Unravelling West Asia’s Geopolitical Chessboard: Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia

On Sunday, April 14, Israel experienced a barrage of missiles launched from Iran, marking a notable escalation in tensions between the two nations. Although Iran and Israel do not engage in direct conflict, their rivalry is entangled within the broader power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Both Tehran and Riyadh vie for regional dominance, not just through geopolitical manoeuvring but also through religious leadership.

Lebanese analyst  Patricia Karam posits that Iran perceives the Israel-Palestine conflict as an opportunity to bolster its influence over Shiite groups in the Middle East. Iran aligns itself with the so-called “axis of resistance,” loosely comprising regional military proxies closely linked to Tehran.

Roots of the Conflict Run Deep

The year 1979 witnessed a dramatic shift in the Middle East’s power dynamics. Mass protests in February 1979 in Iran culminated in overthrowing the Pahlavi dynasty’s decades-long rule. The new regime, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, established a Shi’ite Islamic Republic, directly challenging Saudi Arabia’s self-proclaimed leadership of Sunni Islam. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia took it as an anti-royalist coup that happened earlier in Cairo and Baghdad.

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This sectarian divide intensified later that year when an extremist religious group led by extremist Juhayman Al-Otaybi, a follower of the Wahhabi Salafi creed of Islam, carried out a 14-day occupation of Mecca’s Grand Mosque. Driven by a messianic mission, the group exhorted the Saudi population to rise up and overthrow the monarchy and establish an anti-Western, Islamist regime.

According to the attackers, the Al-Saud family had lost its legitimacy because it was corrupt, ostentatious, and under the spell of the morally degraded values of the West. The siege of Mecca struck a direct blow to the religious and political legitimacy of the House of Saud.

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Saudi Arabia, as custodian of Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, has long viewed itself as the guardian of Sunni Islam worldwide. However, Iran’s transformation into a Shi’ite Islamic Republic posed a formidable challenge to Saudi Arabia’s leadership of the Muslim ummah (community of believers). In response to the Iranian revisionist claims, the Saudi regime sought to defend its authority by scaling up its  pan-Islamic activism in the global arena. To placate extremist Islamist factions within the country, the Kingdom roped in charity organisations like the Muslim World League to fund madrasas and Islamic associations preaching Wahhabi-Salafi ideology worldwide.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 presented an opportunity for the Saudi leaders. In close coordination with the United States and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia played a crucial role in organising and supporting the mujahideen resistance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Another theatre of rivalry was opened with the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime in Iraq in 2003. Historically, political power in the Arab world, except in Syria, has predominantly been strongly concentrated in Sunni hands, including in Shi’ite-majority Iraq, where Saddam’s regime was perceived as a Sunni bulwark against Iran. Saddam’s removal virtually ensured the political empowerment of Shi’ites in Iraq, leaving the Sunni Arab regimes fearful of the emergence of a “ Shi’ite crescent” stretching from the Persian Gulf to Beirut, as warned by King Abdullah II of Jordan in 2004.

West Asian Policy of Iran

In a bid to counter the Saudi-led Arab monarchies under the US security umbrella, the Iranian regime patronises Shia parties and militias in West Asia. Tehran uses different proxy armies, such as Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Houthis in Yemen, to push back Saudi influence and enhance its influence in the region.

To bolster its Islamic credentials and counter the Saudis’ brand of Wahabi-Salafi Islam, Iran positions itself as the most vocal opponent of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. Addressing the International Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran on December 27, 2015, Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian President, called all Muslims to unite and strive to improve the public image of Islam, stressing that there was ‘ neither a Shi’ite nor a Sunni Crescent. We have an Islamic moon.’

Iranian leaders have always underscored their commitment to pan-Islamic unity. They downplayed the Shia character of the regime while speaking on foreign policy issues, as opposed to it being Shia-centric. However, Iran’s strategic approach in West Asia has been focused on supporting the Shia armed groups in the region since 2003. Working through non-state actors, Iran has dramatically expanded its regional influence and established its allegedly furtive idea of a Shia crescent, passing through different countries like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

This Iranian policy of supporting Shia militant proxies in the region to counter Saudi-led monarchies and legitimising domestic order makes it loggerheads with Israel. Israel finds itself surrounded by Iran-supported Shia militias in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. Prior to 1979, relations between Iran and Israel were relatively good, and there was cooperation in many sectors. However, they have no territorial or resource conflict. The sectarian strife that raised its ugly head in post-1979 West Asia and the ensuing rivalry for regional leadership with historical rival Saudi Arabia paves the way for Iran to play Israel as a bogeyman in its regional political calculus.

Israel-Iran Rivalry

In line with the US policy of not letting West Asia be dominated by a single superpower, Israel, too, wanted a Saudi-Israel competition in the region. Iran, with its proud Persian civilisation, educated young population under the average age of 35, sufficient military and industrial capacity, and a messianic religious leadership, has the potential to emerge as a formidable regional power in the region.

Iran has also made advancements in nuclear technology, which essentially set the bar for producing bombs. A successful Iran’s nuclear programme could lead to the emergence of Iran as a regional hegemony detrimental to the security interests of Israel.

In its effort to position Iran as a true Muslim power, it made anti-Israel posturing an intrinsic part of its foreign policy rhetoric. The long-term goals of Israel are to eliminate the voice of Palestinians from global platforms and project Iran as the only evil regime in the region.

The Trump administration’s effort to ease hostility between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain and possible future deals between Israel and other Arab nations like Oman and Saudi Arabia under the Abrahamic Accord are part of a larger effort to counter Iran and help make Israel a normal state in the region. Iran had every interest in making sure it did not happen.

Support for the Palestine cause among major Arab countries is dying out. Iran made it a point to gain traction among the Arab population and targeted Arab states as traitors to the ummah. According to Sean Yom, “supporting Hamas has long been a part of Iran’s regional ambitions to subvert a regional order headlined by American hegemony and its Arab allies.

Ankur Dixit is a Doctoral Candidate at Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi. Rupal Mishra is a Doctoral Candidate at Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.