISIS forces (the group would later change its name to the Islamic State or IS), convinced that neither the United States nor Saudi Arabia, despite forming a coalition to fight IS, could now control what Tehran believed to be a terrorist force which they had helped unleash. The Iranian-backed forces would at times be pressured to avoid combat with IS, to allow the US coalition and pro-Saudi Iraqi groups or the Iraqi government itself to do the job. But as of the time of this writing, the verdict was unclear if without the voluntary combat assistance offered by Iraqi Shi‘i groups which Tehran backed, the coalition was able to fully halt IS advancements. Moreover, it appeared that IS was having an easier time advancing into non-Kurdish Iraqi towns, while Kurdish towns were more quickly liberated from the forces with help by the coalition and the armed Kurds. Tehran speculated that the trend proved a simple fact: the United States was deter- mined to safeguard an autonomous Kurdish zone in Iraq as a counterweight to Iran. In numerous interviews to the Iranian press, Abdullahian artic- ulated that Tehran believed Washington was shifting an earlier policy of backing IS forces, in favor of supporting the Kurds as a more permanent ally, and it appeared that Saudi Arabia was following suit. This was done mind- ful of the fact, as Iran’s foreign ministry officials told me, that Washington and Riyadh would need to seal a more permanent alliance with the Kurds given that it was clear IS would be a passing trend in Iraq, that it could not gain a permanent foothold in the country, and that the violence which it perpetrated would also spread in the kingdom.

CHAPTER 11

Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Levant Geopolitics: The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine

n 1992, while still viewed by Washington as a terrorist group, Hizbullah won 12 seats in the Lebanese parliament after vowing to free occupied I Lebanese territories from Israel. Hizbullah received substantial aid from Iran as well as Syrian support to build an armed front against Israel. By May 2000, Israel had announced that it would withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon after an occupation of almost 20 years. The withdrawal offered Iran and Syria new opportunities to influence Lebanon. However, after Iraq’s 2003 invasion, the US administration under President George W. Bush decided that Syria, which sabotaged US operations in Iraq by grant- ing a safe haven to ex-Baathists and Iraqi terrorists, should withdraw from Lebanon. By containing Syria, Washington also aimed to control Hizbullah and Iranian actions in Lebanon. The opportunity to force Syrian troops out of Lebanon came when sup- porters of Lebanon’s pro-Syrian president, É mile Lahoud, clashed with those of pro-Saudi Prime Minister Rafik Hariri over Syria’s decision to extend Lahoud’s term in office in 2004. The United States broke off its ties with Syria whose actions over Iraq and now in Lebanon had already fueled an anti-Syria act in Congress that was passed in December 2003, the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SALSRA); the House version of the bill, HR 1828, charged Syria with fomenting terrorism and possessing weapons of mass destruction. On September 2, 2004, at the urging of France and the United States, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1559, which aimed to force Syrian troops out of Lebanon after almost 30 years. 204 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Riyadh had warned Washington prior to the latter’s efforts to pass UNSCR 1559 that demanding the ouster of Syrian troops from Lebanon might be premature. In fact, Hariri’s main preoccupation prior to his soon-to-come resignation was to engage pro-Syrian politicians rather than demand the departure of Syrian forces. At the same time, Hariri quietly formed alliances with anti-Syrian groups in Lebanon. The Bush administration nevertheless remained adamant, rejecting any role for Syria in Lebanon. Its designation of Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism, followed by a series of US sanctions, subsequently guaranteed closer Syrian cooperation with Hizbullah and Iran as well as refusal to abide by the resolution. The day after the resolution was passed, Syria compelled Hariri’s cabinet and the Lebanese National Assembly to approve the extension of Lahoud’s term by three years. Lahoud, who had already served six years in office, was constitutionally required to step down and become ineligible to run for another term, but the constitution was amended to resolve this impasse. Hariri resigned in early October 2004, despite Saudi and French urging of Syria that it back Hariri’s government. A contentious point in UNSCR 1559 was its call for the “disarmament of all armed groups whether foreign or internal,” including Hizbullah. Critics warned that an attempt to disarm Hizbullah could be very difficult, possibly igniting a civil war. Russia, abstaining from the resolution vote, urged the Security Council to consider that any misstep could exacerbate the situation in Lebanon and lead to a new focal point for instability in the region. Shortly thereafter, Russia announced plans to sell advanced surface-to-air missiles to Syria despite objections by Israel and the United States, in part because Syria could deliver missile components to Iran and Hizbullah. Hizbullah retained its arms despite the resolution. Riyadh attempted to mediate between Washington and Damascus. In keeping with the Saudi-sponsored Ta’if Accord of 1989, which had first called for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, it demanded that Damascus draw up a timeline for withdrawal in exchange for reduced pres- sures from Washington. By the end of 2004 Syria had withdrawn its remain- ing forces from Beirut to the Bekaa region near the Lebanese–Syrian border, after an initial April withdrawal of its troops—which at one point had num- bered 40,000. Numerous personal attempts by Crown Prince Abdullah to reach out to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad prompted Terje Rø d-Larsen, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special envoy, to laud Saudi Arabia’s constructive policy. Saudi–Syrian relations, however, deteriorated after Hariri’s assassination on February 14, 2005. Riyadh hinted that Damascus had played a role in the assassination, while Iran and Syria denied any Syrian role. Charges against Riyadh were inconclusive and bordered on fabrication, although Prince Bandar The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine ● 205 was frequently criticized in Riyadh for being too close to Washington at a time when many other royal princes debated whether or not the kingdom should be drawn into Washington’s regional conflicts including that with Syria over Lebanon. Nevertheless, as the secretary-general of the new Saudi Supreme National Security Council since 2005, Bandar would continue to wield influ- ence over the kingdom’s Syria dossier, on which he had worked for decades along with Abdullah. More importantly, Prince Bandar’s views merged with Riyadh’s Arab outlook, which sought to redress the imbalance of power with Iran over Iraq by curtailing Tehran’s influence in the Levant. Thus Riyadh, backed by the United States (which had recalled its ambas- sador from Syria following the assassination), supported popular anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon in the wake of Hariri’s death. The protests, collectively labeled “the Cedar Revolution,” were modeled on the US-backed pro-demo- cratic uprisings in former Soviet republics that had contested Russian influ- ence from the mid-1990s onward. The Cedar Revolution’s mandate was to end Syria’s influence in Lebanon, halt its support for Hizbullah and oust Lahoud from power. In four election rounds between May and June, anti-Syrian groups won a majority of seats in parliament. The general elections, which were con- sidered the first democratic elections to take place in almost 30 years, were held under the pro-Syrian government of Prime Minister Najib Mikati and supervised by the UN. Led by Saad Hariri, the former prime minister’s son, anti-Syrian forces won 72 out of 128 National Assembly seats. Finance min- ister and close Hariri aide Fouad Siniora became the country’s new prime minister. Under pro-Syrian Prime Minister Omar Karami, who preceded Mikati, Hizbullah had foiled efforts to build a consensus government over divisions with anti-Syrian groups on whether or not the group should be disarmed prior to the parliamentary race. To avoid further clashes, Siniora invited Hizbullah representatives into his government to back a unity government, although Hizbullah refused to disarm. Thereon, the Siniora administration quickly became embroiled in political clashes that erupted between pro- Syrian and anti-Syrian forces. These conflicts were at times played out on the streets of Beirut, the largest of which was a demonstration by Hariri supporters on February 14, 2006.

Saudi–Iranian Involvement in the 2006 Lebanon War: Syria in the Middle On July 12, 2006, the Israeli army entered Lebanon to defeat Hizbullah after the group crossed the border with Israel, kidnapped two Israeli sol- diers, and killed three. Five more Israeli soldiers were killed in a failed Israeli 206 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran rescue mission. Former Saudi minister of social affairs Abd al-Muhsin Al Akhlas told me in an interview: “This was a deliberate act of sabotage by Hizbullah to stir a new conflict with Israel.” 1 Indeed, it was widely believed Hizbullah aimed to silence calls for its disarmament by inciting the conflict. But Hizbullah believed that Israeli retaliation would be limited, in keeping with the pattern of such skirmishes over the previous years; however, vow- ing to crush Hizbullah, Israel staged a massive attack that quickly spread to areas around Beirut and the Lebanese–Syrian border. Israel’s response—massive air strikes and missile launches followed by a ground invasion targeting Hizbullah strongholds in the south—destroyed southern Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and led to the death of at least 1,500 mostly Lebanese civilians. Even worse, the objectives of the war were unclear; it was assumed that Israel aimed to neutralize Hizbullah and ensure that Iran would be unable to use the group to target Israel in the future. The war also raised concerns, in light of Tehran’s assertion that Washington was complicit in the attacks, that it was a prelude to the full containment or even military invasion of either Syria or Iran. Washington denied prior knowledge of Israel’s intentions. Yet, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared that Washington would con- tinue to support Israel’s actions, as the United States considered the sta- tus quo in the Middle East unacceptable. Her statement implied that the United States would back Israel until Hizbullah retreated and disarmed. Meanwhile, President Bush rejected calls to seek Iranian help in easing the bloodshed in Iraq; instead, the United States used force against Iraqi Shi‘i rebels in early August 2006, right after the outbreak of the war in Lebanon, while vowing to stop Iran in Iraq and Lebanon. 2 Two weeks into the war, Italy sponsored an international conference for Lebanon in Rome, and Italian diplomats traveled to Iran to encour- age its participation in the event. In an interview with foreign minister Manuchehr Mottaki, he told me that Iran hoped that Italy’s mediation would lead to a joint solution with the West to end the war, but its repre- sentatives left Rome convinced that the United States would not engage in discussions about a ceasefire.3 An emergency summit of Arab foreign ministers, held in Cairo three days after the outbreak of the war, revealed a consensus among major Arab states that Hizbullah was likely to be defeated. This led Tehran to believe that with US approval, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Fouad Siniora’s government in Beirut were not only aware that the Israeli attack would take place, but had also taken on the collective task of delaying any decisions about the conflict for two weeks—the time, as anticipated, it would take for Israel to defeat Hizbullah. The point was confirmed by an Israeli diplomat who told me that certain Arab countries had clearly asked them to get rid of The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine ● 207

Hizbullah when they traveled to their capitals to inform them of the pend- ing invasion. Prior to the meeting in Cairo, Mottaki called on his counterparts in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria as well as the Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa, to build consensus to end the war. But the war, which lasted just over one month, intensified the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. From the Saudi perspective, opposing a role for Iran in Lebanon helped ensure its own security. Sidelining Iran could also break Tehran’s alliance with Damascus and Hamas, allow Riyadh to advance its failed 2002 Arab–Israeli Peace Plan, and give the kingdom leverage in Washington to ensure that Arab interests were not ignored in the process of resolving Israel’s regional security dilemmas. Newspapers in Iran even hinted that Riyadh aimed to achieve its goals by creating a counterbalanc- ing Sunni militant force against Hizbullah, supporting neo-Salafi groups in Palestinian camps inside Lebanon. Saudi Arabia’s aid to these groups increased after the 2006 war, but when reports of its involvement with them surfaced, Riyadh immediately recognized the limits of creating political rifts based on ideology in Lebanon’s pluralistic society and evidently withdrew its support. 4 Iran, meanwhile, hoped the war would bolster its regional stand- ing for openly condemning Israel from the start, while it felt Arab leaders appeared compromised for choosing to remain largely silent immediately after the war broke out despite public outrage in the Arab world over Israel’s battlefront conduct. This discrepancy accelerated private funding from the Arab world to Hizbullah, primarily from the Shi‘i communities in the Arab Gulf states, some of whom would proceed with delays to take measures against pro-Hizbullah cells. Tehran maintained an outwardly detached stance toward the conflict in order to avoid a war of words with its Arab neighbors. Publicly, it attempted to appear impartial toward Hizbullah, given the general condemnation the group received for having incited the war. In fact, Mottaki refrained from making any public statements at all that could imply Iranian backing for Hizbullah, and did not name the group in interviews he gave when visit- ing Beirut in early August. Instead, he reinforced the message that the war called for a solution that would be acceptable to all Lebanese groups. Al Akhlas, however, stressed that despite Iranian diplomacy: “Iran was viewed by its Arab neighbors as the motivator of the war due to its support for Hizbullah.” 5 As casualties on the Arab side multiplied, Saudi Arabia called on Syria to use its leverage over Hizbullah to bring the war to an end. Damascus refused to assist Riyadh because of the hostility between the two after Hariri’s assas- sination. Abdullah dispatched Prince Bandar to Tehran to negotiate an end to the conflict, but Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told me the 208 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran prince was “not helpful.” Ahmadinejad asserted: “We did not feel that he had a real role or a real will to resolve the problem.” 6 Prince Bandar visited Tehran again to meet with Ali Larijani. However, Mottaki informed me that Riyadh, despite its efforts, was unable to play a key role in ending the war. 7 Hizbullah’s forces, meanwhile, escalated the war in response to the failed Rome talks. In a fresh offensive that took most observers by surprise, it launched an average 130 rockets a day into Israel, showing a new war capa- bility that few knew it possessed. Although about two thirds of the rockets would be destroyed in the course of the war, and even though most of the rockets lacked the state-of-the-art military technology necessary to defeat Israel, they disturbed its peace and caused Israeli civilian casualties. The heightened tension turned the military equation against Israel, which was far less tolerant of casualties compared to Hizbullah’s forces. Furthermore, Israel had already faced defeat in its attempts to curb Hizbullah’s capability on the ground, on account of the group’s decision to conduct guerrilla-style warfare and willingness to use civilian centers to conduct the war. Fully aware of the fear that Hizbullah’s newly revealed paramilitary power gener- ated, the group’s leader Hassan Nasrollah expressed a willingness to con- tinue the war. Civilian death tolls in Lebanon began increasing as a result of the severity of Israeli attacks. Hizbullah demonstrated a canny ability to use this to stir mass protests in Arab capitals in support of the group. Alarmed, Arab League leaders gathered in Beirut three weeks into the war to call publicly for a ceasefire. Ahmadinejad seized on the opportunity to call on the Saudi king in a letter to lead the Arab world out of the predica- ment it faced. On July 23, 2006, Saudi foreign minister Saudi al-Faisal had delivered a letter by Abdullah to the White House urging for a ceasefire, which President Bush maintained would not last. Saudi Arabia also warned the United States that it could no longer remain silent given the high num- ber of Arab casualties in the conflict. Prince Turki al-Faisal, then Saudi ambassador to Washington, subsequently warned the United States that the kingdom could no longer prevent its people from joining global anti-Israel condemnation. 8 A series of regional initiatives proved instrumental in bringing about an eventful ceasefire, namely a meeting of the OIC’s Council of Foreign Ministers, a meeting of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Iran, and a preparatory meeting of the OIC’s Asian foreign ministers in Malaysia, which was followed by an Arab League meeting in Beirut. Subsequently, the foreign minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jaber Al Thani (whose country was the only member of the group of concerned Muslim states in the Security Council) and Amr Moussa were entrusted to pur- sue a ceasefire option in the Security Council. On August 11, 2006, the The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine ● 209

Security Council unanimously approved Resolution 1701 calling for an end to the war. Five rounds of follow-up meetings in Sharm El-Sheikh, Istanbul, Kuwait, Cairo, and Riyadh helped address the internal crises in Lebanon after the war. 9 According to the Iranian officials I spoke to, it was the joint effort made by Iran and Qatar that helped end the conflict in Lebanon, though the Saudi scholar and prominent policy figure Abdulaziz Sager told me that Qatar would not have worked with Iran without Riyadh’s acquiescence.10 Yet a fallout between Riyadh and Qatar had led to the former’s decision to withdraw its ambassador from Doha in 2002 over a joint boundary dispute that was settled in 2008, which implied that Qatar was prepared to carve an independent foreign policy role. Iran had turned to Qatar for help, out of expediency, and it seemed to have worked. Mottaki had held a private meeting in August 2006 with France’s then-foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy at the Iranian ambas- sador’s residence in Beirut. He told me: “The French foreign minister asked to see me in Beirut, and France said it would take the lead in the UN Security Council to pass a resolution for a ceasefire. But France’s efforts were overshadowed by American interests.” Those interests included dis- suading French President Jacques Chirac from sending his foreign minister to Iran in February 2007 to negotiate a deal on behalf of the conference attendees at the Paris III meeting to rebuild Lebanon. Nonetheless, Douste- Blazy agreed to pursue a ceasefire option in the UN Security Council. Wary that the French might succumb to US pressure and abandon the ceasefire option, Iran asked Qatar—as a non-permanent member of the Security Council—to take on the ceasefire initiative at the UN.11 Taking advantage of this opportunity, Tehran encouraged the Qatari ini- tiative to help rebuild southern Lebanon. Qatar engaged Hizbullah, while Syria and Iran encouraged the group’s outreach to Saudi Arabia. In December 2006, a Hizbullah envoy visited the kingdom and met with King Abdullah. On January 3, 2007, the Saudi ambassador to Beirut, Abd al-Aziz Khoja, led a mediation initiative to conclude a draft agreement between the March 14 Alliance (named after the massive 2005 anti-Syrian rally in Beirut) and Hizbullah. The agreement reflected an understanding that an international legal investigation into Hariri’s assassination would be held, and a national unity government would be formed that included 19 ministers from the March 14 Alliance and ten from the Hizbullah-led opposition. As modest as the results of this outreach between Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia may have been, in the end it encouraged Riyadh to acknowledge Hizbullah by offering Lebanon USD 3 billion in reconstruction aid, half of which went to the south. In fact, by November 2006, the kingdom had donated USD 250 million dollars to help rebuild Beirut and other areas 210 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran affected by the war, and deposited USD 1 billion dollars in the Lebanese Central Bank to stabilize the currency and economy.12 Saud al-Faisal went further, asserting that Hizbullah was under great pressure from outside (this may have referred to Iran or the United States) but that it remained first and foremost a Lebanese organization. However, he cautiously warned that others—again possibly implying the Iranians or Americans—disagreed with that position. 13 Iranian authorities whom I spoke to took pride in the strategic guidance they contended Tehran offered to ensure Hizbullah’s interests during the reconstruction period. One senior official told me that despite the funds from Saudi Arabia, the general Lebanese and indeed Arab view tended toward criticism of the kingdom over its perceived early cooperation with the United States and Israel in the war. 14 This perception helped enhance Iranian and Syrian influence in Lebanon in the conflict’s aftermath. The Saudis were content as long as Syria was willing to collaborate over Lebanon. Saudi Arabia had even reached out to Iran in order to gain al-Assad’s agree- ment to mediate an end to the Lebanese conflict. The king also urged Nasrollah to accept a unity government and facilitate the Hariri court case. Moreover, the kingdom had delivered sufficient help to the Lebanese people after the war, in the form of food supplies and emergency medical aid to treat over three thousand Lebanese to recognize that despite Tehran’s asser- tions to the contrary, it retained influence and credibility inside Lebanon. Apparently, the king had also told Nasrollah to expect to face graver financial constraints and political consequences if he did not contribute to Lebanon’s stability. That implied that Saudi Arabia was uneasy with the Iranian role in Lebanon. Earlier, in December 2006, a growing rift had begun to surface within the royal family on the issue, when Prince Turki resigned abruptly at the end of the year (only a short while after assuming his post as ambassador to Washington). By then, Prince Bandar was mak- ing visits to Washington, and a more activist Saudi foreign policy agenda to contain Iran seemed to be in the works. Shortly thereafter, Prince Turki’s brother, Saud al-Faisal, who had refrained from taking sides on the matter of Prince Turki’s departure, called on Iran to cease interfering in Arab affairs. Although Tehran believed that Turki al-Faisal was receptive to the need to engage Iran on an ongoing basis as a neighbor and a Muslim country, the foreign minister rejected French efforts to involve Iran in the discussions over Lebanon. As a result, in January 2007, the Paris III Conference brought together 36 nations with the participation of the UN, the Arab League and ten international financial institutions to plan postwar reconstruction in Lebanon. Iran was not invited. Riyadh also attempted to place a wedge between Tehran and Damascus— giving Syria the opportunity to engage in inter-Arab dialogue instead. To The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine ● 211 that end, it pursued the case of Hariri’s assassination with vigor, in an effort to implicate elements within the Syrian regime. Syria showed measured responsiveness to Saudi attempts at reconciliation, in part at the urging of Iran to stay cautious and in part to end its growing diplomatic isolation in the Arab world. Iran was careful not to disrupt the delicate balance of power between Syria and Saudi Arabia, as it had very little to gain from doing so. Moreover, improved Saudi–Syrian relations could buy Iran time to influence its Arab neighbors. Meanwhile, its competition with Saudi Arabia did not depart from the overarching pragmatism that defined their foreign policy toward each other, which accentuated the region’s self-balancing fea- tures in times of crisis. However, on January 18, 2007, Nasrollah rejected a final draft agree- ment with the March 14 Alliance on the grounds that it delayed Lebanon’s early parliamentary elections. Tehran attempted to mediate the dispute, but on a visit to Damascus on January 22, Larijani was criticized for accepting Riyadh’s proposed agreement. Syria proceeded to reject any agreement over Lebanon. Tehran’s conservative factions, led by Larijani, likely disapproved of the young Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s conduct in the process. Privately, Tehran thought that Bashar al-Assad could succumb to the pres- sures by the Syrian Baath military regime, which by the standards of Iran’s revolutionary guards, was considered tough in its handling of domestic dis- sent and inflexible in its regional policy outlook and conduct. A day later, on a brief stop in Saudi Arabia, Larijani was informed that the kingdom was unwilling to make further compromises to the draft agreement. As the violence in Beirut surged, Larijani accepted R iyadh’s calls to push Hizbullah to work with the Siniora government. Perhaps a middle-ground deal was struck whereby Tehran would ease the tensions over Lebanon in exchange for Saudi support for peaceful Iranian nuclear activities, for the Iranians were mindful that Riyadh had Washington’s blessing to talk to Tehran about these issues. Prince Bandar and Larijani held a press confer- ence in Tehran on January 25, 2007, announcing their mutual agreement, potentially over both Lebanon and Iraq, without specifying details—de- spite Saudi objections to a visit to Iran by a French foreign ministry delega- tion. Prince Bandar also delivered a letter from King Abdullah to Larijani, and urged Tehran to lower the hype over Iranian nuclear activity. This came on the heels of the appointment in Washington (reportedly with major support from US Vice President Dick Cheney) of a new national intelligence director, Vice Admiral John Michael McConnell, to tighten pressure on Iran. Meanwhile, King Abdullah, perhaps closer than other Saudi leaders to the Syrians, received the Syrian president in Riyadh at an Arab League sum- mit meeting in March 2007. But US pressure on Syria, an offshoot of the 212 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran occupation of Iraq by the former, kept Syria and Iran in closer alliance. Riyadh would be extremely disappointed by al-Assad’s inability to deliver needed reform on account of resistance from the Syrian Baath regime’s secu- rity and military apparatus. By November 2007, Saudi Arabia and Syria had drifted apart again, after Lahoud was forced to resign despite Syria’s wishes otherwise. To support Syria, Hizbullah threatened to block parliament’s efforts to propose a consensus candidate to replace the president. As thousands of revelers celebrated Lahoud’s departure in the streets of Beirut, Hizbullah organized the first of two mass antigovernment protests that drew millions more into the streets, demanding a new unity government to replace the previous one. To some Lebanese observers to whom I spoke, Hizbullah’s rallies seemed like a soft takeover of the capital, peaking when the airport was shut down in May 2008. Hizbullah now maintained that the March 8 Alliance—a new coalition of opposition parties that it led—could win a third of the cabinet seats and wield effective veto power over govern- ment decisions in a new unity government. This position challenged Riyadh, which had built close ties with Sunni politicians in the govern- ment’s ruling group, the March 14 Alliance. Only after talks with France and the European Union (EU), still considered close to the Syrians com- pared to Washington, did Damascus agree to help Riyadh support the March 14 Alliance in exchange for political compromises with the March 8 Alliance, which included Hizbullah, the Shi‘i Amal Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement led by former Lebanese army commander Michel Aoun. Despite the resumption of talks between Riyadh and Tehran, the latter turned to Qatar once more for help. According to Mottaki: “Iran encour- aged Qatar to establish contacts with all concerned Lebanese groups. For the next two years after the end of the war, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Syria held regular meetings with Iran over Lebanon. Plus a summit of four states, Iran, Syria, Oman and Qatar, arrived at a balanced formula for the distribution of power among all concerned Lebanese groups around three issues, i.e. the selection of the next president, a new government and parliamentary elections.”15 Yet Iran and Qatar, backed by Syria, opposed Saudi Arabia’s position that Lebanon should immediately choose a new president. As the politi- cal strife within the Lebanese parliament escalated, Hizbullah sought to allay fears that the country could descend into chaos, given that Sunni mili- tants were allowed to operate with relative freedom on the streets of Beirut. Subsequently, Hizbullah’s own Shi‘i militants took over the capital’s streets to prevent fighting between various Sunni factions. While some Lebanese expressed doubt about Hizbullah’s intentions, many others responded to the The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine ● 213 handling of the situation by the government with dismay and were more optimistic about Hizbullah’s ability to maintain calm. Riyadh, meanwhile, backed Sa’ad Hariri, the frontrunner to become the next elected prime minister of Lebanon; but the government’s inability to reach an agreement with the opposition delayed the political process and the election of a future prime minister. In March 2008, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Cairo to meet with his Saudi counterpart. That same month, the foreign ministers of Iran, Qatar, Oman, and Syria held an extraordinary meeting in Damascus to discuss the latest Arab League summit in the Syrian capital, which was to be held at the end of the month. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, and the Lebanese government boycotted the summit; Saudi Arabia also withdrew its ambassador from Syria, and in a news conference in Riyadh, the Saudi foreign minister condemned Syria for refusing to abide by Arab League deci- sions over Lebanon and asked for member states to punish Damascus. By the time of the meeting, only 11 of all 22 league members attended. Nevertheless, Syrian officials maintained that the meeting was a success despite the year-long campaign Washington and Riyadh had undertaken to force Syrian compliance over Lebanon. Damascus skillfully played the Israeli–Palestinian card, rallying many Arab foreign ministers to reconsider supporting the 2002 Saudi peace plan in light of Israel’s continual interven- tion in Lebanon and Gaza. After the Saudi foreign minister charged Iran of planning a coup in Lebanon in May 2008, Ahmadinejad told me that Iran was the only coun- try that chose not to direct Lebanese affairs, but to allow the Lebanese to decide their own fate.16 Finally, on May 17, 2008, rival Lebanese factions gathered in Doha to broker a peace agreement. Iran played a formative role in the outcome of the Doha talks. There were three main decisions to arrive at: the selection of a president, the structure of the new government, and an affirmation of the timeline for the elections mandated by the constitution to be held in June 2009. The talks failed, however, on account of a dispute over whether or not Hizbullah could retain its arms after a new unity govern- ment was formed. Qatar sided with Saudi Arabia and Egypt over the issue, while Iran backed Hizbullah, which rejected the talks. Mottaki described the events in Doha to me: “I received a phone call at my house at 2:30 am from Qatar on the second day of the Doha talks, and was informed that negotiations had stalled. I hung up, and got back on the phone until 9 am , speaking to all concerned countries and Lebanese political groups to resolve the impasse. Within a day, the talks concluded successfully.” 17 On May 25, 2008, General Michel Suleiman, a Maronite Christian and the head of the Lebanese army, was sworn in as the new president. Suleiman was close to Hizbullah and Iran; more importantly, he was credited for his 214 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran pragmatism and tact in taking a tough stand by refusing to involve the army in the 2006 war. Suleiman’s military background meant he was also close to Syria, which had controlled the Lebanese army for several decades. Furthermore, his decision to maintain a distance from Hizbullah during the 2006 war despite overseeing the army’s deployment in the south, and his earlier choice to keep the army on the sidelines during the political upheaval following Hariri’s assassination (when Hizbullah fighters took over down- town Beirut) indicated that he was a neutral figure whose main goal was to avoid violence and keep Lebanon on the path of national reconciliation. In October 2008, the passage of a new electoral law in parliament ended the 18-month political standoff between the March 8 Alliance opposition and Siniora. The law promised to facilitate factional reconciliation prior to the parliamentary elections scheduled for June 7, 2009. It also gave the Christian community slightly more voting power, through backing the opposition. In November, Suleiman traveled to Iran and visited an exhibi- tion by Iran’s defense ministry. Both he and his Iranian hosts agreed that expanding ties required policies to help stabilize Lebanon. 18 The new law prevented Lebanese expatriates from voting until 2013, but Riyadh and Washington made thousands of free air tickets available to expatriates to return home. Mostly liberals, these expats were likely to vote for the Hariri coalition in the parliamentary race. US President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4, 2009, preceded by Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Beirut in May, boosted attempts to influence Lebanon’s 2009 parliamentary race. Unable to change this course of events, Hizbullah declared that it was not seeking to win a majority of seats and therefore did not invest time and money to these ends. Rather, it wished to ensure that opposition groups from the March 8 Alliance could guarantee sufficient influence over the new cabinet. After failing to win the elections, Nasrollah even joked that a parliamentary election costing USD 1.2 billion was not an election—but he accepted its result so as not to be accused of running militias. 19 The March 14 Alliance won by a narrow margin and Sa’ad Hariri, subsequently entrusted with the formation of a new cabinet, agreed not to pressure Hizbullah to disarm. Hizbullah, in turn, vowed not to resort to arms to address Lebanon’s internal disputes. However, shortly after the elections, the March 14 Alliance broke apart as Nasrollah pressed Hariri to repudiate a tribunal investigating his father’s assassination. In September 2009, when Hariri failed to form a new cabinet, Saudi Arabia held a trilateral summit with Egypt and Syria to address the situation in Lebanon, but refused to invite Qatar. Al-Assad announced his willingness to assist in the formation of the Lebanese cabinet in a meeting with King Abdullah. Syria negotiated for Iran, which was absent from the The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine ● 215

Riyadh summit, to force Hariri to withdraw from some of his earlier posi- tions and compromise with Nasrollah over the structure of the cabinet. The result revealed a growing pragmatism over Lebanon. The cabinet was formed in November 2009, when Hariri took office as the new prime minister; it comprised five Sunnis, six Shi‘is, six Orthodox Christians, five Maronites, and three Druze. By December, the cabinet had granted Hizbullah autho- rization to keep its arms despite UNSCR 1701 and the Obama administra- tion’s demands that it disarm. Meanwhile, a determined effort was slowly underway to reengage Damascus. In July 2010, King Abdullah and al-Assad traveled to Beirut together. In September, President Obama dispatched his Middle East envoy George Mitchell to Damascus to win over Syria, as part of Obama’s out- reach to key states in the region as well as a broad-based effort to arrive at a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, for which Syrian cooperation was required. Simultaneously, as the kingdom’s strained ties with Qatar improved, the two countries began to slowly merge policies on Syria, which al-Assad appreciated. Tehran’s hopes of using Doha to circumvent Riyadh on issues pertaining to Syria were therefore dashed. Although Syria assisted Saudi Arabia and Qatar in Lebanon, no major shifts in Iranian–Syrian relations occurred. Syria’s goal of achieving strategic parity with Israel in preparation for peace talks made Iran’s support essential. Riyadh therefore recognized that it would reap only limited rewards in attempts to isolate Tehran in the process of reengaging with Syria. As a result, while Riyadh and Tehran continued to influence different Lebanese groups, the expectation that Lebanon should serve their narrow interests alone was modified. Thus, the 2006 war revealed a self-balancing feature inherent in the region in response to the rapid dilution of security in Lebanon. Iran and Saudi Arabia opted to maintain the status quo in the postwar period by accommodating each other, and they or their allies demonstrated an ability to shift alignments. Not only did Hizbullah build a wider coalition with Christian and Sunni parties, albeit with limited results in the latter case, but it also reached out to Saudi Arabia. I believe a determining factor in Iran’s policy calculations was the need to ensure that Syria remained a credible player in the Arab world. Iran needed Syria’s help to convince Arab states that its policies were well-intentioned. Tehran’s politicians frequently liked to remind me that their policies were principled, disregarding the fact that if Arab countries were skeptical about those principles, ultimately it was Iran’s reputation that was at stake. Perhaps to strike a balance between Iranian and Arab expectations over Syria, when President Suleiman demanded Iranian support for Syrian–Saudi talks to build peace with Israel, Ahmadinejad backed off on a planned trip to 216 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Lebanon that could have stirred tensions. He only later visited Lebanon in October 2010 after reportedly making a call to King Abdullah to assure him of Iran’s goodwill. Yet events did not move smoothly afterward. Since Syria could lose a measure of strategic importance if it ceased serving Iran as a front against Israel, al-Assad steadfastly reasoned that he held the key to the success of Levant politics as long as the region remained preoccupied by Israeli aggres- sion. In this respect, Saudi Arabia viewed Syria as a hindrance in advancing the Arab–Israeli peace agenda. Moreover, Saudi analysts had been argu- ing that a regional consensus on Iraq that would force Iran to acquiesce to Arab demands there must begin by weakening Damascus’s alliance with Tehran. 20 This analysis was a recipe for disaster in Syria, as it implied that Riyadh had abandoned hope to fix its ties with Syria unless it was assured that a friendly government there was in place. In September 2010, Ahmadinejad hinted in my presence to American reporters in New York that the United States was “brewing mischief in Syria,” but refused pointing fingers at Saudi Arabia. But the Iranian president appeared to be visibly disturbed by concerns over Syria’s potential instability, and made a point of stopping in Damascus on his way to New York, which observers contended was designed to bolster support for al-Assad. Although Ahmadinejad never suggested that Riyadh was involved in a slowly evolving Syrian crisis that finally erupted in early 2011, informed Saudis I spoke with believed that anti-al-Assad senti- ment in the kingdom had openly begun shaping since 2008. The Arab Spring gave Washington, which had failed to engage with al-Assad despite Obama’s early desire, reason to now contemplate bringing his regime down. A White House source confirmed to me that, by then, he was among a group of administration officials who advocated arming Syrians to revolt against al-Assad, a plan that eventually transpired soon thereafter reportedly in early 2012, although the official disclosure of when the United States released those arms to rebels in Syria varied from Ahmadinejad’s observation that Syria’s destabilization by Washington had been underway before then. However, the price of attempting to de-link Syria from Iran through armed conflict proved too high, given the failure to oust al-Assad; the Syrian Baath army united with Iran and Hizbullah to prevent that outcome, but only reluctantly, given the Baath Party’s deep hesitations over Iranian intentions in the Arab world. Time and again, Iran’s revolutionary guards stationed in Syria would concede the uphill battle they faced to win over the Baath army’s confidence. Now, the Obama administration was heavily embroiled over the issue of Syria at a time when Washington was actually prepared to withdraw its military presence from the region. Dispatching US forces to Syria was a far The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine ● 217 less desirable prospect than letting the Syrians and rebels fight directly at minimal cost to US lives. Obama’s ambivalence placed Saudi Arabia in a difficult position. Although the kingdom had reluctantly followed US poli- cies in Syria since 2004, it felt it was now left on its own to see a conclusion to the Syrian crisis. To the Saudi leadership, this seemed like a repetitous pattern: all too frequently the United States took sides and intervened in the Middle East conflict zones, only to withdraw from those conflicts pre- maturely and let regional states manage and burden the repercussions of US actions. Unable to reach a consensus with Tehran or Washington over Syria, and marred by disagreements with Qatar and Turkey that aimed to support the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, by encouraging a Syrian revolt, Riyadh managed to preempt the Obama administration into accepting its overall Syria policy options at first, which included a commitment to overthrow al-Assad’s regime. In the process, Riyadh could deflect US public attention away from the Arab Spring uprisings impacting Riyadh’s allies in Bahrain, Egypt, and Yemen. It now seemed inevitable that as long as the uprising in these states continued, so would the conflict in Syria. There was a common thread that connected these conflicts, aside from the Arab Spring phenom- enon, that is, the rapid dilution of trust between Riyadh and Washington over how to realign their interests in the Middle East. Riyadh, however, did not have an easy time convincing Washington to support Saudi regional policies. The government in Egypt fell, in part due to Obama’s hurried urging that the Egyptian President Husni Mubarak step down from power after the Arab Spring. Washington also began an earnest outreach to dissident Bahraini Shi‘is despite apprehensions in Manama over US intentions. In Yemen, neither Washington nor Riyadh were able to pre- vent the rise to power of Shi‘i groups, the Houthis, and a larger opposition of non-Shi‘is, by early 2015. Iran, meanwhile, supported the Houthis in an effort to contain Saudi Arabia for the first time from within the Arabian peninsula, and to use Yemen as leverage to broker a pro-Iranian peace deal in Syria. Although the Muslim Brotherhood, Iraqi Baathists, and al-Qaeda, not to mention a Saudi-led armed coalition, thrived in Yemen to fight the pro-Iran factions there, Yemen’s instability led to increased antigovern- ment terrorist operations inside the kingdom. Iran charged Saudi policies of fomenting radicalism in the region. But Tehran refused to take responsibil- ity for its own actions which its Arab neighbors believed were subversive, but which Tehran justified as going with the prevailing and inevitable trends that were unfolding in the region to reject US dominance. In short, Tehran’s policies were designed to get even with Washington over their respective spheres of influence in the Middle East, neglecting the interests of status quo Arab states in the process. Tehran perceived the policy to be crucial to its survival and to the preservation of Iran’s stability and territorial integrity. 218 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

While Saudi analysts expressed their surprise to me that Iran should relent- lessly back al-Assad, they did not fully realize that the goal of outmaneu- vering the United States in the region was Tehran’s lifeline. The Obama administration, meanwhile, remained unwilling to commit US forces to topple al-Assad, and remained hopeful that anti-al-Assad rebels would be able to figure out a future for Syria. Saudi Arabia’s hopes for a greater US commitment over Syria were dashed when, for a while, Israel appeared to be better off with al-Assad in power than if armed Arab rebels were to take over the control of the Golan Heights, and from there launch attacks on Israeli soil. In fact, informed Saudi sources told me that Israel had urged Washington to avoid launching an attack on al-Assad after information sur- faced that his army had used chemical and biological weapons. In Yemen too, Washington remained largely noncommittal to a pro-Saudi solution, but willingly allowed the kingdom to take the lead in fighting the pro-Iran forces and to reinstall Yemen’s government led by President Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi which was ousted from power when Hadi resigned on January 22, 2015. Ultimately, left with fewer options, Riyadh and Tel Aviv converged to show that Iran was a bigger enemy than the rebels in Syria. The opportunity came about in full when al-Assad threatened to take over the Golan Heights in June 2013; the measure could compel the many Arab rebel fighters who had gathered in Syria to redirect their attentions to his cause of securing the Golan from Israel instead of fighting al-Assad himself. This brought Israel’s and Saudi Arabia’s positions on how to handle the arming of the anti-al- Assad rebels slightly closer. The rebels were armed lightly, although Prince Turki al-Faisal argued that heavier arms should be sent to Syria, and Tehran maintained that the lighter arms were meant to enable superior Israeli retal- iatory power when necessary. Then in 2014, Saudi Arabia succeeded in urging the United States to supply the opposition Free Syrian Army with heavier ammunition, to secure parts of the Golan Heights bordering Israel. Iran’s revolutionary guards maintained that the Free Syrian Army lacked the backbone to fight, and was far easier to defeat compared to other armed groups in Syria than the United States or Saudis suggested. But Iran’s policies in Syria now appeared painfully shortsighted, given the heavy cost to the region of its influence over al-Assad. That would become more obvious were the Syrian crisis to become a zero-sum game in the context of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, as much as Iran attempted to show Riyadh that Syria was not beyond repair—that it was not exclusively invested in keeping al-Assad in power, and that Iran could work with Arab states to help restore peace in Syria. Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, Hossein Amir- Abdullahian, stressed to me that a permanent trait in the Saudi–Iranian The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine ● 219 relationship was that when it seemed at its worst level, Riyadh’s and Tehran’s escalating security concerns often pushed them to reengage. 21 But reengage- ment yielded modest results when the tensions in the region were high, and Iran seemed all too willing to deplete its national resources to advance its revolutionary goals. By May 2014, partly to appease Saudi concerns, the Syrian government, which had retaken many rebel positions including in the Golan, engaged in the peaceful exchange of prisoners, dismantled a large supply of chemical weapons, and promised to hold new presidential elec- tions, although al-Assad remained the forerunner. Meanwhile, despite Lebanon’s failure to create a new government throughout 2013–2014, the self-balancing features that pushed Riyadh and Tehran to collaborate there were repeatedly explored. Their collaboration appeared to be more critical now given the potential for the spill over of the Syrian conflict into Lebanon. In April 2013, for example, the Saudi ambassador to Beirut, Ali Awad Asiri, reached out to Hizbullah to help unite the Lebanese behind the new government of Tammam Saeb Salam. Although the government in Beirut resigned and Hizbullah won the cabinet by February 2014, when Iranian ally Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati resigned in February 2014, Hizbullah reached out to Saudi Arabia to find a solution to the predicament. At the time of this writing, no agreement was yet sealed on the next Lebanese president, although Salam remained prime minister. Saudi Arabia delivered generous financial assistance to help keep the Lebanese army strong, while pressing Beirut not to accept similar assistance from Iran. As for Syria, no clear consensus has emerged, although the United States was in talks with Turkey to explore options to topple the regime in Damascus possibly by extending the mission of the US-led international coalition built in 2014, to not only destroy Islamic State (IS) strongholds in Iraq and Syria, but also remove al-Assad. Russian military forces were sent to Syria in October 2015 to attack antigovernment forces and prevent al- Assad’s overthrow as he rapidly lost control over large areas in the country, while Saudi Arabia reluctantly offered support to Russian efforts to curb terrorism in Syria. Iran, meanwhile, stated that toppling the Syrian regime was unacceptable, and the Syrian Kurds were beginning a new phase of col- laboration with all sides to fight IS but also to keep their options for future alliances with multiple international actors in Syria open. Meanwhile, Turkey and Iran suspected that the United States and its allies includ- ing Saudi Arabia (despite the kingdom’s previous position of supporting Iraq’s territorial integrity) might build a Kurdish enclave in Syria and Iraq to protect, which could compromise regional security further mindful of the large Kurdish populations in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran and their increased demands for statehood. 220 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Palestine: Extension of Levant Geopolitics By 2001, the Israeli–Palestinian peace process had derailed as the United States prepared to go to war in Afghanistan. Abdullah was one of few per- sistent voices demanding that Washington expedite the Middle East peace talks by connecting the issue to the larger conflict with Iran. Riyadh argued that settlement of the Palestinian conflict would lessen Tehran’s interven- tions in the Arab world. Iran’s relationship with Palestinian groups was anything but straight- forward. Tehran had fallen out with Yasser Arafat, though he had been close to Ayatollah Khomeini; when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Arafat visited Iran after the events of 1979, he was assured that the PLO would be a beneficiary of the Iranian revolution’s largesse. Arafat, however, rejected Iran’s involvement in the Palestinian conflict and in Arab affairs in general, and sided with Iraq in the course of the Iran–Iraq war. During the war, Iran continued to offer financial, moral and opera- tional support to sympathetic Palestinian groups other than the PLO, but its influence on them was limited compared to countries such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia that were in the immediate adjacency of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Madrid Peace Talks in 1991, followed by the Oslo Accords in 1993 pushed Tehran to more aggressively support Palestinian factions such as the Islamic Jihad that opposed peace with Israel. Fatah and Hamas remained dismayed by Iran’s political games, and sidelining of the main- stream Palestinian groups in Tehran circles. Riyadh, however, in keeping with the outcomes of the Oslo Accords, pro- ceeded to endorse a 1996 first-ever election for president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), as well as for a Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). The election results were dominated by Fatah, the strongest move- ment within the PLO. Hamas, which was (and still is) considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States and had close intellectual ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, boycotted the race. It also continued to view itself as a resistance group that publicly opposed the policies of Arab governments that were perceived to collaborate with Israel, but it assured Egypt and Saudi Arabia, along with other key Arab states, that its resistance would remain confined to the Palestinian borders, and that Israel was its only target. Hamas was able to increase its popularity and influence, especially as the PNA was mired in bureaucratic corruption and mismanagement and unable to control the group. Months before the outbreak of the 2006 Lebanon war, on January 25, Hamas won the majority of seats in the PLC. It refused to negotiate a power deal with the PNA, and instead formed a majority govern- ment on its own on February 19. A quartet on the Middle East, comprising The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine ● 221 the United States, Russia, the EU, and the UN, and mediating the peace process, threatened to cut funding to the new government. On March 18, the United States, the EU, and Israel boycotted the Hamas administration in Gaza, suspended economic ties, and reduced humanitarian aid to the territory. Washington’s refusal to accept the electoral victory of Hamas cost Riyadh and Cairo a degree of credibility as able brokers of peace in Palestine. It also reduced any moderating influence they had over Hamas although Saud al-Faisal continued to stress that Hamas was part of a legitimate government responsible to a new constituency of Palestinians. He also blamed Iranian interference in Arab affairs for prolonging the conflict in Palestine. Mottaki responded that Arab issues constituted Muslim affairs, over which Iran and Saudi Arabia should unite. Riyadh sidestepped Tehran when it invited Hamas and Fatah to the kingdom to reach a final decision on the formation of a national unity government in February 2007. In March, Riyadh succeeded in brokering a short-lived unity government. The deal, however, fell apart as a result of tensions between the two Palestinian groups, and with Israel and the United States. Earlier in January, the United States had shunned Fatah for failure to make peace with Israel. Washington subsequently cut a pledged sum of USD 86 million to the PNA to USD 59 million, and Israel froze Palestinian tax revenues. For several months, the PNA was unable to pay government wages. Despite Saudi Arabia and EU requests to send funds to allow the Palestinian government to function, Israel and the United States brought pressure to halt the flow of funds. Subsequently, the Arab League revisited Abdullah’s peace plan in March 2007, in an effort to promote Palestinian unity. However, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, mired in problems over corruption charges within his government as well as the mishandling of the Lebanon war, showed very little interest in the Arab League initiative. Saudi officials warned that ceas- ing to fund the PNA could also radicalize Hamas and open the door to Iranian influence, which Iran warned it would do. Indeed, Iranian funds began assuming greater importance to Hamas, and although Hamas was divided over whether or not to accept Iranian support—and in large part preferred to avoid Iranian influence—its leader Khaled Mashal ultimately decided to embrace Tehran.22 On June 15, 2007, Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip after three days of battle, ousting forces loyal to Fatah. Polls conducted then showed that were elections to be held, Hamas would have managed to retain a third of parliamentary votes again. However, the Gaza takeover led to the dismissal of Hamas from the PNA. A US- and Saudi-backed cabinet in the West Bank led by Fatah was formed to replace Hamas in the Palestinian government. 222 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

On November 27, 2007, the Bush administration held the Annapolis conference focusing on Middle East peace, though it was a largely symbolic gesture that gathered 49 countries with no clear intended goal except to bolster Fatah. Despite the fact that the quartet strongly backed the con- ference, the Annapolis meeting was seen for what it was: a late effort by the White House to wrap up the Israeli–Palestinian conflict before the end of Bush’s term in office in January 2009. The conference failed to deliver results because of a lack of sufficient preparation, an overlap with disputes on the ground over the expansion of Israeli settlements, uncertainty over the future of Jerusalem, and the lack of any real commitment by the Bush administration to address the conflict. Saudi Arabia backed the conference; Iran was not invited, but Fatollahi told me that this snub as well as many others over Iraq did not particularly concern Iran, “because [it] was confident that the US was bound to make mistakes in its foreign policy.”23 That meant Tehran would remain patient until its next opportunities to influence the Palestinian issue came about. Reassured, it also did not see reason to activate sleeper cells in the Palestinian territories, as plans for Palestine that ignored Iran, it believed, were bound to collapse on their own. In June 2008, Egypt brokered a truce between Israel and Hamas forces in Gaza, but by the six-month mark clashes between the two had intensified. On November 4, the Israeli army entered Gaza to destroy a tunnel Hamas reportedly used to abduct Israeli soldiers. Hamas fired dozens of rockets into Israel over the ensuing days, and Israel retaliated as Egypt attempted cease- fire negotiations. Meanwhile, extremist Saudi fighters joined Hamas in the war against Israel, which further challenged the kingdom’s internal security. Confident of its rising regional position, Hamas demanded that Israel lift a year-long economic embargo of Gaza, but Israel, the EU and the United States refused to deal with Hamas unless it recognized Israel’s right to exist. By December, however, the EU had changed course and France announced it would resume ties with Hamas. On December 27, 2008, Israel carried out air strikes on the Gaza Strip to halt rocket attacks against its border territories. The subsequent inva- sion of Gaza by Israeli troops, despite repeated warnings from the Arab League not to launch a military operation, led to the death of over 1,300 Palestinians. Israel continued the siege of Gaza until January 18, 2009, while Egypt blocked its border with Gaza despite efforts by Palestinians fleeing the conflict to break the closing. Cairo argued that it was upholding an agreement between the PNA and Israel to keep border crossings blocked, but Iran believed the agreement Cairo referred to had expired over a year before Israel’s invasion. Iran criticized Egypt for refusing to aid Palestinian refugees from Gaza, while Egyptian authorities charged Hizbullah with crossing Egyptian The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine ● 223 borders to carry out terrorist operations in the Sinai. Morocco subsequently cut ties with Iran on charges that Tehran also fueled a Shi‘i rebellion there. However, like Iran, Qatar, which opted to work with Hamas and its Muslim Brotherhood supporters, also criticized Egypt for closing its border, leading Cairo to refrain from attending a summit of Arab states in Doha after the invasion of Gaza. Arab intellectuals denounced the split in the Arab world over Gaza as the death of Arab unity, and protestors across Arab capitals took to the streets to denounce the Gaza war. In Bahrain, the government used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse tens of thousands of protestors demanding action by Arab governments to halt human suffering in Gaza, while carrying pictures of Hassan Nasrollah.24 Tehran verbally attacked Egypt and pressured Arab leaders to force Israel into accepting a ceasefire with Hamas. The Iranian press, meanwhile, accused the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt with holding secret meetings with Israel to discuss ways to contain the Iranian influence in Palestine. In a publicity campaign some 70,000 Iranians had volunteered to engage in suicide missions against Israel in the course of the Gaza war. The act was largely a symbolic gesture, and Supreme Leader Khamenei forbade the vol- unteers to act in the conflict in Gaza. 25 Yet in discussions I had in Europe with Palestinian human rights groups, they confirmed that Iran did main- tain a strong presence in Gaza, where Hamas fighters were joined on the ground by IRGC forces. Mashal publicly thanked Iran for its support of Hamas, and stated that Iranian support was crucial to its victory in the Gaza war. Iran continued providing money to Mashal both in the course of the war and afterward. 26 Hamas, under Mashal’s leadership, helped add credibility to Iran’s efforts to expose real or perceived Egyptian and Saudi inaction in the wake of Israel’s attack on Gaza, a measure which Tehran hoped would win it politi- cal leverage among the Arabs. As Iran stepped up pressure on Egypt to allow refugees fleeing Gaza to receive humanitarian aid, Hamas boycotted the Egyptian reconciliation talks with Israel and postponed a decision to hold talks until months after January 19, 2009, when the Gaza war ended follow- ing a unilateral Israeli ceasefire. The Egyptian-sponsored peace talks with Hamas were designed to cut short Iranian influence. But Arab governments split over the direction of the peace talks with Hamas, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the UAE favoring Iran’s isolation and Qatar seeking a middle ground that also met Iranian demands. Finally, on Qatar’s urging, an Arab League summit in Doha was held on January 16, 2009, two days after Iran proposed a 14-point peace plan for Gaza in Istanbul, to discuss peace. Meanwhile, in March 2009, Hizbullah sent a representative to Egypt to discuss ways to deliver aid to Palestinians in Gaza, but by August, Nasrollah had openly declared his support for Gaza fighters, thereby consolidating 224 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran the Iranian–Hamas–Hizbullah axis against Israel. Alarmed, the new Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu stepped up efforts to court Saudi Arabia to advance a mutual agreement with the Palestinians, even suggest- ing that he might accept Abdullah’s 2002 Peace Plan with minor alterations. In August 2009, King Abdullah urged the Palestinians to move toward the establishment of an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, and to understand the danger posed by their disunity. He also maintained that if the United States and Israel reached an agreement with Hamas, it could deflate the Iranian influence over the group. On December 20, Larijani met with Egyptian President Mubarak during an OIC meeting in Cairo to assure him that Iran’s support for Hamas was not intended to weaken Egypt’s mediating role between Fatah and Hamas. Other Iranian officials stressed to me that Iran could never step into Egypt’s shoes, even if it wanted, to manage the Palestinian crisis. Larijani reportedly gave Mubarak a message to take to Riyadh about exploring ways to end the conflict in Palestine and restore Arab unity over the issue mindful of the need to also preserve Iranian interests and influence over Palestine.27 These measures came to a quick standstill when the popular Egyptian revolt forced Mubarak out of office in February 2011—ironically, on the eve of the thirty-second anniversary of the Iranian revolution, which Tehran took as a blessed sign. Following a backlash against protestors by Mubarak loyalists who mounted on horses and camels to control the crowds, Larijani all too quickly, just on the heels of his meeting with Mubarak, fell back on Tehran’s penchant for revolutionary politics, mockingly labelling Mubarak’s US- and Saudi-backed, three-decade-long regime a “camel democracy.” His statement revealed that to Tehran’s leadership, revolutionary politics took priority over their diplomatic commitments. Months earlier in private, senior Iranian diplomats in New York told me they were confident Egypt’s regime could not hold much longer, and they expressed surprise and regret that the United States and Saudi Arabia had chosen to “put all their eggs in one basket” by supporting Mubarak’s single-man reign. When the Syrian conflict escalated shortly after the Egyptian democracy protests, Hamas was forced to leave Damascus. Its subsequent stationing in Doha and Cairo, in which it was far more restricted than it had been in Syria, forced the group to distance itself from Hizbullah. Yet those divisions seemed somewhat arbitrary, despite the general belief among Saudi policy analysts whom I spoke to at the time that Hamas could be swayed easily. Indeed, Hamas’s fallout with its Doha hosts shortly afterward proved how temporary its arrangements with the Gulf monarchies were. In mid-2013, Mashal, who had tacitly supported the anti-al-Assad revolt in 2011, was given a deadline to leave Doha—only to later embrace the thaw between Hamas and Fatah one year later, which again did not last. The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine ● 225

Tehran hoped that these shifting positions would work in its favor. In the end, Tehran believed that Hamas, Syria, Iran, and Hizbullah had the denial of Israel’s existence in common, a position the Arab Gulf states could not espouse publicly, even if their private convictions differed. In fact, Hamas and Hizbullah had connected following efforts by Israel to expel the former from the West Bank and Gaza in 1992. Since then, Iran had felt it main- tained enough leverage to contain Israeli threats against it through such proxies, thereby making the Levant and specifically Palestine an extension of its larger conflict with the United States, Israel, and now, Saudi Arabia. By 2014, Iran’s supreme leader would proceed to publicly call for the arming of Palestinian resistance forces in the West Bank.

Conclusion *

ince 2011, the Arab Spring has turned into a prime example of how divided the Saudi–Iranian relationship has become in the face of S regional instability. For the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which has faced Arab disunity since its inception, the Arab Spring is hardly a promising sign of reform. Instead, Riyadh sees the spring as a disturbing trend which could break the Arab world apart and grant Iran chances to expand its interven- tions. Tehran asserts that the spring is partly modeled after its revolution, and that regional conditions are now ripe to build a new Islamic Middle East in which power will shift away from the United States and its Arab allies, including Saudi Arabia, into the hands of groups that aim to see a far more reduced American role in the region. This implies that Iran will be more powerful in the new paradigms that will shape the Middle East. It further implies that faced with rapid regional changes, the United States will be less able to depend on Saudi Arabia to contain Iran. Tehran predicts that the post-Arab Spring turmoil in Bahrain, with its divided social composition and the waning authority of its government, will replicate across the Arab Gulf states if they neglect their Shi‘i population. Subsequently, the pillars that guarantee the US presence in the region will crumble, beginning with Bahrain—where the US Fifth Fleet is stationed. By extension, American military bases, intelligence operations in the region, use of the Persian Gulf waterway, and access to the region’s airspace will break down. In these hypothetical scenarios, Tehran imagines a future where it will be the only capital of standing in the region. It believes that while the United States and its regional allies will have to buy influence in the new Middle East, Iran need only embrace its revolution’s anti-US principles that will shape the region’s fate. Saudi Arabia aims to counter Iran’s assertions, but their competition to influence events has been confused and costly to both, not to mention the region. In Egypt, Saudi Arabia was invested in the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood from power in 2013. Iran was dismayed by the brotherhood’s 228 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran failure to secure power, and members of its parliament faulted the party for not purging the army and setting up alternative grassroots networks fol- lowing the Iranian revolutionary model to stay in power. Meanwhile, as a prominent intellectual Sunni group sympathetic to Shi‘is, the brother- hood cautiously questioned Saudi Arabia over the anti- Shi‘i Wahhabi doc- trines. Riyadh’s measures to control the brotherhood then backfired. Qatar and Turkey supported the group’s members across the Arab world as an alternative Islamist voice to the radical Wahhabis. This, in turn, opened up Qatar’s and Turkey’s regional interventions in Syria, aiming to reject Saudi and Iranian influences there. It also tilted Washington toward accepting a role for the brotherhood in Syria and Yemen, and pushing Saudi Arabia to comply. When the brotherhood inspired the Arab Shi‘is in the Gulf states, Kuwaiti Shi‘is openly urged Riyadh to cease its military hostilities since 2004 against the armed Yemeni Shi‘is, believing that the measure fueled Yemen’s insurgency. Iran said that Kuwait reached out to it on the issue, and Tehran argued that despite Saudi assertions of Iranian involvement in Yemen, Riyadh’s air raids were responsible for the growth of anti-Wahhabi sentiments there among the Shi‘is and the dominant Shafei Sunnis. Tehran’s hardline papers which often received state intelligence reports (whether these reports were based on actual events or fabrications is unknown) fur- ther charged Riyadh with aiding Iraqi Baathists in Yemen; they contended that many had relocated there in 2003 to fight against Yemeni Shi‘i factions. Meanwhile, Tehran encouraged the Houthis to build grassroots networks to help spread the Iranian revolutionary model in the Arabian peninsula. Once again, hardline papers in Iran even alleged the Saudi intelligence of plotting a coup to contain the Kuwaiti government’s pro-Shi‘i leanings on account of the crisis in Yemen. Tehran also mocked Riyadh for paying what Iran self-servingly labelled a leased army of multinational forces from Islamic countries to defend Saudi Arabia against Yemen in 2015, and questioned the widespread humanitarian cost of the war. Hardliners in Iran suggested that the Houthis could take over Makkah but were showing deliberate restraint. As of the time of this writing, Saudi Arabia had ignored three peace propos- als that Iran offered over Yemen, two to the UN and one directly to Riyadh, dismissing Tehran’s assertions that it was an honest peace broker, and mak- ing decisive advancements against Iranian-backed groups. It also reached out to Russia, which has historically maintained influence in Yemen, to negotiate an understanding over Yemen that would preclude Iran. In Bahrain, a premature Saudi proposal to annex the country (despite the fact that at least for four centuries the two had been separate entities), after sending troops to contain Bahrain’s February 14, 2011 popular uprising on Manama’s request, led Tehran to decry the action as “suicidal.” Quite unwel- come in Bahrain even among the country’s dissident Shi‘is who question Conclusion ● 229

Iranian intentions and Tehran’s ability to build a model Iranian state, Tehran resigned to arguing that Saudi Arabia aimed to swallow Bahrain’s Shi‘i problem. Saudi decisions to include Jordan and Yemen as part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) failed, and its efforts to establish a union with the GCC in 2011–2012 subsequently faltered. The smaller Arab Gulf states were hardly keen to let Riyadh assume a guardianship role in such a union, when Saudi policies appeared to have increased tensions in the Gulf Shi‘i communities, and empowered dissident Gulf-based Muslim Brotherhood members. Subsequent Saudi efforts to establish a joint defense program with the GCC and Egypt yielded important but modest results. Relations between Riyadh and Tehran were poorly damaged over Iraq. In 2012, the armed Iraqi Shi‘i militia group al-Mukhtar carried out mortar attacks across the border with Saudi Arabia in response to the latter’s alleged intervention in Iraq through terrorist proxies, targeting Hafar al-Batin, and Riyadh suspected Iran was behind it. In 2014, even with a new government in Baghdad willing to work with Riyadh, Tehran continued expanding its influence in Iraq to fight the Islamic State (IS) and help shape up the Iraqi army by encouraging the buildup of alternative groups of largely Shi‘i vol- unteers and recruits. In the process, it was criticized by the United States, Baghdad, and the Arab Gulf states. Riyadh pushed for the exclusion of pro- Iranian forces in the battles against the IS, and meanwhile, showed tacit support for the dissident Iranian group, the Mojahedin Khalq (MKO) and its leader Maryam Rajavi, by publishing her picture in the daily al-Riyadh. Rajavi in turn condemned Iranian actions, and apparently vowed support to fight them in Yemen on Saudi Arabia’s behalf. Riyadh’s and Tehran’s jockeying in Syria became more confused as well. Tehran continued to work on the embattled Syrian Baath army by encouraging it to build alternative grassroots networks of local volunteers to ensure the longevity of its power. When Bashar al-Assad struck a deal to dismantle Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons, Riyadh was apprehensive. The Saudis, who had earlier withdrawn from a seat at the UN Security Council, were upset over the passing of Resolution 2118 on September 27, 2013, which proposed a framework for the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons. They refused to trust al-Assad or allow Iran into international talks held in Geneva in January 2014 to discuss his regime’s fate. Later, Washington’s refusal to heavily back or arm the Syrian National Coalition and the Free Syrian Army (which also incorporated members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian Islamic Front, but which Saudi Arabia never- theless backed) allowed for the decisive advancement of the Syrian army against rebel strongholds, with Iran’s assistance. However, Tehran suf- fered casualties in Syria as the rebels, rearmed by Washington and its allies, advanced once again, and it charged that some had formed alliances with 230 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran the IS, al-Nusra Front, or al-Qaeda to contain Bashar al-Assad’s regime. As of the time of this writing, Saudi Arabia and the West insisted that Syria could not be stable as long as al-Assad remained in power. Russia and Iran insisted on keeping him in power to protect Syria from disintegration, but offered measures to build transitional power structures in Syria.

Restoring Balance Turning bosom friends or bitter foes has never been the nature or purpose of the Saudi–Iranian partnership, as their history spanned over a period of nearly a century, shows. The goal of this critical relationship, I hope I have demonstrated, is to achieve balance to ensure Gulf security, and beyond that a degree of stability in the Middle East. However, since the linchpin of the Saudi–Iranian relations revolves around US policies in the region, a major goal of Washington’s security strategy there should be to methodically encourage a power equilibrium between Riyadh and Tehran irrespective of the nature of their governments or political structures. No matter how hard achieving that goal is, or how difficult US relations with Iran seem, or how evasive the Saudi leadership is about the need to engage Iran, the regional actors’ organic self-balancing powers are safer guarantees for long- term security than short-lived American plans or policies. Furthermore, neither the European nor Asian powers can expect to replace the United States in the region, and operate as peace brokers in the Middle East, unless balanced interactions between Saudi Arabia and Iran are restored. Foreign interventions, in fact, all too frequently exacerbate the power imbalances in the Middle East that are tearing the region apart. Therefore, rather than ignoring Iran, a locally derived balance of power policy for the Persian Gulf in which Saudi Arabia and Iran and other local actors will play key roles should ideally emerge. Without that balance, Saudi Arabia and Iran are bound to be weaker states as the cost of rebuilding a power equilibrium between them increases. This may compromise the longevity of the Saudi and Iranian states. As major oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Iran are key to the larger global energy order regardless of whether they remain members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) or if their differences on whether to support the free market, which given its low production costs Saudi Arabia prefers, or increase prices as Iran demands, should make the organization irrelevant. In fact, the Persian Gulf holds the world’s largest proven energy reserves, and accounts for half of the world’s oil exports and almost most exports to the Asia-Pacific. This rapid demand for energy in China and India, in specific, underscores the need for balanced ties between Riyadh and Tehran to ensure the safety of sea routes and energy hubs from the Arabian peninsula, Bab al-Mandab, the Iranian plateau, and the Strait Conclusion ● 231 of Hormuz. Meanwhile, because the United States will continue to domi- nate Asia-Pacific trade, it may indeed welcome burden sharing with China and India in expanding energy security in the Persian Gulf. Without that security, both the United States and the Asia-Pacific region are capable of securing alternative energy sources, to the detriment of the Saudi and Iranian economies. The gradual shift by Saudi Arabia and Iran toward the Indo-Pacific is in the making, although it could not arrive at a more turbulent time. Since India and China will replace Europe and the United States for oil and gas demands from the Persian Gulf, this should grant Saudi Arabia and Iran fresh opportunities to expand peace, as those Asian powers are less inter- ventionist in the Gulf’s political affairs and will seek to build harmony through the regionalization of energy flows within Asia. While the US ties will remain a central theme in relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a wider horizon is available to both states beyond the restrictions of their often contentious relations with Washington. This modest continuity of the Saudi–Iranian partnership through these energy frontiers and their shared history as neighbors and fellow Muslims should be used as an asset to restore peace in the Middle East. Against this backdrop, the United States should remain a balancer in the Gulf affairs, more so given the lack of sufficient security guarantees from Washington to preserve the region’s longer-term stability. The United States, in fact, is no longer an uncontested regional power in the Middle East. Multiple actors there, including numerous substate players and terrorist organizations, have the power to reshape the region’s events. This may explain Washington’s reluctance to provide a strong defense security pact to the Arab Gulf states despite its arms sales to the region, as it would undermine US credibility in the eyes of the people if those states were to collapse. The reluctance to engage fully in the region, however, has led Washington to go along with Saudi measures to contain Iran’s regional influence. But that partnership has been stretched, and it has tested the viability of the regional partner- ship between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s interests are overshadowed by the rapid and unpredictable changes in the region that neither of the states can manage alone. But ultimately, the balance of power germinates from a strong Saudi–Iranian regional standing that must there- fore be preserved. Otherwise it remains a fluid concept subject to regional turmoil that besets the Saudi–Iranian partnership. With Iraq in constant conflict, preserving that balance is not redundant, but more valid than any other time. Therefore, a major goal of the US security strategy is to reject imposing from outside a particular narrative of events on the Middle East and/or in the relations between these two key regional states. Then the inter- national system will become far better aligned with the Gulf subsystem, and may serve long-term US interests in this vital region. 232 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

To date, the United States has not fully appreciated the Saudi and Iranian regional roles, thereby disrupting opportunities to restore the balance of power between them to the detriment of securing peace in the Middle East. For example, President Barack Obama’s early acceptance at face value that forces unleashed by the Arab Spring were more likely progressive, despite many regressive traits, challenged the precarious US partnership with Saudi Arabia, and increased Iran’s regional interventions, at a cost to both local states. As a result, while opportunities for collaboration between Riyadh and Tehran are abundant to help restore peace in the region, they are largely squandered. Meanwhile, Washington is still in search of a better alternative to the balance of power approach to the study of Gulf security, while in the process ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran may continually suffer at the cost of the gradual erosion of both states’ capabilities as powerful regional actors, more so given that neither can fully align its interests with the United States. Their efforts, meanwhile, to build alliances with European or Asian powers is challenged, and they continue to provide strong financial incen- tives to keep those powers engaged. Yet, it is important not to overstate the importance of balancing policies, which are hard to build and sustain, as the history of the Saudi–Iranian relationship has shown in ample measure. The huge disparity of arms sales by the West and Washington to Saudi Arabia compared to Iran leaves much to be desired in terms of building a balanced policy approach toward the two states. Needless to say, it also encourages Tehran’s drive to achieve asymmet- rical deterrents or offensive capabilities. In this context, the balance of power approach cannot assume Saudi–Iranian cooperation, but it can encourage it. Upholding the balance is essential to moderating the Arab–Iranian policy dichotomies, and tempering pan-Arabism or Iran’s revolutionary ideology when it turns against the West. To date, several proposals aiming to restore such balance have failed to build a framework for security cooperation, including Tehran’s proposal for a nonaggression pact with its Arab Gulf neighbors. Saudi Arabia has never fully subscribed to the idea of the balance of power with Iran, which could imply a surge in Iranian ability to assert its Gulf policies and restore Tehran’s damaged ties with the West. Furthermore, ties with Iran are only desirable if they advance the kingdom’s interests and security as defined by less than a handful of key royal family members who view relations with the United States to be far more important than that with Iran. Therefore, in gen- eral, a new regional system cannot evolve unless America is fully on board, given the indisputable dependency of the Arab Gulf states on US secu- rity guarantees for the region despite their frustrations with Washington. In 2004, Riyadh encouraged Iran’s inclusion in the Gulf region’s security architecture, and subsequently reinforced support for the Helsinki model for conflict resolution, adopted to expand European security, among the Gulf Conclusion ● 233 states. Both proposals were premature as they required Arab guarantees of Iranian nonintervention in their affairs. Furthermore, they aimed to control Iran’s behavior to safeguard themselves. Iran could not provide such a guar- antee, even if it were to pay lip service to it as long as its main foreign policy goal remained focused on achieving strategic parity in the region with the United States and its Gulf allies. Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia and Iran are weaker states due to this, and there are practical steps that each could take to return normalcy to their rela- tions, and help the United States formulate sound policies vis-à -vis the two states. Thus far, Saudi Arabia has by overindulging the United States, and Iran by undercutting it, both paid a hefty price. Iran in specific has aimed to gain strategic depth in the region by undermining US strategic interests, when in reality it should devise policies toward Saudi Arabia independent of the United States as best it can. In addition, it must recognize that it simply does not occupy a central political or economic strategic value for either Washington or Riyadh in any permanent fashion. Frequently, the kingdom reacts to the Iranian threat, rather than make a genuine effort to understand the Iranian point of view. In this process, unlike Iran where for centuries a powerful sense of nationalism among its average citizens constantly sits above the nature of its regimes and helps reshape them in more evolved forms than they first emerged, Saudi Arabia suffers from weaker political structures and an embryonic nationalism, and frequently falls back into the safety zone of being a US ally, especially prior to the Arab Spring. Hence, the rapid deterioration of regional security since the Arab Spring has put Riyadh’s and Tehran’s future actions to test, and has confused the US regional role. But the more unpredictable the future is for ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the more essential it becomes for them to self-correct the course of their ties now whilst the old balance of power order in the Persian Gulf has not fully succumbed to future disorders. By coming to terms with this order, the kingdom might be able to have a more coherent policy with Iran. If the ultimate goal is to restore balanced ties, then an enduring element of the Saudi–Iranian regional foreign policy is preserved. Finally, exaggerating Arab–Iranian tensions to build Arab–Israeli unity in this process will prove futile. Israel has far more serious dangers facing it than just Iran, although Iran remains a constant source of regional agitation. Furthermore, it cannot occupy Iran’s security role in the Persian Gulf. The case of Iran’s potential nuclear weapons program, and Saudi determination to match that capability, have only served to point out how crucial that balancing role is to the region’s security. When signs emerge that Iran is willing to contain its nuclear program, the kingdom relaxes its insistence (in unofficial corners) on acquiring nuclear weapons capability itself, despite hesitation about the Israeli nuclear program. 234 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran

Dispelling Myths It is noteworthy that for the most part of their shared history, the kingdom has displayed exceptional tolerance toward Iran’s leaders, and in general Iran has been prudent toward the kingdom. So far, the intertwining of foreign policy with traditional elite interests in Saudi Arabia and Iran has made both states prefer to avoid direct confrontation, given the option, and explains why the two have until now retained embassies in their respective capitals despite glaring political differences. But Riyadh faults Tehran for operating ideologically across the region, and argues that such conduct does not serve the country’s national interests. Had it not been for the need to contain excessive Iranian intervention in Iraq and Syria, Saudi Arabia—according to its ambassadors to Iran with whom I spoke—would have preferred to stay out of both conflicts. Saudi Arabia also dislikes political intrigues, which Iran is good at playing, in favor of being straightforward in its dealings. Even when it operates through proxies, or engages in war against Iranian- backed groups in Yemen, it is transparent about its goals. Current Saudi pressures on Iran in the region are meant to bring Iran back in line rather than to encourage perpetual hostility between the two countries. The magnanimity of Saudi policies is often lost on Iranians, who, under historic pressure by foreign powers, have learned to muddle their way through problems by exploiting the vulnerabilities of their regional rivals. Against this background, Iran should ideally behave in a manner that the Saudi leadership will find easy to defend, even when Iranian positions should oppose US or Saudi interests in the region. Iran’s policies should at all costs avoid fueling the permanent dichotomy in the Saudi leadership over the extent to which the kingdom should engage or contain Iran, especially when the region is rife with tensions that can challenge Riyadh’s ability to reign in extremist forces. This will encourage Saudi Arabia to accommodate Iran better whenever Tehran displays signs of moderation, and allow the kingdom to better overcome potential royal family disagreements on how to manage the Iranian challenge. It is important to recognize that the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran is not between Shi‘is and Sunnis. Ideology may drive the Saudi and Iranian regional roles, but it is not the primary motive, which is to achieve security. Faulting the Shi‘i-Sunni rivalry for failures of the Saudi-Iranian partnership is relevant to a point; those who have had firsthand experience living among these communities know that they have coexisted peacefully for extended periods of time. Policies that disturb Saudi and Iranian secu- rity risk fueling the ideological rivalry between them, but once security is achieved, Riyadh and Tehran are still capable of reigning in the ideological undertones of their foreign policy behavior. There is no guarantee, however, that they will retain this capacity if their security is severely compromised by larger regional upheavals. Conclusion ● 235

In this process, it is essential that Iran and the Saudi Shi‘is embrace an enlightened discourse to serve as a moderating force in times of regional ten- sions, and this also requires ongoing engagement between Saudi Arabia and Iran about the real and widespread challenge of militant Islamism whether by Sunnis or Shi‘is against the two states. More specifically, if the strategy to contain Iran’s influence over the Arab Shi‘is is to succeed, then the kingdom should demonstrate ability to enhance the interrelationship between Arab Shi‘is and Sunnis. If Iran aims to continually host Sunni theology students in its seminaries as it does today, without concern about potential security breaches on their part that is rising, then it should lead moderate theological debates with the Sunni world. More importantly, as the political power base of Arab Shi‘is expands, Iran should ensure a foreign policy that faithfully adheres to a balanced Shi‘i–Sunni power sharing structure. At the most fundamental level, it is necessary to dispel common ideo- logically oriented stereotypes surrounding the Saudi–Iranian relationship in order to better understand it. For example, Saudis should refrain from confusing Iran’s ambition to lead dispossessed Muslims with Iranian aims to deny Saudi Arabia custodianship of Makkah and Madinah. Iran’s political elite prefer to leave the question of the custodianship of the two holy cities intact (although it does tend to look down on Saudi leaders as unfit candi- dates). Iranians at senior levels have anxiously made it clear to me that their intent is never to undermine Saudi Arabia irreparably, mindful that doing so could further fuel extremism. In addition, the kingdom could consider reflecting on its inherent vul- nerabilities to avoid assumptions that can cloud its understanding of the pragmatic aspects of the Iranian Shi‘i conduct. While Iran fuels the growth of militant Shi‘ism, it adheres to the larger principles that have historically shaped Shi‘i practices and which encourage pragmatism for self-preserva- tion in a dominant Sunni Muslim world, to the point that many Saudi Shi‘is have concealed their identity to fit in, as the third Saudi state shaped. Iran’s clerical establishment even openly encourages its followers to alter their reli- gious rituals when they are among Sunnis, if it is necessary to prevent perse- cution or to enhance tolerance. Saudi Arabia can also regard as an asset the lasting union between Iran’s unique Islamic outlook and its ancient Persian heritage which helps ensure the viability of Iran as a nation-state and hence the security of its state borders in the Persian Gulf. But building improved ties with Iran will require a higher level of internal cohesion in Saudi Arabia, which by most standards is still considered a new state. The more cohesive the Saudi state is as a nation-state itself, one in which tribal or other substate orientations such as Arabism or Islamism are contained, the better able it is to reach out to Iran. This, in turn, could moderate fears of Iranian ambi- tion, and encourage Tehran to formulate policies vis-à -vis Saudi Arabia that are independent of their respective ideological orientations. Indeed, Saudi 236 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran foreign policy has suffered from a lack of appreciation for Iranian pragma- tism, frequently attributing tensions in the relationship to ideological fault lines, when in reality, structural imbalances in the partnership are also to blame. Blaming Iran will only serve to encourage Tehran to fuel conflict in areas where Saudi foreign policy is weaker. Iran is often faulted for harboring terrorism, and it is certainly true that, since the 1979 revolution, the country’s record on the issue has been far from spotless. However, as I have argued previously in a book review published in the journal Middle East Policy in the spring of 2014, “terrorism” might be understood as a byproduct of Iran’s perceptions of its own insecurity, not the basis of the Islamic Republic’s political dealings. This point is criti- cal to reaching out to Iran’s leaders whose statements, such as claims over Bahrain or actions on behalf of Islamic groups (especially Shi‘i groups), aim to assert and advance Iran’s foreign policy role in a highly volatile region. With the right security incentives, therefore, the revolutionaries in Tehran would channel their ideological thinking into constructive collaboration with their neighbors. Generally speaking, state-sponsored terrorism, if and when it is practiced by Iran, is the calculated result of an interest in preserving security. Unlike non-state terrorism, it is not a random, arbitrary, or indiscriminate act. In this regard, the attempted assassination of the former Saudi ambassador and now Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir in Washington, DC in 2011 may not have been an act of Iranian terrorism. It served no purpose to enhance Iran’s security or diminish its perceived threats. Interestingly, in the course of this research, many Saudis asserted that the charges were false—a product of internal disputes in Saudi Arabia over how to manage the Iranian threat. In this light, it might be easier for the kingdom to work with Iran to contain non-state terrorist actors (including al-Qaeda, the IS, etc.) who act arbitrarily and indiscriminately, and therefore, pose a far larger threat to regional security than Iran, especially if they are used as non-state proxies to contain Iran as well. Tehran asserts that they are used for that purpose by a number of Arab states, Israel, and the United States. If Tehran’s asser- tions are correct, then indeed Iran is viewed as a far bigger threat than these non-state actors. But in general, I would argue that such non-state actors are untied to the principle of the “reason of state” or the “preservation of the state,” concepts which they aim to dismantle. This makes Tehran, which is tied by the need to preserve the Iranian state in order to preserve its revolu- tion, an easier regional actor to deal with. Nonetheless, it will be challenging to work with Iran given its multiple threat perceptions—some real, others the product of self-imposed isola- tion and a messianic refusal to abide by the rules that govern world politics, including the primacy of US power. In this regard, Saudi Arabia has a key role to play. The kingdom could help Iran, which has had a discontinued Conclusion ● 237 relationship with the outside world since the revolution, to better understand the West. As the Saudi scholar Saeed Badeeb rightly points out, having never directly experienced the imperialist policies of the Western powers as Iran has, the kingdom is able to deal with them far more objectively than Iran. To engage Iran, Saudi Arabia should bridge the polarity in its views about the Iranian political system. The first view maintains that a reformist Iran has the potential to change for the better; the other remains fixed on the argument that a hardline Iran will radicalize the country. My own personal accounts with Iran’s leaders surprisingly revealed higher levels of respect and sympathy for Saudi Arabia, in order of priority, among the hardliners, con- servatives, and reformers. (This could in part be explained by the hardliner’s devoted commitment to building a unified Islamic ummah, although prov- ing it would require writing another book.) In general, Riyadh’s alarmist and less alarmist views of Iran’s foreign policy conduct based on its leader- ship factors should move in step, to recognize that neither view of Iran is entirely correct. The more exhausted and isolated the country is, the more pronounced such dichotomies become whether Iran is led by the reformists or the hardliners. This book has amply shown a great deal of continuity in Iran’s foreign policy behavior prior to and after the revolution, despite its different governments. Therefore, it is not within Iran’s factional power shifts, or for that matter, regime changes, that Saudi Arabia should seek bet- ter relations with Iran. Instead, the kingdom should aim to develop a steady regional partnership with Iran and its people regardless of the nature of the leadership. In the process, it should help Iranians overcome their apathy toward the kingdom, which has been in recent years exacerbated by the beheading of Iranian pilgrims charged with carrying drugs in Saudi Arabia and death of hundreds more due to accidents in Makkah in 2015 which Tehran, nonetheless, suspects are deliberate acts of sabotage. These actions, along with the rise of terrorist groups such as the IS and al-Qaeda in the Arab world, have exacerbated Iranian fears of Arabs, whom to date, they fault for Iran’s misfortunes since Persia embraced Islam. To point how such an argument and similar ones can easily shape a nation’s political memory, the “watermelon” case is quite telling. When imported watermelons from Iran were found to carry heavy chemical pesticides in early 2015, the Arab social media sites not only argued that Iran aimed to poison Arabs, but some even labeled the product as the “Safavi watermelon,” thus blaming the Safavid empire for turning Persia into an expansionist Shi‘i nation-state. These exchanges have concealed a deeper reality: Iranians are proud about their civilization, shaped in part against the Arab civilization. Moreover, as long as Iran stands as one of the oldest civilizations in the region, as a newer state Saudi Arabia will have difficulty grappling with it. This is true even more so after the Arab Spring, which threatens to trump up the Saudi Arab 238 ● Saudi Arabia and Iran identity over its important national identity. The Saudis have hoped, and expressed to me, that a Persian spring might take over Iran beforehand, but even if it did, it would likely fail to fragment Iran due to its strong sense of national cohesion. That is why the Iranians are suspect that Saudi Arabia may aim to fuel civil war in Iran as a surer guarantee to break the country apart, if the two states fail to reconcile. One unfortunate consequence of the deterioration of Saudi–Iranian ties in recent years is the conspicuous influence of active, relatively young intel- ligence cadres in both countries on issues concerning the relationship. In the course of researching this book, I observed how members of the intelligence community frequented policy meetings or attempted to carve out a niche as experts on the subject; in other instances, academics and policy analysts were often oriented by the intelligence services in preparation for such occa- sions. While the intelligence community in each country may have a crucial role to play in safeguarding security objectives in the context of the rela- tionship with the other, they are not diplomats or foreign policy experts. The dominance of an intelligence-based outlook on the complex subject of Saudi–Iranian relations leads to an inability to formulate strategies based on the two states’ longer-term national interests, and renders secondary the work of real diplomats, experts, and analysts, who are forced to adopt the guidelines handed down to them by the intelligence apparatuses. Beyond this challenge, there is a dearth of knowledge in Saudi Arabia and Iran on the subject of relations between the two states. Books written in Persian often have a narrow, historical focus based on information gathered primarily from Western sources, or focus on giving (frequently impractical) advice on a series of confidence-building steps to help improve relations, ignoring structural factors that impede the process. Furthermore, a degree of speculative writing dominates most international reporting about poten- tial political, economic, or energy ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, just as a great degree of recrimination writing dominates the Arab and Iranian debates over the prospect of those relations. In Saudi Arabia, where open criticism of the United States is still largely avoided officially (although unofficially there is deep mistrust of American intentions), pointing at the Shi‘i–Sunni divide or at ostensible Iranian hegemonic goals makes it easier to avoid the difficult task of careful analysis that allows the kingdom to bet- ter understand its neighbor independent of Western sources. Furthermore, it conceals a deep sense of frustration in the younger generation of Saudis over the lack of good ties with Iran. While both states inherently possess an appreciation of each other by virtue of historic and close geographic ties, not enough work has been done by either to gain a clear understanding of the relationship. Therefore, a new generation of scholars and politicians must emerge in both societies that is each conversant with and comfortable about the other.

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. 8. 10 . Saeed M. Badeeb, Saudi–Iranian Relations 1932–1982 (London: Centre for Arab–Iranian Studies and Echoes, 1993), p. 104. 1 1 . A s q h a r J a f a r i V a l e d a n i , barresi tarikhi ekhtelafat marzi iran va iraq [A Historical Review of Boundary Disputes between Iran and Iraq] (tehran: daftar nashr far- hangh eslami/daftar motaleat siyasi va beinolmellali, 1367/1989–1990), pp. 4, 8, 93–94. 12 . Several prominent geographers and historians of the early Islamic era were of the opinion that all areas of the Persian Gulf pre-Islam belonged to Persia. See Muhammad ibn Jarir Al Tabari, tarikh al-rusul wa al-mulk [History of the Prophets and Kings ] and Abu al-Hassan Ali ibn al-Hussein al-Masudi, muruj adh-dhahab wa ma’adin al-jawhar [The Meadows of Gold and the Mines of Gems]; Pirouz Mojtahedzadeh, keshvarha va marzha dar mantagheh geopolitik khalij fars [States and Boundaries in the Geopolitical Area of the Persian Gulf], chap panjom/5th ed., translated by Hamid Reza Malek Muhammadi Nouri (tehran: markaz chap va entesharat vezarat oumur kharejeh, 1382/2003–2004), p. 210. 1 3 . J o h n W i l k i n s o n , Water and Tribal Settlement in South East Arabia: Study of the Aflaj of the Oman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 129. Descendants of the aboriginal population still remain in parts of the Persian Gulf, including Notes ● 243

Oman, Bahrain, and the Hasa region of Saudi Arabia. See Mojtahedzadeh, 121, 126. 1 4 . P i r o u z M o j t a h e d z a d e h , Security and Territoriality in the Persian Gulf: A Maritime Political Geography (London: Curzon Press, 1999; RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), pp. 65–69. 1 5 . M o j t a h e d z a d e h , keshvarha va marzha , pp. 156, 251–253. 16 . On account of its Arab population, Khuzestan was claimed as Arab land and at different junctures referred to as “Arabistan” by the Gulf Arabs. In ancient Persia, a people known as the Khuz lived in the mountainous regions north- east of Khuzestan. Under the Parthian Empire (also known as Ashkanian, 247 bc –224 ad ), the Khuz migrated to what is now called Khuzestan (hence Abol-Ghasem Ferdowsi’s references in poetry attributed to him to the “land of Khuz”). After Islam, Arab and Persian historians called Khuzestan by its Old Persian name, “Ahvaz,” which is now a main city in Khuzestan Province. In the Treaty of Erzerum (1847), the Ottomans granted Persia sovereignty over the city port of Muhammara (Khorramshahr) and Jazeera al-Khazr (Abadan) in Khuzestan, and, in general, any land to the east of the Shatt al-Arab. See Valedani, pp. 33, 581–583. 17 . Gregory Gause, “The Foreign Policy of Saudi Arabia,” in The Foreign Policies of Middle East States, ed. Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), pp. 194–198. 18 . Badeeb, p. 222; cited in al-Aidarous, al-alaqat al-arabiah al-iraniah . 19 . Letter of the Foreign Ministry of Iran, Office of Audits, 22 aban 1307/14 November 1928, cited in Ali Farahmand, “engelis va projeh iran-zodai az khaleej fars [Britain’s De-Persianization Project in the Persian Gulf],” faslnameh tarikh ravabet khareji [Quarterly on History of Foreign Relations], no. 22 (bahar 1384/ Spring 2005): p. 174. 2 0 . B a d e e b , p . 1 0 2 .

4 Early Diplomatic Relations 1 . 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), pp. 61–62, cited from Foreign Ministry Archives, container 30, file 2, docu- ment no. 127, neisan 1305/Fall 1925. 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), “az habibollah hov- eida be vezarat oumur kharejeh [From Habibollah Hoveida to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs],” document no. 254, 24 dei 1304/14 January 1926, pp. 58–59. 3 . M o h a g h e g h , “elamiyeh oumumi raees al vozara dar mahkoumiyat aamal vahabi- yan [Public Declaration of Head of Ministers Condemning Wahhabi Actions],” 1 tir 1305/23 June 1926, pp. 67–68. 244 ● Notes

4 . Ahmadi, pp. 60–61; see also Saeed M. Badeeb, Saudi–Iranian Relations 1932–1982 (London: Centre for Arab Iranian Studies and Echoes, 1993), pp. 34, 82. 5 . Information gathered here is based on a draft paper shared with me by Awadh Al Badi, advisor to Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. Al Badi was unable to share the primary sources at the time. 6 . Ahmadi, p. 63, cited from “nameh safir iran dar mesr [Letter of Viceregent of Iran in Egypt],” Foreign Ministry Archives, Documents of Iran and Saudi Arabia, container 44, file no. 19, 1307/1928, letter of 8 khordad 1307/29 May 1928. 7 . Badeeb, p. 49, cited from Telegram No. E 6322/3704/91, from Mr. Bond to Mr. Butler (Public Record Office London), dated November 10, 1929. 8 . Ahmadi, pp. 63–64, cited from “ravabet iran va saudi, shenasaee dowlat hijaz [Iran–Saudi Relations, Recognition of Government of Hijaz],” Foreign Ministry Archives, container 44, document no. 14, 1928. 9 . Ahmadi, p. 64, cited from “yusuf yasin dar riyadh be sefarat iran dar mesr [Yusuf Yasin in Riyadh to Embassy of Iran in Egypt],” Foreign Ministry Archives, Documents of Iran and Saudi Arabia, container 44, file 14, 18 ramadan 1346. 10 . William Ochsenwald, “Islam and Saudi National Identity in the Hijaz, 1926–1939,” presentation at the Middle East Studies Association Conference, November 2004, cited from report by W. L. Bond, British Consult in Jeddah, to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, dated June 26, 1929. 11 . Ahmadi, p. 66, cited from “raport hoveida be vezarat kharejeh [Hoveida’s Report to the Foreign Ministry],” container 50, file 71/189, 1310/1930–1931. 12 . Ahmadi, p. 69, cited from “mosaferat faisal pesar dovum ibn saud be iran , [Trip by Faisal, the Second Son of Ibn Saud to Iran],” container 12, 19, file 115, 1311/1932. 13 . Mohaghegh, document No. 38, 1 ordibehesht 1310/22 April 1931, pp. 95–97. 14 . Ahmadi, pp. 69–70, cited from container no. 37, file no. 63/94, 1307/ 1928–1929. 15 . Ibid., container 63, file no. 14, 1314/1935–1936. 16 . Ibid., pp. 74, 253. 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. 325–327. 18 . Badeeb, p. 84. 1 9 . M o h a g h e g h , “ghozaresh ghorbani—sefarat iran dar mesr be vezarat kharejeh dar khousous masaaleh haji maghtoul va vaghayeh haj sal 1322 [Report from Ghorbani–Embassy of Iran in Egypt to Ministry of Foreign Affairs Regarding the Deceased haji and Events of haj in 1943],” document no. 40, pp. 99–105. 20 . Graham E. Fuller and Rend Rahim Francke, The Arab Shi’a: The Forgotten Muslims (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), p. 183. 2 1 . M o h a g h e g h , “az mohammad reza pahlavi be malak ibn saud [From Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to King Ibn Saud],” document no. 53, p. 127. 2 2 . A h m a d i , p p . 2 5 5 – 2 5 6 . Notes ● 245

2 3 . B a d e e b , p p . 8 5 – 9 0 . 24 . Ahmadi, pp. 89–93, 256, cited from “ouza siyasi va edari arabestan saudi [Political and Administrative Conditions in Saudi Arabia],” container 9, file 61, 1330/1951–1952; “nameh az sefarat jeddah be vezarat kharejeh [Letter from Embassy of Jeddah to Foreign Ministry],” container 22, file 24, 30 bahman 1327/ February 1949. 25 . Vassiliev, p. 333, cited from Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, p. 13655; Arab World Political and Diplomatic History , 1900–1967, July 6, 1954. 26 . Masoud Kouhestani Nejad, “ravabet iran va israel dar doreh dr. mossadegh [“Relations between Iran and Israel under Dr. Mossadegh],” faslnameh tarikh ravabet khareji [Quarterly on History of Foreign Relations] , no. 15 (tabestan 1382/ Summer 2003), pp. 145–148, cited from Documents of the Foreign Ministry, file no. 1332–9–78. 2 7 . M o r t e z a G h a n o u n , diplomacy penhan: jastari dar ravabet iran va israel dar asr pahlavi [Secret Diplomacy: Preview of Relations between Iran and Israel in the Pahlavi Era] (tehran: tabarestan, 1381/1991–1992), p. 182. 2 8 . K o o h e s t a n i N e j a d , p . 1 0 6 . 29 . Ghanoun, p. 182; see also Marzieh Yazdani, “asnad mohajerat yahoudian iran be felestin [Documents on Immigration of Iranian Jews to Palestine]” (tehran: ente- sharat sazman melli iran, 1374/1995–1996), pp. 154–155. 30 . Kouhestani Nejad, pp. 107, 110–111, cited from “rouznameh rasmi keshvar sha- hanshai iran [Official Newspaper of the Kingdom of Iran ],” s. 1828, 8 khordad 1330/30 May 1951, p. 3. 31 . Mohaghegh, p. 132, cited from document no. 57.

5 Diplomatic Relations: 1955–1963 1 . 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), p. 102, cited from “mosaferat padeshah saudi be iran [Travel by the Saudi King to Iran],” Foreign Ministry Archives, container 95, file no. 23, 1334/1955–1956. 2 . Telephone interview with Mohammad Taghi Sept, retired diplomat with Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, June 3, 2008. 3 . S o n o k o S u n a y a m a , Syria and Saudi Arabia: Contradiction and Conflicts in the Oil Era (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007), pp. 24–25. 4. Saeed M. Badeeb, The Saudi–Egyptian Conflict over North Yemen: 1962–1970 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986), pp. 12, 19–21. 5 . A h m a d i , p . 2 5 7 . 6 . Saeed M. Badeeb, Saudi–Iranian Relations 1932–1982 (London: Centre for Arab Iranian Studies and Echoes, 1993), p. 53. 7 . Ahmadi, p. 98, cited from British Embassy in Tehran to London (PRO), Telegraph no. 1062/156, 19 January 1956. 246 ● Notes

8 . B a d e e b , Saudi–Iranian Relations, p. 53, cited from British Residency in Bahrain to the Foreign Office in London (Public Record Office, London), declassified confidential telegram no. 1062/1/56, July 19, 1956. 9 . Ahmadi, p. 102, cited from Foreign Ministry Archives, “ouza siyasi va edari arabestan [Political and Administrative Conditions in Arabia],” container 9, file no. 28, 1334/1955–1956. 10 . Ahmadi, p. 100, cited from British Embassy in Tehran to Foreign Office in London (PRO), Report no. 27, March 28, 1957. 1 1 . A h m a d i , p . 2 5 8 . 1 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: entesharat vezarat oumur kharejeh, 1379/2000–2001), document no. 60, 10 khordad 1335/31 May 1956, p. 137. 1 3 . B a d e e b , Saudi–Iranian Relations, pp. 105–107; Ahmadi, “moafeghatnameh havai bein iran ba arabestan [Air Transport Agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia],” container 29, file 11, 1338/1959–1960, p. 100. 1 4 . B a d e e b , Saudi–Iranian Relations, pp. 105–107. 15 . Mohaghegh, document no. 63, p. 141. 1 6 . A h m a d i , p . 2 5 8 . 17 . Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, first published 1985, paperback 1988), p. 84. 1 8 . S h e r m a n A d a m s , Firsthand Report: The Story of the Eisenhower Administration (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961), p. 290. 19 . The phrase “Arab cold war” was coined by Malcolm Kerr. See The Arab Cold War: Gamal Abd Al Nasir and His Rivals, 1958–1970 , 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971). 20 . Sunayama, pp. 25–26, 215. 2 1 . 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. 351–352. 2 2 . B a d e e b , Saudi–Iranian Relations, p. 55. 2 3 . S a f r a n , p . 1 0 4 . 2 4 . S u n a y a m a , p p . 2 7 – 2 8 . 2 5 . B a d e e b , Saudi–Egyptian Conflict over North Yemen , p. 13. 26 . Ahmadi, p. 114, cited from Foreign Ministry Archives, “moulaghat safir kabir iran ziaoldin gharib ba amir faisal [Meeting of Iranian Plenipotentiary Ambassador Ziauldin Gharib with Prince Faisal],” 9 Azar 1337/30 November 1958. 2 7 . J o s e p h A . K e c h i c h i a n , Succession in Saudi Arabia (New York: Palgrave, 2001), p. 133. 2 8 . S a f r a n , p . 1 1 0 . 2 9 . A s q h a r J a f a r i V a l e d a n i , barresi tarikhi ekhtelafat marzi iran va iraq [A Historical Review of Boundary Disputes between Iran and Iraq] (tehran: daftar nashr farhangh eslami/daftar motaleat siyasi va beinolmellali, 1367/1989–1990), pp. 233–235. Notes ● 247

3 0 . V a s s i l i e v , p . 3 5 8 . 31 . Safran, p. 75. 3 2 . V a s s i l i e v , p p . 3 6 2 – 3 6 3 . 33 . Ahmadi, p. 118, cited from Foreign Ministry Archives, “safir kabir iran [Iran Plenipotentiary Ambassador],” container 10, file no. 24, report 41/12/18. 34 . Ahmadi, p. 118, cited from “ouzaa dakheli va siyasi arabestan [Internal and Political Conditions in Saudi Arabia],” container 10, file no. 24, report 41/11/4. 3 5 . B a d e e b , Saudi–Egyptian Conflict over North Yemen , pp. 39, 56–57. 36 . See J. F. K. Library Memorandum for the President from Robert W. Komer, 8 February 1963 (JFK, NSF countries, Iraq, Box. 117 “Iraq 1/63–2/63,” docu- ment 18), p. 1. 37 . Telephone interview with Sept. 38 . Ahmadi, p. 119, cited from Foreign Ministry Archives, “safir kabir iran ziaul- din gharib (Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Iran Ziauldin Gharib),” container 10, file no. 24, report 1341/12/30. 39 . Ahmadi, p. 129, cited from Foreign Ministry Archives, Documents of Mission of Jeddah, container 9, file no. 18, 1342/1963–1964; Mohaghegh, document no. 765, pp. 215–216. 40 . Telephone interview with Reza Ghasemi, former diplomat with Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and last ambassador of Iran to Kuwait before the Iranian revolution, May 18, 2012. 41 . Statement by Thomas Lippman, Adjunct Scholar, Middle East Institute, Hearing before the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred and Tenth Congress, First Session, “Is There a Human Rights Double Standard? U.S. Policy toward Saudi Arabia, Iran and Uzbekistan,” Serial No. 110–62, June 14, 2007, p. 6. 4 2 . B a d e e b , Saudi–Iranian Relations, p. 103. 43 . Safran, p. 97. 44 . Mordechai Abir, Oil, Power and Politics: Conflict of Asian and African Studies (London: Franck Cass, 1974), pp. 53–54. 4 5 . S a f r a n , p . 1 1 0 .

6 Epoch of Saudi–Iranian Cooperation and Rivalry 1 . 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. 122. 2 . Telephone interview with Reza Ghasemi, former diplomat with Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and last ambassador of Iran to Kuwait before the Iranian revolution, May 18, 2012. 3 . Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, November 27, 2011. 248 ● Notes

4 . Saeed M. Badeeb, Saudi-Iranian Relations 1932–1982 (London: Centre for Arab Iranian Studies and Echoes, 1993), p. 61. 5 . Ahmadi, p. 132, cited from Foreign Ministry Archives, Documents of the Mission of Jeddah, “vaghozari boursha tahsili daneshghahah iran [Granting Scholarships by Iranian Universities],” container 14, file no. 10 and 110, 1346/1965–1968. 6 . Ibid, p. 133, cited from “asar farhanghi iran va arabestan [Cultural Works of Iran and Saudi Arabia],” container 12, file no. 16, 1345/1966–1967. 7 . 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: entesharat vezarat oumur kharejeh, 1379/2000–2001), document no. 95, pp. 222–226. 8 . Ahmadi, p. 128, cited from Foreign Ministry Archives, Documents of the Mission of Jeddah, container 14, file no. 4, 1346/1967–1968. 9 . Badeeb, p. 60. 10 . F. Gregory Gause III, Saudi-Yemeni Relations: Domestic Structures and Foreign Influence (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 155. 11 . Alinaqi Alikhani, yad dasht ha-yi asaddollah alam, jeld yek, 1347–1348 [The Diaries of Alam], vol. 1, 1968–1969 (tehran: entesharat maziar va moin, 1377), p. 298. 12 . Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, first published 1985, paperback 1988), pp. 203–204. 1 3 . A s q h a r J a f a r i V a l e d a n i , barresi tarikhi ekhtelafat marzi iran va iraq [A Historical Review of Boundary Disputes between Iran and Iraq] (tehran: daftar nashr farhangh eslami/daftar motaleat siyasi va beinolmellali, 1367/1989–1990), p. 302. 14 . Ahmadi, p. 300, cited from Foreign Ministry Archives, Documents of the Mission of Jeddah, container 17, file no. 29, 1349/1970–1971. 15 . Telephone interview with Mohammad Taghi Sept, retired diplomat with Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, June 3, 2008. 1 6 . S o n o k o S u n a y a m a , Syria and Saudi Arabia: Contradiction and Conflicts in the Oil Era (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007), pp. 31–33; also see Tabitha Petran, Syria (London: Ernest Benn, 1972), p. 252. 17 . Telephone interview with Sept. 1 8 . A h m a d i , p . 1 2 7 . 19 . Email interview with Saeed Badeeb, Saudi policy analyst and scholar, June 29, 2015. 20 . Safran, pp. 138, 204. 2 1 . A h m a d i , p p . 2 3 0 – 2 3 1 . 22 . 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. 233–234, 260. 23 . Article published in a Persian foreign policy journal printed after the Islamic revolution, by Ahmad Mirfendereski, which this author read years before, but Notes ● 249

could not later find in order to properly cite in this research. In addition, the author spoke to Mirfendereski a number of times. 24 . Alinaqi Alikhani, yad dasht ha-yi asaddollah alam, jeld seh, 1352 [The Diaries of Alam], vol. 3, 1972–1973 (tehran: entesharat maziar va moin, 1377), pp. 190–205. 2 5 . 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), p. 349; Badr Alkhorayef, “King Faisal Stood Firm on Oil Embargo,” Arab News, May 4, 2008. 26 . Interview with Abd al-Rahman Al Shobeily, former member of the consultative council ( majlis al-shura) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, November 30, 2011. 27 . Mohammad Taghi Sept, “khatereh az doran mamoriyat dar chand keshvar arabi [Memoir of a Mission in Several Arab Countries],” jahan, pp. 97–100. 28 . Alikhani, vol. 6, pp. 150, 413. 2 9 . A l i n a q i A l i k h a n i , yad dasht ha-yi asaddollah alam , jeld chahar, 1353 [The Diaries of Alam], vol. 4, 1973–1974 (tehran: entesharat maziar va moin, 1377), p. 16. 30 . Alikhani, vol. 6, pp. 44, 47–48. 3 1 . S e p t , p p . 1 0 6 – 1 0 7 . 3 2 . 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) pp, 92; 99. 33 . Alinaqi Alikhani, yad dasht ha-yi asaddollah alam, jeld dou, 1349–1351 [The Diaries of Alam], vol. 2, 1969–1971 (tehran: entesharat maziar va moin, 1377), p. 149. 34 . Telephone interview with Ghasemi. 3 5 . I b i d . 36 . Telephone interview with Sept. 3 7 . F a i s a l b i n S a l m a n a l - S a u d , Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf: Power Politics in Transition (London: I. B. Tauris, 2003), pp. 33–35. 38 . Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud. 39 . Badeeb, pp. 61, 65–74. 40 . Faisal bin Salman al-Saud, pp. 38–45. 4 1 . B a d e e b . 42 . Telephone interview with Ghasemi. 43 . Jafari Valedani, pp. 431–432. 4 4 . S e p t , p . 1 1 2 . 45 . Faisal bin Salman al-Saud, cited from PRO/FO, 371/16070/September 27, 1932, p. 81. 4 6 . B a d e e b , p . 1 1 9 . 47 . Faisal bin Salman al-Saud, p. 109. 48 . Alikhani, vol. 6, p. 24. 49 . Telephone interview with Ghasemi. 5 0 . B a d e e b , p p . 6 2 – 6 3 . 250 ● Notes

5 1 . T h o m a s R . M a t t a i r , The Three Occupied U.A.E. Islands: The Tunbs and Abu Musa (Abu Dhabi: The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 2005), pp. 120–122. 5 2 . S a f r a n , p p . 1 3 4 – 1 3 5 . 53 . Alikhani, vol. 2, pp. 109, 175. 54 . Telephone interview with Ghasemi. 55 . Telephone interview with Ghasemi; Muhammad Jaafar Chamankar, bohran dhafar va regim Pahlavi [Dhufar Crisis and Pahalvi Regime] (tehran: mouaseseh tarikh moaser iran, 1383/2005–2006), p. 66. 5 6 . B a h m a n N a i m i A r f a a , mabani raftari shoura hamkari khaleej fars dar ghebal jomhuri eslami iran [Persian Gulf Cooperation Council’s Behavioral Foundations toward the Islamic Republic of Iran] (tehran: daftar motaleat siyasi va beinolmel- lali, 1370/1993), p. 30. 57 . Faisal bin Salman al-Saud, p. 24. 58 . Safran, pp. 170, 177. 59 . Interview with Charles W. Freeman, Jr., former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Washington, DC, September 20, 2011. 60 . Alikhani, vol. 4, pp. 153–154. 6 1 . A h m a d i , p p . 1 8 9 – 1 9 0 . 62 . Badeeb, pp. 63–64, 112. 6 3 . S a f r a n , p . 2 3 0 . 64 . Alikhani, vol. 6, pp. 118, 128, 286–288. 6 5 . S a f r a n , p . 2 6 9 .

7 Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran 1 . Interview with Abd al-Rahman Al Shobeily, former member of the consultative council ( majlis al-shura) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, November 30, 2011. 2 . Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, November 27, 2011. 3 . R o g h i y e h S a d a t A z i m i , arabestan [Saudi Arabia], Chap Sevom/3rd. ed. (tehran: markaz chap va entesharat vezarat oumur kharejeh, 1380/2001–2002), p. 126. 4. Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud. 5 . Interview with Ambassador Gaafar M. Al Lagany, former advisor to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia to Washington DC, February 16, 2005. 6 . Interview with Ahmed Badeeb, former advisor on Afghanistan to the govern- ment of Saudi Arabia, Jeddah, December 1, 2011. 7 . Interview with Hassan Keynoush, retired diplomat with Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tehran, January 3, 2004. 8 . M a m o u n F a n d y , Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), pp. 196–199. 9 . See Nikki R. Keddie and Yann Richard, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 260–277; Toby Notes ● 251

Matthiesen, “Hizbullah Al Hijaz: A History of the Most Radical Saudi Shia Opposition Group,” Middle East Journal Institute, volume 64, no. 2 (Spring 2010): pp. 180–181. 1 0 . 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. 395–397. 11 . See Matthiesen, p. 183. 1 2 . J o s e p h A . K e c h i c h i a n , Succession in Saudi Arabia (New York: Palgrave, 2001), p. 59. 13 . Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, first published 1985, paperback 1988), pp. 301, 305. 14 . See Stephen M. Walt, “Revolution and War,” World Politics, 44 (April 1992): 321. 1 5 . S a f r a n , p p . 3 6 1 – 3 6 2 . 16 . Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud. 1 7 . F a n d y , p . 1 0 1 . 18 . Interview with a former ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who did not wish to be identified, Tehran, December 28, 2004. 19 . Telephone interview with Mohammad Taghi Sept, retired diplomat with Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, June 3, 2008. 2 0 . A s q h a r J a f a r i V a l e d a n i , barresi tarikhi ekhtelafat marzi iran va iraq [A Historical Review of Boundary Disputes between Iran and Iraq] (tehran: daftar nashr farhangh eslami/daftar motaleat siyasi va beinolmellali, 1367/1989–1990), p. 551. 21 . Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud. 2 2 . S e e a l s o V a s s i l i e v , p . 3 9 8 . 2 3 . S o n o k o S u n a y a m a , Syria and Saudi Arabia: Contradiction and Conflicts in the Oil Era (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007), pp. 31–33; also see Tabitha Petran, Syria (London: Ernest Benn, 1972), pp. 157–158. 2 4 . “tahlili bar jangh tahmili regime iraq alayheh jomhuri eslami iran [An Overview of the Imposed War by Iraq against the Islamic Republic of Iran],” vol. 2 (tehran: edareh kol omour houghoughi vezarat kharejeh, 1373/1994–1995), p. 182. 25 . Joost R. Hilterman, “Outsiders as Enablers: Consequences and Lessons from International Silence on Iraq’s Use of Chemical Weapons during the Iran-Iraq War,” in Iran, Iraq, and the Legacies of War , ed. Lawrence G. Potter and Gary G. Sick (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 151. 26 . Hamid Hadian, monasebat jomhuri eslami iran, arabestan saudi va iraq pas az 11 september [Relations between Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq after September 11] (tehran: sagar mehr, 1388/2009–2010), p. 55. 27 . Telephone interview with Mohammad Mahallati, Presidential Scholar of Islam, Oberlin College, January 13, 2010. 2 8 . S a d a t A z i m i , p . 1 2 6 . 29 . See Saleh al-Mani, “The Ideological Dimension in Saudi-Iranian Relations,” in Iran and the Gulf: A Search for Stability, ed. Jamal S. Al Suwaidi (UAE: The 252 ● Notes

Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 1996), p. 167; N. J. Rashid and E. I. Shaheen, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf War (Joplin MO: International Institute of Technology, 1992), p. 130. 30 . Telephone interview with Abbas Maleki, former deputy minister of research and education (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran), for- mer head of the Tehran-based Institute for Political and International Studies, and former Robert E. Willhelm Fellow for 2011–2012 at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, June 13, 2012. 31 . Interview with Al Lagany. 3 2 . L a u r e n c e L o u e r , Transnational Shi‘i Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), pp. 164, 192, 211; Matthiesen, pp. 183–184. 33 . “amar va arman shohada ra eshtebah bayan nakonim [The Figures and Ideals of the Martyrs Should Not Be Mistakenly Cited],” sobhe sadegh, vol. 11, no. 492, March 14, 2011. 34 . Interview with Manuchehr Mottaki, former minister of foreign affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, July 3, 2008. 35 . Saeed Badeeb, Saudi–Iranian Relations: 1982–1997 (London: Center for Arab and Iranian Studies and Echoes, 2006), p. 99. 36 . Hadian, p. 67. 37 . Interview with Awadh Al Badi, advisor to Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Washington DC, June 1, 2012. 38 . Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud. 39 . Telephone interview with Maleki. 40 . Interview with Al Lagany. 41 . See Fandy, pp. 67, 95, 103. 42. Ibid., pp. 71, 172, 190. 43 . Interview with Saeed Badeeb, Saudi policy analyst and scholar, Jeddah, December 1, 2011. 44 . Interview with Mottaki. 45 . Telephone interview with Maleki. 46 . Interview with Mottaki. 47 . Mahmoud Ghahremani, “naghd ketab khoshoonat alayheh iraq, mojazat, hughough va edalat [Critique to Book on Violence Against Iraq, Punishments, Laws and Justice],” faslanemeh khavar miyaneh, sal shesh, shomareh 2, tabestan 1378/1999–2000, p. 217. 48 . Interview with Al Lagany. 49 . Stephen M. Walt, Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), p. 14. 50 . Interview with Charles W. Freeman, Jr., former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Washington, DC, September 20, 2011. 51 . Interview with Mazin Motabagani, member of al-Madinah Center for the Study of Orientalism, Riyadh, November 29, 2011; Fandy, p. 72. Notes ● 253

8 Saudi–Iranian Détente 1 . R o g h i y e h S a d a t A z i m i , arabestan [Saudi Arabia], chap sevom/3rd. ed. (teh- ran: markaz chap va entesharat vezarat oumur kharejeh, 1380/2001–2002), pp. 129–130. 2 . Telephone interview with Abbas Maleki, Robert E. Willhelm Fellow for 2011– 2012 at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, former deputy minister of research and education (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran), and former head of the Tehran-based Institute for Political and International Studies, June 13, 2012. 3 . I b i d . 4. E z a t o l l a h E z a t i , tahlili bar geopolitic iran va iraq [An Analysis of Iran-Iraq Geopolitics] (tehran: daftar motaleat siyasi va beinolmellali 1384/2005), pp. 218–220. 5 . I b i d . 6 . Interview with Hossein Mousavian, lecturer and research scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and former ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Germany, Princeton, September 17, 2011. 7 . Andrew Parasiliti, “The Military in Iraqi Politics,” in Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf States, ed. Joseph A. Kechichian (New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 91–92. 8 . M a m o u n F a n d y , Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), p. 200. 9 . I n t e r v i e w w i t h M o u s a v i a n . 1 0 . I b i d . 1 1 . I b i d . 1 2 . I b i d . 1 3 . I b i d . 14 . Telephone interview with Maleki. 1 5 . Jomhuri-e-islami, September 23, 1996 and May 25, 1996. 16 . Indictment, Khobar Tower Release, FBI Press Room, June 21, 2011,; see: http:// www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/khobar.htm . 17 . Interview with Ali Asqhar Khaji, former special envoy on Iraq at Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and former ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Tehran, January 4, 2005. 18 . Hamid Hadian, monasebat jomhuri eslami iran, arabestan saudi va iraq pas az 11 september [Relations between Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq after September 11] (tehran: sagar mehr, 1388/2009–2010), p. 30. 19 . Interview with Saeed Badeeb, Saudi policy analyst and scholar, Jeddah, December 1, 2011. 20 . Interview with Abd al-Muhsin Al Akhlas, former minister of social affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, 5 December 2011. 21 . Interview with Ambassador Gaafar M. Al Lagany, former advisor to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia to Washington DC, February 16, 2005. 254 ● Notes

2 2 . G r a h a m E . F u l l e r , The Arab Shi‘i (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), p. 192. 2 3 . F a n d y , p p . 1 6 5 , 2 4 2 . 24 . Toby Matthiesen, “Hizbollah al Hijaz: A History of the Most Radical Saudi Shi‘i Opposition Group,” Middle East Journal, volume 64, no. 2 (Spring 2010): p. 191. 25 . Interview with Al Lagany. 26 . Interview with Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former vice president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Montreal, September 12, 2006. 27 . Telephone discussion with Saleh bin Soleiman Al Wahaibi, secretary-general of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, Riyadh, December 8, 2011. 28 . Interview with Nasser A. Al Braik, former ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Iran, Riyadh, December 9, 2011. 29 . Interview with Maleki. 30 . Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, November 27, 2011; Discussion with Jamil F. Al Dandany, office of the president and chief execu- tive officer, Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Dhahran, December 10, 2011. 31 . Interview with Al Braik; Discussion held with an Iranian intelligence officer who did not wish to be identified, Riyadh, December 5, 2011. 3 2 . I n t e r v i e w w i t h K h a j i . 33 . Sadat Azimi, pp. 136–137. 3 4 . “ rokhdadhayeh siyasat khareji iran, 1377 [Chronology of Events of Iran’s Foreign Policy, 1998–1999]” (tehran: markaz asnad va tarikh diplomacy, 1380/2002– 2003), pp. 35–36, 40, 43. 3 5 . I b i d . 36 . Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud. 37 . Email interview with Ata’ollah Mohajerani, former vice president and govern- ment spokesperson of the Islamic Republic of Iran, April 12, 2013. 3 8 . rokhdadhayeh siyasat khareji iran, p. 109. 3 9 . I b i d . , p p . 1 1 2 – 1 1 3 . 40 . Telephone interview with a former ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who did not wish to be identified, July 14, 2012. 41 . Interview with Mohammad Javad Zarif, former ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations, New York, September 10, 2000. 4 2 . rokhdadhayeh siyasat khareji iran, pp. 127–130. 43 . Interview with Abtahi. 44 . Sadat Azimi, pp. 138–139; see also Anthony Cordesman, “Iranian Security Threats and US Policy: Finding the Proper Response,” hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 28, 2003, p. 10, which indicates that since 1995 the southern Gulf States cumulatively imported armaments valued at USD 83.3 billion versus USD 2.9 billion for Iran—at a ratio of roughly 30:1. Notes ● 255

45 . Interview with Badeeb. 46 . Sadat Azimi, pp. 138, 140. 4 7 . I b i d . , p p . 1 5 1 – 1 5 3 . 48 . Gwen Okruhlik, “Saudi Arabian-Iranian Relations: External Rapprochement and Internal Consolidation,” Middle East Policy, vol. x, no. 2 (Summer 2003): pp. 118–119.

9 Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s Quest for Stability after 9/11 1 . Telephone interview with Mohammad Javad Zarif, former ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations, New York, July 6, 2009. 2 . Discussion with Nail Al Jubeir, former press secretary of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia to Washington, DC, February 17, 2005. 3 . Telephone interview with a former ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the Islamic Republic of Iran who did not wish to be identified, Riyadh, November 25, 2013. 4 . Interview with Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former vice president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Montreal, September 12, 2006. 5 . Interview with a former ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who did not wish to be identified, Tehran, December 28, 2003. 6 . Interview with Abtahi. 7 . See Saeed Badeeb, Iranian Terrorism: Facts and Evidence (Jeddah: Knowledge Corporation, 2013), pp. 20, 37–38. 8 . Telephone interview with Alireza Nourizadeh, Iranian dissident and political analyst, September 29, 2008. 9 . See Guido Steinberg and Nils Woermer, “Sources of Tension in Afghanistan and Pakistan: A Regional Perspective: Exploring Iran and Saudi Arabia’s Interests in Afghanistan & Pakistan: Stakeholders or Spoilers—A Zero Sum Game? Part 1: Saudi Arabia,” CIDOB Policy Research Project, April 2013, p. 5. 10 . “naghofteha sirous nasseri az mozakerat hastei [Cyrous Nasseri’s Untold Accounts of Nuclear Negotiations],” fararu , 27 dei 1393/January 17, 2014. 11 . Discussion with Nasser A. Al Braik, former ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Riyadh, December 9, 2011. 12 . “Naghofteha sirous nasseri.” 1 3 . M o h a m e d E l B a r a d e i , The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times (New York : Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2011), pp. 128, 132. 1 4 . “hassan rouhani: europaiha be ma goftan hamsayeghanetan ra saket ya ghaneh konid [Hassan Rouhani: The Europeans Told Us to Silence or Satisfy Our Neighbors],” BBC Farsi, June 11, 2012; see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian /iran/2012/07/120711_l23_lp_neighbours_rowhani_hh.shtml . 256 ● Notes

15 . “mousavi lari dar mored rahbar [Mousavi Lari on the Supreme Leader],” fars, 9 mordad 1391/July 30, 2012; see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran /2012/07/120730_l39_mousavi-lari_nuclear_khamenei.shtml/ . 1 6 . H u s s e i n M o u s a v i a n , The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir (Washington : Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012), p. 164, cited from Hassan Rouhani, “National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy,” Center for Strategic Research, 2012, pp. 205, 231, 353. 17 . “ba dar ghozasht fahd, amir abdullah padeshah arabestan shod [With the Passing of Fahd, Emir Abdullah Becomes King of Arabia], kayhan , 10 mordad 1384/August 1, 2005. 1 8 . E l B a r a d e i , p . 1 9 4 . 19 . Interview with Abd al-Muhsin Al Akhlas, former minister of social affairs, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, December 5, 2011. 20 . Interview with Manuchehr Mottaki, former foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, July 1, 2008. 2 1 . E l B a r a d e i , p p . 9 8 – 9 9 . 22 . Interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, September 18 and 20, 2006. 23 . Interview with Abtahi. 24 . Interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, September 23, 2007. 25 . “Khamenei Advises Arabs to Avoid Dangerous Traps of Arrogant Powers,” mehr , January 9, 2007. 26 . Interview with a former ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the Islamic Republic of Iran who did not wish to be identified, Riyadh, December 3, 2014. 27 . Interview with Ahmadinejad, September 23, 2007; interview with Abtahi. 28 . Interview with Abtahi. 29 . “sanad montasher nashodeh az mohtava molaghat khatami ba feroun mesr [Unpublished Document on Details of Khatami’s Meeting with Egyptian Pharaoh],” fars , 5 azar 1991/November 25, 2012. 30 . Discussion with an Iranian government source who did not wish to be identi- fied, New York, June 2, 2008. 31 . Interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, September 24, 2008. 32 . Steinberg and Woermer, “Sources of Tension,” p. 8. 33 . “mashaei ham tahdid be efsha asami afrad khas kard [Mashaei Too Threatened to Disclose Names of Special People],” farda , 11 mordad 1389/August 2, 2010. 34 . “hashemi rafsanjani va check sefid emzah dictator saudi [Hashemi Rafsanjani and Blank Check Signed by Saudi Dictator],” fars, 8 mordad 1391/July 29, 2012. 35 . “Poll Takes the Pulse of the Middle East,” NPR , February 25, 2007. 36 . Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, November 27, 2011. Notes ● 257

37 . Statement by HRH Prince Turki al-Faisal, GRC Gulf and the Globe Conference, December 5, 2011. 38 . “Saudi Arabia Says Iran Talks Waste of Time,” al-arabiya , June 26, 2012.

10 Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Gulf Geopolitics: The Case of Iraq 1 . Telephone interview with Abdul Rahman Al Hadlaq, director general of Ideology Security Directorate at the Ministry of Interior of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, December 14, 2011. 2 . “monazereh kavakbian va mottaki piramoun mozakereh ba amrika [Kavakbian– Mottaki Debate on the Issue of Talks with the US],” kayhan, 27 aban 1391/ November 17, 2012. 3 . Interview with Mohammad Ali Fatollahi, former political deputy to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, New York, September 23, 2008. 4 . “estekhbarat arabestan dast arteshihayeshan ra ro kard [Saudi Estekhbarat reveals the Hands of Armed Forces],” tabnak , 4 sharivar 1388/August 26, 2009. 5 . Interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, September 18, 2006. 6 . Interview with a former ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who did not wish to be identified, Tehran, December 28, 2004. 7 . Interview with Fatollahi, September 23, 2008. 8 . I b i d . 9 . “From the Swamp to Terra Firma: The Regional Role in the Stabilization of Iraq,” ReliefWeb report, p. 15; see: http://reliefweb.int/node/283034. 10 . Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, November 27, 2011. 11 . Interview with Ali Asqhar Khaji, former special envoy on Iraq at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Tehran, January 4, 2005. 12 . Interview with Fatollahi, September 23, 2008. 13 . Saud al-Faisal, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, September 24, 2005; see: http://www.saudiembassy.net. 14 . Interview with Manuchehr Mottaki, former foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, July 1, 2008. 15 . “Foreign Minister Discusses Iraq, Iran and US Public Diplomacy in Interview,” Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, September 22, 2005; see: http://www.saudi- embassy.net . 16 . Interview with Mohammad Ali Fatollahi, former political deputy to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, New York, September 24, 2009. 17 . Interview with Mottaki. 18 . Interview with Fatollahi, September 24, 2009. 258 ● Notes

19 . Prince Turki al-Faisal, “A Voice of Peace: A Move towards Stability,” University of Scranton, November 28, 2006; see: www.susris.com/2006/11/30 . 20 . Interview with Mottaki. 21 . Interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, September 23, 2007. 22 . Interview with Mottaki. 2 3 . I b i d . 24 . Interview with Fatollahi, September 23, 2008. 25 . Interview with Mottaki. 26 . “From the Swamp to Terra Firma,” p. 16. 27 . “mizgerd heyat tahririyeh ba ayatollah hashemi rafsanjani [Roundtable between Editorial Board and Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani],” faslnameh motaleat beinolmellali , no. 4, bahar 1391/2012, pp. 1–28. 28 . Interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, September 25, 2009. 29 . Interview with Fatollahi, September 23, 2008. 30 . “ghaedeh baray bi sobat kardan iraq [Paradigm to Destabilize Iraq],” mehr , April 14, 2009. 31 . “namadhayeh iran setizi hanooz dar iraq barchideh nashodeh [Symbols of Hostility with Iran in Iraq not Removed],” tabnak , September 4, 2009. 32 . “moj naaramiha dar arabestan [Wave of Unrests in Saudi Arabia],” rajanews , August 8, 2009. 3 3 . “arabestan saudi dar radif ijad naamni dar iraq [Saudi Arabia in Line to Destabilize Iraq],” tabnak , August 16, 2009. 34 . “Saudi Rejects Charges of Inciting Iraq Insurgency,” Gulf Times, August 19, 2009. 35 . Interview with Ahmadinejad, September 25, 2009. 36 . “godrat yaftan mojadad eslah talaban dar iran [Return of Power to Reformists in Iran],” kayhan , November 26, 2009. 37 . Interview with Fatollahi, September 24, 2009. 38 . Interview with Ahmadinejad, September 25, 2009. 3 9 . I b i d . 40 . Interview with Fatollahi, September 24, 2009. 4 1 . I b i d . 42 . Interview with Ahmadinejad, September 25, 2009. 43 . Interview with Awadh Al Badi, advisor to Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Washington DC, June 1, 2012. 44 . Interview with Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud. 45 . Interview with Hussein Amir Abdullahian, deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, Tehran, June 15, 2014.

11 Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Levant Geopolitics: The Cases of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine 1 . Interview with Abd al-Muhsin Al Akhlas, former minister of social affairs, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, December 5, 2011. Notes ● 259

2 . Abdullah Shiri, “Saudi Arabia, Iran Cooperating on Crises,” Associated Press, February 3, 2007; Edward Wong and Damien Cave, “Number of Civilian Deaths Highest in July, Iraqis Say,” New York Times, August 16, 2006. 3 . Interview with Manuchehr Mottaki, former foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, July 1, 2008. 4 . Frederic Wehrey, Theodore W. Karasik, Alireza Nader, Jeremy Ghez, Lydia Hansell, Robert A. Guffey, Saudi–Iranian Relations since the Fall of Saddam: Rivalry, Cooperation, and Implications for U.S. Policy (R AND: National Security Research Division, 2009), pp. 27, 83. 5 . Interview with Al Akhlas. 6 . Interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, September 23, 2007. 7 . Interview with Mottaki. 8 . Prince Turki al-Faisal, “Region in Crisis: A Call for American Leadership and a Lasting Peace,” Washington, DC, July 31, 2006. 9 . Interview with Mottaki. 10 . Interview with Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of Gulf Research Center, Riyadh, November 30, 2011. 11 . Interview with Mottaki. 12 . Prince Turki al-Faisal, “A Voice of Peace: A Move towards Stability,” University of Scranton, November 28, 2006; see: www.susris.com/2006/11/30 . 13 . Safa Haeri, “Saudi Arabia to Iran: Don’t Interfere in Arab Affairs,” Iran Press Service , January 24, 2007. 14 . Interview with Mohammad Ali Fatollahi, former political deputy to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, New York, September 23, 2008. 15 . Interview with Mottaki. 16 . Interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New York, September 25, 2009. 1 7 . I b i d . 18 . “Lebanese President Visits Iran,” irna , November 25, 2008. 1 9 . “hoshdar ekhvan al-muslemin be malak abdallah az ghatl am shiayan dast bard- arid [Muslim Brotherhood Warning to King Abdullah to End Mass Killing of Shi‘is],” kayhan , November 4, 2009. 20 . “From the Swamp to Terra Firma: The Regional Role in the Stabilization of Iraq,” ReliefWeb report, p. 14; see: http://reliefweb.int/node/283034 . 21 . Interview with Hussein Amir Abdullahian, deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, Tehran, June 15, 2014. 22 . Discussion with Hisham Ahmed, political analyst and professor of political science at Saint Mary’s College of California, Moraga, October 28, 2008. 23 . Interview with Fatollahi, September 23, 2008. 2 4 . “ C l a s h e s a s B a h r a i n i s A n s w e r H i z b ’ a l l a h C a l l , ” Kuwait Times , December 20, 2008. 25 . “didar mahramaneh amniyati arabestan [Saudi Secret Intelligence Meeting],” tabnak , May 27, 2009. 26 . “moghavemat lebanon haghaniyat dar ein mazloomiyat [Lebanon’s Resistance Is Legitimate and Innocent],” jomhuri eslami , August 8, 2009. 260 ● Notes

2 7 . “tahlil new york times darbareh safar hosni mubarak be keshvarhayeh arabi baad az didar ba larijani [New York Times Analysis of Hosni Mubarak’s Trip to Arab States after Meeting with Larijani],” jomhuri eslami , December 29, 2009.

Conclusion * Portions of this chapter were previously published in the journal Middle East Policy .

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Index

Abbasid dynasty (750–1517), 24, 27, 29 Abtahi, Mohammad Ali, 142, 148, Abd al-Aziz Al Saud (Ibn Saud), 32–6, 155, 164 –5 43–51, 53–60, 62–6 Abu Dhabi, 43, 52, 65, 69, 94, 98, 105 Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, Adham, Kamal, 82, 90 King of Saudi Arabia, 162–4 Afghan–Soviet War, 141 and Ahmadinejad, 164, 165, 168, Afghanistan, 146, 148, 163, 175, 193 215–16 Northern Alliance, 146, 153, 157 and Arab-Israeli conflict, 220, US invasion of, 153–8, 220 221, 224 Afro-France Safari Club, 90 and Iran’s nuclear program, 158, Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 5, 12, 18, 162–5, 167–9, 174, 211 159, 162–9, 172–3, 176–7, 180, and Iraq, 190, 195 188–90, 192–4, 196–200, 208, and Israel, 155 213, 215–16 and Lebanon, 207–9, 214–16, 218 Airborne Warning and Control peace plan of, 221, 224 Systems (AWACS), 116 as Prince, 1–2, 11–12, 18, 83, 113, Al Akhlas, Abd al-Muhsin, 163, 131, 137–9, 142–4, 148, 158 206, 207 and Rafsanjani, 165, 168, 192–3 Alam, Mozafar, 61–2 and reconciliation with Saudi Algiers Agreement, 91, 100, 102–3, Shi‘is, 196–7 114, 125 and reform, 154 Ali, Muhammad, 31 regionalism of, 167 Ali bin Hussein, 45–6 and Rouhani, 169–70 Allawi, Ayad, 181, 197–8 and Saudi–Iranian détente, 137–9, allied powers (WWI), 33, 183 142–5, 148 allied powers (WWII), 42, 57 and Syria, 204–5, 211, 214–16 Amini, Ali, 78, 80 takes of management of state, 137 Al Ammar, Saad, 14 Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 189 Anglo-Russian Convention, 40 Abdullahian, Hussein Amir, 200–1, Annan, Kofi, 204 218–19 Aoun, Michel, 212 266 ● Index

Al Aoun, Salman, 115 Ali Khamenei, 18, 126, 132, 138, Arab Cooperation Council, 124 159–60, 162, 164, 169, 223 Arab federation, 72–5, 95, 97 Ali Montazeri, 112, 120, 122–3, 126 and King Khaled, 92, 103–4, 110, Ali al-Sistani, 175, 182, 184, 113, 115, 118 193, 200 Muslim World League, 85–6, 110 Azizollah Khoshvaght, 166 Organization of Islamic Hassan Tabataba’i Qomi, 55–6 Cooperation, 11, 85, 120, 131, Kazem al-Husseini al-Haeri, 182 139, 143, 146–7, 158, 164, 171, Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, 112 208, 224 Mohammad Fazel Lankarani, Arab–Iranian Friendship 133, 141 Organization, 90 Mohammad Reyshahri, 193 Arab–Israeli War (1948), 65, 73 Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, 180 Arab–Israeli War (1967), 86–9, Muhammad Baqir Behbahani, 180 118, 155 Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, Arab–Israeli War (1973), 90–1 136, 181 Arab League, 62–3, 67, 70–1, 75, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, 114 78, 92, 114, 124, 155, 158, 186, Muhammad Hussein Kashif 207–8, 210–13, 221–3 al-Naini, 32 Arab National Liberation Front, 77 Ruhollah Mostafavi Mousavi Arab nationalism, 74 Khomeini, 10, 26, 81, 105, Pan-Arabism, 47, 63 109–12, 114, 117–18, 120–3, 126, Arab sheikhdoms. See Bahrain; Kuwait; 142, 180, 220 Oman; Qatar; Ras al-Khaimah; Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi, 81 Sharjah; United Arab Emirates (UAE) Baath Party Arab Spring, 2, 6, 17, 19, 216, 217, 227, Iraq, 10, 77, 80, 81, 89, 103, 111, 232–3, 237 115–17, 121, 176 “Arabian Gulf,” use of the term, 4–5, Saudi Arabia, 73, 87 70–1, 88, 94, 99. See also Persian Syria, 68, 77, 80, 89, 176, 211–12, Gulf 216, 229 Arafat, Yasser, 93, 220 Badeeb, Saeed, 141, 237 Aram, Abbas, 85 al-Badr, Muhammad, 75, 76 Asiri, Ali Awad, 219 Badr Brigades, 129 al-Assad, Bashar, 198, 204, 210, Badr Organization, 184–5, 190–1 211–12, 214–19, 224, 229–30 Baghdad Pact, 67–73, 79 al-Assad, Hafez, 5, 90, 92, 119–20, 122 Bahrain, 3, 17, 29, 32, 43–4, 49–50, al-Atassi, Hashim, 68 52, 61, 70, 93–9, 116–17, 124, Atatü rk, Mustafa Kemal, 42 133, 139, 217, 227–9, 236 Al Attiyah, Hamad bin Ali, 172 balance of power, 2, 4–6, 10, 12, al-Awfi, Muhammad Atiq Awayd, 175 15–17, 50–1, 70, 95, 137, 174, ayatollahs, 81 205, 230–3 Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, 186, 191, 194 Cold War era, 77, 79–80, 87, Abdul Ghasem Kashani, 61, 64, 65 91, 93–9 Ahmad Jannati, 140 and Iran–Iraq War, 114 Index ● 267

Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, 104, Chalabi, Ahmad, 136, 158 127, 135, 137 Chamoun, Camille, 72 revisionist state, 40, 51 chemical and biological weapons, 118, status quo power, 14–16, 19, 50–2, 121, 123–4, 134, 161–2, 164, 97, 110, 165, 206, 215, 217 218–19, 229 and US withdrawal from Iraq, Chemical Weapons Convention, 162 187–201 Cheney, Dick, 163, 211 Ban Ki-moon, 198 China, 88, 121, 165, 174, 230–1 Bandar bin Sultan, Prince, 118, 119, Christopher, Warren, 134 188, 204–5, 207–8, 210–11 Clinton, Bill, 138–40, 145 Banisadr, Abolhassan, 117 Clinton, Hillary, 171, 190 banking industry, 48, 62, 100–1, 118, Cold War, 6, 9, 57, 126 149, 210 Arab Cold War, 71–9, 246n19 Barzani, Masoud, 136, 197 and Nasser, 66–78, 80, 82–3, 86–7, Basra, 26, 58, 90, 184–5, 190–1 89–90 Bazargan, Mehdi, 110–11 Cooperation Council for the Arab Bedouins (badu), 21, 27–8, 31, 36, States of the Gulf. See Gulf 47, 72 Cooperation Council (GCC) Biden, Joseph, 198, 214 bin Laden, Osama, 111, 127, 147, 156 Damascus Declaration, 130 Al Braik, Nasser, 18, 144, 159 decision making, 15–16, 18, 166 Bremer, L. Paul, 158, 176 détente, 131–3 Britain. See Great Britain dual containment and power Brown, Gordon, 168 imbalances, 133–5 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 114 Saudi–Iranian rapprochement, Bush, George H. W., 129 135–50 Bush, George W., 154, 160, 206 Djam, Fereydoun, 96 administration, 164, 165, 188, 194 Douste-Blazy, Philippe, 209 and Annapolis conference, 222 dual containment policy, 11, 133–6, and Lebanon, 206, 208 139, 145 and Syria, 203, 204 Iran Libya Sanctions Act, 140 visit to Riyadh, 171 Dulles, John Foster, 66 Buyid dynasty (934–1055), 25 Egypt, 59, 63–78, 90–2, 101, 105, 130, caliphate, 34, 45, 86, 109 217–18, 220–7, 229 and early Islam history, 21–4, 27 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 61, 70 Umayyad, 23–5, 28 Eisenhower Doctrine, 70, 72–4, 79 Camp David Accords, 92, 105, 113 ElBaradei, Mohamed, 160, 162 Carter, Jimmy, 10, 92, 103–4, 113 Carter Doctrine, 114 Fahd, King of Saudi Arabia, 83, 91, Central Asian Republics (CARs), 132, 100, 102–4, 110, 113, 118–20, 134–5 123–4, 129, 131–2, 137, 142, 144, Central Treaty Organization 146, 148, 162, 172 (CENTO), 73 Fahim, Mohammad Qasim, 154 268 ● Index

Faisal II, King of Iraq, 65, 68, 74, Al Hadlaq, Abdul Rahman, 175 76, 86–92, 95, 97–9, 101, 103, haj (pilgrimage to Makkah), 9, 11, 22, 105, 113 24–5, 30–1, 34–6, 46, 47, 53–5, Faisal bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, King 58–9, 71, 78, 113, 120, 122–3, of Saudi Arabia, 76–7, 80, 82–3, 132, 134, 138, 144, 169, 190, 193 85–105, 148, 162, 172 umrah (haj out of season), 22, as Prince, 35, 54, 55, 58, 59, 61–2, 158, 192 64, 66, 70, 74–5 al-Hakim, Omar, 194–5, 197, 200 Faisal ibn Turki, Sheikh, 31–2 Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jaber Farouk, King of Egypt, 66 Al Thani, 208 Fatah, 93, 220–2, 224 Hamas, 132, 163, 207, 220–5 Fatimid dynasty (909–1171), 25, 27, 29 Hamdanid dynasty (890–1004), 25 Fatollahi, Mohammad Ali, 12, Hanbal Abu Abdullah al-Shaybani, 176, 182–3, 185–7, 190, Ahmad bin Muhammad bin, 29 195, 197–8, 222 Hanbali School (Sunni), 24, 27, 29, 35, fatwa, 93, 128, 141, 162, 165–6, 48, 196 182, 197 al-Harbi, Khalid bin Ouda bin Ferdowsi, Abol-Ghassem, 5, 243n16 Muhammad, 156 Fereidoun, Hussein, 163 Hariri, Rafik, 203–5, 207, 209–11, Ford, Gerald, administration of, 213–15 10, 104 Hariri, Sa’ad, 205, 213–15 forward military strategy, 11–12. Al Harrasi, Zahir, 197 Contrast with over-the-horizon Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar, 11, policy 120, 122–6, 127–9, 131, 134–45, 161–3, 165, 168–9, 192–3 Gates, Robert, 171 Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mehdi, 137 Gaza Strip, 64, 87, 213, 221–3, 225 Hashemites, 33, 34–5, 44, 50, 62–4, Al Geishi, Jamil, 143 66, 67–8, 72, 115, 183 Gharib, Ziauddin, 74 Hizbullah, 119, 122, 125, 137, 150, al-Ghita, Ja’far Kashif, 31–2 163, 203–16, 219, 222–5 Golan Heights, 91, 101, 118, 119, 218 Hizbullah al-Hijaz, 140–1 Great Britain, 33, 40–5, 49–50, 52, Hoveida, Amir Abbas, 89–90 56–7, 59, 63, 70–1, 93, 96–8, Hoveida, Habibollah, 34–6, 45–6, 100, 161, 185 53, 55 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Hussein, King of Jordan, 72, 92 116–17, 119–22, 124, 126, 128–9, Hussein, Saddam, 5, 10–12, 77, 89, 132–5, 139–50, 167–76, 187–94, 100, 103, 114–17, 123–9, 136, 197–8, 229 147, 164, 175–81, 188 Gulf War, 10–11, 126–30, 132, 135, Hussein ibn Ali, Sharif, 34, 44–5, 63 146, 178, 185, 199 Ibn Saud. See Abd al-Aziz Al Saud Hadi, Abd Rabbu Mansur, 218 ibn Saud, Muhammad, 3, 30 Hadi, Mohammad Ali, 127, 131 ibn Taymiyyah, Taqi al-Din hadith, 24, 26–7, 31, 121, 180 Ahmad, 29 Index ● 269 ideology, 54, 74, 76, 110–11, 115, 155, See also individual leaders; ayatollahs 180–1, 197, 199, 207, 232, 234–6 Iran–Iraq War, 1, 5–6, 10–11, 130, and decision making, 16 131, 134–7, 162, 166, 172, Shi‘i-Sunni, 16–17 178–81, 199, 220 ikhwan (Wahhabi single brotherhood ceasefire agreement, 10, 123–6 movement), 33–6, 43–7, 53–4, 59 and King Fahd, 118, 123–4, 128, and Battle of Sabilla (1929), 46 131, 134, 137 imamate, 23–5 and Saudi Arabia, 114–26 International Atomic Energy Agency “war of the cities,” 123 (IAEA), 135, 159–62, 164–8 Iran–Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), 140, International Court of Justice (ICJ), 143 60, 147 Iraq invasions, 3, 29, 34, 76, 93 Coalition Provisional Authority of Afghanistan by Soviets, 111 (CPA), 158, 176, 182–3 of Gaza by Israel, 222–3 constitutional process, 181–7 of Iran by Iraq, 10, 112, 114–15, 179 coup of February 1963, 77 of Iraq by US, 2, 12, 15, 157–8, Dawa Party, 114, 136, 183, 186, 190 175–82, 203 Hizb al-Fadhila (Islamic Virtue of Kuwait by Iraq, 10, 124–6, 128 Party), 184–5 of Lebanon by Israel, 119, 206–7 Iraq Study Group, 187 Iran Iraqi Islamic Party, 186 coup of 1953, 61–2, 65, 68, 69 Iraqi National Alliance (INA), 186, Fadayan (political party), 60 194–5 Freedom Movement Party, 81, Iraqi National Congress (INC), 136 110–11 Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), 191 and Gulf War, 126–30 National Concord Front, 191 Islamic Revolution, 5, 10, 21, 81–2, Provincial Powers Act, 191–2 90, 93, 104, 109–12, 114 sanctions against, 11, 131, 136, 150, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps 177 (IRGC), 118–19, 124, 125, 129, Sunni awakening, 188–9, 191, 195 131, 140, 160, 168, 223 United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), 183, Mojahedin Khalq Organization 188, 194 (MKO), 110–11, 229 US invasion of, 2, 12, 15, 157–8, National Front (political party), 60, 175–82, 203 61, 64–5, 73, 80 See also Gulf War; Hussein, Saddam nuclear program, 15, 134–5, 157–74, Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, 65, 94 211, 233 ISIS/IS. See Islamic State of Iraq and Qods Force, 182 Sham (ISIS, also Islamic State) sanctions against, 122, 127, 138–9, Islam 145, 163–70, 200, 239n1 azan (Islamic call to prayer), 27, 58 SAVAK (secret service), 82, 92–3 early history, 23–8 Tudeh (political party), 60, 61, 81, and evolution of political Islam, 110–11 28–32 White Revolution, 82 five pillars of, 25 270 ● Index

Islam—Continued Jordan, 65, 67, 70–4, 80, 86, 91–2, 98, Golden Age (750–1258), 22 115, 121, 124, 140, 200, 229 imams, 23–32, 35, 179 Transjordan, 45, 47, 50, 63 mujtahid (Islamic jurisconsults), Al Jubeir, Adel, 236 24–6, 31 ramadan (Islamic fasting month), 59 Kennedy, John F., 75–7, 79, 80, 82 shari’a (Islamic legal code), 24, 26, Khaji, Ali Asghar, 140, 184 42, 47 Khalatbari, Abbas Ali, 99 velayat faqih (rule of Islamic Khalid, King of Saudi Arabia, 92, jurisprudence), 111–12 103–4, 110, 113, 115, 118 See also Shi‘i Islam; Sunni Islam Khalid bin Ahmed Muhammad Al Islamic Jihad, 121, 132, 220 Khalifa, 166 Islamic Revolution, 5, 10, 21, 81–2, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 167 90, 93, 104, 109–12, 114. See also Khamenei, Ali, 18, 126, 132, 138, Khomeini, Ruhollah Mostafavi 159–60, 162, 164, 169, 223 Mousavi Kharrazi, Kamal, 144, 148, 153 Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS, Khatami, Mohammad, 1–2, 12, also Islamic State), 157, 191, 201, 142–8, 155, 158, 161–2, 164, 219, 229, 237 170, 173 Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI, Khoeiniha, Mohammad Mousavi, previously Supreme Council 122, 127 of Islamic Revolution in Iraq), Khoja, Abd al-Aziz, 209 189–91, 194 Khomeini, Ruhollah Mostafavi Israel, 5, 63–5, 132, 134, 140, Mousavi, 10, 26, 81, 105, 109–12, 145– 6, 150, 155, 158, 164, 114, 117–18, 120–3, 126, 142, 169, 220–5, 236 180, 220 Arab–Israeli War (1948), 65, 73 Khorramshahr, Iran, 117, 243n16 Arab–Israeli War (1967), 86–9, Khouzestan, 49, 243n16 118, 155 Kingdom of Hijaz and Najd, 46–7, 50, Arab–Israeli War (1973), 90–1 54–5 and Cold War period, 70–1, 78, Kissinger, Henry, 101 81, 85–9, 91–3, 100–3, 113, Kuchak Khan, Mirza, 41 118–19, 125 Kurdish Democratic Party and Lebanon, 150, 203–8, 210 (KDP), 136 nuclear program, 145, 148, 171–3 Kurdish Islamist Party (KIP), 136 and Syria, 138, 213, 215–16, 218 Kuwait, 21, 32, 43–6, 50, 52, 54, 90, Istanbul Protocol, 48 93–4, 99, 103, 136, 189, 228 and GCC, 116–17, 120–1, 124 al-Jaafari, Ibrahim, 183, 185, 190 and Gulf War, 126–30 Jafari, Shaban, 69 independence, 75 Jalili, Saeed, 165 Iraqi invasion of, 10, 124, 126 Japan, 166, 170, 174 mosque bombing (June 2015), 17 jihad (holy war), 29, 31, 44 Kuwait mosque bombing Johnson, Lyndon, 79, 87, 100 (June 2015), 17 Index ● 271

Al Lagany, Gaafar, 10–11, 111, 127, Mohtashamipur, Ali Akbar, 122, 127 129, 131, 141–2 Montazeri, Ali, 112, 120, 122–3, 126 Lahoud, Émile, 203–5, 212 Mossadegh, Mohammad, 57, 60–2, Larijani, Ali, 165, 167, 188, 208, 64–5, 69 211, 224 Mottaki, Manuchehr, 163, 176, 185–7, League of Nations, 48–50, 55, 80, 96 191–8, 206–9, 212–13, 221 Lebanon, 28, 59, 63, 65, 72, 74, 80, Mousavi, Hossein, 120–1 92–3, 125 Mousavian, Hussein, 137–8 Cedar Revolution, 205 Moussa, Amr, 207, 208 and Iranian influence, 118–21 Movement of Vanguard and Israel, 150, 203–8, 210 Revolutionaries (MVM), Lebanon war, 203–21 112–13, 123 and Ta’if Agreement, 125 Muawiyah ibn Abu Sufyan, Yazid ibn, Western hostages in, 122, 127, 139 25, 28 Lindsay, John, 85 Mubarak, Husni, 217, 224 Al Mughassil, Ahmed, 141 Madrid Peace Talks, 132, 134, Muhammad bin Fahd, Prince, 128 143, 220 mujtahid (Islamic jurisconsults), Mahallati, Mohammad, 122 24–5, 26, 31 Mahdi, Muhammad, 25–6 Muqrin bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, al-Mahdi, Yusuf, 112 Prince, 15, 193 Mahdi army, 182, 184–5, 189, 190–1 Muslim Brotherhood, 132, 179, 223, Makkah 227–9 kaaba, 22, 23, 34–5, 58–9, 138, Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, 220 192–3 Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, 89, masjid al-haram, 22, 58–9 119, 217, 229 See also haj (pilgrimage to Makkah) Muslim unity, 21–2, 32–4, 56, 71, 92 Maleki, Abbas, 123, 133 Muslim World League (rabitat al-alam al-Maliki, Nouri, 186–8, 190–1, al-islami), 85–6, 110 193–8, 200–1 myths of Saudi-Iranian relations, al-Ma’mun (Abbasid caliph), 29 234–8 Marwan, Muhammad Ashraf, 90 Mashaei, Esfandiar Rahim, 167–8 Najd, 3, 21, 26, 30–1, 43–8, 50, 53, Mashal, Khaled, 221, 223–4 54, 55, 133 McConnell, John Michael, 211 Nasrollah, Hassan, 208, 210–11, Mikati, Najib, 205, 219 214–15, 223 Mirfendereski, Ahmad, 91, 248–9n23 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 5, 66–78, 80, Mishaal bin Abdullah, Prince, 192 82–3, 86–7, 89–90 Moddares, Seyyed Hassan, 41 Nasser ol-Din Shah, 30 modernity, 47 Nategh-Nouri, Ali Akbar, 138, Moghadam, Mohammad Ali, 54, 55 142, 149 Mohajerani, Ata’ollah, 145, 147, 168 Nayef bin Abd al-Aziz, Prince, 113, Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi, 114, 137, 144, 150, 188, 193 Moulana, 111 Netanyahu, Binyamin, 143, 224 272 ● Index

Nixon, Richard, 10, 91, 102 See also twin pillars policy Nixon Doctrine, 9, 90, 100 Olmert, Ehud, 221 See also Twin Pillars policy Oman, 42, 44, 48, 49, 50, 52, 65, 80, Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), 57 88, 98–9, 103, 116, 117, 171–2, North Atlantic Treaty Organization 212–13 (NATO), 157, 167 Al Omar, Nasser, 193 North Korea, 121 Organization for the Islamic nuclear weapons Revolution in the Arabian International Atomic Energy Agency Peninsula (IRO), 112, 123 (IAEA), 135, 159–62, 164–8 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Iranian nuclear program, 15, 134–5, Countries (OPEC), 79, 101–4, 157–74, 211, 233 128, 131, 230 Israeli nuclear program, 145, Organization of the Islamic 148, 171–3 Cooperation (OIC), 11, 85, 120, and low-enriched uranium (LEU), 131, 139, 143, 146–7, 158, 164, 161, 168 171, 208, 224 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Oslo Accords, 134, 220 (NPT), 135, 158–9, 167, Ottoman empire, 3, 6, 27, 29–33, 169, 171–2 35, 41, 43–5, 47–9, 51, 179–80, nuclear weapons-free zone, 172–4 243n16 Pakistani nuclear program, 145, collapse of, 33, 45, 180, 183 162, 173–4 over-the-horizon policy, 9 See also chemical and biological weapons; sanctions P5+1 talks, 165–6, 173–4 Pahlavi dynasty, 9–10, 21, 41, 53 Obaid, Nawaf, 187–8 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 5, 9–10, Obama, Barack, 167–70, 197, 42, 57 214–18, 232 Reza Shah (Reza Khan), 4, 42, 50–1, oil 53–7, 96 Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Pakistan, 11, 67, 145–6, 153–8, 162, (AIOC), 60–1 173–4, 208 Arab oil embargo (1973), 91, Palestine, 35, 44, 63–5, 71, 78, 101–2, 178 85, 91–3, 118–19, 132–3, Arabian American Oil Company 146, 150, 155 (Aramco), 62, 65, 69, 73, 78, 83, as extension of Levant geopolitics, 86, 95, 144 220–5 British Petroleum (BP), 61 Palestine Liberation Organization D’Arcy agreement, 40 (PLO), 91, 93, 118, 118–20 oil nationalization, 60–2, 65 Palestinian Legislative Council oilfields, 9, 33, 76, 94, 95, 122, (PLC), 220 139, 239n1 Palestinian National Authority price hike, 101, 103, 104, 105 (PNA), 220–2 trans-Arabian oil pipeline Paris III Conference, 209, 210 (Tapline), 63 Paris Peace Conference (1919), 44–5 Index ● 273

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and hadith, 24, 26–7, 31, 121, 180 (PUK), 136 and ijma, 24 Persia, 2–5, 30, 48 and qiyas, 24 constitutional revolution, 32, and sunnah, 24 39–41, 49 al-Quwatli, Shukri, 63, 68 geopolitics, 39–40 Greater Syria, 63 Rabbani, Burhanuddin, 134, 146 Hashemites, 33, 34–5, 44, 50, 62–4, Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar Hashemi. See 66, 67–8, 72, 115, 183 Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar influence of, 39 Rajavi, Maryam, 229 nationalism, 39 Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force Pahlavi dynasty, 9–10, 21, 41, 53 (RDJTF), 114, 118 and the Qur’an, 2–3 rapprochement, 1, 81, 135–50 renamed Iran, 39 Ras al-Khaimah, 95, 97–9, 133 Safavids, 25, 29–30, 41, 49, 180, Razmara, Ali, 60 237, 239n2 Reagan, Ronald, 118, 119 Persian Gulf realism, 17 British withdrawal from, 71, 93, 98 refugees, 119, 146, 150, 178, 222–3 Gulf order, 99 Reza Shah (Reza Khan), 4, 42, 50–1, use of the term, 4–5, 70–1, 88, 53–7, 96 94, 99 Rice, Condoleezza, 206 See also “Arabian Gulf,” use of the Rød-Larsen, Terje, 204 term; Gulf War Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 57–8 Persian Spring, 238 Rouhani, Hassan, 150, 159–61, 163, pilgrimage, 11, 54, 57, 125, 134, 179 169–70, 172, 174 and early Islam history, 23 Russia, 6, 10, 40–2, 111, 126, 132, 135 to Jeddah, 9, 12, 34–5, 59 Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, 40 to Madinah, 9, 22–3, 35, 59, 138, 144 and Iran’s nuclear program, 163, 165–7 See also haj (pilgrimage to Makkah) and Istanbul Protocol, 48 political Islam, evolution of, 28–32 and Saudi Arabia, 167 prayer and Syria, 204, 205, 219, 230 azan (Islamic call to prayer), 27, 58 and World War II, 56, 57 qiblah, 22 and Yemen, 228

Al-Qaeda, 147–8, 155–7, 175, 179–81, Sabbah, Hassan, 29 196, 217, 230, 236, 237 Al Sabban, Muhammad Sarvar, 86 Qajar dynasty, 30, 39–41, 49 Sadat, Anwar, 90 Qanuni, Yunus, 154 Sadr, Moqtada, 182, 185, 187, 189, 191, Qasim, Abdul Karim, 74–5, 77 194, 200. See also Mahdi army Qatar, 43–4, 52, 93, 94, 117, 139, 140, Sadr, Muhammad Baqir, 114 147–8, 157, 171–2, 190, 208–15, Sadr, Musa, 92–3 223, 228 Sa’ed Maraghei, Mohammad, 64–5 Qur’an, 2–3, 23–4, 26–7, 29, 132, Safavids, 25, 29–30, 41, 49, 180, 138, 180 237, 239n2 274 ● Index

Sager, Abdulaziz, 209 Sharjah, 95, 98–9, 133 Salafis, 27 Shatt al-Arab, 5–6, 48, 89, 97, 124 neo-Salafism, 157, 207 and Algiers Agreement, 91, 100, See also Wahhabism 102–3, 114, 125 Salam, Tammam Saeb, 219 as Arvand Rud, 5 Salman bin Abd al-Aziz, Prince, 83 Shi‘i crescent, 192 Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, 96 Shi‘i geopolitics, 192 San Remo Conference (1920), 33 Shi‘i Islam San Remo Resolution (1920), 183 Alawis (Twelvers who venerate Ali), sanctions, 11, 15, 86, 172 25–6, 66, 89, 93 against Iran, 122, 127, 138–9, 145, and battle of Ashura, 25, 28–9, 31 163–70, 200, 239n1 and Imam Ali, 3, 23, 25–6, 28–9, against Iraq, 11, 131, 136, 150, 177 58, 86, 109 against Syria, 204 and Imam Hussein, 25, 28–30 Al Sanousi, Osama bin Ahmad, 163 and Imam Muhammad Saqqaf, Omar, 86, 89, 97, 102 (the Mahdi), 25–6 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 168 Ismaili School (Seveners), 25, 29, 35, Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, 67–75, 78 146, 192 Saud al-Faisal, Prince, 102, 120, 131, Ja’fari School, 24–5 134, 145, 148, 153, 159, 161, 170, origins of, 23–4 173, 185, 193, 210, 221 and Persian nation-state, 29–30 Saudi Arabia and Safavids, 25, 29–30, 41, 49, 180, first Saudi state, 3, 31, 43 237, 239n2 formation of, 43–8 and Sufism, 27 General Intelligence Directorate Twelver Akhbaris, 26, 180 (GID), 14–15, 90, 156 Twelver School, 25–6, 193 and Gulf War, 126–30 Usuli School, 26, 180 and Iran–Iraq War, 114–26 Zaidi School, 25, 35, 75, 77 Khobar Tower bombing, 140–1, 144 al-Shiraziyyin, 111–12, 123 and majlis al-wukala (council of shirk (acts of heresy), 27 ministers), 66, 75, 80 shrine worship, 30–1 Movement for Islamic Reform in Shultz, George, 118 Saudi Arabia (MIRA), 127, 141 Siniora, Fouad, 205, 206, 211, 214 Saudi Consultative Assembly (majlis Six-Day War. See Arab-Israeli War al-shura), 109, 137, 142, 147, 149 (1967) second Saudi state, 3, 31–2, 43 South Korea, 170 third Saudi state, 3, 32–3, 43–8, 235 State of the Union address of 2002 trade unions, 62, 82 (“axis of evil”), 154 See also Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), Saud, King of Saudi Arabia 193–4, 197–9 Saudi Free Princes, 75, 77, 80 Suez Canal, 70–1, 73, 78 September 11, 2001, 2, 6, 11–12, 16, Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, Crown 141, 153–6, 160, 175 Prince, 18, 83, 100, 103, 113, 118, Shamkhani, Ali, 143–4 144, 148, 167 Sharif, Nawaz, 145–6, 157 Sunni awakening, 188–9, 191, 195 Index ● 275

Sunni Islam, 3, 16–34 and Hizbullah, 203–4, 222–3 and early history of Islam, 23–8 and Iran, 110, 134, 139, 141, 144, and evolution of political Islam, 28–32 155–6, 187, 196, 236 Hanafi School, 24, 27 and Islamic State of Iraq and Sham Hanbali School, 24, 27, 29, 35, (ISIS), 157, 191, 201, 219, 229 48, 196 Khobar Tower bombing, 140–1, 144 Maliki School, 24 and Saudi Arabia, 130, 139–41, 144, origins of, 23–4 155–6, 177, 187, 196, 199 Shafe’i School, 24, 77, 228 September 11, 2001, 2, 6, 11–12, 16, Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution 141, 153–6, 160, 175 in Iraq (SCIRI, later Islamic Shiraz mosque bombing, 189–90 Supreme Council of Iraq), 136, and Syria, 203–4, 219 181, 183–4, 186, 189 and Yemen, 217 Syria, 5, 25, 63, 91–3, 125, 179, Tigris river, 5 181–3, 196, 198, 225, 228, trade, 9, 39, 55 229–30, 234 and Doha economic summit, 143 Baath Party, 68, 77, 80, 89, 176, Iran-Iraq, 194, 196 211–12, 216, 229 Saudi-Bahrain, 50 and chemical weapons, 229 Saudi-Iran, 11, 59, 62, 86, 144, Cold War period, 68–78 149, 192 Free Syrian Army, 218, 229 Saudi-Iraq, 187 and GCC, 119–22 US domination of Asia-Pacific, 231 and Gulf War, 130 US-Iran, 129, 138–9 and Hizbullah, 203 trade unions, 62, 82 and Lebanon, 203–19 Treaty of Erzerum, 243n16 al-Nusra Front, 229–30 Treaty of Friendship, 54–5 and post-WWII period, 63–5, Treaty of Muhammara, 45 68–73, 75, 77–8, 80 Treaty of Paris, 40 Syrian National Coalition, 229 Trucial Sheikhdoms, 32, 95. See also al-Assad, Bashar; al-Assad, See also United Arab Hafez Emirates (UAE) Syria Accountability and Lebanese Truman, Harry S., 61 Sovereignty Restoration Act Tunbs (islands), 49, 52, 94–5, 97–9, (SALSRA), 203 114, 133, 218 Turkey, 32, 45, 59, 63, 66–7, 72, 158, Tajikistan, 132 217, 219 takfiri (apostates), 27, 180 Anglo-Turkish Convention, 43 Talabani, Jalal, 136, 158, 191, 195, and Baghdad Pact, 67, 72 197–8 constitutional revolution, 32 Talal bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, Prince, creation of Republic of Turkey, 77, 143 41–2 Taliban, 111, 146–8, 153, 156–7, 175 and Iran’s nuclear program, 168 Tehran Declaration, 168–9 Turkish–Israeli military alliance, 140 terrorism, 163, 180–2, 220, 229, and use of the term “Arabian 231, 236–7 Gulf,” 94 276 ● Index

Turki al-Faisal, Prince, 15, 90, 95, 110, UNSCR 1559, 203–4 115, 117, 125, 128, 144, 146, 156, UNSCR 1701, 209, 215 172–4, 184, 200, 208, 210, 218 UNSCR 2118, 229 Turkmenchai Agreement, 40 and weapons inspections, 135 Al Tuwajiri, Abd al-Aziz, 143 and Yemen, 75, 76–7 Twin Pillars policy, 9–10, 100–1 Uqair Protocol, 45 Nixon Doctrine, 9, 90 two-state solution, 118, 132, 146 velayat faqih (rule of Islamic jurisprudence), 111–12 United Arab Emirates (UAE), 32, 103, Velayati, Ali Akbar, 18, 123, 128–9, 134, 167, 171, 189, 223 132, 134, 138, 164 admission to UN, 99 Venezuela, 79 creation of, 93, 94, 97–9 Vietnam War, 79, 90, 93, 100 and Iran–Iraq War, 116–17 islands dispute with Iran, 52, 133, Al Wahaibi, Saleh bin Suleiman, 143 140, 147 Wahhabism, 43, 54, 81, 110, 116, 180 recognition of Taliban, 146 and Abd al-Wahhab, 3, 26–7, 30 See also Abu Dhabi; Ras al-Khaimah; alternative names for, 27 Sharjah early history of, 26–32 United Nations, 1, 4, 69, 221, 228 and Hanbali school, 24, 27, 29, 35 and Bahrain, 96, 97 ikhwan (Wahhabi single brotherhood and Gulf War, 126, 129 movement), 33–6, 43–7, 53–4, 59 and Iran–Iraq War, 117, 120–3 militant/radical Wahhabism, 22, 46, and Iran, 65, 117, 120–3, 146–7, 157, 50, 179, 182, 184, 228 160, 162–3, 165, 168 opposition to, 22, 27–8, 53, and Iranian hostage crisis, 111 122, 228 and Iraq, 117, 120–3, 126, 129, 136, and Saudi nation-state, 30–3, 36 176, 186, 193, 198 and Shi‘i Islam, 22, 26–32 and nuclear weapons, 157, 160, Wahhabi Revival, 32 162–3, 165, 168, 173, 174 weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), oil-for-food program, 11, 136 134, 158, 162, 166, 171–5, 203. and Paris III Conference, 209, 210 See also chemical and biological partition plan for Palestine, 63–4 weapons; nuclear weapons sanctions, 15, 163, 168 West Bank, 87, 221, 225 and Syria, 203–4 women’s rights and activism, 1–2, 42, and Tajikistan, 132 82, 142–3, 150, 193 and Tunbs and Abu Musa islands, 99 World Trade Organization and UAE, 99 (WTO), 149 UNSCR 457, 111 World War I, 33, 40, 43–4, 49 UNSCR 514, 117 World War II, 42, 55–9, 64, 96 UNSCR 522, 117 UNSCR 552, 120 Yamani, Ahmed Zaki, 102, 142 UNSCR 582, 121 Yamani, Hashim Abdullah, 149 UNSCR 598, 122–3, 125 Yemen, 3, 17, 43, 47–8, 68–9, 121, 156, UNSCR 678, 126 217–18, 228–9, 234 Index ● 277

People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen war (1962–1970), 72–3, Yemen (PDRY, South Yemen), 75–7, 87–8 87–8, 99–100, 114 Saudi–Yemeni border treaty, 47, 88 Zahedi, Ardeshir, 79, 94, 97, 99 Yemen Arab Republic (YAR, North al-Za’im, Husni, 63 Yemen), 87, 113–15, 124 Zarif, Javad, 147, 154, 158–9, 169