This is part three of a three part series on the Iranian Revolution and its impact on the Middle East.
Part One – Part Two – Part Three
With the 1979 Shi’a Revolution in Iran, the world witnessed an extraordinary transformation in Shi’a-Sunni relations, which affected the dynamics of power in the Middle East. The grass-roots Islamic movement initiated a political and social rivalry under the banner of a “century old” Sunni and Shi’a divide – drawing back onto the legendary Shi’a narrative at Karbala: the corrupt autocratic Umayyad – embodied by the Saudi regime, against the righteous and independent bloodline of the prophet (Ahl al-Bayt) – honoured and defended by the Islamic Republic.
Prior to 1979, Iran and Saudi Arabia, under the previously mentioned Nixon Doctrine, have enjoyed the privileges of the US alliance as “twin pillars” of Middle Eastern stability. One of these being the trade of arms from the US, that increased by the twenty fold from 1970 until 1972 for Saudi Arabia, and had reached $550 million as a reward for the loyalty of the Shah of Iran. Though the relationship of these “twin pillars” of the region did see minor tensions, once Khomeini came to power King Khalid attempted to reach out to the now de-secularised nation, endeavouring a better cooperation through “Islamic Solidarity”. Nonetheless, this was rather unpersuasive for Khomeini’s determinations, as he publicly declared the US-backed regime as “vile and ungodly Wahhabis” further shaming them as “backstabbers” of the Muslim world, a narrative similar to the pre-revolutionary stance against the munafiq (hypocrite) Shah.
This rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Revolutionary Iran matured into the clash between the two ‘superpowers’ of the region, operated through proxy wars by allies, ideological confrontations and the succeeding spread of propaganda as seen in the Cold War. The most prevalent encounters are its proxy wars and conflicts that are fuelled trough allies of Shia and Sunni orientation within various states of the Middle East. The most prevalent conflicts being: The Iran-Iraq War of 1980, the more recent Syrian Civil War, Yemeni Civil War and, to some extent, the 2011 uprising in Bahrain.
While in Iran, Khomeini was perceived as the new ‘leader of the Muslim world’, the other regional power and the maintainer of Islam’s holiest sites – Mecca and Medina – was observed to delegitimise Muslims’ perceptions of Khomeini and dismantle his claims to authority. This was due to yet another power challenge against the status quo by revolutionary Iran, but also due to the inherent threat that a people’s movement could have on the reactionary monarchies of the region, which are now exclusively governed by ‘Sunni’ autocrats of the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. From the 1980’s up until the current age, the myth of a Shia-Sunni “schism” is fuelled and in fact a representation of the rivalry between the two powers of the Middle East, a “schism” merely utilised as a tool for power and the grouping of allies, rather than an ideological clash of piety.
This is part three of a three part series on the Iranian Revolution and its impact on the Middle East.
